“Would a threesome with two fully-endowed angels be too much for you?” Azazel snickered. “Don’t fret, my little sun beam. Except for me, your daddy doesn’t trust any of the fallen to be in your presence. If Armaros, Kochab or Sam were here, they’d have you pinned to the floor, and on a second round by now, for no other reason than to ruin a consecrated Pure Soul. In their defense, they don’t get out nearly as much as I do. But I’m the civilized one in the family.”
“Then, who?” she asked.
Azazel couldn’t suppress the grin that unfurled across his face. “Offensive angelcraft is critical for you to master. Defense is more reflexive, instinctive. If you get into a situation where you need to flee to save your life, your magic will take over naturally. To be offensive, however, you need to practice on a live subject. I have many demons at my disposal, and while they’re not technically alive, they react in much the same way.”
“But what if I hurt them?” The words were out of her mouth before she realized how ridiculous the question was.
“Compassion for the damnationals. Really?” The angel’s eyebrow rose. “Get over it. They’re hardcore sinners, and deserve any pain coming to them, which is all you’ll be able to do: give them pain. You can’t kill them, they’re already dead.”
“Yeah, but I’m not.” Riona brushed a stray hair from her face. “How do I know you won’t come back with someone who can kill me? I know how much the dark side loves loopholes. Just because my dad said you weren’t allowed to harm me doesn’t mean you won’t turn your back and let one of your minions do it instead.”
“I guess you’ll just have to trust me then. Now, hush. We’re running out of time and we do need to hurry. Be back in two shakes.”
Azazel’s body frayed, becoming light and smoke. A moment later, there was nothing where he once stood but space. Riona filled her time shifting around the oval room, and practicing her porting, each instance providing more ease in commission of the act. She was just beginning to think learning this simple lesson was worth the risk of meeting with one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse when she realized she was no longer alone. Riona looked over her shoulder, and that’s when she saw him.
Her chest exploded, leaving her heart a throbbing, beating, mess of blood and tissue on the mosaic tiles. At least, that’s what it felt like. Wide-eyed and wary, Riona’s hands flew over her mouth.
Marcello Angeletti seemed anything but thrilled. Lip furling, she could easily imagine smoke coming out of his ears. His fists alternated between flexing and releasing as he fumed ferocious breaths through his nose.
“What is she doing here?” he demanded from Azazel, pointing accusingly in her direction.
“Calm yourself, demon. Mrs. Romani is our guest.”
Marc threw up his hands as he began to pace. “Mrs. Romani?” He turned his ire on her. “You ever read the Bible, Riona? There’s a story about this infamous slut, the whore of Babylon. Well, I actually met her today, and what you did makes her look like freaking Sandra Dee. I mean, before she painted her face and seduced John Travolta.”
Azazel coughed a laugh into his fisted hand. “Are you going to let him talk to you that way, keystone? Wouldn’t you rather shut him up?”
Would she have? Part of her said she deserved everything he could dish at her, but another part wanted to lay into him just as hard as he did to her.
Or just lay him. But no, she couldn’t.
“Silencing a human voice, especially when that human is a wiccan who could use it to attack you, is a Grigori’s signature move. All you have to do is brush your fingers along his throat and think it.” Placing his hand on Marc’s shoulder, Azazel gave Marc a little push. “Get closer now, Marc. Best manners, don’t embarrass the old man now.”
“You died!” Riona ignored Azazel’s coaching. If she silenced Marc right now, he’d never admit that she was right and he was wrong. “I might not have had many serious adult relationships, but I do believe death is considered a universal end to all of them.”
“Yeah, but there is such a thing called mourning, which might have been especially appropriate, given that I died protecting you!” he snapped back, taking a few steps in her direction. “You didn’t waste any time trotting down the aisle, either. I died in October, and it isn’t even New Year’s! Did you even wait for the sun to rise before you were riding Jerry Romani like a mustang?”
