Seven - Redric
What the ever loving fuck had just happened?
I shoved Evangeline’s body off me, my cock smelling of the woman I hated the most. It throbbed from its desire for a release, her having fucked it as dirty as she fought. An involuntary shiver ruptured across my shoulders at the thought of her pussy squeezing me as she’d come.
Seriously. What the fuck?
The only thing I’d wanted was to kill her over and over again. I had literally come in here just to drag the chef off her because to hel if some random fucker was going to kill her first. So I’d broken his neck and lunged for her but had then slipped and landed on her accidentally.
And then…
Exhaling sharply, I released the death grip on my hair as my eyes narrowed on her face, finally understanding what had just happened.
She had no fucking idea who I was.
She’d fucked me thinking I’d just rescued her.
She’d let her guard down because she’d thought I was a nobody. Nothing to fear.
The egotistical cunt.
Anger building, I jumped to my feet and shoved my still hard cock inside my robes. My hands came away smelling of her, fuelling the rage all the more.
Walking over to the chef, I grabbed hold of both his wrists and dragged him down the hall, nudging open doors until I found his bedroom. Depositing him on the floor, I left and grabbed a chair from the kitchen, which I then placed beneath the handle of his door. When he eventually healed from his broken neck, I didn’t want him waking while I was on the plane of purgatory, my body completely defenceless in this world.
Rolling my shoulders as I headed back to Evangeline, I clenched my jaw at the sight of her. There was no flush of excitement, no pride over having finally killed my greatest nemesis. There was just pure fury rolling inside me. Pure did-she-really-just-fuck-me fury, and I could not wait to revive her just to kill her all over again.
Pulling out a thin golden chain known as a witch’s snare –something even she wouldn’t be able to get out of– I bound her to me. There wasn’t a lock for her to break. The only way she could get free would be by cutting off her own hand.
Or mine.
Frowning, I removed the golden chain from my wrist and attached it instead to… I looked around the living room but saw nothing she couldn’t just move.
Dammit.
I’d had this all planned out. Why did she always have to ruin everything? She couldn’t even just die correctly. For fuck’s sake.
Exhaling sharply, I picked up her arm to remove the witch’s snare and put it away. But then my eyes fell onto her leg. Smiling wickedly, I attached the gold chain to her ankle.
She wouldn’t be able to run from me then – just stuck at my mercy. A mercy I would not give even if she begged me.
Exhilaration blossoming in my lungs, I sat down on the floor in front of her. Her pussy was directly in front of me, wet and glistening, and I leaned forward to pull up her trousers. My cock jumped, and my fingers buzzed at the nearness of her lips...
Quickly yanking up the material, I scowled at myself. For twenty-five years, I’d been unable to have sex thanks to her, and now that I could, my body was a mess of my normal tight control – yet another mark against her.
Straightening, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The air intensified around me, crackling with my power. A sharp pain stabbed my heart, like a clawed hand had just ripped a bit off it. The price to enter the land of purgatory was a part of one’s soul that they would never get back.
As a vortex of energy flared above Evangeline’s body, my hair blew across my forehead, the tendrils tickling the flush of my skin. Sweat beaded along my body. My left eye erupted into a flash of heat, and then my ethereal body was being pulled into it.
The air settling, I found myself in an infinity of black space. Evangeline stood with her back to me, but as soon as I fully formed in the land of purgatory, she turned as if able to sense me.
“You fucking killed me.” She laughed as if delighted.
My eyes narrowing, I walked towards her.
“Who even are you?” Cocking her head to the side, she studied me. “You’re not in any gang. Not with that higher-than-thou attitude. You’re not an upset prostitute given you clearly would not get paid enough to make it in that business. You’re not an assassin. The look in your eyes is too emotional. You’re –”
“I’m Redric Dahy,” I ground out.
She blinked, no sign of recognition in her gold eyes flecked with blue. “Who?”
My jaw tightened. “We fought against each other in the Vylian war.”
“I fought a lot of people then. You’re going to have to narrow it down.”
“You cursed me,” I bit out.
“Yeah…I curse a lot of people. You’re nothing special.” She laughed. “Just this morning, I literally got attacked by an old woman who claimed I cursed her too. Didn’t know who she was either. See my issue?”
Wanting to strangle her already but knowing I couldn’t hurt her on this plane of existence, I clenched my fists. My nostrils flared as I struggled to spit out the words that would make her recognise me. “I’m…” The nickname her and her friends had given me all those years ago clogged in my throat.
