11 Ariuk
Ariuk
In Luc’s paranoid state, he had thrust a whole host of clothes at me and ordered me to sit at least five feet away from Nick at all times. After a good shower, I slipped into clothes that didn’t really fit, a pair of gloves, and a hat that covered my ears.
It felt like overkill. But every time Nick fucking looked at me, I felt a surge of blood heat up my core, and I wanted to jump his bones again.
He also kept scooting closer toward me despite his furious glares until Luc dragged me into the kitchen, barricading me in there like we were fucking five-year-olds.
The living room was still in my direct vision, Nick perched on the couch where we had fucked not too long ago.
“Why aren’t you reacting the same way? You’re both demons.” I asked. Nick grimaced but didn’t answer.
Luc was a lot more patient with explaining all of this shit even if he was just as annoyed as his brother.
“Nick reacts to everything like someone struck a match inside him. Whatever you’re doing to our essence, Wrath is going to flare faster than mine.
” Luc glanced toward the living room before looking back at me.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not feeling it. I’m just better at sitting here pretending I’m not. ”
I nodded, although I really didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“Great, so now what? I’m this bitch, Temptation?
What does that mean?” My life had been turned upside down, I had been kicked out of Heaven, and not even that chocolatey goodness from the café had made things better.
Raphael’s look of defeat had made me feel a little giddy but there were five more demons I had to ‘test’ and if I had the same visceral reaction to all of them, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to function.
Luc sighed, the sound a little too guttural to be innocent.
Did this sex craze thing work just by proximity?
Because every time I looked at the demon, my insides melted.
With Nick, it was explosive and passionate.
I wanted to rip his clothes off all over again.
With Luc, I wanted to be romanced. I wanted him to caress every part of me, and I wanted to do the same to him.
“Look, Ari. It’s Ari, right? Not your full angel name?” I nodded. “Okay, so we’ve all had our nightmare stories told to us by our mentors right?”
“For angels, it’s you guys. But you’re not really scary.
” I said as I looked at him and then at Nick, who just bared his teeth, his eyes flashing a darker shade of midnight.
Had this been a year ago, I would have freaked out, screaming, crying, the whole nine yards.
Now? It was just making me hornier and I was tempted to push past the physical barrier Luc had dragged across the edge of the kitchen but I wasn’t sure how far this temptation thing went.
Instead, I sat back in my seat, content to just lick my lips, taunting their control.
I let my gaze drag slowly between them before arching forward just enough to make the neckline of my shirt dip.
Nick shifted forward as if he were going to meet me halfway, Luc tightening his arms across his chest to keep from reacting when I arched forward, pushing my breasts out ever so slightly.
I really am this bitch, Temptation, aren’t I?
Luc chuckled, shaking his head. “You haven’t seen our true forms. It’s not all abs and muscles, Ari. Also, not the point. Our nightmares consist of impossibilities, things that happen when someone fucks with the balance badly enough that something which shouldn’t exist suddenly can.”
I frowned at him, still not understanding how that connected to me, and Luc seemed to catch it before I had to ask.
“Ari, it’s not like breaking some tiny rule. Something deeper gets damaged, and sometimes what comes out of that is an idea made physical. Not a representation of it. The actual thing.”
I settled back against the kitchen counter and reached for the container of peanuts beside me, popping the lid while I tried to shove all of that into my already overloaded brain. “So, like me? Temptation just grew a body one day?”
Nick snorted from the living room, but Luc only shrugged, and that did absolutely nothing for the growing suspicion that I was a cosmic accident.
“We’re impossibilities too,” he admitted.
“Dante’s fall is tied to whatever created us, but nobody’s ever given us a straight answer about how seven of us came out of it. ”
I shoved a peanut into my mouth and glanced between him and Nick. “So, that means what exactly? You can run around doing whatever the fuck you want?”
Luc leaned one hip against the counter. “Impossibilities aren’t tied to the realms in quite the same way angels and demons are. Some can interfere with essence or strengthen what is already there, which is why people have tried to use them as weapons.”
I stopped chewing. “Weapons how?”
“Peace existed in physical form a few years ago,” Luc said, watching my expression change. “People fought over who got to control it, well, her, I guess. It’s confusing. Being around her could strengthen certain gifts, but the effect never lasted and Peace itself couldn’t really be contained.”
I stared at him until the absurdity finally sank in.
“People fought wars over Peace.” I dug out another peanut, trying to decide which part of that insanity bothered me most. “Fine. If impossibilities can boost gifts, then what’s mine?
Because everyone spent twenty-eight years telling me I didn’t have one. ”
Luc’s expression shifted. “You don’t. Not the way an angel or demon does.”
My hand stopped halfway to my mouth. “Then what the fuck do you call whatever I’m doing to you two?”
His mouth twitched as he looked toward Nick and then back at me.
“Your nature. Temptation doesn’t cast something on us.
You lower inhibitions and strengthen what’s already there simply by existing.
Mine is pride and Nick’s is wrath. With you around, we’re even more dangerous than we already are.
Unfortunately, when an impossibility meets someone who can truly harness their essence, the reaction is also explosive.
Mates are a demon thing, but impossibilities have matches too.
Different name, same kind of bond. Something in your essence recognizes something in ours and locks onto it. ”
Mates. Pairs. Impossibilities. My head was a jumbled mess at this point. “So we’re stuck together?” This sounded worse than marriage.
Luc rose to his feet, approaching the kitchen slowly. I didn’t know what he was doing but I also didn’t care as I slid off my chair and made my way to the fridge for a bottle of water.
“Yeah for a while anyway.”
