***
She’d gotten more than one dragon to play with. Cael had entered the room after ten minutes of sparring with Kur and asked, “A new type of foreplay?”
Madison had tossed him a droll glare. “You couldn’t handle foreplay with me, scaly boy.”
The golden dragon had laughed and stripped his shirt off. His chest was as honey-colored as the rest of him. A golden Adonis. What the hell had she unleashed upon unsuspecting humanity?
An hour later, sweat trickled between her breasts. She panted and eyed the dragons. Neither breathed heavily, but they both wore an array of cuts and nicks. At one point, Cael had made the mistake of popping his wings out and she’d stabbed through one.
Too tired to make it to a chair, Madison sank to the floor.
“Just where I like my women, kneeling at my feet.” Even Cael’s voice sounded like honey.
Instinct overriding her humanity, Madison shot a smidge of power and tripped the dragon. Cael hit the floor. She winked at him when he turned a stunned expression on her.
Cael’s chuckle was deep and resonated throughout the room. “Anyone who underestimates you is a fool.” He rubbed a nasty wound on his chest. “Did you have to give her your sharpest blade, Kur?”
“Sorry about that.” Madison grimaced. She was used to a no-holds-barred type of sparring with Zen. The immortal instantly healed if she managed to cut him. “Amos can heal you.”
Nix can too, her succubus reminded her. She’d spent the last hour forgetting her little problem with Nix and Micah. She held no desire to revisit them.
“He’ll be fine, all healed soon.” Kur offered her his hand. Madison took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “Yes, I had to give her my sharpest weapon. Micah instructed me to keep her safe.”
Madison sighed. Discovering Kur had been in cahoots with her husband still rankled. But she couldn’t worry over that now.
The door clicked shut with a soft snick. Hands behind his back, Elias approached slowly. “Care to give a demon King a try?”
Kur stepped in front of her. She wondered what had transpired between them to make the dragon hate the King so much. “She declines your offer.”
Couldn’t she get away from overbearing men? All of them thought they knew what was best for her. Every single one of them was wrong. She jabbed Kur in the kidneys—if he had any. “I can speak for myself.” On her tiptoes she peeked over the dragon’s shoulder. “Exhausted, Elias, how about later.”
Wearing a mocking grin, her brother-in-law shrugged. “If I hunted her, dragon, I’d acquire her despite your feeble defense.”
“Can’t be too safe where Madison is concerned.” Cael pulled his shirt on over his head.
“She’s Hell’s Queen. Of course we cannot be too safe.” Her brother-in-law withdrew his arms from behind his back and lifted his hand. He blew into his cupped palm. A carrot-colored dust drenched the room like a dense fog.
Madison coughed as the powdery substance entered her lungs. Then she stumbled. An arm went around her neck, supporting her wooziness, and the cool words whispered against her ear chilled her straight to the bone. “I’ve got you, princess.”
Innocent words, laced with subterfuge. Elias had obviously portaled to her.
The dragons roared loud enough it shook the house. The demon King used a portal to lengthen her distance from her would-be protectors. Not that they could see much through the dust.
“Kur, tell Micah I have Madison.” Going anywhere alone with him prickled her skin in a panic. Blackness edged her vision, and she attempted to siphon his seraph. Her Lynx was silent. “Nice try, princess, but no cookie.” The words whispered against her ear were so chilling she feared her lobe would be freeze-dried before he finished speaking. “When you breathed in my angel dust, you became my bitch.”
Elias’s bitch? Terrible predicament.
Zen! Need help! Madison sent the telepathy.
Rainbow orbs arrived as Eliel taunted the dragons with, “Micah can thank me later.”
This is not going to end well for me.
He slammed his hand over her mouth, choking her with a wad of angel dust. As they went through a portal, Madison blacked out.
***
Head pounding, Madison tried to touch her head, but discovered her arms were bound. Legs, too. Eyelids whipped open. All confusion evaporated before the first blink.
Hell.
