by Eve Newton
I tap my fingers. I know I had Shax bring this human down to Hell so that he could be my therapist, help me with my anger issues and teach me how to control my temper so that I come across as a cool-headed leader and not a spoiled brat. I think I’m doing okay. Although, he has never told me that I am, so this is something that I’ve assumed about myself. He’s been here for two months now, living in Hell as a human. He’d adapted quite quickly after an initial meltdown. Must be that rational, scientific brain of his.
Problem is, he wants me to initiate conversation and I have no idea what to say to him. I don’t want to come across all whiny and shit, nor do I want to scare the living daylights out of him by rambling on about torture and how much fun it is. He is a hard nut to crack and that is less fun.
“Soo…” I drawl.
“So?” he repeats.
“Do you think I’m hot?” I ask him.
He searches my eyes for a moment. “Do you want me to think that you’re hot?”
“Fuck’s sake!” I snap at him. “Why do you always answer with a question?”
“This is about you, not me. Do you require an honest answer, or do you want me to prop up your ego?”
“Honest,” I mumble. I have a feeling I’m about to get shade thrown at me in a big way.
“I find your features interesting,” he starts, but it is not a compliment. He is evaluating me like some kind of asset. “Your attire is too revealing, there is no need for such overtness. Your make-up is too heavy, and your hair is too long.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling a blush rise up my overly made up cheeks. Who needs enemies to insult you when you have a therapist to do it? It pisses me off. “Who are you to decide anyway?” I snarl at him.
“Deep breath, one, two, three and smile…”
I narrow my eyes at him as I could’ve sworn I just saw a flicker of a smile pass across his face.
“Asshat,” I mutter. He’d been baiting me. But I have no idea if that’s what he really thinks or not and that also pisses me off. I sigh. “I feel like a fraud,” I add after a beat.
“Why?”
I watch as he taps his pen on his chin, his eyes never leaving mine. He is riveted to what I have to say and that is a first. Usually the male’s eyes are on my tits, ass or pussy, as they think only about nailing me.
“Oooooh,” I breathe out as the realization hits me of what he is trying to say with his hurtful words. I nod at him. “I get what you’re saying.”
“About what?”
“Fucking fuck-fuck,” I snap. “Stop asking questions.”
He blinks at me and I take a deep breath. “You think that males don’t take me seriously because of the way I dress.”
“Is that what you think?”
“RAHHH!” I roar at him, clenching my fists and flashing my Devil’s eyes of fire at him briefly before I grit out, “One, two, three and smile.” I plaster a smile on my face, but judging by his look, it’s probably more of a grimace.
I need to refocus. This session is supposed to be helping me with the pesky shame I feel about how I got my rule. “I feel bad because I didn’t kill my father to get his power.”
He gives me a fleeting incredulous look and I realize that my words weren’t perhaps said in the way that I meant them.
His bland look descends again. “No, your mother found another way for you to get your power, which did not include having to kill your own father for them. But you feel it has lessened your ability to rule or lessened the impact of it?”
I grit my teeth. “Both.”
“Only your family knows of this development.”
“And you,” I remind him with a warning note in my voice.
He nods slowly. “You are worried that if someone finds out, they will use it against you?”
I nod. Now we are getting somewhere. “Not just that, though. I feel…” I choke on the word, “…guilty about how it all went down.”
“It was his choice, was it not?”
“Yes,” I say in a small voice.
“Then what is there to feel guilty about?”
“He gave up a year of his life to do this because he knew I didn’t want to kill him. He knows that I didn’t have it in me and that makes me feel like shit, okay?” I fold my arms across my chest and sit back with a mutinous look on my face.
“The way I hear it, you have no problem killing,” he states, his eyes boring into mine. “You love your father, that is plain. Of course you don’t want to kill him.”
“He killed his father,” I point out.
“Maybe his father was a prick?” he says with a sexy smirk that catches me off guard.
I snort laugh. “Word is,” I agree.
“There you go.”
I smile at him and actually feel marginally better about this situation than I did before. “Thanks,” I mutter.
“No need for thanks,” he says. “You did most of the work.”
I regard him for a moment and then unfold my arms, uncross my legs and open them wide for a few seconds before I cross them again.
His eyes drop for a split second, but then focus on my eyes again.
I give him a wicked smile, but what he implied before resounds in my head. “Same time tomorrow,” I say and stand up.
He stands too, putting his notebook on the table next to him. “I choose to believe that you aren’t a bad person, Annabelle,” he says carefully.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Shows what you know, Gregory. I’m not even a person.” Then, just to prove my point, I leave his office engulfed in the flames of Hell, the Devil’s power to be one place one second and another the next.
