Chapter 2
My heart beats wildly in my chest as I clean up the mess.
What the hell did I just do? Summoning a demon is all fun and games until one actually shows up. The pain in my thumb reminds me I was too fucking stupid to read the contract I signed, and the more I think about it, the more I wish I could take it back.
No demon who presents himself like that wants anything good. He showed up knowing my name, knowing my favorite band, one of my favorite shows. Everything about his entrance was meant to deceive and manipulate and I fell right into it.
I — am not alone anymore.
I look up from the ground I’m scrubbing and freeze when I see my demon licking blood off of his hand. His nose scrunches up as though it’s disgusting, but when his eyes meet mine, I see nothing but excitement.
“Please tell me you didn’t actually enjoy that,” I grumble. “He’s not even cute.”
“He really wasn’t, and I’m offended you expected me to actually stick my dick inside that. I enjoyed what happened for different reasons though. You want to hear?”
Before I can respond, the room fills with the agonized screams of my former boss, his pleas echoing off the walls before we’re settled in silence again.
Yeah, that’ll do.
Smirking, I stand up to dry my hands. “Are you afraid of catching something? Do demon venereal diseases exist?”
“No. Now let’s go.” He closes the distance between us and grabs my arm. “Say goodbye to this miserable world.”
“What?” Jerking back, I stumble over the smoldering trash can in the middle of the room. “I’m not leaving. You don’t get to kill me.”
“I didn’t plan on killing you,” he growls, shaking his head like he’s disappointed. “Poor little Lysandra, always in a rush. You never read what you sign, do you?”
No, I don’t. What weirdo reads terms and conditions? Who has that kind of time? Breathing gets a little harder as my heart races faster. “You want my soul, right? Jokes on you, I don’t have one.”
That makes him chuckle, his arms crossing as he stands taller. “Tell me more about the human soul since you know so much.”
I’m just buying time and I know that. I’ve already gotten a sense of what he can do, and there’s no way I can fight him off — especially if Peter couldn’t.
“They don’t exist. And if they do, they don’t belong to people like me.
And even if I’m wrong about that, why would you want mine?
It has to be the soul equivalent of a Waffle House dumpster. ”
“Because you’ve murdered someone?” His intense gaze locks with mine, and before I can find words to respond, he continues, “This isn’t about your soul anyway.
It’s about all of you. You agreed to come live out your days with me in Hell for your revenge.
You gave your blood for it, and I’m done up here. ”
All the lights go out in a flash, a warm breeze enveloping me in a way that says I’m no longer standing in my apartment, and I vomit violently the moment it stops.
I’m definitely somewhere I shouldn’t be, but it can’t be Hell. Despite all the evidence presented to me today, I’m not open-minded enough to just accept the existence of any of this without question. Hell isn’t real. Demons aren’t real. This has to be a fucking fever dream.
Standing up on shaky legs, I glance around ‘Hell’ and start laughing. There’s no hellfire, no torture or depictions of eternal suffering. Just Christmas decorations everywhere and that stupid Mariah Carey song blasting in the background.
It looks like Santa vomited all over the place, not me. “So Hell is just the Maco Mall from November to January, huh? Seriously, where are we?”
“My Hell,” he admits from so close behind me, I stop breathing. “I’m sure yours would look a little different.”
Suddenly, my blood runs cold. He doesn’t sound like a non-British Ardis Darling anymore, he sounds like...
Whirling around, my heart stops completely for a moment. No longer am I staring at the alt-rock god who has given me so many wet dreams. Instead, I’m staring into the face of the one man I thought I’d never see again. The one man I don’t deserve to ever see again.
“Fuck you,” I force out. “Is this what gets you off? Bringing people down here and forcing them to relive the worst night of their lives? Show me what you really look like. You don’t deserve to wear his face.”
“You know exactly what gets me off, Lys. We had fun together, didn’t we?” He smiles a little too wickedly for the man I loved, but when he speaks again, I feel the truth of his words. “I can’t wear different faces down here. None of us can.”
So not a fever dream, a nightmare. One of the worst I’ve had since it happened.
Reaching up, I stop just shy of touching the jagged red scar across his neck, not wanting to hurt him or offend him.
I did that to him. I didn’t mean to, but I did.
