by Cate Corvin
For the Hell of It
Razing Hell Book 1
Cate Corvin
For the Hell of It
CATE CORVIN
All Rights Reserved © 2020 Cate Corvin. First Printing: 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Author's Note: All characters in this story are 18 years of age and older, and all sexual acts are consensual. This book is a work of fiction and liberties may be taken with people, places, and historical events.
Cover by Luminescence Cover Design
Contents
1. Melisande
2. Melisande
3. Melisande
4. Melisande
5. Melisande
6. Melisande
7. Melisande
8. Melisande
9. Melisande
10. Melisande
11. Belial
12. Melisande
13. Melisande
14. Melisande
15. Lucifer
16. Melisande
17. Melisande
18. Melisande
19. Melisande
20. Melisande
21. Azazel
22. Melisande
23. Melisande
24. Melisande
25. Melisande
26. Melisande
27. Melisande
28. Melisande
29. Melisande
30. Melisande
31. Tascius
32. Melisande
About the Author
1
Melisande
It was hot. Way too hot, and everything hurt like hell.
My bones screamed as I pushed myself to my knees. Dark sand shifted under me, threatening to send me toppling again. I clenched my aching right hand and opened it again, examining the damage. My palm was still seared red with a slowly-fading burn, the telltale mark of my transgression. My sin.
My only crime against Heaven.
Which meant this wasted landscape around me was Hell.
My breath caught as I took in the crater rising around me, the blood-red sky, the bits of molten glass under my knees. I’d been the meteor that had caused this, my fall from grace burning brightly enough to melt the sand beneath me.
Broken bits of metal gleamed among the blobs of glass, a few curved pieces sinking into the sand. I touched them with shaking fingers.
The shattered pieces of my broken halo had been shining with holy light only… minutes ago? Hours? Years? How long did it take to fall through the worlds until you reached the end of all things?
The pieces were scorched and warped, barely recognizable as a once-angelic thing.
Several proud faces appeared in my mind’s eye, the archangels responsible for this. My lips drew back over my teeth in a silent snarl as I imagined plunging the broken but still-sharp remnants of my halo into their throats… but most of all, I wanted their leader to suffer.
Something soft fluttered past the edges of my halo. I picked it up, ignoring the pain shooting up my arm, and realized it was a singed black feather caught between my pinched fingers.
“No…” My voice was a dry, cracked whisper, broken from screaming as I fell. “No, no, no.”
I released the feather, and the scorching, breath-stealing wind tore it away, sending it flurrying into the sky like a bit of ash, just another piece of refuse claimed by Hell.
The sharp shards of my halo bit into my hands as I gathered what I could of their remnants.
I got to my feet, knees wobbling under me, feeling like my bones were stuffed full of broken glass, and spread my wings for flight.
Agony ripped through my back muscles. Another singed feather broke loose, followed by another. The wind swept them out of sight over the rim of the crater.
My once-snowy wings were blacker than a starless night, a stretch of crow’s wings spreading from my back.
I swallowed back a bitter taste as my stomach churned.
His face was burned in my mind. Mouth twisted in regret, pity and rage kindled in golden eyes… and a touch of pleasure as he planted his hand over my heart and pushed.
Fucking Gabriel.
In my rage, I realized the strictures of my angelic choir were gone. They didn’t own me anymore. My thoughts were no longer filtered against words or ideas that might lead me into sin.
I was free to think and say what I wanted.
“Fuck you,” I rasped at the sky, overjoyed that my mouth could even form the word. I wanted to say it again a thousand times just because I could. My wings slumped from the pain of holding them aloft and dragged in the sand as I climbed on all fours up the side of the crater. “Fuck you! FUCK YOU ALL!”
My screams drew out into animal howls. I crawled out of the crater using the shattered bits of my halo as picks, screaming the whole way, promising every bloody vengeance I could think of on the motherfucker who’d cast me down.
I pulled myself over the rim and paused, gasping for breath in the endless heat.
A city spread in the distance, so wide and deep it looked like a hole dug into the earth from horizon to horizon, a titanic bowl that took up most of the black sand desert in front of me. Spired towers rose at the edge, almost blocking out the sight of the tiers of the city that descended into the abyss.
It was the city of Dis. The city of sin, the heart of Hell.
I stared at it so hard, watching lights wink in and out of existence, I didn’t hear the soft puff of hooves on sand.
“With a mouth like that, someone’s gonna fuck you.”
I scrambled backwards, almost falling right back into the crater at the sound of the deep voice.
A red horse smeared with streaks of white warpaint glared at me, snorting black mist from its nostrils.
For a crazed moment, I thought the horse had spoken, that the impact of falling and the heat of Hell had broken my mind, but it wheeled and sent up a plume of sand, revealing its rider.
