Dora realised she was wasting time. She quickly put the box back into the cabinet before moving on to the next one. The third cabinet had a first aid kit in it, so she grabbed it and ran back to Kieron’s bedside.
Kieron turned away from her when she knelt beside his bed. She opened the first aid kit and pulled out several bandages.
“Don’t bother,” he muttered into his pillow as he rolled over.
“Come on, stud. Stop being such a baby, and let me help you,” she replied without thinking. She was sure it had sounded funnier in her head. But aloud andin the silent room, it was less amusing.
He didn’t move.
Fuck!
“I’m sorry, Kieron. Sometimes my mouth opens, and I have no control over what comes out of it. I’m worried about you. Let me make sure you’re okay.”
“I’ll be fine.” His muffled voice replied. The muscles in his back tensed in stubborn refusal.
“Kieron Lascher, if you don’t roll over right now, I’m going to …” She paused, trying to think of something that would tempt him to turn around. “To put my shirt back on, and you’ll never see me topless.”
Kieron rolled over in an instant with wide, shocked eyes until they encountered her black T-shirt. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Tease.” He grumbled.
“Probably, yes. Now lay still,” she said as she dabbed at the gashes in his chest with an antiseptic wipe. Most of the bleeding had stopped, leaving raw wounds. He winced every time she touched his chest, and his muscles tensed and jerked.
Dora wiped away the blood and managed to clean the wounds without making him yelp too often, but he did shriek a few times. The gashes were long red lines in his chest that weren’t deep, but they leaked tears of blood again after she cleaned them. She opened several packets of sterile dressings and placed them over the clean wounds. Next, she taped them to his chest with surgical tape before pausing to examine his torso.
Once all the wounds were cleaned and covered, and the bleeding had almost stopped, she noticed his tanned chest appeared even more bronzed next to the white dressings. She found her eyes drawn to his defined muscles.
I’m just checking his breathing. She told herself as she watched his pectorals rise and fall. She almost believed it too.
“What’s wrong?” Kieron glanced down at his chest.
She coughed and looked away from his mesmerising chest. “Um, nothing, I was just checking I didn’t miss anything,” she replied in her most innocent voice, pretending to be packing the bandages back into the first aid kit.
Bad Dora, stop checking out the patient’s hotness.
“Right, let’s look at your face.”
Are we going to be drooling on that too? A sarcastic voice in the back of her mind asked.
“My face. Why, what’s wrong with it?” He widened his eyes in surprise.
“It’s okay. You just have a nasty cut under your eye that I need to look at. You’ll be fine.” She leaned over his face, fighting off any romantic notions to stare into his eyes and forcing herself to look at the wound under them instead.
She studied the cut under his eye and forgot how sexy his body was as she leaned closer to him, frowning. There was something white poking out of the gash under his left eye. She vaguely noticed his arms had wrapped around her waist, but it didn’t register with her brain. “There’s something in there.” She wiped at the cut, paying it careful attention.
He winced, and his hands around her waist tightened their grip. “Oww!”
“Sorry,” she said, distracted by the small white object jutting out of his cheek.
I hope that isn’t bone, or I’m going to barf.
With shaking fingers, she carefully plucked the object out of his face. She sighed with relief when she realised it was just a chip of plaster, probably from the wall that Kieron and his father had crashed through. Blood flowed out of the gash, so she quickly cleaned it and pressed a sterile dressing over it. “I think you’re going to live.” She smiled at him, taping the dressing down.
Her eyes locked onto a pair of ocean-blue ones. Kieron gazed up at her with a wounded expression. She became aware of his hard body beneath her, and her skin tingled with anticipation. His warmth seeped through her clothes. She could feel his large hands resting on her waist, holding her against him. The combination of his vulnerable expression and tantalising closeness, invoked feelings she had never noticed before. She shivered in his arms.
It struck her that Kieron was, and always had been, her demon lord. She realised he’d just been slapped around by a bigger demon. Although she didn’t know why they had fought, she knew him well enough to realise it was probably for a good reason. He needed her, and the feeling made her emotions spin out of control. She wanted to kiss him and make it all better. She wanted to make him happy. She wanted to save him for once.
Dora leaned over him and brushed her lips against his. She hovered unsurely above him.
Maybe he feels like crap and doesn’t want to kiss me right now?
One of his hands cupped the back of her head and pressed her closer to him as he kissed her back.
On the other hand, maybe he does.
His kisses were soft and light as their lips danced with each other in tentative nips. She rested her weight on her hands, so she didn’t crush his chest when he pulled her closer and kissed her harder. She arched her body against his. Shivers of pleasure rippled up her spine when his warm hand roamed up and down her back.
He rolled her over on the bed, still holding her and kissing her with more urgency. Their bodies became entwined in a passionate embrace. Her heart raced, and her insides were on fire as she trailed her fingers over his bare shoulders and up the back of his neck to run them through his hair.
He jerked back and yelped when she touched his neck.
Aww shit.
She'd forgotten about his wounds. “Sorry,” she mumbled and attempted to kiss him again, but he leaned away from her, frowning. She ended up pouting into the air instead.
