“Go to sleep,” he snapped.
I rolled away from him, hating that I’d even tried anything with him. What the fuck was wrong with me? He was part of the reason whatever had happened to me happened. I’d assumed I was with him, no one else. I’d wanted him so bad that I’d allowed my guard to lower, and it had landed me here, in my bed, with this man cradling me as silent tears rolled down my cheek.
“Sleep,” his voice boomed, echoing in my mind, and I didn’t fight him. I couldn’t. My eyes closed and my body sagged as I succumbed to his demand.
* ~*~*
~Lucian
I was going to destroy Lucifer. Rip him apart, bit by bloody fucking bit, until nothing remained. I’d entered her shop, surprised at the sweet noises she’d been making. My cock had reacted, growing hard with the need to fuck her until she couldn’t move afterwards. The same shit which had been haunting me since I’d fucked her in the shack where she’d taken me to last week.
Then I’d heard other voices, and seen red. I’d pushed through the front doors, finding the one to her brewery room open. She’d been on the couch, naked, her body writhing as she touched her sweet bean, flicking it with urgency. I’d pulled back, watching as her body moved and her noises drove me to the brink of insanity—up until she’d whispered Luc.
Many had called me that before, but then I’d smelled sulfur, noted the way her body was moving, as if she was actually being fucked. The vine had slithered from between her lips and my stomach had dropped at what I was playing witness to. He was fucking my Lena. He’d gotten to her somehow, discovered they were twins and he’d somehow gotten her permission to enter her body.
Holding her as she escaped him without throttling her had been an act of supreme willpower. I’d wanted to show her the dissimilarities, to make her feel me to her core so that she never mistook the difference again, because somehow I’d known he’d used my image to get to my girl. He’d die soon enough, but right now…right now I had to prevent her from falling into his hands, which meant I had to stay close without getting emotionally attached to her.
“This is unexpected,” Hades’ deep voice whispered through the room before his form solidified from smoke.
I turned, locking eyes with his violet ones that skimmed my profile before moving to Lena’s scantily clad form; lingering at the place where her hip had been exposed as she’d kicked off her blankets. Without thinking, I moved my hand to pull the sheet over her, covering her from the burning curiosity in his eyes.
“She’s not worth starting a war. Call off the bounty you placed on Lucy’s head.”
“Fuck you, Hades. He wants her because she’s mine, because of what he thinks she has. That alone should fucking scare you, considering what would happen if that asshole gets his hands on the seal before we do. Consider this, friend: I am older than both of you. I am eternal, more than immortal and never-ending. I don’t think the little asshole is searching for the seal just so he can have a friendly game of hide and go seek; from what I have heard, he tires of being tethered to Hell. He can’t remain outside of Hell for more than a few hours without his strength weakening. He wants to open the gates, but he hasn’t figured out how to.
“Now, he’s creating minions to help him from outside. He meant to place his bastard in her belly tonight. Had he done so, he’d have more than a stepping stone into this world. He’d have a son strong enough to demolish the Gates of Hell and accomplish his goal without the seal. Do you seriously think their God would be merciful if his entire flock was murdered or possessed by demons? Lucifer is merely a child to us, one that needs to be knocked on his ass to be shown where he is in the chain of command. The other Gods have already noticed his demons are here, wearing humans as if they are fucking Halloween costumes. Sooner or later, he will get the war he wants.”
“What if the sky falls?” Hades shrugged, his eyes narrowing as he watched me. “We’ve dealt with other people’s problems for long enough. Let them clean up their own fucking messes.”
“Do you think this round is just about him wanting a little more room to move around in? How long before the old Gods and the New Gods declare war on each other—or us, for that matter? That seal he is searching for won’t just unlock this world to Hell, it will open every world. Every world, Hades. Only a few beings know what that entails. You damn well know we’re not ready to fight those creatures again. Besides, if they come, it means we lose everything we’ve worked to achieve here. There will be no place or no world where we can hide from them. That seal is the one thing keeping them where they are. So either help me, or fuck off.”
“You know whose side I am on: I’ve been beside you since the dawn of man,” he snapped. “Speaking of sides, I think it is best you hear it from me rather than one of your little spies: I tasted her tonight—”
Faster than he could blink, I flew from the bed, snatching him up and pinning him to the wall; my eyes burned blue fire as I snarled, inches away from his throat.
“I should destroy you.”
He laughed, staring me down as I held his throat in a death grip. “I parted her sweet pussy and she rode my face, coming on it so prettily. She does make the most divine noises, doesn’t she? And she tastes of heaven, which none of us can get enough of.”
My hand tightened and yet the asshole continued to smirk. I measured my words so there would be no question about how I felt about what he had done. “She is mine and mine alone, and if you want to continue your sorry existence, you will shut the fuck up about what you did to her.”
“Why? If I hadn’t made her pussy wet, hadn’t made her come hard for me, she’d be pregnant right now. I placed a nice contraceptive spell over her precious womb with my tongue as I licked her so he couldn’t plant that seed she so blindly agreed to host. I knew which twin he’d pulled into Abbadon. I knew she was yours, and while I could have stood back and watched him do as he pleased, I improvised. I presented her to him, the devil himself. I stripped her bare, kept her calm and controlled her mind so he wouldn’t rip her apart or rape her. He would have; he would have done the same things to her that he did to her sweet sister until she stopped fighting him.
