Need coursed through me at a speed that left me breathless. Elle’s breathing turned erratic and her body danced a rhythm that was so nakedly erotic I almost came. The ancient sensual rhythm from our bodies coming together was almost combustible. Shifting, I deliberately pressed my hard length against her and slowed her carnal dance. It took everything I had not to use magic to strip her bare and take her like I was meant to.
Fuck. I wanted all of her.
“Stop,” she cried out and placed her hands on either side of my face.
Her eyes were wild as she searched my face and pressed her fingers to the pulse in my neck. She hissed out a sign of relief that would have been humorous, if I wasn’t about to explode—literally.
“You’re alive,” she said.
“Looks that way.”
“How? What are you?”
“I’m Blade Inferno, the highest paid romance author in the fucking world.”
I pressed my forehead to hers and absorbed the searing heat she emitted. I wanted her, but now she was going to have to ask for it.
“I want…” she started only to be cut off by the very inopportune arrival of twelve soon to be very dead Eunuchs. They came crashing through the door with swords drawn.
“My lady, are you all right?”
“Don’t hurt him,” she screamed and stood in front of me to protect me from her nutfree posse. “He’s mine. He can withstand my magic.”
My shock at being protected stopped me from incinerating the Eunuchs where they stood—probably a good thing. She’d most likely be pissed if I offed her little army. Not to mention the simple fact she’d called me hers. No one ever protected me. I didn’t need protection. I was every kind of evil rolled into one very pretty package.
“The Demon can withstand the enchantment?” one her boys questioned, looking at me like I was an aberration.
“Yes,” she said. “Don’t touch him or I’ll kill you where you stand. I’ve waited many lifetimes for this Demon. Am I clear?”
The Eunuchs looked crestfallen at her decree, but I just grinned like an idiot.
“As you wish. Will he be coming with us?” the Eunuch inquired. “We need to leave at once. Time is of the essence.”
Elle turned and eyed me thoughtfully. Where were they going? And what was my devious Siren up to?
Shaking her head, she waved her hands and trapped me in an amethyst glass cage. The spell was both intricate and well executed. However, I could break it with a nod of my head.
“No. I don’t want him harmed. I will do this alone.”
“It will be impossible without numbers. If you fail, it’s over,” the Eunuch in the front insisted. “We will fight at your side.”
“We will always be with you, my Lady. You will never have to go it alone,” another Eunuch solemnly swore.
“Thank you,” she replied with a small bow to her men. “I’m sorry to have threatened your lives. I value you, but so help me God, if anyone touches him, I’ll burn you to a crisp.”
I laughed and let my head fall back on my shoulders. I wasn’t particularly fond of her constant mention of my brother’s name, but her vicious streak was so delightful.
And that was yet another mistake…
In my gloating, I didn’t notice Elle raise her arms and disappear.
All of them disappeared. Vanished in the blink of a fucking eye.
And I had no clue where they’d gone.
My roar of fury brought the glass cage crashing down around me. With an angry wave of my hands, I dressed myself in a custom Hugo Boss suit and looked for the glasses I’d used to get here. To my naked eyes, I saw no portal. There had to be one. I’d used it only hours ago.
“Who are you?” a weakened feminine voice demanded.
Glancing up from my search, I froze.
It was another Siren—just as lovely as Elle, but frail and not long for this world in my opinion. She was missing her soul. I was sure of it. This one held the key to what I needed.
“I’m Satan. And you are?”
“Elle’s mother.”
Bingo. I’d just hit pay dirt.
Chapter Fifteen
“So you’re really Satan?” she asked with skepticism written all over her lovely face while graciously offering me a glass of scotch. “I expected Satan to be more…” She lifted a hand and waved it in my direction.
“More what?” I questioned with narrowed eyes. She was treading on incredibly thin ice here and had no clue. My trigger finger felt itchy…
“More evil. More vicious. More… rude.”
