Page 30

Chapter 29

A How-to Book on Seducing Human Maidens

SJ

“O ooh! Beez! Wake up! Boss is back!”

I stepped out of the portal to find two very excited Hell Hounds, their tails thumping on the stone floor, their red-tinged eyes aglow with what was clearly their delight. I was in no mood for them or their antics.

I opened my mouth to dismiss them, but Beezle spoke first. “You’re in trouble with Hellen the Horrible!”

“Yeah, Boss, she’s been hounding us about your whereabouts all night,” Bub added. “Get it? Hounding? Because we’re Hell Hounds and?—”

“He gets it, Bub,” Beezle yipped sharply as I turned my back on them and headed straight for my bedchamber, shucking the human skin as I went.

I did not want to deal with my Hounds. I certainly did not wish to deal with the pushy demands of my sister.

I wanted to sit alone and ponder how everything was going to shit. But I knew that the only thing I’d be able to think about was how beautiful she’d looked, coming undone on me. Using my body to seek her pleasure.

And I’d begged her to do it.

Because I wanted her.

No … it was more than that.

For badness’ sake, I was …

“What happened to your clothes, Boss?” Beezle interrupted my whirling thoughts.

“Yeah, what kept you last night, anyway?”

I violently flung the ruined clothes into the corner of the room, and then I violently flung myself onto my bed. “Temporary insanity! That’s what kept me.”

The Soul Token pulsed in my palm.

Wonderful. I was making her miserable, even from the depths of Hell.

Twin thumps on my mattress, and the hot breath of two Hell Hounds scorched my face. I winced, clutching the Token tighter. I suddenly felt very reluctant to show it to anyone. That was her soul in there. They were her emotions fuelling it.

Nausea raked at my stomach.

“Okay, Boss, talk to us!” Beezle whined. “Tell the B Team what’s eating you.”

I cracked open one eye to glare at him. “The B Team?”

“Oh, yeah, he doesn’t know!” Bub panted, trying to roll onto his back. “We got bored last night waiting for you to come home, so we made it up. Boss, Beezle and Bub—The B Team!”

I groaned. “I do not have the capacity to deal with your tomfoolery today, you two! I just need to think ?—”

“Well, there’s your first problem right off the bat!” Bub crowed as if he’d solved some wickedly difficult riddle. “Thinking is always bad. Aaaaallways.”

“Will you shut up!” I snapped, surging off the bed to pace. “From the start of this, I’ve been having … thoughts … about Jemma. Bliss. Jemma Bliss. But …” I reached the wall and spun, tail lashing.

The Hounds watched me, eyes glittering, drool sliding from their mouths. I reached the other wall and pressed my forehead to the stone. My horns grated against the rock, setting my teeth on edge.

Good. I needed some pain. Maybe it would help me get some clarity.

“But …?” Beezle prompted.

“But now I’m having … feelings, too.”

There it was. I’d said it out loud. And it still felt nowhere near the truth of what was going on in my tumultuous brain. And in that thrumming behind my ribs.

“What sort of feelings are we talking here, though, Boss?” Bub asked, jumping off the bed, his claws clicking on the floor as he approached. “Like … feeling like this FiendPay stuff is gonna be a resounding success and save all our backsides? Or …”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Or.”

Bub’s head tilted, and then his eyes widened in realisation. “Oh, you mean … those kinds of?—”

“Fee, fi, fo, fen, I smell the BO of a fuming Hellen!” Beezle barked, ears pricked and nose lifted to sniff the air.

“Oh fu—act normal, Boss!” Bub yelped, turning in frantic circles as the entrance door to my chamber ground open.

I quickly tugged on some breeches, shoving the Token deep into the pocket as her footsteps approached.

“Since when does one of these tasks of yours take all night?” Hellen’s head appeared around the doorway. She glared accusatorily at me before her gaze roved the room as if she were expecting me to have company.

Her eyes narrowed. “What is wrong with your Hell Hounds?”

I glanced down and stifled a groan. Beezle was on the bed, very studiously licking his nethers. Bub, well, he was scooting along the floor on his backside, his eyes twitching frenziedly.

“Parasites,” I muttered, cursing my moronic pets. Was this their idea of acting natural? “They need worming.”

Hellen’s nose wrinkled in distaste, but she turned her vicious gaze to me. “All night, Junior? And you conceded a victory to her that should have been yours?”

I flinched, stepping back from her. “Where did you hear that?”

