by Eva Brandt
Gritting my teeth, I pinned him down and, in one sharp motion, broke his neck. It wasn’t a very efficient way to kill a divine being—he wouldn’t stay dead—but it would be enough for now, until I gave the others a hand.
After I got up, I checked on Delilah. She was still on the ground and hadn’t moved. I wanted to heal her, but there were other demons closing in, so again, I had to handle that first.
Despite their high numbers, the creatures weren’t very strong. Azazel and I dispatched them pretty easily. By the time we were done, Yeqon had immobilized Lucifer. He’d earned some injuries in the process, but nothing huge. Like Beelzebub, this version of Lucifer hadn’t been as strong as the real one.
Which brought us to Delilah. I knew better than to think this was truly our lover, but still, a part of me felt hope.
As Satan, she looked very different. Her hair was dark, and her skin a bright crimson. Horns curled around her temple in striking arches. A slender tail emerged from the small of her back, barely visible because of the position she was sitting in.
But when she looked at us, she smiled. The warm expression took my breath away. “I knew you’d come for me. You want me back, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Yeqon said, taking a step forward. “None of this matters. We know we made a mistake, but we can still fix it.”
“Can you?” Delilah/Satan got up and shook her head. “I’m not so sure.”
My heart hurt at seeing her smile fade away. I walked up to her and pulled her into my arms. “Give us another chance,” I said, kissing her temple and wrapping my wings around her.
I didn’t dare to do anything more and my companions followed my example. Slowly and carefully, afraid to spook her, they approached and joined the hug.
Delilah pulled away from me ever so slightly, just enough to meet my eyes. “And if I do that, what then? Do you really think you can protect me? From Lucifer? From The Supreme Being? From everyone?”
“If we have to, we will,” I replied. “We can’t promise to win a fight against The Heavenly Host, but if it ever comes to that, we’ll try to at least stall them.”
Delilah let out a light chuckle. “Well, at least you’re honest. I do believe you need to be rewarded for that.”
I hadn’t come here for a reward, but I couldn’t have denied her if I’d tried. When she pulled me in for a kiss, I jumped at the chance to show her how much she meant to me.
But as soon as our lips touched, I sensed the wrongness of it. The silk of her skin felt the same and she looked at me with the same passionate gaze, but her magic—the magic that always called out to me—was very different.
This wasn’t Delilah. We’d made a stupid mistake.
I quickly released the impostor and staggered back. Yeqon and Azazel did the same, having noticed the issue the moment I had. “That was a low blow,” Azazel said between gritted teeth.
“I really don’t think it was,” the impostor said.
Satan’s body started to grow, morphing and mutating until it was at least three times the size it had been. A massive, two-headed demon appeared in her place. It was grotesque to watch the transformation, to watch Satan’s demonic, but still beautiful body, transform into this… thing, but I didn’t turn away.
We’d been demons for a long time too. A physical shape wasn’t that important. Besides, the whole point of this ritual had been to track down this particular demon.
Demogorgon’s real shape had very little in common with the form he’d taken as Delilah’s familiar. He had preserved his serpentine nature in part, but everything else was different. He even had limbs.
But we were familiar with him, since he’d been at Satan’s side when The Infernal Realm had fallen to Lucifer. He might have gotten angry with Michael earlier, but he was the type of demon who prioritized the end results. He was willing to use any method as long as it got him what he wanted. That was how he’d ended up in The Celestial Realm in the first place.
And so, even if he was already glaring at me, I didn’t hesitate to go through with our plan. “You’re right. You’re entitled to be mad. But, Demogorgon, there will be time for your resentment later. Right now, we need your help. We have to get Delilah back.”
“And why should I trust you?” he asked. “You killed my mistress.”
“Why did you trust us before?” Azazel retaliated. “You didn’t tell Delilah the truth about us, even if you could have.”
