by Abbie Payne
I RESPECTED KING VICTOR MORE than any of his other followers. I prided myself on that fact. However, I was also his closest confidant, and I had no problem with telling him when he was doing something stupid.
Refusing to tell his daughter until now that she was going to have to move out of the Palace of Darkness to live with my brothers and me was one of the worst decisions he’d made in quite a long time.
King Victor was ignoring more and more that he was the Devil and wasn’t supposed to care. He especially wasn’t supposed to care about the princess. Demons weren’t supposed to have the familial bond that King Victor had with his daughter. Then again, I loved my brothers more than anyone else in the world, so I wasn’t one to talk.
King Victor made a face at me.
“I was going to get to it. I just couldn’t find the right time.”
I shrugged and looked back at Edelweiss.
“You’re coming to live with us because you have to be protected,” I mused, “My brothers and I - although we may be inherently weaker than your father is - are better equipped to do so because Gavin won’t expect you to be in the Palace of Sins.”
Edelweiss still didn’t seem to be too happy with my explanation, but I didn’t try to keep explaining. If she didn’t get it by now, then it was her fault, not mine.
Besides, I noticed her flinch when I said Gavin’s name and the fact that King Victor glared at me when I said it.
I needed to be careful not to mention his name or anything associated with him again; it was going to be bad news for the princess if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t know too much about the curse that Gavin had placed on her, but I knew that it almost got her killed several times.
Edelweiss looked at her father. The light from the chandelier glowing overhead highlighted a few tears forming in her eyes, but they never fell even as she spoke to him.
“But who’s going to protect you?” She asked.
King Victor reached up and brushed his hand lightly over her almost-white blonde hair.
Lachlan wasn’t wrong, she was quite a cute little thing with her dainty stature, doll-like features, baby blue eyes, and fair hair, but that was also quite unfortunate for her. I wasn’t much of a fan of “cute” things.
“I’ll be fine,” King Victor said finally, “So long as I know you’re alive and safe, that’s all the strength that I’ll need to keep going.”
Edelweiss offered him a slight smile before looking up at me and standing up from the couch.
“Get your bags, then,” I huffed, “My brothers and I don’t have all day to wait for you to get ready to leave.”
Three
Gavin King
The Big Man Upstairs
Heaven
MY FATHER AND I ALWAYS MADE our new life forms with the utmost care. Every feature, every little detail was hand-picked for whoever or whatever it was, and they were always exactly the way that we meant for them to be. In short, they were perfect.
However, there were a few instances where the creatures didn’t end out quite as perfect as we intended. That was where the Defects came into the picture.
They were angels with something wrong with them - something that made them unworthy of joining the ranks of even the regular angels, let alone anything else. There were only a handful of Defects in existence, and we were always careful to make sure that their flaws didn’t taint the angels that we had that were perfect.
It was never our fault, but unfortunately, we still had to shoulder the blame for the things wrong with the world.
Father and I both had made some significant mistakes, but the most apparent nine mistakes were quite simple to point out. Father’s were Lucifer and his seven younger brothers (also technically my brothers, but we didn’t need to talk about that), and mine was the princess of Hell.
Princess. Those demons called that Defect the princess of Hell, and there was talk of her becoming the queen of the Middleworld. That was the most laughable thing I’d ever heard. That Defect - Edelweiss or whatever other pretentious name Satan gave her - had no leg to stand on when it came to holding any place of power.
None at all.
That was the main reason that the Empyrean War would continue until either Satan surrendered or the demons and the rest of Satan’s followers were wiped off of the face of the planet. I didn’t have a preference over which one came first, but I also knew I wouldn’t mind if it came down to the latter being the only option.
It was no matter in the end, though, what happened. I was confident of one thing: good always triumphed over evil.
And regardless of the lies that Satan and his followers liked to spew, they would never be the good guys.
Four
Edelweiss “Eddie” Sullivan
Princess of Hell
Palace of Sins
VICTOR DIDN’T COME WITH THE princes, the Hunters, Roscoe, and me when we left for Palace of Sins. I wanted him to, but for whatever reason, he insisted that I go on my own. It was probably because he didn’t want to give me a chance to change my mind about going with the princes, but I wouldn’t have minded getting to exchange one last goodbye hug with him.
As we teleported to the Palace of Sins, I began to become aware of just how far away we were from the Palace of Darkness. Especially since, when we got there, I realized that I couldn’t even see the towers of my old home in the distance.
The Minion Village was nearby, as Victor promised, and a number of the people that I loved and cared about lived there. I wanted to go and see Phoenix, but Phoenix was on the Head Council with her three brothers, and there was no chance that they were already done with work today.
One thing was for sure, though. The Palace of Sins was a gorgeous place, though it was undeniably different from my usual.
Where the Palace of Darkness looked more like a traditional human-world castle, the Palace of Darkness was modern with floor-to-ceiling windows all around, black exterior walls, and even a black front door (though it was mostly made of glass, too). It looked just like I always imagined it to look.
“Welcome home, Edelweiss,” one of the princes announced brightly.
