“Dani, Dani, Dani…” Eros shut the bedroom door, as if he had been waiting for me, and shook his head. Eyes full of sin, full lips parted in pure delight, an alluring scent of cinnamon apple, he stepped closer to me and stared into my eyes.
I swallowed hard, completely entranced by his beautiful black orbs. They showed me every single one of his wants: to lock me in our bedroom, to pick me off the ground, to tug onto my hair and thrust himself deep down my throat. Every single one… crawling into my mind, fusing into every particle of my being, becoming my desires.
He curled a finger around a strand of my hair, pulling on it softly, and inhaled. “Why do you smell like Trevon?” he asked, his voice a domineering kind of tense. He grasped my horn, tugging my head to the side and placing his mouth on my exposed jaw. “His scent is all over you.” He drew his nose up the column of my neck, lips brushing against my skin.
I shivered from his touch, my toes curling. “I could ask the same thing about Lucifer.”
“You’re mine, Dani.” His hand snaked around my throat, and he squeezed lightly. “Mine to bend over our bed.” He spun me around and placed a hand on my back, pushing my chest onto the bed. His fingers curled around my hips. “Mine to touch.” He plunged his hand into my jeans, rubbing them harshly against my panties. “Mine to make cum when I want you to cum.”
I grasped onto his wrist, arching my back and pressing my ass against his hardness. His fingers moved in quick circles around my clit, making me clench. Heat warmed my core, and I closed my eyes. “Eros, don’t stop.” His fingers moved even quicker, pressure building in my core. “Eros… Eros… I’m going to—”
He pulled his fingers off my core, and I whimpered. “Don’t do this…” I tugged his wrist toward my clit, yet he didn’t move.
Instead, he grasped a fistful of my hair and pulled me closer to him, his lips against my ear, those tortuous fingers just hovering over my clit and teasing me. “I do what I want with you, Dani.” He chuckled deeply into my ear. “You should know this by now.” He turned me around to face him, wrapped his hand around my throat, and thrust his finger into me.
My demon stirred, begging for me to kiss him. Just one taste, that’s all she wanted. We weren’t that greedy. We could hold back from taking all of his soul. My heart raced, and I watched his lips part. Unless he tasted too good, then we wouldn’t be able to control ourselves, then we’d take all of him and savor every single…
Eros pushed my head to the side and stepped closer to me, pressing his cock against my stomach and letting me feel it grow. God, it was so big, so damn big. He ran his nose up the side of my neck. Pure ecstasy ran through my veins, every time he’d pull his fingers away and waited for me to settle back down.
We could’ve been there for hours—I didn’t know, nor did I care. The scent of cinnamon and Delights and apples was enough to keep me teetering on the edge. Nothing could ruin this moment…
But then he brushed his fangs against the crook of my neck, and I gasped, my eyes shooting open. All I could see was fire, lava, a kingdom of ash and of heat and of… Javier standing in front of me with those sinful maroon eyes that made me want to devour him all over again. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want to taste his lips, to taste his licorice and his wrath again.
I slammed my hands hard into Javier’s chest, my vision slowly starting to come back to me. Instead of Javier stumbling back, Eros did, his brows drawn up in confusion and in fear. He placed his hands on my forearms, trying to calm me down.
“Dani,” he whispered, all his lust disappearing. “Are you okay?”
After shaking my head to rid myself of that damn disgusting man, I inhaled Eros’s cinnamon, my body relaxing.
Cinnamon. Cinnamon. Cinnamon. I loved Eros and his cinnamon.
“You enjoy my licorice too, Dani,” Javier said in my mind.
I shrieked and shook my head. No. No. No. He wasn’t really there. He couldn’t be. Javier was dead. Javier was long gone. I killed him. I was sure of it. I cut off his horns, as Eros told me to do, and sent him off into the pits of Tartarus so he would burn for eternity.
