“Sit on the edge of the pool. I want to ride you.”
He wasted no time, lifting me onto the rock and then pulling himself out. Water dripped from his body and onto the warm floor as he took a seat on the ledge, reaching for me as I reached for him. With my legs straddled on either side his hips, I reached between us and guided myself down onto him. My mouth fell open as pure pleasure invaded my senses.
“Oh, fuck yes,” I moaned, lifting up and then dipping down. His hands gripped my thighs, slick and soaking from the pool as we both climbed higher and higher.
He leaned forward, pressing his mouth to my nipple and sucking while I chased my release. He rolled the puckered flesh between his teeth, and I knew he was going to bite me a moment before he did. I arched my back, pushing my breast more fully into his mouth. His fangs latched into me—sending me right over the edge.
My mouth fell open in a silent scream as my second orgasm ripped through me, harder and far more brutal than the first. My thighs quaked as I rocked against him, my inner walls clinging to every inch of hardness as his body fed mine. Kama rained down in a torrent as his own release followed on the heels of mine. Thrusting upwards he pumped into me, gripping my hips so that I couldn’t move. My knees burned and water pricked the corners of my eyes from the intensity as the last of my shudders died out and we went limp in each other’s arms.
Chapter 11
“Everybody decent back here?” Moira hollered from behind the chunk of rock that kept the pools hidden from anyone walking by.
“Ummmm,” I drawled, looking over at our piles of discarded clothing. The last thing I wanted was to put on all those dirty, sweaty layers. We didn’t have soap, but I felt as close to clean as I was going to get until we reached Inferna. “Is there any chance you have some clean clothes with you?”
Moira let out a harrumph and I could imagine how she was rolling her eyes. “As it so happens, I do.” She tossed a stack of clothing through the gap that landed in a heap about six inches from us. “Because you are so unbelievably predictable. I hope you at least made him crawl before you got the D—”
“Okay, thanks, we’ll be out in a few,” I replied, falsely chipper.
“I’ve been told to tell you that you have five minutes before Julian comes back here. So, when I say get dressed, I mean—”
“We’re coming, greenie,” Rysten called back lazily.
A stream of expletives was the only reply she gave as she walked away.
I shook my head at him, lips pursed as I climbed out of the water and reached for the only towel she brought. “Dibs?” I asked, sheepishly holding up the corner of it.
He grinned. “Go ahead. I can use it when you’re done.”
“Well, in that case, don’t mind if I do.” I quickly dried off and wrung my hair out three times before handing the towel over.
I dressed in the undergarments Moira brought me, groaning at the insanely tiny jean shorts. Her version of revenge for leaving her so I could have it out with Rysten. I shook my head but donned the booty shorts. We were low on clothes down here, so unless Allistair wanted to magically conjure me a pair of jeans, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Rysten leaned against the cave wall, arms crossed over his chest and a pensive expression on his face as he watched me.
“What?” I asked as I tugged down my favorite Portland State shirt with the green Viking on it. His eyes flicked down my body but then seemed to think better of it.
“Nothing,” he replied with a wink. I eyed him skeptically but took his hand as we walked back to the front of the cave.
“Finally!” Moira exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “I was beginning to worry you guys were back to doing the horizontal tango again and I’d have to come get you.” She threw an arm over her face dramatically, acting completely oblivious to the shade of robin’s egg blue my face was probably turning.
“Moira,” I hissed. “Are you really giving me shit after that time I caught you spread-eagle on the dining room table while your girlfriend—” I broke off mid-sentence as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed fiend stepped out from behind the Horsemen. The beast hissed and I plastered a brittle smile on my face. “Iona.”
It was the only greeting she was getting from me, if not for the kissing thing, then for the sudden cuts running through my chest from emotions that weren’t mine. I squeezed Rysten’s hand trying to comfort him as best I could. The darkness dissipated to a low fog that I could mostly ignore as he squeezed my hand back.
