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“I’d rather rut with a gutter rat than with the likes of you, Ballzy. But thanks for reinforcing just how revolting I find you.” Her nose wrinkled up as if smelling something foul, emphasizing her disgust.
“As for the moaning . . . If you could see the men I see in my head . . .” Best he believed it was more than one, who knew what he’d do if he suspected her subconscious fixation. “Mmmm . . . boy, your inferiority complex would magnify ten fold. There is just no competition, Baby Ballz.”
With that said, she stood and strode to the bathroom discreetly hidden off to one side of the room, her hips swaying with every step.
A taunt? Yes, because she could definitely bring her inner bitch to this little showdown. Just before she closed the door, she risked a glance at his lust glazed face. Dude definitely couldn’t take a hint. As the door clicked shut she gave one extra hard tug of her shadow grip on his dick, and his resounding yelp of pure pain was music to her ears. Her smile returned as she leaned back against the too cool metal of the door.
Thank fuck she’d managed to at least bargain him down to fourteen years, six less than he’d intended. She only had six more years before the contract ended. Only six more years of hiding her secret and hoarding her strength little by little, one minuscule soul scrap at a time in the small well hidden within her body, until she was strong enough at the very moment the contract ends, and he comes to renew it. Because he would. His plan had always been to keep her here forever. But she would prevail. She would smite his ass and turn this place to ashes.
This time her grin was full of expectation and excitement. Bring it, bitch boy.
Chapter 3
THE SHADOW HOUND FORTRESS, HELL
ROUGHLY THE SAME TIME . . .
He woke in a cold sweat, the images still flickered in front of his eyes, despite his ‘eyes wide open’ state. He’d dreamed of her, again. And considering his kind didn’t dream at all, that was a miracle in and of itself. No way was he going to tell anyone about his nighttime fantasies, though. Not even his brothers and sisters in arms knew he’d been dreaming, and definitely not of some woman from an alley eight years prior. The dreams had started not long after. His shadows continued to swirl and race around him in his agitation. Despite the grief and terror, the anger and hopelessness he’d felt from her and himself in those moments when he dreamed of her, his damn shadows never failed to curl around his cock and wake him to a raging hard-on. Every. Damn. Time.
Where was the she-devil? He’d looked for her every time he’d ventured out of the fortress since that night, whether duty called or otherwise. Hoping to see her, talk to her, figure out the puzzle she’d left him with. She was nowhere. He’d made discrete inquiries. Nada. He’d stopped short at even mentioning her to his fellow comrades—his brothers and sisters—not even Luc had gotten the message she’d wanted him to recite. Every time he’d thought about mentioning it he’d found his lips quirking up at the memory of her sass and beauty, as his brow furrowed in bewilderment at everything else. No way was he going to let his fellow Hounds see him so thoroughly thrown for a loop. He didn’t think Luc needed that on top of whatever else was going on with the guy. Not that the General had cared to share. Still, Roth, hell, all of them, had picked up on how the Boss Man hadn’t been himself, not since the 1940s. They would’ve had to be oblivious fucking idiots not to have noticed. Of course, Dante had been the last of them to do so and they hadn’t let the little punk live it down.
He hadn’t wanted anyone to know about her until he knew who, and what, she was. If she was a threat? Then he would take her out himself, or hand her over to the Praesidium, depending on what the Almighty decreed was best. It was his sacred duty. But if she wasn’t? He didn’t want to bring trouble to her doorstep and cause her pain. At least, that was his justification for his silence. His shadows warmed under his skin, sending a fluttering feeling through his mind, almost in affirmation that she was special, that he needed her, even if he didn’t understand why.
His sheets were too warm, twisted and tangled around his long, muscular legs as they were. Even naked his skin felt too hot, the air too humid. As though the flames in her eyes were still burning him up. His hand made its way down, pulling the damp sheet free from his waist, his back arching, hips thrusting of their own volition, even before the rough skin of his palm grazed his throbbing cock. At the first touch of his hand, his fingers wrapped around his rigid length, his balls drew up tight, and a jolt of sexual electricity shot straight up his spine. Tingles fired in his brain, her image flashed clearly before his eyes. Half naked, her long, dark-red hair caressed her exposed skin as she lent back against a steel door, her eyes sparkled and a grin of pure wickedness curled the corners of her full, luscious lips . . .
His cock pulsed hard, thick hot jets of his seed covered his tanned abdomen, leaving him breathless and gasping. His hand shook as it fell away from his body, even though his erection hadn’t lessened. It was always this way. Like she’d cast a spell upon him. He thought only of her, no one else compared. At first, he’d been able to go to the clubs with his friends and hook up. Her image only entered his head toward the end of his encounters. He didn’t do relationships. Not anymore. The past had taught him well, and his lessons had been ingrained deeply. As time went on and the dreams got more intense, she slowly took over, and soon he was only attracted to redheads with pale skin, long shapely legs, pert bouncy breasts, and sarcasm streaming from their pores. Not as easy to find as one would think.
Now though, it was getting ridiculous, he hadn’t had sex with anything other than his hand and his mattress in over five years. His brothers and sisters had noticed of course, but he’d fobbed them off by pretending to go off with human women every now and then. It seemed with every passing year her hold on him got stronger—it was really starting to piss him off.
