“Andrew?” she questioned. “Has Andrew talked to you? Where is he anyways?”
“Andrew?” the maid asked, arching a brow. “Oh, I know who you mean. Yes, Andrew is one of his many names.” She gave Harleen what she hoped friendly smile. “I am Amber, Your Majesty.” Harleen furrowed her brow at the odd title the girl gave her, but before she could question it, Amber continued. “This is going to take a lot out of you, Your Majesty. And you probably won’t believe me, but it is imperative that you do. You are in Hell. Andrew is the ruler here, the King. And in a manner of moments, he will be your husband.”
Harleen pressed her lips together in order to conceal a smile that was threatening to slide on her face. There was absolutely no way that that was possible, but this poor girl really did think that it was so. Well, Harleen didn’t want to offend the girl, especially if it turned out that this was one big dream. It probably was a dream anyways. How could it not be a dream? She was probably still at home, no doubt slumped over her desk, a half-written essay on The Grapes of Wrath on her laptop.
“I am going to have to dress you, Your Highness,” Amber said, glancing over at a grandfather clock tucked in a corner of the room. Harleen frowned; she hadn’t noticed that before now.
“Please,” Harleen began, holding up a hand. “I would prefer it if you didn’t address me as Your Highness or Your Majesty or anything like that. Just call me Harleen. Please.”
Amber furrowed her brow together, unsure if Harleen was giving her some sort of test. “All right, Your,” she began, but then cut herself off. “Harleen. All right Harleen.”
Harleen smiled and then nodded her head. If this was a dream – which it probably was – she had no qualms with staying here for a while. It was better than being at home with Edgar, trying to get some work done. And really, it wasn’t all that much of a stretch for her to dream that Andrew was, in fact, the devil.
“So, what is it that you need me to do?” Harleen asked, arching a brow as she returned her eyes to the young girl before her.
“I don’t need you to do anything, Harleen,” Amber explained, the word still foreign on her tongue. “I am here to take care of you while you’re here. But, as of right now, I need to start preparing you for your wedding. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to draw you a bath and we’ll start from there. Is that all right with you?”
“Hey, if you need to do it, I’m not going to get in the way with your job,” Harleen told her. She glanced around as though she was looking for something. “Where is it though? The restroom?”
Amber led her to a wall before placing her palm flat on the surface of it. Harleen heard a small ‘click’ and a layer of the wall pop up. With wide eyes, she watched as Amber took hold of the handle and pulled it out before waving her hand at Harleen, gesturing as gracefully as she could that she should go first.
Harleen was still surprised as she walked through the door, but her eyes popped when she looked at the actual bathroom. Everything was clean and made of marble. There was a porcelain bathtub, a platinum showerhead, two sinks, a cabinet filled with towels. Harleen had originally thought her bathroom at her new house was amazing, but this was… incredible.
“Harleen?” Amber said when she noticed that Harleen looked around the room. She gestured at the bathtub. “It should be filled in a minute.”
Harleen still couldn’t believe it. No doubt Freud would have a field day with this; she dreamt that she was about to marry some guy she had met a month ago even though she had had a long-term boyfriend.
Oh, and the guy she was supposed to marry also happened to be the devil.
Eleven
It was only when Harleen stepped out of the tub after Amber had insisted that she wash and condition her hair while Harleen washed her body did Harleen finally wonder why her dream was so vivid and her senses were so sharp. Could it possibly be that she was awake? That she was supposed to be married to a guy she thought was just some random guy her uncle knew… Wait a minute. Wait a gosh darn minute. All of the money. The new house. The fact that Edgar hung out with Andrew. The fact that Andrew always hung around.
“Oh my God,” Harleen said as she stared at herself in the mirror. Currently sitting down in front of her vanity mirror, she was only in white lingerie as Amber blew her hair dry. “Is this actually real?” The idea was preposterous, but then again, so was Edgar making enough money in two weeks in order to move from some shitty apartment in Costa Mesa to some mansion in Dover Shores. “Am I actually here? Is this actually Hell?!”
