by Eve Newton
I adjust my features and give him a helpless look.
“Help me?” I ask, sidling closer.
“Of course,” he answers straight away. “But you understand what is required of you?”
“I do,” I say, dropping my eyes meekly. What a fool. He has no idea who he is messing with.
He holds his hand out to me.
Man, what an asshole. I send out waves of seduction that makes him grab my hand, his eyes glazing over, only slightly.
He is powerful.
I reach up to stroke his face, before he can take me anywhere, turning on the full force of my power.
His mouth goes slack as he stares adoringly into my eyes.
That’s better.
“Will you do anything for me?” I whisper to him, with my lips close to his.
“Yes,” he murmurs.
“What is your name?” I ask.
“Trent,” he answers.
“Hmm,” I moan deliciously, feeling my nipples pucker. It has been too long since I’ve done this. Too long since I took an asshole and destroyed him. Dashel doesn’t count. That made me feel bad and will until he comes to accept who he is now. This is fun. But sadly, he is already in Hell, so it is unclear what will happen to him when I take his whole…essence as he has no soul. Suddenly, this doesn’t sound so fun anymore. It’s pointless. But I’m here now, so I might as well carry on. I lean forward to lightly brush my lips against his, catching a movement in the corner of my eye.
Darius. Great.
“Trent,” I murmur. “You’re going to be such a good little boy, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he says again, but his face is now forming a frown. He is throwing off my seduction. That means that he is more powerful than I first thought. It’s time to get a move on, especially as Darius is standing silently by, watching this with, what I think, is an interested look. Hard to tell, as usual.
I place my lips fully on his and slip my tongue into his mouth. He groans and touches his tongue to mine, making me tremble with a renewed thrill. Luc will probably skin me alive, but it’s going to be so worth it.
“Mine,” I whisper, pulling back slightly. “Mine to do with what I want.”
“Yes,” he answers again, claiming my mouth with a deep kiss.
I giggle as I hear Darius gruffly snorting in the distance. He is clearly having a good time at my expense, but that’s okay. I am as well.
That is until a voice booms so loudly in my ear, I think I’m going to go deaf from the sheer volume of it.
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”
Luc
I’m absolutely furious. How dare she engage in such salacious behavior right outside my own fucking house.
She draws back with a contrite look on her face, dropping the seduction in an instant.
“I was just…”
“Save it,” I spit out. “You are coming with me.” I grip her wrist tightly. I see Trent’s eyes zoom straight to the bronze bangle molded onto her wrist. His eyes go wide, as he clearly knows she is no ordinary Demon anymore. I need to get Axelle away from him immediately.
“I can explain…” she starts.
“Quiet!” I command her. I don’t want Trent knowing anything else about this. He knows too much already.
“She’s yours?” Trent mutters.
I turn my livid gaze onto my nemesis. “They are all mine,” I growl, letting my eyes turn into flames, just to remind this little shit who he is dealing with.
Trent’s strangled gasp and quickly averted gaze makes me grin smugly at him, but then I turn back to Axelle. She isn’t safe out here now. Not when Trent is working this all out and probably coming up with the correct conclusion. Clearly Darius is no help in this matter. Asshole Demon.
I give him a death stare for just standing there, letting her kiss another man.
I have to do what needs to be done now, as distasteful as I find it. I cannot let Trent see me give her leeway and think that I’ve gone soft. I give her an apologetic look as I bring a wicked looking sword to my hand and stab her in her chest, mindful of the baby, without further ado.
Her shocked look makes my stomach twist with regret. The scent of her blood fills the air, making my mouth water.
I scoop her up as her knees buckle and she passes out with an angry hiss. I’m going to pay for this later, and not in a good way.
“Interesting,” Trent comments. “You go to such lengths to get her back inside the residence. Begs the question who is she and what was she doing out here in the first place?”
“A misunderstanding,” I bark. “Bitch needed to be taught a lesson.”
Trent snorts as he accepts the completely believable story. “I’d keep her on a tighter leash. That one is trouble.”
“No fucking kidding,” I mutter under my breath and then vanish with flames of Hellfire licking at the doors as I stride forward, taking my wife with me. I need to get her inside now.
I materialize in our bedroom and lay her on the bed, glaring down at her and Dashel as he turns towards her in his sleep.
I know deep down that she was only doing what comes naturally to her, but we talked about this. She has a lot of explaining to do, starting with why she was out there in the fucking first place.
~ CHAPTER FOUR ~
Axelle
My eyes flutter open.
The pain is gone, but the fury is still strong.
“How dare you!” I shriek at Luc, sitting upright and finding myself on our bed with him and Dashel looking at me, slightly afraid.
They should be. I’m fucking furious.
“I had to,” Luc says coldly. “You have no idea who you were messing with.”
That piques my interest, so I hang fire on my ass kicking and give him a curious look. “Who?” I ask, licking my lips.
“It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, still very pissed off with me.
“Oh no!” I yell, my anger firing up again. “You stabbed me to get me away from him!” I rise from the bed in a fluid movement to stand before him, hands on my hips.
He just glares at me.
