by Marie Hall
“I mean they cracked me open, they stole my souls, and then when I was clean”—I laughed bitterly—“they pumped me full of every sin.”
Luc’s brows dipped. “You mean to say…”
Angry, I clenched my fists and nodded, and then I plowed through the rest of it before I could lose my nerve. “But it’s more than that. Not only am I possessed by each of the great sins, but I was crafted to become a devourer of souls.”
At their flinty, stony silence, I forced myself to make it perfectly clear what I meant because I had no intention of repeating this again.
“I am the newest incarnation of Legion, and if I willed it, I could suck you all dry. To open the gates, I need souls. Lots of souls, and that’s how they plan for me to do it, through the claiming of all of you.”
Chapter 20
Pandora
Everyone did exactly what I’d expected them to do after that pronouncement. They got up and vanished.
Well, almost everyone.
I sat at the table, staring at my now cold cup of coffee, and waited for Luc, Vyxyn, and Bubba to say whatever was on their minds. Being the highest-ranking members of the family, I doubted they were here to console me so much as to see whether I’d come back from the dead only to destroy them.
Asher stood just beyond the tent flaps, giving me some sort of privacy. More likely he expected someone to try and do something stupid, like, oh say, bring the demon bitch down, and he was out there to ensure they didn’t. Either way, I was grateful for the time with just my family.
“Well, say something,” I finally said, clutching my paper cup so hard coffee sloshed up the sides.
Vyxyn’s gaze was cold and assessing. “You can’t drop a bomb like that, Dora, and expect us to be cool with this.”
I shrugged. “Look, it is what it is. I can’t change it.”
“So why’d you come back here then?” Bubba, who was sitting closest to me, drawled. He’d been chugging pint after pint of blood for the past ten minutes; clearly he was bracing himself for more bad news.
Thankfully, there was no more to give.
I shook my head. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not really.” Luc scratched his jaw. “You know how important this family is to me. Not even for you, Dora, will I let it topple.”
I snorted. “Oh, I got that message loud and clear, cap.” I saluted him and then said, “Look, do you really think I would come strolling in here, warn you all that I’m a Legion in the making, and then… what?” I shrugged and tapped my temple. “Think, guys. Do you honestly believe I’m so naïve? If I was gonna take you all, I sure as hell wouldn’t have warned you.”
“Then why are you here?” Vyxyn tapped a ruby-red nail on the picnic bench.
“Because I need help, and you all are the only ones I trust enough to ask for it.”
I expected them to scoff, or laugh at me and tell me to go find help elsewhere. I mean our conversation from earlier hadn’t exactly gone as I’d hoped. Not to mention there was the whole “I want to suck your souls” confession. But I didn’t, and I hope they understood that.
They didn’t laugh at me.
Bubba ran a hand across his mature blond beard, which had been braided into a style reminiscent of his Viking roots. His blond hair was twisted into a tight knot behind his head, highlighting his slashing, Nordic cheekbones and blood-red eyes.
So funny how everyone looked the same and yet looked so different. Vyxyn was totally altered—more real, less showy. Everything about her was soft, almost ethereal. Luc, who’d always been so clean cut and put together, was once again wearing torn-up jeans and a ringer tee.
In some ways I felt like I no longer really knew any of them.
It was Luc who finally asked. “What kind of help?”
Clenching my jaw, I flicked at the top of the paper cup, set to destroy the pathetic thing soon if I didn’t stop fidgeting.
“I feel too full. Too overwhelmed with power. Asher has helped me to control it, as much as he’s able. But he wasn’t raised with a living demon inside him, and he doesn’t understand how to contain and control each one. You all do. I can control Lust, I know her. But I don’t know the rest of them, and when I get angry, things go…” I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You turn into the big green monster?” Vyxyn laughed at her poorly timed joke.
Bubba glowered at her.
