Dirty Deeds: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (Bonds of Blood Book 3)

by Cate Corvin

  There was perfect trust in them, absolute conviction that I would yank them all through the skin of the world alongside me and let them come to no harm. I just needed to live up to that.

  No pressure.

  Time and space warped around us, ripping our cells through reality piece by piece-

  And we lurched into the pure darkness of the Path, the depths of a demon’s bowels. Tori had gone white-faced, and Will swallowed hard. Only Càel and I were unaffected by the transition. He was too old and strong to be harmed by it, and I was coming home, in a manner of speaking.

  “Here we are.” I said it cheerfully, even though every nerve was on high alert. Bathin’s Path was easier for a demon to walk, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous for everyone else. “Start scattering cow confetti. It’ll be more interesting to Bathin’s offspring than us for now.”

  Tori plunged her hand into the cow and came away with a fistful of guts. She tossed them down the corridor with a wet splat and shuddered. “This is really gross, and I drink blood for every meal now, so that’s saying something.”

  Will sliced of a chunk of the animal and threw it. “Come on. We can’t linger here. Sura?”

  I let my senses unwind. Here in Hell, things seemed so much clearer. They might’ve been lost in the darkness forever, but I felt the portals along the walls, each tinged with a different taste that told me where they led.

  “This way.” I did my part in strewing around bits of cow, smearing blood on the walls as we went. Bathin’s offspring were nearby, pale figures creeping up the tunnel behind us and sniffing at the pieces we left.

  The others either hadn’t or couldn’t see them, to my relief. It’d make this all so much easier if everyone had no idea how close they were brushing to eternal torment.

  We walked for what felt like hours, but in human time, only seconds had passed. Càel finally had one full leg slung over his shoulder, leaving drops of blood behind him along the ridged floor.

  I held back a sigh of relief when I felt the tug of a familiar place: it felt like Will. A home with his essence written all over it, the coolness of marble nestled in pine. “Here. Godalming Manor is behind this one.”

  The portal looked like a black, empty void in the wall of the intestine, but it’d spit us out right on Will’s home turf. Càel easily threw the cow leg back down the tunnel, his sharp eyes focusing on something that crawled on six legs. He cocked his head to the side and held out his arm for Tori, who stepped into his grasp as easily as breathing. “Interesting, that they prefer dead meat to fresh,” he said, as dispassionate as a scientist observing his subject. “I would always take fresh.”

  “They’re bottom-feeders.” I stepped closer to the portal, beckoning them over. “It would’ve been even better if the cow was rotting, but they’ll take fresh meat if that’s all they can get.”

  “Gross, Suraziel,” Tori whispered, but her eyes were focused on the portal. Girl had grit, that was for sure. She clearly hated this place, but she hadn’t voiced a word of complaint about what we had to do.

  I held out my hands, and they created the link again. The tunnel rumbled under our feet, a vibration that started in our soles and moved upwards before the walls started to collapse around us.

  I yanked them through with me, knowing they were feeling the sickening squeeze, but it was a far better feeling than Bathin’s ever-shifting guts crushing us.

  We hit a lawn of manicured grass. Tori wiped her bloody hands in it, leaving red streaks across the perfectly trimmed three-inch-tall blades. “What the hell was that?” she demanded in a hissed whisper, getting to her feet.

  “His children must’ve been irritating him.” I followed suit. The blood was already starting to flake and dry on my hands, and Will and I were the ones who needed to look clean and normal. “The tunnels aren’t always stable.”

  Will shook his head, hurriedly wiping his hands and smoothing his clothes. I double-checked my glamour: Suraziel was buried under a perfect imitation of Sura Enver, not a hair out of place. “Ready?”

  “Ready.” Will’s mouth was set in a straight line. “Tori, Càel, you two wait here. Stay out of sight.” He glanced at the vampire knight, pale green gaze as cold as ice. “If the worst happens, get her as far from here as possible.”

  Càel nodded, but Tori looked furious. “That wasn’t what we agreed on, Will!”