Hellen rolled her eyes, leaning against the door frame and glaring accusingly at me. “My sources are my own. And you … you should have forced her to sit and finish her meal!”

My stomach twisted. “How—” It took all of my self-control to keep my eyes on Hellen and not dart them suspiciously in the direction of my Hounds. They were the only ones who had known the specifics of my plans for last night …

“Why are you going soft on her?” Hellen’s voice was filled with accusation, with suspicion. “Where are your loyalties, Junior?”

“I needed her to win!” I snapped before I could think about how to explain why to my sister without confessing the truth. A truth that if everyone would just leave me the Home alone to think, I might be able to make sense of it!

“That makes no sense!” Hellen hissed. “Nothing you are doing with this experiment makes sense to me!” She stormed across the room, leaning on the windowsill and peering out into the wilds of Hell outside the palace.

“You seem to think that you should understand everything about an experiment that has nothing to do with you … why is that?” I asked, buying myself time. Everything with Hellen was a battle of wills, a manipulation. I hated it.

“Nothing to … nothing to do with me?” she screeched, rounding on me. “Our kingdom—my home, as well as yours—is dying, SJ, and I don’t believe that you have the best interests of Hell at heart.”

She sighed, suddenly seeming exhausted. “Do you have our best interests at heart?”

My stomach lurched. Because I could not answer that. Not honestly. And I was twice the bastard for the truth that niggled at my brain.

“We can get so much more from drawing out the process,” I murmured, hating myself for every word I said to get my sister off my back. Every plot that could cause Jemma harm. “Giving the humans hope, then dashing it, then feeding it back to them is a powerful creator of strong emotions. I don’t expect you to understand.”

She rounded on me, eyes blazing. “You think me emotionless?”

I looked away, guilt riddling my stomach.

Hellen grunted. “Fine, whatever, then make me understand! Because the way I see it, you didn’t create a task that she could suffer through and ultimately win. You wilfully abandoned the task when it seemed she had no choice but to lose!”

“If she’d died last night, the contract would have been void, and we would have lost her soul!” I blasted. “I was protecting all the work I’ve done thus far!”

I hoped that Hellen wouldn’t see past my anger to the lie at the heart of my words.

“Pffft!” she scoffed. “She wasn’t going to die! These humans are not as fragile as you seem to think them, Junior!” She turned to pace the floor, her eyes falling on my pile of ruined clothes … and the paperback sticking out of them.

Shit.

The book.

Nerves choked my throat, preventing me from speaking as Hellen bent, lifting the book from the pile. She studied the cover with an unreadable expression.

“ Devirginised by the … SJ, are you reading a how-to book on seducing human maidens?”

I snatched it back from her. “I have many intrigues at play. It’s all part of the plan,” I muttered, surreptitiously checking the spine for new cracks, the corners for bends. I’d been given something precious of Jemma’s, and I’d thrown it in the corner because my … feelings … had overwhelmed me.

I didn’t deserve her.

“I see nothing coming of this mysterious plan of yours except you being absent from your own kingdom more and more frequently!” She stormed towards me, spittle flying. “Do you know what I think? I think you might be falling for the pathetic little mortal!”

“I am not !” I raged, but that thrumming in my chest made my words an utter lie.

“Then show me proof that you’re making headway with your schemes, or I’m going to Father with everything I suspect about you!”

I swallowed. If Father believed Hellen’s suspicions … he might turn his own attention Jemma’s way. I could never let that happen. She was in enough danger just from me and my stupidity. If either Hellen or Father decided to take a greater interest …

I had to give Hellen something to get her off my back.

With fingers that shook, I pulled the Soul Token from my pocket, lifting it in front of Hellen’s face. She squinted at the brightness pulsing from it.

“Events … transpired last night that were very conducive to maximising the misery I could harvest … so, I improvised.” I choked the words out, hating myself more and more as each betrayal fell from my lips.

And the fact that I was lying to my sister wasn’t even the betrayal that concerned me.

But Hellen’s eyes had turned greedy and were fixed on the Token. “So much power,” she breathed, her fingers twitching towards it. I snatched my palm closed. She shook herself, blinking up at me as if seeing me with new eyes.

“That’s enough to feed the entire Pit for a month! From just one human!” Her gaze turned covetously to my closed palm once more. “Can I see it again?”

Heart in my throat, I slipped the Token back into my pocket. Her eyes narrowed.

“Stop hoarding all that power for yourself!” she accused, advancing on me. “You want to prove your allegiance? We take that down to the Pit now, and we feed the demons!” She made a swipe for my pocket.