A demon. An archdemon, unless I missed my mark. I’d never had the privilege or pleasure of facing one on the battlefield before.
He was concealed under glossy, inky armor, face covered by a matching metal mask shaped like a man’s screaming face. The gaping hole of the mouth revealed full lips and a square chin. Thorns rose from his pauldrons like a dark halo, and clawed gauntlets held the horse’s reins. A deep red cloak hung from his shoulders, catching the wind like a streak of blood behind him.
“Come closer and see what happens,” I hissed, rising to my feet. My fingers tightened around the bits of halo. They were a shit weapon, but I’d fallen without my sword, and they’d do if they had to. My shapeless tunic gave me more pause than my lack of weapons; it was charred at the edges, stained gray, and utterly defenseless.
I felt the weight of the eyes behind that mask, hungrily looking me over from head to toe.
The archdemon extended a hand, offering me that clawed gauntlet like a life preserver. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Half of Dis will be out here looking for you soon, but they won’t be interested in anything other than the taste of your bones. Your choice, angel.”
He hissed the last word. There was no hiding what I was, not with these blasphemous black wings sprouting from my back, and down here in the underworld, everything was going to want a piece of me.
I was fucked, all right. And it felt glorious to even be able to think the word without a bolt of heavenly agony ripping through my brain.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” I declared, summoning courage I didn’t feel. I was broken down by the fall, well beyond the ability to take on an archdemon. “Demon.”
To my surprise he laughed, the sound rippling out from behind the mask. Then he reached up and peeled it off.
Fucked was not a strong enough word for my situation. Horror radiated through me and I found myself reaching for a sword that wasn’t there.
All angels knew this archdemon’s face. It was beautiful as only sin could be, arched brows over aquamarine eyes, a strong nose, claw marks cutting across his broad jaw. Dark hair spilled over his shoulders.
Belial, the Prince of Wrath. Satan’s Warmaster.
“It’d be my pleasure,” he said with a broad grin. “Run, angel. Fly if you can.”
I spread my wings with desperation, but my body was in agony. The only way out was through him. The edges of the halo stung my palms as I readied myself to kill him or die trying.
Belial spurred his warhorse and it charged forward, the thundering hooves a steady drumbeat that grew louder and louder until it filled my ears with a roar.
I ducked as his clawed gauntlet reached for me and slashed out, aiming for the horse’s tendons. The jagged edge of the halo missed by a mile, my reflexes slowed by pain.
Belial laughed, the warhorse wheeling again. A fine spray of sand blasted my face and I thrust blindly, hoping to at least draw blood before I died.
The claw gripped the back of my neck and hauled me upwards. I thumped bodily across his lap, sand shedding from my wings like dust, and the Prince of Wrath easily plucked the bits of halo from my hands and tossed them aside. The warhorse snorted, like it disapproved that I’d been caught so easily.
Just wait until I’m no longer down, horse. You’re next on my list.
“I’d say you put up a good fight, but that would be a bold-faced lie.” Belial examined the last piece of my shattered halo and tossed it over his shoulder.
I rammed my elbow backwards into his face, and bit back a shriek of pain and rage when one of the thorns on his armor caught my skin and scraped right into bone. My god, I was so weak-
My God. I’d thought the name of the Creator in vain, but no holy fire blasted me from Heaven.
If I’d been clinging to any last shreds of hope that this was all a mistake, that Heaven wanted its child back, it was gone now.
I was on my own. Not even the angelic strictures cared what I thought or said. They’d cut me loose completely.
My anger wiped away the agony of that realization. If I could say fuck and god, I could say everything else, words that hadn’t crossed my lips since I’d shucked off my mortal flesh in the last war for humanity.
“Fuck you, you ass-faced shitstain of a demon. You wouldn’t have the balls to take me on if I hadn’t just fallen.”
Belial was the polar opposite of ass-faced, but he didn’t need to know that. I’d go to my grave maintaining that he had the face of an abomination. Something so evil shouldn’t be so beautiful.
“Is it your first time saying fuck? It is, isn’t it?”
He seemed completely unperturbed by my attitude, but since I was the one slung across his lap like a war prize, weaponless and broken, it wasn’t that surprising. “Of course it isn’t.”
“Ah, I see.” He spurred the warhorse again, wheeling it towards the great bowl of Dis, and the rocking motion of the horse’s broad back combined with the hardness of Belial’s armor digging into my stomach made me feel seasick. “You were one of the humans, lifted to grace by the desperation of angels fighting a losing war. What was your name in those days?”
I kept silent. Not only because he didn’t deserve an answer, but because I didn’t remember. The only name I knew was the one the archangels had assigned me when I joined a choir.
Besides, I liked the idea of rankling the archdemon as much as possible before he killed me. I wasn’t going to answer a damn thing.