“Ruby,” she replied. Her own expression was arranged in a pleasant smile, though not genuine, and her eyes were hard as cut sapphires. She’d cut me open and bleed me dry with them if she could. I didn’t need to be an empath to know that.
“Is there something I can do for you?” I asked, not trying to be rude, but not exactly kissing ass either. The tension was palpable.
“Actually, there is.” Her eyes flashed for a second, flicking to Rysten then back. “There is a feast being held tonight in your honor. I came to ask if you would all attend. It would mean a great deal to the people down here, particularly those of us who are looking forward to returning home once you complete your task.” Her words were saying everything right, but her eyes, the set of her lips, the eerie darkness in her heart, and the white brand snaking up the bare flesh of her neck—all said otherwise.
“We’re busy,” Rysten said in a cold voice beside me.
“We’d love to,” I replied at the same time, internally cringing. I didn’t want to. I’d actually prefer sleeping on my father’s musty sex pillows over putting Rysten in the line of fire and spending any kind of time around her. I deferred from extinguishing the flames for this, though. I changed our entire course of action and put everyone at risk knowing this she-bitch was working for someone that wanted us dead. I needed to find out what she knew for this sacrifice to be worth it.
“Which is it?” Iona asked, looking between the two of us.
“We’ll attend,” I said firmly, giving Rysten’s hand a squeeze.
“Excellent. I’ve taken the liberty of having an extra boat brought so that all of you and your familiars can attend. We wouldn’t want you to roast down here before you could do what you need to.” I nodded slowly while lifting an eyebrow in Moira’s direction.
Was it just me or was she talking kind of strange? Moira nodded once, scowling at Iona. I still hadn’t pieced together what kind of demon she was and that alone was unsettling.
I nodded without saying a thing and she turned for the boats.
I couldn’t help feeling like I wouldn’t be returning here tonight. Maybe it was paranoia or maybe it was intuition, but something in the back of my mind told me were being led like lambs to a slaughter. I looked around at our group, from Death to the enigma, and found that they’d chosen a piss poor sacrifice.
I chuckled under my breath and Iona turned at the boats to give me a look before climbing in. I chose to get in a separate one with Rysten, along with Moira and Jax, who was being oddly silent given that we deviated from the original plan. I kept that to myself as Epona followed behind me carrying a very dramatic Bandit. He flopped down on her saddle, lounging back as if this was all very trying for him. I rolled my eyes as he threw a furry arm across his face, then peeked over the edge to see if I was looking. He rolled over and began pulling on her russet colored mane. “That’s not going to make her go faster, bud.” I shook my head at him, and he chortled ruefully in protest as the boat was pushed off the rocky shore. Bandit switched to gripping the edge of her saddle like a boogie board and started making clicking noises, similar to how Laran did when trying to get her to speed up. Epona and I both looked at him with varying levels of are you shitting me?
Jax took the duty of steering us through the Garden while Rysten dropped my hand and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. He placed a tender kiss on my forehead and the tension in my shoulders melted.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, love,” he whispe
red.
“Trust me,” I whispered back.
“Always.”
A steady beat filled the cavern, a deep bass thumping to a lyrical tune. Music called to us, different from the overly machine-edited music on Earth. There was something more primal to this. Almost animalistic in a way. As it drew our attention, flickers of yellow and orange danced against shadows as we approached a cave on the other side of the river. It was so large that I wasn’t sure if cave was the right word. The entrance was a hundred feet wide, and tall enough for even Rhiannon to wander inside without a problem. On the rocky beach, a smoldering bonfire roared while masked demons danced erotically and intimately with each other. Where I came from this sort of thing had been looked down upon, considered taboo even. Not in Hell, it seemed.
Our boat came to a halt so abrupt it pulled me from my stupor, but Rysten kept a firm grip on my waist to keep me from tumbling over. Bandit, the devil-damned raccoon, threw his hands in the air and fell to the side. Moira’s wing shot out, catching him just before he could hit the water and the little bugger had the actual nerve to hiss and pout at her for stopping his fun. I wasn’t taking any chances after the ordeal with the Kraken, even if the water was crystal clear.
