Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
AIDEN
“Sweet little lamb.”
I groan, the tips of my fingers tingling as my mind comes back to me.
“I knew you’d follow me into Hell.”
That voice. So close. Like I could almost touch it.
“My Aiden.”
I blink my eyes open, my vision a bit foggy as I try to see through the darkness. I sigh, looking at the love of my life, and hold a hand out to him. “I knew I’d see you again. I followed you. Just like I promised.”
He smiles warmly, letting me pet his cheek… so real it’s almost torturous. “You did promise me that. You’re so brave, but you don’t have to worry anymore because we’re here together.”
If this is Hell, I’ll willingly dance with the Devil himself. I finally have my Levi in front of my very eyes. Our souls connected, sharing?—
“Leviathan. He thinks the two of you are dead.”
Wait. What?
I snap my head to the right and gasp, seeing all the brothers snickering in the corner of the room. Mammon has Bel and Gore on either side of him, both of them begging for scraps, while Asi rolls his eyes at me as he carries Zeus.
I turn back to Levi. “Wait. You’re fucking alive?”
Levi smirks, brushing a hand over the bandages on my wrists. “Alive and so fucking well now that I have you.”
“Barf,” Asi mumbles, shaking his head. “I’ll be in my room if anybody needs me.”
“Are we…? We’re in the house?” I ask, looking around and finally seeing all the familiar torture porn on the walls, even the cracked mirror that rests on the dresser. “How?”
“Because I, unlike the rest of them, know how to plan,” Mammon grunts, stepping away from Bel and Gore to come to my bedside. “And I’d like to thank you for your participation in it all.”
I raise a brow as my jaw drops. “Me? What did I do?”
“Without you, Leviathan here would have continued to live his life as a pawn,” he explains as if it’s simple math. “All I needed was one domino to fall to topple the empire.”
“Fuck, he’s so sexy,” Gore groans, grabbing his crotch.
Bel nods along eagerly. “I’d let Daddy topple my empire.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” Mammon sighs, but he can’t hide the way his upper lip twitches. “Either way, Aiden, welcome to the family.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I spit, causing Levi to chuckle. “Welcome to the family? You almost killed me!”
He shrugs. “You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”
“Shit, just let it go.” We all turn to see Asi by the door, apparently unable to step away from the show. “I pulled a couple of Levi’s teeth out and you don’t see him bitching.”
I gasp, turning to Levi. “Are you okay?”
“Never been better,” he says with a smile, kissing my bandaged wrist.
I nod but don’t believe him, promising to circle back to his missing teeth in a second. I look up at Mammon and scowl. “Look, I’m not a huge fan of all of this cryptic bullshit. Can you speak plainly and not like a fucking wizard?”
“Damn, go off !” Bel shouts, clapping his hands.
Mammon sighs as if it pains him to explain himself to such an idiot. “You think I enjoyed being a pawn in some old man’s fucking game?” He scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “I’ve always known that useless old shit was full of crap. I just needed to bide my time until the opportunity came along to get rid of him.”
I drop my jaw. The fact that Mammon’s been harboring this secret agenda is shocking. Levi told me all about how Mammon raised them to be what their master wanted, but then it hits me.
He’s trained a perfect army of psychopaths to trust and follow his lead. He’s earned their loyalty, helped them grow, and molded them to what he wanted.
Fuck, he’s a genius.
“What will you do now that he’s gone?” I ask, almost scared to know the answer.
And for good reason.
Mammon’s grin turns sinister and the monster he hides so very well shines in his boyish blue eyes. “What I was always meant to do, Aiden.”
“Well isn’t that spooky as shit,” Asi huffs. “Can we tell him now so I can go to bed?”
“Tell me what?”
“You’re one of us now, little lamb,” Levi says, kissing the palm of my hand. “You died and came back to life.”
Mammon nods. “And that makes you a Prince of Hell.”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s saying and then another one to let it sink in. When it does… I smile. I smile so widely that I can see the concerned looks on Bel and Gore’s faces.