“I believed you meant well,” Demogorgon hissed. “Sometimes, going forward requires sacrifices. Even my mistress understood that. But what you’ve done in this life… It’s different.”
“We didn’t mean for her to get hurt again,” I said, knowing it was not enough, but not having any other argument. “Kemuel cast that spell before we could do anything about it.”
Demogorgon snorted. “It’s always someone else’s fault with you, isn’t it, Sariel? Well, I’m sorry to say that you have to take responsibility for this one. I’m not going to help you trap her again.”
“Even if it means her soul will be lost forever?” Yeqon asked. “You must know she’s in danger.”
“Satan is stronger than that,” he replied. “And you killed her once without considering it a problem. Don’t come crying to me and pretending you ever deemed her frail.”
I wanted to continue arguing, to force him into helping us. But before I could do so, The Infernal Realm started to shake, the details of the memory becoming blurrier.
“Oh, dear,” Demogorgon said, chuckling. “It looks like someone’s come looking for you. How fortunate. This way, I won’t have to deal with you myself.”
The eerie smile on Demogorgon’s two faces alarmed me, so I prepared myself for the unavoidable backlash from the collapsing ritual. A fierce claw reached into the memory, shattering the frail shadow of our past. Demogorgon vanished, and we were thrust back into reality.
It wasn’t a pleasant journey. Every inch of me felt like it was being torn apart. It was sheer stubbornness that kept me going, the determination to make this right, to find another solution.
But no matter how much I wanted to find Delilah, some truths couldn’t be denied. When we woke up on the beach of the Dead Sea, the first thing I saw was Sandalphon’s disapproving eyes. “Welcome back, Watcher Sariel. You have a lot of explaining to do.”
Fuck.
Yeqon’s Yearning
When we’d made the decision to attempt the ritual to find Demogorgon, we’d known it would be risky. We’d known the archangels wouldn’t like it. But we’d hoped—or at least I had—that it wouldn’t matter. And if Demogorgon had listened to us, we’d have been proven right. But he hadn’t, so now, here we were, trapped once again, and facing an inquiry from Archangel Sandalphon.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” he said, scowling at me. “Where exactly did you go through that ritual and what were you planning?”
Bound with divine magic and watched by Sandalphon’s minions, I had nowhere to go. I sighed and stretched my back, trying to remove the strain from my immobilized wings. “We were searching for Delilah’s familiar. We hoped that, in this way, we’d be able to find her soul. It didn’t work. We ended up in a… memory of some kind. You brought us back before we could make any progress with Demogorgon.”
I doubted he’d have agreed to help us either way, but I wasn’t going to tell Sandalphon that. I was tired, pissed, grieving, and Sandalphon was making things even more difficult for me. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost it already and attacked Kemuel the moment I’d seen Delilah turn into salt.
But had I done that, we’d have lost all hope of getting Delilah back. For the moment, I didn’t think the archangels realized just how much Delilah had meant to us, which was just the way I wanted it.
“She was our responsibility. If there’s anyone who can track her down, it’s us.”
“That may well be, Watcher Yeqon, but you received specific instructions from my brother. You were to stay out of it and leave the matter to
us.”
“No offense, Sandalphon, but that’s never worked out well.” I shot him a quick smirk and arched a brow. “Or am I wrong?”
He sneered at me, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge the challenge. Watching him closely, I knew the time would come when I’d have to make another decision.
Waving a hand, Sandalphon undid my chains. His companions forced me to my feet, and then, out of the chamber. We left The Halls of Truth with them carrying my unresisting form over the now indistinct terrain of Watcher Academy.
When we got to the dome, I was unsurprised, but also irritated. Sariel and Azazel were already there, and I knew what that meant. “You can’t be serious,” I told Sandalphon. “You can’t just leave us here when The Infernal Realm is practically knocking at our doors.”
“That’s precisely why I’ll leave you here, Watcher Yeqon. Since you’re not cooperating, I have to assume you won’t be an asset in the field. Maybe you’ll change your mind once you take a break.”
