Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Rayven
My body pulsed as I flexed instinctively, trying to close him out, but he only bared down on me with a growl, laughing in my hair at my mock struggle. “Where is your bratty candor now, human? Don’t you like it when I take pleasure in what is mine?”
“N–Not there.” It wasn’t a real protest; at least, it mostly wasn’t. There was something wickedly delicious about allowing him to use me in whatever way he pleased. Even if it hurt. Sometimes, especially then.
He knew that about me and indulged me. Often.
Intense, pain-laced pleasure licked up my back, making my spine bow when he pressed into the tight hole with a snarl. “Too bad. All your holes are mine to fuck and fill at my discretion. Isn’t that right?”
My reply was a pathetic, muffled cry. “Y–Yes.”
“Fuck.” The word came out slurred, his voice deep and delicious as he slowly sheathed himself into the tightest, most forbidden part of my body.
My skin erupted with goosebumps at the way his composition crumbled the moment he shoved inside me. I grinned through the sharp stretching sensation as my body made room for his girth. The Lord of Bones always had this frosty, aloof demeanor to him…
Until he was inside me, then it all went out the window. Then, all he could do was indulge his demonic urges.
“Look at you,” he groaned as he pulled on my hair to get a good look at my face. “Grinning like a fucking psychopath. You love it when your god stakes his claim, don’t you? No matter how much it hurts to take all of me inside your tight little ass.”
With a thrust, he worked his shaft’s full length inside me. I bit my lip, tears pricking my eyes as the sensory overload morphed into blistering pleasure.
“Even if I make you bleed.” He accentuated his statement with another thrust and a nip to my throat.
Drawing his hips back, he paused, reveling in the way my breath hitched. I knew what was coming.
He shoved back inside me, harder. Deeper.
“Relax your muscles, my treasure. There you go. That’s it, ahh—You’re doing so fucking well, taking all of your Lord,” he praised me with a pinch to my nipple, finding my piercing and giving it a tug hard enough to make me moan.
“What slutty little noises my queen makes when she’s being fucked in the ass.” The heated taunt in my ear had me barreling toward the edge of release at a head-whirling pace.
He released my nipple, his hand skimming up to grip my throat above the collar in my favorite type of necklace. “Now, come for me, treasure. And don’t be quiet about it either. I want the entire castle to hear what a depraved little slut you are.”
The rhythm in which he fucked me turned maddening, though each stroke bore perfectly calculated intensity.
My pussy wept in envy of my ass. Beads of arousal streaked down my inner thighs, seeping into my panties and jeans bunched around my knees.
Belial’s filthy words, the sadistic glint in his eyes, and his brutal pace as he shoved inside me so deep I could practically taste him—it was enough to send me spiraling over the edge.
As I opened my mouth to release a scream of bliss, his fingers squeezed my throat to muffle the sound.
“Louder,” he demanded, delivering a firm spank to my asscheek.
I forced my pleasure-scorched wail louder, trying like hell to push past his restrictive grip. When my cry rattled the candelabra chandelier overhead and snuffed some of the candles out, steeping us in shadows, he lightened his clutch.
He came moments later with a delicious, hell-deep growl. I shuddered as his warm cum spread through me.
My muscles relaxed and I melted into him, enjoying the way he held me close, keeping himself seated inside me, even as he softened.
Pressing his face against my nape, he peppered my skin with kisses of fevered adoration. “Bleeding Hells. You’re fucking perfect.”
My eyes fluttered shut with a content hum, but they opened again when his words from before came drifting back with post-fuck clarity. “What did you mean when you said you were weak tonight?”
He balked for a moment, the question seemingly catching him by surprise. “I had a moment of doubt.”
I twisted around as best I could to look him in the eye. “Doubt? About what? Us?”
Belial visibly tensed and his dark brows furrowed as he carefully eased himself out of me, stooping to pull my pants back on before stuffing himself back into his. “Like I said before. It was a moment of weakness.”
I turned to face him, his attention centering on my frown. Before I could respond, he bent down to press a reverent kiss to my lips. When he pulled away, I saw the guilt there. The pain.
“It’s only been a year that we’ve been together, and by the Hells, it’s been the best year of my long, miserable existence,” he said, his voice low.
“But one year is but a blink for me. It’s gone by too quickly and I fear, even if we have an eternity together, it still won’t be long enough.
I want you with me always, but if you ever felt you needed to return to your native realm—”
Before he could finish his sentence, I grabbed hold of the lowest tine of his antler—the only one my short ass could reach—and dragged him back down for another kiss. He relaxed against me, sighing as his arms banded around my waist to draw me close.
“You’ve followed me to the ends of the Underworld,” I said, whispering against his lips. “I won’t ever escape you. I don’t want to escape. I’ll always come back to you. And if I don’t—”
“I’ll tear the world down looking for you.”
A smile teased my lips. “You fucking better.”
Belial placed a kiss to my brow, his gentlemanly demeanor a severe contrast to the lustful demon who’d ruthlessly fucked my asshole moments ago. “Now. About your winter holiday… There’s a matter we need to discuss.”
My ears perked up as thoughts of Christmas came rushing back, images of grand decorations and parties taking form in my mind. “What about it?”