And whether this is a horrible dream or a bizarre reality, it really doesn’t matter.
He’s here, and I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to throw myself at him and apologize until he believes it, but the other part of me is too scared to move.
I murdered him, and now he has me right where he wants me.
Is this whole thing just a ploy for him to get his own revenge?
“You were a good person,” I say gently. “Why are you in Hell?”
His jaw tenses at my question. “It isn’t about good or bad, not really.
I was stuck there in that apartment for a couple years without you, unable to move on.
The fucking family that moved in had their Christmas decorations up almost all year, and I was so fucking angry I was basically a beacon for a demon.
She asked me if I wanted out, and I said yes.
You’re not the only one who didn’t read the fine print. ”
My stomach twists as I realize my crime was far worse than I thought. All of this, everything he’s been through, was my fault. I did this to him. Suddenly, a few years in prison doesn’t seem like enough.
“Adrian, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were coming over that night, I thought someone was breaking in.”
“I didn’t know I was going to either,” he replies, breaking our stare to walk past me. “I take it the cops never gave you your gift?”
“No,” I say without turning. Staring into black eyes instead of honey brown is overwhelming and strange, so I’ll take any excuse not to do it.
“I called them the moment I realized it was you and they arrested me pretty much immediately. Apparently, if you want to claim self-defense, you have to try to run away first.”
Adrian hums, the clinking of glass reaching my ears and making me turn to see him pour himself a drink. “Well... there’s nowhere to run now, thanks to that contract you willingly signed.”
“Are you sure about that?” I ask sharply. “You didn’t hold up your end of the bargain. You said you didn’t fuck him.”
He smirks, polishing off the amber liquid before sliding the cup along his granite countertop.
“Oh, he was fucked alright, fucked with a demon cock as thick as an elephant’s leg.
I ripped him in half just like you asked and watched him bleed out onto his disgusting brown rug after.
He watched me take him in a mirror so he knew exactly what was happening to him, I just didn’t touch him with my dick. He wasn’t my type.”
“Wasn’t your... wait, whose cock did you use then? Do I belong to someone else now?”
“You belong to me,” he snaps, a dark energy radiating off of him as he closes the distance between us.
“You’re mine until the end of time. You said you wanted him fucked with a demon cock, and I fucked him with a demon cock in every way but physically.
I can make you live any pleasure or pain I want to and you’d never know what was real or not real. I’ll show you.”
His hand shoots out to grip my throat, Hell fading away to a grungy alley as Adrian pumps in and out of me with his hand in the same position. My Adrian.
There was nothing romantic about the way we met.
I was all dolled up, sure, but my mental state was shot.
I’d just been stood up for the third time in a row and I’d had it.
I just wanted to stop being a fucking virgin — I’d bought the hype that you should save yourself for marriage, then realized there wasn’t a man alive I’d tie myself to like that.
And sex looked fun. I wanted some of that for myself, so despite the pouring rain and incoming storm, I drove myself to the bar, ordered two shots of tequila, and decided I didn’t care what happened as long as I felt something.
I was ready to fuck, fight, or do both. Dealer’s choice.
But I wasn’t the only one trying to drown my sorrows that night.
Adrian was babysitting a whisky with a black eye, split knuckles, and a scowl on his beautiful face.
Curious, I raised my drink to my lips, and he did the same.
We drank that way for a while before he finally came over to talk to me, and I couldn’t bring myself to walk away no matter how many red flags he waved in my face.
Fuck or fight, remember?
Not ten minutes later, I was having the frustration fucked out of me in a soaking wet, dingy alleyway behind the bar.
Adrian was powerful, strong, almost brutal.
He fucked me like he hated everything I stood for as a storm raged around us, pulling two orgasms from me before he buried himself inside me and flooded my greedy little cunt with his cum.
I was surprised when he asked for my name after, and even more surprised when he asked if I wanted to do it again.
I don’t think he ever left after that night.
It was the night he became my favorite person, a night I frequently escape to when I miss his touch, and every detail of that first encounter is still clear in my mind.
It feels so real this time I forget that it isn’t. I feel his ragged breaths against my neck, feel the heat of his cock as he fucks me relentlessly against that cement wall, and just as I feel that first orgasm about to crest, it all disappears.