Outside of Gregory’s office, I look down at myself. I bite my lip and with a single thought, change my outfit to a crisp white blouse and black pants. My shoes are still high with little spikes sticking out of them and the heels are wickedly sharp, useful for eye gouging when the need overtakes me. I don’t know why it never does with Gregory. He is a pain in my ass, and I need him, but somehow the killer urge doesn’t manifest itself in his presence. I don’t know if it’s because I find him really sexy and want to screw him on his office chair, or another reason that I don’t even want to think about, but it worms its way into my thoughts anyway. He knows me. He is the only male, apart from Shax, that seems to understand me and knows some of my secrets. Not all of my secrets. He would run a mile I’m sure, if he knew of my secret desire to make a male scream by peeling his skin off inch by inch. I shiver in delight and then find myself heading off to the training room for newbie Incubi.
Drescal is ancient and the absolute best at his vocation. When he is here, he teaches the noobs how to work their magick on Earth’s females. His little booty call this morning was him telling me that he is back from seducing, screwing and damning females to Hell.
I pause outside the door to the room. It is wide open, and he is standing there all commanding and gorgeous as he weaves a lull over the new Demons that Roberta has sent him from Inbound. They are the damned souls, recycled into Demons and have then been assigned here, depending on their “qualifications.”
My mother was a Seductress. The female version of Drescal. I wasn’t supposed to look in her record, but curiosity bit my ass, so I went searching and discovered she was a prostitute when she was human, destitute and depraved. No wonder Dad made her into a Seductress. His very best, so I hear, before she retired when she had Shax and me.
Drescal looks up and sees me standing in the doorway. His smile goes from brisk to eager in a second. “Come so soon, Your Majesty? Did I not satisfy you well enough this morning?”
The trio of newbies look over at me, mouths agape as I saunter into the room, suddenly getting the feeling that Drescal is going to test these little fuckers out, using me as their guinea pig.
Well, who says being Queen of the Demons isn’t fun?
4
Drescal
I gaze at her, loitering in the doorway. My heart pounds a little, my blood tingles slightly at
her nearness. It has nothing to do with her being a female, the one creature that I can sway no matter who they are. I have screwed thousands of females in my nine hundred years as an Incubus. From Earthly peasants to their Queens, but she is different and not just because she is my Queen. There is something between us that she denies, but I know she feels.
“My Queen,” I say with a slight bow.
She raises her eyebrow at me and saunters forward. I take in her attire with surprise. She is dressed conservatively. She lacks her usual confidence in this outfit. She isn’t comfortable in it and it makes me wonder why she chose it.
“You look ravishing,” I murmur.
She looks down at herself with narrowed eyes. “Better naked?” she asks, causing the three newbies in front of me to gasp in surprise but then look at me with the admiration that was lacking prior to her two words.
I mentally roll my eyes at them.
“No matter how you dress…or not,” I answer skillfully and it’s her turn to give me an eyeroll.
“So smooth, Drescal, do your victims fall for that?” she scoffs.
I take no offense to it. She knows I can seduce a female with less. She is my Queen, so my powers don’t work on her, not even a little bit. Everything that is between us is real and that makes it adventurous, thrilling and new for me. I think it excites her too, because she knows I’m not swaying her to be with me.
“Every now and again,” I reply with a wide smile, letting her know she hasn’t gotten to me, if that was her purpose.
“Humph,” she mutters and stalks closer.
I wonder what is on her mind. She has an even more wicked air about her than she usually does. She drives me crazy because I can’t read her the way I can any other female. They are transparent to me. I know what they like, how they like it and how long for. It’s part of my powers of seduction. The Seductress Demons have it easy. Men are pigs. They are uncomplex unlike the females. It takes way less finesse for them to do their jobs than it does for me to do mine. Anna, though? She is a creature that beguiles me completely and keeps me on my toes. I enjoy it. I have become complacent after so many years doing this. It’s good to have a challenge and there is no greater one than the Demon Queen.
“You’re teaching?” she asks, even though she knows the answer to that.
“I am.”
She is almost all the way to me. I can smell her heady perfume and find it intoxicating.
“Do you want to show them how it’s done?” she asks, reaching me and sliding her hands up my chest.
My dick, that was already hard in her presence, twitches in response to her touch.
I stifle my groan of contentment. I crave her touch. It does things to me that no other female has. My heart beats faster, my blood rushes through my veins. It is like the beginning of the absolute best orgasm and something that I need to see through now that she has touched me. I could have avoided getting between her legs had she stayed on the other side of the room, but now all bets are off. I will take her in front of these wet-behind-the-ears-would-be-Incubi and there is fuck all she can do about it. But first…
I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her even closer.
Her breath catches, her lips part, expecting a kiss. It takes everything that I have to lower my mouth to within millimeters of hers and whisper, “Not me. Them.” I turn my head to look at the three drooling Demons as they realize what I’ve said.
She hisses, but her indignation is false. She knew exactly what she was doing when she came in here. I played into her silent demand and I can smell her arousal.
I pull away from her before I drag her pants down and delve my tongue straight into that sweet, wet haven.
“Bold,” she murmurs to me, but her eyes are alight. “You want to use me to teach these newbies?”
“I do,” I reply. “We usually reserve the female part of the lessons for much, much later, but seeing as you are here, their powers don’t work on you and you are extremely hard to please, why not?” I offer up the challenge and she accepts it with a slow, sexy-as-fuck smile.
“Why not indeed?”
