Falling for the Devil: Book 1 of the Gods & Monsters Trilogy

by Isadora Brown

  When Harleen didn’t answer, she shared a look with Sean before turning the knob and opening the door. Except, Harleen wasn’t there. The room was empty. Something flipped in Amber’s stomach, and she checked the closets and the restroom, but they were empty as well. She turned, and looked at Sean.

  “I have a bad feeling,” she murmured. “We need to search the castle. She isn’t here.”

  “Well, if she’s not here, where could she be?” Sean asked, his face paling even more than it already was.

  “I don’t know,” Amber whispered.

  It took two and a half hours to search the entire castle grounds, but Harleen was nowhere to be found. Sean was already on his phone the instant the news came in, hoping to get in contact with Andrew, despite the fact that he was undoubtedly in the middle of Court. That didn’t matter. When Andrew heard the words Harleen and emergency, he grabbed the phone and demanded to know what had happened. Amber felt bad that Sean had to relate all of this information to Andrew because if one thing was for certain, Andrew was definitely not happy.

  “He wants us to call if she comes in,” Sean said, sliding his phone shut. “He’s on his way right now.”

  “I highly doubt she’s coming back,” Amber murmured.

  “Well, where could she possibly go?” Sean asked. “She can’t go back up to earth, and if she was in the castle, she would have been found. We can’t alert the general population. What a PR nightmare; we can’t control the Queen? Nobody would take this kingdom seriously.”

  “She’s a grown woman,” Amber pointed out. “And she’s Queen. She can pretty much do and go whatever and wherever she wants.”

  When Andrew arrived in record time of fifteen minutes, he was stressed out even more than Sean. His hair was in disarray and his dark hazel eyes were wild with obvious worry. “Has she returned?” he asked, looking between both Sean and Amber. “Has she come back?”

  “She hasn’t,” Amber said.

  “We think she might have left,” Sean told him.

  “But we have no idea where she could have gone,” Amber added, a solemn look on her face.

  Andrew felt his body freeze, and he took a long moment to process everything that Sean and Amber had told him. Then, suddenly, he knew. He knew exactly where she was, and he felt his worry only increase. He turned back to the two.

  “Prepare a carriage,” he ordered. “I know where she went.” He disappeared up the stairs.

  “Where do you think she went?” Amber asked Sean in a low voice.

  “If you were Harleen and were super pissed at your husband, where would you go?” Sean asked, the answer completely obvious. “To be honest, I can’t believe we didn’t think of it first.”

  “The Everglades?” Amber asked, her voice just a whisper, if that. Now it was she who had gone pale, and she threw a helpless glance over at her friend. “Sean, I have a bad feeling. If she is at the Everglades, what” -

  “I know,” Sean said, pulling Amber into a tight hug. He had cut her off because he didn’t want to hear what she might say. If she said them, then they might be true, and Sean was the sort of person who liked to remain naïve in certain situations. “I know. Andrew’s going, though. He’ll get her back. And you know, they’re probably not even there. Most likely, she’s just chilling out at the bookstore and nothing’s wrong with her.”

  Amber wanted to believe it, but her intuition wouldn’t allow herself that luxury.

  It wasn’t long before Andrew had grabbed a coat for his wife if need be, and with that, he was in the carriage, urging the driver to go as fast as he possibly could in the direction of Everglades. He tried to keep his nerves on end by thinking realistically, that the one time Harleen decided to go out to the one place he told her not to go, it was highly unlikely that Hunters were there.

  This was all his fault. If only he hadn’t snapped at her this morning, or at least apologized. Even more than that, he should have told her why she shouldn’t have come to the Everglades by herself. He should have trusted her with that information. Andrew would be lying if he said he wasn’t upset at her for blatantly doing something he had told her not to do, but if she was okay, if she ended up okay, he promised to tell her everything – his reasoning behind the Everglades, apologizing for their fight and taking back all those nasty things he had said, but above all else, he would tell her that he loved her more than anything, more than he thought was possible.