Full pink lips twisting into a small pout, she sighed. “Dude, get a sense a humor.” Crossing her arms, she eyed me. “And how can we trust that if we help you, you won’t go all apeshit and suck us dry? Cause I ain’t signing up for that.”
I wasn’t sure. But there was no way I’d admit that to them. I felt stronger—much, much stronger—than I’d been since being driven from Creatus, and I hadn’t lost my head since the day of the priest’s surprise attack.
“Because I won’t. Because I love you guys.”
Everyone but Luc grimaced at those words.
I couldn’t really make out what Luc was thinking though, not the way I used to. Granted, it’d only been a year, and for creatures like us, a year was nothing more than a drop in the bucket of time.
But that year might as well have been a thousand for the two of us.
“Luc?”
Slapping his hands against his pants, he shrugged. “Do whatever, Dora. If they’re fine with it, then so am I.”
Then he got up, and I barely recognized the slouching man walking away from us. I glanced at both Bubba and Vyx with a silent question.
“He didn’t mean nuthin’ by it, Dora.” Bubba gently tapped the crown of my head. His habit had always been to give it a rub, like I was a good dog, but after what I’d told him this morning, I couldn’t say I blamed his skittishness about touching me now.
It might take some time, but I’d make them trust me again. I had to.
“So long as you vow not to use your woo woo on us, I think I might be okay with it. It’ll take some convincing with everyone else, but I think, yeah…” He nodded. “I think I can get the others to agree that we’re stronger with you than without you, at the very least.”
I turned to Vyx. “Well?”
She shrugged. “If Bubba’s in, so am I.”
Relieved almost beyond belief, I slumped my shoulders as the breath I’d not realized I’d been holding eased from me.
Getting up, Bubba looked down at me. “Dress in your most provocative outfit tonight, Dora, and you and me go in first. If you pass, then I’ll give you to the others.”
I nodded, but he’d already walked off. I stared at his broad shoulders until they disappeared behind the flap.
“I wanna know everything.”
I whirled around. “This Envy talking, or Vyxyn?”
Her lips thinned. “Both. Hell, I don’t know. But it was kind of a shit storm earlier, and I know you didn’t really get a chance to tell us everything. Everyone’s still pretty much digesting the fact that you can suck us dry.”
I laughed.
“What?” She glowered. “You think that’s funny? I haven’t forgotten what touching you that day did to me. My fucking demon went dormant for a week after that.”
“Of course I don’t think it’s funny. Well, sort of.” I rushed my words when her eyes began to swirl with bands of jade. “What I mean is, I can’t believe we’re actually able to talk without the threat of ripping each other’s heads off.”
Her eyes slowly returned to their normal color before she sighed. “Dora, things changed when you left. I don’t think any of us realized just what you’d done for this family. I know I sure as hell didn’t.”
I looked at the spot where Luc had been sitting earlier. “What happened with you and Luc?”
Her eyes took on a faraway look. “He didn’t want me. He never did. And I didn’t want him either. I just wanted—”
“What I had,” I said.
She gave me an unapologetic shrug. “Does that surprise you?”
“Not really.” I brushed my
fingers across the uneven surface of the bench. “Don’t even think about Asher.” My lips twitched.
She snorted. “Even I have standards. Besides, I think that priest would gut me if I ever tried.”
Chuckling, I nodded. “He probably would.”
After a while, she said, “Nothing was the same without you. Grace disappeared, and the Order gave us a new contact. Some shit head named Max who Luc made Bubba liason with.”
“Oh jeez.” I laughed. “Bubba? What was he thinking?” I couldn’t help but imagine what the red-eyed devil would do to anyone he came into contact with. “Poor Max.”
She snickered. “Yeah, little douche wet himself about three or four times before Luc realized that pair wouldn’t work out.”
“So you’re still taking orders, killing monsters?”
“Nah.” She twisted her lips. “Not really. They’ve just got us running random, setting down the carnival in these out-of-the-way weird places. It’s like everyone’s got their heads up their asses, and they don’t know up from down. It’s all wrong.”
