Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
Theo
T his day has gone wrong in the worst way. I’ve matched dozens of monsters with their fated mates. Hundreds. Yet never have I dealt with a shitshow like today’s mess.
If my kingdom wasn’t at stake, I wouldn’t have bothered matching all four women. I would’ve simply snatched Val and dragged her to hell until she agreed to become my forever mate. Instead, I’m stuck in this fiasco.
My sweet mate pounds hard on the library doors. “Let me out of here, you asshole. I don’t care what producer promised you a walk on role for his shitty little movie, Theo, if you don’t open this door and bring my friends back right now, I swear you’ll be wishing you could beg your way into a no-budget foreign commercial without that pretty face once I’m done with you.”
She likes the way I look in my human glamour?
A heavy thud pounds against the doors as though she has launched books at the thick wood. “And without your balls.”
What shrew of a she-demon did the Fates saddle me with? With a bellow like that, she’ll make a great lady of the demon court as soon as she accepts me as her fated mate. Until then, I’ll lock her in a suite of my castle far enough away from the nobles that none can hear her scream.
Or steal her away like someone took her friend Ava.
I rub my temples even though I know it’s a useless human gesture that won’t relieve the throbbing pain between my horns in my real form. I can’t risk procrastinating when keeping Val here puts her in danger. I move to unlock the magical wards I slapped on the doors as soon as the gargoyles took Rosemarie, but the wood rattles and shakes like she has slammed her entire body against it.
Vicious little thing.
Her violent temper is remarkably sexy.
Fuck, who am I kidding? She’s a lust goddess reincarnated. Taming her will be harder than I’d planned. How do I keep my emotions in check when breathing in her scent and imagining those curves bouncing as she rides both my cocks has me struggling to stay in control? I can’t let the primal part of myself take over, or I’ll be no better than the lesser demons in the pits.
“You should know I screw up beauty products on the regular,” she says. “I’m sure I could whip up some cream that would shrivel your dick to a size so small it’ll make a raisin look gargantuan.”
Okay, her temper’s not so sexy now. Little does she know I have two dicks and both can take her. The need to dominate floods me, and I want to show her exactly what mating between us could be like. But I can’t get distracted by a beautiful face and a body made for fucking.
I remind myself that this is for the crown. For the magic. For the kingdom.
The moment I release the wards keeping her trapped, she collides into me with a force that would’ve knocked me over if I’d been only the human my glamour depicts. Steadying her before she might fall, I try not to stare at her. And fail.
When she arrived, she aimed a stunning smile at her friends and walked toward the house with an easy confidence that drew me in and made me want to know more about this woman who shone as bright as a gods-damn star.
The second I opened the door, her smile turned brittle. This was the woman I’d seen on Nic’s screen—beautiful in a knife-sharp way that suggested I keep my distance or she’d put me in my place.
Now, she glares at me, her chest heaving and her cheeks flush, and it takes everything I have not to drag this siren closer.
“Where are they?” she snaps. Without waiting for an answer, she shoves past me.
I can’t let her go running into the house. Not with portals opening to other dimensions. Who knows where she might end up or what monster might steal her? She’s my fated mate, mine to protect. Instinct has me grabbing her around the waist and dragging her back against me.
She brings the sharp corner of a hardback book down against my knuckles with a loud crack.
Ow. The sting burns hot through the glamour to my true form. I tighten my hold, and she fights harder, swinging the book toward my face and kicking at my legs.
“Calm down before you hurt yourself,” I tell her.
“Don’t you tell me to calm down,” she says on a hiss. “I’m going to find my friends.”
I carry her inside the library, catching the doors with my heel to shut behind us. “It’s not safe out there.”
“All the more reason for you to get out of my way.” So much for her flirty, fake persona from earlier. This woman could command the legions of hell. “Move.”
I lean against the doors, not backing down. “No.”
“Drop the act, Theo. Or whatever your real name is. Whatever my mother promised you, it’s not enough for what I’ll do to you if you’ve hurt my friends.”
“Your mother?” What does she know about her mother’s contact with mine? The queen of the hell dimensions doesn’t take kindly to an attempted summoning. Certainly not one by a family who benefited so much from our magic before wasting the gift they’d been granted as part of a bargain.
Val waves her hand in my face as if I’ve gone stupid when she’s the one not making sense. “I knew Mom fought me on keeping this trip and my friends off the show, but I should’ve known she would arrange a secret taping. How much did she pay you?”
Realization hits me. “You think this is part of your family’s reality show? Why in the world would you believe that?”
“I know it is. From your looks to those bullshit contracts to the way this place is furnished by Sets R Us. Whatever my mom or the producers paid you, I can promise it’s not worth it. Now, take me to my friends.” She moves to storm by me, and I wrap my hand around her upper arm as she passes. “Keep your hands off me.”
She yanks a blade—a letter opener—from where she must’ve stashed it between two hardbacks on the closest bookshelf and raises it in one clenched fist. In the other, she wields a spray bottle. Is that hand sanitizer?
I fight an eyeroll. Does she think some rubbing alcohol and essential oils will banish me?
“All right.” I don’t add for now . In an attempt to play the peacemaker and speed this infuriating process along, I let go and raise my hands in the human gesture for surrender. I don’t need my hands to do damage, but she doesn’t know that.
She doesn’t put down the blade or the disinfectant. “Apparently you didn’t learn that women don’t like to be grabbed or trapped. You don’t want me being the one to teach you.”
With rage in her eyes and her obvious stabby tendencies, her take no prisoners attitude is oddly bewitching. But I have enough of a fight in maintaining the hell dimensions and surviving court intrigues. I don’t need to worry about my mate knifing me in my sleep. “I’m protecting you. This isn’t a show.”