We’re back in Hell, my panties soaked, clit pulsing with desperation, and I don’t think he’s ever looked more pleased with himself.
“Did that feel real?”
My legs give out. I hit the ground hard, breaking my right kneecap open, but it doesn’t distract from anything I just felt.
It was as real as the night it really happened, and something about it made one thing extremely clear: this man hates me. He has every right to given what I did to him, but I’d gaslit myself into believing that if he was still out there somewhere, he’d know I didn’t mean it and he’d forgive me.
I was wrong.
And now, I’m trapped here with him because I was too fucking lazy to read the contract.
“So what, then? You’re gonna punish me for eternity? Is that why you came? We both know I fucked that summoning up.”
Reaching down, he lifts my gaze to his with his finger, crouching down in front of me so I can’t look away. “You fucked a lot of things up, Lysandra. That summoning wasn’t one of them.”
So I’m just the unluckiest cunt in all the world, then. What are the odds I manage to summon a demon with very little training but it happens to be someone I used to know? Magic always comes with a cost, I guess. Especially dark magic.
Breathing deep, I exhale hard and avoid his eyes. “Fine. Get on with it then.”
“You always were a bossy little thing.” His fingers slot into my hair and tighten, the pull of his fist making me gasp.
“I can’t believe I actually missed you.” His other hand brushes along the blood on my knee, and then he stands to lick his fingers clean.
“Get up. If you stay down there on your knees, I’m going to shove my cock in your throat. ”
I’d be at least some level of turned on by the thought if he hadn’t just confirmed my fears. He hates me, and hearing it hurts worse than I thought it would.
Standing shakily, I feel more out of my element than I ever have. “So I’m stuck here now?” I ask, knowing the answer. “Where are all my things? Who’s going to take care of my cat?”
Those endlessly dark eyes drop to my pussy as he smirks. “I will, all you have to do is beg first.”
Ugh. I don’t actually have a cat, but I also don’t fancy getting ripped in half by a cock the size of an elephant’s leg. “I’ve never begged for anything in my life.”
“You begged me to stay that night, didn’t you? Your pleas still echo in my mind every single day.”
I did. I begged gods I didn’t believe in, begged the universe, begged the cops who showed up to bring a fucking ambulance. No one listened, no one cared, no one brought him back. “Then you’ll know exactly why I don’t beg. It’s never done me any good.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m stuck in this devilishly handsome body for the rest of eternity, and while you’re here in Hell, you’ll be stuck like that.” He looks me up and down. “You’re still pretty hot for your age.”
For my age? Scoffing, I flip him off with both hands. “I’m only thirty, dick. I’m not that much older than you were.” Pausing, I amend, “Are?”
Adrian shrugs. “Still older than me. Have you fucked anyone else?”
Blinking, I take a breath before answering. “Be more specific. Do you mean when I was in prison, when my boss helped himself to my body, or are you asking if I’ve fucked anyone else on purpose?”
“On purpose, obviously. I want to know who else has made you come.”
There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes that has a chill ghosting up my spine, so I force myself to lie as convincingly as I can. “Those are two separate things. Yeah, I’ve fucked other people, but I’ve been singlehandedly responsible for my own orgasms since the night you died.”
Scoffing, he pours himself another drink. “The night you murdered me, you mean?”
Dick. “My charge was involuntary manslaughter, not murder.”
“Felt like murder to me, but hey, what do I know?”
He holds out the bottle, so I take the peace offering and head over to grab it. If I have to be stuck down here with a guy who despises me, I may as well do it drunk.
Yet he tugs it back the second my fingers wrap around it, my body colliding with his before I can find my balance.
“Did they fuck you raw?”
“No,” I say truthfully. “I hated birth control so I always used condoms after you.”
He relaxes in a way that reminds me of the Adrian I knew, that darkness fading to the background. Fading, but never leaving. I don’t think it ever will. “Good.”
“So which is it then?” I snap in frustration. “Do you hate me or do you want me all to yourself?”
“Does it have to be one of those things? Tell me why it can’t be both.”
“If it’s both, you’re signing us up for an eternity of misery. If you hate me knowing it was an accident, nothing I say or do will ever change your mind. So where will that leave us in ten years, in a hundred, in a thousand?”
And more importantly... am I fucking dead now?