Bingo. I swiped a water bottle and ripped the top off before chugging half of it. I guess getting fucked by a demon took a lot out of me. Water splashed down my chin, seeping into the clothing Luc had given me but I ignored it. I was so damn thirsty.
It wasn’t until I felt the timid brush of fingers along my cheek that I realized the thirst had nothing to do with water. It was because my body was yearning for their touch again, my essence reacting to their demonic presence.
I turned around slowly, Luc’s dark eyes trained on my lips, his hands exploring my covered body with purpose. It was different than my recent experience with Nick but just as sensual. He tipped my head upward, the ghost of his lips hovering above mine.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to touch,” I whispered.
“We’re not meant to. But you’re so very tempting.
” He purred, his voice smooth like molasses sending a shiver down my spine.
Luc chuckled at the double meaning before pressing his lips against mine, a second, spicier flavor exploding on my tongue.
I would have thought the ruthless torturer on the couch would have had a deeper, more mysterious aura but Luc’s aura was deadly.
He was surprisingly gentle in his movements but demanding as his tongue swiped across the seam of my lips.
He dragged me closer against him as he deepened the kiss, one of his hands cradling the back of my neck and the other one slipping beneath my shirt to touch my skin. I melted against his chest, gripping his shirt to keep myself from falling too deeply into a hole that Luc had just warned us about.
“You taste sinful, Ari.” Luc breathed against my lips as he moved to devour my neck, little moans filtering into the air from my mouth. I heard shuffling and then felt another presence behind me, Nick roughly dragging my ass against him, his cock thickening against my cheeks.
A few hours ago, I had just been an angel. Now I was the embodiment of temptation, enticing these men into this taboo embrace. The promise of a future with the two most destructive creatures in any realm was an enticing thought.
I almost wanted to bring Uriel back into existence just to throw him the bird. Perhaps that bastard hadn’t entirely ruined my life after all.
In fact, if anything, he had created the biggest monstrosity the world had ever seen. Between these two demons was the absolute worst place for me to be. Every reaction between us fed the next, and my presence made gifts that were already dangerous even stronger.
Luc had explained that their gifts were more dangerous when I was in the picture so I wasn’t a dud.
I wasn’t an angel without a gift. I was one of the deadliest temptations created and whatever the fuck Uriel had actually been trying to do, his choices had helped bring me into existence.
I’d say that was more than just a colossal fuck up.
“Wait.” I froze between them, hating that this was the moment my brain started to work. They released me immediately, which startled me more than it should have; I’d never used that word with Miel, and I wasn’t sure he would have stopped so fast.
The fact that they listened should not have felt foreign, but it did. Then the rest clicked into place: seven demons, Pride and Wrath, Dante as their creator. I had been hearing all the pieces since I got here without actually putting them together.
“Wrath and Pride? Like the actual sins?” I scrunched up my nose. “I know we said it before, but it wasn’t just names. You’re the actual seven sins?” And I’m in between two of them.
Nick shrugged, pressing light kisses along my shoulders. “Impossibilities. Seven Sins. Whatever you want to call us.”
I twisted enough to look at him. “So where are the other five?”
“Different placements. Different training,” Luc answered. “Dante kept us scattered.”
“You don’t know them?”
Nick made a face. “We know of them. Met a few. That doesn’t mean we’re sitting around Hell having a family dinner.”
Luc’s expression tightened slightly. “Which is why him suddenly sending you through all seven of us is something I’d really like an explanation for.”
He ran his hands down my back, igniting the passion from earlier all over again. Despite how much I fucking hated people touching my feathers, I wish I could shift and feel his fingers run through my wings. God, it would probably feel divine.
I continued to mull through my chaotic thoughts, wondering if the reason for their shortened names was similar to ours.
However, in Heaven, angels prided themselves with the extra shower of purity that our full names brought.
These demons hadn’t introduced themselves with the same enthusiasm and had had no problems calling me Ari instead of Ariuk.
“Why didn’t you just introduce yourself with your real names then?
Luci-” I whimpered when Nick bit into my shoulder, cutting off my words.
Luc just laughed, “Because our names mean something, same as yours do. A full name strengthens whatever essence is already there. With mates, that extra surge can get intense, which is why we usually save them for certain moments.” His mouth curved into a grin.
“You saying Lucifer right now would probably end with you pinned to my mattress until the need burned itself out.”
“You said that before, mates.” My gaze narrowed at Luc as I feared the worst. From angel to an impossibility, darkness running through my veins—I had now mated with a demon?
Just another thing I didn’t know how to feel about.
It felt right but it scared me how easy it was to stand between them when it went against everything I had been taught.
Nick snorted, sliding his arms around my waist and pulling me back against his chest. “Seems Dante knew before we did. You somehow mated both of us and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re mated to the other five.”
“But I never fucked Luci-Luc.”
Luc chuckled, “Sweetness, there’s so many things for you to learn about demons.
For one thing, I don’t need to fuck you to cement our bond.
However, since you asked so politely, how can I say no?
” My eyes widened as he stole me from Nick and hoisted me over his shoulder, slapping my ass and transporting me to one of the bedrooms.
I squealed as I held onto the back of Luc’s shirt, Nick closing in as he stole a kiss. It was strange at this angle but I clamped my hands around his cheeks, anyway, loving the way he tasted on my tongue. I moaned into his mouth as we headed down the hall, my mind turning to mush all over again.
Maybe the point was to just let go and stop worrying so much.
Whatever Temptation was, something in me fit against these two demons far too easily. Maybe fighting every instinct screaming at me wasn’t going to make any of this easier to understand.
I released Nick, trying to catch my breath as the haze took over again. I’d figure everything out later. Right now, Luc was carrying me toward his bedroom with Nick following close behind, and for once I didn’t feel the need to argue about where any of this was going.