The incubus slid over a Black Amex card, and when he caught me looking at it, he flashed a contrite grin. He must have expected me to be impressed. I might have been if my Chanel clutch did not have the exact same credit card inside of it.
“Samuel Rose,” The man introduced himself, his eyes were the colour of the forest and flashed with mischief.
I cocked my head to the side, in a movement that only Purebloods seemed to favour, I had noticed. I saw that it was akin to that of a Bird of Prey about to devour its meal. Samuel’s expression did not falter, and I quickly realised that my potential suitor had no inclination of my true power.
Samuel Rose did not know me as Luc’s Dahlia. He was not aware that I was ‘the Pet of the Devil’ or the ‘Soul Broker’. Or even 'The Queen of the First Circle’.
A smile lit up my face, a bright contrast from the cold indignation that had graced my expression earlier.
My internal turmoil had not been missed by the incubus, but his gaze was languid as he perused my body like it was for sale.
“Dahlia Clark,” I smiled demurely and held out my hand.
Samuel gripped my fingers delicately and placed a kiss on top of my knuckles. I felt the dark tendrils of his magic sift through my skin and amplify any lust that may have burned within me.
Contrary to belief, Incubi are not rapists. Samuel could enhance his natural attraction, but he could not force his will into someone’s mind and take away their ability to say no.
That was a Pureblooded trait. Although the Satanist’s Bible is very particular about consent, not many people knew that.
“Do you work in the City?” Samuel asked, taking in my fitted silk blouse and pencil skirt.
I crooked a brow and in turn surveyed his own outfit. His white shirt was form fitting but it was not formal.
“I take it that you don’t?” I quipped, allowing my gaze to hover on the way that his abdominal muscles were scantily visible through the fabric.
“What do you do?” The corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk. He was enjoying our verbal sparring it seemed.
“I’m a Broker,” I said, remaining honest. “And you?”
“I own a few bars in the city.”
“I thought so.” I took a long sip of my wine and allowed the floral notes to play across my tongue. Revelling in the silence, as I often did, to encourage people to talk beyond would they would typically share. Samuel must have been well versed in psychology because he did not seem to fall into my trap.
“What makes you say that?” Samuel cocked his head to the side, his expression was cocky. Arrogant. I guess that if you have a hundred percent success rate with the fairer sex, it would be enough to make anyone big headed.
“You look like the type.” I hedged, keeping my eyes on the mirror behind the bar. I couldn’t very well say that most Incubi that I knew had their fingers in the London Bar scene. It would have been uncouth, considering that I was pretending to be human.
“Do I? What were the clues?” Samuel laughed softly.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you,” Was I flirting? “Just a feeling.”
“You’re an enigma, Dahlia Clark,” Samuel leant forward and tucked a strand of my honey blonde hair behind my ear. I felt his knuckles brush against the side of my cheek. His breath tickled the shell of my ear. “I would very much like to become further acquainted with that devilish mouth of yours,” Samuel’s hand slipped into mine, and before I had a chance to blink, he had slid from his bar stool and had left me alone.
I looked down to my manicured hand. Samuel Rose had given me his hotel key card.
I ordered another glass of wine and took my time to settle my bar tab. The plastic edges of the hotel key card dug into my skin as I internally debated whether to join the Incubus in his suite.
It had been a long time since I had allowed someone inside of my body. I did not feed on sex like Samuel did. I fed from Betrayal, Deceit and Treachery. Backstabbing was my source of entertainment and my most prevalent meal. If I surrounded myself with the rich and corrupt, my power would remain buoyant.
It had been a long time since I had feigned humanity and cut myself off from Hell. Even for a short while.
Maybe I could have some fun. A few hours where I would be whatever Samuel Rose saw me as instead of the obedient pet to a monster that had long since put me back on a dusty shelf. Never to be played with again.
My heels clicked against the ornate floor as I wandered to the elevator. I had never stayed at the Connaught before, and only frequented it for its immaculate bar area. What would be the point in procuring a room when I couldn’t physically sleep?
Swiping the key card, the lift automatically ascended to the top floor. Samuel Rose must have been fairly successful to have been able to pay the extortionate fees that came with the nightly hire of a room at the Connaught. Even I flinched at the price.
I loosened the fabric belt from my suede trench coat and pulled the antique jade clasp from my hair. I allowed my honey waves to fall until they reached their natural length at the middle of my back.
Licking my teeth and wiping my smallest finger under my eyes, just in case my Clinique mascara had gone for a walkabout, I sauntered to Samuel’s door.
Slowing my steps, I reached out to knock only to have the door open in my face.
Samuel’s white shirt was undone and the top of his sculpted chest was visible. I pulled my bottom lip in between my teeth.
“I don’t normally do this.” I admitted honestly.
“I do,” Samuel was brazen.
“I trust that I am in good hands then?” I smiled brightly, happy that he had told the truth even when my baser nature desired the opposite.
I reached out and allowed my fingers to touch the scar on his cheek. My caress was too tender for the situation and Samuel Rose gripped my wrist. He tugged me into the room and slammed the door behind me. He had tapered his strength and the action reminded me that he still thought that I was human.