“Hey!” Three steps and a thought ported her, and she was instantly before him with her finger in his chest. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I came a lot closer to sleeping with you than with him.”
His head tilted, daring her to restate that lie.
“I mean since the wedding!” she amended. “And a further FYI, it’s not like he was some stranger off the street. I haven’t had a casual hook-up in years!”
He spat on the floor. “Except for Lucifer.”
“That doesn’t count. One, we were dating; and two, we never actually slept together, which is more than I can say for you.”
“I only slept with Lucifer... Lucy because I thought she was you! Don’t you get it? I never wanted anyone but you! And you spoiled it by...”
“Shut up!” Close enough to touch him, she finally allowed herself to do just that. Her fingertips brushed his throat. As Azazel predicted, though his lips moved, Marc’s voice ceased. “Listen. Let me get this out, and after that, you think whatever you want.”
Marc turned his beseeching eyes on his master. Azazel only chuckled and shook his head. He was out of this fight, and happily in observation mode.
Riona pounced. “I’m sorry that you died, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m sorry you’re hurt. I’m sorry that even if you had lived, there still never would have been a way for us to be together. Marc, I scoured every book I could, trying to see if there was a way I could reverse it somehow, a way I could rescue you from Hell, but there is none. Jerry doesn’t even know how he escaped, and he’s like a walking compendium for all things wicca. I even contemplated damning myself, but I just couldn’t. I’m hurt and scared and confused. My gut tells me to fight you, and my heart says how can I even consider it? This just all seems so unfair. How can I justify defending the side that allows a man like you to go to hell who died protecting the woman he loved? A man who I was even starting to love?”
He glared at her wide-eyed, but she wasn’t finished.
“Okay, fine, there it is! I was falling in love with you. Most of all, I’m sorry that I’m not more sorry about any of this. But don’t stand there and make it sound like I’m not grateful for what you did, or accuse me of being some kind of whore. Jerry didn’t come out of nowhere, and you know that. Don’t act like I hopped the first ferry that drifted into my harbor. I fell in love with Jerry a long time before I ever fell in love with you.”
At that point, she wouldn’t have needed a charm. If Marc could have sung the complete libretto to La Traviata on demand, he’d have been as silent as the grave. Looking into his eyes, seeing how they softened, she concluded she was ready to hear what he had to say.
“How do I undo the charm?”
“What? Oh.” Azazel snapped back to attention. “Seeing as your magic is so much weaker and new than ours, I’d say... it stopped working about thirty seconds in.”
Marc’s parched voice cracked as he massaged his throat with his hand. “When I was dying, I thought I heard you say you loved me.”
“I did.” Her hands reached up and cupped his cheeks. “But I ...”
His lips crashed onto hers, cutting off her words and sending shots of both heat and ice down her spine. At first stunned, Riona felt her instincts override logic as Marc’s tongue entered her mouth. No cold, corpse lips here, like she imagined. Marc could still kiss her like a proper sinner, and even the opening volley had her anticipating a full match. His arms caged her, drawing her into him, pressing their bodies closer together.
“Not exactly the lesson I thought of teaching, but do what comes naturally,” Azazel said.
“I love you,” Marc uttered, pulling away from her kiss only long enough to state the breathy declaration. “I knew you couldn’t really want Jerry!”
Jerry?
That’s right, Jerry. Her husband. A man she also loved. Who was, hopefully, soon to arrive and tell her what the hell was going on.
And here she was, kissing Marc. In the entryway to Hell.
This was bad, bad, bad, bad. Over the past few months, Riona was becoming a slow boiling pot, keenly aware of her dissatisfaction; and it wouldn’t have taken much more heat for that pot to boil over. She was a pile of dried tinder, and Marc’s body was a lit match, far too near. If she didn’t back away now, everything would go up in flames.
Threading his fingers into her hair and tilting back her head, to allow himself better access, Marc ravished her neck. “I don’t care if you married Jerry or Dee... Hell, marry Lucifer for all I care. You’re still mine.”
