AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Awesome. Okay, so just making conversation, because you’re being quiet over there… Why’d you become a firefighter?”
I wondered if I should state the truth.
It wasn’t exactly small talk.
I drew in a breath and said, “I’m just… making up for the fires my ancestors caused.”
Zoe pulled away from her coffee-making endeavors to look at me from across the apartment. “Wait. Really?”
I nodded and gave her a forced smile. “Hellhounds, or rather, our beast forms, in ancient times used to burn down the homes and crops of humans. Sometimes, even whole towns. We had a natural thirst for judgment that would lead us to hunt humans who had fallen from grace. We only stopped when human weaponry got sophisticated enough to be a real threat to us.”
Zoe quickly poured our cups and hurried over so she could sit down beside me on the small couch. “Really?” she repeated, taking it all in like a student absorbing knowledge from a professor.
“Yup.”
“I know so little about your kind. Is there… Oh God, this is going to sound like such a stupid question.” She covered her face with her hands, trying to hide her embarrassment.
“Go on,” I encouraged, happy to answer any of her queries.
She lowered her hands and glanced away. “Well. Is there, like, a Hell? And a Devil, and all that stuff?”
I laughed heartily, not having expected that question. “Yes. Well, sort of. There isn’t a Devil in the traditional sense, like with a pitchfork and pointed tail and such.” I frowned as I recalled, “Wait, no, he does have a pointed tail. But he’s more of an amalgamation of the evil in various human lore. Like Hades, Mephistopheles, Loki, and so on. The ‘Devil’ just happens to be the moniker that’s stuck around the longest.”
Zoe was speechless, blinking hard as she opted to sip at some coffee instead. She almost spat it out when she realized she had grabbed the black coffee over her heavily sweetened cup.
“Ew. Whoops.” She handed it to me. “Here you go. Actually, it’s not that bad. I just wasn’t expecting unsweetened coffee.”
I accepted the cup, still waiting for her reply to the revelation I had just casually dropped on her. Maybe I should have eased her into it, into the idea that there’s an actual Dark Lord down in the underworld. Sometimes I forgot how absurd that could be to the average person.
Zoe sipped from her coffee, still seeming to process everything. When she set the cup down, she concluded, “Well, I sure learned something new today. So… Do you work for the guy, or…?”
I tried to stifle my laugh. “No, no. The underworld is a large place, as expansive as the overworld. That’d be like me asking you if you worked for the President. The Dark Lord probably has never even heard of me.”
“‘The Dark Lord’? Oh, man.”
“That’s what we beasts from the underworld call him. I’m sorry. I should have broken you into all of this a lot more slowly. It’s just… You make me feel… comfortable. Like I don’t need to hide anything from you.”
Zoe smiled and looked away, blushing. “Thanks. I appreciate that.” She sipped her coffee, then said, “So it’s just your beast form that can burn things?”
“Yes. My human form is completely fireproof, but that’s about it. Nothing else special.”
“Besides looking like a giant freaking Olympian, you mean?”
“Yes, that too.” I thought about it for a moment, then added, “And I run very hot. My base body temperature—it’s usually around 115 degrees.”
Zoe’s cheeks reddened again as she looked away and commented, “Yeah, I noticed how hot your skin was when you… When you…”
“When I touched you the other day?” I provided.
She laughed. “That was a bit more than touching. Not that I minded. It was nice.” She glanced back at me, her eyes shifting down to my lips. “Really nice.”
I leaned in closer to her, gazing deeply into those hazel eyes of hers. “It was,” I agreed. I brushed my hand up against her thigh and asked, “Would it be all right if I did it again?”
Her voice came out breathless as she whispered, “More than all right.”
My fingers trailed up her outer thigh, slipping underneath the fabric of her skirt. Her skin was so soft, so smooth, and warm to the touch. I leaned in to nuzzle the crook of her neck, drinking in her sweet perfume and the delicious scent of her arousal.
My beast stirred, wanting a taste. I slipped a finger under her panties only to discover how wet she already was, which further spiked my desire for her. “Fuck, Zoe,” I growled.