I didn’t know why, but even though I hated it when people called me by my full name, I didn’t say anything about it.
Pierce opened the front door of the house and held it open for us to go in front of him. His brothers went first, followed by the Hunters and Roscoe. I went last, and Pierce put his hand on my shoulder before leaning forward to whisper in my ear.
“You can relax, Princess,” he told me, “We won’t eat you. Well, Lucifer and Wyatt might want to, but we won’t let them.”
I smiled my thanks to him for trying to comfort me (though he did have a strange way of doing so), stopping for a moment to study his features.
He was far less intimidating than Lucifer was, and, if I didn’t know better, I would have expected him to be an angel. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Lucifer either - though he was tall - and he had a relatively muscular build, though his physique was by no means the most impressive of all of the eight princes.
He had robust facial features and a little bit of stubble along his jaw. He had long, brown hair than he currently had tied back into a bun and orange eyes that reminded me a lot of Victor’s eyes with how gentle they seemed. Again, Pierce looked nothing like most of the demons in this world did.
I finally followed Pierce inside, and we stopped in the foyer where all of the other princes were standing. He still had his hand on my shoulder as he began to point out his brothers so that I could at least know their names. I guessed it was relatively easy for him to tell that I was lost.
“You already know who Lucifer is, and you met Lachlan before - he’s the one that called you cute if you recall,” Pierce began, “He’s the youngest of all of us - and he’s always saying things like that. It’s kind of part of his job description, though. He’s the prince of Lust.”
Now, why didn’t that surprise me?
It was hard not to admit
that Lachlan was at least pleasing to look at with his delicate features, baby pink eyes, and black hair that matched Lucifer’s in the fact that he obviously took quite good care of it. Probably better care of it than even I did. I wasn’t too great at remembering to take care of myself, though, so there was that.
Perhaps the only thing that didn’t peg him as the prince of Lust was the ink on his skin. The number of tattoos didn’t shock me, though. I knew Will - one of the minions -, and he had more tattoos than most would ever think of getting.
Pierce then told me that the boy standing beside Lachlan (and giving me a “go to Heaven” kind of look) was his twin brother, who was named Wyatt as well as the prince of Wrath.
Wyatt didn’t look anything like Lachlan except for his dark hair. Like Lucifer, he had red eyes, but his were a much darker shade and seemed to have far less life in them than Lachlan’s did. If anything, Wyatt looked more like Lucifer than he did Lachlan. There was no denying being a brother of Lucifer for Wyatt, that was for sure.
“Next is Elton and Gus - they’re almost always together. They’re twins, too - Elton’s the prince of Envy, and Gus is the prince of Greed.”
Elton was the most boyish in appearance out of all of the brothers and the one that I recalled hearing whimper in response to Lucifer’s threat from earlier. He was the closest to my height (and I was pretty short) and had the smallest, daintiest figure. He had short yellow-blonde hair and green eyes. I noticed that Elton was also wearing a bright blue and white striped t-shirt with khaki shorts while the rest of the boys wore shades of black, grey, and red. The stark difference only made poor Elton stand out more than his lack of height already did.
Gus looked like a perfect mix between Elton and Pierce with Elton’s blonde hair, but with Pierce’s height and build. Gus also had eyes that were a deep shade of navy. There was also the fact that Gus carried himself in such a way that it was clear that he had high expectations for himself. He possibly even gave Pierce a run for his money with the way I could tell that he prided himself on his appearance and the way others saw him.
“Sylas is the fourth oldest - the prince of Sloth - and last is Griffin, who’s the third oldest. He’s the prince of Gluttony,” Pierce finished.
I couldn’t see Sylas very well since he had his focus on something he was playing on his phone. He was quite attractive like all of the Palmer brothers were, but it was painfully clear that Sylas didn’t take as much care in that appearance as the others did. He was skinny with no real muscle anywhere on his body and had dirty blonde hair that I couldn’t tell the last time it had seen a pair of scissors or a comb. His eyes were such a pale blue that they almost appeared white when I was looking at them the way that I was.
Griffin, however, probably grabbed my attention the most. He had brown hair and bright yellow, but he had the most athletic build of all of the princes. I remembered that he had been a star athlete at our school in almost every sport that he could join. I wasn’t surprised to see that Griffin had kept up his fitness since his graduation, but I was surprised to see that his physique didn’t seem to have any shift in it at all. Admittedly, I was also a little bit jealous.
“See, we aren’t so scary, are we?” Pierce teased, nudging me with his shoulder and pulling me away from the thoughts that I was having as I continued to stare at Griffin.
I nodded a little and started to reply to Pierce’s question.
“Like what you see, Princess?” Lachlan called, lifting his eyebrows suggestively. Again, I felt myself begin to blush, and Lucifer saved me from my inevitable embarrassment. Was it that obvious that I was staring at them? Or was it just evident to Lachlan because he was, well, Lachlan?
“I want to show you your rooms,” he said, “Preferably before too many conversations start and I get impatient. I have to be back at the Palace of Darkness so that I can be with King Victor.”
“Aw, Lucifer,” Lachlan complained, “We were just starting to enjoy ourselves.”