  My best friend hesitated only a brief second, then strode across the few feet between them and kissed her, his hands rising to cup her face.

  Tori went stiff, like she’d been electrocuted where she stood, but her hands betrayed her. They rose to curl over Will’s shoulders, holding him close.

  I felt the desire curling between them, Tori’s sudden fear, Will’s desperation to make his feelings clear. Their emotions cut at me like a thousand tiny blades.

  I wanted to kiss Tori before I walked into this confrontation, but the last thing we needed was to have her incapacitated by my saliva. I was hamstrung by my very nature.

  It was bitter knowledge I’d just have to live with.

  Will finally broke away from Tori. Her amber eyes glittered as she looked up at him, lips swollen from his kiss. “Why does this feel like a goodbye, Will?” she asked, voice sharp, but he set his jaw and released her.

  “Let’s go, Sura.”

  I shoved my regret down in a little hole inside myself, where I wouldn’t have to look at it until later. A hand on my arm stopped me.

  I looked down at Tori, who was looking increasingly angry under the psychic fear she was giving off. “You better come back out of there in one piece,” she growled, and a bubble of hope rose in me. That fear was for both of us, not just Will.

  “You know it, babe,” I said, putting every ounce of effort into hiding my desperate desire to kiss her senseless myself.

  I left her under Càel’s protection, hoping she’d stay away, and knowing it was a futile hope. Tori just wasn’t made that way. I gave it five minutes before she came storming in after us.

  I matched Will’s long strides across the lawn. Godalming Manor was a cold-looking place, the shade of flawless snow without any imperfections.

  “She’s going to come after us,” I said.

  Will’s shoulders were tight, but his determination filled me. “I know. If we grab Connie fast, maybe we can prevent that. Tori’s the one he wants, Sura. She’s the one he’s been drooling over. Connie’s his back-up plan.”

  “No matter what happens, we need to get Connie out alive.” I glanced at him sidelong as we stepped onto a winding stone path. “Let me take the heat if you must. Tori would be devastated if we lost her.”

  Will shook his head. The doors loomed over us, and he pushed one open confidently, betraying none of his nervousness. “She’d lose her shit if she lost you, too. Let’s not pretend you don’t mean anything to her.”

  We walked into the dead-silent foyer of Godalming Manor. My senses immediately began prickling, my entire body humming. The rush of joy Will’s words gave me dimmed for a moment. “There’s one of my kind here.”

  He didn’t move to arm himself, but his eyes flicked over the open, empty hall. No wonder Will had such a depressing home life; I’d go nuts if I had to live in such a bland, austere place, too. “Greater or lesser?”

  My stomach lurched as I moved further into the manor after him. There was no mistaking that infernal call; hell, I’d been born from it. “Greater. My father.”

  Will’s eyes flashed green fire. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “No joke. I’d know Sitri anywhere.”

  Well, shitting fuck. If I’d known Will’s father had taken up with my dear ol’ dad, I would’ve suggested an entirely different plan of action. One that preferably kept Tori a thousand miles away.

  Worst of all, the moment I’d felt my father’s presence here, a lot of loose pieces had clicked into place. This wasn’t just random chance.

  My own trepidation mounted as Will spoke, echoing my exact
thoughts. “If Sitri’s here now, he’s performing another ritual.”

  Without speaking aloud, we abandoned the plan to look casual. I followed Will, practically on his heels as I trailed him through several twisting hallways to a massive library. He burst in, took in the total absence of any other living beings, and checked a side room that was packed with demonology books.

  “Where the fuck is everyone?” he snarled, then stopped dead. “The church. He brought her to the church. The brand is gone.”

  “It’s getting stronger.” My mouth was suddenly full of saliva that I swallowed back. The Cords of Fate vibrated between us like strings pulled taut, keeping me tied to Will even as my baser nature tried to rise to the surface.

  My mind was suddenly full of images of Tori, how easy it would be to just ditch the plan and go back to her, strip her naked right there in the forest and fuck her for days without stopping.

  In the presence of my unholy Father, every step of progress I’d made seemed to unspool and fade away into nothing.

