by Jayce Carter
Kase remained near Grant—probably for the best since Grant was the most at risk—while Grant shifted his hands and his lips in quick succession. Flames erupted, consuming the entire red team in a blink. He lifted his left hand, made a fist then drew it down. A boulder the side of a car came crashing into what was left of the purple team just as Hunter moved out of the way.
The battlefield was bloody and terrifying and vicious beyond anything I had expected.
And why was that?
The men had never been shy about their abilities, about their natures, and yet seeing them in action was different. It wasn’t a case when I was in danger, when it was kill or be killed.
It was for sport, and they seemed to enjoy it far too much.
“You know,” Lucifer said in a conversational tone, “I declare a winner at the end of this round.”
“I thought the winner happened at the end?”
“The main one, yes. However, each round also has a winning team. They don’t get a favor, but there is a benefit.”
“What? Bragging rights?”
“No.” His tone was incredulous, like that of an adult who knows exactly what game a kid is trying to play. “Competitors normally spend the night in an area just outside the palace. There isn’t much in the way of benefits. However, the winning team stays in the palace. That grants them better food, access to healers for wounds, donors for vampires, willing companionship and a safer place to sleep since teams often lose one or two during the night.”
I thought back to Kase, to how well blood healed him and the risk of feeding from Troy. There were going to be more rounds after tonight, and the men would fare much better if they had access to what Lucifer was suggesting. “You aren’t mentioning that as a random fun fact. What do you want?”
“Tonight, after the round concludes, you will come to my room.”
“What for?”
“In exchange for me declaring Team Black the winner, you will answer ten questions of mine, honestly.”
“One, and you remove the companionship bullshit.”
“Eight, and that is nonnegotiable as they handle all service.”
I pressed my lips together. “Two, and make sure they’re ugly at least.”
He let out a sigh. “Four. One for each person I will be saving, and very well, they’ll be homely. I suggest you don’t try to push your luck any further, because if we remove another question, I will remove one of your precious team.”
The hard tone of his voice reminded me that he wasn’t just anyone. He was the devil and maybe I should be a bit more careful.
The beast in the center of the field charged Grant drawing my attention back, but Kase stepped in front of him. He grabbed the creature by the horn and twisted, sending the thing rolling into the large rock wall where it didn’t move again.
Lucifer lifted his hand and another low sound echoed through the chamber.
The contestants froze inside the other realm, turning toward us as if they could see us. A moment later, the vision shimmered away and Lucifer stood, the room falling silent as it did for him always. “Team red, yellow and purple lost all members. Green lost one, orange lost two, while blue and black remain at full strength.” Lucifer turned to look at me. There was no question in his eyes—he knew what I would say, what I had to say.
I nodded.
“I declare Team Black the winners for the evening. Tomorrow, we will resume with the teams who still wish to participate, and as winners, Team Black will have additional privileges tonight in the winner’s quarters. Rest up, because tomorrow will not be so easy.”
I swallowed hard when Lucifer turned and gave me a chilling smile.
What was that they said about deals with the devil?
Chapter Fifteen
The party wrapped up rather quickly after the competition. Then again, it had been going on for hours before Persephone had come to get me. The main event was the battle, and once that was over, people were ready to retire.
They rarely left alone. It seemed get-togethers in hell had more sex than teenage house parties.
Lucifer had said he would send someone to retrieve me in a few hours, but that in the meantime, food would be delivered to my room and I should rest, clean up, stop my stomach from making noises and get more comfortable.
Anytime a man told a woman to get more comfortable, they inevitably meant less clothing.
I was tempted to wear the dress again, but I didn’t want to send the wrong message. Amazingly, when I looked inside the closet, the dresses had changed. There were the same general number of them, but now they resembled what I’d worn already, as if someone had waited to see what I liked then curated a more specific closet.
The bathroom had a huge clawfoot tub but no shower. I filled the water, amazed to see it run clear from the faucet.
There was no way I would have bathed in whatever red stuff they normally had…
Undressing in hell seemed stupid, but I hadn’t gotten a proper wash since I’d arrived, and I shuddered to think of what exactly coated my skin.
Sinking into the water was like a baptism—though, given it was in hell, that probably wasn’t the best analogy.
A moan left my lips at the warmth of the water when I lowered myself into the large tub.
My eyes slid closed, savoring it, letting myself pretend I was back in my safe tub at home.
“Don’t you look cozy?”
I opened one eye at Hunter’s voice, and I couldn’t even find it in me to be surprised at his appearance. “I thought you’d be enjoying your special suite.”
He crouched beside the tub and rested an arm on the edge. “I’ve been there before. It’s nothing new.”
“Well, you better enjoy it, because I’m going to pay a pretty penny for it, I suspect.”
He tilted his head. “I wondered why Lucifer declared us the winners. I mean, we did well, but he never does something without reason. What did he want from you?” The last words held an edge that reminded me of how he’d moved across that field, of what Jerrod had said.
I swallowed away the thoughts, trying to stay on task. “He wanted to see me tonight, for me to honestly answer any four questions he asked.”