“Um, yes,” Amber said, tilting her head up and turning off the hair dryer. “I thought I had already explained that to you, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am,” Harleen said automatically, shaking her head as she stared at herself. Could she really have been so stupid? “But I mean, I didn’t expect this to be true. I thought this was a dream.” Her eyes widened and she straightened, turning her torso so she could look at Amber dead on. “I need to go home, do you understand me? I can’t marry Andrew. I don’t even like Andrew. I didn’t even do anything wrong! I’m not supposed to be in Hell. Hell, I’m not even dead. Oh my God, did he kill me? If the devil kills me, does that mean I automatically go to Hell?”
Amber giggled at how flustered Harleen seemed to be. “The devil – er, Andrew, as you refer to him – didn’t kill you,” she explained with a patience Harleen had yet to learn. “Andrew claimed you. But he couldn’t take you away from wherever you’re from without your consent. He may be the devil, but he can’t tamper with freewill. Didn’t he say anything to you of where you might be going?”
Harleen closed her eyes when she felt Amber start to fiddle with her hair. She tried to remember if Andrew had told her his plans. “Oh my God,” she said, but this time it came out in the form of a groan. “Yes, yes he told me he was going to claim me, that we were going to Hell, but I thought he was kidding. That’s what he always says. That I’m his, that he’s going to…” Harleen’s face dropped as she realized now what that all meant, and she placed her face in her hands, despite the fact that Amber was still doing her hair. “How could I have been so stupid?” she mumbled into her hands.
“Oh, ma’am,” Amber said with a soft smile. Upon realizing her mistake, she cleared her throat. “Harleen, I mean Harleen. Many a women are charmed by Andrew. It’s no surprise that you are also one of them.”
“I don’t want to be one of them!” Harleen exclaimed, dropping her hands, her face red. “I want to be different. I don’t want to be like every other girl who is in love with him.”
“Well, you’re not,” Amber pointed out, looking in the mirror, locking eyes with Harleen. “You’re the only one who’s getting married to him, which, I must say, is enraging the women who fawn over him.”
“I don’t care,” Harleen said, her voice flat. “Wait, but why am I even here? I’m not dead and I don’t remember proclaiming that I was going to sell my soul for anything. I work my ass off for my good grades, thank you very much.”
“No,” Amber agreed with a hidden smile. “No, you’re not dead. But you will live forever here, looking the way you do, just like Andrew will look the way he does for all eternity. And the reason you are here, Harleen, though I am uncertain that I should be the one to tell you this, is because of a man named Edgar – your uncle, I believe. He proclaimed that he would sell his soul for an infinite amount of wealth. But Andrew did not want Edgar’s soul. He wanted yours.”
“So you’re saying that my uncle sold me out to the devil?” Harleen asked, her voice getting shrill with each word. “You’re saying people can actually do that? I am barely eighteen years old! How is it possible that Edgar can do that?”
Amber shrugged. “You shouldn’t be asking me,” she said. “I only know that it’s possible.” She stood now, admiring the way Harleen’s hair looked. “Now, we should get your face done before slipping on the dress. The wedding starts in a few hours…”
Harleen was in such a state of shock that she d
idn’t hear Amber, and allowed the young girl to lead her to wherever. She didn’t care; she wasn’t even paying attention.
Once Harleen was fully dressed in her wedding attire, she followed Amber as the maid led her out her bedroom door, her insides churning. Harleen knew that women usually got a bit nervous right before they were about to walk down the aisle, but she figured this was a tad different. Her butterflies were boulders, whacking into every orifice of her stomach. Her heart tried to make a new home in her throat, and her head slipped into unconsciousness, and wouldn’t have failed had it not been for the boulders and the practical heart attack. Harleen thought that if she was still on earth, she would be having a heart attack.