  Once they reached the Everglades, Andrew hopped out. When he didn’t see her, he thought that maybe she wasn’t here, that he had just assumed… But then –

  He saw the footprints. He stopped thinking, hoping… but he knew he needed to follow them, to make sure…

  The led him down a trail and he stopped dead. He saw what he didn’t want to have ever seen in his entire being.

  Hunters were most certainly there, and with them was Harleen. She looked unconscious, and Andrew could only hope that it wasn’t anything worse than that.

  At that moment, the Hunters spotted Andrew’s presence and three smirks slid onto their three faces.

  To say that Andrew was beyond pissed, was most certainly an understatement.

  Thirty-Two

  “Well, well, well,” the leader, the male said as he walked over to Andrew while maintaining a safe distance between himself and devil. “Look who we have here. I wish I could say I’m surprised to see him standing there, looking all forlorn and angry, but I can’t.”

  “Is there something you want from us, Your Highness?” the woman asked, clearly patronizing Andrew. “I don’t see any other reason why you’re here, looking as you do. Is there something we can help you with? Maybe you need some of our advice on a personal matter?”

  Andrew felt himself lock his jaw and curl his fingers so that they were fists. He narrowed his eyes, refusing to immediately respond only because he needed to make sure that what he was about to say was clear, firm, and understood. He tried to ignore the fact that Harleen’s body was on the ground, completely devoid of any signs of life, but it was hard to do so. All that mattered was getting her out of there as fast as he could, with the assurance that no harm should come to her.

  There was only one thing for him to do.

  “This is how things are going to go,” he said in a curt tone. His voice had come out calmer than he had originally thought it would, but he knew that such an occurrence was good. They obviously knew that Harleen was, in fact, his weakness, and he wasn’t going to deny it. However, he needed to sound serious when it came to what he was about to say. “You are going to give me my wife, and then I am sending all three of you to Purgatory.”

  This seemed to amuse the Hunters, and they all threw their head backs to laugh at the ridiculous prospect. “Really, Highness?” the second male asked since he was the first one to have gotten a hold of himself faster than his colleagues. “Is that so? What a grand notion that is. And pray tell where you heard such a ridiculous venture. You don’t think you could achieve something of the sort.”

  “We’re not going to Purgatory,” the woman said in a firm voice, but Andrew could read her clear blue eyes, and even the word seemed to send fear into her irises.

  “Actually you are,” Andrew said, walking a few feet towards them. “You are and I’m going to be the one to send you there. You’re going to give me my wife and then you’re going to Purgatory. What don’t you understand?”

  “You can’t possibly take on all three of us at one time, save your Queen, and send us to the place,” the leader spat, sneering as he spoke. “Not even you, King, have the ability to take on three Hunters at one time. It’s not possible. We’ll be in a stalemate for the rest of time since no one can die here.” He smiled now, but the act didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But, of course, you could challenge us anyways, and we could engage in such a battle. We haven’t been a part of one in centuries, and you would be such a worthy opponent.”

  “So it is,” Andrew said, nodding his head once. “I challenge all three of y
ou at once. If I win, I get my wife and you three will be sent away for the rest of your existence.”

  “You will be a very poor loser,” the second man said, “because we cannot be defeated.”

  “Which is why we won’t ask for anything in return,” the leader said. “There is nothing we want, especially not from you, except of course, to cause you pain. And the longer your Queen is in her state, the less likely she will wake up.”

  Andrew wasn’t sure whether to be happy or upset when it concerned this piece of information. It meant that Harleen was, in fact, alive, but if he didn’t get to her in time, if this battle waged on for a while, she might never wake up. Which meant that Andrew would just have to work his ass off and defeat these Hunters as fast as he possibly could.

  “Are you ready, then?” Andrew asked, quirking a brow.

  “Let’s do this,” the female said, smirking as she did so.

