by A. K. Koonce
That violence made me stronger.
And I’m awful for craving that strength.
I lift my hips up and slam back down his shaft. His chest arches up into me, dropping his head back to the ground, and I know I’ve won this battle.
It takes everything I have within me to push the tears and the fears away again. I focus on Syko, on the thick length of his cock throbbing inside me and I move with unforgiving force against him. My every movement is hard, desperate in ways I can’t explain. He moves with me, and my hands slide up his skin to his throat, to the place where I ended his life.
I drop against him, chest pressing against chest, and kiss softly at the spot where imaginary blood had poured out before.
He’s alive. He’s safe.
It was an illusion. Just an illusion.
I don’t know if I speak these words aloud or say them in my head. All I know is the sensation building up to my core, tightening at my gut. The slamming feel of his length pressing up into me is all I can focus on.
Until cool palms settle right above Syko’s, and I know Saint has come to join this desperate need for release.
Tears sting my eyes as his gentle fingers slide down my spine, down the curves of my ass to my wetness below. He takes his time sliding against my sex and Syko’s cock.
The pleasure of that simple gesture spirals through my entire body. I arch against Syko, moving faster just as Saint aligns his lithe body behind me, enveloping me in his strength. I feel the thick head of his cock against my skin. The shifting of my hips slow as he takes control from behind me. His smooth length slides along my sex and Syko’s shaft.
He slowly eases himself into me and I gasp against Syko’s throat, struggling to take in deep breaths as Saint moves, thrusting in side by side with Syko. I try to grind against both of them somehow, but my limbs have become lost in the haze of this heady sensation.
Syko lifts and grips my wrists to push them behind me until my palms meet Saint’s taut abs. He guides our pace. He fucks us. And I let him. I’m hopeless against the onslaught of their hips slamming into me, and I love every single bit of it.
Sharp teeth graze my neck but the vampire never bites. He doesn’t need to. I’m lost in the lust of our bodies.
You’re real. It was an illusion. You’re real.
You’re real.
The words spiral through my mind with every hard thrust of them meeting together in the most intimate part of my body. It’s a punishing force that soars up and through me, bringing me to that delicious edge…
I shatter, screaming. My head throws back against the crook where Saint’s neck meets his shoulder. His hand snakes around to grasp at my arched neck as he pumps faster into me, matching Syko’s own desperate pace, grinding along one another until they come inside me.
Only when Saint slips out do I fall against Syko’s chest and dissolve into sobs all over again. I cling to him, afraid that this is also an illusion despite telling myself that him and Saint are both real.
Syko’s fingers push into the roots of my hair, and I feel enveloped by warmth at all sides.
“This is real.” Syko’s rumbling voice echoes in my ears. Have I said that out loud? “Izara… what’s wrong?”
From across the fire, Malek is sitting up. He nudges Phoenix, and the demon blinks away his sleep the moment he sees me trembling with tears in my eyes. Their bodies are strung tight with quiet rage.
I don’t want to tell them. I’m too ashamed. But the words come tumbling out of my lips anyway. “The sixth circle,” I explain between sobbing gasps. “Osmodeus was the ruler. He gave me visions. He…” I choke, not sure I can get past the emotions to say the words. But I do. “He made me kill you. All of you. In different ways, no matter how many times I tried to stop it, my Prod, I, ripped all of you apart.”
I can feel the four of them share a glance, though I don’t see it. I don’t even know if I want to.
“It was an illusion, baby.” Phoenix’s strides toward me and his hands slide down my spine. Saint watches us in silence and there's guilt in his features like we shouldn’t have done what the three of us just did.
Not now.
Even if it was a moment of blissful distraction.
I wrench away from Syko. “You don’t understand,” I rasp, shame heating my cheeks. “My Prod enjoyed the kill. She relished in it. Even when I tried to stop her, I couldn’t, and I was forced to watch you die.” My voice breaks on that last word, and Phoenix makes a growling sound and pulls me off of Syko and into his arms.
Malek gets up, coming closer to us, his hand pushing firmly in my hair and both Phoenix and the wolf hold me gently. “That wasn’t you. It wasn’t real. You would never do that.”
A choked laugh escapes me. “Wouldn’t I, though? I killed Adam for grabbing my arm. For grabbing my fucking arm. What does that make me?” My nails curl into Phoenix’s chest but he doesn’t flinch at all. He merely pulls me closer.
“I’ll go into hell,” Phoenix threatens, his voice dark with the promise of vengeance and death. “I’ll find Osmodeus and I’ll fucking kill him.”
Red emerging from depthless pits flash in my memories. “Too late,” I whisper against his skin. “I killed him first.” The silence that follows prompts me to add, “My powers are different in hell. They’re… stronger…”
Tell them, my mind screams. Tell them all of it. Everything. Right now.
But I can’t. I won’t.
I don’t.
Because I’m still a coward. And because I don’t know if they’ll understand why, despite the trauma, I have this burning need inside me to go back to my place of torment.
They won’t get it.
Only Professor Shade will.
