Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset

by Grace McGinty

  But I was still going stir crazy.

  Today, Ri was sitting with me, watching Superhero movies, and I was tucked under his arm.

  “You know, we could go to my room and I could show you my Spider-Man underoos.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.

  Ri gulped. “Nope. The Doc said no physical exertion. What the Doc says, goes.”

  I pouted, but then smiled. “You know I’m not holding you to your monogamy vow, right? Asking you to stay celibate for nine months, especially if I…”

  He kissed my head, and then my lips, gently. “I meant what I said. Besides, I just jerk off, like, twelve times a day.”

  “Does that still count as lust?”

  Ri scoffed. “If so, hell would be full to overflowing.” His eyes flicked back to the screen as the superheroes accidentally demolished another city block.

  “You sure? Because soon I’ll look like I swallowed a watermelon.”

  He stared at my eyes, and I saw the sincerity shining out of them. “You will be the most beautiful expectant mother I have ever seen. Pregnancy is one of the most wondrous experiences gifted to mankind.”

  “I bet you say that to all the watermelons,” I said as I climbed onto his lap. I kissed his temple, the hard angle of his jaw and then gently nipped at his neck.

  His hands ran up under my shirt, his fingers tracing the smooth skin of my ribs. “Only you.”

  I kissed his full lips, tracing the line of his straight, white teeth. He was already hard and ready for me, and I could feel the hard swell pressing between my thighs.

  “Eli only said no physical exertion. It doesn’t count if we take it really slow and very easy, right?”

  Ri bit my lip. “Totally doesn’t count.” He pressed down on my hips, grinding himself against me and I let out a moan. I kissed him hard, and Ri kissed me back with so much sexual frustration that we were going to spontaneously combust if we didn’t get to my bedroom right now.

  I broke the kiss. “Bed. Now.” It came out almost as a pant. I slid off Ri’s lap and basically sprinted for the bedroom, throwing my clothes off on the way until I stood naked in the middle of my bedroom floor.

  Ri was just in his boxer briefs, his tattoos curling down his body, over his abs and down his hip. I loved his tattoos. Every time I traced them with my fingertips, I found something new.

  Ri pulled me to his body, wrapping his arms around my waist and just holding me close.

  “Slow down, Beautiful Girl. I’m going to make love to you properly.”

  I didn’t want slow. I wanted to satiate all my needs right now. But I let Ri lay me down on the bed, and when he kissed me softly, I melted into his embrace.

  He laid beside me, turning me on side so his body was curled around mine. His fingers skimmed my shoulders, my collarbone, and down to my breasts. I moaned as his slightly calloused fingers brushed my nipples, and then pressed back into him as he rolled them between his thumb and forefinger.

  “You are a Queen, Beautiful Arcadia, and I intend on worshipping your body every day for as long as I live.”

  His fingers roamed lower, his finger dipping into my navel before tracing the round curve of my stomach.

  “Glorious.” His fingers brushed down, over my hip and up my inner thigh.

  I was aching. “Ri…”

  “Shh, I’m going to make it all better.”

  Good on his word, he slipped his fingers between my folds and stroked my clit. I bucked against his hand, moaning, as he rubbed gentle circles on my clit. The sensation was off the charts. I needed more. Now.

  I must have whimpered something to that effect, because the head of his cock was soon pressing against me, asking for entrance. He didn’t need to ask.

  I pressed back hard, and Ri’s cock slid into me like it was made to be there. I moaned as the sensation rippled through my whole body.

  Ri slid back out all the way, before entering me again in one long, slow thrust.

  “Oh,” I whispered. “Fuck.”

  Ri repeated the slow, deep rhythm, showing better restraint than the sin of Lust should possess. He arched back and pressed kisses down my nape and across my shoulders as he picked up the pace. He wrapped a large hand around my thigh, spreading me wider so he could get deeper again, and I thought I was going to hyperventilate as he hit pleasure zones I wasn’t even aware I possessed. He rocked in and out of me, and I was getting so close.