Red seared my vision, and my hand snapped out, gripping her by the throat. “Step back from me, sister.”

She stopped her advance but didn’t make a move to back down, her eyes full of fury. Her wind howled through the open window, creaking the boughs of Deadwood Forest outside, whipping my hair across my forehead and into my eyes.

“Be careful how you speak to me, little brother.”

I forced my voice to remain neutral against her outburst. “We cannot risk drawing the power from the Token until the four tasks are complete,” I reminded her. “It could weaken the hold on her soul.”

The thought of pouring that piece of her into a host, to let the demons feed on it … I thought I might vomit. I clenched my jaw against the bile rising, staring my sister down.

“Well then hurry the process up!”

“It’s not that simple!” I argued, my voice gravelly. “Harvesting misery is a delicate process … I don’t expect you to understand the nuances of it.”

“Fuck nuance! Just find two more ways to make her feel like shit, and be sure the second one she can’t come back from. Simple! We need that Token for the demons downstairs.” She twisted out of my grasp, and the winds died down, leaving an eerie silence in their wake.

“Do you even know what you plan to do with her next time you see her?” Hellen asked, her voice sly. “Because I have a number of suggestions.”

I gritted my teeth, but it did nothing to hold back the imagery flashing through my sick mind. The things I wanted had nothing to do with our tasks.

Jemma, relaxed in my arms. Trusting. Warm and safe and enjoying my presence. That swelling sense of pride I’d felt when I could do something that would help her, even if it was as simple as chasing the dark away.

And then there was the raging desire to fuck her lithe little body on every surface of her home and in every possible position. After many preparatory orgasms, of course.

Saliva filled my mouth at the thought of tasting her, of licking climax after climax from her pussy, until she begged me to stop. Slipping a finger inside, then two, stretching, making sure she was ready enough to take me.

“Well, whatever you’re planning certainly has you excited!” Hellen scoffed, nodding to my groin. I forced the thoughts from my head—and willed away the sudden snugness of my breeches.

“I couldn’t care less how you get your jollies, Junior …” Her voice became menacingly low. “Just as long as you remember where your loyalties lie.”

With that, she strode for the door. I was about to breathe out a sigh of relief, kick out my big-mouthed hounds and try to work out what the Home these … feelings … were for Jemma when Hellen turned, smirking widely.

“I hope you’re planning to make a proper appearance at the Mephistopheles’ Day Ball. There are a number of eligible demonesses who are hoping for a dance … or an orgy … with you. I know of at least three who would like to be the ones to birth the next Prince of Hell.”

“Ugh,” I muttered, unable to stifle my utter lack of enthusiasm for every word that had just come out of her mouth.

Hellen’s eyes narrowed. “You’d do well to remember that the only thing keeping those Pit Demons from revolting immediately is their anticipation of the ball and the debauchery Father has promised them.” Her fingers clawed into the stone of my doorway, leaving gouges. “After that, we’ll need your experiment to have been proven successful so we can feed them properly. You’ll have perhaps a week at best of their orgy hangovers afterwards before they’ll be baying for the blood of the Royal Family. And, in case you’d forgotten, that includes you!”

My stomach sank. The ball was a mere fortnight away. I had, if I was lucky, three weeks to complete the final two tasks.

And doom Jemma.

* * *

“Wasn’t us, Boss!” Beezle insisted, his eyes gone glassy from the sheer length of time he’d spent tending to his nethers with his tongue. “We kept our mouths shut when she came around demanding to see you. Said we had no clue where you’d gotten to!”

“You are certain you didn’t inadvertently let my plans slip in your excitement?” I asked, rubbing at the base of my horns, where a headache was forming.

“Yeah, promise!” Bub added. “We don’t trust Hellen as far as we can throw her!”

“She must’ve gotten all her bad traits from her mother! I mean, your dad’s a bit how ya going, but Hellen … she’s something else!”

“Those elemental demons can be bloody … bloody, can’t they?”

“I bet SJ’s mother was …”

I sighed, letting their speculations about my female parent wash over me. It had been a topic that had haunted me for much of my childhood, but as I aged, I chose not to care any longer that she was a stranger to me. If she even still lived.

Exhaustion weighed heavily on me, and the heat of the Soul Token in my pocket was only draining me further, as if it was somehow sucking my overwrought emotions into itself.

I replayed the moment this morning that had changed everything … when her body had been under mine, and she’d been begging to suck me, to take me into her.

