by Avery Rae
"Amberlynn's talking about me." Gael strode past me, walked around the table, and took a seat, then motioned with a flick of his eyes for me to do the same. I exhaled sharply through my nose. Where did he get off bossing me around?
"Sure am talking about you," Amberlynn continued as I made my way around the table. "'Cause you start breathing fire if anyone touches your shit. Hoarding it all in your room and whatever. Momma didn't raise you right, if you ask me."
"You know better than to talk about my mother, Amberlynn," Gael said, warning laced throughout his words.
"But poking at you is so much fun."
The hulking man at the table looked up as I sat down beside Gael. "Don't mind Amberlynn. She's antagonistic."
Amberlynn snorted. "You can just call me a bitch. It's a lot less syllables."
"Is self-control so far beyond you?" the thinner man asked her, a hint of disgust in his voice.
Amberlynn slammed her knife against the table and leaned forward to hiss from between clenched teeth, "Edwin, you snobby prick, I wouldn't be here if I had self-control, would I? Stop acting like you didn't end up in the same place as me, pretty boy."
"I'm beautiful, I'll give you that." Edwin leaned back with a scowl. "But not all of us are as screwed up as you."
"Sorry that Mommy and Daddy thought heroin was more important than their little girl. I've got issues, man. Have some damn sympathy."
"We all have issues. Wouldn't be here if we didn't." The bulky man extended a hand across the table. "Sorry for not introducing myself properly. I'm Lucas. You are?"
"Priscilla." I took his hand and shook it.
"Priscilla," Amberlynn repeated in a poor imitation of a British accent. "Sounds like you were born with a tennis skirt and a country club membership."
"If only. That would've made my life a whole lot easier."
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Gael looking at me in what I could almost have sworn was surprise. What was so shocking about that? He was the one who seemed to think he had me figured out, so he should know. I fought tooth and nail for every single thing I had gotten in my life. There was a metaphorical body count to show for it. I ruthlessly cut out anyone who got in my way. Honestly, as much as it pissed me off that Gael sank me into depths of Hell, it wasn't like I had much more going on up above.
"You'll fit in well here," Lucas said. "We've all got enough baggage to fill a warehouse, as you've probably already noticed."
"I don't doubt I've got the baggage, but I still have to pass the test." A knot formed in my stomach, but I forced myself to smile. "Otherwise I'll be roasting for eternity. Some people seem to think that's not a big deal, though. Definitely not worth apologizing for, right?"
Edwin let out a low whistle. "Already in the doghouse. That's gotta be a record."
Amberlynn clicked her tongue. "It's not like an apology will suck the demon blood out, though, eh?"
"No," I replied, "it wouldn't."
"Exactly," she agreed like it was really that simple. "Besides, the Brotherhood is the best gig you can get down here, if you ask me. Most people would say it's Lilith's faction, because they don't do shit. But that's the problem with them in my opinion—they don't do shit."
I nodded, not sure if I really agreed. "Gael told me that you guys hunt escaped souls?"
"We keep Hell from leaking out onto the Earth," Edwin replied. "For the most part."
"Hell's finest dogcatchers right here," Amberlynn said with a roll of her eyes. "It's been a little quiet lately, but we're usually running to Earth every day."
I eyed Amberlynn curiously for a moment before asking a question that had been lurking at the back of my mind. "Have there always been women in the Brotherhood? I mean, it's a relief not being the only woman. I just thought that with it being called a Brotherhood and whatever . . ."
"There's never a shortage of women being sent down here. Let's just say Heaven is a little tougher on the ladies for no good reason." Amberlynn let out a dismissive snort. "Brotherhood just means family. A terrible, dysfunctional one, but we've got each other's backs."
"And you better watch yours," Zachariah said from his spot near the fireplace. "Amberlynn killed upwards of forty men in the seventies—execution style."