“Right,” she drawls. “As soon as I find my friends, I’ll be taking whatever recordings have been made since we arrived. Now, get out of my way.”
“Your friends aren’t here.”
“I told you to cut the crap. Of course they’re here.”
“I’m not lying to you.” I lower my hands, keeping the movements slow and as harmless as a demon prince wearing the glamour of a human male can. “I brought you to this house today as part of a bigger plan.”
“You didn’t bring us here.” She backs away from me, still gripping the blade as if she’ll plunge it into the closest body part if I get too close.
“I did. Gods, will you argue with everything I say?”
“Until you tell me the truth, yes.”
If she doesn’t believe me so far, she’s really going to struggle with the next part. “Like I was saying, this is all part of a bigger plan.” I gesture toward the house beyond the doors. “I needed you and your friends to come because I’m a matchmaker for a very particular clientele.”
“Like a marriage broker?” She wrinkles her nose. “ Okay . That’s a gimmick I don’t think we’ve had on the show before.”
“Not a gimmick and—again—this has nothing to do with your family’s show. Just hear me out?—”
“My friends?—”
“Need me to check on them, which I can’t do if I’m babysitting you through this tantrum you’re throwing. So stop interrupting.” I break down the command as if each word forms a separate sentence.
Her nostrils flare and she looks as though she’s assessing me to play the part of a pin cushion for her blade, but she stays silent. Good. It’s the first thing that has gone right all day.
“Today was supposed to be the straightforward execution of a well-laid plan. I found matches for your friends.” At my admission, she raises the letter opener higher, and I glare at her. “You wanted the truth, and now you’ll stab me for saying it?”
She scowls. “Go on with telling me your plan .”
“You and your friends signed matchmaking bargains?—”
“You mean your ridiculous sex contracts?”
“Interruptions,” I snap. She flicks her gaze over my body, her earlier interest turning to hatred. If she doesn’t like me now with the glamour, how insufferable will she be when I drop it? “I only needed to bring each of you to your fated mate.”
I don’t add how I matched off Meg to a minotaur who needed his mate and the magic she could bring to save his realm. Rosemarie had obviously been fated for the gargoyles, and I’d made a second-to-best match for Ava since the kraken pirate king refused to consider a deal with me. I certainly don’t mention how someone stole Ava and dragged her out to the ocean.
“And?” Val demands. “When you supposedly took my friends to their…what was it you called them…matches?” She makes the word sound like a curse, and right now, I tend to agree with her if she’s who the fates picked for me.
“It should’ve been the simple matter of me waving your friends bon voyage on each’s happily ever after.”
“Fairy tales?”
“Hardly. Today was more of a horror story.”
“Hey, those are my friends and their lives you’re talking about.” She gestures with the pointy end of the letter opener. “Get to the part where you tell me what happened to them.”
“Fine. What do you know about portals?”
She crosses her arms, pushing up those magnificent breasts of hers as if trying to distract me. Of course she doesn’t let go of the blade. Or the spray bottle. “Portals? Like sci-fi lore?” Narrowing her eyes, she adds, “Or gamer stuff? Come on. Did Meg put you up to this?”
“No, a true interdimensional portal. One that can only open with the blood sanction of a demon royal. Or that’s the way it has worked for thousands of years until the last few months when we’ve had portals opening on every continent without any demon royal’s authorization. Or at least none we know of. Someone opened one in this house.”
Val doesn’t look like she cares about the bigger picture of unsanctioned portals opening. Portals that allow monsters to come through. Monsters my spies tell me mean to either enslave or feed on humanity. They’ll wreck this world.
She wags the letter opener at me. “You’re telling me you matched my friends off in some kind of blood ritual? With a freaking demon?”
“Demons got a lot of bad press in the middle ages. We’re not evil. Well, not most of us anyway.”
“We?” She slowly backs into the bookshelves, trying to flatten herself against them and failing. “You’re a demon?”
“You’re missing the bigger point. I lured you here to open the portals and send your friends through to their matches.” My chest goes tight with how terribly fucked up today has gone. I was supposed to send the women on their way and then collect my Bonetti who’s even more alluring in person than on screen. It should’ve been easy and done.
I would be one simple seduction away from levelling up my magic enough to keep the throne even after my father’s mental slips become public. Or after the rest of hell realizes we’ve kept quiet the fact that portals have been opening—no demon royal necessary. What’s our purpose if anyone can bridge the dimensions? Royal blood would mean nothing. The crown would be worthless. Without a monarch, hell would descend into chaos.
Speaking of chaos, Val moves in a wide circle around me, and light glints off the metal that shakes in her hand. “All right, I listened to your insane story. Now, you’re letting me go find my friends and get out of here. Hand over any footage and tell my mom we never made it to the pretend tour. Or I’ll ruin any chance you have of making it in show biz.”
“I’ve no interest in your human entertainment.” I block her path—again. Stubborn woman. “I told you it isn’t safe. If one portal could open in this house, more can. I’ll figure out what happened to your friends, but first, I need to get you to safety.”
“To ship me off to my fated mate? Some stranger?” Sarcasm laces her tone, and the bitterness pisses me off. Worse, the idea of another taking her? Of another touching her? It makes my pulse race until I can barely hear over the rush of blood in my ears.
“You’re mine .” The honesty rips from me on a snarl. “I’m done arguing.” I drop my glamour, revealing my true demon form.
She spritzes the hand sanitizer toward my eyes, then lunges at me with the letter opener, damn near stabbing me in the dicks. I wrap my tail around her wrist and force her arm back.
“That’s enough,” I snap. “You’re coming with me.” I teleport us, ripping through the dimensions to my home. “Welcome to hell.”