VI
He sent a text to Gabe and told the archangel that he’d found what they needed and would await their call as he headed back to his penthouse to take a shower and a nap.
He was exhausted and reeked of alcohol and anxiety.
Charlie was still asleep, and for a second Lucky was overwhelmed with panic when it seemed the human wasn’t alive…
or wasn’t dead? He had no idea what was going on, how to classify it.
The priest was cold, his eyes were half-open, and he didn’t seem to be breathing.
He wasn’t sure if Charlie should have been breathing.
Wasn’t sure if he had and Lucky simply hadn’t noticed.
The souls in Hell didn’t breathe, they didn’t eat or feel pain unless it was their turn in the torture rooms, but Charlie wasn’t like the other souls in Hell so he had no idea what to expect. It was all so confusing.
After bathing in scalding waters and throwing on some silk pajamas, the exhausted prince flopped over on the massive bed beside the priest and the hound.
He fished his cell phone from his pocket and placed an order for some hellhound supplies with rapid delivery so it would arrive by the time he woke up.
He draped his arm over his eyes and tried to get some shut eye.
He’d need it if he were to be friendly with priests and church leaders in the coming hours.
Gabe called in the mid-afternoon with funds and a plan, but it would take some time to get the paperwork in order so they wouldn’t be heading to Earth for another day.
They’d mentioned that their brother Mikey—more commonly known as the archangel Michael—had grown somewhat suspicious when he realized they’d left Heaven.
Good old Saint Peter had tattled on accident, so they were trying to be cautious.
Lucky didn’t like the adjusted timeline, but they didn’t have a choice, so he made the call to the church where Charlie had been working and made arrangements to meet with the leadership.
He’d hoped that it would at least light a fire under their holy asses to keep a better eye on the poor mortal’s body.
Apparently, it had worked because Charlie finally woke. Lucky hoped that meant they were caring for him better than they had been.
Lucky sat on the edge of the bed next to the somewhat groggy Charlie the following afternoon.
He set his knuckle against the side of the priest’s head to wipe away the tears that had formed from his yawning.
The little human was holding onto the hellhound.
He looked so small, and the prince had taken notes as he observed him in his waking moments.
Yes, Charlie’s soul was breathing. Yes, Charlie’s soul was experiencing temperatures.
Yes, Charlie’s soul was hungry. Yes, Charlie’s soul was abnormal and subject to all of the hells of…
well, Hell. More things to keep track of that his overworked mind couldn’t handle.
He wasn’t quite sure if any of that was normal or not, since he didn’t like dealing with humans he had no frame of reference.
Once he dropped a soul off at Limbo he washed his hands of it, and he never kept human pets, so he was utterly clueless.
Still, the teary-eyed mortal was coherent, and that was enough for now.
The Prince of Hell rolled the sleeves of his button up. “How are you feeling?”
“A little dizzy,” Charlie replied.
“Still hungry?”
“Yes, perhaps we could pick something up before you drop me off at the office?”
Lucky blinked his golden eyes. “Who says we’re going to the office?”
“I need to keep working on the files. You made it sound like it was a timely matter.”
“It might be better for you to rest today.”
“That won’t do. We only have twenty-nine days to get all of that finished,” Charlie reminded him. “I’m fine. I slept plenty and I just need a little food to wake myself up.”
Lucky huffed. Technically, Charlie was correct.
It was a timely matter, it needed to get done, and something told the irritated heir that the priest wouldn’t let the situation go.
Charlie was desperate to prove himself, to do a good job.
It would drive Lucky up a wall spending all day waiting around, so it was smart to keep working.
The meeting with the church would happen when it happened, and it wasn’t happening today, so he might as well get some paperwork done.
“Fine. Get changed while I figure out what to do with… that,” Lucky said as he gestured to the hellhound.
“He’s behaving,” Charlie replied with a pout. “I want to keep him, and you owe me.”
“I think it imprinted on you so the damn thing would literally kill me if I tried to separate you at this point. It’s more about making sure it doesn’t destroy my furniture. Most of this stuff is vintage.”
“Luke and John would never!”
Lucky blinked a few more times. Yeah, he was glad Charlie hadn’t witnessed the hellhound feasting the night before. It probably would have killed him a second time.
“Ew, did you name a literal guard dog of Hell after those two dweebs?” Lucky asked with a snarl when he registered what Charlie had said.
Charlie gasped at his audacity. The hound flopped over.
The left head, which Lucky picked up was John by the way Charlie had pointed at each one, seemed much too heavy for the awkwardly shaped body.
The tiny beast was the most uncoordinated thing he’d ever seen, and that was saying something when Charlie existed.
The old adage of pets resembling their owners felt accurate.
“I don’t really want to leave it here with all of my stuff so I guess we’ll have to take it with us,” Lucky said as he stood. “What do you want to eat?”