“What’s got into you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” She tried to unscramble the confusion in her mind.
I thought he liked me?
“You don’t like kissing me.” He narrowed his eyes with suspicion.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe I changed my mind.”
His frown deepened. “Maybe you’ve been possessed?”
“I am not fucking possessed!” She snapped. Was this going to be an ongoing problem in her life? Was he going to try exorcising her next? Her fear and anger over her past clouded her thoughts. Was Kieron going to turn out to be just the same as her parents?
“Possessed people always say that.” He rolled off the bed and refused to look at her.
“Are you shitting me? I …” She paused. Hell would freeze over before she told him she liked kissing him. “I felt sorry for you. That’s all.”
Dora climbed off the bed and headed for the door. Kieron must have stood up quickly because he grabbed her arm as she passed him and spun her around, so she fell into his chest.
“What the fu—” She didn’t finish because his lips clamped down on hers. He kissed her with fiery passion, constraining her against his hard body. She struggled out of his embrace, which was more of a punishment than a kiss, and eventually broke away. “Dude, what the fuck?” She slapped him across the face before stepping away from him.
He scowled at her. “Something’s not right,” he said, staring at her as if she’d just grown horns.
“Yeah, I think your dad knocked you senseless!” She stormed out of the room slamming the door behind her.
“No, that’s not it,” she heard him say through the closed door.
What an asshole.
Dora ran down the hall to her own room, feeling a moment of satisfaction as she slammed another door behind her.
I’m such an idiot! Why did I kiss him?
Kieron stared at the closed door after it slammed behind Dora. He tried to call her
back, but something strange was happening inside his body. It was something he’d never felt before. It brought about so many questions, and he couldn’t think straight. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it as devilish sensations from having Dora in his arms tingled under his skin.
Something had happened when she kissed him, and it had set off a chemical reaction inside his body. He paused, trying to diagnose the feeling. It was as if a door had opened inside his mind, allowing him to see and feel everything. It was strange and scary, and it made no sense. As a demon, usually everything made sense. Cause and effect—want and take. There were no grey areas in evil, just pitch black. When Dora kissed him, it was as if she had changed what he was. He couldn’t describe it, but he knew one thing for certain. He’d felt Dora’s soul, and it was fragmented as if it was being chipped away at. He’d sensed her soul disappearing!
No demon could feel a soul; some could see them, but to feel a soul you had to be … you had to be human!
He sat down on his bed in shock.
Did she make me into a fucking human?
He decided to test theory and forced anger to well up inside him until it pooled in the back of his throat. It was easy to generate anger now. He just had to think about his father taking Dora away from him to make his demon form pop to the surface. He glanced in the mirror on the wall in front of him and noticed his eyes were glowing red. He touched the top of his head and felt his horns. At least they were still there.
So, I’m still a demon, but I have human powers now too?
Kieron shook his head, and his demon form faded away. It made no sense, but something in him had changed when Dora kissed him. When he’d felt her heart pounding against his chest, he’d seen inside her soul. He’d seen her losing her soul!
He frowned. He didn’t know who was more messed up by it all, him or Dora, but he knew he wasn’t letting anymore of her soul get taken. The strange tingly feeling inside him gave him doubts.
Does this mean I have a soul now too?
“Dude, you suck at romancing the ladies,” Pooey said as he wandered into the room.
“What would you know about it?” He scowled at Pooey.
The little brown demon brushed purple fairy dust out of his hair and winked. “I never kiss and tell.”
Kieron eyed Dora from the other side of the elevator, feeling cautious of her for the first time. She was facing forward and staring at the doors. There was a frown on her face. He realised she was clearly anxious for the doors to open as he watched her clench her hands into fists. Who could blame her? The atmosphere in the elevator was icily silent.
He glanced at his father, who stood in front of them both with his back to them. Anger bubbled in his belly at the sight of his father’s back. He tried to ignore the feeling, but the images of his father laughing as he strangled him refused to leave his thoughts.
This is a bad idea.
Kieron’s mother had promised him everything would be fine when she instructed him to come to the office with his father today. At first, he had refused. But when he found out Dora was going, he had eventually conceded. He refused to leave her alone with his father, regardless of how coldly she acted towards him.
He glanced at Dora again. They hadn’t spoken since their kiss. It didn’t look as if they would be anytime soon since she had only offered him brief, moody glances so far today.
I need to talk to her while we are alone. She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her.
The elevator pinged. “Welcome to Sinners Level. Please mind your step.” A metallic voice said.
Kieron stared in awe at the scene through the elevator doorway. In the distance, volcanoes shot out fiery bursts of glowing lava that flowed into a bubbling river of fire fifty-feet below them. In front of them, a narrow path bridged the elevator to the cavernous entrance of a massive black volcano. The path was a stone ledge that was only three-feet wide. On either side of it was a long drop into the glowing lava-lake below.
Lord Lascher turned around and smiled. “Watch your step, kids.” He motioned for Dora to go first. She flashed him a tight smile before taking a tentative step onto the path.
Kieron took a step forward to follow her, but his father got there first, pushing him out of the way and leaving him to take up the rear. He shook his head and scowled at his father’s back before following the group out on to the narrow path.