And I’d looked down at her, and something inside my chest had … expanded. And now it wouldn’t stop this pulsing thud beneath my ribs.

And at that very moment, her expression had gone from feisty, cheeky, seductive … to shocked. Vulnerable. Closed off.

I was certain that in the very same moment I’d been feeling … feelings, she’d been remembering that I was the bad guy. That she had been ready to taste me, to wrap those sweet, plump lips around me—the devil sent to make her life a living Hell. To snatch away her soul and feed it to the creatures of the Pit.

Yes, she’d made all sorts of noises about me staying, about me returning to her outside of FiendPay-related business … but that was all bravado, wasn’t it? She was just trying to make me think she wasn’t terrified of what I was doing to her.

I was beginning to realise I didn’t have the stomach to do it to her. I couldn’t break her … because it would very likely break me, too.

How had my happiness become so entangled with that of the feisty little human so quickly?

I had a pretty good idea, but I wasn’t going to let that thought come to fruition. It led only to my bitter disappointment when it was unrequited.

Three weeks. I had to come up with an alternative plan in the next three weeks. And in the meantime, maybe this farce of a ball was something that I could feign interest in. It was a perfect excuse to postpone acting on task three with Jemma.

Maybe Father would appreciate me taking a more active role in planning the festivities.

Anything to keep my mind off the pretty pink-haired piece of perfection up in the Human Realm.

That decided me. I stood, striding to the door. Beezle and Bub’s yapping abruptly ceased, and soon they were trotting along beside me as we traversed the corridors of the castle, heading in the direction of the throne room.

If I found Father having his horns polished by an idiocy of imps again, I told myself I would walk straight back out.

But when I opened the door, I froze.

No imps were present.

No demons either—save the King of them all, sitting spreadeagled on his throne, fondling his horn with one hand, the other tangled in the dark hair of …

… Of the human male kneeling between his legs, taking my father deep into his mouth, and moaning like it was the most delightful thing he’d ever put in there.

There was a human—and not a human soul, a real, living human—in the throne room. Engaging in oral sex with my father.

“Oh! Oh … uh, SJ, hello!” Father grunted awkwardly when he noticed me, his fingers tightening in the human’s hair. “I … uh … oh fuck, Al, that’s the way, you greedy boy!” His eyes fell closed, and he groaned.

I turned away, but it was too late to block out the sound of my father coming. I should have left. But something stopped me.

Dark-haired human male … who Father had just called Al …

“Alessio?” I grunted once it was clear my father had finished. “Alessio Cattaneo?”

“Mmmph,” was the response, and I barely kept myself from retching.

“Come, son.” It was not a request. I turned and moved stiffly, reluctantly, into the room. He hitched his breeches, covering himself.

And perched on the arm of the throne was the chef who had sold his soul to my father for his silly little Michelin Star, wiping at his mouth and smirking in my direction.

I swallowed back my rage, stopping several feet from the throne and silently waiting for Father to speak.

“Is your experiment going to plan, son?”

I found my eyes drawn to the dark-haired chef. “I’m sure you already know all the details.” At least now I could be sure that the Hounds had nothing to do with my sister knowing too much.

He looked completely unapologetic about being the one to come running to Hell to report on my movements. I cursed myself for a fool. No one in this place was out for anyone but themselves. Including Father. And apparently, his human sex minions.

“I wish to hear it from you.” The tone brooked no argument. So I repeated the lies I’d told Hellen earlier. I produced the Soul Token, though it cost me dearly, especially when Father’s smile turned acquisitive.

“All this power, just from one little human?”

“To be fair, Satan, she was very ill. Your son did his research well with his little human.” Alessio stroked my father’s horn as he said it, and the sly grin on his face told me he knew exactly what that sort of touch did to a devil.

“This is excellent, son!” Father turned to his human, poking him in the ribs. “I should have trusted you when you said that you thought SJ had it under control.” His eyes returned to the Token. “All that beautiful pain, being stored up for my—our workers. Just from one human!” He shook his head in bewildered amazement.

I tucked the Token into my pocket, planting my feet against the dizziness that threatened to overcome me. They were talking about Jemma … my Jemma … like she was an object. A possession. Nothing more than a power source for Hell.

Can’t let them see my … feelings.

“Have you plans for the next task? And on how you will bring this all home to us?”

I swallowed, masking my emotions with arrogance. “Let us not concern ourselves with the … intricacies of my experiment. We have a night of dancing and debauchery to plan!”