Her green eyes pierced me.
“I couldn’t help but notice how different Luc is now.”
She sniffed. “Losing his shit took on a new definition when they took you, Dora. And when we couldn’t find you, it was like something inside him died. And what you see now”—she pointed to the empty spot beside her—“that’s who he is. I hate it.”
I’d closed things off with Luc romantically, but that didn’t mean that I enjoyed hearing this either. It bothered me, yes, but there was also nothing I could do for him right now. Right now the best thing I could do was focus on getting better, stronger. Now was the time to focus on me. When this was all over, then I could try and figure out how to help him.
“So why haven’t you left?”
“And go where?” She held up a hand. “All I kept thinking about while you were gone was how much stronger than me you were and how easy it’d been for them to get at you. I might be Envy, but I’m not stupid. I didn’t stand a chance out there alone.”
“You know, I never thought you were stupid. Just incredibly annoying.”
Sticking her tongue out at me, she kicked my shin underneath the table.
We laughed for a second, then eased into a comfortable silence. If she and I could make this work, then anything was possible.
“So why’d they pump you full of us, Dora? I know there’s more than what you told us. And how the hell did they do that when only Lust, Envy, and Wrath run the Triad?”
I blew out a long raspberry. “I have no idea. They used a device on me, stuck it straight into my chest cavity. When they turned it on, I was flooded with souls. Each power, each soul, is so distinct and violent, sometimes it feels like my head is going to burst. I can control it pretty well during the day, but at night”—I twisted my lips—“at night it gets me.”
“That why you’re still parked so far away with just the priest for company?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I feel safe with him, but I don’t trust myself around others just yet. And as to why”—I straightened my shoulders—“it’s so I can open the Gates of Hell.”
She whistled. “Dayum. Whoo.” Shaking her head, she tucked a long piece of hair behind her ear. “And here I always wanted to be you. I can finally say my envy of you is cured.”
I slapped her shoulder. “Thanks a lot.”
Her brows dipped. “So how come you’re not like some raving idiot trying to snap off heads and stuff? To be honest, I couldn’t even sense anything else inside you. You’re like a great big blank.”
“It’s because I’ve locked it down. But trust me, Vyx, it’s all in there.”
She got to her feet and brushed her hands down her backside, dusting her dress off. “One more thing. We help you control these demons, then what? I know you have a plan after that.”
“Then we go and tear those walls down.”
“Fight a war? For you?” Her lips twitched. “I don’t think I like you that much.”
“Ha. Trust me, you don’t want me to open those gates, so yes, you’ll help me fight this war.”
“But bringing that prison down”—she shrugged—“it’s just a place, Dora. It’s not the Triad. What will that do?”
I didn’t tell her about reversing what’d been done to me, about yanking the demons back out, about possibly even committing suicide by doing it. I just didn’t know what pulling it all out of me would do, but what I did know was that without the key, there could be no war.
“It’s a strike against the heart of the dragon, and that”—I got up, tossed my destroyed coffee cup into the garbage bin, and headed toward the flap—“will be more than enough.”
~*~
Asher
“I don’t know what to wear.” Pandora stared mournfully into the closet.
She was coated in a fine sheen of sweat, and her black hair tumbled sexily down to the tip of her backside. Her nipples poked straight out, and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to stay just as she was.
“What do you mean you don’t know what to wear?” I joined her, staring at the pile upon pile of clothing and shoes. I gestured at the floor. “You have an entire store in here.”
Pouting, she twirled on me. “I don’t have a clue what Bubba has got planned. He said sexy, but I don’t even know what sexy is anymore. Does he mean slut it up? Or jazz-lounge-singer sexy or goth-chick sexy or triple-X-rated sexy—” She ticked off the list on her fingers.
My lips twitched as I stared back at the rumpled sheets of our bed, remembering the way she’d writhed and moaned on top of me, clawing at my shoulders and back for hours.
