Happily Ever Afterlives

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Happily Ever Afterlives Page 4

by Olivia Waite


  Miss Greening’s eyes narrowed. “My lord, this creature of Hell has seduced you.”

  “Damn right she has,” said Lambourne against Idared’s delicate skin.

  One minion took advantage of the distraction to reach out hungrily to seize Miss Greening. The bow scraped the strings again, sounding this time like a cat in love. Everybody winced and glared at the young lady, who was frowning in thought. Said Miss Greening, “This is a hard cross to bear.” She failed to notice how Lucifer and Idared both shuddered at the word cross. “I’ve come so far. Do you...” She turned to the damned lord and suddenly she looked very fragile, this girl who had crossed the infernal plains with only a violin as a shield. “Do you love her?”

  “I do,” Lambourne said gently. He turned to look at Idared. “And I wish I’d told her so before now.”

  If Idared had thought her heart broken earlier, she was disabused now. This was a pain greater than any she’d ever inflicted on a soul in torment. There were no words that could see her through such agony.

  “I see,” Miss Greening said, looking at the demoness. For a moment the lady wilted, but then took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Then I shall return alone to the mortal world and trouble you no further. And there will be no more talk of—of self- slaughter,” she went on mulishly.

  “On that point, the odious Miss Greening and I quite agree,” added the Lord of Hell. The lady scowled to hear the epithet. “However,” Lucifer continued, “I have made my decision according to the laws and I will not be gainsaid. Once you are past the boundaries of my demesne, my lord, you will be barred from Hell—and indeed, from Heaven, as you will not be able to die a second time. And as for Miss Greening herself, when she shortly comes to the end of her mortal lifespan, I’m not going to touch her— nor will any of my minions or underlings,” grumbled Lucifer. “My instructions on this point shall be very explicit indeed. She can go to Heaven, if she goes anywhere at all.”

  The rage of a demoness is a dreadful thing to rouse. Idared had seen and heard enough. Her wings snapped open and her tail cracked with fury. She raised her whip arm with the idea of slicing away every string on that paltry mortal’s musical instrument...

  And her whip burst into flames in her hand. She yelped and dropped the weapon, cradling her injured hand against her body.

  “You will obey me!” bellowed the Lord of Hell as flames burst up around his throne and lit the room with a blinding, terrible light. “You will all obey me!”

  The crackle of fire was loud in a room suddenly free of conversation.

  The flames dimmed slightly, but did not die. “Make your farewells, my lord,” commanded Lucifer. “We shall not be seeing you again.”

  Miss Greening’s face was pale and fearful as she sent a regretful glance toward Idared, but the damage had been done. Lucifer’s decree was the highest law in Hell.

  Idared turned to Lambourne, pressed herself full-length against him and kissed him. If she’d known how to die from a kiss, she might have done it. Instead, she merely concentrated on burning this one last taste of him into her memory. This kiss would have to last forever.

  His mouth against hers was just as desperate and his body shook even as he pulled himself away. “I will not forget you,” he whispered.

  “No,” said Idared sadly, “you will not.”

  Miss Greening took her revenge on the fallen angel by making the violin yell like a cat in love being pressed through a fine mesh screen. “Of all the mortals I’ve met in my extremely long life,” said Hell’s king, “you are by far the worst. Take your prize and depart.” Lucifer’s eyes lit with flame and, with a snap of his pointed fingers, he vanished, taking his minions with him.

  The demoness watched as the human couple trudged away down the winding path that led to Hell’s earthly exit. Lambourne turned around to look at her a few times before such glances became unreadable with distance. Idared tried to memorize the way his legs moved as he walked, the set of his shoulders and the slope of his neck as he craned his head around for one last look. Miss Greening never turned her head— more’s the pity— but she occasionally scraped the bow against the strings to keep the many sinister creatures of Hell at a comfortable distance.

  Idared couldn’t even muster relief at the thought that the violin was out of hearing range.