The walls swished in grisly, mortal scenes. The skin-stitched floor moaned as Elias approached in angel form…a darker shade of blue than Micah’s ice-blue flesh tone, but marbleized with skeins of terracotta. Straight, fiber-optic ginger-colored wings dripped with yellow highlights. His eyes remained the same dark brown, but his irises were golden, his pupils hellfire and brimstone—like hers.
Navy blue talons, veined in yellow, gripped her chin. “Persuade me to temper your torture.”
“You’ll do what you want regardless what I say.” This demon had had it in for her since the day they met.
“Not true.” He released her and tapped a rusty, spiraling gadget. Great to prod under your fingernails, Madison grimaced. “Become our Queen and it ends now.”
“I already claimed it.”
Those eerie claws fiddled with her hair and she recoiled. And discovered the invisible bonds held like determined shrink-wrap.
“You uttered powerless words. As a King, I’d feel the impact of new royalty.”
“Maybe you’re weaker than you realized.”
“You’d love that.” Via her hair, he hauled her head closer to his.
“You’d be able to stop me if you were royalty.”
“Micah will kill you.” My avenging angel will be livid. Nix would be beside himself with worry. She couldn’t think about how Amos would feel.
He laughed, a dark gloating sound that hinted of psychotic tendencies. “At first, he’ll think I claimed you to protect you. After, he’ll either mourn your death or thank me for turning you.”
Using his claws, he cut her shirt off and tore her bra away. Talons brushed her breasts. Madison squirmed, but remained bound in whatever invisible magic restrained her.
A gleam of enjoyment hit his eyes as his nail scraped down her belly and shredded her pants. Her panties followed.
“I understand Beliel’s fascination to fuck you. You’re beautiful.” He tapped a nail on her hip.
“You will not rape me.” She couldn’t bear that particular humiliation. “Micah would never forgive that.”
“I wouldn’t put my dick in you if you were the last woman in the universe.” He shuddered. “I fear your pussy would have me thinking pure thoughts. It tainted my brother.” After a moment, he lifted a worm-looking creature. It squirmed and squealed. It was no worm she’d ever seen. “Last chance before I set the Brood on you.”
The Brood made her nervous. Not knowing what to expect made it worse. “Fuck you.”
“I hoped you’d say that.” Using her hair as an anchor, her brother-in-law held her head motionless as he placed the demonic creature against a nostril. The slimy fucker slithered up her canal. Eyes watering, pain burned between her eyes, and she could feel the thing wiggling deeper into her skull.
I will not fall. I will not fall. I will not— She screamed just before going into a grand-mal-type seizure. Teeth clenched, her body cramped and jerked as Eliel fondled her with too-familiar hands and cooed into her ear, “You said you’d rather be one of the tortured than Hell’s Queen. Here’s your chance to prove it, bitch.”
***
“He subdued her with angel dust?” Micah couldn’t wrap his brain around the recounting of Elias snatching Madison.
Phoenix shot him an anxious glance. “If he harms her—”
“He will harm her.” Zennyo Ryuo stood in Beliel’s personal space, wearing more emotion than customary.
“Eliel is on my side. He’s protecting her.” No other plausible explanation. Although it was a tad odd his brother hadn’t come to him first. Unless he’d dis
covered an immediate threat on her life, which meant her safety was priority.
“No need to choke her on it if he’s protecting her, Beliel?” The immortal’s haughtiness almost had him reacting with his fist in Zennyo Ryuo’s teeth.
“He’s protecting her.” He reiterated through clenched molars. It didn’t matter that he’d just been thinking almost the same thing as the immortal. “Probably got wind of some nefarious plot, so he wanted to get her to safety. He knew she wouldn’t go with him without talking to me first.”
“Bullshit!” He would forgive Phoenix his emotional outburst. Madison was gone. They were all a bit on edge. “That motherfucker never tried to hide his hate of her.”
“He said I could thank him later. Does that sound like he intended to harm her?”
“The only time I’ve ever seen that look in his eyes, Beliel, he anticipated torturing an Atlantian for your father.”
Micah got in Zennyo Ryuo’s face. “Not another derogatory word about my twin. He supported me when others wouldn’t. A King of Hell would never betray another King.” Their loyalty went deeper. Being twins, they were closer than all the other Kings.