The room descends into silence.
Dashel edges off the bed to squash himself into the big armchair in the corner of the room.
“Luc?” I bark, stamping my foot. “I deserve to know.”
“No, what you deserve is a thorough beating for kissing that asshole, when we agreed that you would no longer engage in that behavior without me!” he shouts back hotly.
I raise an eyebrow at him, a smile playing at my lips as I change tactic. “Jealous, my love?” I dare to ask.
“Watch yourself,” he growls, but I know that I’ve got him pegged. It makes me feel all warm inside.
I drop my defensive posture and give him a soft look. “Somehow, after I woke up and got dressed, I ended up out there via…” I wave my hand around, “…flame and there he was by the front doors. He made a disgusting pass at me as he assumed I was a lost little Demon out in the wilds. He offered me safe haven for sex! I wanted to teach him a lesson,” I explain. I won’t apologize though. Nope, that won’t ever happen.
Luc stares at me for a brief moment before he bursts out laughing. “Ha!” he exclaims. “You are precious, my wife, do you know that?”
“I try,” I reply, wanting to preen at the compliment, but needing to maintain my tough exterior so he doesn’t think I’m weak in any way, especially after that hideous coupling from before where I gave into my pain.
“Problem is…” he huffs out, running his hand through his hair in an oddly nervous gesture. “…Trent is a…a…” He clamps his lips shut.
“A what?” I prod him, now so inquisitive about this mysterious asshole.
“He is my nemesis,” he snaps at me, giving a cursory menacing glare at Dashel, even though he didn’t say anything.
Although, I’m pretty sure I can hear him snickering softly now that a silence has descended on the room.
“N-Nemesis,” I splutter, trying my
hardest not to laugh outright in his face. What is this? High school?
He sighs. “My greatest challenger,” he explains quietly, looking away.
“What?” I sneer before I realize that he is actually concerned about this Trent dick. “Uhm, why not just strip him and send him off to be recycled?” I add, after a long and awkward pause.
“I can’t do that, my dear,” he says with a patronizing tone and confident look. “He has great support. I would start a civil war and that is something that I simply cannot have on my plate right now.”
“Why not?” I ask, confused.
“I have other things to think about besides an army of traitorous Demons,” he snaps, getting seriously pissed off by my inquest.
“So, get rid of all of them,” I snap back, wondering what the problem is.
He gives me a withering look that really does make me wither away inside. I shake it off, pushing my chin up in the air so that he doesn’t know that he affected me in that way.
“Easier said than done,” he says with a sigh. “Once my son is born, we can look towards ridding this place of all those who oppose me. In the meantime, seeing as he is currently on my doorstep and now knows more about you than I’d like, I have to go and deal with this.”
“Fine,” I huff out, knowing it’s the end of the conversation for now. “Go. See if I care.”
He chuckles at me as I pout at him, but he draws me close and kisses me deeply before pulling back, and mutters. “See to your Angel.”
Then, he flames out and I turn to look at Dashel, who to my utmost surprise, has a smirk on his face and a changed attitude from the cowering mess he was a few moments ago.
Evan
I’m pissed off.
So pissed off. I’m standing here in line with a stupid-ass soul like a complete fuckwit, while Dashel and Luc are probably fucking Axelle to within an inch of her life. I should be fucking her as well. Why do I have to work when they get to have her all to themselves?
I grimace at the new Admin bitch as she brightly greets me. She’s Axelle’s replacement and I don’t like her. I want Axelle back. At least if she was working here, I’d get to see her during the day and also, maybe, be pulled into her office for some fucking before I go on my way.
The new bitch is yammering on about something, but I’m not listening. I’m daydreaming about Axelle. What she went through at the hands of Luc was horrifying. But she hasn’t let it affect her at all. She is just carrying on as if it never happened. She is truly the strongest female I have ever come across. Including Jezebelle.
Thinking about Jez, I frown. I wonder where she’s gone. She was living in Luc’s residence before we all made that our new home together without Luc’s consent. I didn’t see her, though, the short time I was there. Surely, Luc isn’t going to keep her around now that Axelle is back and his wife. Begs the question of where she will go.
I make a mental note to ask Luc about her later.
Finally, the Admin bitch shuts her trap and sends my scroll on its way and I’m hauling the soul over to recycling.
I pause when I think about Dashel’s soul. Touching it had been like nothing I have ever felt before. Power, immense power, and so pure it almost hurt me to handle it. He is now a fallen Angel. I’m interested to see how that is going to change him, and how Axelle will react to his change. I saw her flash of guilt when she stripped him. That means that she has changed too.
I sigh and wish for the millionth time that I was with her now.
I hand the soul off to Roberta and decide to fuck off the rest of the day. What’s Luc gonna do? Eradicate me? Not likely. Axelle won’t let him.
I ignore the stabbing in my head that signifies another soul needs reaping. I think my work here today has been done. I reaped the Angel, for fuck’s sake. Doesn’t that count for something? Don’t I get a pass for that?
With a huff, I transport myself back to the residence, relieved when I land in the bedroom next to Axelle. I was half expecting to have been locked out.