He walked to the kitchen island to grab the box of supplies he’d ordered and find the two-headed leash and harness to get it situated on Luke and John. He distracted the pup with a human femur that Luke, the more aware right head, immediately started chewing on.
“I’m not picky,” Charlie said as he slowly slid out of bed.
“What do you want to eat, Charlie? You’re allowed to want things.”
“Am I?”
Lucky cut his eyes to him for a second before he looked at the dog. He handed Charlie the leash. “You handle this, I don’t want to touch it.”
“Him.”
Lucky didn’t feel like going into detail about how hellhounds were sexless creatures born of a Hellish duty to protect.
It was an entity manifested out of Charlie’s fear, a piece of his soul that would soon turn into a massive beast with a sole directive to guard, not a pet.
To the sad little priest it was a companion, so he wouldn’t correct him.
That didn’t mean that Lucky would call the thing anything other than an it, though.
“Whatever, just tell me what sounds good, Charlie. You’re not in the church anymore, if you want something more than wine and wafers you can have it.”
“Is that what you think clergymen’s diets consist of?”
“Uh… no? You also eat fish and loaves or whatever.”
Charlie giggled. Heat flashed over Lucky’s cheeks, it rose to the tips of his pointed ears. The sound was so sweet, if not a bit rude. How dare this mortal question the Prince of Hell’s knowledge?! The devil let out a puff of smoke and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Does Hell have sandwiches?” Charlie asked.
“Of course we do, but I don’t think your tiny mouth can handle the size of our subs,” Lucky said with a cocked eyebrow.
He coughed out a puff of smoke in embarrassment when his mind immediately went to the thought of Charlie’s lips wrapped around a sandwich.
Lips pink and eyes watering as he tried to make it fit. Which was not cool! Not cool!
“Uh… yeah, sandwiches, we can do sandwiches,” Lucky mumbled.
What was wrong with him? Charlie was a priest, his mortal enemy!
How could he look at him so lustfully? Not that Hell’s favorite psychopomp had an entire bookshelf dedicated to priest-focused queer smut novels or anything.
All of those books with beefy demon love interests…
in churches… with rosaries as bondage items…
and vows being shattered with hellfire and soft whimpers?
Those books? No, no, absolutely not! That definitely didn’t have anything to do with why he was suddenly suffering from impure thoughts about whole wheat hoagies.
Bloody Hell, he needed to stop thinking about Charlie like that before those thoughts even started.
Those were fiction, this was reality. Nothing good would come from entertaining those scenarios for a single second.
Still, his eyes drifted to those books on his shelf and he couldn’t help but imagine Charlie like that for a second.
He could allow himself a single, tiny, teeny, itty bitty second to daydream, right?
That second turned into seconds, then minutes as Lucky watched Charlie slip out of his wrinkled button up.
All of those impure thoughts of the priest only amplified.
It wasn’t about the sandwiches anymore. It was never about the sandwiches and he knew it.
He saw freckled, bony shoulders, pale skin, fine hairs.
The way Charlie’s shoulder blades shifted as he took the garment off caused the heir’s throat to dry.
His eyes trailed down to Charlie’s flat stomach and the well groomed line of hair that disappeared under the hem of his slacks.
He studied his hips and fantasized about how perfectly his hands would fit in the dip and…
That’s when he noticed the scarring. Soft pink, obviously from a burn, and he remembered what he’d seen in Charlie’s file.
Family: None, parents died in a house fire.
The prince’s eyes turned to his apartment, to the literal fountain of fire on the balcony, the wall of lava that raced down the backsplash of his kitchen, the flaming torches on the wall. Oh Hell, literally.
“Are you… okay?” Lucky asked quietly.
Charlie turned to him as he swapped out his wrinkled button up for a clean one. “Yes, why?”
Without thinking, Lucky set his hand on Charlie’s waist. The priest flinched, but Lucky couldn’t tell if it was due to the heat that swelled in his palm or the sudden contact. Charlie looked down at his body.
“Oh, the burns?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah.”
“I was a child when it happened, I don’t really remember.”
“Are you scared?”
“Of you?”
It was Lucky’s turn to flinch. “I-I meant the fire. I hope you aren’t scared of… me.”
Charlie’s pale cheeks turned pink. He blinked those blue eyes a few times and smiled that gap-toothed smile of his.
“You’re the least scary thing around here, honestly,” Charlie said.
Lucky wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or offended by that statement.
“If anything makes you uncomfortable, or scares you, you let me know. I’ll handle it,” Lucky said softly.
Charlie’s cheeks turned a darker shade of red. “O-okay…”
“Come on, get changed and get that horrid thing leashed up so we can get you a sandwich.”
The stupidly adorable priest was going to be the death of him, and Lucky wasn’t sure he minded in the moment.