by Maya Nicole
"Are you high or something?" The woman I had stopped had dark glasses covering her eyes and was clutching a bag on her shoulder. She was wearing so many colors that my eyes swam.
She walked off down the path and glanced back at me, sneering. She now had something held against her ear.
My feet were glued to their spot. I needed to get back to Val and Amari.
I held up the feather, it being the only explanation for how I arrived at this weird location that was brighter than a thousand moons. I had been holding it in between my fingers. I brought it closer to my face and then gasped.
Blood.
It had to be angel blood. Was this a feather of Lucifer's? The rumor had been that Lilith was draining Lucifer of his blood to open the magical barrier between Earth and Inferna.
Holy shit. I'm on Earth.
My entire body was shaking, and I grabbed onto the odd metal box to the side of me. It reeked, but I needed to steady myself.
It was so loud and bright. It also smelled horrible. I needed to get back; this place wasn’t for me.
I touched my hand to the dried blood on the feather, hoping it would work.
I stumbled as my body was taken through. My ears popped again, and I practically fell on my ass, the metal box no longer lending me support.
"Sammy!" Val's voice brought me back to reality. I was outside the cells. It was approximately the distance I had moved from where I had landed on Earth. I looked down at the feather again, careful not to touch the dried blood.
If dried blood held that much power, I didn't even want to know what blood fresh from the vein could do.
I rushed to Val's cell and wrapped my hands around the bars. His hands moved over mine. "¿Qué chingados?"
He was always randomly saying things in another language. He said it was Spanish and his family used it to keep conversations private.
My only indication that what he said was a question was his eyes. "No time to explain." I rushed to the stone steps leading out of the dungeon and walked as quietly as possible to the top. On a hook by the large metal door was the set of keys to unlock the cells.
I plucked them off the hook carefully, trying not to let any of them clink together, and then went back down the steps.
I went to Amari's cell first and unlocked the door.
"Gee, thanks. I see how it is," Val said from the cell across the room.
I snorted and then unlocked his. I quickly went to the cell I was in and unlocked it before dropping the keys to the ground.
"What are you doing?" Amari asked. "We need to get out of here before they come back."
"Give me your shirt." I held out my hand.
"Are we going to talk about what just happened?" Val said from behind me. "You just disappeared for two minutes and then you came back and were in the middle of the room."
"No time." I didn't know how to explain what happened. I was going to show them instead.
Amari didn't seem to be making haste taking off his shirt, so I grabbed the hem of his shirt and started lifting it. He tried to bat my hands away. "What the fuck do you need my shirt for?"
"No questions now. Give me your damn shirt." He relented, and I lifted it off his head.
I ripped the shirt at the bottom so I could tie a few knots and went back into the cell. I carefully started picking feathers up off the floor, placing them inside my makeshift shirt bag.
"Sammy, what the hell is going on?" Val sounded confused and annoyed.
I finished picking up the last of the feathers and slipped my arm into the armholes of the shirt. It felt incredibly strange, but it would do for now.
I walked back to the center of the room and faced the direction of the forest. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes."
"No."
I rolled my eyes at Amari and gingerly held a feather in my hands. "Well, you can stay here or you can make your way through that tunnel. I don't want to take the chance that they might have guards at the other end or track our scents. I don't know how many people know about the tunnel."
"What tunnel?" Val asked.
I clamped my mouth shut. I said too much. Now two people outside the royal family knew about the secret passageway out of the castle.
"Hold on to my arms. I'm going to get us out of here the same way I got out of the cell. I'm pretty sure it will work."
I was hoping it would work. My idea was to stand in the exact same spot where I was on that walkway and touch the dried blood again. Then we would head straight forward in the direction I was facing.
I knew how long the passageway was out to the forest. If we just walked in the direction a little longer than necessary, we would end up a safe distance from the castle.
At least, I hoped that was what would happen.
They grabbed onto my arms. "Hold on tight."
I touched the tip of the feather to my hand and the same sensation came over me. But this time, I was ready for it. When we landed on the sidewalk. I didn't stumble. We were facing a building.
This time, instead of a deranged carriage driver yelling at me, gasps came from the two men holding onto my arms.
"What the-" Amari started, but then went silent, frozen in place.
Then Val let out a shriek that was so unlike him, my heart dropped. There was pain written all over his face and his skin was turning red.
"It's burning!"
Oh, fuck. I didn't even stop to think. I grabbed onto his arm and yanked him towards the building in front of us. There was a glass door, and I pushed it open, a bell ringing as we entered.
Val was panting, and he put his hands on his knees as he took giant gulps of breath. Smoke was coming off of him like he was on fire.
I rushed back outside, seeing a man and woman eyeing Amari with curiosity. Shit. This was bad. I ignored them and started to yank on his stone arm. He was heavy as fuck, but I kept yanking until he was out of the bright light.
He was then able to rush into the shop on his own.
“What the fuck?” the man asked from behind me. “Give that man an Academy Award!”