And with that, the angels pushed me into the dome. They didn’t even bother forcing me into my cursed form. They just left, abandoning us there.
“Well, that happened,” Azazel said once our divine captors were gone. “What do we do next?”
I shared a look with Sariel. He was frustrated, but it wasn’t obvious. Most people would have deemed his demeanor impassive. “For the moment, we wait,” he said. “Come on. Let’s sit down.”
I complied, well aware that waiting wasn’t a real plan. As we plopped down together on the cold floor, I considered my options.
The thing about celestial beings was that, most of the time, they didn’t use regular methods of torture. The fire and brimstone thing was the domain of The Infernal Realm. Oh, angels could hurt people well enough, but they deemed it beneath them unless it was in battle and they were forced into a corner.
But they had other ways of making their captives suffer, some of which were far crueler than physical torture. Raphael liked to kill one of us and watch as the other two tried to use resurrection magic, but he didn’t even deem that punishment. Most often, it was the waiting they used.
As Watchers, we’d done a lot of that, of waiting, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal. Normally, it wasn’t. But there were exceptions to every rule, and angels liked to do this whenever we were most anxious about something.
I had no doubt they were watching us even now. Maybe we should be giving them a show. That would teach them a long overdue lesson.
A wicked idea niggled at the back of my mind. It was a little crazy, but if it worked, it might solve all our problems.
Smirking, I wrapped an arm around Azazel’s waist and pulled him closer. “While we’re at it, why not take advantage of this break to have some fun?”
He tensed slightly, but went along with it. He realized I was in no mood to have sex. But the angels didn’t know that. More than once, they’d deemed me unstable and unreliable because of my fiery personality. I could use this.
“I’d say now isn’t the best time,” Azazel told me, “but I know better than to think I can dissuade you.”
“Don’t lie,” I teased him, reaching for his cock and cupping him through the material of his pants. “You enjoy this sort of thing as much as I do.”
“Maybe not quite that much,” Sariel offered with a tiny smile. “You’d set a world record among celestial beings when it comes to sex.”
I grinned smugly, and there was nothing false about the satisfaction I displayed. Sariel had understood what I was doing and was on board with my plan.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine. “Make sure to give them enough room to see,” he whispered. “The more we can tease them, the better.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I deepened our kiss, thrusting my tongue into his mouth, taking no prisoners.
At the same time, I kept massaging Azazel’s dick. At first, he stayed passive, letting me do what I pleased. But that didn’t last for too long. As I started devouring Sariel’s mouth, Azazel threw all restraint out the window. Wriggling out of my reach, he crawled behind me and started kissing my neck and caressing my wings.
I willed my clothes to vanish, but didn’t do the same for Sariel’s and Azazel’s. It sometimes gave me a kick to have them like this, to see them still dressed, while I was vulnerable and naked.
Azazel chuckled. “So it’s like that, huh? Why don’t you tell us what you want?”
I wanted many things. For Delilah to come back. For this war to end. For us to be free. But he wasn’t referring to that, so I played along, just like he had.
I broke my kiss with Sariel and stole a look over my shoulder. “I need a hard cock up my ass. Preferably two.”
“I’m sure something can be arranged,” Azazel answered. “Why don’t you show us instead of telling us?”
That was my cue to act. They gave me room, with Azazel flashing forward and joining Sariel, now out of my reach.
“Go on,” Sariel said. “Show us how much you want us.”
I positioned myself on all fours, facing my lovers while practically shoving my ass in the direction of the dome ceiling. With a thought, I summoned my tentacles, letting two additional appendages erupt from my spine. One of them went straight up my ass. With the second one, I reached for my lovers.
They never looked away from me and when I met their gazes, my heart hurt. This had very little to do with our sexual chemistry, but oh, how I wished the pretense was our truth.