She lifted her cradled wing and deposited him into the bottom of the boat. Bandit jumped to his feet and let out a mewling cry as he palmed at my bare leg to be helped up.
“He’s worse than a child,” Moira groaned.
“At least he doesn’t talk back,” I muttered, scooping him up.
“No, instead he grows to be thirty-feet tall and picks you up like he’s goddamned King Kong,” Moira griped.
“She’s got a point,” Rysten said, eyeing Bandit distrustfully. I stepped out of his warmth to climb onto the shore, taking a deep breath before I turned to face the demons gathered.
“This isn’t so bad, yet,” I said. We moved closer to the writhing group of dancers. They were covered in paint and adorned with flowers, while wearing their exquisite and terrifying masks. I could admire the beauty in it, if the magic pulsing through the air hadn’t been so constricting. Thick and heady; the closer I came to them, the more it invaded me.
“Yet. That’s the key word there,” Rysten murmured, staying close to me. I didn’t fault him with the way I could feel eyes on us, and Iona sidled up beside me.
“They’re celebrating the rise of their new queen,” she said. I nodded, my eyes darting around for the catch but seeing only smiling faces.
Were they all in on this? Was it just Iona? What about the kids that ran through the groups of people throwing flowers in the air and chanting in a language I didn’t understand?
I swallowed hard.
“All of this is for me?” I asked, more than a little skeptical.
“It is,” she smiled, waving to the children that approached us.
They wore slipper-like shoes and bright swaths of clothing. Their faces and arms were painted, but also smudged with dirt. A little girl with green skin held up a flower lei. It was made of lilies.
“For me?” I asked. She nodded. I took the lei and slipped it over my head, a distant feeling of ease slowly setting in.
“Lady Iona said you’re going to stop the fire. Are you going to stop it?” Her curly green hair framed her paint-smudged face. The imprint of flower petals plastered against her glistening, sweaty skin. Large green eyes the color of spring grass looked up at me with hope, and fear—and more than anything—desperation.
I took both of her trembling hands in mine and sank to my knees, wincing from the bite of the gravel.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Elissa,” she said in her high-pitched voice.
“That’s a beautiful name,” I said, a faint upturn to my lips, though I couldn’t bring myself to really smile.
“My daddy picked it, but he’s gone now.”
It took every fiber of my being not to turn away under the weight of the young girl’s gaze. There was an accusation in her green eyes that left me with guilt, whether or not it was rightfully mine.
“I’m sorry about your dad. I’m going to do everything I can to stop the flames.”
My words rang hollow and the girl backed away. I let her hands drop between us, not understanding what she muttered. It sounded foreign. Melodic. I glanced up at Rysten, but he looked away. A deep frown marred his face and his eyebrows were drawn together in concern. Whatever worries I had about this being a terrible idea, that didn’t soothe them.
Slowly, I rose to my feet.
“There’s a lot like her, aren’t there?” I asked quietly.
Iona nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. Very few are immune to the flames, as I’m sure you know.” She cast me a sideways glance that almost seemed like...pity.
“You know,” I started, not entirely sure where I was going to go with this but following my gut, “I never knew that I was Lucifer’s kid and had this grand destiny laid out for me. When the Horsemen found me, I didn’t even think I was a full demon.” I smiled at the memory, remembering the way I’d ordered them out of my house. Back then I thought I could close my eyes to it. That if I ignored it long enough, this thing called fate would pick someone else.
Iona glanced sideways like she didn’t believe it. “How did you not know you were a full demon?” Her voice was incredulous, but I nodded anyway, pretending not to notice it.
“I’m twenty-three and I only just finished my transition four days ago.” Her eyes widened almost comically, the reality that was my life seeming to set in. “Before that I just had minor powers. Persuasion. Immunity to fire. Succubus charm.” I very pointedly left off soul-shredding because she really didn’t need to know that. It was a power I was going to save in my back pocket. A just-in-case for when everything else failed.