She turned in her chair to face Zachariah. "Key word there is men, and it was just the bad ones. Besides, at least I own up to my sins. Nearly forty years with your miserable ass and you still play coy like you ain't done nothing wrong."
"I don't revel in my past, unlike some people."
I frowned as I thought back to our earlier conversation. The one where he seemed wistful about causing trouble. "But you said . . ."
Zachariah held a finger to his lips. "Don't give her ammo, buttercup."
"I'll try to be more thoughtful, pumpkin," I replied with a roll of my eyes.
"Pumpkin." Amberlynn chuckled and pointed her knife at me. "Good one. Much better than my response when he tried to call me pet."
"Oh? What did you say?"
"I tried to castrate him."
I looked at Zachariah in surprise.
"She did," he replied. "So much for a family, right?"
"Family doesn't give you a free pass to be an asswipe. Besides, he's still got his Kibbles 'n Bits. Any killing or serious maiming of a fellow hunter means you get shunted to the burn pits. Turns out when you throw a bunch of violent people together and give them superhuman strength, they'll use it to beat each other into submission." She gave me a wide grin. "Just for fun."
"Yeah," I said slowly. I'd never hit someone in my life. I preferred verbal punches. "Sure sounds like fun."
Lucas leaned back in his chair, questioning eyes on me. "What were you in your former life, Priscilla? You seem too nice for this place."
"I could say the same about you."
"You'd be wrong."
"According to Gael, you're wrong about me too."
Lucas switched his focus to Gael. "Fascinating."
"Anyway," Gael interrupted with an edge to his voice, "I brought her here because the Tribunal is only giving her a week before her trial."
"Well, that's some bull if I ever heard it," Amberlynn scoffed. "What's that about?"
"I broke the rules by siring a demon. It's a punishment, I guess." Gael sighed. "Either way, I'm going to need some help from all of you. I figure Zach and I can get her through the first trial, then we'll need you two for the final two."
"I assume you'll want my help for the second?" Lucas asked. Gael nodded. If I remembered correctly, that meant he would be helping me tame my familiar or whatever.
"Sweet deal." Amberlynn tossed her knife in the air and cracked a smile. "The rest of us will help you when the time to hunt comes. Don't worry about that one. We only fuck things up for the people we hate."
I nodded slowly, hoping I wasn't in that category. I was almost starting to believe I had a chance. Although, I still doubted the odds were in my favor. I glared at Gael out of the corner of my eye. When he caught me looking, a slow smile spread across his lips, drawing my focus. I quickly darted my eyes away. Not being able to figure him out was driving me insane. The fact that his kiss was still lurking in the back of my mind didn't help much either.
7
Gael
The weight on my shoulders was lighter when we were finished with the Brotherhood. I had a feeling I could count on them, but now that I was certain, I knew where I could put my focus. Luckily—and unluckily—for Priscilla, my specialty was fighting, so I would be able to get her into pretty good shape for her first trial. She wasn't going to like it, but I definitely would.
She had taken to walking ahead of me, despite the fact that she had no idea where she was going. As she walked past the door to the training room, I took hold of her wrist. Mostly because I knew it would piss her off. She jerked her hand and looked over her shoulder with a scowl. I fought the urge to smile.
"What?" she snapped.
"We're going to start training for the combat tria
l."
"Now? I thought you said we were starting tomorrow."
"You have seven days. You got something better to do?" I had meant to let her rest more, but I was itching to fight, and I wanted to see what she could do.
"Well, what sort of training are we going to do then? Do I get a sword or . . .?"
"You get your hands."
"Seriously?" Her mouth opened, then shut. She lifted a finger, then dropped it as she made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. "You just told me I'm going to be fighting some super warrior demon and you're going to teach me—what? Karate?"
"Do you want to burn for all eternity?" I walked inside the room and, without looking back at her, said, "In or out, Priscilla. It's your choice."
