by Eve Newton
“Very well,” Mom says after a pause. “But there are several obstacles between us and him. I don’t know where he is and I don’t have the key to the lock. You have to find it.”
I glare at her, feeling my temper start to grow hot, but I take a deep breath. “Oh?” I grit out. Why the Hell didn’t she say this sooner? I could’ve been looking for the damn thing all along. “What if it takes me a year to find it?” I add, hands on my hips.
It’s only then that she seems to realize that I’m dressed more like her than me. She raises her perfect eyebrow at me, but wisely doesn’t say anything.
“It won’t take you a year,” she scoffs at me, but she doesn’t sound all that convincing. “Besides, I may not know exactly where the key is, but I have a clue. He said: look to your pet.”
I wait for more, but apparently that was it. “Look to my pet?” I repeat, puzzled. “What does Mouse have to do with any of this?”
She shrugs. “Musmortus is the clue. That’s all I know.”
“Fan-damn-tastic,” I mutter under my breath. “Fine,” I add louder. “I will find that key and jump through whatever other hoops Dad left for me. Fear not, Mom, he’ll be back with you soon, I promise you that.”
She grins at me and my overconfidence. “That’s my girl,” she says, tears springing to her eyes despite her smile. She flings herself at me and squeezes me tightly, pressing her bump against me. I step back a bit. There is one thing and one thing only that skeeves me out and that’s babies. Ugh! I know I have to conceive one of the little fuckers at some point to pass my rule onto, but it is something that I’m kinda hoping I can get around, like, by making one from scratch in a glass jar or something. Or maybe by finding a Demon male that gets pregnant instead of the female. There has to be one down here somewhere.
Mom kisses my forehead and then lets me go. I hastily move over to Shax and take his hand. He knows of my discomfort and heir worries so his strong hand squeezes mine and he chuckles at me.
“Catch ya later,” he says as we are already at the door, and then we leave our parents' section of the residence to head back to ours.
“Why are you dressed like Mom?” Shax asks me a moment later.
“Gregory,” I drawl in disgust. “He totally insulted everything about me in our session today.”
Shax snorts with amusement. “He wants to hit that,” he says knowingly.
“Pah,” I scoff, but secretly hope that he’s right. I wouldn’t mind mounting that hot nerd in his leather armchair and riding him like a cowgirl. I bet he’s hung. Well, for a human anyway.
6
Shax
I leave my sister to do her search. She doesn’t need me for this now. I will only get in her way. She is on a mission, so she is best left to get on with it her way.
I slip into my bedroom and over to the dresser, taking my black jacket off as I go. I pause and look across the darkened room.
A naked figure emerges from the dim light and I smile. “Shadow,” I murmur.
“Hi,” she says, giving me a small wave.
I stride over to her, shoving my hand into her tawny locks and fisting it tightly to draw her head back. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It takes it out of me being in this form. I feel I need to double the amount of Griffin time to human time.”
“Hmm,” I mutter, staring into her yellow eyes and then dropping my gaze to her full lips.
I bend down to sweep her into a kiss so powerful, I feel my knees go weak. She kisses me back briefly, but then she shoves me away from her, flinging a pair of black lace panties at me.
“You know I don’t care if you screw other females, but at least have the decency to tidy up after them,” she says, her tone level. There is no spike of jealousy and it pisses me off.
I taunt her anyway. “Jealous?” I ask, taking the panties and shoving them into my jeans pocket. Her eyes follow my movements, but then she raises her chin and glares at me.
“You wish,” she spits out.
I do wish that she would be mine, but she has made it very plain that this is casual, so I have to respect that. She says she doesn’t care about me screwing other females, so I do. It means nothing to me. It is a place to stick my dick until she returns to me, my pet, my heart. The only female who seems to understand my struggle. I’m a Dark Angel. The only one to have been born, and only one of three to have ever existed. My mother conceived me with my father at the same time that she conceived Annabelle from the Devil himself. It is a perfect anomaly. Annabelle is Hell’s heir, the Ruler now, and I am caught between two worlds.
I sigh and lean down to brush my lips against Shadow’s. She accepts my form of apology for being an asshole and clings to me briefly.
She pulls away and looks uncertain. It is rare to see her so vulnerable. “Shax, I know how you feel about me, but you must understand that I am an abnormality. I wasn’t supposed to be this way. Griffins aren’t shifters. I’m not supposed to have this human side. I can’t sustain it and I don’t know how to…be this way.”
“I know,” I say, taking her hands. “I know.” I kiss them and then let her go again as she is getting skittish.
If I push her, she will run and who knows when she will come back. She is difficult, a lot of work when I have females who drop their panties for me in a heartbeat. But she is worth it. I will keep playing by her rules until she sees that we belong together.
“Your sister did this to me,” she murmurs, and I nod, biting the inside of my lip.
I don’t know what to say to that because it’s true. Annabelle gave her to me when she was just a tiny Griffin as a pet, rescued from the pits, abandoned and alone. It was after I gave Musmortus to her. She felt like she owed me, even though that wasn’t the case. Somehow, when Annabelle handed her over to me, she sent magick into the baby Griffin. It was like an electric shock, a bolt of red lightning.