“As I was born into the Roman Empire, at least I’m fairly certain, we celebrated the mid-winter festival known as Saturnalia,” Belial explained.
“Yule, before the Christians appropriated it from the pagans into your modern-day Christmas, has roots in Saturnalia. So, I’m not exactly up to date on current mortal customs, especially in your young country of origin. ”
My head was spinning with the information, but I loved hearing him talk about his past. There were always more layers to pull back, more secrets to unveil.
“It’s changed a lot, but a lot of things are the same.
We still trim a tree in pretty things, decorate the house with holly and evergreen, we kiss under the mistletoe. ”
Familiarity sparked in his eyes at the mention of the things I’d grown up with. Then his lips thinned, lines of concern grooving his pale features. “That’s what I was worried about. So much greenery, life. Which is something the realm of death isn’t exactly kind to.”
“What do you mean?” My head canted to the side. “Things grow here.”
“Yes, native flora…” His line of sight shifted to the spot where I’d left the spruce tree from the funeral home. “The poison in Limbo’s air will erode anything that it doesn’t recognize as its own. The only reason you’re still alive is because I make it so with my magic.”
I spun around, and my heart dropped to my gut when I took in the tree, or what remained of it. It was gone, turned to dust. All that was left were the ornaments that hadn’t been lost through the interdimensional portal I’d stuffed it through, nestled in a pile of ash.
Tears stung my eyes. I felt stupid for getting emotional over a silly tree.
But to me, it represented a little slice of home.
Before my mom passed, she’d always done her best to make the holidays special for me when she wasn’t working to keep a roof over our heads.
I had fond memories of decorating a Christmas tree with her, then drinking warm cider on the couch afterward to admire our handiwork.
“Can’t you bring it back to life with your magic?”
Belial circled around me, and I turned my head so he wouldn’t see me cry. He caught my jaw and gently steered my attention back to his.
With a swipe of his thumb, he brushed a tear from my cheek and shook his head. “I can only stave off death for entities bearing a soul.”
“Then put a soul in the tree!” There were tons of souls in the castle, and not just in the Library of Souls.
Many departed beings waited for the Lord of Bones to pass Judgement—when he’d decide which layer of Hell they’d reside in for eternity—and while they waited, they’d wander the many corridors, nestling in all sorts of trinkets and furniture.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to walk down to the kitchen for a midnight snack with all the furniture I passed begging and pleading for me to put in a good word for them with the Lord.
“It doesn’t work like that, my treasure.” He brushed a piece of my hair behind my ear with a feathered sigh. “It won’t bring it back. Only dark magic, necromancy, can do such a thing.”
“Then do dark magic. You’re a demon sorcerer; necromancy is cake for you, right? This is Limbo, after all.” I gestured around the creepy library with a sweep of my arm. “An undead Christmas tree is just the thing we need to spruce this place up. Heh, get it? Spruce tree?”
By the deep V between his brows, he didn’t know what cake had to do with any of this.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh come on, that was funny. Gods, you’re so old. Anyway, what do you say? Let’s make a zombie Christmas tree!”
His gaze flicked back to the pile of ash, his face glazed with deep thought. “Hmm. I may know of a spell in one of my tomes that might do the trick, an ancient ritual of flesh and blood.”
A ritual of flesh and blood? It sounded witchy and goth as fuck. Right up my alley. “Sounds like my kind of party.”
At that, another of his dastardly handsome smiles broke free. “You’ll have to assist me. I’ll need certain ingredients to perform the spell. Some might be components you may not be willing to give…”
“I’ll give you anything you need, bone daddy,” I said with a flirtatious wink, all giddy with the promise of spooky rituals and other dark Yuletide festivities on the horizon.
“Careful, little human,” the demon snickered as he turned toward a bookcase with a dramatic jingle of his antler jewelry. He stopped in front of a shelf that held dusty spell books, his finger gliding over the spines until he found the volume he was searching for.
It was as thick as Holga’s skull and twice as dusty.
With a huff, a cloud of dust swirled around him dramatically before he heaved the book open to peruse the pages.
With a tantalizing lick to his index finger to better separate the stiff parchment pages, he paused and shot me a dark look that sent a shiver through me.
“I might love you with all my heart. But I’m still a ravenous demon.”
The sound of ripping paper filled the room as he tore a page out of the book, stuffed it in his cloak and returned the book to its place. He stomped back over to me, his heavy black boots—now coated in dust—making my heart slam in time with his footsteps.
Before my eyes, Belial shifted into his monstrous form. His muscles swelled, and he grew taller yet. His antlers expanded, nearly tangling with the chandelier above us. The hue of his skin was a death pale blue, with black patterns of necrosis frozen in time forever blotching his skin.
He leaned down, the snout of his bony skull nearly brushing my nose, and the twin flames of blue flicking in his eye sockets scorched me inside and out with a single look.
Taking my arm in his huge hand, he turned it over to expose the underside of my wrist and the three scars etching my delicate skin. The place where he’d cut me to mark down the days until I belonged to him. Back when I’d made a deal with a demon and changed the course of my life forever.
“Offer me everything you have to give, and there’s no telling what I might strip from you.”
I met his hot blue eyes with defiance and love coalesced in mine. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, My Lord.”