“Well, Thanatos. But that’s so clunky these days, you know.” He leant towards me. “Don’t want the hipsters thinking I’m one of them. Just easier to go by Thane.”
I nodded, still confused. “I think the robe and the hood might be a dead giveaway on that one.” Too late I realised my word choice.
Not that Thane seemed to mind. “Haha. Nice one.” He threw his hood back and he was smiling like he thought it was a great joke.
And Death did not look like I’d expected.
I’d grown up with the whole skeleton idea. Fearsome, the skeleton a constant reminder of our own mortality. The robe and the pallor of his features were about all that looked familiar.
Death flicked back his roguish black hair as he smiled. His eyes were almost normal, except his irises were black like it was one big pupil. Or maybe it was. He had a timeless quality to him. His eyes seemed to hold all the wear of a long lifetime, but his starkly chiselled, almost gaunt face was unlined. Had he been human, I wouldn’t have been able to guess his age. He wasn’t unattractive, but there was a wholly inhuman quality to him that made me a little bit wary around him.
All dread had left me, though. The sense of impending doom had lifted. I felt…as normal as ever.
“What are you guys up to now?” Thane asked, raking a hand through his hair.
Drake looked at me almost in question.
“I think a long, hot shower is in order,” I answered.
Thane frowned in confusion. “Shower’s aren’t necessa… Oh!” he chuckled, tapping the side of his nose. “Oh. I get you. Well, I won’t keep you. Souls to reap and all that.”
Drake put his arm around my shoulder. “See ya, Thane.”
“Reap you later, dude.” Thane flipped his hood back up and shook his hand out. A great big scythe appeared in his hand. “Lethal meeting you, Wren.” He tapped the scythe’s handle on the floor and then was gone in the blink of an eye.
I really shouldn’t have been as shocked by that encounter as I was. “That was Death. The Death. The guy responsible for collecting all the dead?”
Drake inclined his head as we continued – walking this time – back to our room. “Well… Soul collection is a tricky process. Thane’s job is to ensure all souls cross to the afterlife, making sure none get stuck in limbo – thank Dante for that one. There’s an angel of death…”
“I take it we don’t like him.” I could tell by the way Drake had said it.
Drake’s chuckle was humourless, but he smiled. “We don’t.”
“So, what does this guy we don’t like do?”
“Samael’s job is judgement. Basically, he’s got himself a whole system set up to judge people’s lives. You fail, you don’t get into Heaven. Not that it’s a competition. Hell wants souls. Heaven likes to think they’re an exclusive club that few are good enough to enter.”
“What does your grandfather do?”
“Grandad?” Drake scoffed. “Watch, mainly. He likes to let the angels do their thing. Samael puts on a good show, but a lot more souls get in than he’d like.”
“Because they deserve it?”
He nodded as he opened the door for me. “It doesn’t take much to get into Heaven, to be judged a decent human.”
“Can you choose to go to Hell?”
“Why?” he asked, suspicion written all over his face.
Certainly not because I’d been wondering about it. “No reason. But even if you were a decent human, can you choose to go to Hell?”
“I’m not sure why anyone would want to.”
“Would you choose to go to Heaven? If you could?”
He scoffed again. “With those pompous raging arseholes?” He looked at me and took a breath like he was steeling himself. “Heaven wants me dead. For real dead, not the kind where I wake up in an afterlife and dick about for eternity.” He lay a hand on my cheek. “It’s impossible for me to put aside a millennium of history between them and me to even begin to find you a real answer to that question.”
I put my hand over his. “That sounds like it sucks.”
He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”
I stepped away and started pulling my dress off. Drake’s eyes were pinned to mine, a red glow starting in those blue depths. I dropped the dress behind me as I started for the bathroom.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
I nodded, trailing my hand along the door frame. “I really feel like a shower…” I smirked at him before I slid out of view.
Drake was in the room with me before I’d taken another two steps. He wrapped his arms around my stomach and held me close.
“You know how to test a man’s limit, Serenity…” he whispered.
“And what about a Nephilim? Are his limits higher or lower?”
“There is nothing angelic about what I’m thinking right now.”
I turned in his arms and looked into bright red eyes. “How much of you is demonic?”
He stepped forward, forcing me to step back until my back hit the wall of the shower. “How much demon can you handle?”
I looked him over. “Oh. I’d say at least six feet.”
His eyebrow rose and his lips tipped into a cocky half-smile. “That’s a lot of demon.”
“You saying you’re not demon enough?”
“Baby, you bring out the demon in me.”
He picked me up and pressed me against the wall, nestling between my legs like he belonged there. He was still covered in blood and dirt, but it just added to his natural scent and made me heady with desire for him.
Suddenly, the water cascaded around us and Drake pulled back in surprise. I got my feet under me just in time to not fall on my face half-naked in the shower.
“Thought you could do with a hand, boss,” Ignacio grunted.
Drake shook his head, water still streaming down over him. He looked at the devilbum in a combination of gratitude and disbelief. He was breathing heavily, the water being blown by his every exhalation. I wasn’t sure if I was waiting for him to rip Ignacio a new one or thank him.
