Of Humans and Monsters
Page 21
He looked shocked, and I said, “I learned all I could about him.”
“Of course you did,” he said with a sigh as he rolled to his back and looked up at me.
“That's why you were interested in me?”
“It’s what brought you to my attention, but not what caught my interest.”
Asking him what had caught his interest might take the conversation places I didn’t want to go, so I said, “Osiris, Freyr, and Adonis are often shown with boars. You don’t look like any of them though. Adonis is always so young he looks illegal.”
“Few of the stories about me are accurate, though all have pieces of the truth. Lie back down and let me help you sleep.”
“Why did you come to me as Adonis and not one of your other… aliases? What’s your real name?”
“I’ll tell you a truth and then you’ll go to sleep.”
I nodded, and he said, “Adonis is known for his beauty but not his strength. Freyr is one of the most powerful of his pantheon. I’d rather people not know my power.”
“I’m usually happier when people don’t know what I can do, so I get that.” I stretched back out on the bed on my stomach, and let him rub my back until sleep took me.
It wasn’t until the next day that I realized he’d told me his other names, which meant he wanted me to know of his power. Was this so I’d know more about him because he wanted to be my friend? Could a human be friends with a god?
Chapter 19
I know when I’m dreaming, and I can fiddle with location, landscapes, and even what other people and animals are doing if I choose. It’s my dream, brought into reality by my brain, so if I find myself in one I don’t like, I change it.
However, something was off with this dream. I was back in Hell, but I wasn’t hot. It looked right and smelled as horrible as I remembered, but it didn’t feel right.
“You’re in quite a pickle, aren’t you Chère?”
I jumped and turned, and my pulse sped at the sight of Xaephan sitting on a boulder surrounded by flames. I’m certain my racing heart was due to the danger he represented, and not his shiny, glistening, perfect body.
But, this was happening in the dream that didn’t feel right, so I took a few moments to feel him out.
“It’s really you, isn’t it? I’m not making you up?”
I wasn’t sure how to interpret his sexy half-smile as he said, “I have a proposition for you — a way for you to erase one of my marks.”
I tried to make one of the small fires turn purple, but it stayed red and yellow with hints of blue. This confirmed my suspicion — the dream didn’t feel right because I hadn’t created it. Whether he’d manifested this place in my mind and somehow invaded it to talk to me, or perhaps pulled my dream-self into Hell, I wasn’t sure.
I crossed my arms and waited to hear what the Demon Lord wanted.
“The human you know as Ryan. We want to hire him to perform a task and need a way to contact him to make the offer. I want you to call me into a room when you’re with him, so I can explain the job and we can come to an agreement on price.”
“No. You’ll want him to kill someone. I won’t be responsible for anyone’s death.”
“An agent of the Celrau broke a deal with us in such a way that we can’t drag him to Hell to pay for his deceit. Ryan has the skills and access to do what we need. If you won’t facilitate a conversation, we’ll find another way and it will almost certainly involve possessing a human. We’ll still make our offer to the human you know as Ryan, while another possibly innocent human will suffer.”
He’d said an agent of the Celrau — so not technically our enemy, but someone working for them — which still made them our enemy. If I had to face off with this person, I’d likely kill them in the heat of battle. I realized I was negotiating with myself, but it was enough for me to substantiate bargaining with Xaephan.
“If I agree to do this, you won’t be able to leave the room, you won’t be able to harm Ryan — or anyone else — in any way, or touch him in any way unless he agrees to it. Also, I’d need your word that just being in a room with you won’t harm him.”
“I agree to all of those stipulations.”
“Is he going to be pissed at me?”
“We intend to offer him a great deal of money to do a job he’s uniquely suited for and will have no moral qualms about accepting.”
Which meant he’d likely be pissed but would get over it.
“Are you going to hire him to hurt me or anyone I care for?”
“No. The job we need him to do has nothing to do with you personally, though in the long run it could possibly make you safer in a round-about way. We’re coming to you because you have access to the human you know as Ryan, and because you owe me a favor. No other reason.”
“Two marks. I’ll do it for you removing two of my marks.”
“No deal.”
“Then you’ll remove one mark and move the other two somewhere less noticeable, and make them both a teeny tiny little circle, something that looks like a freckle or a mole in a place most often covered by clothes. And no tricks — I’ll be satisfied with our deal when it’s over.”
He shook his head, and I was pulling myself out of the dream when the flames went higher and he said, “Wait. Okay. I can move the other two marks, but I need something else from you. Time alone with you in your realm.”
“No.”
“If I’m doing two things for you, you have to do two things for me.” He sounded bored, as if I should have known this, and it set me on alert.
“Is that your rule, or some universal rule?”
“Does it matter?”
I needed to get rid of these marks in the worst sort of way. I also needed to try to help Nathan get rid of his. It probably didn’t matter.
“If I do this, I’ll need Nathan’s help. What can you offer him for helping me?”
“Tell the kitty cat that if he helps you, he’ll be given his first option to get rid of a mark in the coming weeks.”
“Something reasonable by his terms. Not just a crazy offer so you kept your word.”