  “Will,” I gritted out. “I’m unreliable.”

  He took me in, the strain in my face as I struggled to hold onto everything that made me the Sura they knew. It wasn’t easy, not when the Prince of Lust’s call rattled in my bones.

  “Fucking Christ, what’d he petition Sitri for?” Will muttered, taking a dagger from his belt. I didn’t care much, because I’d taken several steps backwards, Tori still filling my mind.

  They weren’t my kind. What did I owe them? I existed for one thing, and that thing was out there waiting for me to snatch her from Càel’s arms-

  Fuck. This wasn’t me, this wasn’t what I wanted, and this wasn’t the fucking time.

  I stopped in my tracks, but it was more than my own resolve that had halted me.

  The coppery scent of blood filled the air. I whirled around and found that Will had pulled up his sleeve and was carving into his own flesh. Crimson droplets welled and spilled over, splattering on the floor as he cut.

  He was carving my sigil, the same spiky Solomonic circle from Tori’s medallion, into himself. “Stay right there, Sura.” With a flourish of the knife, he chiseled the final cut into himself, then slashed my hand with the knife before I could move and smeared his open wounds over my hand, mixing the blood. “Clear your head and stay with me.”

  I took a deep breath and released it. Every sexual thought I had of Tori faded to the background this time when I pushed them away, leaving me focused again. “Satan, Will, do you realize what you’ve done?” I felt almost sick at the thought of it, but it wasn’t the time to dwell on this. If we made it out with Connie, I’d impress on Will exactly what the hell he’d just done.

  “I did what needed to be done,” he said smoothly, wiping the knife clean on his pants. “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s get to the church. If we’re too late, it’s all over.”

  We burst through the manor, finding a back door of plated glass that hung wide open, letting icy air spill through into the dining room.

  Will was faster than I was, but not by much. We sprinted through the gardens and forest, following a white gravel trail as an unwelcome smell grew stronger, hanging over the night like a veil.

  Burnt sugar, incense, fire… blood.

  The little church was lit up from within, glowing like a beckoning flame on a cold night, but it wasn’t from candles. Percival would’ve built a ritual bonfire inside. The resin scent of the incense hovered over it in a cloud.

  I didn’t need to look inside to know my Father was in there. I felt his presence ineffectually beating against the binding that tied me to Will.

  The last thing I wanted was to come face to face with him, but Connie needed us.

  And then I saw something even worse.

  The church doors were flung wide open. The bonfire inside roared away, spewing black smoke that seeped through the eaves, and several figures were illuminated in front of that fire.

  A gray-haired man holding a diminutive blonde woman by her hair. The massive form of my sire, so tall his horns would be brushing the rafters.

  Càel stood before them all. How the fuck had they gotten here before us? Unless Tori had smelled the blood first and taken off. I hardly noticed that I was walking up the church steps, because Tori had pushed past him, her back to us, fists clenched at her sides, screaming as Percival forced Connie to her knees and put a knife to her throat.

  Eight

  Tori

  Càel couldn’t hold me back after the others went into the manor.

  Not when I’d smelled my mother’s blood wafting from the church, mixed with the scent of ritual incense, nor when my cruel stepfather kneed her in the thigh and sent her to the ground. We hadn’t anticipated a Prince’s presence tonight; who would’ve?

  Pain twisted Mom’s face into an unrecognizable rictus. He held her fine hair in a white-knuckled grip. “Stop where you are, my girl.”

  I obeyed, only because the point of his knife was dimpling the thin skin over her jugular artery, and I didn’t believe for a second that Percival would hold back now.

  Not when his patron demon, Suraziel’s father, watched us all with an amused little grin on his perfect lips.

  Not now that I, the other of his two potential sacrifices, stood in front of him.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing out of school, dear heart?” Percival’s amiable tone was completely at odds against the dagger he held to my mother’s throat.

  “No.” He had to realize what I was. His icy eyes, the freezing antithesis to Will’s, ran over me from head to toe, lingering on my face. “You need to release her right now.”