  The battle itself was less than fifteen minutes by a few seconds. When it first began, Andrew was overwhelmed by three Hunters. Hunters had always been strong, and their strength increased with each number they had, but being Satan meant that he was much stronger, even if it meant that it would take a while before he succeeded in doing what Andrew had set out to do. The Hunters had to have known this, but apparently they wanted nothing more than to distract Andrew for as long as they could in hopes that Harleen wouldn’t wake up at all. Sure, they might go to Purgatory for the rest of time, but Andrew would be in pain for the rest of time if his wife died. And it was quite likely that she would be going to Heaven if she did die.

  The Hunters’ flaw was their underestimation of Andrew. Hunters were arrogant sons of bitches and believed nothing else than how powerless and unworthy Satan was. The difference between the Hunters and Andrew was that Andrew had something to fight for while the Hunters did not. And Andrew had no qualms fighting for the person he loved.

  So the battle ended early, and before the Hunters knew it, they vanished, never to be heard from again. Certainly other Hunters roamed the Everglades, but three less was always a win when it came down to it. Once they were gone, Andrew felt his entire body scream out in exhaustion, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep. But he couldn’t do that just yet. He needed to check on Harleen. If anything, he needed to wake her up. He couldn’t let her die; he wouldn’t know how to live without her.

  Gently, he picked her head up and placed it in his lap. “Please,” he whispered, looking from her up to the sky. “Please don’t let her die. I know I don’t deserve her. I know I don’t deserve anything. But I need her. Please.”

  It was a rare occurrence for Satan to pray to God, the person who had condemned him here, but any and all pride Andrew might have used as his excuse to prevent such a thing from happening had been banished from his thoughts the moment he had learned that Harleen had disappeared from the castle. His eyes were hazy, filled with unshed tears, and he wiped a strand of hair from her face, curling it around her ear.

  He had to get her back to the castle. He had to make sure that she was okay. Maybe a doctor could figure out just what was wrong with her – if anything was wrong with her. Maybe she never would wake up. Maybe everything the Hunters had told him was a flat lie. Maybe by banishing them, he lost all hope to ever resuscitate her. Andrew shook his head, couldn’t think like that. He knew that if the roles were reversed and Harleen was awake and he was unconscious, she wouldn’t give up on him.

  Which meant he wouldn’t – couldn’t - give up on her. He slid his arms around her shoulders and pulled her even closer to him, finally releasing the tears from his eyes. “Please don’t die,” he whispered into her hair. “Please don’t leave. I have no idea what I would do without you. You have to come back to me. Please come back to me.”

  The soft murmurs did little to relieve Andrew of anything, and when he saw that she was still unresponsive, he allowed a sob to escape from his mouth. He clung on tighter to her, feeling his own heart beat – the one Harleen had given him not so long ago – start to beat incessantly, painfully. This must be what it felt like being in love. It could be the best feeling in the world, and yet, at the same time, it could inflict such pain that it was almost hard to breathe. Yet, as Andrew held onto Harleen, he realized that it didn’t matter. Whatever pain love wanted to throw his way was perfectly fine with him, just as long as he could have her back. He would endure any and everything love had to give him, all the hurt that accompanied pleasure, all the anger and frustration that accompanied the passion.

  “Please,” he said again. “Please don’t leave me. I.” He cut himself off, not sure if he should reveal his true feelings for her while she was unconscious. Then the thought that there might be a next time, and there was a strong possibility that she could hear him, even if she wasn’t aware of her surroundings. More than that, he wanted to say it, wanted to tell her. “I love you. So you see? You can’t leave. I love you.”

  But, as of yet, she wasn’t responding, not even to his words.

  Thirty-Three

  It had been twenty minutes since Andrew had left, and Amber was sick and tired of watching Sean pace up and down the hallway. It wasn’t as though Andrew had hidden the location of where he was going. It was obvious, and Amber would have done the same thing if her boyfriend had forbidden her to be someplace without telling her why and then got into a fight with her. She would go to the exact place she had been forbidden to go to. Duh. Her arms were currently crossed over her chest and she looked at Sean with a lazy expression.