Amber led Harleen down the winding staircase, but instead of taking her out the front door of the castle, she led her down the main hallway and in front of two glass doors. Harleen could see the backyard… and instead of fire and pain and suffering, she saw bright green grass, lush trees surrounding the area, and a crowd of people sitting on either side of the aisle in white lawn chairs. They were either dressed in red and black, and sometimes both, looking very nice, very pleasant. As she continued to look around, she saw many attractive women, all looking somewhat miserable because Andrew was getting married.
“Red and black,” Amber whispered from beside her. Harleen must have been so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice before how Amber was dressed. Her curly, auburn hair was straightened and flowed down her back beautifully. She was dressed in a form-fitting dress; it was high-necked but bare backed, with long sleeves. The only place the dress wasn’t tight was at the waist, where it flared out around her. Two slits went up both sides of her legs, and she wore black stilettos. She looked… Wow.
“The colors are a sign of good luck,” she explained. “It means they wish you and Andrew a happy marriage.”
“Why are some of the women wearing blue?” Harleen asked, craning her neck to get a better look at said women.
“They’re jealous,” Amber stated in a dismissive tone. “They want Andrew all to themselves. It’s also a very offensive color to wear, mocking you, in essence.”
Harleen frowned at the thought. “I don’t like them,” she said, her voice quiet.
“No one does,” the young woman told me. “They’re Andrew’s… oh, how should I say it?... leftovers.”
Harleen’s eyes narrowed. Okay, so she didn’t want to marry this guy, but still; did he really invite his whores to their wedding? Was he that much of a jerk?! Yes, she knew he was the devil for crying out loud, but she was still surprised at the audacity of their presence.
“Don’t worry,” Amber said, mistaking Harleen’s anger for jealousy. “If Andrew is anything, he’s loyal.”
The statement caught her off-guard and she glanced back down the aisle. A couple of men were in black suits. She still couldn’t see Andrew. Amber followed her gaze.
“They can’t see us, you know,” Amber said under her breath. “Cool thing. These windows are comparative to the interrogation rooms on Earth. They can’t see us but we can see them.” She paused. “Are you ready? They’re about to start the music.”
There was music in hell?
No, to Amber’s question.
“Yeah, let’s get this over with.”
As the door glided open, Harleen’s heart started to race. Again. She could hear her heart over the music, it was that loud. The people began stood, and everyone looked at the young woman. She was suddenly self-conscious. Harleen tried to look for something to stare at, to help keep the thread of sanity she had left. She could feel herself tearing up, but she would not cry in front of these people, least of all him. Amber reached out and squeezed Harleen’s hand, causing her worries to flutter away temporarily. Then, Amber began to walk down the red aisle.
Harleen could do this. She could do this. She could do this.
It was just walking, for crying out loud.
But she couldn’t move. Her body would not let her.
And then Harleen saw his eyes. There were the familiar dark hazel eyes Harleen remembered. The man himself was beautiful in his sharp black and white tuxedo.
Goodness, he was attractive.
Harleen inwardly cringed at her initial thought. If she hadn’t already been in Hell, she would have been sent there for her forbidden thought. Even though she had admitted Andrew was attractive before, it was different because he was the devil. She could not believe that she thought the devil, that she thought he was attractive. She hated herself even more.
And yet, as she chastised herself, she could not look away from him. He was… Harleen sighed. He was too beautiful. Maybe even heart-achingly so.
She surprised herself by making it over to him without tripping or otherwise embarrassing herself. It was then she realized that she came up to his shoulder, and goodness, he had broad shoulders. How could she not have noticed before? He looked at her, up and down. Harleen still felt insecure, but she would be damned if she let him see it. She tried to keep her face passive and cool, arching a brow at him once his eyes reached hers again.
Then he smiled at her with that now infamous crooked smile of his before casting his eyes out to his audience. “May I present,” he bellowed, and before Harleen realized it, his fingers wrapped around hers, “my lovely new wife, Harleen.” While the majority of the audience burst into applause, he looked back at his bride and spoke so only she could hear. “So we meet again.” He glanced back at everyone. “Now, to make things official, I will now kiss my bride.” He leaned toward Harleen, but just as his lips were about to meet her lips, she turned so he kissed her cheek instead.