“Deluding yourself will harm Madison worse.” The immortal crossed his arms over his chest, unbending in his opinion. “If he puts a single scratch on her, I will kill him.”
If Elias harmed his woman, Zennyo Ryuo wouldn’t get the chance to kill him. Micah would—he wouldn’t think like this! His brother hadn’t deceived him. The idea was impossible.
Petra and Amos portaled into the room. Tears bathed his son’s face. Sobs racked his shoulders.
Ice frosted Micah’s veins. No need for his child to speak. The boy’s anguish told him all he needed to know. His twin had betrayed him.
He touched Amos’s temple. “Jqaam.” Sleep. He caught the boy and shifted him to a comfortable position in his arms. He faced Phoenix. “Elias is the best among us at torture. She won’t last long. Protect my son while I rescue our woman.”
“I’m going with you.” Of course, being a proactive man, Phoenix would want to attend. A man born to the hero life, doing nothing went against his personality.
“Without the covenant, you cannot enter Hell. I’ll take the dragons. Protect Amos.”
Phoenix refused to accept the child. “Make me a new covenant, Beliel.”
A formal request using his angelic name. Micah sailed a glance in Zennyo Ryuo’s direction. The immortal shrugged, lending no support to deny or accept Phoenix’s request. No time to argue, he glared at the Ark of Heaven. “Fine. I want your mortality.”
“Deal.” The quick agreement surprised him. “But on one condition. You cannot put me in my grave until after she’s saved.”
The King of Hell chuckled. “You misunderstand, Phoenix. I’m offering you immortality for your help. For your sacrifice, you receive my protection in Hell.”
Phoenix bristled. “No.”
“You would die for her, but not live for her?” Micah deposited Amos in Zennyo Ryuo’s arms. “You don’t deserve Madison.”
The Ark of Heaven gaped.
He had a woman to save, not a man to convince. “Petra, you’ll help me?”
“Of course.”
He looked at the dragons, before he could speak, Kur said, “Don’t even ask. Tell us what you want.”
“Imal.” Open.
As the portal to Hell opened, Phoenix said, “Your deal is accepted.”
Micah grinned. Maybe the Ark of Heaven deserved Madison’s love after all.
Chapter Forty-One
The forever-seizure finally abated. Every muscle twitched an excruciating tap-dance beneath her skin. With each spasm, a moan was wrenched from her.
“Round one is complete.” Elias ran a fingertip along her cheek. His light touch felt like razors slicing through her flesh. She jerked away and suffered agony from the sudden movement.
God help me if round two gets worse.
He released Madison from the invisible bondage. Incapable of holding up her weight, she crumpled to the skin-stitched floor. Motionless, she breathed through the pain like she had when she’d been in labor. This was worse than any labor pain. The shallowest inhale incited a circuit of agony throughout her body.
Souls screamed and the floor writhed beneath her, the movement like ants against her flesh.
Madison coughed up blood, realizing only then that she lay in a puddle of the substance. Vision unfocused, she stared at her arm, willing her eyesight back to clarity. The concentration caused her head to pound faster than her heartbeat as her perception cleared.
Sweat-blood oozed from her pores.
Bad omen.
Elias jerked her up by her hair and flung her to her back. Misery ripped through her and she groaned. She despised showing him weakness, but the pain was nothing like she’d ever experienced. Being torn apart in tiny chunks couldn’t hurt this bad. Maybe this is how a meat-grinder would feel?
“Tell me what I want to hear.”
It’d be easy to relent. The mere idea…she turned her head and spit up blood. What was that thing he stuck in her head doing to her? Killing her slowly? Unrecovered from the Sterillium sickness—she’d been intimate with the porcelain throne for the past month—she suspected he’d planned for this confrontation to end in her death.
Weirdly, dying didn’t trouble her, but rather how the people in her life would grieve.
Amos needed her guidance, required her unconditional love. He counted on her to keep him focused and moving in the right direction.
Nix had gone dark for her once before. She prayed he could resist the sway this time, but feared he’d lose himself again in the sinister place inside himself.