There were so many ways to reply. Just give me time was on the tip of my tongue, but I refrained. Getting my bearings here was tricky. Trusting a Siren was flat out stupid. I was not stupid—at all.
We’d left Elle’s photography studio and ventured down a long ornate hallway to an opulent suite of rooms. The art on the walls was positively obscene, depicting depraved sexual acts and naked bodies of all shapes and sizes. It was lovely and felt like home.
“Well, having the Devil for tea is a novel experience.”
“Actually, I’m not Satan and I don’t drink tea. It’s black coffee or scotch, neat. I was just shitting you. Name’s Dirk—right hand man to the greatest, most powerful and best looking Demon alive,” I replied smoothly, not trusting this one at all. I almost winced at having pulled the name out of my ass that Astrid had given me in jest, but it was the first lie that came to me. “Are you really Elle’s mother?”
She paused and took a seat across from me. Eyeing me like I was an immortal science experiment, she sighed. “No, not in the normal sense of the word. Why are you here and how did you get here? I was unaware we had visitors—highly unusual.”
“I killed a few Trolls and garnered an invite,” I said casually.
“You killed Trolls?” she repeated, surprised.
“Are you hard of hearing?”
“Are you a rude asshole?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
She clasped her hands in her lap and let her chin fall to her chest. Her masses of blonde hair covered her expression, but I could scent her sadness and desperation. Normally, I enjoyed people’s sorrows, but for some reason I wasn’t pleased.
“Were the Trolls after Elle?” she asked in a whisper.
“Not anymore,” I replied curtly. “What’s Elle’s real name?”
“It’s Elle. Adrielle Rinoa.”
I laughed and threw back the scotch in a single swallow. Of course… my little Siren had lied to me. Then my smile fell from my lips. Was my Siren lying about other men? The thought made me murderous. Pushing my green-eyed monster away for the moment, I focused on the issue in front of me.
“And your name?” I inquired as I politely accepted another scotch.
“You can call me Sadie,” she informed me with a smile so alluring, I was instantly reminded that she was a dangerous Siren—a dying Siren—but a Siren nonetheless.
“So Sadie, you’re looking a bit peaked. Lost your soul?”
Her expression of enraged shock warmed my black heart. Pissing people off was an art form at which I excelled. Sadie was pissed—so pissed that I actually regretted my words. Words had meaning, damn it. I wanted information, not an enemy. Hell knew I had plenty of those.
“Why are you here?” she hissed as black fire and smoke began to crawl up the walls of the room. “Elle would not bring an enemy to our plane. You have a minute to explain yourself, or I will send you packing and you will never see this place or any of us again.”
Could she actually do that? I mean, I was Satan—not Blade Inferno—and most definitely not Dirk. Who did she think she was—denying the Lord of the Underworld access to her home? I was furious that the Fairies had cut a deal banning me and my people from Zanthia. I’d be damned if another species prohibited me from travelling freely.
“Watch yourself, Siren,” I snarled in a voice that made her pause. “I’m fucking Satan and I won’t be spoken to like that.”
“He’s gay?” she asked, confused.
“For the love of everything wicked,” I shouted and blew up a naked statue of a half man half eagle—it was ugly and I was seething. Far better the statue than the Siren. “I’m not literally fucking myself. It’s an anatomical impossibility. I am so sick and tired of being misunderstood.”
“Well, I’d suggest you stop saying that you’re having sex with yourself then,” Sadie said, trying not to laugh.
She failed.
“It’s a good point,” I conceded with a small smile as I calmed myself and picked up the bottle of scotch. “I’ll take it under consideration.” Taking a healthy swig, I sat back down and started over. “So I’m Satan. You’re Sadie. And Elle is in a bit of a pickle for selling souls. Would you like to add anything?”
Her smile was positively one of the sexiest things I’d witnessed to date, but it left me cold. Her expression grew confused and she tried again. Sexier smile. Nothing from me. Odd. I was surprised as well. Normally, that kind of smile ended in an orgasm provided by me. My mother had been correct. I wasn’t affected by the Sirens—or at least not this one.