“Speak to her, see if she can undo it,” Shadow whispers desperately, clutching at my hands, squeezing them tightly.
A lump forms in my throat. I had been dreading those words. I’d known they were coming one day, and it tears at my heart.
I shake my head slowly. “No, if anyone finds out about you, they will take you away to breed you, try to make more like you. I—I can’t do that, Shadow.”
Her face falls as she takes in my words, but she knows I’m right. She will suffer and I can’t allow that to happen, even if she remains unhappy, it will be better than being raped constantly to see if she can produce another Griffin shifter.
She slowly leans against me, almost forcing herself to wrap her arms around me. It hurts, but I take it because I feel peace when she touches me.
I run my hands down her back and she shivers. She looks up at me, those mesmerizing eyes going sultry as she licks her lips.
“Enough talking,” she murmurs and shoves me back to the bed. She pounces on me and I forget about everything else except the two of us for a time that doesn’t last nearly long enough.
I watch her slip out with a sinking heart. She will shift as soon as she gets outside, and I have no idea when she will be back in her human form again. I stare at the ceiling and then reach down to the floor for my jeans. I pull the knife out of the back pocket and glare at it. An incredibly old and powerful Demon made this for me. He cursed it so that it cuts me. I’m invulnerable as is Annabelle, to all forms of destruction.
Except self-destruction.
I slash the blade across my arm and see the dark red blood well up and drip down my arm. My blood hurts Demons, burns them and the more depraved of the females enjoy it. For me, I get a sense of relief from the shackles that I feel are growing ever tighter around me. The one being that I can usually talk to about everything can’t help me with this. Annabelle wouldn’t understand. She sees things in black and white. There is no gray area with her. Normally I adore her fiery passion in her convictions, but it won’t help me with this.
I watch as the wound slowly he
als and disappears.
I take the knife and slash myself again and again and again until the bed is full of my blood. I will have to burn it, but I don’t care. I have sated the war inside me for now. It has made me horny and hungry.
I get off the bed and get dressed. I wave my hand over the bed and it sets alight. Only the bed. I got this contained Hell magick from my mother, along with a vast array of other powers which I can amuse myself with on occasion.
I open the door and decide that if I run into a willing female before I hit the kitchen, then horny will get satisfied first.
As it happens, I do…much to my dick’s relief.
7
Annabelle
I grit my teeth and clench my fists. Losing my temper won’t get me anywhere with this blasted beast.
Mouse has taken it upon herself to snarl and snap at my fingers as I try to search her for a clue. Sure, I have no clue what I’m looking for, damn riddles, but I’m getting nowhere. She can be a very temperamental creature. Typical Hellhound trait. She can be the sweetest thing one minute and the next, well…here we are. I don’t want to hurt her, but for the love of all things unholy, I’m going to have to place her into a slumber if she doesn’t stop fucking biting me, which will hurt her in a way. I’m in no mood for pain, which is unusual. I just want to solve this puzzle that my father has laid out.
“Mouse,” I murmur to her. “Let me look at your collar.”
Snap, snap, snap.
Three jaws with wickedly sharp teeth aimed at my face isn’t great, especially when I’m also being slobbered on.
“Fine, you leave me no choice but to bring out the big guns. I’m going to get Elijah!” I remark with a triumphant glare at her which only pisses her off further. “Too damn bad,” I add, standing up and marching over to the door.
I yank it open and head off down the hallway to find the fearsome Master of Hellhounds. He is enormous, arrogant and aggressive – and that’s in his human form. I’ve only ever encountered his Hellhound shift once before and it’s not an experience that I’m ready to repeat in a hurry. I wouldn’t say that he terrifies me as nothing does, except… well… maybe later for that, but if I was anything less than the Demon Queen, I’d have peed in my leather pants.
Speaking of which, if I go down to the kennels looking like this, he will eat me alive.
I click my fingers and once again I am dressed in my usual black and red leather, spiked heels, and I have Babe in my hand. I march through the sin bin, taking in the pretty sights of pain and pleasure, wishing that I could linger. I lift the bat to my shoulder so that everyone can see it as I continue on my way. I have killed more minions with this thing than I can count. The secret is Shax’s blood. I dip the nails in it every now and again and if one of them penetrates the skin of a Demon to mingle with his own blood, he will burn from the inside out. Slowly. Painfully. Deliciously.
I give a wicked grin and see more than one Demon shy away from me. It surprises me that some of these females want to risk it for the thrill. It hits the skin; they burn, but they heal. My heels clack on the stone floor as I make my way over to the other side and then turn left, right and out into the courtyard. The black and red scorched earth under my feet crackles. With every step I take, little flames pop up signifying even more death. I have never walked on the Earth’s soil before, but Dad says it’s the same. Things corrupt, wither and die. I feel my nipples harden as the thought turns me on so bad, I suddenly find myself with an itch I can’t scratch. At least, I could, but where is the fun in that? I will have to get it seen to when I make my way back indoors.
I stride over to the kennels on the far side of the courtyard. The noise is deafening, but as soon as I walk in, swinging my bat loosely at my side, the hounds quieten down and start whimpering.