He glanced down at the lake of fire below, and beads of sweat popped up on his brow.
If I’m part human now, does it mean I can die?
For the first time in his life, he felt a moment of real fear. He didn’t like the feeling.
“Today we’re going to be seeing the worst of sinners. The greedy, selfish and those who betray.” Kieron’s father told Dora.
She glanced back and smiled at him. “Isn’t that half the planet?”
“More like, seventy-three point-five percent of it.” Lord Lascher corrected her.
“Is that going to be on the exam?” Dora’s eyes widened.
“No, no. It’s just an office statistic.”
Kieron tuned out the conversation.
How am I going to speak to her alone, on here?
He watched her long legs stride down the path towards the cavernous entrance ahead of them, becoming hypnotised by the sight.
Damn it, Minx-witch!
He didn’t notice his father fall back until he stood beside him, which on the narrow path was a squeeze. “Kieron, we need to talk,” his father whispered.
“Sure, can we do it once we’re inside the cave?” he muttered, walking a little faster to overtake his father and follow Dora.
“That might not be possible.” His father’s voice whispered in his ear. “Just know that everything I do, no matter how cruel it may seem, is for your own good, son.”
Kieron frowned.
What’s he on about now?
Something hard slammed him in the side, knocking him off the ledge. It happened so quickly, he didn’t have time to scream. He went from walking on the ledge to falling towards the burning liquid below in an instant. “Dora!” he cried, but the hot blasts of wind slamming against him drowned out his words as he plummeted towards the bubbling lava.
In desperation, he clawed at the rough stone of the walkway, trying to find anything to hold onto. His skin heated up as he fell closer to the lake.
This is it, I’m going to die.
He jerked to an abrupt halt as one of his hands gripped a jutting out ledge of rock. He clung to it with his feet dangling precariously over the fires. His heart raced, and adrenaline pumped through his veins. He peered up at his father. The demon lord was walking behind Dora on the ledge above as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Son of a bitch!
Kieron’s arms ached from holding his weight, but he ignored the feeling as anger boiled inside him. He sensed his body changing into demon form and used the extra power to pull himself up onto the small ledge with a growl. He stared up at the path, feeling his eyes burn when he saw his father put an arm around Dora as he led her into the Cave of Sinners.
The sensation of Lord Lascher’s arm around her shoulders made Dora uncomfortable as he led her off the precarious path and into a dark tunnel. She glanced back and looked for Kieron, but he wasn’t there. “Where’s Kieron?” She frowned.
“Oh, his mother called. He had to teleport home. He’ll meet up with us later,” Lord Lascher replied.
“Called?” She had never seen Kieron carrying a phone.
Lord Lascher tapped her gently on the forehead with his index finger, and she noticed how long and sharp his fingernails were. “We use telepathy here.”
“Ohh.” She nodded. That made sense, but something didn’t, and it nagged at her. “Wait, why didn’t we just teleport here in the first place?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Lord Lascher replied.
She shook her head.
“You can’t teleport, yet.”
“Oh, I see.” S
he shrugged.
I guess that’s something else I need to learn .
She was annoyed with Kieron. He hadn’t even said goodbye, but he had been acting funny since they’d kissed.
Maybe he was happy to have an excuse to get away from me?
She frowned again.
Asshole!
“Come. Let me show you the deepest, darkest side of Hell.” Lord Lascher stepped in front of her and motioned for her to follow him.
She glanced back at the empty path, feeling a moment of sadness because Kieron had abandoned her so easily.
Screw it. I don’t need him or anyone.
She shrugged and followed Lord Lascher through the dark tunnel.
Hollow screams echoed down the tunnel, making her wince when she heard them. Firelight flickered in the distance, and the walls were made of dark volcanic rock.
At the end of the tunnel, she saw an open-plan office surrounded by a cage made of twisted steel. She drew closer to the barbed spikes of the enclosure, frowning when she noticed flames reflected in the metal. She peeked down the left side of the tunnel and saw a river of volcanic lava fuelling the fires of Hell. It burned brightly in the distance.
So this is where the sinners end up.
She turned back to the barbed cage and peered through the holes into the room inside the prison. It looked a lot like a normal office, in some ways. There were people sitting at desks who were typing away at computer terminals. At the front of the room, a table was overflowing with a huge pile of books. Some were leather bound tomes, others flimsy paperbacks.
She noticed demons walking freely outside the cage, but the workers were trapped inside it. The workers appeared to be oblivious to the activity outside of their small confines.
While she stared at the inhabitants of the barbed cell, the lighting in the office faded from fluorescent white to murky red.
“Now the fun begins,” Lord Lascher said with a gleeful glint in his dark eyes.
“What is this?” Dora asked as the workers ceased typing and turned towards the table piled up with books.
“These are the worst of people from a place nearly devoid of humanity—the dark underbelly of the internet,” Lord Lascher said. “This section is for those who hurt books. It is home to pirates, anti-marketers and troll reviewers. In life, they killed author’s babies. In Hell, they must repent.”
Demonic Dora Page 15