The realization tugged at the back of her mind that they weren’t alone, but she couldn’t pull away from Marc long enough to see how Azazel was handling the whole affair. When Marc’s hands slipped under her shirt and his fingers massaged her back while seeking the hook of her bra (ha-ha on him, it was a front clipping model), Riona looked over his shoulder. Azazel flashed a thumb’s up as he leaned against one of the pillars at the far end of the room, grinning.
“Come with me.”
She could barely make out Marc’s plea as he paid tribute to the spot of skin right behind her ear, and his right hand circled forward, cupping her breast and canceling out a whole slew of contrary thoughts.
“What?”
“They told me a human’s body would corrupt in Hell, but you’re not human. Don’t you see? You were looking to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist. You don’t have to die, and you don’t have to be damned.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Azazel offered from a distance. “Technically, we’re not in Hell proper, and we’ve never had one of her kind alive past Styx. I’m not sure if she’d survive.”
Riona’s mind was too busy battling images her mind flashed before her, a shuffling array of the consequences for each of the paths before her... Walking into Hell and watching her flesh slough off her body. Walking into Hell and stripping Marc free of his demon frock so they could finally be together. Not even waiting that long, and him taking her against a wall right here as the mosaics scratched her back side, marking her deeper with each thrust. Walking away and returning to Olympus, where she would continue staring out the window and waiting. Then, finally, lying in Jerry’s arms after they had, at least, reunited, and consecrated their vows.
“But... I’m....” Her body wanted release, but her heart clung to the truth.
As though he sensed her emotional withdrawal, Marc watched her eyes, locking their gazes. Heat angered his tone. “Seriously? I fucking died for you, Riona. Or was getting over my untimely death so easy for you?”
All the heat that coursed through her veins moments before turned to ice. Desire became ire, and Riona turned red. Using every ounce of her determination, her hands flew into Marc’s chest and pushed.
“You have no idea what I’ve been through! Jerry was in your body, and every day I had to convince myself that he wasn’t you.”
“Sounds like you convinced yourself of far more than that. Are all your lovers so interchangeable?”
“I broke when you died,” she lashed back. “But we both know we were never going to be together. It would have damned both of us. It wasn’t meant to be, Marc. I love Jerry. I guess I realized I always did. The worst thing I’ve ever done....” Her words died in her throat as the revelation hit her. “The worst thing I’ve ever done was convincing myself that just because he was a demon, I shouldn’t.”
A manic, feral glare met her when she turned around. His chest and shoulders rose and fell with the power of his hate as Marc’s human-like mask morphed. Like pieces of charcoal set to light, his onyx pupils fumed. Steam licked over his arms and arose from his torso. When his lips pulled back, a low demon growl rumbled in his chest and Riona could see his two canine teeth extending, piercing his bottom lip and drawing drops of blood.
Despite her rage and disgust over what he said, a wisp of arousal overcame her. Riona tried to restrain the irrational and frankly, ill-advised attraction to Marc in his demon form. Not that it was so different from how he looked human, only... She couldn’t explain it, but something inside pulled at her and made her want to pounce.
“No, keystone, you’re wrong,” Marc breathed out as Azazel flanked his minion. The moniker he’d given her long ago now felt like a sting. “The worst thing you’ve ever done is deny what’s really in your heart. You want to keep up your antics with your sex buddy and take on the forces of darkness with him? Fine. But don’t kid yourself. You love me, and someday soon, when you realize that, you won’t be able to control it. You’ll come for me, and I mean that in every sense of the term.”
In a flash, Marc reached out his hands, draining the inky darkness from all the shadows. They liquefied and made a beeline for Riona. She threw her arms up over her face as she felt the corners of her being becoming air. Riona let her need to distance herself carry her backwards. In a frenzied rush, she closed her eyes, blocking out the darkness, and only opened them when something solid rose up to hit her feet. She found herself at the foot of the passageway, her fists banging on the stone, demanding for it to let her through. A moment later, as her hand tried to strike the wall, she fell forward, landing in Hades’ arms.