Because while I belong to Levi, I’ve never belonged to anything else. I’ve always felt unwanted and left out, someone who was meant to live a lonely life plagued by his nightmares. My dad and uncle molested me, my mother grew to resent me, and I never had a family unit to call my own.
This one might not be healthier, but it’s mine.
My family who accepts me for all the darkness. No, not only accepts the darkness, but encourages it. The one where I won’t be judged, where they’d literally kill for me.
“Tell him the rest,” Asi barks.
“Take a pill, brother,” Gore teases. “We’re just getting to the good part.”
I raise a brow. “That wasn’t the good part?”
“There are seven Princes of Hell and only five of us,” Levi tells me, motioning toward his brothers. “So, for our newest demon, which do you prefer? Lucifer or Satan?”
“Please don’t choose Satan,” Bel begs, clasping his hands in front of him. “Mammon says I can get a puppy and I called dibs on that name.”
“I said we could look ,” Mammon corrects him, giving him a stern glare before turning back to me. “Pick.”
Unbelievably, this is the easiest decision of my life.
My baptism into the unholiness. The death of Aiden Walker and the beginning of something new. A fresh chapter in my life where I can write it myself, not be dictated by someone else.
“Lucifer,” I say proudly, blushing when Levi kisses my cheek. “But you can call me Luc.”
Mammon nods, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Luc it is.”
“Can you all leave now?” Levi hisses, staring daggers at the hand on my shoulder. “My little lamb needs a hard cock in his ass right about now.”
“Levi!” I scold but it doesn’t stop my own dick from perking up with interest.
“Oooo! Can we watch again?”
“Out,” Levi barks, already climbing up my body before his brothers so much as move. It isn’t until Mammon jerks his head toward the door that they all file out, leaving just Levi and I in the safety of our cave. “Finally. They wouldn’t fucking leave until you woke up.”
“That’s sweet?” I chuckle when he starts nibbling on my neck. Although I like where this is headed, sex can wait. “Hold on.”
“No,” he growls, pulling back the sheet to mouth over my clothed-dick. “Need to suck you. Been too long.”
“Leviathan,” I snap, slapping my hand across his cheek. “Focus.”
In an instant he stops, mouth still hanging open, frozen as he stares up at me. Fuck. He’s looking at me with such glossy pleading eyes that I cave. I pull down my sweats just far enough to take my cock out and place it against his lips, nodding so he knows he can suckle if he wants to. He doesn’t hesitate and wraps his sweet mouth around me, cooing and closing his eyes when I pet the top of his head.
“I thought I lost you,” I whisper, letting him take comfort from me but also searching for comfort through him. “I was so fucking scared.”
He mumbles against my dick and I don’t need him to pull off to know what he’s saying.
Me too.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I tell him honestly, a little bit of worry creeping up when I think of the evil grin on Mammon’s face as he cryptically spoke of his plans. “But as long as I have you, the whole fucking island could burn down, and I’d let you fuck me on the ashes.”
He kisses his way up my cock, nuzzling his forehead against my thigh before sitting up. “I think I love you, Luc.”
I chuckle, shaking my head as I brush my thumb against the crease in his furrowed brows. “No, you don’t, but I prefer it that way.”
He surges forward to kiss me, catching me off-guard. I should be mindful of the fact that he got his teeth fucking pulled out , but I don’t care. I thrust my tongue into his mouth, tangling it with his, and rejoicing in the fact that this is real. Hell is just going to have to wait for us.
When he yanks his head back, I cock my own to the side. I reach for him, but he keeps putting more distance between us. “What are you doing?”
He reaches for the knife he keeps on the nightstand with a smile so manic it chills me. He licks his lips. “Better call my brothers back in here, little lamb.”
“What? Why—Levi!”
He slashes his arm from elbow to wrist, bleeding himself out. I shout covering his arm with the sheet, but he’s already moving onto the other one before I can tell him to stop. He’s bleeding out, his face growing pale, and I shake him. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
With bleary eyes and a lazy smile, he sighs peacefully. “Now we have matching scars.”
I can’t help it. I burst into laughter. I actually clutch my stomach as I try to put pressure on both wounds at once. “You’re a fucking lunatic!”
But the beauty—and the honor—is that he’s mine .