After what felt like an age, Drake shook himself out again and lifted his face to the water. Another couple of heartbeats passed and Drake looked at Ignacio again. He gave the devilbum a single nod. Ignacio nodded back and left, closing the door behind him.
“Do I want to know that was?” I asked.
“Ignacio had a feeling I need to…cool off.”
I ran my hand up his chest. He grabbed my hand and held it still.
“Serenity, you keep touching me and I might have to touch you back.”
I didn’t know if there was an unspoken agreement between us that we were both putting off consummating our marriage as long as possible, or if it was just something I’d made up in my head. But there were other ways to reach mutual relief without Biblical consummation. It was time I did a little tempting of my own.
“Then touch me,” I dared him.
“Wren…”
His eyes flashed. I could tell he was torn. I could only hope it was because he also didn’t want this to end soon. Everything else told me he wanted this as much as me, so that was the only conclusion I could come to.
I leant up to his ear. “There’s still a lot of things we can do…” I whispered, taking a chance and hoping it panned out.
He took a single heartbeat to react.
As he kissed me, he hooked his fingers in my undies and pulled me to him. My body crashed into his, but there was no bounce as he held me hard against him. My hand slid down and over his erection.
He paused, his lips not moving against mine. There was a slow rumbling growl in his chest I could feel more than hear. His whole body was tense as though he was trying to control himself.
Before I could say or do anything, he spun me around and pressed me into the tiled wall. It was the only cool thing I’d experienced in the last three weeks. His erection pressed into the base of my back,
hard but hot. As he kissed my neck, his hand slid between my legs and he rubbed me with just the right amount of pressure to tease but also send tiny, zinging shockwaves through my body.
I wanted to turn around, to wrap my arms around him, to kiss him, to take him inside me and finally ease the ache just the thought of him created. But it was like he knew my intentions. His body behind mine was immovable, comforting and dominating.
“Behave,” came the low growl in my ear.
“You afraid you’ll lose control?” I teased, slightly breathless from the sensation he was eliciting between my legs.
“I’m surprised I haven’t yet,” he said, his fingers dragging tantalisingly over my clit.
I sucked in a breath of pleasant surprise. He didn’t want me talking and his hand was ensuring I’d be too preoccupied to.
My hand slid into his hair as the other splayed strongly against the wall, barely taking the weight off my forehead as I almost lost the ability to keep myself standing. Drake’s free arm wound around my stomach and took the majority of my weight.
“Holy shit,” I breathed as he worked me expertly.
The coil deep in my stomach was tightening with a blossoming warmth and I knew I was close. My head rested back against him as he supported me and pleasured me like it was effortless.
As I felt the coil reach the end of its tension, my hand fisted in his hair and I bit my lip. His fingers slowed, only drawing out the feeling of pure ecstasy as it crashed over me. My whole body tensed in bliss until the initial force of it was over. I leant against him for a moment, then spun around in his arms.
I reached up and nipped his earlobe with my teeth as I ran my hand over the bulge in his pants. “Now it’s your turn to behave,” I told him.
He groaned and I slipped my hand into his pants and caressed him. His head tipped back and he closed his eyes. I smirked as I knelt down, hooking my fingers in his pants and drawing them down with me. He obediently stepped out of them and I threw them to the corner of the room.
I ran my hand up and down his shaft, slowly, gently, then leant forward and took him in my mouth. His indrawn breath was sharp and I felt his muscles contract. It didn’t take him long to relax and his hand gently alighted on the back on my head.
I sucked him, placing my hand at the base of his shaft I couldn’t take in – I’d also learnt it prevented surprising accidental deep-throat – as he groaned softly. His hips rocked to my rhythm and, when I felt him getting close, I slid him out of my mouth. Just in time. He came, my name on his lips, inadvertently all over my chest. I stroked him softly as he rode it out, smiling.
“Well, that’s fucking embarrassing,” he huffed, drawing me to standing.
“So that’s not a good example of your stamina,” I teased, thinking that seemed about on par with my previous experience.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “It’s been a while, okay?”
I laughed as he buried his face in my neck and kissed me.
Drake
I could totally do this. I could pull it off. It was actually starting to feel like I could be with Wren and not, you know, be with Wren. In the Biblical sense.
Not having sex wasn’t even that hard. There were plenty of ways to satisfy all urges without going that final step. All going to plan, I could see this thing out until the end days perfectly sated and keeping my wife happy.
We spent the next two weeks investigating everything but the homerun. I made sure I knew every inch of her. Intimately. Every curve. Every mountain. Every valley. I paid them all the utmost attention, nothing short of what they deserved. And she’d amazed me how well she’d repaid the favour. No one had known my body better. None had been able to elicit that sort of white-hot response in me. Not even the first succubus to walk creation had been able to please me so well. And she’d tried. Very hard.
When I wasn’t working, Wren and I were together. Her eyes lit with that mischievous desire as soon as she saw me. It was something I felt deep in my soul and my cock.