Lucifer smirked at him, “I know. That’s why I’m putting a stop to it.”
“Why do you have to be such a sadist? Isn’t that my job?” Wyatt yawned.
“I was the original sadist, Wy,” Lucifer mused as he turned and started to lead the way up the stairs, “Don’t forget that.”
Well, I guess the fact that Lucifer was a sadist meant that one thing I had heard about these guys was accurate. So far, though, that seemed to be the only thing.
“How are you surprised by that? You know nothing you’ve heard from those angels has been true so far,” I thought to myself, “Why would those things start being true now?”
Pierce looked at me, concern painting his expression. “Hey, Edelweiss, where did your mind just go?” He asked me. His fingers brushed against my arm as he tried to get my attention without scaring me to death.
I hesitated as I peered into his eyes. I didn’t know why, but I was genuinely surprised to see the way that he was looking at me and surprised that someone was asking about me.
Up until that point, Victor was the only individual that ever asked me how I was feeling or what I was thinking. Is it weird that my heart fluttered a little bit when I realized that Pierce was now the second person to ask me that?
“Nothing,” I replied after realizing how long it had been since Pierce asked me the question, “It’s... nothing.”
Pierce furrowed his eyebrows doubtfully, but he still nodded and offered me his arm. “Then come on,” he mused, “Lucifer doesn’t like to wait for very long.”
❀
According to Lachlan, my new bedroom was the “best guest bedroom in the palace.” I wasn’t entirely confident about what that meant, but I chose not to ask either.
At the very least, the bed was comfortable, and the blankets were warm. The only thing was that it had a circular mattress, and it reminded me just a little too much of something that would’ve been in the other kingdom that I couldn’t name without things getting super awkward between the princes and me super fast.
I sat down on the bed after I finished unpacking, looking up at the ceiling as I thought. I noticed the chandelier that was hanging directly over the bed. It was massive with gold accents.
“Yep, that’s going to fall and kill me in my sleep,” I thought to myself.
I looked towards the door. I knew that Roscoe was outside - he told me before I was left to settle in on my own that he was going to be there if I needed anything. I started to call out to him when the door swung open, and Athena pranced in.
As per usual, none of this seemed to be getting to her. Then again, I also knew that that tended to be more a front that she put up than anything else.
In general, Athena had been through a lot - the marks that covered her body made that abundantly clear - but she did everything she could to make sure that she always looked as put together as possible. The worst scar ran across the inside of her left bicep. However, that scar was now covered by a tattoo of a raven surrounded by a circle of flowers.
If there was one thing that was for sure, Athena loved the attention. She thrived off of it. Athena always dressed to attract attention, and her fiery red hair was most often either neatly curled or thrown up into a neat ponytail or bun. She had her wings out as well - which was fairly typical of her - and even they screamed for attention with their jet black feathers complete with deep purple and blue tips.
Athena was a demon-angel hybrid. To put it simply, she wasn’t supposed to exist. No one expected her to live past the age of five, but now that she was well past that age, she intended to live whatever life she had to the fullest.
Even if she was in constant pain from her blood literally burning her from the inside out, she wasn’t going to let anything get in her way.
“Don’t look so sad, Eddie,” she pouted as she plopped down on the bed beside me.
I couldn’t help but smile a little as Athena bounced lightly up and down on the bed.
“Why do I feel like if I don’t get killed by an ang
el, I’m going to get killed by one of the princes?” I asked her.
Athena immediately stopped bouncing and tilted her head to the side. She reminded me of a confused puppy, and it was always hard not to laugh whenever she did that. Then again, that was probably part of the reason why she did it half the time.
“Why would the princes kill you? Then they’d have your dad to answer to, and trust me, Eddie, no one wants to answer to your dad when it has something to do with you,” she replied.
She had a point. Victor would have had all of their heads if something happened to me. Even if it was technically only one person’s fault, he would still kill the others for “letting” it happen.
“Still, why do I feel like Wyatt wanted me to drop dead back there? He was looking at me like he wanted me to,” I paused to look at her, “I thought you used to serve him. Why didn’t you tell me he was so, well, you know?”
Athena, like all of the other Angel Hunters, was previously a minion since the minions were the next step down in rank from the Hunters. They were more loyal to Victor and the princes than any of the lower followers. Demons didn’t make the best parents, so most of the minions were abandoned by their family at a young age and later taken in by Victor. Most of them then grew up to serve the princes so that they could continue to be closer to Victor.
Usually, which prince they served was chosen by the “sin” that they best represented. If I remembered correctly, Athena worked for Wyatt. Then again, I also remembered Wyatt and Lachlan often fighting over her.
“Yeah, I served him,” Athena nodded, “Wyatt’s not that bad, though. None of the princes are as bad as they like to seem - that’s just their cover-up for the most part.”
“I beg to differ, but okay,” I replied.
To me, it still looked like Wyatt wanted to kill me, and Lucifer didn’t seem to think much differently from him.
Athena smirked and nudged me in the side with her elbow, “You’re not going to convince me that you’re scared of them. You are best friends with the Empress Gloomy herself, E.”