I left her out there and stood in the middle of the training room as the door shut behind me. I was trying my damnedest not to smile as I waited. I had been looking forward to this moment far more than I should have been. I wanted to show her what it took for people like me to survive. Give her a taste of what it was like. But hey, I didn't end up in Hell because I was a good person, now did I?
I didn't have to wait for long.
She thudded into the room, slammed the door shut, then stood behind me. "So, how do I avoid becoming extra crispy, my sage karate master?"
I turned around and walked around Priscilla in a slow circle, looking her up and down. I enjoyed screwing with her more than I could even admit to myself. The way she tensed and flicked her eyes back and forth, trying her damnedest not to look too hard. I could tell she wanted to. She wanted to do more than just look and she hated herself for it. Because I was her own personal devil. The reason why everything had gone wrong for her. I had a feeling she was more right about that than she thought.
"You ever fought before?" I asked, despite knowing she had never thrown a real punch before. I just wanted to hear her admit it.
She clenched her jaw. "No, but I didn't plan on ever having to fight for—"
"Anything? Ever?"
"I fought for everything in my life," she said from between her teeth, the anger in her tone giving me pause. "I just never had to punch anyone to get what I wanted. You ever thought about trying that?"
"Don't talk about me like you know me."
"The same goes for you. You might've taken my life, but that doesn't mean you know shit about it."
"I'm sure you were doing such great things with it."
She pulled her top lip back. "Yeah, I'll bet the reason you ended up down here was because you did great things with yours too."
I moved in close, head bent at an angle to hold her eyes with mine. "Maybe that should encourage you to be a little more cautious with the way you talk to me."
"You don't scare me."
No, I didn't scare her. Very little did. I had seen her stare down men with enough money to destroy her and she didn't even blink funny. Even then, if she had seen me walking down the street back when I was still alive, I could have banked on her crossing to the other side. I wasn't the sort of company people like her kept unless their noses were dirty. Even then, I was treated like scum—scum that was necessary to certain people, but still scum.
It had been better than watching my mother struggle to get by, so it was worth it. Until it got me killed. But I figured I was better off down here than up there. I could at least pretend that I was trying to be someone better. That was all Samael wanted, and I tried to give it to him.
But right now? I didn't have to pretend.
"Attack me," I said plainly.
I expected a question or even a hint of confusion, but that was a mistake. She came at me so fast I barely caught her by the arms. I looked down at her hands to see them clenched into fists.
"Your form isn't that bad."
"I took a kickboxing class," she replied with a glint in her eyes—I realized what that meant a second too late as a leg connected with my side. Air forced its way out of my lungs, but I didn't buckle. She might do better at this than I thought. But if that cocky smile on her face told me anything, it was that she was about to find out real fast that a couple cheap shots weren't going to take her far.
8
Priscilla
Hell had a new name—it was Gael. I let out a grunt as I crashed to the stone floor, my awesome demonic strength doing absolutely nothing to break my fall. I figured that since my world was completely sideways, Gael might go easy on me, but no. Easy was not a word that could be used. He wasn't even being moderate. He went straight to knocking me into oblivion. I wasn't sure what I had done to him, but there was definitely something fueling those punches. Good for him, getting it all out. But I didn't know how much more of this I could take.
Each time I hit the ground reminded me of the night I died. The sudden darkness as the wind was knocked out of me. The loud crack of my skull. One of my cheeks burning as my face slid along the rough asphalt, stripping away my skin like sandpaper. I saw flashes of someone, just a blurry shape. I couldn't make out a single detail. The memories didn't frighten me. They infuriated me. I wished I could go back in time with these new powers and inflict the same fate upon whoever did this to me. For now, all I could do was show Gael just how happy he was making me.
On the ground again, I tensed and listened to his movements. I could feel him above me. Hear each rasp of breath. The way he pivoted on the ball of his foot, fist cocked and ready to slam me back down. Although still clumsy with my new abilities, I managed to swing my legs around, flipping and landing hard on my back. Using the momentum, I swept my legs into his shins. He lost his footing and stumbled backwards, landing with a satisfying smack.