  “Oh come on, Sean,” she finally said, speaking for the first time since Andrew’s departure. “We know where he went. We should follow him in the carriage.”

  “He didn’t tell us to come,” Sean pointed out, and though he had stopped pacing, his hands were behind his back still, revealing just how tense he was. “If Andrew wanted us to accompany him then he would have told us to come, and since he didn’t tell us to come, he probably doesn’t want us to come.”

  Amber rolled her eyes at Sean’s nervous habit of repeating points he had already made, feeling her frustration for the entire situation to creep and crawl through her body. “You know what, Sean?” she snapped. “I don’t care what Andrew said or didn’t say. Harleen is my friend too, and I care about her well-being just like Andrew does. Okay, maybe not exactly in the same way, but that’s beside the point. The point is, what if Andrew needs our help? What if there are Hunters there, Sean? Listen, you can do whatever you want to do, but seriously, I’m going. I’m calling a carriage and I’m going. I would rather get chewed out by Andrew for twenty minutes or however long he’s going to yell at me then have him come back with a dead girl in his arms.” She took a breath, not realizing when she started her impassioned speech that she would be talking quite as much as she had. Then she looked at Sean, waiting for him to say something.

  Sean, to say the least, was just as flabbergasted as Amber was, but for different reasons entirely. This sweet maid had just put him in his place, and for whatever reason, he wasn’t offended by it because he knew that everything she had just said, while hard to swallow, was true. If he was fired, if he was punished – it would be okay just as long as Harleen was okay, that she was still alive and breathing.

  “Fine,” he agreed, nodding his head once. “I’ll call a carriage. Grab some jackets for us. Who knows what the weather’s going to be like.”

  “And I’ll get some blankets for Harleen if she needs them,” Amber added.

  Both of them nodded in agreement with the plan, and after five minutes, they were bundled up in a carriage, on their way to the Everglades.

  If Harleen had to say how she felt at that particular moment, numb would be the vocabulary word she would choose, only because she didn’t feel anything. She didn’t feel any pain, but then again, she didn’t feel any sort of comfort. She was just there.

  But where?

  She couldn’t remember, but…

  Cold.

  She felt cold. Very, very cold.

>   The Everglades. She was at the Everglades.

  Little pieces of memory started coming back to her – three people had approached her by the stream, and then she couldn’t remember what had happened after that.

  A voice. At that moment, she heard a voice, but she couldn’t hear what the person was saying. At least it sounded familiar. Come on, Harl. Open your eyes. It interested her how such a simple task could produce such an effort, and after what felt like forever, she managed to accomplish it.

  The Everglades. No wonder she was so damn -

  But wait. She wasn’t as cold as she could be only because someone held onto her.

  The voice!

  She craned her neck and her eyes came in contact with familiar dark hazel eyes.

  “Oh my…” Andrew let his whispered voice trail off when he saw that Harleen was awake. A crooked smile broke out across onto his face and he tilted his head up, only to mouth a thank you, before fixing his eyes back on the woman in front of him. “You’re awake! You’re actually awake.” Neither of them noticed another carriage pull up, but at that moment, neither of them particularly cared. “I thought I had lost you. I thought you were gone.”

  Harleen couldn’t speak just yet, but she cocked her head to the side, a confused look written clearly on her face. She had no idea what he was talking about or why he was so happy to see her; weren’t they in a middle of a fight?

  Andrew saw her look, and his smile only deepened. “You’re a rebel, aren’t you?” he asked, gesturing at their surroundings. “I tell you not to go somewhere, and you do.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Harleen told him, but couldn’t help the amused smile from affecting the corner of her lips if she had tried.

  Andrew chuckled, pulling her tighter against him. “Listen,” he said, his voice serious. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything I ever said. You aren’t sloppy seconds. You aren’t any of those things. You’re beautiful and wonderful.” He reached out and grabbed her hand before placing it on his chest. “Here. Do you feel that? Your heart beats inside of me.” He dropped her hand but Harleen kept it there, not fully believing that he had a heart, but even more than that, that it was beating. “I love you.”