9 Ariuk
Ariuk
I kept my eyes trained on the ground as we walked, Luc and Nick guiding me to the dorm, spouting insults and shit that I didn’t understand. It wasn’t until I was seated on their couch, which seemed to suck me in, that I finally got a chance to fully take in the first two demons I had to deal with.
To my horror, not only were they men, they were fucking gorgeous.
Luc had an aura that commanded my attention and my submission in a way that I wasn’t completely against. He had a thick head of hair and facial hair that matched Dante’s.
I kind of wanted to run my fingers through it, to see if it was as soft as it looked, however, the hardness of his expression kept me from reaching out.
He leaned casually against the counter a few paces away, folding his arms across his chest, his legs crossed at the ankle.
Nick, on the other hand, sat a few cushions away, leaning back nonchalantly, as if the entire world owed him a favor.
He seemed less put together, his aura chaotic and harsh.
Rage was burning in his eyes. While he was nearly identical to Luc, he gave off a playboy feel that I couldn’t help but lean toward.
He gave off the same feel as the men in the clubs and I wondered if he fucked just as well. What the fuck? I was still an angel and yet the moment I stepped onto Earth this afternoon, everything felt louder.
Food tasted better. Wanting something hit harder. And now I was sitting between two demons wondering what Nick would feel like between my thighs. Whatever Dante had loosened inside me, it clearly wasn’t interested in subtlety.
Being in this lavish apartment, overkill for two graduate students, didn’t help.
The interior colors ranged from beige to cream, a full kitchen with marble counters and tiled floor just behind Luc.
A hallway to the right separated into three rooms, one of which was supposedly mine.
I could only imagine based on the grandeur of the living room with expensive ass paintings and sculptures that looked like they belonged in an exam, that the rooms were just as unnecessarily munificent.
Granted, no one had explained shit to me about sleeping arrangements or how I was supposed to go about gauging their gifts so I could move onto the other demons.
My eyes continued to wander along the room, a glass coffee table set off to the side held by a golden frame adding to the rich ambiance of this apartment. There was no way that college students lived like this but I assumed that having Dante as their creator gave them certain perks.
Luc slipped out his phone and pressed it to his ear.
I heard Dante’s voice on the other end as Luc grumbled to him about the predicament while Nick just stared at me.
The need to scoot closer grew until I was actually inching toward the bastard, a movement that was only stopped when Dante himself appeared inches from my face.
Instinct had me throwing a punch. Dante caught my fist in his hand with a hearty chuckle. Luc and Nick froze at their creator’s appearance. When Dante caught my fist, both of them looked at me like I had just thrown myself off a cliff.
“Did she just try to punch you?” Nick asked.
Dante looked delighted. “She did.”
Luc pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course she did.”
I’m sure no one had ever tried to punch the Devil but it was his fault for appearing like that.
While angels could teleport, in a sense, there were very specific portals we could use.
It was one reason that this little city was the only one that I had ever visited.
The portal was just outside my favorite club, a few blocks away from the café where I had been handed over to Dante.
The fact that Dante could just appear wherever he wanted? Lucky bastard.
Dante leaned back as he released me, nodding enthusiastically. “By everyone’s reaction, I think this is going to work out just fine.”
“She’s an angel! She can’t be here!” Luc angrily pointed at me.
Nick smirked but remained silent. Dante waved his sons into seats across from us as he sat beside me. “She can. She was thrown out of heaven.”
It dawned on me how ironic this situation was. Dante had been thrown out of heaven once. I guess he saw some part of me in him but it didn’t make any sense why he thought I’d be any good at gathering information from demons.
I couldn’t sense any good vibes from them and when Luc had taken my hand? My insides had warmed and while I enjoyed the sensation, I hated the fact that Luc had been the cause of it. I mean, what was I supposed to do with the fact that their demonic presence was getting me all hot and bothered?
And as for their gifts? So far, I couldn’t sense shit. Hell, I couldn’t even sense my own.
Nick leaned forward, intrigued by the information. “Wait… who’s your father? Angels don’t have parents.”
“They’re basically parents,” I spit out, for some reason defending a man who had evidently thrown me to the wolves. “But apparently Uriel didn’t see it the same way and—”
Nick threw his head back, chuckling. “Shit, this keeps getting better. Your father was a fucking archangel and he sold your soul to the Devil? For what possible reason—”
This time I was the one smiling as I invoked a reaction from them. “According to everyone upstairs, Uriel tried to overthrow heaven.”
The shock on their faces was priceless. I wish I had the balls to find a phone and take a picture. Dante was giggling right there with me and for a moment, I felt like part of the group. It didn’t make any sense, seeing as how I was an angel in the midst of two demons and the king of hell.
Dante sat up straight, changing the tone of the conversation. “She wants her soul so I gave her a challenge but, my sweet girl, it’s not the challenge you thought it’d be.”
I stilled, looking at him for an explanation. Was I not going to be their guide after all?
“I could give two fucks about my creations tearing apart the human realm so long as it was done tastefully and with style. The bastards upstairs would definitely try to put an end to the chaos but I’d still retain my job as ruler of hell, because where else would I go? Purgatory?”
He let out a hearty laugh but the thought was terrifying. He didn’t have anyone to answer to anymore.