I could live with that. I could be someone else for a little while.
My spine slammed against the door as Samuel used his knee to pry my stocking clad legs apart. He stepped in between my thighs, with his hands on my tiny waist and began to place hard and possessive kisses on the hollow of my throat. I gasped into the sensation and pulled his body flush against mine.
I allowed my hands to roam across the sculptured muscles of his back.
There was no pain. No master and slave. There was only desire.
“I plan to fuck you hard, Dahlia Clark.” Samuel breathed. “You will not be able to walk straight after I am through with you.” His confidence and the way that his smile only twitched on one side, making it crooked, reminded me of the Devil.
My hands wrapped around his neck as Samuel dipped his finger to my wetness and spread it around my clit in slow torturous circles. My head tilted back as I released a long breathy moan.
I retreated into my head, into the fantasy of Luc. Imagining the Devil above me, surrounding us with a sheet of platinum white hair as he pounded inside of me.
Jolting me from my fantasy, Samuel pinched the bundle of nerves between my thighs. I squealed as the sensation hovered on the perilous line between pleasure and pain. My eyes darted to his.
“Be with me,” Samuel hissed, he leant in and took my bottom lip between his teeth with a nip. “Don’t retreat inside of your mind.”
In a move that reminded me too much of the Devil for comfort, Samuel gripped my thigh and sheathed himself inside of me with a low groan. His eyes rolled back into his head as I felt myself stretch around his length.
For an incubus, I had expected more touching, fireworks and fancy frills. Instead, the motion of our bodies was animalistic. The sounds were guttural and low. Fierce as Samuel fucked with abandon.
My orgasm wracked through me until I saw stars. Samuel followed closely behind, his thrusts became erratic until he found sweet release inside of me.
His eyes flashed silver and the p
ale ice blue. I told myself it was a trick of the light, as my body succumbed to the aftershocks of my orgasm.
Having no physical capability or need for sleep meant that I was bright eyed and bushy tailed when I arrived at Morgenstern and Clark the next morning.
Compared to my typically frosty demeanour, my cool smirk could be 'perky.’
When I waved at Luiz as I entered the office, he had used another set of words. Intimidating was one of them.
I sank into my ergonomic office chair with a sigh. I couldn’t win them all.
I cast my eyes around my office until they rested on the bottle of wine from the day before. Tapping my manicured nails against the mahogany desk, I inhaled deeply to ground myself. My nostrils tingled with the faint scent of the beeswax polish that the cleaners used religiously on my writing desk.
Standing up, I walked over to the offensive bottle on my side table. I picked it up and rolled the green glass cylinder in between my frigid hands.
The ink on the side of the label had done what Luc intended it to do. Annoy me and entice me to lash out.
I placed the bottle down with a thud. If the Devil had wanted to fuck with my mind, he had succeeded.
You'll always be mine, written on the side in Luc’s calligraphy.
For a brief second, I had become the same little Hellion that he had sculpted to fit his every desire.
Coming back to reality, I knew that I was wasting my immortal years brokering souls for him.
I sacrificed my place by his side because he had told me that he needed me on Earth. My home would always be the ice castle in the centre of the First Circle.
Or it would have been ... until he broke my shrivelled Pureblooded demonic heart.
I snorted an indelicate laugh and shook my head as Luiz knocked on the open doorframe of my office, startling me out of my reverie.
“How was your evening, Ms. Clark?” Luiz smiled sedately.
I stared at my assistant blankly.
“Mine was rather brilliant if I say so myself.” Luiz continued unprompted. He walked into my office and made himself comfortable in my chair.
I blinked slowly in confusion. I had only recently acquired the Hellhound, and I could not say if I admired his gumption or thought of him as terribly idiotic.
“The Tyburn Tree is giving off some major Hell Magic now. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Luiz picked up my crystallised scorpion paperweight and grimaced at the insect encased in crystal.
“I had no idea that Hellhounds could sense such things,” I said dryly. I stepped in front of my desk and took the paperweight from his grubby mitts and placed it back on my desk with delicacy.
“The D trade is booming.” Luiz continued. “You can get anything from a human if you let them have a little bit of your blood.”
My brow pinched. “Why on earth would I do that?”
Luiz swung around in my chair, he had cranked it all the way back so that he was almost lying down. A small niggle at the back of my mind sighed that I would have to rearrange all my office chair's settings to get it just the way I liked it.
“Have you ever given a human your blood?” Luiz asked.
I perched on the edge of my desk and picked up one of the contracts that I had yet to file from the day before.
“No.”
“Why not?” Luiz licked his bottom lip, his eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“I killed my last Hellhound.” I lied smoothly. “She was a curious one too.”
“Liar.” Luiz snorted. “Meesha works at the Hound races. Don’t change the subject.”
My face gave nothing away as I internally debated the merits of confiding in my assistant. The sooner I gave him the answers he seeked, the sooner that he would leave me alone, I reasoned.
“Pure Blood is potent. I would only bequest it for a purpose.” I relinquished reluctantly. “To kill a human or to allow them to become a Vessel.”
“A Vessel?”
“For one of the Original Seven.” I supplied, with disinterest.