This treachery would destroy Micah. He believed the Kings the most loyal of all paranormal creatures. Being twins, Elias’s actions would hit him violently. Madison would spare him this cruel life lesson if it were in her power to do so. These two Kings would rip the world apart going at one another.
If she could have one wish—
Elias kicked her hip. “Tell me what I want to hear!”
Madison inhaled through the anguish and met her brother-in-law’s eyes. “No.” I will not give him the satisfaction of breaking me. If she broke for anyone it’d be for her fallen angel…Micah.
His fangs appeared overlong when he mimicked a smile. “I hoped you would say that.” He strung her up with jaw-clamps made by the bones of the damned. She cried when they entered her flesh and he laughed. “It’ll get worse,” he promised.
He’d whipped her, front and back, with an apparatus that looked like a homemade device of rusty nails. Blood dripped from her body and the floor wailed with each droplet. The constant drip, drip, drip of the liquid nearly undid her. Twice she almost begged him to stop. But both times, she thought of her men and the words evaporated. She’d remain strong for them.
With a growl, Eliel put his muscle into the next swing and the impact peeled skin from her belly. He flung the blood-coated torture gadget and it lodged in the wall.
“Scream! Goddamn you, scream!”
If he only knew how close she was.
“This won’t break her, Elias.”
Madison scowled at the new voice. She knew that voice.
“You’re going to have to go more hardcore than this.”
“Mother?” Madison squinched her eyes and tried to focus on the hazy figure. The blood in her vision turned everything blurry.
Her brother-in-law abruptly stepped backward and stared at Madison for a long while. “Bring Amos and Phoenix.”
The request was snapped to whom she had no idea, because there were no others present. But she hadn’t realized her mother was near, either.
Someone must’ve been close by because her son and her Sherlock lover were led into the room. Both were bound and gagged.
Elias snatched her out of the magical restraint. Her bloody body slipped in his hold, her knees buckled and she went down.
Chuckling, he yanked her up an
d licked blood off a nipple. Unable to let that offense go, Madison put the heel of her palm into his nose. With a crunch, his head snapped back, but his hold held. Fire burned in his gaze as he held her aloft by her hair and punched her. Hair ripped from its roots as she collapsed to the floor.
Dazed, she tried to push upward, but the grogginess coupled with the pain annihilated every inch of her body and nervous system…she never stood a chance of gaining her feet. He kicked her again and again and she couldn’t hold back her screams.
She tried to channel her Lynx, but he’d effectively shut her down. The silence of her inner demon frightened her. How quickly she’d grown accustomed to her succubus. Depended on her Lynx to guide her steps. To give her strength in the difficult circumstances. Never again would she take her demon for granted.
“I was going to give you one more chance to do the right thing, Madison, before I killed them. But you pissed me off.” He flung the strands of her hair in his hand aside.
She’d never know how she got to her feet, but somehow she managed. Swaying, she went for the rusty-nail-whip he’d utilized. Wrenched back by her hair, she crashed into Elias’s chest. Not ready to give up, she twisted in his arms, intent on turning the flogger on him.
“Ichnaday, Madison. Be still.”
Body obeying instantly, she went limp against him, the nails clanging against her leg. She screamed all the pent-up frustration inside her. Souls screeched with her. In the distance, a Hellhound answered with a howl and a Neko snarled.
“My angel dust forces you to submit.” He snickered. He removed the whip from her hold and slapped a knife into her hand. “Slice Phoenix’s throat slowly.”
“No.” Bound and gagged, restrained by five demons, Nix was defenseless.
“You have no choice, princess.”
“I’ll do whatever you want, Elias. Anything.”
“I could think of a lot of demoralizing ‘anythings’ to do to you.”
Breath fled her body in a whoosh and her blood went icy.
“A demon dick in your ass, another in your cunt, while you suck a third…all while I’m slicing and dicing you into itty-bitty pieces with my claws.” For emphasis, he clicked his talons together near her face. “I cannot make you scream enough to please me.”
Genesis Queen (The Road to Hell Series) Page 33