  Chapter Four

  For once the Lord of Hell was merciful and Idared’s promotion was left intact, despite her moment of insubordination. Her next victim was a weedy young murderer who screamed too easily and wept whenever he wasn’t screaming. Even at night, when he fell asleep, his nightmares brought him back to shrieking wakefulness. The whole business kept Idared unpleasantly sleepless—and not only did this leave her more irritable with exhaustion, but it was an insult to her abilities as a wielder of the whip. She yearned for the days when wringing a hard-won cry from Lambourne’s stoic and stubborn throat had made her glow with accomplishment.

  A fortnight went by. Idared was just curling up in her bed for another night of unsatisfying not-rest when her whole body lit up with a prickling sensation, as though it had fallen asleep and was now coming back to life.

  Irritation flowered into rage as she recognized what this meant—a summoning. Idared had only been called to the mortal plane a handful of times, but it was always unpleasant and a disruption. Some human sorcerer wanted a question answered, or a rival killed, or a week of pleasure with a demoness forced into obedience.

  It did not suit her mood.

  Her wings snapped open to their full, terrifying span and she lashed her tail like a caged tiger. Hellfire blazed into life on her hands and wings and in the depths of her eyes as she hissed and the room around her went dark.

  She landed in a crouch. The flickering light from a brace of candles made the room a haven for shadows. Above her was the sloping roof of an old attic and beneath her feet was a dusty wooden floor. She was standing in the center of a pentagram done in chalk, straining against the limits that symbol imposed on her movements and abilities. She couldn’t move unless ordered, or unless the pentagram’s lines were broken by someone other than herself.

  Standing before her, in a shirt, waistcoat and dark trousers, book in hand, was Lambourne.

  Idared’s breath froze in her lungs.

  He snapped the book shut and tossed it aside. “I’m sorry I’ve been delayed so long,” he said. “Miss Greening—who was kind enough to jilt me publicly, at my request—gave me access to her library, which was a great help with basic research, but to find reliable sources on summoning demons was a bit trickier. Most of the country’s C. of E., you know, and the Catholics have all the really useful grimoires and spellbooks. Took me most of this fortnight to track down the proper volume from an out-of-luck sorcerer.” He looked Idared up and down, all the green-skinned, bewinged, long-tailed, Hellfire-blazing parts of her. “All of which is to say,” he finished, “that I’ve missed you terribly.”

  He reached out one shining black shoe and scuffed out the nearest line of the pentagram.

  Restraint vanished. Wings and tail disappeared and Idared launched herself forward into his welcoming arms. They were devouring each other’s mouths even before Lambourne’s back slammed up against the attic wall, causing the candles to wobble on their bases. The flames steadied as he plunged his tongue into her mouth and she shuddered, struck by the profound joy of reunion and the terror that it wouldn’t last, that this was just a temporary respite from an eternity of loneliness. The thought made her want to hurry and her quick fingers immediately went to work on undoing every button from the front of his vest and shirt. It was hard going, as she was far from used to the fastenings of human garments, and it took longer than she liked. She pulled free of the kiss to mutter a curse and focus on getting him naked.

  Lambourne had other ideas. While her hands tangled in his clothes, he grabbed her around the waist and bore her down to the floor beneath him. “Do you know,” he growled, as one hand speedily freed his cock from
his trousers, “how much I’ve been thinking about this after being sent back to the mortal world?” Idared wrapped her legs around his waist and arched up, but Lambourne kept his cock brushing teasingly along the lips of her cunt. “Do you want to hear all the ways I dreamed of making you come for me, of being able to take you hard and fast and however I wanted? Of never caring about sin, only about how many times I could fuck you?”

  “So stop talking about it,” moaned the demoness, “and fuck me.”

  “Not yet,” he insisted. He smiled when that made her frown and went on, “Do you know how much I missed even the simplest of touches? Your hands on mine, your breath on my neck while you slept, the lazy way you stretch against me when you wake up in the morning.”