“I’ll call you Satan if that makes you happy,” she said with a rude shrug.
“You don’t believe me?” I asked, with a laugh.
“I believe you’re a liar,” she replied.
“It takes one to spot one,” I shot back, liking her despite her appalling manners or maybe because of them. These Sirens were fascinating.
“This is true,” she agreed, still perplexed by my lack of reaction to her charms. “But pretending to be people we aren’t means some of us might be missing out on a few things in life. Like mainly a life,” she said in a sensual tone that was in stark contrast to her nasty and somewhat accurate statement.
“Point to Sadie,” I said flatly. “About the souls…”
“Elle’s not selling souls,” she said. “Next question?”
To be an asshole or not to be an asshole? That was the question of the moment. I knew I was dealing with a pathological liar. I was a pathological liar, I could spot them easily. The words, my mother had said, listen to the words. The Siren was bound to slip up. If she didn’t, I’d just pop down to Hell with her and torture it out of her. However, I wasn’t sure she’d outlast the conversation we were having now. She was obviously at death’s door. No matter, with her past she’d end up in my neck of the woods regardless.
“So are there more than just you and Elle?” I asked, looking for another way in.
“No.”
“I’d thought you were extinct,” I replied. “Imagine my surprise when I was assigned to collect the soul seller and she turned out to be a Siren.”
“Look, Satan,” she said with an eye roll and a snort—proof positive that she didn’t believe I was indeed the Devil. “There are two of us left because we learned how to feed off sexual desire without killing for the most part. We aren’t real popular at dinner parties due to our little issue.”
Nodding, I leaned forward and to get closer to the fire still smoldering on the priceless carpet. “I can see how that might not appeal.”
“Being an orgasmic harbinger of death is what killed off our kind. I would think that would make sense to someone like you.”
“So you believe me?” I asked.
“Does the Pope wear red shoes? I knew who you were before you told me.”
My wince of annoyance made her laugh. “Let’s leave religion out of it, shall we? Not real fond of my brother’s favored pets. Why do you think Elle doesn’t recognize me?”
“My Elle has led a more sheltered life. I’ve kept her from the more unsavory parts,” she said referring to me.
“I’d hardly think that killing men for sexual pleasure could be considered savory,” I snapped, getting straight to the point. I might not be stellar in the morals department, but she was at the bottom of the barrel.
“Touché,” she replied with a tired shrug. “We were given this lot in life. We didn’t choose it, Devil. We have done the best we could with a horrendous fate. I would think you could relate to that.”
“I might,” I said, again wondering why I wasn’t as attracted to this particular Siren. “However, soul selling is a big fucking no-no and the reason I found your girl.”
“My daughter,” she said on a sigh. “Elle is my daughter by blood.”
“You lied?” I asked amused.
“Bad habit,” she replied with a shrug.
“And her father?”
“Dead, of course. Having intimate relations with a Siren leads to a very pleasurable and untimely demise. Some of the myths are true.”
We sat in silence and stared at each other. I was quite pleased with my decision not to drag the woman to Hell. It would have been bad form to kill the mother of the woman I wanted to bed.
“The Trolls have your soul,” I stated, wanting all the pieces of the puzzle in place.
“Yes. They stole my soul eons ago. I need it back now. A Siren can exist for only a hundred years without one,” she explained.
“So the bastards took your soul a hundred years ago?” I queried, not quite following.
She laughed hollowly. “Thousands,” she corrected me.
“You lost me. Explain.”
“They stole it thousands of years ago. Every hundred years we switch the souls so we can continue to live.”
“Why switch? Why not simply steal it back and keep it.”
“Not that simple, Devil,” she replied wearily. “It’s hard enough going to the mortal plane to feed with the Trolls after us, but they feel confident having at least one of our souls for whatever reason. If we stole back both, we’d never be able to leave this plane and we’d die of starvation.”
