5. God Doesn’t Make Mistakes
Deyva
A shower. How long had it been since I felt real water on my skin?
I was tempted to stay under the scalding hot spray until Kais really was forced to burst in.
The thought made me giggle—his heavy footsteps stomping through the locker room, thinking I’d run off to go on some demonic rampage.
Only to find me here, wet and naked, just as he liked me.
How they all liked me, as long as I was a fantasy. Reality proved to be entirely different. I couldn’t say I was surprised, but maybe a tad disappointed. Getting Kais all riled up from my teasing was fun, though.
I heard two heavy thumps on the locker room door, then the creak of it opening.
“Got you clothes. I’ll be right outside,” Kais called just before the door closed.
“Why stay out there when you could come inside?” I said to the empty locker room.
It didn’t dignify my question with an answer.
I remained under the hot spray for another several minutes before reluctantly shutting the water off.
As fun as it was to make these priests squirm, it was probably smartest not to press my luck with them.
Who knew how much sexual frustration would set them off to the point of tossing me back over the gate?
The dream-feeding was real to me, but not to them.
I felt like I knew who they were, but in their eyes, I was only meant to be a fantasy.
Dripping wet, and my dress discarded on a bench, I padded across the locker room to see what Kais had left me. A large, fluffy bath towel, a pair of leggings, and a long-sleeved t-shirt were folded neatly on the bench closest to the door.
I couldn’t help the sigh that escaped as I rubbed the towel over my body.
There was nothing like this in Hell, this sensory feeling of softness, coziness.
Wrapping the towel around my torso, I carefully unfolded the clothes set out for me.
Between the shirt and pants, there was a pair of flip-flops, and even a bra and panties, still sealed in plastic packaging.
“Aw, what’s the matter, Kais?” I laughed to myself. “Don’t want to see my nipples through my shirt?”
I got dressed and left the locker room to find him waiting just outside the door, as he said he would be. His arms were crossed, trying to look the part of a stern bodyguard, but his brow and stance visibly relaxed at the sight of me.
“Feel better?”
“Much. Thank you.”
“Good. You do look almost human with Hell washed off of you.” His gaze was softer as he appraised me in my new human clothes. “Fresh as a daisy.”
I snorted. “Please do not ever compare me to something as bland and earthly as a daisy .”
“Why not?” Kais seemed delighted in my annoyance. “It almost sounds like your name. Deyva. Daisy.”
“Stop.” I wrinkled my nose. “I’d threaten to feed from you, but you’d enjoy it too much.”
“Uh huh.” He turned on the toe of his boot, which I took as an indication to follow him through the empty gymnasium.
“Do you sleep?” he asked, thankfully changing the subject.
“I can, but it doesn’t replenish my energy like it does for you.” My toes curled over the soles of the flip-flops, the sensation of shoes odd, but not completely unpleasant. “Only feeding does.”
“Right, which is not happening. I’m still not thrilled about you doing it with no warning on the balcony.”
My chest heaved with a sigh. I was tired, and not just because feeding from the congregation’s faith was barely enough to sustain my normal energy levels. I hadn’t even been here an hour and already had to constantly defend myself.
“You’ll see how they feel tomorrow,” I told him snippily. “And when you don’t notice a difference, I expect you to come to me with an apology. Doesn’t mean I’ll accept it, though.”
“An apology!” He barked out a laugh. It was sudden and bright, the pleasing sound echoing off the gym walls and ceiling before he led me out another door. “Good one, Daisy.”
“You know in all the years I’ve been alive, I’ve never actually head-butted someone with my horns. Seems like it might be fun to try.”
“I’m sure it would. But you’d certainly say goodbye to hot showers and clean clothes if you did.”
I bit my tongue, following him through the hallway.
His demeanor was considerably more relaxed than before, apparently convinced that I wouldn’t run away or disappear in a plume of smoke.
That, or he was confident I wouldn’t get far if I tried.
His reflexes were like lightning, footsteps fast and efficient despite the broad spanse of his shoulders filling the hallway.
Even though I knew exactly how well he was built, intimately acquainted with the musculature from his thick arms to his even thicker thighs, watching him simply march down a hallway was a sight to behold.
I was nowhere near full-strength, so I had to jog a couple paces behind him to keep up, my eyes fixated on his ass as he walked.