  Idared was losing her mind from the careful, controlled little motions his cock was making along her sensitive cleft. Tenderness was all well and good, but at present she had more urgent demands. She tightened her thighs and managed to rub herself along the length of his cock, making her gasp and making Lambourne swear. “Please,” she said, repeating the motion. She didn’t know how much more she could take.

  He sheathed his cock in her with one hard thrust.

  Idared gasped—by all the fires in Hell, she’d missed this feeling. He gave her no time to adjust after so many days, but began instantly pounding himself into her body, as though he were trying to brand her with nothing but the feel of his hard flesh sliding and pulsing within her.

  “So sweet,” he growled, his eyes closing briefly in concentration. Idared moaned in agreement and wound her arms around his shoulders, using his body for leverage as she thrust readily back against him. He put one warm hand on the back of her thigh and pushed up—and suddenly his cock sank deeper, his possession more forceful at this new angle. Idared submitted to his control and matched him stroke for stroke until finally the hard thrusts drove deep within her and pushed her into a blinding climax.

  She cried out and clung to him as he continued thrusting, prolonging her orgasm as long as possible.

  She expected his climax to follow hers, but again Lambourne surprised her. He pulled out of her and loomed above her on hands and knees. “Turn around,” he demanded.

  In all their time together, he’d never been able to take charge. Idared wanted to see how far he’d go if she resisted. “Take off your clothes,” she said, a command of her own.

  “Not until I’m damn good and ready,” he replied. “Turn around!”

  “Make me,” said the demoness.

  Before she could gather her still-trembling limbs to stop him, he reached out with lightning speed—as though he’d been expecting her response—and flipped her completely over onto her belly. Idared pushed herself to her hands and knees, chalk dust from the broken pentagram gritty beneath her palms. Two powerful arms came down on either side of her and her bare back came flush against Lambourne’s silk- and linen-covered chest.

  She shivered.

  He growled approval, his voice warm against her ear. “You left your marks on me every day, Idared,” he said. “Some days you used your whip and other days you used that wicked, delectable body of yours—but every damn day, you claimed me as yours. And I gloried in being possessed.” He bit gently at the tender skin of her shoulder and she undulated beneath him at the sharp decadence of it. She felt him smile against her skin and he continued, “Now it’s my turn for a claiming.”

  One of the arms beside her disappeared as he reached down to guide his cock back into her heated cunt—though he moved slowly this time, letting her feel every inch that speared her. Small shocks from her recent climax echoed through her flesh until finally he was seated to the hilt within her body.

  Idared let out a long, satisfied sigh and decided submission had its finer points. She moved her knees farther apart, the better to take him as deeply as she could.

  And then he held still. Idared waited.

  Still, he did not move.

  Idared tried to arch her hips in invitation, but his hand held her flush against him and she could not move enough to get the friction she craved. The demoness hissed her displeasure.

  He chuckled and the hand on her hip moved around to the front of her abdomen, caressing her belly as she tried to thrust back against him. “Beg me,” he said, so softly that it was almost—but not quite—a suggestion.

  She bucked against him again and the hand on her belly dipped down to flick briefly at her clit. Idared gasped—but just as swiftly the hand moved away, splayed upon the tender curve of her stomach, holding her firmly in place. “Beg me,” he said again and this time it was plainly a command.

  She thought about defying him again—but then his teeth grazed her earlobe and she was lost. “Please,” she moaned, pressing against him as hard as she could, while sensation blazed like stars within her body.

  She felt his cock twitch within her and knew he was not immune to the plea, but Lambourne was not about to let her off so easily. “Please what?” he prompted.

  He was evil and it thrilled her. “Please fuck me!” she cried. Devastating as her recent climax had been, it was nowhere near enough to make up for two complete weeks of the absence of Lambourne.

  “Much better,” he murmured.

  And he did as she asked.