At Xaephan’s nod, I continued. “If I agree to it, you’ll be obligated to treat me as you did while we were in Hell. You’ll have my best interests at heart and will be bound from tricking me into anything.”
“Two hours in bed with you, Chère. Pick a place I can spank you and make you scream without us being overheard. Also, so you don’t accuse me of tricking you — moving the marks will hurt nearly as bad as receiving them in the first place.”
“You didn’t agree to it.”
He smirked. “Right you are. Okay, it will be as you said. No tricks, just the two of us in bed, on the floor, against the wall, and bent over furniture for two hours before I return to Hell.” He leaned back so his rippled abs glistened in the flickering light. “Oh, one more thing. You can’t talk to anyone — not even my brother — about our deal.”
He mentioned his brother, so the odds were this was happening in my head and he hadn’t dragged my psyche to Hell. I pulled my thoughts back to the conversation and told him, “I need to be able to tell Nathan and Aaron.”
“The lion may know since you’ll need his help, but not the dragon.”
“Sorry. Aaron keeps me safe. He helps me negotiate all the crazy politics in the supernatural world. I have to be able to tell him.”
“One moment.”
He disappeared, and I turned in a circle to observe my surroundings again. We were in a cavern with no entrances or exits. The words closed system came to me, and I filed it away to consider later.
He reappeared ten feet from me but still surrounded by flames. “My associates give the okay for the lion and dragon to know.”
I went through the facts of the deal as I understood them, and then said them all aloud once again, and made him agree to it again. I’m not qualified to be making deals with demons on my own, but if I wanted to get rid of the marks I didn’t have much choice.
Nathan and I came up with an on-the-fly plan, and he verified the instructions Xaephan had given me about calling the demon into a room. It was still night, and I knew I needed to do this while it was only the four of us.
Calling a demon you already know is surprisingly easy — you just invite him to you with intention. However, the tricky part is keeping him confined. Even trickier? Making sure he doesn’t bring anyone or anything else with him.
When I was certain I knew what to do, I went to the bathroom and took my time getting it right. I followed directions, held my intentions strong and knew he was coming, but my heart still stopped beating when Xaephan appeared in the downstairs bathroom with me.
“Chère. It’s good to see you again in the flesh.”
His sexy voice woke my libido and restarted my heart, but I put my finger to my lips. Nathan would go out and offer to relieve Ryan, and we hoped he’d come in here first thing. If not, Nathan would have to bring him, and that might get ugly.
The last thing we needed was for Adonis to awaken. Xaephan said he’d sleep a few hours, but I worried.
Thankfully, Ryan came straight to the bathroom, and as soon as the door closed behind him I was talking as I stepped out of the shower. “I’ve been guaranteed your safety. He just wants to talk to you. Offer you a job.”
I’d thought Ryan’s eyes were scary before, but I’d been wrong. They’d been ice cold, uncaring, unfeeling. Now? They were plotting the best way to disable me — or worse.
I turned sideways so I could see both men. Xaephan had been in jeans and shirtless, with normal eyes and no horns when he’d appeared to me a few minutes before, but now he was dressed in a suit and wasn’t sporting his horns, but his eyes glowed as if a fire was in his head.
“I have a simple job for you,” said the Demon Lord to the monster-assassin.
And that’s all I heard. Xaephan stepped around me and closer to Ryan, and I didn’t hear anything else. Xaephan’s back was to me and he blocked my view of Ryan, so I couldn’t even try to read lips. What’s more, I was frozen. I couldn’t move a single muscle, couldn’t step out of reality, couldn’t contact anyone in my head. Xaephan might want me to think he’s a nice guy, but I needed to remember how fucking powerful he is. The demon is Mordecai’s brother, near the top of the hierarchy in Hell — and to use the terminology I’d recently learned from Adonis — a firstborn. He’d disabled Adonis, what made me think I was immune to him?
While they were talking, one tattoo slowly disappeared from my wrist — the red heart. No pain this time: it felt as if a cool breeze swept through the cells, gently sweeping away the evil dye. It felt as if my soul were lighter, too.
Or, perhaps I was being overly dramatic.
I looked up in shock when I heard them again, and took the opportunity to flex my fingers and toes, roll my shoulders, swallow, and blink my eyes.
“When the job’s complete we’ll transfer twenty-four grand into this Cayman Islands bank account.” Xaephan handed Ryan a sticky note as he continued. “Leave at least five hundred dollars, so the account remains active. Should you change your mind about the other thing, transfer enough in so the balance is six thousand six hundred sixty dollars and no cents.”
He turned towards me, took two long strides, and cradled my cheek in his palm. Warmth suffused my body, and his fingers curled around the back of my head and his mouth crashed onto mine. I’d like to say I pushed him away, but the truth is I let him kiss me senseless, and when he finished I found my arms around him and my entire body flushed with need.
“Monday afternoon, Chère. I’ve missed you.” He took a step back and admonished, “Don’t forget to close everything when I’m gone.”