“Now that her sister carries his child, she’s nothing but a broken toy that has been given to his minions to use. So yes, I made damn sure it didn’t happen to your girl, and bought you some time to get to her.” He eyed me critically as I let go of his throat and backed away from him. “This sentimentalism isn’t you. You don’t care about her; you care about the idea of her. You are the monster who is called upon to slaughter hordes of monsters. You are death, and yet here you are, with another mortal. Fragile, weak creatures that have an expiration date that starts counting down the moment they draw their first breath.” He made his way to a frilly armchair and made himself comfortable in it; his large frame dwarfed the absurd thing, yet he managed to look at ease as he crossed his long legs and looked at me expectantly.
“She’s different,” I bit out angrily, hating that I cared. She was a fucking weakness that I didn’t need or want, and yet couldn’t kill.
“This isn’t you. You have spent too much time on this mortal plane and you are starting to sound like one of them. You need to wake the fuck up and see what is happening around you. Faery is pouring into this world and their Goddess, bless her sexy tight ass, can’t stop it from happening. The Horde King, nope, he can’t stop it, either. Demons are already here, they’ve been in this world for a millennia and no one fucking cares but us. Where are the other Gods? They’re not here, not breaking a sweat to save any of these weak creatures. No, just us. You keep fighting this, but it’s never-ending, and personally, I’m damn tired of watching you fall for a mortal as you lie to yourself that you haven’t. I’ve watched you kill Katarina’s incarnations too many fucking times. If you plan to change the cycle, you have to change how you approach your problem. After that, if you plan on playing with the mortals, find one worth
dying for. This game of cat and mouse is endless, and that’s because she is mortal and you are so much…more.”
“Magdalena isn’t Katarina,” I barked, and saw a taunting smirk lift the corners of his mouth. I struck, watching as it faltered ever so briefly.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and he swiped at it with his thumb before licking it clean. Hellfire danced in his violet eyes that were transfixed on mine. “How can you be so sure?” he began slowly as he settled back in the chair.
“If I was Katarina, I would have sent Lena in to keep you distracted. She seems to do just that, doesn’t she? But if we’re honest, their pussies taste nothing alike.” His jibe was meant to pull anger from me. Instead, I smirked, watching him with indifferent coldness. He sighed and shook his head, knowing that he wasn’t going to get me to admit what he wanted me to, and shifted tactics. “Luc upped the ante tonight; just be glad I happened to be there when he pulled his little stunt. I cast my spell to protect her from what he wanted her to see. He wanted her to see the chaos playing out around her. I fed her an illusion of lust. I played music inside her soul with my touch. She never noticed that she was ankle-deep in blood as I marched her perfect little ass to the stage. She didn’t notice that the crowd was ripping each other apart because they can never find release in that place.”
“Do you know if he has taken Kendra through the Hell Gates yet?” I asked, narrowing my eyes on her sleeping form.
“He’s kept her moving in different levels surrounding the gates for a few weeks now. Hidden right on the edge of the realm, not deep enough to tell if she houses the seal, if that is what you were wondering. If she did house the seal, there would have been a shit-show that none of us could have missed if he crossed over with her.” He glanced at me speculatively. “Now that he’s tasted the fire in both of them, he won’t stay away. Not when he knows that there are two of them; not when he knows he got the wrong sister first and that you hid the other.”
“You could have stopped him from fucking her,” I growled as I moved closer to Lena.
“Sure, I could have. I just love having sudden bouts of stupidity that would make that little fuck boy suspicious of me.” He rolled his eyes and shrugged his wide shoulders. “I gave you enough time to get to her, and so what if he got his dick into her? I just slowed him down and got in the way so he didn’t get what he really wanted, and I knew you wouldn’t be far away. Luckily, you pulled her out before he could make her a corpse. He would have, just to make sure you lost. Make no mistake, Lucian, this is a game to him. These girls are no more than pawns. This one got lucky; her sister is the one being tortured because Luc thought she was your lover, while this one suffered nothing more than a little sexy time in the arms of the devil. By the way, when she remembers who she is, and what you have done, do you think she will so willingly trip and land on your dick? Or will she hate you as much as my wife hated me? It could go either way; she’s a whisky kinda girl, they tend to be born of fire. That’s something you and I will never understand, never can since we are the flames that both birthed and burned them. You and me, we’re not so different. We both have an affinity for wanting women with complications, now don’t we?”
“You struck a deal, one you didn’t have to make. It prevented chaos; at least you get her for six months out of the year. It could be worse.”