He might be the only one to understand this new broken soul I carry within myself. Power… I know it’s not everything, but it had certainly been seductive enough for me to want another taste, another glimpse of what I was, of what I can become. For a girl who’s had nothing her entire life, the prospect of it nearly blinds me with obsession.
While I was there, I wanted nothing more than my men. Now, I want to feel that control again. The power. Because if I can’t have it, I’m afraid my Prod will come out to kill.
And I won’t be able to control her at all.
Twenty-Two
Izara
Early that morning, before the sun even kisses the skies, I sneak away from camp before anyone wakes to find Professor Shade deep in the woods of the Academy. He leans against the rough bark of a dead, black tree, arms crossed against his chest and one ankle thrown over the other. His graying, inky hair is slicked back and he has an air about him that screams businessman.
Even while he’s wearing a sweatpants outfit in a very unoriginal gym teacher type of way. He should look corny, but he only looks handsome and a bit dangerous.
He appears perfectly put together while my thighs and body ache from everything I did last night with my men. Not to mention how puffy and swollen my eyes still feel from the endless tears.
When I approach, twigs snapping beneath my tennis shoes, he pushes himself off the tree and meets me halfway in confident strides.
The smile he gives me is a slow curl of his lips. It’s a powerful promise that pulses between us. Between the spaces of our bodies, he holds out one hand, palm facing up. “Ready?” he asks.
There’s trust between us, a bond of some sort. Brought on from two broken people; a father without a child, and a child without a blood father. Maybe the thought is a betrayal to my adoptive dad. He’s given me everything. But only Shade can give me this.
I place my hand in his.
“Ready.”
A moment later we are whisked away.
We land standing. His magic is an effortless thing, and it burns with the stench of both sulfur and cinnamon in a way that reminds me of Azazel and brings surprising warmth to my chest.
I never knew just how powerful Shade was. But he must be pretty powerful if he can transport u
s directly to the center ring, the seventh circle of hell with a mere thought. I’ve never really given a thought to his powers, or what he is, but I know now he’s a demon and something else, though I can’t be sure what.
My eyes search his face, as if I can somehow find the answer of his heritage on the sharp angles of his beautiful features. He must read all the questions in my features, because his lips twist up into a smile.
“I’m a demon communicator,” he explains softly. “It’s how I could speak to your Prod and help coax out your wings. I can speak to all things demonic and I…” He trails off and looks around at the dusty horizon. “I have a special connection to hell.” His black eye seems to pulse while the golden one… that one shines like sparks of magic, like the flickering embers of a golden fire as they take in the scene before him.
I turn as well and suck in a breath. This isn’t the hell I remember. Not exactly. It’s different in the sense that it’s more beautiful. There’s still something desolate about it, but instead of looking like a barren, ashy wasteland, it looks like I’ve stepped into an oasis. A hellish sort of paradise.
My eyes glue to the sand before me, as red as blood and wine, incredibly vast across miles and miles of empty land. But in the center of it all, there are cliffs of red and black rock, dark trees of black bark and leaves shading against the glare of the bleeding sun. Pools of white water spit from above the rocks and land in a little lake below.
I didn’t think hell could look beautiful, didn’t think it’d be anything but ash and dark, dead skies. This thrums with life. A broken life, a strange life, but life just the same.
Below I see the flickering movement of shadows and silhouettes of creatures stumbling through the sand to the cool lake of water that glitters like starlight from the cleft we stand on.
“What is this place?” My voice holds the tinge of awe.
“It’s hell. The center ring, the seventh circle.”
“But... but…” It can’t be. The seventh circle is bone buried beneath sand. It’s dark skies and destruction, a burning palace that emanates torturous screams. Not this.
Shade bends in the sand; using his finger, he draws a small circle in it, then another around that, and another, and another until I’m staring at the image of seven circles, drawn within the other, each smaller than the last. Like a dart board hanging in a bar.
He presses his finger into the center circle, the first one he drew. “This is the center ring. The seventh circle. This is how maps are always drawn of hell and it’s seven dimensions. Each dimension is connected by doors.” He draws a single cutting line down the map. “One doorway for each circle, doorways that often change places and locations.” He pulls his fingers from the sand and dusts them off. “If there’s one solid rule here, it’s that you cannot open all doorways of hell at once. You can open them one at a time. While one is opened, another can not be, I’m sure you understand.”
I nod, my hair falling against my cheeks with the gesture. “I do.” What I don’t understand is why he’s telling me this.
“Hell, like all places, is vast. Every circle has many cities and territories with one king or queen to rule over it.”
My body fights back a shiver as I think of my father, of the other kings and queens I killed to escape this place. And now I’m right back where I started.
“My point is, you can’t think that whatever you witnessed was the limit of hell, can you?” His eyes twinkle with amusement that makes my face flame. “Hell has nice places just as it has darker places.”
That makes sense. I nod. “And the doorways?” I still don’t understand the point of that.
“They exist so demons cannot battle through each circle to get out. There’s containment magic here, placed on hell by the angels of heaven, to keep demons from invading earth in large numbers.” He stands up and I follow, my wings flaring against my back.