“Who the fuck is there?” A male voice thunders through the kennels. The ground shakes a little bit as big, stomping footsteps come towards me and then I see Elijah looming over the wall that separates the kennels from the back, where I think he lives. “Queenie?” he snarls. “What are you doing disrupting my hounds?”
I grimace at him. Queenie. It’s such a derogatory term. It says everything he thinks about me with one word.
“Seems to me that I calmed them,” I point out, waving my bat around.
“Pah,” he grunts and then marches over to me. He is about seven feet tall and built like a brick shithouse. His nostrils flare, his eyes hood and his lips curve up into an evil smile.
I shudder as he can smell my arousal from earlier when I thought about corrupting Earth.
“I could see to that, Queenie,” he says with a loud laugh, which sets the hounds off again. “Is that why you came here? So you could fuck a real male instead of that little prick Incubus?”
“You wish,” I snort, choking back my laughter. There is nothing little about Drescal’s prick. “Actually, I came for some help with Mouse.”
That changes his attitude immediately. His ruggedly handsome face goes concerned and he rubs the scar that is etched into his skin from the outer corner of his left eye all the way down to his mouth. I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that one of the Hellhounds made it.
“What’s up with her?” he asks gruffly.
“She’s being a little bitch!” I complain, “She won’t let me near her to check something out.”
“What do you want to check?” he asks, now running his hand over his shaved head. He’s not completely bald, there’s a bit of length of dark hair, but not much.
Suddenly, I want to run my hand over it while he kneels panting at my feet like one of his hounds.
“Uhm,” I blink as my focus deviates and I forget what he said.
He takes in a deep breath and comes slightly closer. “Like that is it, Queenie?” He brushes a strand of damp hair out of my face. It is as hot as Hellfire out here and it’s starting to affect me. He is starting to affect me. I don’t know where it’s coming from but when I look up into his dark eyes and he stares down into my wide green ones, it’s like a whack to the head. In the next second he has swept me up into his arms, hoisting me up so high that my pussy is now right in front of his face and my legs are dangling over his shoulders.
“Ooh,” I gasp, dropping my bat and steadying myself with my hands on the sides of his head.
He sniffs in between my legs appreciatively with a soft moan.
I could remove my leather pants with just a thought, but something stops me.
I know what it is when he murmurs, “Let me taste, my Queen.”
My heart thumps. He has never called me that before, always choosing to mock and undermine me. I want him to beg me.
He slams me up against the wall, nuzzling my cunt through the leather. The rush of juices only makes him groan louder. “Let me lap it up,” he growls.
He has gone back to being aggressive after that one milder moment. Demanding rather than beseeching. He can get fucked, and not by me.
“In your dreams,” I snarl at him, shoving on his huge head and then using the top of it to balance myself as I leap over him, helped along by some kickass Demon swiftness, and land behind him on my two feet.
He spins, the rage on his face making me tremble slightly, but not in fear. I’m deeply in lust right now, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of claiming my pussy with his hot mouth. I will make him beg for it now. I have no doubt that he will come sniffing around again. He is seriously turned on. I can see the eye-watering bulge in his pants. Kinda makes me want to give in to him.
“Mouse!” I snap, clicking my fingers under his sensitive nose.
I lower my hand as he snaps his teeth at me, and I reach out for Babe. It flies into my hand and I swing it up to my shoulder again.
“I want her collar, get it for me by the end of this hour,” I order him and then I flame out before I jump on him and split myself in half with that gigantic dick of his.
As I saunter back through the entertainment area, I pause
to watch a female that is spread-eagled on a large wooden wheel and has been bound up so tightly she can barely breathe. Her tits and pussy are the only things on show as the ropes cover the rest of her. I’m interested to see what her Master will do to her as he approaches her. He flicks out his whip and with a sharp crack, he catches her across her nipples, making her bleed.
I smile and settle in to watch as this appears to be my kind of show.
It’s just getting to the good part, the Master spins her upside down, fucking her pussy with the whip handle while he fucks her mouth with his cock, when I catch the enormous figure of Elijah lurking in the distance. He holds up Mouse’s collar and waggles it at me.
I slip through the growing crowd and snatch it off him when I reach him. “That was quick,” I grumble.
“You wouldn’t say that if I’d got your pants off earlier,” he guffaws and then peers down at it as I turn it around and around, looking for something to point me in the direction of my Dad. “Why did you want it?”
“None of your business,” I snap at him, lowering the collar and scrunching my fist around it.
“Well, you owe me one,” he replies.
I glare at him. “I don’t owe you fuck all. I gave you a direct order, it was a case of obey me or face the consequences.”
He bends down so that he can whisper in my ear, “And what would those consequences be, Queenie?”
“You’d be first on the docket for the Daily Dealings and dealt a severe beating for disobeying your Queen.”
“Oh, promise?” he scoffs and straightens up.
“Get out of my sight,” I seethe at him. He is infuriating. He doesn’t give a crap that I could incinerate him with one flap of my wings. I regard him as he laughs harder at me. But no. He is the only one down here that can control the hounds. They would run rampant if he didn’t keep them in check. Damn him. I need him and he knows it.
