20. Shemhazai
F or one brief moment, everything fell away. I was practically floating in a sea of ecstasy with Hecate’s tight cunt wrapped around my cock and Gabe’s tongue in my mouth.
He tasted so fucking good.
Like fresh air and firewood.
His scent and his taste enveloped me, creating a temporary oasis of safety and comfort that I refused to allow myself to examine too closely.
A calmness that I hadn’t felt in… well, ever consumed me, and I forgot that he was probably watching.
Let him fucking watch.
The thought rocked through my mind with a vicious confidence that I’d never felt before.
The moment I realized my carefully crafted walls had slipped, my eyes flew open in panic.
I glanced down to remind myself that I was still more or less fully clothed, and I let out a sigh of relief in Gabe’s mouth.
Even if he was watching, he couldn’t see me. Not in any way that mattered.
I shuddered and pulled away from Gabe, steadying Hecate with firm hands on her hips .
Gabe frowned at me when I broke our kiss as if he could sense that something was wrong, but I shook him off.
His eyes searched mine, concern ceasing his brows, and I gave him a smirk, hoping to get him to drop it.
Relax. I’m fine.
His gaze narrowed, and I knew, as usual, he could tell I was full of shit. But whatever. I didn’t owe him an explanation.
Hecate was now vibrating in my lap, and her eyes had turned a strange milky white. I glanced at her now slack face as an ancient beat of energy began to fill the room.
Suddenly, any thoughts I had of Raziel spying on me flew from my mind.
I grinned.
“There she is,” I purred, chuckling.
The sounds of her guardians finding their own releases in each other’s mouths filled the room as the mother of witches awoke on my lap, and a wicked sense of excitement welled in my chest.
“She’s waking up.” I grinned at Gabe, and he took a step back, sensing the shift in energy as easily as I had.
Gabe chuckled.
“Funny that having her brother eat her out didn’t piss her off enough to wake her but fucking you did.”
I laughed and shrugged.
“What can I say? I guess I really do have a magic cock.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, Hecate’s head snapped forward, and her all-white glowing eyes slammed into mine. Fury was painted on every line of her face, and her silver hair floated around her in a wave of power.
“You. Fucking. ASSHOLE!” she screeched, and suddenly, I was blasted across the room so hard I slammed into the concrete wall of the basement.
The queening chair shattered, and I laughed as I called my hellcats to me.
Hecate fought me for command of the shadows in the room. Her shadows turned to snakes, a natural enemy of my hellcats, and they hissed and writhed across the floor on the immediate offense .
Gabe was in front of me in an instant, his expression suddenly dark and angry.
My heart twinged slightly when I realized he was angry because Hec had attacked me, and I chuckled.
“Relax, little bird.” I grinned, getting to my feet and quickly zipping myself up. “Let her get it out of her system.”
Gabe’s fists clenched at his side, and his lips pursed, but he nodded and obeyed, stepping aside so I could face the thoroughly pissed-off witch I had just fucked into the land of the living.
Hecate’s magic rippled around her, and her discarded clothing whipped through the air around her in a whirlwind of fabric before stitching itself back onto her. In seconds, she was standing before me in her full fucking glory, shadows and snakes twisting up and down her toned legs.
Each of her chakras ripped open, and her palms filled with warring balls of water and fire as she stalked toward me.
“What the FUCK is wrong with you!?” she screeched, launching a mini fireball at me so quickly I had to leap out of the way to avoid getting burned.
The fire fizzled out harmlessly on the concrete, and I barked out a laugh as I immediately needed to dodge the jet of steaming water she sent at me next.
“What? You seemed to have a good time! You came twice. You should be thanking me,” I purred, calling more hellcats forward, preventing her from coming any closer.
As powerful as I was, Hecate was still a goddess. If we ever truly came to blows, I would have my hands full with her.
It was all fun and games until she finally decided she was sick of my shit and realized I would probably be cuter as a cat-skin coat.
“You made my brother eat me out!? I knew you were a sick piece of shit, Shemhazai, but that’s low, even for you!”
“He’s not actually your brother!” I protested, glancing over her shoulder and Fenrir and Skoll, who were standing behind her, still fully naked.
Now that the elixir had run its course and they were no longer possessed with lust, their faces were both a deep red, and they were awkwardly keeping their distance from each other. I could smell their shame from what Gabe and I had forced them to do to each other, and I nearly giggled with glee.
Hahahahahah! Fuckers. That’s what you fucking GET!
“Besides, you had it coming. This is payback for making me fuck that obese asshole! At least Fenrir is hot.”
She screeched again and shot another fireball at me, which I easily evaded.
“That was five hundred years ago! Get over it! Plus, you think you didn’t already get me back enough for that!? You started the fucking witch trials!” she snarled, and I winced but forced myself to quickly recover, shoving my hands into my pockets with a shrug.
“His teeth were fucking rotting out of his mouth, Hecate. I fucked his black gums for hours because of you. Did you really think I was just going to let that go?”
Skoll and Fenrir quietly exchanged a glance, and I didn’t miss the way their lips twitched in amusement. I narrowed my eyes on them.
“Something funny, fuckers?” I snarled. “Do I need to make you suck each other off again? That’ll wipe those smiles off your smug faces.”