She turns to the three panting Demons, but a movement catches my eye. I scowl as I see Shax lounging in the doorway, slicing off pieces of an apple with a wicked looking knife that glints in the glow from the room.
He crunches as he gestures to Annabelle with the knife. “Don’t mind me, Belle. Continue.”
“Shax, what are you doing here?” Even though her words are curt, her tone is loving, and it pisses me off. I want her to use that tone with me, but I never get that side of her. I get her wicked, sensual, sexual side, not the side that cares about anyone or anything. No, that is reserved solely for her twin. Perhaps also her Hellhound. Damned creature.
“Couldn’t sleep, thought we’d do that thing after we go see Mom,” Shax says, ignoring me completely. He dislikes me as much as I dislike him for reasons that are probably just as vague as each others.
“Mom?” Annabelle asks sharply, and stalks over to Shax. She mumbles something to him and then with a look back at me, she blows me a kiss and waves and then she is gone.
I sigh and look back at the three Incubi in front of me.
“Is she coming back?” one of them asks hopefully.
“No,” I snap at him. “Now, where were we?”
5
Annabelle
“Is she okay?” I ask him for the hundredth time. He hasn’t really given me a straight answer yet and it’s pissing me off.
“See for yourself,” Shax states and opens the door which leads into a separate, private wing of the residence where my mother and her three husbands live.
I gulp.
Two husbands.
Her other husband, my father, is currently housed somewhere I can’t find him.
We silently walk down the hallway, side-by-side.
I wonder what I will find when we reach our mother’s sitting room. The door is at the far end of the corridor. Shax pushes it open and strides in without knocking.
What I see surprises me and punches me in the gut just a little bit.
Our mother is crying.
She quickly brushes her tears away as she sees us, putting a bright smile on her face.
“Mom,” Shax says, leaning down to kiss her on top of her blonde head. He gives his father, Dashel, a smile and then sits on the coffee table next to him and opposite Mom.
“Hi,” I say, scooting in between her and her other husband – my Head Reaper, Evan.
She leans over to kiss me on the cheek. “Baby girl. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Are you?” I give her a shrewd look.
“Yes, I just miss Luc, that’s all.”
There is no accusation in her tone at all, but it still makes me bite my lip and feel a bit awkward.
“Tell me where he is and I’ll get him,” I blurt out after a moment of unease.
Her sparkling blue eyes go livid. She looks like Angry Barbie as she spits out, “Absolutely not. We said a year.”
“Yes, exactly, you said a year. He has been locked away in that painting for six months now, practically dead so that I could have my powers without actually killing him! I refuse to let him stay in there any longer!” I rise up, my flame wings sprout and everyone ducks out of the way. Sure, some of them, namely my mother and twin are reasonably immune, but it’ll still burn them if my temper is hot enough, and it definitely is. I want my father back so that this sliver of pesky guilt can fuck off.
“If we release him now, your rule will be undermined, and it will all be for nothing,” she snarls.
“Axelle,” Evan says, taking her by her hand from the other side of the sofa. “Stay calm for the baby, please.”
I grimace at my mother’s protruding bump. She is currently growing a baby Reaper inside of her and while I’m not one to begrudge my mother any happiness, I was content with it just being me and Shax.
I count to three and smile. “Look, Mom. It’s not going t
o make any difference. Now or in six months time, everyone is going to wonder why their ex-Ruler has miraculously come back to life. I would rather it be now.”
“So would I,” she mutters. “But your father made me promise.”
Dashel goes to her and takes her other hand. “There is going to be no easy way out of this, regardless. I agree with Anna, we should do it now. That way we can start to do damage control instead of sitting around on our asses. The Demons are going to want to know what happened and someone, somewhere, might just figure out about the paintings. And if they find out about Luc, maybe they’ll also find out about Lucifer.”
I shudder. Not out of fear for my great-grandfather, but if he gets released from his painting prison, he is going to be as mad as a Hydra on acid. You see, my grandfather imprisoned him instead of killing him to take his power. He knew there was no way he could beat Lucifer. Lucifer never gave up his powers in the rightful battle, he had them taken from him. He was placed in the painting as a long-term power move, by all accounts dead, but all it takes is the right being to touch the painting and he will be released and by fuck, he’ll want his power – my power – back.
My mother is one of those beings. We have no idea if anyone else is, but I’m willing to bet my Demonic crown that I’m also one of them. I have dreams of these damned paintings. They are taunting me, calling to me, but I can never find them. I have no intention of releasing the original Lucifer back into Hell, but neither am I going to give anyone else a chance to. My father is another matter. He’s coming home, whether he likes it or not.
Mom looks at Shax. “What do you think?” she asks.
“I think Belle and Dad are right. We do this sooner rather than later. Belle’s rule is solid. The Demons respect her and fear her. Luc carved her path out when she was still a baby. She is the true ruler of Hell, he made sure of it. Him returning will be neither here nor there.”
We exchange a look of solidarity. He always has my back even if I’m wrong. He will bitch me out about it afterwards if I am, but this time, I know I’m right.