“What’s up?” I ask, looking between her and Dashel as the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Neither of them answer me. They are both silent and staring at each other.
“Axelle?” I ask, taking her hand and pulling her towards me.
“Hmm?” she asks, looking up at me and blinking.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, now getting a bit worried.
“Uhm, nothing,” she says and looks back at Dashel. “Show him.”
Dashel regards me intently. The color of his eyes has deepened to a green so dark, they are almost black.
He shrugs off his open shirt and drops it on the floor.
His eyes never leaving mine, he flexes his shoulders and out of his back, sprout two black feathered wings.
“Whoa,” I comment, almost impressed.
“Yeah,” he says and puts them away, bending to pick up his shirt and then turn away from us.
I look at Axelle. Her eyes are swimming with desire.
“He’s like Luc,” she whispers so quietly, I barely hear her.
“What do you mean?” I whisper back.
She looks back at Dashel, who still has his back turned to us.
“Show. Him,” she insists urgently, gripping my hand tightly.
My eyes go wide, as in a burst of flame, Dashel moves himself across the room.
I gulp.
“Shit,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” Axelle responds.
“What does this mean?”
“It means, he’s like Luc,” she says again, but I’m just as lost as before.
Is it because he’s a fallen Angel? Luc didn’t fall from Heaven, but he is descended from the Angels.
I’m starting to get a horrible, sinking feeling that Dashel losing his soul is more monumental than we first thought.
Unfortunately, I fail to see an upside to this. For me at least. If possible, I’ve been shoved even further down the food chain, which is something that I was struggling with to begin with. I’m the least powerful being of this foursome and now that feeling overwhelms me.
Axelle must feel it, or sense it somehow, as she pulls me closer to her and snuggles into me, giving me the reassurance that I require.
I sigh, and with a huge effort, I find peace in the new development. There is nothing that I can do about it and I can’t elevate my own status. As long as Axelle loves me, that’s all that I need to be happy, and I am.
“I love you,” she murmurs.
“I love you,” I reply and kiss her.
She clings to me for a few moments before Dashel joins us, laying his hands on her, making her sigh happily.
“I should go and find Luc,” she says reluctantly. “He was super pissed off about this Trent thing.”
“Trent thing?” I ask with a frown. Seems I missed something by being at fucking work.
“Long story,” she mutters and then with a small smile, she disappears through the bedroom door, leaving me and Dashel to stare after her.
~ CHAPTER FIVE ~
Luc
“He’s still here?” I complain to Darius. “Damn him!”
Darius gives what I assume, is a shrug of his massive shoulders.
“I told him to stay outside, seeing as the wards wouldn’t let him in anyway,” Darius comments.
“Humph,” I mutter, thankful for that at least. “Tell him to fuck off,” I add. It is bad news that he saw Axelle here earlier. I wanted to keep her under wraps until we announced to Hell that she is my wife and expecting my child. That is something we need to discuss. Soon.
“I tried that,” Darius says. “He plans to stay until he has seen you.”
“Well, he can stay, then,” I snap, thoroughly pissed off now. “See how long he decides to darken my doorway for.”
Darius snuffles a laugh. Maybe. It’s hard to tell. He shuffles off. “Oh,” he says and turns back around, “there is something you should know.”
“What?” I bark out
as my Guard stops talking.
Darius comes closer, looks around suspiciously and lowers his voice. “That bitch of yours can affect him,” he rasps.
I give him a glare for the language. It might be deemed acceptable down here, but not aimed at my wife. Not anymore. Except by me.
“Affect how?” I ask, leaning forward.
“Outside,” Darius says, indicating with his big, ugly head.
“I asked ‘how’ not ‘where’,” I snarl at him, drawing upright again. “I know that, I was there, remember?” This reminder makes me sick. Seeing the two of them lip-locked was disgusting.
Darius shakes his head. “Before you got there, she turned his head so far around it practically snapped off. Her power is…” He huffs out a breath, “…strong.”
I regard him carefully. I knew that Axelle had power, it’s why I chose her for the trials. I did not know that her power worked on a Demon as old and powerful as Trent. It must be the huge boost from our union.
“Really,” I drawl, tapping my chin. “She seduced him? Properly? He fell under her spell as a human would?”
Darius nods his head and then pulls himself up straight again. “Just thought you might like to know…”
He leaves the sentence hanging there as he slopes off with me staring after him.
“Hmm,” I murmur. “Indeed.”
This is good. Really good. I can use this to destroy my enemy once and for all. All I have to do is convince Axelle to seduce him and then I can kill Trent for screwing my wife. There isn’t a Demon down here that would stop me from defending what is mine. It’s perfect.
I smile, but it doesn’t last long. The very idea of her fucking that Demon makes my skin crawl. I just asked her to be true to me, and the other two. So how am I supposed to, not only tell her she must do this, but allow her to? I try again to think of another option that won’t end in civil war, but I still don’t have a solution to this particular problem. Except, now I do.
My wife.
Can I ask her to do this and be okay with it? If I want to get rid of Trent once and for all, then I’ll have to be. The other two men will just have to accept it.