Eros wrapped his arms around my body and pulled me closer to him. “Dani,” he murmured against my neck. He grasped my hand and placed it over my parents’ ring. I rubbed the cool, smooth texture, and took a deep breath. “It’s me… Eros.” He paused for a moment. “You’re okay, Dani. It’s me.”
He parted his lips to say something else, then pushed them back together. A moment passed, then two, and I had the urge to blurt out every single thing that had happened since this morning, but I didn’t.
How would Eros react to me dreaming about his brother?
Horribly.
Thanks to his parents constantly putting him down and making him seem as if he wasn’t a true incubus… he already felt like he wasn’t good enough. What would he think when he compared my dreams of him to my dreams of his brother?
I parted my lips, unable to get any words from coming out of my mouth.
“What just happened?” Eros asked, pulling away from me. “You had that same look on your face you had when you killed Javier, that same look of… insatiable desire.”
My eyes widened. “No,” I said, shaking my head. I did not desire a dead man and I did not desire his brother. Ever. I hated Javier for what he did to Trevon, almost as much as Eros hated him. I shook my head again, trying to convince myself that what I was thinking was true. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just…” I took a deep breath, my shoulders rolling forward. “I’m just stressed out about everything. Sathanus. Biast.” Javier. “Trevon and Maria. Being crowned commander.” I gazed up into his eyes. “What if… what if Lust doesn’t accept me?”
Eros lips turned into a frown for a split moment. “Lust already loves you because of your father.”
“But I’m not my father,” I said. “I’m a half-angel, half-demon hybrid leading one of the most powerful kingdoms in Hell. What if everyone thinks I’m not fit to rule?”
He ran his fingers through my hair, near my horns, and made me hum in delight. “You’ll be fine, Dani. Nobody will find out about you. I will make sure of it.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Tomorrow we meet with the other commanders to officially announce your crowning and then we’ll continue your training.”
My eyes widened. “Other commanders? Even Sathanus?”
“He won’t hurt you. If he comes within five feet of you, I’ll have his throat.”
I hesitated but then nodded my head. Eros would protect me. He protected me from all the darkness so far, he will protect me with this too. But… he couldn’t protect me from the demon inside me, and he couldn’t protect me from the truth.
Eros tugged on my hand. “Let’s go lie down.”
“I’ll go to bed soon.” I pulled my hand away from his and smiled. “I want to go read Dad’s journal to clear my mind.” I paused for a moment when his eyes flashed a deeper black. “I promise that I’ll be back up.”
After pressing my lips to his, I walked to Dad’s office. I hadn’t had much time to read through our family journal yet, but I had taken it from the library and locked it in his desk. I sunk into Dad’s chair and pulled it out.
A thick layer of dust covered the maroon leather binding. I took off my ring and stuck Mom’s pendant into the heart-shaped key slot. With a low click, the book unlocked. After putting the ring back onto my finger, I blew out a deep breath.
Part of me wanted to go upstairs with Eros and worry about this journal tomorrow, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to dream of Javier again and I didn’t want to daydream of him either.
Once I opened the book, I aimlessly skipped through the first few pages. I should probably talk to someone like Dr. U had always suggested, but who could I talk to? Not Eros. Not Trevon. Not Kasey. Not Luci. Maria didn’t like talking about Javier, so she was out of the question. The only people I had down here were Mom and Dad… I drew my thumb over my ring… and they weren’t even here.
After shuffling through some pages of Dad’s journal, I stopped at one labeled Beliel’s Prophecy. Unlike all the other pages, this page had been torn out of another journal and stuffed into this one. The off-white paper felt brittle, the handwriting a strong cursive.
Beliel’s Prophecy
Beliel, the first angel to have her wings seared off by God, fell from the Heavens above. Though nobody ever saw her again, she carved her prophecy into a stone in Wrath, claiming to have seen the future as the first fallen angel.
The stone reads:
Three demons will rise from the ashes:
The Devil, The Beast, The False Prophet.
God will call them the Triad of Sinners,
We will call them the Unholy Trinity.
Under them, Hell will rule the Earths,
And Heaven will fall to ruin.
