Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Rayven
It felt incredible to be back home, especially nestled in the arms of death incarnate.
It was funny how, not so long ago, I’d gone to the ends of this realm to escape him. Now that I had free rein to go as far away as possible, I couldn’t wait to come back.
Of course, Hell wasn’t without its horrors, but neither was the living realm. My task tonight had proved as much.
Limbo, the first of the nine layers of Hell, felt more like home than the human world ever had. Belial did his part to ensure that, like giving me a Christmas, even though he didn’t care for the holiday.
I pulled back in Belial’s arms to take in the handsome face of his “lesser” form.
That’s what he called it, anyway, simply because it was his more human appearance—minus his pallor, and the antlers sprouting from his head.
They were decorated with silver chains and charms that clinked together gently with the slightest movement.
I was fond of the demon lord’s monster form, the one most of his subjects knew and feared. The terrifying Lord of Bones, with an animal-like skull head, giant antlers, and ribbed cock.
But I loved this version of him too. It was how he looked when he’d been a mortal thousands of years ago.
He didn’t remember much of his old life, other than that he was a soldier of the Roman empire.
That story lined up with his Romanesque features and scars striping his face, especially the deep one running diagonally over his nose.
That one had been the sword wound to end his life.
Typically, he wore a simple black mask in this form to conceal his face, but he didn’t need to.
He had no idea how damn sexy I found him, scars and all.
“Thank you…” I said in a whisper.
He tilted his head, charms jingling. His unkempt black hair fell in pieces perfectly around his eyes, making my heart flutter. “What for?”
“For everything. For allowing me to go in your stead tonight to rip out that asshole’s soul. Agreeing to give me a Christmas. For kidnapping me—”
His lips bent with a dark smile. “I took you for a woman of peculiar preferences the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“You did not.”
“Oh, I sure as fuck did. When I ripped out your male companion's spine, you were horrified, of course. But beneath the stench of fear…” He gripped my jaw with his gloved fingers, bringing his face so close to mine I could taste his sweet breath. “Arousal.”
I shook my head in denial, even though my heated blush and shit-eating grin gave me away.
As if that wasn’t enough confirmation, he forced me to take several steps back until my spine hit the nearest bookshelf.
He raised his right hand and tugged the glove off with his teeth, flinging it onto the shelf closest to my head.
Then, he slid his hand over my jaw, down my throat, between my breasts.
He took his time feeling me out, until his fingers slipped under the waist of my pants and into my panties.
A gasp left me the moment his index and middle fingers slipped between my folds. He spread them with the splay of his digits and chuckled when he found me soaking wet.
To my dismay, he withdrew his fingers a heartbeat later, presenting the glistening digits to my lips and holding them there. “As I suspected. The mention of the night I murdered your pathetic human mate, dragged you down to my realm and tricked you into being mine… makes your pussy drip.”
He knew I was turned on well before he shoved his hand into my pants. He had acute enough senses to scent my arousal. But it was just like him to rub my face in it, literally.
“Open your mouth. Taste your sin.”
My lips parted, allowing him to shove his fingers into my mouth. I suckled my flavor from his fingertips, and then, I bit him.
He didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he slowly withdrew his digits and held them up to examine the angry teeth marks, a rare spot of color appearing on his knuckles.
A terrifying shadow fell over Belial’s gaze. “Fucking brat.”
My lungs knocked together at the instant shift in his demeanor.
Sure, I loved his sweet side that he reserved for me alone.
I’d earned that part of him. But no matter how much he loved me, this was the demon Lord of Limbo, God of Death himself.
The thrill of provoking him shot straight to my brain like a drug.
His aura teemed with potent power as he stepped forward to cage me against the bookshelf with his body, his thigh wedging between mine so that I was forced onto my toes.
I lowered myself back to my heels, but his knee dug into my apex with enough pressure to make a strangled moan leech from my lips.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little,” I managed to answer as he ground his knee harder against my core.
A barely-bridled smirk ghosted over his face. “Good. Just how you like it.”
His mouth claimed mine in a searing kiss. I gasped against his lips, trying to breathe as his chest crushed mine.
His hand, still damp with my juices, snaked around my nape and twisted into the hair at the base of my skull. He jerked my head to the side and slid his nose over the soft column of my throat. As my scent filtered into his lungs, the bulge between his legs thickened against my hip.
The feel of his hunger, knowing how much my mere scent turned him on, had me burning up. My hips bucked, and I ground myself against the thigh still pressed tight to my core, reveling in the friction.
The demon cackled as he watched my pathetic little show. “A naughty thing like you was always destined for Hell.”
Despite the fact that I could barely breathe, I strained to shoot him a mocking look. “Do you treat all your damned souls this way? You’d think you’d need a bigger bed.”
There was a tense pause, and I knew from the flexing tendon in Belial’s temple, that I’d made a mistake. With one hand still knotted in my hair, he spun me around and shoved my chest against the bookshelf. My cheek was flush to the worn spines, the scent of dusty leather tickling my nostrils.
“You’re awfully mouthy tonight,” he growled low in my ear, the grin still in his voice. He was eating up every moment of this just as much as I was. “Now that you’ve wandered from your cage, you’ve gotten bold.”
With my neck at an unnatural angle, my muscles burned, but I couldn’t help but look at him. With his signature smug as sin grin, his tousled coal-black hair, and his antler jewelry gleaming in the library’s muted candlelight, the discomfort was worth the view.
“I’m the queen, aren’t I?” I quipped.
Belial’s eyes shone with amusement, yet the dark bend of his grin was nothing but serious.
He tapped the side of my neck with his index finger.
The next moment, a metal collar—the one forged from a necklace I stole from him—appeared around my throat in a ripple of arcane energy.
“You might wear a crown for our subjects, but with me you wear a collar. Understand, my treasure?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
He hummed with approval as his arm encircled my waist to unfasten my jeans, and he shoved them down to bare my ass.
My legs clenched together to deny him access to my pussy. I wanted him more than anything, but there was a twisted part of me that loved when he pried them apart and took what was his.
But he made no move for my cunt.
He loomed over me, draping me in his scarred muscles and lithe limbs.
“Tell me… What is it that naughty girls get for Christmas in your mortal realm?”
I blinked rapidly, trying to clear away the haze of lust cinching my brain to focus on his question. A nearly impossible task with the distracting rustle of clothes, and on the next breath, something hard and heated kissed my backside.
He’d taken himself out.
I strained, trying to get a look at his massive cock. I’d seen it a hundred times by now, but it didn’t matter. Its size—complete with a Prince Albert piercing, a cuff around his base, and a chain connecting the two from balls to tip—never failed to rob me of my breath.
Before I could get a good look, he shoved my head back against the books, his grip gentle but firm in my hair.
“Answer me. What do naughty girls get for Christmas on Earth?”
With the way his body pinned mine, I barely managed to choke out, “C-Coal.”
My breath turned heavy and feverish in the air as he shifted, his fingers wedging between my folds to glide my juices back over the tight circle of muscle. “Well, here in my realm, they get it up the ass.”