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Traitors.His attention slices through everyone in the court, and he’s unable to stop his scowl. An ugly expression on a face trained to be lovely.I was the one betrayed.
Wherever she is, Mama certainly wouldn’t appreciate his fate.Did we raise you to go to Hell for eternal damnation? You could’ve been a doctor. Or a software engineer.
In fairness, he never thought he’d be a vampire, either.
A Romanian-American vampire. At least he could say, see, Mama, it’s a little less cliché that I’m Romanian-American, and not Romanian.
Of course her son had the audacity to be a vampire. She’d set a thousand copies ofDraculaon fire if she could, if it meant people would stop calling her Transylvanian.
Lauren?iu moves to join the retinue standing to the right of the throne, about thirty demons and damned souls of various appearances and genders, all pretty, all dressed in red.
The courtiers, part of the camarilla.
The favourites.
And as he does, cutting into the crescent of demons hanging to the sides of the room, Paimon’s bored-numb eyes pierce across dozens of horns, tails, tongues, and assorted clusters of toothy mouths—to fall on Lauren?iu.
For not the first time, Lauren?iu takes pause, and he holds the King of Hell’s smoldering stare.
Eventually, the numbers in the room lessen, and everyone is dismissed as Paimon rises and says that he’ll be in his chambers.
No orgy tonight, then. Lauren?iu himself never partakes; not for lack of experience, given the soirees he would be paid to attend before the outbreak back on Earth. Many brash new money bachelors would pay him to attend parties with feathery masks and wine and debauchery.
But he doesn’t find much desire to. Even his work when he was alive, while not terrible, was a means to an end. He’s never been extremely adventurous in bed without payment; on Earth, the most satisfying idea that kept him warm was revenge.
Though, if Paimon is to ever want him, he’ll say yes, just to get ahead.
Lauren?iu departs to go to his own room, a hall he shares with many of the others favourites, very close to Paimon’s own section of the palace. In the hall, before he can retire, a demon with spiraling silver horns and a heart-shaped face stops him, dressed near-identical to him.
In an unconfident tenor, the other courtier tells him, “The King requests that you attend to him in the bath.”
Lauren?iu flashes his fangs. “Excellent.”
Chapter 2
Paimon
He doesn’t really like to complain too much. Gossip is fun, complaining less so. Falling with his wings scorching off, his flesh sizzling in the morass of the other angels’ blood, yes, not fun. Unpreferred. That said, Heaven never had quite so many orgies with pretty demons, so you might say he’s a glass half-full sort of fella.
But Christ’s tits, he hates holding court. If Lucifer didn’t insist that they “actually govern” to “maintain what possible order we can have” he wouldn’t bother at all. Lucie is so,solucky that he’s hot and knows how to eat ass.
Power bottoms really are Paimon’s worst weakness.
Bah. Rules. Meetings.I thought we rebelledagainstGod’s rigid hierarchy and tyranny.At least there are orgies; again, glass half-full.
Sex, food, wine, champagne, art, music, movies.
What else is there?
But shockingly, he’s not in the mood now.
Regardless, Paimon doesn’t like spending too much time alone. Even if the other person just sits there as he rambles, that’s enough to prevent that buildup. That’s all he can call it, this Darkness. Like a bottle, full of frozen water, that swells and cracks.
All his fallen brethren have thisthingwhere when they’re too lonely for too long, that sin, that brokenness becomes too much. And Paimon starts to think and doubt. Doubt is good. Freeing. But then he doubts why he’s here at all.
That thing, the Darkness, wriggles in the back of his head, restless and discontented. He can’t quite describe the Darkness. It isn’t a literal thing inside him, but nor is it only his imagination. No explanation works. It just is.
Maybe it’s ambition. He doesn’t have much higher to climb. He doesn’t want to overthrow Lucie, so this is the highest he’s going to climb. An insignificant problem, really.