On the occasions we were stuck with my father, or the boys thought they had things to do in our room – I felt bad kicking Kyle out constantly – she showed me how to actually enjoy Samba Sunday. I began not hating Music Mondays. I fought harder in Tussle Tuesdays. I kept her in bed during Waterboarding Wednesdays. I let my father dress me up for Tiki Thursdays. I did my best to protect her from the worst of Dad’s Faustian Fridays. And I actually went to Shakespeare Saturdays to watch the devilbums acting their little hearts out, then getting annoyed with each other and just start fighting.
Even when there were witnesses, I found myself holding her hand, holding her close. We snuck kisses even when it was totally obvious. I’d thrown her against a wall a couple of times in the tunnels and almost forgotten I was in a room full of hellspawn watching my every move. I wasn’t a stranger to sexual exploits with viewers, but Wren was all mine and I wasn’t sharing any part of her.
When we were alone, we couldn’t get enough of each other. As the son of the Lord of Hell, my sexual appetite was known to be pretty rampant. I was the literal definition of insatiable. But Wren had no problem keeping up with me. Every time I thought I’d exhausted her interest in me, she went to extraordinary lengths to prove me wrong. And it was only polite to reciprocate. I’d actually never had sex that frequently before her, and we hadn’t even got that far.
My existence had never felt so right. Perfect wasn’t something I’d ever associated with my reality, but it was a word I was fucking close to using.
Until it all came crashing down around me.
I was doing my usual wander around Hell, torturing some souls, checking on the rest, when my route took me past Cerberus’ domain. It had been a while since I’d seen the dog who – let’s be honest – was the most responsible for me kissing Wren in the first place. It gave me a strange sense of sentimentality towards him. So, I thought I’d go and check on him.
I didn’t expect to find practically my whole family there.
Dad had his fiddle out, gallivanting around. Wren was dancing around Cerberus, holding Kyle’s hands while his hooves rested on her feet. They were both smiling and laughing while Larry and the quartet sang for them all. Truman was tapping his hoof over by the wall. Ignacio was jerking around in his version of dancing. Even Esther was there and watching everything carefully.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off Wren for long. She looked so carefree and relaxed. She looked like she belonged, and that she wanted to belong. It gave me this buoyant feeling in my chest I couldn’t remember feeling before.
That was when it happened.
I laughed.
It was like a split-second chuckle. If that.
But the whole of Hell stood still.
Every inhabitant of Hell looked at me.
Cerberus’ tail fell between his legs and all six ears dropped as he looked at me.
Larry fell out of the air into a crumpled heap on the cavern floor.
Kyle, Ignacio and even Truman cowered in a definitive ‘oh no’.
My father almost fell over in surprise. His fiddle dropped to the floor with a twang.
Wren paused and looked at me in curiosity.
There were no screams or shrieks of eternal torment in any zone throughout the whole of my father’s domain.
Hell was so silent you could have heard a cricket chirp on the surface.
All of that I might have been able to take.
But when I saw that Esther had cracked a knowing smile? That was when I knew shit had just got real.
Everything I’d told myself since I’d brought Wren to Hell was suddenly ash in my mouth. Every happy, light feeling I’d had crashed inside me. Every one of her smiles pierced through me like a thousand molten blades, searing flesh and muscle.
How had I let her become comfortable in Hell?
How had I let myself think it was all okay?
“Drake?” she asked, coming over to
me.
I couldn’t help it. I took her face in my hands and kissed her hard.
I felt her smile before she pulled away gently. It was there, in her eyes, as they searched mine. She could tell something was bothering me, but she didn’t know what it was.
I hadn’t known what it was.
I knew now.
I felt like a piece of me would cease to exist if I let her go home. But I was convinced I’d forfeit the right to see her smile, to touch her, if I let her stay. Maybe it was just going to be better to give in, to sleep with her, and let her go home. Never seeing her again would be far easier to endure than seeing her stuck in Hell for eternity and watching it eventually eat away at her.
“What’s up?” she asked.
I heard Dad clear his throat unnecessarily loudly, then the music started up again as though he was giving us some privacy.
Grandad save this inability to lie. “Very little.”
Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” There wasn’t. My mind was made up. Even if it wasn’t, I wasn’t having a conversation about it with her.
She took my hand. “Do you want to dance with me? Or do you want some actual privacy and we can talk?”
I pressed my lips together. “I’ve still got a few more tortures to do.”
She swung my hand coaxingly. “Hell won’t stop because you take some time off. There are surely enough demons here to make sure everyone’s properly tortured for the day.”
She wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t want to talk. If we talked, I might say too much. If I said too much, one of two things happened; she reciprocated my sentiments, both good or bad, which meant she either wanted to go home or she didn’t. Neither of which would give me any comfort. My feelings were hard enough without adding hers to the mix.
She leant up to my ear. “We don’t have to talk…”
That I could do. That I wanted to do.
I suddenly felt like there was a looming deadline. I was running out of time with her and I had to spend as much time with her as possible.
Portent.
The tell-tale foreboding settled in me. The heartbeat that was threatening to quicken. The breath that didn’t quite feel full. The anxious nervousness. The pricking at the back of my neck, begging me to turn around. The restlessness in my whole body.
Damned if I do (the Damned Trilogy Book 1) Page 11