“Leave them out of this!” Hecate hissed, and I glanced back at her. She was still pissed, but she was clearly calming down. Her eyes weren’t glowing anymore. They had returned to their usual silvery grey, and her hair was no longer floating in the air.
“Come on, Hec. I had to wake you up somehow. What did you think was going to happen? You thought you could hide yourself in a mortal body and give yourself fake memories, and that would be enough to hide from me? I was always going to find you.”
“Take a fucking hint, Hazai. I didn’t want you to find me. I was asleep for however fucking many years, and you just left me there. I had to claw my way out of my own grave. Where the fuck were you?”
I winced again, my own temper fizzling out. I bit my lip and sighed.
“I—You’re right. I’m sorry. I was betrayed. What happened to you… I never meant for that to happen. I tried for centuries to wake you up, I swear.”
She was about to scream at me again, but she paused as she digested my words.
“Did you just… apologize? ”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
Her eyes widened in shock, and suddenly, she softened further. Her hissing snakes retreated, and several of them vanished back into shadow.
“You weren’t… Arteqoph told me he was taking me to you, but then that seraphim was there… He was too strong.”
Anger and hurt shot through my chest at just how much of a fool I had been to trust Arteqoph.
Wouldn’t be making that mistake again.
I glanced at Gabe, who was standing quietly to the side, watching Hecate and I bicker with a soft frown on his face.
Was I an idiot to trust him too?
What was I fucking doing?
Shaking off the doubt, I glanced back at Hecate, who was mulling over what I’d said.
“So Art betrayed you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s a long story. I was busy killing his ass over it when you woke up; that’s why I wasn’t there to help pull you out of your grave.
I’m really sorry, Hec. We play games, but I never wanted to truly hurt you, not like that.
You should know that. Why do you think I spent so fucking long trying to keep Ares from catching you? ”
She crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at me.
“I never needed you to protect me from Ares. I had that handled.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah, like you have it handled here? You’re delusional. Why the fuck would you hide yourself in a mortal body when you have the god of war gunning for your pussy like it’s some sort of prize to mount on his wall?”
She smirked at me.
“You underestimate me, Shemhazai. Even if he’d caught me in that park, he would only have one small part of me.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
I allowed my power to roll over hers, and I realized with a start that she was right. She was missing two huge gaping parts of her soul. Had she hidden multiple versions of herself here?
My mind whirled as I ran through all the people in Hecate’s life I had come to know during my time stalking her as Harper.
“Your two friends? ”
She shook her head.
“No, my mother and the crone.”
Realization dawned on me. She had split herself into the three versions of the goddess.
The maiden, the mother, and the crone.
Astrid and her grandmother weren’t her family at all but other manifestations of herself.
That was why Skoll and Fenrir had been stationed as their ‘familiars’... for additional protection.
Fear rippled through me. Skoll and Fenrir weren’t guarding her other halves right now because Gabe and I had fucking kidnapped them.
Hecate seemed to come to the same conclusion I had, and her eyes widened.
“No, he’s not smart enough to have figured it out…” she whispered, though both of us were staring at each other with matching expressions of concern.
“You sure about that?” I hissed, already annoyed that her foolishness was going to further complicate my plans to rescue her dumbass.
She frowned, and I could nearly see her mind whirling with anxiety.
“The church… He was trying to get me to come to this new church that he said he and a partner were starting here in Salem… Willow attended one of the masses recently with those cunty bitches from her new job…”
She whirled to face Skoll and Fenrir.
“Why would Ares have any interest in a Christian church?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What church? Yahweh is incapacitated. Gabe and I nailed him to a cross. He’s being bled for his power as we speak. There’s no use for a new church… unless…”
“What’s the church called?” Gabe asked quietly, and Hecate glanced back at me, her face white.
“The Church of Seraphim.”
My whole body went cold. I schooled my face, refusing to let Gabe see how much the word seraphim shook me to my fucking core.
Hecate turned wide eyes onto me. “You don’t think Ares is working with… No. There’s no way. He hasn’t left the Vatican in thousands of years. Why would he leave now? To come here of all places? ”
“Well, considering I crucified his fucking god, and he knew I would be here looking for you, I’m sure he made an exception,” I hissed.
“Fuck…” Hecate breathed, and I grit my teeth together in rage.
“Ares might not be smart enough to figure out your little insurance policy, but Raz sure fucking would be,” I growled.
Gabriel was watching me closely in that way that always made me feel like I was completely naked.
I retreated deeper into myself.
Mask, mask, mask. Hide, hide, hide.
“Who? Who is Ares working with?” Gabriel asked, his voice dark and full of a strange sort of protectiveness as if he knew somehow that I was fucking terrified.
How did he always see right through me?
The thought of Gabe finding out about what Raziel had done to me made me feel so sick I could have fucking puked, which was so embarrassingly human I hated myself for it.
He needed to back the fuck off.
What was his obsession with uncovering shit that was better left buried and dead?
Why wouldn’t he just leave me the fuck alone?
Anger swirled in my gut at the way he kept staring at me, and I found I couldn’t answer his question. I just swallowed.
Forcing myself to stay calm, I did my best to ignore him.
Hecate turned to face the raven demon, her face grave. She answered for me.
“Ares is likely working with Raziel, God’s first angel.”