I let the door shut behind me and then put my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I should have thought it through more before bringing them there. What if the shop hadn’t been right in front of us?
I shuddered at the thought of Val exploding in flames and Amari being hit by a carriage while stuck as stone.
"Welcome to-" A woman made her way towards us. "You can't smoke in here."
My head swiveled in her direction. She looked to be about my age and was dressed in a long dress that swirled with color.
I quickly glanced around the room we were in and noticed it was some kind of clothing shop. I didn't really have time to look because my attention went back to Val.
"Babe, are you okay?" Amari put his hand on Val's back but he shook it off.
"Don't. Touch. Me," he bit out between clenched teeth.
His hands were still on his knees and there were still wisps of smoke coming off him, but he wasn't screaming or panting anymore.
"Ma'am."
I didn’t know why she was addressing me again. Amari stepped in front of me and Val to stop the woman from gawking at Val.
She backed up several steps. "I will call the police if you three don't leave immediately."
Val took a very deep inhale. Before we could stop him, he lunged for the woman and grabbed her by the arms. She let out a small screech, but then stopped and stared into his eyes.
"You will not call the police. You will close your store and then go home." His voice was calm and deadly. It made goosebumps spread across my skin.
Val let her go and then collapsed onto the floor like that had taken all of his energy. Amari crouched down next to him.
"Don't let me bite her," I heard Val mutter to Amari.
Did he mean me or the woman?
The woman went to the back of the shop and came back with a bag in her hands. She didn't spare us another glance as she flipped the sign
on the window and then shut the door and locked it. Outside, she brought down a metal door that looked like the bars of a cell.
I rushed to where Amari and Val were on the ground.
"What the hell happened?"
"What the hell happened? You brought us here is what the hell happened! Where the fuck are we?" I backed up a step at the sound of Amari's voice. He was pissed and sounded like he was two seconds away from throwing a fit. His muscles seemed to be pulsating under his skin; his skin which was still bare because I had taken his shirt.
"Well, we're-"
"Earth. We're on fucking Earth," Val bit out. "Vampires can't be directly in their sun. We'll burst into flames if we're exposed to it too long. Gargoyles can’t be in the sun either."
Questions swirled through my head. He figured out where we were awfully fast.
"The sun?" Amari asked.
"It's a huge ball of fire. It’s a major energy source." He let out a pained sound as if even the thought of it brought him discomfort.
I finally got a chance to look around where we were. It was an open room but had tons of stuff packed into it. There were shelves lining almost every wall, and circular stands that held so many pieces of clothing it was practically exploding off the hangers.
There was nothing similar in Inferna. Most of the clothes were handmade by seamstresses and were bought from small vendor stalls.
There was a slight musty smell in the air like the room hadn’t been opened in a while. There was a giant sign hanging on the wall that read 'Sunshine Fashionable Finds.'
I ran my hands over some of the clothes. There were all different types: dresses, pants, shirts.
There was a wall that had shelves filled with shoes. At the other end of the store, there were several rows of books, and along another wall, there were what looked like dishes and trinkets.
I itched to go exploring, but Val was still sitting on the floor with his face in his hands.
"There's some seating near the back of the store. Let's move him there," I suggested to Amari.
Amari let out a grunt, but then stood and helped Val stand up. Val was a little unsteady on his feet, but he could walk. The exposed part of his arms and hands were red.
Once he sat down on the sofa, he moved his hands off his face. I bit my lip to stop my gasp. It looked like there were blisters on it, like a burn from a fire.
"Why didn't the sun do anything to me?" I asked as I perched on the edge of the couch across from Amari and Val.
"I don't know. Different demons have different reactions to Earth. All I know is what my family members have written down." He shook his head in a small motion. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that."
I shrugged. "I wasn't supposed to tell you about the secret passage." I sat back on the couch and crossed my arms.
Amari let out a snort. "If you only knew all the secrets I hold. People think because I'm stone that I don't see and hear things. They're wrong."
We sat there for a few moments in silence, just staring at each other. Val's hands already seemed a lot less red than they were a few minutes ago. Now they were just a faint pink and his blistered face was just a really bright shade of red.
"Can you get us back?" Val finally asked.
"We need to go farther. I don't know how it works exactly, but I think Earth and Inferna are parallel to each other. So if we keep walking out of the back of this place for maybe fifteen minutes, we'll be far enough from the castle. We'll be in the forest."
"Do we want to be in the forest? What if the vacants are closer now?" Amari had a point, but we didn't have much of a choice.
"The alternative is to be back at the castle."
"Then what?" Val ran his hand through his hair and leaned his head back on the sofa, shutting his eyes. "We can't do anything until that sun goes down. From my readings, their night is at the same time as ours so we have a few hours to wait."
"I wish I knew how to contact my brother." My brother had made Earth his home. I hadn't even had time to ask him about it. All I knew was that his mate was there.
"Probably with a cell phone," Val muttered. "Except you probably don't know his phone number."
His words made no sense to me. It was like he was speaking a foreign language, more so than he already did on occasion.