  “I want you to touch yourself for me, Beautiful Girl. I want feel your pretty pussy clench around me as you climax,” he whispered in my ear, and I was helpless to resist. My hand slipped between my thighs, and I flicked my clit, coaxing out the orgasm that was right there within my reach. Ri plunged into me harder as my body shuddered and I came on a yell. Ri was close behind, his hand slipping back to my hip as he thrust into me wildly, coming on a satisfied moan that was muffled against my shoulder blade.

  He rolled onto his back, a slight breathlessness to his voice. “Sorry we didn’t go for longer. It’s been awhile.”

  I turned toward him and kissed his shoulder. “It was perfect.”

  He kissed my lips gently, and gave me that sexy grin, complete with bedroom eyes, that made me want to throw my panties at him from the first moment we met.

  “Let me just get something to clean you up.”

  Five minutes later, in which Ri cleaned and I tried to reconnect my synapses, we were back in bed and I was curled in Ri’s arms. He stroked my belly with such tenderness it made me a little weepy.

  “Did you have kids in your former life?”

  “Uh huh. Fifty-two.”

  I jerked upright. “Get the fuck out? Seriously?”

  Orion laughed, a little sheepishly. “Well, fifty-two confirmed children. There was a few more I suspected weren't legitimate heirs, if you catch my drift.”

  “You can’t have been more than twenty-seven when you died.”

  “Twenty-three. But this was before easily available contraception on the islands. They kind of considered me a fertility god. If people were having trouble conceiving, I would come, make love to their wife, and then poof, nine months later they would have an heir. I was part of no tribe and every tribe in that way. I just travelled from island to island, and they would have a huge feast and I would bang my way around the village. It was a good life, well until I died in a freak storm at sea, that is.”

  “How old were you when that started?”

  He pulled me back down into his arms. “I was fifteen when my first child was conceived. But it was a different time. I was considered a man.”

  “That's six children a year!” The idea both fascinated and horrified me.

  “Yep. Many Pacific Islanders can trace their ancestry back to me. From Hawaii to New Zealand.”

  “Hardly seems worth sending a person to hell for though, right? Besides, they wouldn’t have been your gods.”

  It was something I’d been thinking on. Lux’s wouldn’t have followed Christianity nor would have Sam. Some of those religions celebrated sex and life.

  “That’s true. But they are all derivatives of the same thing. Some worship one over the other, some worship many, but in the end, they are all stories created by man to explain something divine. Even hell is just a convenient name from the place where you go when you do things that aren’t morally acceptable in most religions. And no Parthenon likes you to set yourself up as a false idol. I'm almost positive that is why I ended up in Hell.”

  Confusing. But it made a strange sort of sense. If I had met Lucifer in a 1000 BC tavern in Sweden, wouldn’t I have thought him a trickster god? If I had seen Azriel on a battlefield, would I not think he was a God of Death?

  “Okay.”

  “Centuries of theological debate and countless wars, and she accepts the whole thing with an okay?” Ri waved his hands at an invisible audience. “Want me to start the movie back up in here?”

  I shrugged and snuggled back in as Ri turned on the tv and pressed play on Netflix again. I didn’t need Cla
rk Kent, I already had my superheroes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Oz laid with his head on my thighs, and the others were scattered on the beanbags and couches around Oz’s apartment.

  “What about Englebert? My dads name was Englebert.”

  Tolliver choked on his beer. “We cannot call a baby Englebert. Actually, no one should be named Englebert. Ever.”

  Oz huffed as he rubbed his cheek on my bump. It actually looked like a pregnant belly now, rather than like I had a really big burrito for lunch. But the bigger my belly grew, the fainter Ace sounded. I was worried, though I didn't let on to anyone but Eli. The only time she moved away from the baby was when Luc came to visit, which was pretty infrequently since they'd arrested a terrorist cell in Tanzania, which meant there was a lot of last minute deals with the Devil.