“You could always just plop a couple pasties on these.” I cupped her breasts and gave them a squeeze, which made her jump and swat my hands away.
She laughed. “You are so not helping, and if you do that to me again, I swear I’ll toss you down on those sheets and make you beg for it.”
I was never going to get tired of our banter, of her sex play, of any of her really. Chuckling, I riffled my fingers through my hair. Even from this distance, I could hear the crunchy rock music rolling through the fairgrounds.
Soon the gates would open, and Pandora would need to be there. As much as I teased that I preferred her naked, I’d gut anybody if they dared to lay their slimy gaze upon her.
“Just pick something, demon. Everything you have is sexy.” I plopped down onto the edge of the bed and watched as she dropped to her knees, tossing one dress after another over her shoulder, digging frantically into the pile for something she’d find suitable.
I knew what she was doing. She was nervous and she wanted them to trust her, she wanted them to believe in her as I did. So much so that even dressing herself was becoming a grand spectacle.
“Stop.”
She didn’t stop, just kept tossing dresses around haphazardly. When a silky red one dropped into my lap, I sighed. “Pandora, stop now!”
Finally she stopped. Finally she turned around. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was glaring at me. My little demon and her ugly temper.
God I loved her.
I lifted a brow. “You need to relax. Take a deep breath and realize that whatever you wear will be fine.”
Her shoulders slumped, and all the fire rushed off her. Flinging herself backward into another pile of clothes, she shook her head. “This is important to me, Ash. To us.”
“Babe, I know. Trust me.” I twirled the dress in my hand and then flung it at her.
She batted it away, giving a small chuckle. “I am acting a little crazy, aren’t I?”
“A little?” I agreed.
“All right, all right.” She snatched up a pump with a wicked looking heel and waved it in front of her face. “Don’t forget how dangerous I can be with these bad boys. So stop being so useless, and help me pick something out.”
I tossed up my hands. “Woman, you drive me nuts.”
She shrugged. “Hurry, Ash, I’ve got to be there
in like fifteen minutes. I have a feeling Bubba’s gonna put me in his tent tonight.”
“What? In the big top?”
She nodded.
When I glanced down at the pile of clothes again, I spied something that immediately brought a grin to my face.
“Stand up.”
Getting up slowly and with a confused frown on her face, she looked at me. “Okay?”
“I don’t know about you, but when I think of a big top I always think of”—leaning over, I picked up an outfit that could have come straight out of a Halloween catalog—“a sexy court jester.”
“What? Really?” Her nose wrinkled as she reached for it.
The costume had a black-and-white cinched bodice with joker triangles along the front, and thick black and ruby-red bands down the back. The design was off the shoulders and flared out around the hips, but it ended just below her ass.
I flicked the poufy black lace beneath it. “I remember buying you something like this once.”
Rolling her eyes, she yanked the dress off the hanger and slipped it on. If I hadn’t already known just how pressed for time we were, I’d have plucked her up, dropped her onto the bed, and proceeded to take it off her again very slowly.
I rubbed my jaw.
Her eyes glowed. “You like?”
There wasn’t much room in my head for anything other than a one word answer.
“Well, my dirty little priest, you haven’t even seen the best part yet.”
Making easy work of cinching the corset tight, she then turned and flounced toward the dresser. The poufy bottom showed a peekaboo flash of ass with each step she took.
Suddenly I was regretting my decision, but then she turned and showed me what she’d pulled out of the dresser, and all the blood rushed to my groin.
Plopping down onto a corner of the bed, I watched as she slipped on the sheerest black thong I’d ever seen. Then she took a seat on a chair, lifted her left leg high, and allowed the sock in her hand to unroll.
Never taking her eyes off me, she smirked as she eased the thigh highs on first one leg, then the other. They ended just at mid-thigh. Black and white, they had tiny bells tied at the tops that rang as she moved.