“The flames?” she asked, her eyes slowly trailing down me like she was only just seeing me for the first time.
“Came to me after the Horsemen showed up, shortly before my transition.” I snorted, thinking back at it. “I accidentally started a fire in my living room the morning after they manifested. The Horsemen wanted to whisk me away then…” and just like that, the humor dissipated.
“But they didn’t.”
I nodded. “But they didn’t.” She silently looked ahead still, listening to me but not outwardly giving me her attention. Her expression was neutral, indifferent, but as she watched these people something inside her softened. Something that couldn’t be seen with eyes, only felt with emotions. “I wasn’t ready,” I said, admitting the very thing aloud that she would probably hate me for. Part of me felt compelled to speak; to tell her this even though I knew it would likely not win me any favors. “I had no idea how to control the flames. My life was falling apart around me and I hadn’t even transitioned yet. At the time I was very...mortal. It was a weakness that I knew would cost me my life if I set foot in Hell before I was ready for it.”
“So, you put your life before everyone else’s because you weren’t ready?”
“Iona,” Rysten snapped, choosing to step forward. I placed a hand on his arm and gave him the look. The one that told him to stay out of it.
“No, she’s right.” He opened his mouth to dispute that and come to my aid, but I didn’t want or need to be saved. Not from this. “I did put everyone in danger because I wasn’t ready. I did, and I can own that.” I turned to her and found the blue of her eyes so similar to the color of my flame it was piercing. “But I also had no idea what would happen to Hell. I don’t know how much you know about Earth, but I was raised there with humans and without the knowledge of who or what I am. I had no idea what I was capable of. I didn’t know that I should try to prepare myself for my new life so many people, like Elissa, wouldn’t suffer.”
“And if you had?”
“I can’t say whether I would have come sooner,” I answered honestly. “I think I would have tried, but if I hadn’t learned to control the flames, I likely would have only made things worse.”
; “How do you figure that?” She raised her eyebrows and still I smiled.
“Ever since I got here, I’ve been working to put out the flames. I can’t do anything about the borders until the Sins confirm, but I’ve been trying to stop it as best I can.” She narrowed her eyes a fraction, but didn’t dispute it. “If I hadn’t learned to control them before I came, I likely wouldn’t be able to put anything out and would have lost control, killing everyone instead.”
“That’s rather prideful of you to assume.”
“It’s also true.”
She gazed at the people around us, but this time it wasn’t like she was really seeing them, she just didn’t want to see me. “You are not what I expected you would be,” she said eventually. “Your youth and ignorance make you both ideal and not for the position you wish to hold. So far you have fallen from your father, but I am unable to forgive or forget the monster he was. While much of Hell mourned, there were many of us that also celebrated.”
“I have no idea what kind of person my father was,” I said quietly.
“I know,” she answered. “That’s why I’m telling you.” While the echoes and shouts of excitement played, and the shadows danced with their demon counterparts, Iona, Rysten, and I stood apart from it all.
“While many regarded him as the savior of this world, he was also the destroyer. I know, because I was alive when the first true Queen of Hell ruled.” I blinked. First? There was a first? I wanted to turn to Rysten but Iona’s knowing smile kept me watching her. “Her name was Genesis, and this was known as the Garden of Eden. Few remember because most that were there died in the war between immortals. I was only a child myself when Satan bridged the gap between this world and Heaven. His arrival was the beginning of the true fall for this realm.”
“What happened to Genesis?” I blurted out. “How did she die and Lucifer become King?”
“No one knows what truly happened to her. Only that she fell madly in love with your father and he didn’t return her affections. Genesis died and the entire world shook from her loss. Storms raged. The seas revolted. Genesis was a being of life, a creator, who wanted nothing more than to have children of her own. In her death, that’s exactly what happened.”
Brimstone Nightmares (Queen of the Damned Book 4) Page 11