“Why not steal them back and kill the bastards,” I suggested. “I hate those fuckers.”
With a humorless chuckle she shook her head and produced another bottle of expensive scotch from thin air. Pouring herself a glass, she sipped it and then placed it on the table. “Two Sirens can’t kill an entire species of Trolls.”
“So you’ve spent a lifetime buying time.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she agreed.
“Wait a goddamned minute,” I shouted, standing up and putting all the pieces together. “Elle has gone to the Trolls to trade her soul for yours? Unacceptable.” This did not please me one little bit.
“Not trade,” Sadie corrected, looking at me strangely. “Steal and replace. She will steal mine back and leave hers there. I will then steal hers back in a hundred years. It’s our way, so stay out of it,” she warned as the fire in the room ramped back up.
Something was off. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of Elle even if I wanted it. Why was this Siren telling me how they survived?
“Why are you telling me this? I could use all of it against you.”
“But you won’t,” she said with a knowing smirk.
“And why are you so certain, Siren?”
She shrugged and sipped her scotch. Her purple eyes looked straight into my soul. Or my mind, I wasn’t yet convinced I had a fucking soul.
“Give me your hand, Devil,” she said. “Let me look at the lines.”
“Is this a trick? Because if it is, you’re going to see Hell far sooner than originally planned,” I growled.
“No trick. No lies—this time,” she assured me.
I crossed the room swiftly and held out my hand. Her touch was alluring when she took my hand in hers, but I felt very little for her sexually speaking. Hell, had I lost my mojo? Was the darkness around the corner? Fuck me, what was I even doing here? I needed to find the damned darkness and destroy it. I knew now that Elle was innocent of the crime I’d thought she’d committed. Leaving this place would be the smartest thing to do, but…
Sadie’s gasp brought me back from my dark and introspective thoughts.
“What?” I snapped, done playing games.
“It’s fated.”
“What’s fated?” I deman
ded harshly causing her draw back from me. I was fucking sick and tired of even the word fate.
“I can’t say,” she whispered, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. “That’s not how it works.”
My eyes went red and narrowed. Red sparks sizzled at my fingertips. In my angry state, I turned and shot a blistering bolt of lightening at a statue of a ménage I’d admired earlier. Whatever, I wanted to blow up the entire plane we were on. I was clearly maturing because I was blowing up art instead of cities.
“Listen to me, Siren,” I said through clenched teeth. “This week I’ve dealt with the bitch Fate herself, my certifiable mother—Mother Nature—and I was almost castrated by hookers at a romance readers’ convention. As you can imagine, that’s enough to make a sane man snap. Problem is, I’m not even close to sane. So cryptic messages aren’t really working for me at the moment. You feel me?”
“You love my daughter,” she said, giving in.
“What?” I shouted. “Are you demented? I love no one. NO. ONE. I’m the fucking Devil. When will people understand this?”
“Umm… okay,” she said, biting her bottom lip and trying not to grin. “Whatever you say.”
Staring at the palm of my hand, I tried to see what the crazy woman had seen. Was she a fortune teller? Did she have some kind of screwed up connection to Fate after all? Was that why Fate was so surprised to hear the Sirens weren’t extinct?
“What do you know of Fate?” I demanded.
“I hear she’s a bitch,” Sadie answered. “Never met her and have no desire to.”
“If you’re lying to me, I swear on all that’s despicable I will end you where you sit. I will ask once again and trust me, I’ll be able to tell,” I said with such calm, she blanched. “Do you know Fate?”
Sadie stared up at the ceiling for a several seconds as I watched her consider her words. With a sigh borne of those who had lived for eternity, she looked me right in the eye. “Fate is a Siren—or rather was a Siren,” she said.
Damn it to Hell and back, Fate’s words came back to me…
“You’re connected to the Sirens?” I demanded,
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