Bewitching Sloth (Seven Deadly #1)

Prologue

A very, very long time ago, a skeletal being came to be. A savior for mankind, he became a cloud of darkness fighting against blacker darkness. Death was his existence, so it became his name. He walked alone, ridding the world of evil and guiding the dead to their afterlife.

The Grim Reaper craved flesh, watching people from a distance. He discovered love between humans—the beauty in flesh, and all the ways a body could feel. So he merged with an incubus demon and forever would be known as Killian—the Grim Reaper.

He was still lonely…for it took a very long time for his Melanie to be born, but then she came to him as a human. They met and fell in love…

But this wasn’t a story about them. This was about seven siblings cursed because of their parents.

This was one dark king’s decision, an evil deed, that set into motion future events shaking both the human realm and the Underworld.

That’s where our story began…

Be careful of the darkness, for what lies in it will drag you in and keep you.

In its depths, the Devil reigned. On the outskirts of this domain, a bothersome entity resided who had destroyed the Devil’s evil time and time again.

He was called the Grim Reaper, and though he used to be a man without weakness, he wasn’t anymore.

His wife delivered him seven beautiful, healthy children.

The Devil saw them as his chance for retribution for keeping his evil at bay, for he could never reign over the human world until the day people were more bad than good.

On the day the seventh child was born, the Devil came to them with curses. Each one representing the seven deadly sins.

Grim’s three sons were playing outside the castle when they looked up and saw the Devil beside them.

He started with the closest one, uttering the word, “Sloth,” as he pressed his finger against the blond boy’s forehead.

He dropped to the ground in a deep sleep.

The Devil turned to his dark-haired brother and grinned.

“Greed.” The boy’s eyes lit up with the curse.

The Devil smiled and went to the third dark-haired brother.

He pressed his finger against the boy’s forehead and said, “Wrath.”

Chuckling, the Devil slipped into the house and found three daughters.

He went to the brunette, touched her forehead, and whispered, “Pride.” He continued with the remaining girls, cursing each “Lust” and “Envy.” Lastly, the Devil made his way to the seventh child tucked away in her room resting.

Leaning over the crib, the Devil grinned and pointed his finger at the child, but the baby reached out and grabbed it.

The Devil revealed his horns and red eyes hoping to scare her.

She giggled instead. He studied her curiously before placing his finger on her forehead and whispering, “Gluttony.” Only the second time he touched the newborn, images flashed behind his eyes, visions of him on his knees before an entity he recognized immediately.

In the mists of those haunting images was the woman the newborn would one day be.

It was all of those apparitions combined that had him retreating from her smile rather quickly, rubbing the place her tiny fingers touched as he did so.

The Devil vanished, vowing to make sure that what he saw never came to pass.

He took his secret and kept it in his thoughts only.

Sadly, by the time their parents felt the Devil’s presence it was too late. He came and went, leaving behind curses that couldn’t be broken no matter how hard anyone tried.

And so, the Devil’s retribution began. Over a hundred years later, the game of sorts, begged for an end.

Every good story starts off with a man meeting a woman, in this case, a sleeping Reaper succumbed to his curse, and an unlucky someone stumbled across him.

Or should we say lucky?

Sebastian, you sleepy sloth, you are where we will begin…