  “Well, what do you suggest? Tolliver Junior?” Oz screwed up his nose. “I don't think so. Poor kid might already have to put up with your face.”

  “I was thinking Axel.”

  It was Sam’s turn to screw up his nose. “Why don’t you just call him Bruiser if you want him to join a motorcycle gang that bad?”

  They bickered about the name, what color to paint the nursery, whether the baby should have a walker, what school he should attend.

  Only Lux believed it was a girl. He’d pat my stomach from time to time, and murmur, “Hope.”

  It was the perfect name if it was a girl. Ace wouldn't tell me, saying she didn’t know, but I suspected she did.

  I was three months along, and getting weaker by the day. Eli cut down his availability at the hospital to care for me, and spent several hours a day talking to doctors all over the world about research into cancer treatment of pregnant women. Every night, he would attach a drip filled with god knows what to keep me healthy, and then he’d sleep beside me. Or if one of the other guys filled that spot, he’d sleep on the couch in the living room in case the machine beeped during the night.

  Most of them had cut down their working hours, or given it up all together, to stay with me, or try to do things that would hopefully negate their sins. Oz was even doing cross-fit five times a week. He looked like sex on a stick, his wide shoulders now bulging with muscle.

  On the advice of Tolliver’s lawyers, Sam and Tolli had set up a charitable foundation, but they still went out once a day to give money directly to people, or to homeless shelters, or soup kitchens. They’d eventually been outed as the Robin Hood Ninjas, so they used their public profiles to encourage more of the rich to give to charity. I was sure they would be fine. They even seemed happy in their roles. Sam didn't even miss modeling, though it probably helped that he kept getting spreads in newspapers and magazines. The publicity went back and helped the poor, so surely that would be okay, right?

  Ri sat with me most days, or took me up to the rooftop pool to swim, and worked nearly every night. He looked like crap though.

  Despite my offer, he was sticking to his celibacy unless it was me. And he refused to make love to me unless Eli said he could. And Eli was against me doing anything but my best impression of sleeping beauty.

  “What do you think, Cady?” Sam asked, bringing me back to the present.

  “Mmhm? I was daydreaming. Sorry. What was the question?”

  “We’re back to names. Have you picked one yet?”

  I shook my head, although I had some distinct favorites. But I knew if I suggested anything, they would agree with me just to make me happy, and I liked this little slice of normalcy.

  “I want to wait and see what the baby looks like.”

  “It will look like a tiny, wrinkly alien. You can’t call the poor kid Wrinkles,” Ri quipped, getting in on the action tonight. Normally, he, Eli and Valery stayed out of it. They all knew they couldn’t be the father, because I'm pretty sure the baby wasn't an immaculate conception, but I purposely drew them in. This was our baby. The eight of us. I wanted everyone to feel connected, included.

  Valery put down several trays of piping hot nachos on Oz’s coffee table, one tray just for me. I didn’t know what it was about nachos, but I craved them all the time. It was the only thing I could stomach after the morning sickness, that for some strange reason, always struck in the late afternoon. What kind of false advertising was that?

  I dug into my nachos furiously. No one tried to take them from my tray now, not after I almost stabbed Oz in the hand with a fork.

  Sometimes my body felt like it was possessed.

  Speaking of possessed, something pushed against my stomach. I held my breath. I’d been feeling the flutters of movement for a few weeks now, but this one felt different. Stronger.

  Ace, was that you?

  I could hear Ace’s happiness. No. Wait for it.

  A kick.

  “Ace or morning sickness?” Valery asked.

  “Morning sickness. She hasn’t thrown up yet today,” Ri weighed in.

  “No. It's Ace,” Lux said. He didn’t elaborate. He just knew.

  I grinned at them. “Come here, come here, come here,” I said giddily. I grabbed Lux's hand and placed it on my belly, and Oz did too. I moved their hands to where the baby kicked. Seconds went by, and there it was again. A huge grin spread across Lux’s face. It was so rare, especially these days, that I was temporarily blinded by his happiness.

  “She kicked.”