“Oh yes, and such a sweet fucking deal it is, isn’t it? For the other six months, I have to be creative and get my kicks where I can. It took a lot of creative ingenuity and I had to swallow a fuck-ton of my pride to get her to stop hating me,” he said as he pointed his finger at Lena’s sleeping form. “You took her choice away from her, erased who she was without her consent. When she regains her memories, and she will, she will hate you. Sure, you can always keep her as a fuck toy chained to your bed, which is fun for the first couple decades, but trust me; fighting them every day gets old quick. You think I agreed to Atum’s deal because Demeter was having a massive hiss fit, or that I have a fucking heart for all those humans she killed because she was pissed at me? I assure you, I don’t. I was just like you, addicted to the fight in their eyes. The spirit in their soul, but captivity smothers it; extinguishes the flame and the fight. Then all you have left of them is a pretty, broken doll.
“No, despite the lies those storytellers told, I didn’t let her go back to her mother because I knew she missed the sun or because she wouldn’t stop crying. I did it because I’m a selfish prick and I figured six months at a go was better than none. One thing I can promise you is this; what you’re doing now won’t work, it never does. Your story has a little twist from mine, though. Yours is on a loop; the moment you love her, she’s dead. You were not created to be loved, or to give love. You are what you are because you’re the coldest motherfucker they could think of to become it. Do me a favor; if you win the game this time around, stay away from the witches and find someone who can’t be used by those who cursed you?”
“She doesn’t die because I fall in love with her.” I grimaced and stopped myself from rolling my eyes at his stupid speculation.
“Doesn’t she? You fell in love with the first one; three days after you admitted it, she was murdered—by you. And she keeps dying with every reincarnation. One of you falls in love, and she dies. If she loves you, she dies; if you love her, she still dies. Do us a fucking favor: fall in love with someone who isn’t associated with this fucking curse so that you can know what it feels like to have love and get it back and not have her die. Maybe then you’ll come back to us as you once were.”
“Leave,” I snapped, hating the truth that escaped his mouth. He was right, which meant I had to push Lena away before I killed her, or worse, cursed her to my soul.
Chapter 8
1897
My hair whipped against my face as the wind in the Rocky Mountain basin howled. The storm lingered, threatening to let loose in the open meadow where some members of my coven lay dead, or dying. I was bathed in their blood, my chemise pink from it. My wet hair whipped against my face, cold in the chill November air. I tilted my head back, letting the light from the full blood moon bathe my face as it did the meadow I moved through like a wraith.
I scanned the faces of the dead closest to me, stopping as I took in my sister’s lifeless gaze. Unlike the others, her death had hurt me. I’d loved her. Luckily, the evil inside me had turned off my emotions as I’d taken her soul into mine. It had whispered to me long ago, foretelling of the man who would come to destroy me, and I’d listened to it with bated breath.
It had told of my past lives, showing each one in vivid detail that brought their pain to me, letting me feel the love they’d shared with a monster, one who had ended each of their lives. I’d watched him through the centuries as he’d seduced and then murdered them, but it had been me who had played the voyeur as he’d taken each of them. I knew his touch, his taste, and everything they knew about him.
The moment Lucian had entered our town, I’d known it was he who sought the soul of the cursed witch who lived inside of me. He’d whispered in the ears of the coven, and my sister, Flora had succumbed to his allure; she’d taken him between her legs and accepted anything he told her as truth.
Together, they’d spread news of what I had inside of me. This utterly beautiful darkness that was real. It spoke to me of past lives, and how to end this deadly game, once and for all.
I’d started taking steps the moment the evil within me had told me what was coming, and how this game needed to end. I’d placed things at the farthest reach of our community. I’d packed up everything linking me to the cursed soul and made the long journey to the Guild. I had bargained with the elders and they agreed to help me. I’d hidden everything there, including the grimoires that had been passed down through the bloodlines, trinkets that each had owned, journals of each life lost, along with the coven’s tales of cursed witches.
The Guild Elders assured me that eve
rything I found was hidden, locked away and sealed into the catacombs of the Guild. The one place no one in our own coven or he would ever think to look.
Like pieces of a game, everything was set up, placed perfectly for the next rebirth to find and use against him. He’d been searching for me, the one who had been reborn with the cursed soul of his beloved Katarina inside of her. The darkness had whispered her secrets, and with those secrets came her memories.
It was a love that always ended in death, a love that should have never been. In every rebirth, he seduced the unlucky woman. He turned her into a mindless being so lost in love that she allowed her to death to occur. Some had gone to him blindly, some had fought him; all ended up in love with him. In the end, no matter how hard they fought, every one of them ended up dead.
Each one had added a curse to his soul; one had made him unable to sire children. Of course, she’d had to include a way around it, as so many curses included some sort of exception to them. So far, he was childless, as had been my sister when I’d killed her. Another had cursed the soul to carry the essence and souls of those he had killed, figuring together, we were stronger.
What a mess that was, considering they all whispered inside my head, insistently. I could hear their voices, feel their emotions, even the love Katarina had for the monster she had fallen for. My curse, my curse wouldn’t do anything to him. I was the first reborn witch who planned to curse his beloved Katarina.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that I would survive where others had not. I knew death had called for me, whispering my name upon the stars, and I welcomed it. After they’d marked me, they’d taken everything away from me. My love, the man I’d given my heart to, had been slaughtered at the order of this monster who hunted me, and that monster was ultimately responsible for the dead and dying who now littered the meadows.
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