“Go on. I don’t have all day.” She laughed. “Well, I guess I do actually.” Stepping back, she spread her arms and looked up at the nothingness stretching above us. “You know, it’s nicely relaxing being in here. This is the first break I’ve had in twenty-odd years. No one in here looking to kill me. No jobs that need doing.”
She sighed. “Thanks for that.”
I lunged for her.
Dropping her arms, she looked back at me just as I tackled her to the ‘ground’. There was no thump as we landed, no floor to actually hit. We just turned sideways, her on her back, me on top of her.
Staring up at me, she winced. “No offence…whoever you are, but your first performance really sucked. The only way I’m going to sleep with you again is if you’re –”
My hands going around her neck, I squeezed. “I’m not trying to have sex with you!”
She didn’t stop talking, the attack doing nothing to her on this realm. “– open to feedback, then fuck it. I did come when you choked me, and the gods know, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to fuck someone given my line of work, so –”
“Shut up already!”
She stared up at me, a mocking joy dancing in the stars of her eyes. Rolling her lips in, she waited.
Looking down at her, I could not express the amount of rage I was feeling. My whole body vibrated with it. I had just killed her. I had spent the last twenty-five years thinking about this moment, and yet, here it was, and she was ruining it.
By thanking me.
By being fucking happy about it.
My knuckles turned white around her, but there was nothing I could do to hurt her here, nothing I could do to expunge the rage I was feeling.
The absolute fury.
She had destroyed my entire life.
She had mocked me and made a mockery of me.
Yet there was nothing I could do to make her feel any of what she’d made me suffer.
My arms shaking, I glared down at her.
She stayed smiling up at me.
My fingers tightened...
Struggling to get my emotions back under control so I could haul her back to the land of the living, I breathed out harshly.
“I’m...Testes,” I spat, the pain of hearing that name again eased only slightly by the widening of her eyes.
“No shit. For real?” Her smile fell under a glimmer of annoyance. “You fucking killed me?” She scoffed, and she looked so put out and angry at herself that despite the insults she was spewing at me, I grinned with pride.
“Yep. And it was fucking easy.”
Her gaze focused back on mine. “Fair. I’ll give you that. I was a bit caught up in doing the whole honey instead of stick thing given the stick didn’t quite work with the chef.”
Her nostrils flared. Her jaw clenched. The combination of those caused me to still, knowing she was preparing to say something she didn’t want to.
A wicked smile curled my lips as I waited.
“And considering you...helped me…”
“I saved you,” I said, finally catching on. “That means you owe me.”
I’d never thought Evangeline would honour something like that, but the look of twisted annoyance on her face clearly said she did.
Holy fucking shit. Things just got good again. I could make her do anything.
I could destroy her in spirit and not just in body.
“I’m going to enjoy being your master,” I snarled.
She rolled her eyes. “Keep dreaming, Testes.”
“That’s not my name.”
“That is literally how you introduced yourself.”
“As your master, you’ll call me –”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she cut in. “Look. Sorry to ruin whatever revenge thing this is, but I really don’t have the time for it. So assuming you’re here to take me back to the living, I’ll make a deal with you.”
The fucking nerve! “You’re in no position to barter.”
She chuckled. “Aren’t I? You can’t kill me again if I don’t come back with you – assuming that’s what you’re planning?”
At the clench of my jaw, she snorted. “Very unoriginal, Testes. Then again, you never were very smart.”
“I killed you,” I reminded her, wondering how in Hel’s name I still didn’t have the upper hand.
“True. But be honest, you got lucky, catching me at a time I was desperate.” She giggled as she tilted her head to the side. “For cock and a husband.”
I stilled. “For what?”
Sighing roughly, she glared at me. “We don’t have ti– Okay, fine. I’ll explain, but listen well because I’m only saying this once.”
Looking pointedly at me, she continued, “I will let you revive me and kill me again if you pretend to be my husband for a long weekend while I infiltrate a couple’s therapy retreat.”
My mouth moved wordlessly for a moment before I seethed, “No.”
“Yes. Otherwise, I’m not coming back with you. I’m assuming you remember Tory Deirdre? Given you learned necromancy, even as a Vylian, you would have studied her techniques.”
Tory Deirdre had been one of those who had mocked me while we’d fought on opposite sides of the war. Jace, Tory, Richard, and Evangeline – the four people I hated the most in the world. Tory had been a damn strong necromancer then. Now, she was the strongest in this half of the world. It was said she had revived more than ten thousand souls already – three and a half thousand more than the previous record. Her techniques were taught in every school, and I had studied them well.