“I’ve cracked tougher shells than yours, angel. What killed you, then? Was it the hail of blood and fire? The star Wormwood? Or… were you one of the Horsemen’s kills?”
There was no way to stop my body from clenching up just at the sound of that dreaded name.
I’d been there on Earth through the trumpets and plagues of the Apocalypse, until the day the rider on a white horse passed through our Infantry Division’s last stand for humanity, Fort Omega, and turned us against each other.
It wasn’t a day I liked to remember, but it was the clearest of my human memories as my last one.
“That’s none of your business. Kill me if you’re going to. You reek and I’m done playing games with you.” He didn’t really smell bad at all. I’d expected him to smell like blood and decay this close, but instead, his armor was tinged with the rich, smoky scent of a bonfire.
Belial laughed again. He had a throaty laugh, the kind that was full of genuine joy. “The games are never over in Hell.”
I watched the sand flow past beneath us, and Belial shifted, holding me in place with one gauntlet. A moment later something heavy draped over me, thick with that mouthwatering bonfire scent and as soft as velvet.
Red fabric pooled around my shoulder and arms. He’d covered me with his cloak, obscuring my blackened wings. I sneered at the thought that he might be trying to do me a kindness; demons were never kind.
They were incapable of it.
“Look, angel. This is Dis. Your new home, and the last place you’ll ever see.”
With my stomach churning, I raised my head and braced my arms on Belial’s leg, pushing myself up. He took pity on my struggles and gripped a handful of cloak and tunic, pulling me upwards and seating me on his lap just as the horse’s hooves clanged off something hard. Several other riders went charging past us into the wasteland, focused on the crater my fall had left behind.
Too late for them, and too late for me. I realized the cloak wasn’t a kindness at all; he didn’t want the demon outriders to see that he’d already acquired their prize.
The outer rim of Dis was carved of obsidian, soaking up the midnight sun without reflecting anything back. The spires of Hell rose around us, with smaller, human buildings sprinkled in-between. They were stolen from every place and time in human history: glittering glass skyscrapers were surrounded by cottages, and Greek columns went toe to toe with pyramids and the brick tenements of the Industrial Revolution.
They were all tied together by the obsidian in an impossible geometry, darkness creeping across each new addition until it threatened to swallow it whole. An entire city of black glass, descending deeper and deeper into the abyss, one perfect half bright with the scarlet sun, the other half cloaked in endless night.
Without thinking, I curled my fingers into the cloak and pulled it tighter around myself, as though that would shield me from what was coming.
Because the architecture of Dis was far from the worst of it. All around it, crawling like ants over a mound, was the sprawl of civilization.
Demons of all shades and stripes walked among the human shades of the dead, gathered in silent gray clumps. Dread filled me as Belial’s horse plunged into that mass of life and the sound crashed over me in a wave.
Demons and shades alike almost threw themselves out of the way as Belial’s warhorse passed, striding down a massive passageway. Several demons, dripping with iron thorns and gleaming with scars, fell to their knees until we’d left them behind to be swallowed by the crowd.
He took me further into Dis, every clang of the horse’s hooves a death knell.
The scope of it made my mind ache as we descended, the chaos of Limbo giving way to the smooth decadence of Lust, and in Gluttony my mouth watered from the delicious smells hanging in the air.
Coins paved the streets in Greed, swords hung from every temple in Anger, and golden idols sparkled in Heresy. My mouth tasted like copper when we descended to the next level, the Circle Belial called home: Wrath.
We stood on a broad shelf of obsidian, and I
squinted across the massive abyss at the other side of the Circle, the dark side lit with twinkling lights. I could walk for days and still not reach the other side.
“This is my temple,” Belial breathed in my ear. I shivered, my fingers threatening to punch holes in the cloak from how hard I gripped it. “My Circle. My kingdom. I own every stone, every blade, every drop of blood spilled in this place. My word is law. Now, tell me to fuck myself again and see what happens to you.”
He gripped my jaw with that iron hand, the claws just dimpling my cheek as he turned my head and forced me to look at him. Our faces were so close I could count every dark eyelash, pick out the tiny bright spots of yellow in his aquamarine eyes like stars in the sky.
His hand tightened, and his eyes dropped to my lips, expecting an answer.
“Fuck you,” I whispered.
Belial froze, so still I wondered if he’d just tear my head off now and throw it into the abyss. Then a cruel grin split his beautiful features.
“You will before the end, angel.” He kissed me before I could wrench my face away, binding those words into a promise. His soft tongue darted between my lips, drawing a gasp from me as the forbidden heat of lust burst into life inside me.
I shouldn’t have felt it. Those sensations were supposed to be dead to me, burned out by the incorruptible light of divinity. Much less from a demon.
I was well and truly damned.
2
Melisande
I dug my nails into the steel of his gauntlet, pushed his face away, and spit, trying and failing to get the taste of him out of my mouth.