“Then what am I doing here?” Panic rose in my chest as my gaze shifted between the three of them. This felt like some poorly put together intervention but I wasn’t sure if it was for Luc and Nick or me.
“Glad you asked!” He clapped his hands together, his look becoming more sinister by the minute. “I wanted to see what would happen when someone Heaven insists is pure got close to the things they insist are sin.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That sounded carefully worded.”
His smile widened. “You’re learning.”
“You’re… what’s the word—you want to pimp me out?” I cried out, horrified as Luc just smiled. “They can’t find their own goddamn dates?”
The fact that I wasn’t completely turned off by seeing what happened when a demon fucked me told me that I was absolutely stained with darkness. The worst part was how much I wanted Nick to be the first one inside me.
My gaze slid down his torso, falling to the waistline of his pants and just a little farther down, focusing on the outline of his cock. He wasn’t even hard, and I still had to bite back a moan before all three occupants in the room realized where my head was at.
The fact that Dante was already on the verge of laughter again, I knew he knew exactly what I had been thinking.
“Ari, it’s not that hard. You just have to meet them. Exchange a greeting and let me know how it went.” His expression sharpened just enough to kill some of my panic. “Anything beyond that is your decision. I’m not ordering you into anyone’s bed.”
“How noble.” I frowned. “ Wait, so you lied to Raphael?”
“I told you I can’t do that. You are still very much gauging their gifts. Just… in a different way.”
I could see that Dante was still avoiding the truth about something but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
When he turned to me with that dark smile, my face lost all its color, my ability to keep my human form crumbling.
Concentration and practice kept me from revealing my angelic presence on this plane, however, with the constant stress Dante had me under, I couldn’t do it anymore.
Energy rippled across my skin as the urge to shift took over.
Unlike demons, the only true difference between our Earthly forms and our angelic ones was our wings and the heaviness of our angelic purity.
A grimace fell from my lips as I slid away from Dante, my wings shooting out and flapping a few times.
Dante didn’t move, watching in awe as I stood there, my darkening wings spread out behind me.
Nick and Luc had toppled over the back of the couch and it was my guess that they didn’t come in contact with many angels.
Dante gave me a moment to breathe, not in the slightest bit worried that my wingspan was dangerously close to ruining adornments around the room.
“Deep breaths. Good. Pull those wings in. Now, I’ve set aside a week for this little experiment. Complete what I asked, and our arrangement ends.”
The thought of hanging out with so many demons made me a little sick. There was no way I would return untainted. “You were never going to let me go, were you?” A tear escaped down my cheek and I hated how weak I felt.
Dante shook his head. “Sweet girl, you would have never left anyways.”
I tilted my head to the side, confused. He disappeared for a moment and then reappeared just as suddenly, fingering a large black feather. I recognized it as mine, my face going scarlet. Plucking a feather from an angel was sacrilege and he had just taken it so nonchalantly.
“Did you never wonder what these were?”
Luc reached across and grabbed it. “Angels don’t have black feathers.”
“That’s an astute observation, Lucifer. Their wingspans are usually white.” Dante beamed at him and then looked back at me. “And whatever you are, sweet girl, you are not simply an angel.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Dante took the feather back from Luc, rolling it between his fingers. “It means Heaven looked at you, saw wings and purity, and stopped asking questions. Your essence doesn’t behave like theirs. Your feathers are changing. You react to demons in ways an angel shouldn’t. None of that started today.”
“Then what am I?”
For once, his smile softened instead of widening. “An impossibility.”
I stared at him.
“A living idea that should never have taken physical form. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “That part you’re going to have to discover.”
There seemed to be threats rolled into his words and I hated that I knew he wasn’t lying.
“What makes you so sure that I won’t resist them?”
Dante stood up and made his way to the door.
Perhaps he was choosing not to teleport out of pure etiquette.
More likely it was for effect. “One week, sweet girl, and then you are free. If at that time you want nothing to do with my creations, walk away. But I wouldn’t count on going back to exactly what you were before.
Whatever Heaven kept buried is already waking up. ”
My stomach dropped.
Dante rested his hand on the doorknob before glancing back at me. “Give Nick the same handshake you gave Luc. Oh, and call him by his real name—Satan. Let me know how it works out.”
Then he walked out the front door, leaving us in silence. Satan? Like Wrath? One of the sins?
It took me a moment to concentrate and pull my wings back, my essence regressing until all that was left was my human form. Then I approached the couch and stuck my hand out, bent on proving Dante wrong, daring Nick to take it.
I wouldn’t succumb to any of the shit that Dante just said. I was an angel. I was created from light. Those dark feathers meant nothing. The darkness swirling around inside of me meant nothing. The fact that I felt comfortable here, with demons, meant nothing.
“Satan,” I spat. “Let’s get this shit over with.”
Too bad that when Nick stalked over and wrapped his hand around mine, something caught between us.
Heat ripped up my arm so fast my knees nearly buckled. Nick’s expression changed at the exact same moment, all that smug aggression disappearing beneath something darker and far more focused. His grip tightened before either of us seemed to realize he was pulling me closer.
I hit his chest with a gasp, my core aching with the most intense need I had ever felt in my entire life.
“What the fuck was that?” he breathed.
For once, I had absolutely no smart answer.