  Instinct had taken over my body and I bared my teeth, exposing my needle-sharp incisors. Percival’s gaze lingered on my mouth, consternation twisting his face. I couldn’t even bring myself to care in that moment that Mom saw me, too, an unidentifiable emotion breaking through her pain.

  “Such a shame they got to you first,” he said, genuine regret in his voice.

  Disbelief flash beneath the cold rage infusing me. “Why’s that? Is my mom not good enough for your precious patron?”

  I knew that insulting a Prince of Hell, while he was standing right there, no less, wasn’t my brightest move. But Sitri didn’t seem to care at all. He just stood there with his arms crossed over his naked chest. Sigils ran over his body, flaring and dying before appearing somewhere else.

  Why the hell had Percival chosen Sitri, of all demons, to petition for eternal life and youth? Sitri’s wheelhouse was lust, not longevity.

  Something didn’t add up here.

  “Oh, I think Connie will do just fine-” Percival began, but Sitri raised one enormous hand.

  The demon’s voice rattled through my bones, infusing me with the dizzying sensation that I was listening to a storm rather than a voice. “No.”

  My stepfather stopped dead, his face freezing in place. “No?”

  Sitri shook his head, metallic blonde hair swaying behind him. “I propose an amendment to our bargain, petitioner.” He smiled at me, and lust washed through every cell in my body. I almost went to my knees. Being a vampire mitigated some of the Prince’s effect on me, but not all of it.

  Helpless. This is what is was like to feel helpless.

  I saw Percival’s throat work as he swallowed and looked up, and up, and up at his patron. Sitri’s head was near the ceiling. “And what might that be, my Prince?”

  Càel’s arm brushed mine. I turned my head just enough to see him from my peripheral vision and hissed a nearly-silent order. “Take her first. I can handle myself.”

  A tremor went through him. It would go against every shred of his nature to let me fend for myself, but Lilith wouldn’t have gifted me to him if I needed saving every time we went toe to toe with a couple of dickheads.

  And She wouldn’t have gifted him to me if I couldn’t rely on him to save one of my loved ones.

  I felt his imperceptible agreement and some of my fear faded
. If nothing else, Càel would get Mom to safety as soon as he had his chance.

  At this moment, though, Percival’s dagger was still at her throat. Luckily, Sitri was of the same mind as me.

  “This slayer is past her, shall we say, expiration.” The demon gazed at Mom, dropping his look of perpetual amusement. When his face relaxed, it drove home just how alien he was. There was no real emotion there, nothing in his eyes but a flat, cold expanse. This human face was just a mask over his true self. “I want something… fresher.”

  Percival’s mouth hung open as he stared up at Sitri. “Fresher,” he repeated.

  “I believe I just said that,” Sitri said irritably. “Does it amuse you to repeat my every word, Percival Wulfric Godalming?”

  In any other circumstances I would’ve been overjoyed at Percival’s embarrassment. His face went a splotchy red as Sitri glared down at him. “You want Victoria,” my stepfather said. “But… she’s a vampire. A Shadowed Worlder.”

  The way he said it, I couldn’t tell if it was a bad thing or not. Percival was notorious for killing vampires. And yet, he sounded hesitant about handing me over to Sitri.

  Come on, motherfucker, make this easy.

  Sitri resumed his mockery of a human face, rolling his eyes. It was a relief after that glimpse of his alien coldness. “A vampire born a slayer. She’ll do.”

  Wow, Sitri, thanks for the high commendation. But Percival grimaced. “I chose her specifically. This wasn’t in our bargain.”

  “Plans change,” Sitri said, a smooth shrug rippling his shoulders. “You’ll have your youth, Godalming, in exchange for the vampire. Did you not marry this woman? Perhaps you should feel overjoyed that you’ll be permitted to keep her.”

  My mom hadn’t said a word since the moment I’d stepped into the church, but her blue eyes were fixed on me, taking in my sharp fangs, the inhuman stillness of my limbs.

  At Sitri’s words, she flinched. The dagger slipped into her flesh and a bead of blood rolled down the blade.