I nodded, and he disappeared. I took a few seconds to put my intention towards closing all gateways between this reality to all others, and met Ryan’s gaze.
“I should kill you where you stand.” His expression was closed off again, cold and heartless, but there was no doubt he meant every word.
I didn’t want him to know how much he scared me, so I shrugged as I pointed out, “You accepted the job, so don’t start with me. I made sure you’d be safe while he proposed whatever the hell he wanted to hire you for.”
“You’re friends with demons! You kissed the bastard! And you have a fucking date with him!”
I shook my head. “Friends is pushing it. The Celrau took me to Hell when they kidnapped me, and someone made a deal with Xaephan to rescue me. I’d rescued myself before he arrived, but I’d been force-fed Celrau blood and I had to get rid of it before I could return to Earth.” I shrugged. “It turns out, lots of athletic sex with oodles of orgasms is one of the ways to clear it out of your system faster.”
“That doesn’t explain your date.” He bit the last word out, as if he’d just as soon strike me as speak to me.
“I need something from him, and his price is two hours in a room with me. He won’t be able to leave the room, and I’ll be able to leave if I want. Sex with him isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s a price I don’t mind.”
“You aren’t afraid he’ll trick you into something once he has you in bed?”
“I specified that no deals can be made between us in those two hours.”
A double knock on the door, and then Nathan’s voice. “You should probably come out and speak with Adonis sooner rather than later.”
I opened the door, stepped out, and met Adonis’s angry gaze. “I won’t apologize. I did what I had to.”
“You make it impossible for me to protect you when you lock me from the room.”
Xaephan had explained how to keep anyone from another realm from rending reality and entering. It only worked while I held it in my intentions, but Adonis hadn’t been able to enter the bathroom through any means. Was he only pissed about my blocking him from the room? Did he not realize Xaephan had put him to sleep?
I decided to follow the conversation and see where it went. “I did what I had to do, and I made sure Ryan and I were safe.”
Adonis looked past me to Ryan. “What did you agree to do?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Do you know?” Adonis asked me.
“I’m also not at liberty to say.”
“Suddenly, the idea of taking a belt to your ass seems tempting.”
Nathan suppressed a chuckle as he put his arm around my shoulders. “New rule — when I eat, you eat. We need to make sure you keep all your hungers in check, and the demon just lit one you aren’t likely to find release for this morning. Let’s work on breakfast.”
“And why was that funny?”
Nathan walked us to the kitchen as he said, “I’ve been tempted to take a belt to your ass since about five minutes after I first met you.”
My already active libido perked up at the idea of Nathan using a belt on me, and I quickly set my mind to multiplication tables to try to keep the amount of pheromones I released to a minimum.
I had no idea what to do with Nathan. I’d been attracted to him even when we disliked each other, and now that we were friends — the rumors of his being a skilled Dom made it nearly impossible not to lust after him. However, since he could smell my emotions and physical reactions, I didn’t have the luxury of imagining what he’d be like over me, ordering me to come as he pounded me with his cock after whipping and paddling and belting me to tears. Nathan needed me to be a friend, so that’s what I’d be.
Ryan patrolled outside the house and declined breakfast. I was surprised when he left moments after Mordecai arrived, but I saw them speaking in the yard before Ryan left, and Mordecai seemed okay with it.
“What do we do about getting me and my family home?” I asked Mordecai as he strode throug
h the front door.
He wrapped his fingers around my arm, the room faded, and we were in the nothingness. They could call it the primordial void all they wanted, but it would always be a place of staticky nothing to me.
“You called my brother here?”
“He came to me in a dream. I didn’t know he could do that?”
“It would’ve cost him.” He reached for my arm and turned it over so he could see my marks. “His meeting with Ryan cost him as well. At least you didn’t do it for free.”
I told him of our deal to move my tattoos, and he looked grim. “You need to keep at least one of the tattoos. There’s a real danger of you being taken to Faerie or Mount Olympus. With my brother’s marks, it makes it harder for them to claim total ownership should they prove it by heredity.”
You know your life’s really fucked when a demon mark keeps you protected. I sighed as I said, “Okay, but I’ll be happy to have the marks where I don’t have to worry about keeping them hidden.”
“When you leave work this afternoon, we’ll take you to Drake Security. Adonis and I will train you, we’ll all eat, and then I believe you’ll sleep on the sofa in Nathan’s office while he sleeps at the door in lion form. I put some things in motion last night, and if everything works as I hope, you and your family should be home before the weekend.”
“You’re leaving something out.”
“It could backfire, which would mean a possible fight with Striker. We’ll focus on battle plans when we train you this evening.”
Chapter 20
Wednesday evening, Nathan entered the training gym at Drake Security with my phone.
“You might want to answer this. It’s an invitation.”
I took my phone from him and saw a text from Dawg.
We’re having an impromptu mid-week party tonight. Would love to party with you if you can get away. I can come get you if you want to drink, otherwise I’ll send the address.
I looked at Nathan and he said, “The RTMC compound is one of the safest places in town. If you want to go, I’ll arrange with Duke for you to spend the night in a guest area.”