  Idared groaned and gave herself up for lost. This decadent mortal man knew every inch of her—how to stroke and thrust, which angles to use, when to speed up and when to slow down to make her pleasure spiral outward toward the infinite. One hand slid up her torso to cup her breast, circling her dark nipple with knowing fingers. All the while his cock plunged into her, filling her with heat, driving her toward an irresistible peak. He took her as savagely as she wished and it was a darker, wilder pleasure than they’d shared before.

  Only now did she realize how much he had been holding back in Hell, how greatly he’d restrained himself to avoid the sin that could separate him from her. The rough floor bit into her palms as she leaned her weight on them to thrust demandingly back against him. She wanted all of him, all the savagery and skill he’d been unable to use before.

  His breath feathered across her nape and she sucked in a breath of her own. “Touch yourself—for me,” he murmured, desire rough in his voice.

  It was sinful of him to ask it—and then Idared realized that sin had no hold on him any longer. They were both free. A bolt of elation went through her and she lifted one hand from the floor, brushed her palm on his trousered thigh to rid her hand of chalk dust and slid her fingers between her legs.

  She let out a moan and Lambourne began plunging harder inside her. The buttons of his shirt and waistcoat were rough against her back but that was nothing against the slickness and hardness of him pumping within her. “Tell me how it feels,” he commanded, panting.

  “So good,” she groaned, and felt him speed up again, their bodies reaching higher and higher, straining toward the moment of incandescence. Idared fingered her own clitoris and unloosed her tongue, telling him how deep he was reaching and how hard he was fucking her, pulling every filthy, beautiful word she could from the deepest parts of her—until his teeth sank into the skin of her shoulder and she felt him pump once and come inside her, pouring his seed into her throbbing flesh, his hand clutching possessively at her breast. She pressed her fingers hard against herself and screamed as she came with him, their bodies pulsing in time with one another.

  It was a lifetime before Lambourne sucked in a deep, shaky breath and slid out of her body, sitting back on his heels behind her. Idared pushed herself to her knees and leaned back against him, her mind spinning and her heart full to bursting, as he rested his hands on her arms and held her to him.

  Eventually, she had to speak. “It seems to me,” she said, her throat still raw from that scream, “that we are both of us immortal and free from Hell.”

  He laughed in surprise, then his arms banded tight around her. “There is only one proper thing to say to that and it is this—I love you.”

  He’d said so
once before, in the presence of Hell’s king, but this time Idared dared to let herself believe him. She had never thought to love anyone before meeting him. It was not something the aristocracy of Hell encouraged. But the demoness had been thinking of little else for weeks—Lambourne’s words shot like an arrow to her heart and she turned her face against his throat. It would be too hard to say if she looked into his eyes. “I love you too,” she said, though the words seemed terribly small for such a large feeling. “Will you spend eternity with me, my lord?” she asked.

  He turned her in his arms and, since she could no longer hide, she looked up at him. The joy in his face banished all her fear. “Always,” he said.

  Idared could have leveled mountains with the force of delight that struck her. “Always,” she repeated and kissed him. And laughed and kissed him again.

  And they lived wickedly ever after.

  Hell and Hellion

  Chapter One

  London, 1816

  Virginia Greening looked across the ballroom, counting demons.

  There was a large one standing beside the Earl of Belmont, resting malevolent green hands on the mortal’s smaller ones as His Grace drained a full glass of wine to the dregs. To the right was another demon, a lissome female, her batlike wings wrapped around herself and Miss Lakeland while the demoness whispered close into the girl’s shell-like ear. Miss Lakeland was glaring daggers at Lady Williams as she danced with handsome George Cave, who had a third, quite small demon perched haughtily on one shoulder.

  Lady Williams laughed and Miss Lakeland’s face turned nearly as green as her unseen companion’s. Mr. Cave’s demon winked saucily at Miss Lakeland’s demoness, who tossed her head and tried to appear aloof, though the echo of a smile lurked at the corners of her mouth.

 

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