“Yeah, well, she told me how to refuse a necromancer’s call. So unless you agree to my terms, I am not coming back with you.”
I wanted to call her bluff, but there was an indifference in her eyes that made me know she wasn’t kidding. She would happily die here, knowing the world would carry on regardless. Even though she was the head of FI-9, she was replaceable, and she was okay with that.
My teeth grinding to the gums, I struggled with my desire to kill her all over again and the refusal to give her anything. This wasn’t supposed to be a bartering moment. I was just supposed to torment her, take my revenge for all the years of suffering she’d inflicted on me. But now, I wouldn’t be able to do that unless I agreed to her terms.
Fucking.
Dammit.
“I hate you,” I growled.
She shrugged. “You and half the world.”
“Fine,” I spat, hating everything about this. “I will be your pretend husband for three days, but in return, you cannot ever resist my call when I drag you back from this place.”
She raised one brow. “You’re going to kill me more than once?” She nodded in approval. “That’s better.”
My jaw snapping, I shoved myself off her before I tried strangling her again. Grabbing her arm, I yanked her back to the plane of the living.
We slammed back into our bodies, me coming to a few seconds before she did. Cold shivers spasmed through me as I inhaled the fresh air. Light pierced my eyelids, sharp in their pain, and I blinked rapidly to get used to it.
When I opened my eyes, she was sitting up, rubbing her throat with a wince. Her hand dropped to her lap to grab her trousers, then her gaze snapped to mine. “You clothed me?”
“I didn’t want to have sex with you.”
She snorted. “You jumped on me, remember?”
“I fell.”
“With a hard cock? Right on my boobs?”
“Yes,” I bit out.
She laughed. “Yeah, okay.”
“You cursed me to have a constant erection.”
“I thought I shrunk it and grew your balls?”
At this rate, I wasn’t going to have any teeth left, and she was damn well going to pay for the resulting dental bill. “Six weeks ago, I came here for a truce –”
“What truce? I left the front lines years ago.”
Refusing to spell out just how much I’d obsessed over her since then, I continued, “You said you would remove the curse you gave me during war, and you did.” My gaze hardened. “But then you replaced it with another curse.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember. Wait.” Her eyes widened as much as her mouth. “Holy shit. You mean all this time…” Her lips slamming shut, they started twitching like crazy. “You haven’t slept with anyone since I cursed you?”
“Of course I have. That was the first thing I tried.”
A small snort escaped her as tears filled her eyes. “How many?”
“What?”
“How many…” She laughed, a hand flying to her mouth as her shoulders shook with glee. “People did you sleep with?”
“I didn’t count.”
“Ballpark me.”
“Fifty.”
Falling back, she started to howl. Her untied foot kicked against the floor as tears flowed freely down her face. The urge to kill her again already was making my fingers clench.
But given I’d just resurrected her, it’d be impossible. The influx of magic currently inside her would heal her way too quickly. For the next few hours, she was basically immortal. I could still kill her by cutting off her head or ripping out her heart, but then I wouldn’t be able to resurrect her again, necromancy requiring a mostly intact body to work.
“The cure to your erection curse…” She wheezed, her words nearly lost to the throes of her madness. “...was just to make… someone come.”
My body chilled even as my face flushed hot.
“Fifty people…” Howling, she hugged her sides. “And they all faked it.”
Jumping to my feet, I kicked her in the ribs. It didn’t make her stop. I went to kick her again, but when she didn’t even try protecting herself, I stilled. She was taking all the fucking fun out of it. Damn her!
“Oh my gods.” Sitting up, she wiped at her eyes. They glistened with laughter even as she rolled her lips in. “I can’t believe you’re that bad at sex. I mean, I can. You were really shit. But –” She giggled. “At least it’s gone down now, right? So truce?”
My eyes widening, they dropped down to my robes.
Holy shit.
The pain that had settled in my cock over the last six weeks was gone too. I reached inside and groped myself, shocked over it being right for the first time in decades. So this is what a cock feels like…
“You keep doing that and you’re going to make it hard again.”
Jerking my hand out, I rubbed it on my thigh.
Chuckling, she rolled her shoulders, then held up her wrist with the witch’s snare on it. “So anyway, do you want to take this off me, or do you want me to do it?”
Scoffing, I glared at her. “No one can escape a witch’s snare.” She was just trying to save face, and I was tempted to leave it on her just for that.
“Oh...sweetie,” she said with so much pity I wanted to kill myself. “You tied it to my prosthetic.”