The audience didn’t know how to respond. Some chuckled nervously, while others gasped. The women Harleen grew less and less fond of smirked, as though they knew he wasn’t going to get lucky tonight which would let them get lucky. Harleen didn’t care. He could go do as many women as he wanted. He wasn’t doing her; that was for sure.
But, when his lips touched her cheek, something happened to her. Goose bumps flared out and her heart slowed and yet maintained its fast speed at the same time. It was hard to explain. She didn’t understand… He chuckled against her cheek at her reaction, and glanced out at the sea of people.
“She’s playing coy,” he stated as if he knew her. Pshhh. Like Harleen would let him find out anything about herself. “Hopefully, she won’t follow suit in the bedroom.” The audience laughed along with him as her heart dropped. The bedroom. Sex. She cringed. She had forgotten about that.
He tugged gently on her arm. Harleen seemed to have been entrapped within her worries when she realized she stared into nothingness. Her gaze began to mist; the audience became blurry beings that had no faces anymore. She could make no one out. Before she realized it, she slipped into unconsciousness, falling… falling… falling…
Until strong arms wrapped around her middle and caught her.
That was all she remembered until she woke up, later that evening. For a moment, Harleen had forgotten where she was and what had happened a few hours ago. She knew she was not in her previous bedroom; her sheets were not as soft as these. Blinking once, twice, before her eyes encountered the strong back of the man that was now her husband. His muscles rippled as he reached down from the edge of the bed to grab something, or slip a sock on his foot. She couldn’t tell. Harleen was captivated by him. Her thoughts were blank; her shame was temporarily postponed.
“I told you desire would come shortly,” he said, as though he knew she had been staring at him.
Her face crawled with the impending blush that was about to devour her, but she scoffed, her brow furrowing as low as it could possibly go. Surprisingly, he pushed back until he was lying next to her, his head resting in his open palm, his elbow resting on the bed. She wouldn’t let herself look at him. Damn him for remaining shirtless. She was uncomfortable. His lips curled into a small smirk, as if he could read her thoughts, and he looked at her blatantly, unabashedly. Harleen’s red face only tu
rned redder.
“You were out for a while, you know,” he told her in a soft voice, and her heart flip flopped. Damn that accent. She hated the way her body reacted to him. He leaned closer to her and she felt herself stiffen; he reached up and brushed a stray strand of her hair from her face and curled it around her ear. “You’re afraid of me.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Obviously,” she murmured. “Now that I know who you really are.”
“Is that all you’re going to say to me?” he asked, looking at her with an amused smile on his face.
He set himself up for another ‘obviously’, but Harleen opted to remain silent and look away from him. Though she would never admit it, she started to feel as though she couldn’t trust herself when she looked at him, and she hated herself even more for it.
“How can you be afraid of someone you don’t even know?” he asked her.
“I do know you,” she spat, her eyes narrowing into his. “Or did the past month mean nothing to yo?. I just don’t know you as this.” She gestured at him. “You’re the devil. Satan. The prince of darkness.”
“Judge not lest ye be judged,” he quoted, giving her a pensive stare.
Harleen gritted her teeth in order to bite back her reply, but his fingers were grazing her cheek, making it somewhat difficult to concentrate. He had never touched her like that before.
“You looked absolutely stunning today,” he continued, his voice coming out huskier. Darn those goose bumps. He leaned forward, and she flinched, not quite sure what he was going to do. This caught him off-guard, stopping him from continuing. She opened one of her eyes, only to find him staring at her. He looked… confused. “You know, I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” Harleen looked at him - really, genuinely looked at him - trying to read his dark eyes. “You can trust me.”
No I can’t. She wanted to say it, but she wouldn’t even trust her voice.
Falling for the Devil: Book 1 of the Gods & Monsters Trilogy Page 6