“What happened? Are you okay?” He braced her, barely keeping her from falling flat on her face.
“I can’t do this.” Her tears pooled as they fell on his leather jacket. “I can’t face him. I’m not strong enough.”
Hades smoothed a hand over the back of her head. “Azazel? He’s not really that bad of a guy if...”
“Not Azazel, Marc!” she snapped between sobs.
“Shhhhh.”
She gasped when her world tilted and her feet went airborne. She looked down to see herself cradled in Hades’ arms as his feet ate up the road beneath them. Though she knew he traveled much faster than she could have run, she was amazed at the grace of his superhuman movements.
“No one’s asking you to fight him today. And you don’t have to work so hard to fight yourself either. You’ll get through this.”
“I won’t.”
He tipped up her chin. “You will. Trust me, I speak from experience.”
Chapter 20
Each of the damnationals felt something that morning as they filled the streets of Hell. The smell of rot and decay faded, replaced by the dull burn of sulfur and brimstone. The gray-green sky held a red ember that streaked down the middle, bisecting the... well, calling it “the heavens” seemed idiotic. From the hill above the capital city, one of the few regions that didn’t look like a backdrop for a post-apocalyptic film based on a turbulent, young adult novel, a thick fog descended. The area was the closest thing Hell had to a posh section; a district where the ruling class could do, what was for them, the only joy the Underworld offered: looking down on others.
From his prison cell on the outskirts of the city, Lucifer couldn’t see the transformation. But he felt it. Somehow, he sensed, with the rising of the black sun, the ebbing of the combined magic of both his mutinous brothers, which kept him trapped. Not enough for him to free himself – not yet. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but suspected the Grigori were so driven in their quest to overthrow him, they forgot one important thing.
He was the devil! It was more than a meaningless title, no matter what they thought. Drafted in the Accords as Hell’s advendavi, he was certain to stipulate the post couldn’t be usurped by any Gabriel-come-lately. The only way for another to become the true ruler of Hell was for him to willingly pass along the position. He personally witnessed how easy it was for the Grigori to oust Hades, and would have been damned before signing off on a system that could
let the same thing happen to him. If Michael and Azazel thought they could wrest control from him so easily, they were sadly mistaken. He wouldn’t give up his position until Hell froze over.
RIONA HAD NO IDEA HOW close to dawn it was when Hades placed her in her bed. She did, however, know she owed him some serious money for the restoration of his leather jacket.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, taking her hands between his. “If I had known they would hurt you... Azazel gave me his word, and he’s never gone back on it before.”
“Later, you and I should talk about that.” The skin of her cheeks felt tight and grainy. “But not now. Now, I either need sleep, or a vat of praline ice cream to dive into.”
“He tempted you, didn’t he? Angels love technicalities. I should have known when I extracted his promise not to hurt you, or do anything that might result in your damnation, that he’d find a way to get around it.” Concern filled his eyes. “Did you fall?”
“No!” Riona croaked out. A moment later, guilt twisted her gut. “I left before it got that far.”
“Well done.”
“It’s so annoying. I love Marc too much to hurt him, but I don’t detest what he did enough to destroy him. Not to mention, I’m married to someone else, and have an equally fucked-up relationship with him.”
“You don’t have to unload your heart on me,” the nephilim replied. “Wish I could tell you the old wives’ tale of time healing all wounds rings true, but that hasn’t been my experience. Love is hell, and Hell is a place that exists entirely without love. Trust me, I used to rule the realm.”
Hades leaned over and brushed a hair from her face as he kissed her cheek. The sweetness of the gesture, so completely devoid of any hint of sexual expectation, threw her for a loop. She gazed at him as though for the first time, trying to figure out who this enigma of a man was.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Would you believe me if I said it’s because I’m just concerned for you?”
She shook her head.
Hex Goddess (All My Exes Die from Hexes Book 3) Page 14