  “He kicked,” Oz corrected, laughing happily. He moved back so the other two could try.

  We waited and waited, and I could see Tolliver’s face fall with disappointment.

  “Maybe it likes those two better?” Sam teased, but I could sense real disappointment.

  As if the baby could too, it kicked again. Such a kind little heart already.

  Sam laughed. “It has been so long since I have felt such a beautiful thing.”

  Tolliver just rubbed circles on my belly, his eyes a little wet.

  They stepped back and Eli came over, stethoscope in hand. He blew warm air over the end and placed it on my stomach where the baby was kicking.

  “Nice strong heartbeat,” he smiled, offering the stethoscope to Valery, who listened with a wide smile, and the Ri, who I could see counting the beats under his breath.

  “Should it be that fast?” His brow knitted in concern.

  Eli nodded. “It's perfect. The ultrasound tomorrow should confirm that.”

  I wish I could use the ultrasound to narrow down who the father was, who was redeemed. They'd all become so invested, and I worried that they were going to be upset if it wasn't them.

  Sam must have seen the worry on my face.

  “Don’t stress. We won’t care if we aren’t the father. The baby is yours and we are yours and we will love it. Even if it is called Englebert. Or Wrinkles.”

  Then I cried. Because apparently being pregnant made you a mess of hormones that means you cry every time a toilet paper ad with a kid or a puppy comes on.

  Used to my tears by now, Lux just rubbed my back and handed me a tissue. The guys all carried purse packs of tissues around.

  “I think it is time for Arcadia to go to bed. Start the tournament,” Eli ordered

  The tournament of Scissors, Paper, Rock happened every night to determine who got to sleep next to me. I suggested drawing up a roster, but it disadvantaged the guys who were on call and weren’t always here at night. This way it was down to skill and a little bit of luck. It was always fun to watch, anyway.

  Oz and Ri were up first.

  “Scissor, Paper, R-”

  “Hello, Arcadia.”

  We all whipped around to see Azriel standing by my front door.

  “I apologize for letting myself in.” His tone was completely unapologetic.

  Lux was up and between us in seconds, a knife appearing from somewhere on his body. Where had he been hiding that all this time?

  “What do you want, Azriel?” I asked, as the guys huddled around me protectively. It was probably pretty useless actually. He was the Angel of Death. He didn’t really
need to be anywhere near me to kill me, right?

  “It is an interesting solution that Acerezeal has concocted. I did not believe she had such selflessness left in her, since her fall to hell. I wonder what Lucifer Morningstar would say about it, hmm? I do not believe he would be quite so supportive of this newfound sacrificial side.”

  What do you want? You are not welcome here, Ace growled

  Azriel laughed. “I am an angel. I am welcome everywhere. I have come to offer Arcadia a choice once more. Despite your little solution, the cancer is eating its way through her body, and soon it might be too late for her to ever recover, irrespective of your salvation, or theirs.” He indicated the men standing in the room. My men.

  “The answer is still no. Ace stays and you go.”

  He was in front of me in a flash, disappearing and reappearing inches from my face.

  “Father has ordered me not to take Acerezeal from you by force, even though it would be a simple thing and it would cure you. But you will not talk to me with such disrespect. I am an angel. People beg me to save them every day, and I comply. What are you saving?”

  With that, he vanished completely from the room.

  Fucking uptight asshole. If I still had my body I would show him “respect” at the end of my sword.

  My knees buckled and Eli caught me, scooping me up and walking me out of Oz's apartment but he didn't hit my floor number in the lift, instead going down to Lux’s floor.

  “Why are we going to Lux's apartment?”

  “His has the most weapons, and he's the best equipped to protect you if Azriel comes back.”

  I looked over Eli’s shoulder and saw that Lux was there. He nodded once.

  “Lux can't stab an angel, Eli. I'm pretty sure they can't die, plus I'm trying to redeem him, remember? Getting stabby on an angel has the opposite effect.”

  “You're life is more important than my redemption,” Lux growled.