“Four?”
“One for each of you,” I explained.
He huffed before resting his chin on his arm, reminding me a bit of a puppy, especially with those brown eyes of his.
A puppy that turns into a dragon smoke creature and has killed mortals to eat.
“You need to be careful around him,” Hunter said. “Lucifer is a master at manipulating people and making them think they’re in the lead when they’re just playing right to his tune. He doesn’t lie, but don’t take anything he says at face value, either.” He reached for my arm.
I jerked backward. It was another thing I didn’t think about, just a reaction I couldn’t control.
He stilled, as he had the last time, then pulled his hand back. “I’m going to guess that before Lucifer finished off Jerrod, he had stories to tell.”
I swallowed hard, tucking my arm under the water as if that would wash away the tense moment. “Yeah, he did.”
“And now you’re afraid of me?”
“Can you blame me?”
Hunter shrugged, reminding me that he was back in just the pants, no shirt, and the tattoos moved on his body. They did that more here in hell, I’d noticed, as if they were more alive here.
“I don’t blame you, but we all have a past.”
“My past doesn’t include eating mortals.”
He blew out a sharp breath, as if he didn’t even like hearing the words.
Yeah, well, neither had I. It felt fair for both of us to suffer.
“I told you I wasn’t born, that I was made, and that happened back at the very start. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been alive, Ava?”
Hearing my name on his tongue felt wrong, and it kept me silent.
“I wasn’t always what I am now. Most hellhounds stay i
n hell. It’s more comfortable, easier, more fun. The more time we spend in hell, though, the less we connect with that spark inside us that is mortal. For a long time I avoided the living realm. I relished in this side of me, in what I am, and yes, I did horrible things during that time. I protected the borders, slaughtered anything that dared to go near it, and anything that got past me? I let it go.”
I didn’t understand where the story was going, so I let him tell it, listening in silence.
“Jerrod and I hunted together. Two sadistic peas in a pod. And, yes, we crave mortal life force. It is this driving desire, and when we would find it here? When a mortal ended up here?” His eyes took on an odd light, something between desire and disgust. He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose slowly. “I’m not proud of what I was, of what I did, but I’m not that thing anymore.”
“Why not? What changed?”
“I was wounded by a creature that got past me and made it through the barrier. Normally I would have let it go but I was enraged by it managing to actually hurt me. I followed it, tracked it for days, watched the carnage it left in its wake. When I finally caught up, it had cornered this girl, only ten at the most. It had already killed her family, and in her eyes, she knew she’d die. She was sure of it. She didn’t cry, though. She stood there with this tiny little dagger, ready to do whatever she could. It was then I saw her little sister, just an infant, in a basket behind her.” He went silent, his gaze on the far wall as if played out before him.
“What happened?”
He jerked slightly, as though I’d woken him. “I killed the creature before it could harm them, but when I turned toward her, she buried that knife in my side. In her eyes I saw the same fear, the same hatred. I realized that while I guarded the boundary, I wasn’t any different from the things that got through.” He sighed. “I wanted to be different, though. I didn’t go back to hell right away. I stayed in that town, stealing food and money for that girl and her sister, leaving it for them but staying out of sight. Time doesn’t pass for me like it does for others—a result of having lived so long, I guess—and before I knew it, the girl was a mother herself. I watched over her for her entire life.”
“Did she ever see you again?”
He nodded. “She’d catch glimpses of me, but never acknowledge me, never speak to me. At least not until she became very sick. Her children were around her, her grandchildren. She was this frail old woman, and it was strange, because it reminded me of her as a child. Fragile yet strong. She called for me, yelling out ‘come in here, beast.’”
I sat up, the story drawing me in.
He licked his lips, as if they’d become parched, but I suspected it was nerves. I doubted he’d ever told this story before.
“I gave her the knife, the one she’d stuck in my side, like some sort of parting gift. She asked me why—why had I saved her? why had I helped her?—and I told her. I said, ‘I didn’t want to be what you saw. I wanted to be more.’”
“What did she say?”
Hunter sighed and met my gaze. “I’ve learned we don’t get the things we want, that good stories don’t happen. I want to say she forgave me, that she looked at me like I was suddenly good, that there was some wonderful epiphany that I had earned. In reality, she coughed up blood and told me, ‘You have darkness inside you. It doesn’t matter how much good you do, that darkness won’t go away.’”
I wanted to slap the woman, to shake some sense into her. What a horrible thing to say to someone who had spent decades looking out for her.
He met my gaze finally, the sorrow there and for once not hidden behind a joke. “She wasn’t wrong. I am what she said. I am darkness and evil and it took a very long time for me to understand what she meant. It wasn’t a reprimand—it was a warning. I am those things, but they don’t mean I have to do those things. A tiger can kill, and nothing changes that, but they don’t have to kill. I am darkness, but that doesn’t mean I have to do those things.” His hand moved, as if he wanted to reach out but stopped himself. “You used to look at me the way I wanted her to, like I wasn’t that thing she said I was. Now you know, though, you’ve seen it, and it sticks with you. Still, if I have to do as I did before, if I have to spend all your years protecting you, I’ll do it happily again, because what I am isn’t what I choose to be.” He spoke with so much confidence, as if it were a sacred oath he gave me, that he gave himself. A commitment to what he wanted to be rather than what he’d been born.