Before he could get back up, I jumped on top of him, his wide chest straining my thighs. I ignored the growing burn as I pinned his shoulders down and knocked his head against the ground. I bared my teeth in a snarl. "How do you like it?"
I could barely hide my shock as I caught the hint of a smile curving the corners of his lips. It was so faint that I hardly believed it was there. His eyes were burning brighter than ever before. In a roughened voice, he said, "You really want to know?"
His hands gripped my waist and shoved me lower. It took me less than a second to realize what the hard ridge pressed between my thighs meant. It took me a whole lot longer to figure out why I wasn't punching him. What the hell are you doing, Prissy?
As if I'd been burned, I leapt up and away from him, landing a short distance away. I tried to tell myself I was breathing a little faster because of the jump, but I knew otherwise.
Gael stayed on the floor, arms spread wide and fingers splayed out. "You asked."
Where did he get the nerve? This guy wanted to act like he had saved my life when all he did was condemn me to Hell. No matter if I passed or failed the worst test of my existence—and man, old Prissy loved a good test—I was stuck here. It was just a matter of how bad things would be from here on out. Bad, or significantly worse.
I could never be with my friends or family again. Not when my eyes looked like a damn campfire. Truth be told, I had blown up a lot of bridges before I died, so I wasn't really sure I had much to go back to, but Gael had stripped me of that decision. And now he thought it was okay to mash crotches with me.
"Get up," I bit out.
He got to his feet, his expression as infuriatingly unreadable as it had been since I woke up in this godforsaken place—literally forsaken, I realized with a humorless snort.
"You want to get all that anger out? Let's do this." He tore his shirt over his head and cast it aside, revealing his muscled chest and arms and the tattoos that wrapped around them.
"What's wrong with you?" I squinted at him, my fury waning in the face of his machismo and, honestly, because the guy was a piece. I couldn't help but ogle, despite my best interests. It didn't mean anything. He was still the guy who sent me to Hell.
I decided to take him up on his offer. Teeth bared, I barreled forward with a strangled battle-cry. He didn't even try to stop me as I landed a powerful punch
in the center of his chest. He didn't even make a noise. I punched again, and again, and again—until I realized I was screaming and he was still just staring down at me.
I stepped back in defeat, wiping the sweat from my brow and balling up a fist to clear the tears from my eyes. The look he gave me almost had emotion in it for a moment. A flicker of sorrow, maybe? Did he feel bad about what he had done to me? I hoped so.
"Do you even feel anything anymore?" I asked, digging in deeper for no reason other than because I was feeling petty and cruel. "Or does immortality strip you of that?"
"You don't know the first thing about me."
"I know enough to judge, don't I? For example, I know you ended up here. Something tells me that doesn't happen to good people."
He closed the distance between us in an instant. He pulled my body flush against his with one hand and used the other to grip my chin and force my eyes to his. "What does that say about you then?"
"Me being here says more about you than me." I clenched my teeth together. "Why didn't you just let me die?"
He leaned in closer, lowering his lips to my ear. His breath was rough and warm against my neck as he spoke in a low voice. "How are you so sure you wouldn't have ended up here anyway?"
I jerked my head away from him, ignoring the faint shiver working its way down my back. "I was a good person. You might not know what that's like."
"I already told you. You don't know the first thing about me."
"How about you tell me why I'm so wrong about you then?" I lifted my hands into the air with a laugh. "Wouldn't that be radical? You answering my questions about yourself? Your motivations? Why I'm even here?"
"I did what I had to do to get by in life. What made you so good?" He jerked my face closer, teeth clenched. He was still ignoring the questions I needed answered. "Tell me, Prissy, you think you were a good person because you didn't kill anyone? Because you didn't have to steal or sell drugs to survive?"