As his room finally came back into focus around him, the light from Hell’s iridescent golden sun bathed every surface in a fine layer of stardust. Roth snorted at the irony of Hell being covered in a glittery, shimmery light, casting it in a heavenly glow, when all earthly representations were quite the opposite; darkness, monsters, and fiery damnation. He threw off the rest of his sheets and blankets and stormed his way into his completely black bathroom, hoping the cold fall of water would wash away the evidence of how much his mystery woman affected him. His? He didn’t even know who she was. Even if he did, she’d never be his. No one would ever be his. Never again.
Thirty minutes later, when the shower idea hadn’t worked, he roughly tossed on some workout pants, and slammed his way out of his room, the heavy ebony door defying him as it softly snicked shut, and headed down to the gym to hopefully work off his frustration and irrational anger.
Maybe she was a witch? It would explain how she’d managed to enthrall him. Heck, she’d have to be a pretty powerful one though, since his kind were meant to be immune to the paltry efforts of witchkind. It bore looking into, nonetheless. Or maybe she was a siren of some sort? Possibly even a fae enchantress? That one was a bit far-fetched. The fae were locked out of the earthly realm over a millennium ago, any who’d slipped through the cracks to stay behind would have lost their magic as they lost their connection to others of their kind. Only in large groups could they maintain strong magic for such a long period of time.
When the Almighty got pissed at your entire race or species, they definitely didn’t do so by halves, that was for sure. Although some would argue they’d been too lenient in their punishment of the fae, most just felt sorry for the humans unlucky enough to get stuck there with them.
Argh, he needed to stop thinking about her, even contemplating the puzzle she presented was giving him a headache this morning. His hands ran through his dark hair roughly, trying to rub the tension from his scalp. An intense sense of impending doom almost sent him to his knees, his breath trapped in his lungs. Rubbing absently at his right shoulder as a lick of heat flashed under his fingertips he exhaled, fresh air again filled his oxygen starved lungs as he forced one foot before the other.
With limited time before the rest of the fortress’ inhabitants ate everything in sight within the dining hall he’d have to hit the gym hard and fast. With that in mind he headed to the shortcut only he and a few others knew about, because heck, they’d designed and built the place after all.
Roth passed Seth and Havoc as he made his way down the corridor toward the haunting painting of a faceless woman, dressed in a velvet green gown from a bygone era. The dark, stormy sky and rocky cliffs fell away beneath her small, slippered feet. One look at his face had the two men nodding quickly in passing before facing forward with military precision and continuing on their way to the dining hall. Smart boys, Roth thought. They weren’t in the Devil's 13, and they would never be, but they were damned good at their jobs.
At first only eleven of the original angels were chosen—by none other than the Almighty—to join with the shadows and carry out the sacred duty they’d been assigned. Of the other two, one was created after his mortal death and the other was the first Shadow Hound born to angel parents. They were Luc’s most trusted friends. The fact the shadows they’d been born with had caused their once white wings to turn raven black when they’d reached their majority was just another reason why they were so much cooler than Gabe’s gang of nitwits.
The Blessed Reapers weren’t always so bad. If they could just find Michael and drag his ass back to heaven he’d have them back to how they used to be. Doing their jobs and staying in their lanes. But Mike had gone missing 357 years ago next Thursday, and the Almighty had ‘temporarily’ assigned Gabriel to his job. Gabe was still pissed he wasn’t permanently in charge yet. A fact the Shadow Hounds never failed to use to their advantage when trying to annoy the shit out of the stuck up prig. What the Almighty saw in the tosser was anyone’s guess. Just the thought of him had Roth’s lip curling in a snarl and a corresponding growl passing between his clenched teeth.
Still, so much had changed without Michael at the wheel of the other team. The Almighty was playing it closer to their proverbial chest these days. Gabe had ramped up the demands.
And Luc, well, Luc was Hell on wheels when it came to game time. He was a mastermind at his job as General of the Hounds. Hell, he’d been created specifically for it. This was his domain. But even Luc had started acting a little weirder than usual. His intense focus was gone. A new unpredictable side had slowly started creeping in, and they were running out of ideas as to how to help him.
Bringing it to the attention of his sole superior, and especially his counterparts, was not an option any of them wanted to resort to. That jackass Gabriel would do everything in his power to bring down Lucifer, and have someone less powerful and more malleable placed into his role.
What he failed to recognize was that anyone less powerful, and not in the higher ranks, someone who could be corrupted by him, wouldn’t last long at all. The men who worked so closely with Luc would chew a lesser angel up and spit him back into Gabe’s face within half a day, if that. Luc needed an anchor, something to keep him focused and on track. But they’d run out of ideas as to what that could be.
Just as Roth reached out to stroke the gilt frame of the oil painting he glanced at the plaque attached to the bottom of it. ‘An Angel’s Fate’ by 42. He’d always found it confusing how that faceless female could be any angel’s fate, when angels didn’t really receive one. Taking a step closer his fingers found the little lever tucked expertly between the painting and the wall, but before he could open the hidden door a strange noise reached his ears.
The haunting notes of a familiar tune floated on the air, seemingly coming from Luc’s inner sanctum. Roth’s feet froze as if a bolt of lightning had fused him to the floor, his brain screamed that the puzzle of his mystery woman could be just what Luc needed to keep him grounded. A riddle he could help Roth solve.