I reached out and slid a hand behind his neck as I sat up, taking his lips in a passionate kiss.
He groaned, the sound honest and surprised and thankful, as if he’d expected rejection and couldn’t believe his luck.
His words stuck with me, though. How could I blame him for his nature? For what he was before he knew better?
And besides, hadn’t he shown me over and over again who he was now?
“Can I have you, shadow-girl?” My nickname on his lips felt like home, and I tugged at him as my yes.
Hunter undid his pants, sliding them off so he was gloriously naked. He moved into the warm water with me, making the waves lick at my skin.
His body was solid against mine, and he fell into the cradle of my thighs.
That first time, when he’d licked me through more orgasms than I even tried to keep track of, it had been slow. It had been passionate and crazy for me, but he’d been methodical. Later, with Grant, it had been about quenching some need.
Now? This time? It was a hunger deeper than breathing. When he kissed me, he did it with such abandon, as if he needed nothing more.
He growled low in his chest as he grabbed my thigh, hiked it up around his waist and buried his hard cock inside my waiting cunt.
It was sudden and almost shocking, and yet somehow perfect. He plunged in deep, my body taking him in that one thrust as if I were made for him.
I gasped at the way he filled me, and he swallowed the sound, stealing it from me.
He wrapped his arm behind me, holding me to him as he rolled his hips, his chest rubbing against my nipples, teasing them.
He bit down on my bottom lip, tugging at it, fucking into me with a staggering amount of strength.
“I’m not who I was,” he swore when he let go of my lip, the words whispered and solemn. “I swear it, shadow-girl. I am more now.”
He said each word with the weight of a person who needed me to believe him. He caught my chin with his other hand, forcing my face to his.
His eyes, whiskey colored, so light they were almost melted honey, bore into mine, a question there, a demand.
“You need to know that. I need to know you believe it.” He still above me, inside me, holding me so tightly, as if he were afraid I’d slip away.
I fell into those eyes, into the way he asked, the way he waited for an answer. He deserved my honesty, deserved me taking the moment to know my answer.
Did I believe him? Did I believe that whoever he was in the past, that the monster Jerrod was, the monster Jerrod had said Hunter was, was really gone? That he’d changed, that he wouldn’t ever go back?
And could I look past it?
I would have said no at any other time, but somehow seeing his eyes, seeing how he stilled, how he held his breath even as his heart pounded hard forced me to believe him.
“I know,” I whispered before closing my teeth on his lip then returning his kiss. I carded my fingers through his hair to hold him to me, which worked fine because Hunter was more than strong enough to handle fucking me without any help from me.
My back pressed into the tub, the water warm and like its own sensual touch as it licked across my skin.
Hunter breathed hard—funny since I’d just seen him face off against five teams of other supernaturals and he hadn’t broken a sweat—but even so he kept me close.
My body wound tighter as he took me hard and fast, the sensation of his cock slamming into me like a revelation. He was wild, unconstrained, focusing only on the moment between us.
I stole his breath, savoring the bite of fire in it, breathing in the smoke that had escaped around him as if he couldn’t keep it contained anymore, as if he were too consumed by our twisted bodies to care about appearing human.
He tightened his arm, tilting my hips so his pelvic bone ground against my clit with every thrust.
The orgasm hit me hard, just as wild as our sex. I tightened around his cock, but it didn’t stop him from thrusting, from taking me roughly and stretching out the waves of pleasure that overcame me.
He made a low, hungry sound before he buried his face in the crook of my neck, then plunged as deep as he could and stilled. He came, a swear on his lips, before he went limp against me. With the water, he wasn’t so heavy, and after a moment, he pulled free of me but didn’t move away for another moment.
“You probably have to get ready,” he said as he withdrew, an unhappy grumble as he left the warmth of the bath. He pulled his pants back on, seeming not to care that he was still wet.
I sat up and took his hand when he offered it. He tugged me to my feet, then wrapped the towel that had sat on a table beside the tub around me.
“How is everyone?” I asked. “Is anyone hurt?”
He shook his head before he helped me out of the tub. “A couple scratches, but Lucifer’s healers got us all up and ready.” He patted his hands over my sides. “I did notice that the caliber of service was down a bit.”
“Oh really?” I played dumb as I pulled away from him, heading toward the closet for an outfit. “Lucifer must be running low on young, nubile women to service you, I guess.”
“You are adorable when you’re jealous, you know that? Never figured I’d have a thing for that, but I do.” He chuckled, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. “Who knows, though. Maybe I just like you.”
I opened the closet and pulled out what I’d planned to wear. I wasn’t going sultry—it had never been my style anyway—and went with comfortable and powerful, instead.