I was already growing restless just sitting and staring at the two men in front of me, so I decided to explore. I sifted through a few racks of clothes and then found a rack with men's shirts. I flipped through them fast and then one caught my eye.
A grin spread across my face. I found a new shirt for Amari and he was going to hate it, I was sure. I threw it at him and he held it up, looking at the word "Gargoyles" on the front and the picture of colorful creatures.
"They know about gargoyles on Earth?" Amari's question was directed at Val.
Val glanced at the shirt and shrugged. "They know about a lot of things in Inferna but don't know about Inferna itself. They are obsessed with vampires and wolf shifters here."
I went back to exploring and found a small area that had so many bags in it they were spilling off the shelves and hooks. I searched through them, marveling over all the different styles and sizes until a bag that sparkled caught my eye.
It glittered like it was jeweled and was a faint pink color. Two round circles sat on the top with a bow. They reminded me of rodent ears. It was about the size of my head and was the perfect size for the feathers.
I opened the bag and carefully dumped the feathers into it, careful not to touch the ends.
I was really starting to enjoy myself, despite the dire circumstance we were in. What if I couldn't get us back to Inferna? Would we be able to survive here until I tracked down my brother?
I was in one of the rows of books when I heard Val talk in a hushed voice. "It's like my body was being drawn to her. I just wanted to rip into her neck and drink all of her blood. And then those words came out of my mouth, and she listened. I've only read about it, but on Earth, vampires go crazy for human blood. We need to get out of here as soon as possible before I come across any more humans."
I raised my eyebrows, wondering what it was about human blood that made them have blood lust. I slid a book off the shelf and examined it. I had never seen a book with such a smooth cover. It was shiny and I could practically see myself in the reflection it gave off.
I walked back to the couches and sat down. "Do you need to feed?"
Val blinked at me and cocked his head to the side. "Don't ask me that unless you're offering."
My eyes widened, and I started flipping through the book I had grabbed off the shelf. It was unlike anything I had seen before. All of the books in Inferna were written by vampires and were factual, recounting our history.
I immediately caught sight of the word pussy on a page and stopped to read it. I shifted on the couch because it was a scene with a woman and four men. Holy shit, she was having sex with four men at once.
That wasn't unheard of in Inferna, but to see it written out for my eyes to devour. Maybe I needed to go find another bag and stuff it full of books.
The room was silent for a while as I read. I saw Amari standing from the corner of my eye and he made his way to the front of the shop. He had the shirt on and it clung to his chest like it was a second skin. He stopped in front of the window and went eerily still as he stood looking out.
"What are you reading?"
"Something called a reverse harem. It's about a woman who has multiple boyfriends." I didn't look up from the book. It was captivating how the woman managed that many men without pulling her hair out.
I was struggling to manage one, and he wasn't even mine. Damn, I hoped Nico had escaped.
"Is that so?" Val's voice was deeper than usual and I glanced up. His eyes were locked on me. "If a man knows how to take care of his woman, she shouldn't need more than one."
"And what about two?" I raised my eyebrows and shut the book. I set it on the couch next to me. "What about two men?"
> I wasn't getting a response. I was just about to pick the book back up when he stood and walked across the short distance to me. He lowered himself onto me, straddling my hips.
"Do you really think a dainty little princess like you can handle two men?" His eyes smoldered as he pressed his erection against me.
How long has he been sitting there with an erection, staring at me?
"I thought I already handled two men." I bit my lip and then glanced down at his. They were begging to be kissed.
"I don't think you can handle the two of us inside you at once." He brought a finger to my collarbone and ran it gently back and forth. He made a strangled noise and ran his thumb up and down my neck. "Chingado, tengo hambre."
My heart was beating rapidly as he continued to stroke my neck. Did I want him to bite me? The thought made me want to clench my legs closed.
To me, a vampire's bite was more intimate than sex. They were taking your life force and you had to completely trust them not to drain you dry. Did I trust Val enough to do that? Especially when he was still healing? His face was still a little flushed from almost exploding in flames.
"Maybe Amari could feed you." I brought my hand to his face and ran my hand along his stubble. The coarse hairs tickled my skin. I ran my thumb over his bottom lip, and he let out a groan.
I pushed on his bottom lip with my thumb and saw one of his fangs poking out.
"I don't want Amari right now," he said, between clenched teeth. He moved his hips against me again, and I whimpered. "What I want is to be buried between your legs, savoring every last drop of you. What I want is to sink my fangs into the vein in your thigh. I want to taste all of you. Princesa, te deseo."
"Then do it," I whispered.
His lips hit mine before I could second-guess myself. I wanted this. I wanted him. If I hadn't had to run, we would've had so many years of this.
He kissed my mouth hungrily. His probed the seam of my lips and I let him in. Our tongues swirled together with centuries’ worth of desperation.
I moaned into his mouth as he stroked my tongue with his, making my clit ache. I needed him between my legs.
My hand slipped under the hem of his shirt, my fingertips playing at the edge of his pants. His skin was smooth and cool to the touch.