Already I can feel the invigorating change through my body, feel the soft purring of my Prod within me as if she’s woken up from a long nap.
“Occasionally, demons find a rip in the fabric of dimensions, or travel through the circles in an attempt to get out. Some succeed. That’s why so many half-demon Prods lurk at the Academy.” The hot wind ruffles his jacket, his hair, making him look ruggedly handsome in an old guy sort of way. “The doorways are controlled by the kings and queens, who are bound by their own containment magic to not open and close the doors at their leisure, so they scatter their locations about. Do you understand what I’m saying, Miss Castillo?”
“Not really.”
He’s being purposefully vague, I think.
“We cannot stay here long because of the containment in this place. We could find ourselves trapped in hell forever.”
A sliver of fear races down my spine. “I got out,” I remind him firmly.
“By pure luck, and because the kings and queens of the circles were lenient with you. They allowed you to trail a straight line from the center circle of hell all the way out and back to our dimension. They might not be so lenient a second time.”
“Then I’ll create a portal back to our dimension.” I did it once, I can do it again.
Pride and cool amusement flicker across his mouth. It’s a gesture a parent makes at their child, and for an instant, I feel deeply connected with him. “The problem with that is that you must be vigilant. You can disturb the fabric that separates dimensions. That magic creates a pull on the fabric and could tear it right down the middle. Anything could get through into our world.” He says that last part with the smallest of smiles and turns to me. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
Probably not.
“Come, Miss Castillo.” He holds his palm out and I take it without hesitation. “Let me show you the finer parts of hell.”
The sand is soft and feels literally like clouds as I run my fingers through it. I know we can’t stay here long, but this place is amazing and sitting by the edge of the little lake next to Shade makes me feel like I belong in ways the Academy never really made me feel.
I feel like a traitor for even thinking it.
Silence presses between us, but it’s comfortable, even while my mind races of all the things I want to say to him, everything I want to tell him. I haven’t told anyone what happened to me when I was here except in broken bits and pieces.
But I want to tell him.
“I came into my full powers,” I admit tentatively, waiting a little nervously for his reaction.
A smile beams against his mouth. “That’s fantastic, Izara. I’m proud of you.”
A tightening feeling clenches at my throat. “But it only happened here in hell. When I went back, it’s like my Prod hid from me again, back into that destructive shell I thought I’d broken her out of.” Broken myself out of.
Shade leans back against the sand, his palms digging into it. “It’s because the powers of hell inside you thrive in this dimension, from the power that’s here. Ours nullifies your Prod.”
“It’s because hell is so destructive that my Prod likes it here, right?”
Shade snickers and turns. Beside us are creatures as big as pigs, with reptilian features drinking from the lake. He holds out his hand and whispers a few slithering words that have the creatures instantly bounding over to him, rubbing their scaled heads against his palm.
“Hell isn’t just about destroying, it isn’t just about sinners. It’s about joy and power, about letting go of control and giving in to your wilder side.” He croons to the creature, and it breaks away from him and waddles over towards me. I try not to flinch as it bumps its head against my shoulder, but I give in and stroke a hand across its hide. Its dry skin is covered in ridges that scrape my palms, but that doesn’t take away from its cuteness.
“It was pretty bad when I was here,” I confess on a quiet whisper. “I met my father…”
His eyebrows raise. “Oh?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and push on. “The Messenger of Chaos took
me to his palace and tried to force me on his throne. He wants me to stay here, rule at his side.” Saying it aloud still feels wrong and vile, like something that’s not meant to be and the wrongness of it curls deeply and tightly in my gut until it’s painful.
“But you won’t,” Shade concludes.
“I won’t.” The creature makes a whining noise and lays its head on my lap as if it means to comfort me. A smile pulls at my lips at the gesture.
“But you still feel hell’s pull because you are part demon, and that part of you thrives here. The power... it’s amazing.” He speaks like he’s wrenching the feelings, the words, straight out of my soul. Because he knows and feels the same. “Once you come here and feel the brute force of the power, it’s hard to go back.”
“Will my powers ever be as strong there as they are here?” My wings twitch, and I’m almost scared to hear the answer to that question. A part of me, a giant part of me, wants that power so badly. Because I don’t know what will happen to me, to my men, if my Prod hides again. If she only explodes in violent bursts to kill everyone around me like my visions all but promised would happen.
Yes, a part of me did come here for selfish reasons, but a bigger part of me came here to find a way to protect them.
I won’t have them end up like Adam.
I fucking won’t.
“No.”
The softly spoken word makes the hope I held in my heart chip away painfully. Right. Of course not.
“But…” he continues, stroking his chin in thought. “There is one way. It’s forbidden, though.”
“What is it?” The eager way I reach for him should be embarrassing, but I’m desperate despite the word ‘forbidden’ echoing in my mind. I shove it away and focus only on one thing. That it’s possible for me to get full control of my Prod.
“Do you know why and who magically contained hell so the demons cannot escape?”