“Have you ever possessed anyone?” Luiz tapped his lip, his eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“Yes.” I replied. “But Luc is more skilled than I.” I flicked through the paper on my desk before turning to my assistant. I held up the contract in my hands and crooked a brow. “Luiz, why is this contract not filed? Robert Parr's deal was simple.”
The Hellhound yawned, which I knew to be for dramatic effect more than anything else. “It got returned. Void. Null. Rejected.”
My face folded into a frown. “That’s never happened before.” I murmured to myself.
“What do you think it means?” Luiz skimmed the first page of the contract which I knew was ironclad.
I worried my bottom lip between my teeth before I caught myself amid the bad habit. I walked behind my desk and kicked Luiz's shin with the side of my stiletto to imply that he should move. I then proceeded to sit and check my compact for lipstick stains on my teeth.
“It’s not like the Devil to refuse a soul.” Luiz wrung his hands. His typically jovial demeanour had thawed into worry.
“Calm down. Luc likes to keep us on our toes.” I said, opening my laptop and signalling that I needed to get to work with a dismissive wave.
“Do you think he’s coming here?” Luiz whispered in awe.
“On all Seven Circles, I sincerely hope not.” I laughed, kicking off my shoes as I began to prep for my first clients of the day.
My first appointment was a young couple with a sick child. Congenital heart problems, something about valve replacements and needing a transplant. Humans are so fragile.
I agreed to find them a heart in exchange for their souls. They would live to the end of their natural life, which could end tomorrow or in seventy years, and then their souls would be tethered to Hell.
Not many people can be heinous enough to warrant the First Circle of Hell. It is reserved for betrayals that shake the foundation of the earth and put into motion things that should never come to pass. The souls that I delivered to the First Circle were not destined to be punished. They were simply fuel.
The people that rotted away in Lucifer’s torture chamber were the ones that deserved to be there. The people that I signed over were destined to be used up. Their soul would become fuel and never be redeemed or reborn.
Dealing with grieving parents, and taking their soul to extend their daughter's life was not a mood enhancer. The parents did not deserve to be used up and spit out.
I was their only option so I would not fight it.
Kneading my temples with my fists like bread dough, I rested my elbows on my desk. I watched Mr and Mrs Deluca's contract burst into a flurry of blackened Hellfire.
FAO Lucifer Morgenstern.
I slid my plush office chair away from the mahogany desk, it’s wheels moved sluggishly through the thick cream carpet. Leaning down, I plucked my Hermes handbag from the locked bottom drawer. I placed it on my shoulder and pressed the button on my office phone that connected directly to Luiz.
“I’m heading out for my appointment with Mr Kerning. I'll be back in two hours,” I informed him.
Striding past his desk and then through the maze of the other broker’s offices did nothing to ease my annoyance.
Almost all clients, even the most obnoxious ones, would come to the Morgenstern and Clark offices in Mayfair. We were a well-renowned brokerage firm in almost all fields. Mr Kerning, the next possible leader of the Labour Party had demanded that I meet with him outside of his office. As it had never happened before, it piqued my interest.
Simon, my driver, was waiting for me outside of the office; the sleek limo was parked in my designated spot and my driver was ready and waiting with the door open.
Kerning lived in Tottenham. The years had done wonders to some parts of London. I remembered when a woman wouldn’t have walked through Muswell Hill without a strapping man to protect them. Now the house prices were ostentatious and the schools were top tier.
Mike Kerning MP lived in a three-bedroom house; it had no other discerning features or personality. Simon parked up on the curb, almost certainly earning a ticket if the residents only parking signs were true.
Kerning's housekeeper opened the door and led me to the study.
My face soured. I disliked being treated as an employee. I loathed it when people asked to meet and then did not have the manners to greet me themselves.
I had half a mind to decline the MP's request and leave.
I had my own set of rules that co-aligned with Lucifer's. I could not make a man Prime Minister. I did not have the power to influence millions of British voters. It did not work that way.
“Ms. Clark,” Kerning stepped into the room behind me and I did not turn to greet him. “I am very happy that you were able to accommodate my whims and meet me at my residence.”
I turned around and narrowed my eyes. “I do not take daemons as clients.” I kept my voice level as I allowed my eyes to pursue his body. Leviathan. Envy daemon.
How had Luiz not known? I had walked into the meeting and assumed that I was meeting a human. I hated being blindsided.
Kerning cocked his head to the side. “I think we can help each other, Ms Clark.”
“I. Do. Not. Take. Daemons. As. Clients.”
“Well—,”
I waved my hand in dismissal.
“You may find it easy to forget, Mr Kerning, due to my impeccable wardrobe and my blonde hair but I am descended from one of the Seven Original Demons. I am a Pureblood.”
Kerning’s eyes bulged as his jaw clenched. He chewed his tongue as he tried to push words around it. He could not. I held up my hand and he shrank back.
“You thought to invite me to your home. Perhaps use your charisma to make me fall to your knees and somehow crown you the king of the house of Commons?” I quirked my brow and gave him an intense look of chastisement. Kerning opened his mouth to speak again, so I took his voice.
The Devil's Advocate Page 2