And, as soon as I read those words, my stress went through the damn roof. Being a Commander was more than I bargained for.
Chapter 6
I stepped onto solid Earth through the portal near The Lounge and gazed around the empty alleyway to make sure nobody had seen me. A thin layer of snow covered the cement. I walked toward the back entrance and banged on the door with the side of my fist.
Someone glanced through the peephole and opened the door. “Commander,” the burly man said. “Your usual?” When I nodded my head, he disappeared down the hallway.
A breeze hit my exposed legs, and I wrapped my arms around myself. The city was quiet this morning, the usual morning crowd wouldn’t show up for at least another hour. I yawned, the cold keeping me awake. I didn’t sleep at all last night. Hell, I didn’t even leave Dad’s office.
Instead, I continued to read through his journal, an uneasy feeling sitting heavily in my stomach. Whoever the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet were… Dad said that they were three unconquerable fiends, each with an uncontrollable rage inside of them and an unquenchable thirst for death, destruction, and domination.
The burly man reappeared with a bag of Fervor Crisps and leaned against the door. “Here you go, Commander.” His gaze flickered lower for only a moment, and I grabbed the bag from him. Trying not to breathe in his scent or the scent of the others down in the Lounge.
“Thanks,” I said, hurrying down the alleyway toward Ollie’s.
Something in my gut told me that once these three demons rose, The End would begin, and that time was soon. My kingdom would not fall to these demons; we would rise above them. Eros and I would hold the kingdom together, just like I needed to hold myself together when I was around literally anyone who smelt good. My demon stirred inside of me.
When I arrived at Ollie’s, I smiled at the hostess. “Just tea with honey to-go,” I said. As she poured the boiling water into a styrofoam cup, I gazed around the restaurant to look for Mycah. The hostess handed me the cup, and I leaned over the counter. “Is Mycah here?”
She frowned at me. “No. She took a couple weeks off.”
I nodded and walked back out toward Dr. U’s building. God, I wanted to go over to Kasey’s so badly, but she changed her entrance code to get into her building. She hadn’t answered any of my calls. She had been ignoring me far harder than Eros had ever ignored me. She didn’t even want to talk about what Eros did to their parents.
Once I entered Dr. U’s building, I shook the snow off my sweater and walked toward her office. I knocked twice and peaked my head into the room. She shuffled through some papers and gazed up at me. “Dani!” she said, her eyes widening. She brushed her chocolate brown hair over her shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”
I placed the Fervor Crisps and Ollie’s tea down on her desk. “I come here almost every day, Dr. U.”
She arched a brow and sipped her tea, staring at me from across her mahogany desk. “Not this early… and especially not with you looking…”
My lips curled into a smile. “Do I look that bad?”
“You don’t look bad, Dani. You’ve just never been this… tired, since you’ve been with Eros.” She furrowed her brows like she always did when talking to her clients and took off her glasses. “Something’s wrong.”
I licked my lips and glanced through the window overlooking the city. Tiny little snowflakes drifted down from the sky, and I inhaled the scent of Fervor Crisps. Was there something wrong? No, of course not. I was just having dreams of my boyfriend’s brother; I was worried about the Crowning Ceremony; and now I had to deal with this Unholy Trinity.
But there was no way I could tell Dr. U about this because I hadn’t told her about Hell. Sure, she knew something had happened and she might’ve had her suspicions… but I didn’t want her to get involved.
She grabbed my hands from across the table and squeezed tightly. Mom’s lightness fluttered in her eyes, and I brushed my fingers against my ring. She smiled down at it. “You can tell me, Dani. I’m not gonna tell anyone and I’m not gonna judge you.”
After glancing back at the closed door, I took a deep breath. “I’ve been… having these dreams, like the ones I had of Eros a few weeks ago.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that. You’re not dating Trevon anymore, and Eros is your boyfriend.” She furrowed her brows together as if she didn’t understand my concern.