It wasn’t, though, and our lives had long ago stopped rotating around one another. I made a mental note to talk to Sariel and Azazel properly after all this was over and tell them none of this was their fault. But until then, there were other things I could do.
My second tentacle wormed its way underneath Azazel’s clothes. I didn’t try a lazy seduction, since I wasn’t in the mood for it. Instead, I curled the appendage around his cock and started to jack him off.
Azazel’s lips tightened, but he made no attempt to come back to my side. “That’s cheating.”
“All’s fair in sex and war,” I answered huskily.
“Can’t argue with that,” he answered.
I wriggled my hips invitingly, a sign and an invitation for anyone who was watching. Azazel took me up on it. His wings started to glow so brightly I almost couldn’t look at him. Much to my dismay, he freed himself from my tentacle’s hold. But he didn’t leave me waiting for long.
I blinked and he was back by my side, now completely naked. He gripped my hair in a tight hold and forced our eyes to meet. “You’ve always been such a slut, Yeqon. I wonder how you were ever considered a real angel.”
“I could say the s—”
Before I could finish the sentence, Azazel jerked on my hair and shoved his cock into my mouth. I glared up at him. Being sneaky hadn’t been necessary. I was always willing to suck a nice, hard dick.
He smirked and tightened his hold on me. “Now’s not the time to play coy. Am I right, Sariel?”
As he spoke, he looked up, away from me. It was only then that I noticed something very important. At one point when I hadn’t been paying attention, Sariel had moved behind me. Before I could say or do anything about it, he thrust his dick inside me, right next to the tentacle I was still using to fuck myself.
Pleasure exploded through me and I groaned around Azazel’s dick. My flesh stretched to accommodate Sariel’s penis, but I couldn’t quite control the motions of my secondary appendage anymore. I ended up curling it around Sariel’s dick and letting him do all the work. He hissed, but didn’t stop what he was doing. Instead, he thrust inside me even harder, nailing my prostate on the first try. It was embarrassing, but I almost came on the spot.
Azazel must have noticed, because he gripped my wing and squeezed it, nearly crushing the feathers in his fist. The mild pain cleared my head, allowing me to focus on what we were actually trying to do here.
The relationship between me and my fellow Watchers had always been passionate,
and we’d taken refuge in one another to surpass our past sorrows and regrets. But there had always been those who’d looked on in jealousy, whether they realized it or not.
Sandalphon was one of them. He stuck to his rules religiously, but on occasion, I could see him staring at us—and especially at me—with a very distinctive glint in his eyes.
It came with having been born a human, and it was a weakness he’d always denied. But he was here now, and if he was watching, we could perhaps exploit it.
Clinging to that thought with all my might, I reached out to my lovers through my magic. They reached back, and it was as easy as breathing. Even as Sariel and Azazel thrust into me, our powers came together and started to spread out, filling the whole dome with crackling energy.
The barrier kept us from using our powers to escape, so we had to get someone to let us out. And we had to do it in a way that took them off guard and allowed us to escape.
Because of Sariel’s ritual, we weren’t at our best, so it took a while for it to work. The physical pleasure was making it difficult for me to focus, but I gradually managed to overcome that and didn’t bother trying to hold back. I embraced the ecstasy my lovers offered me, feeding every drop of sensual energy into the whirlpool of magic we were trying to build.
Sariel’s thrusts began to grow so violent I was almost worried he’d rip my tentacle and my ass apart. Azazel fucked my mouth with no restraint. If I hadn’t been able to function without air, I’d have suffocated by now.
I didn’t retaliate with the same violence. I normally would have, and I could feel my feathers flickering, turning sharper. But if we wanted to lure Sandalphon here, we had to make sure we didn’t put him off in any way.
In the end, I was the one who came first. It wasn’t even just the fucking that did it. Azazel’s hold on me loosened slightly, and he caressed my hair, the gentleness of the touch contrasting with what he’d been doing until now.