“You can stay in here for the time being.” He stopped abruptly in front of a door, making me crash forehead first into the brick wall that was his back.
So hungry…
Even just brief contact through clothing, a quick inhale of his smell, had me salivating for a taste. A real one that not even dream-feeding could satisfy.
“Deyva?” He looked at me with that pinched brow again. “You alright?”
“Yes! Yes, a room. Thank you.”
“Sure. It’s just an office with a futon, but it’ll have to do until we,” he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, “until we figure something out.”
“I understand.”
“You do know that I’m going to have to lock you in,” he said with an almost apologetic look. “Right?”
“Actually, I know that’s the last thing you need to do,” I said, pursing my lips.
His stare hardened and I shrugged, slipping past him into the office.
It was quaint, human, with little framed scripture verses and a painting of a white Jesus on the crucifix hanging prominently behind the desk.
“But I understand it’s what will make you feel safest.”
“It’s my people I’m concerned for, not myself,” Kais said.
I wondered if it gave him a headache to grimace so much. To be so full of tension. “I am less interested in them than I am in you, Kais,” I said, lips quirking.
This would go much more smoothly if I could learn to stop flirting, I realized as he snarled.
“Kais, wait—” I started, but the door slammed shut before I could ask to see the others, Stavros and Zach. A moment later, the lock clicked.
All the ease and comfort I’d gained from feeding from Zach’s audience, from the shower, and from Kais’ care, snapped like a weak thread. My muscles coiled in my body and my chest ached as I held my breath. I didn’t like cages.
This isn’t really one , I reminded myself, swallowing hard and staring at the door.
There were dozens of ways I might leave the room.
The window Kais had failed to secure for starters.
I would stay—locked, like an animal, like a toy —because that was what they needed me to do if they were going to trust me.
I was safe from Kimaris here, relatively speaking. And it would be a long time before Kimaris would admit to Belial that he’d thrown me from Hell. The greatest risk I faced at the moment was the humans turning on me, or not being able to feed before I turned on them.
I slunk over to the small couch at the end of the room, testing its give cautiously.
Afraid of a couch now, are we ? I laughed at myself and bounced onto its cushions, purring as I slid down on my back.
Company would’ve been nice, but being clean, free, and having my first taste of flavors not colored by the agony of Hell since the Rising? It was enough.
For now.
And they couldn’t leave me in here indefinitely… right?
Sometime in the night, it occurred to me that I should’ve lied and said I needed human food too.
I watched the color of the sky change through the high window, and no one came.
So I took to reading to pass the time, trying to ignore the infernal ticking of the clock on the wall as it told me that minute by minute, hour by hour, I was abandoned.
In a priest’s dowdy little office.
By morning, I’d pulled the batteries out of the clock and taken a pen to the good book.
Click .
I stiffened in the chair behind the desk, my legs stretched across the wood. My eyes darted to the door, wondering if I’d imagined the sound. And then the knob turned, the door parted, and I found mismatched eyes studying me, before taking in the minor chaos I’d caused in the room.
I’d discarded the bra Kais had gifted me—they were obviously Hell’s design—and thrown it to catch on the corner of the frame of White Jesus, my sole companion of the hours.
The clock was dismantled into pieces on the floor—I was fairly certain I could put it back together—and I’d knocked a cup of pencils and pens to the floor when I’d taken my position at the desk.
One of the pens was clamped between my teeth as I gazed widely back at Zach, whose cheeks were red with anger or embarrassment. I couldn’t quite taste from here.
“Are you...are you writing in the Bible ?” Zach asked.
Ah. Anger.
“Just annotating a little. There’s an awful lot of errors. By the way, have you realized that you have your Lord and Savior’s birthday wrong?” I asked, tsk’ ing at Zach. “Think of how He must feel.”
Zach didn’t quite rise to the bait, but he stepped into the room, leaning back against the door.
“Liberties might’ve been taken with specifics, but the teachings of Christ remain essential,” he said, which sounded a little rehearsed.
I opened my mouth to parry and Zach snapped, “ Don’t bring up Leviticus.
Everyone always thinks they’re gonna crack Christianity wide open with that one. ”
I laughed and bit my lip, grinning at Zach. He had something wrapped in white paper tucked under his arm and it smelled...savory from here.