“The dreams…” Oh, god, how do I say this? “The dreams aren’t of Eros.” I clenched my hands into fists, trying not to let my thoughts of Javier drift freely through my mind. “They’re of Eros’s brother.”
She choked on her tea and squeezed my hand tighter. “What do you mean they’re of his brother?”
“I mean that I have been having these really weird visions of him…” … sexual visions. “Usually when I’m with Eros or when I should be with Eros.”
“Have you seen him a lot lately?”
I shook my head. No, I hadn’t seen him because he was dead. I killed him with my bare hands and my lips, sucked his soul right out of his body, drank it up, inhaled him, touched him. All I wanted was to feel that power between my lips again.
“Dani,” Dr. U said, wiggling her hand in my grip.
My eyes widened as I stared at the red marks I left on her fragile hand from how tightly my fingers were wrapped around it. I pressed my lips together and sat on my hands, so I couldn’t do that again. Dani, breathe. You can’t lose control like Trevon did.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
Dr. U sat back in her seat and rubbed her wrist. “Do you miss him?” She paused for a long moment, eyeing me. “Or are you not telling me the whole story?”
I ached to tell her about what happened with Javier. But if I told Dr. U about me killing someone, what would she think of me? Would she turn me into the police? Would she understand if I told her I did it with my own lips? What would she say to me about it? That it was just my guilty conscience getting the best of me?
If I had a guilty conscience, I wouldn’t be dreaming of him touching me like he did. I would have had nightmares of slaughtering him over and over again. Not of these intimate visions and voices.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I glanced at the clock on the wall, reading 7am. The meeting with the other commanders was in less than an hour. Even if I wanted to tell her, I didn’t have time. “Sorry, Dr. U.” I shot up from my seat and hurried to the door. “I have to go.”
Chapter 7
When I returned to Lust, Eros waited on the palace stairs for me. The wind blew his soft brown hair into his face, and all I wanted to do was run my fingers through it. But before I could, he grasped my hand. “We have a meeting with the commanders in five minutes. Where have you been?”
Our guards opened the palace doors for us. We walked into the large foyer decorated with six chandeliers. I stared down at my feet, watching the stone floors underneath them. “I was just talking to Dr. U.”
“On Sunday morning?” he asked, his voice tense. “Why’d you need to see her today?”
After shrugging my shoulders and responding with a curt “No particular
reason,”—even though there was definitely a particular reason—I followed Eros into the meeting room.
The ceilings were tall, the walls an eggshell-color. I rubbed my sweaty palms together and gazed at the other six commanders waiting for me at the long mahogany table in the center of the room. Hell’s finest nude mosaics from each of the kingdoms adorned the walls.
Lucifer sat at one head of the table with his horns of ice tilted away from Sathanus and his chilling gaze focused on me. The Greed Queen sat to his left, dressed in the shiniest diamonds and a blue silk dress. The Envy with the piercing green eyes sat next to her, glaring at the table in front of her. Sathanus was at the other head of the table, eyes a blazing red and tail curled tightly around a leg of his chair. And then there was the Sloth and Glutton Princes, both smoking a blunt, munching on Glutton Tarte, and not giving a single fuck that they’d been summoned to a meeting.
I stopped at the door, trying to gather my thoughts. With all the information thrown at me lately, I couldn't think straight, nevermind announce to the six other commanders of Hell that I would be the next queen when I didn’t know the first thing about leading people.
Eros brushed his fingers against my lower back, ushering me toward the table. I sat next to Lucifer, my palms sweating. His lips curled into a small, sinful smirk.
Sathanus glared at me, his fiery gaze making me hot. I tried to not look in his direction because all he did was remind me of Javier… and I didn’t need him distracting me at the moment.
I smiled at the other commanders and was met with no greeting back. Instead, the Greed Queen looked me up and down, clearly not impressed by the lacking number of jewels on my body. “This will be the new commander of Lust?” She arched a hard brow. “She is Asmodeus’s child?”
Lucifer cocked a brow. “She is.”
Demonic Desire (Becoming Lust Book 2) Page 3