Page 9

Chapter 8

No Pressure …

SJ

I dried myself off in the Hell vent after a very long, very bubbly bath. Although, while my body felt clean, my mind felt very, very dirty.

Three back-to-back orgasms, all while picturing her round buttocks peeking out of that red thing. And then a fourth, which was now seared into my memory. Those girls on her shirt—the spicy ones—were seared into my brain, her tits straining against them.

I banged my horns against the lava stone. Sparks jetted across the room with each thunk.

“You ( thunk ) are not ( thunk ) supposed ( thunk ) to find the ( thunk ) humans ( thunk ) erotic ( thunk ), you stupid, stupid devil,” I muttered.

Thunk .

Having chastised myself thoroughly, I tugged on my breeches, replaying the whole interlude with Jemma Bliss.

I thought, somewhat vindictively, that Jemma Bliss had no idea what she was talking about when it came to the ‘special downstairs extras’ of the Lucifer family. I could fuck my way through a dozen orgasms without stopping, and she would never get to experience the pleasure of that particular ‘dick trick’.

And then there was the other ‘trick’ …

She thought she was so clever, getting the final word in, while I was too shocked to respond after hearing her say ‘Satan’s cock’ in that cheeky, purring tone. I would show her. Every defiant word from her only made me more determined to torment her mercilessly before I finally took all of her soul for myself …

Well, for Hell. Not for me.

I left the springs, heading back in the direction of my chambers. I needed to brainstorm with the Hounds. We had a lot of planning to do, considering last night had been very much a fly-by-the-seats-of-our-pants experience. I hadn’t the foggiest what I would do with Jemma Bliss, to make her think she had a chance to earn her soul back without it ever truly being possible.

I needed to know more about her. What really made her tick—besides an addiction to boxes with grapes on them and donuts coated with delicious crunchy grains. I needed to know what things would humiliate, or anger, or upset her.

And I had to use them against her.

My pocket burned against my thigh. With a hiss, I reached in, drawing out the Soul Token with the very tips of my claws. It pulsed, hot pink, then white, then hot pink again.

This could only mean one thing, if all my calculations in the making of the Soul Token were correct. Something was upsetting Jemma Bliss. Her misery was adding fuel to the token.

I watched the pulsing light. Eventually it slowed, then ceased altogether, leaving the token cool but glowing a little brighter than before. I had captured that misery in the piece of soul that I held in my hand.

So, my theory had been correct. If we took a piece of a human’s soul as collateral for my FiendPay scheme, we could harvest their misery. We could feed the Pit Demons. It wouldn’t be much, just from one human … but with many, we could tide them over until we began owning the full portion of their souls upon their human deaths.

My plan so far seemed to have all the impacts I had expected.

So why did I not feel joyous?

Why did I still feel this odd, queasy rumbling in my stomach?

I was probably hungry. I had not eaten since that box of donuts the previous afternoon.

Yes, that was what my problem was. It had absolutely nothing to do with the unhealthy, voracious need to know what was causing Jemma Bliss’s misery.

A sudden, violent vibration shook the floor beneath me. I grabbed onto the stone wall, but it didn’t subside. The shudders became a roar, interspersed with metallic clanging sounds. The demons below were fighting.

Again.

I sighed, turning back to the nearest staircase. If I didn’t show up to assist when the downstairs demons were having a rebellious tantrum, Hellen would never let me hear the end of it. And then there would be that disappointed frown Father would wear for a solid month afterwards.

The noise escalated as I descended until my ears were ringing with the sounds of a violent brawl. The staircase abruptly ended, opening up onto a ledge into an enormous, sweltering cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites were like teeth, separating us—the royal household—from what lay below, lit by the orange-red glow of the lava lake hundreds of feet down.

The Pit of Hell.

And the demons were very tantrummy today.

“Hungry! Hungry!” they chanted, knocking their horns against one another like a percussion beat. They were a sea of crimson, coal, and claret, their horns sending fireworks ricocheting around the space.

Father and Hellen were already there. Father stood at the edge of the ledge, fist wrapped around a stalagmite, glaring down at them all. His tail twitched, but his shoulders were stiff. His eyes scanned the crowd, his brows furrowed.

Hellen, who was far less practised at keeping her emotions in check, growled from her spot in the shadows, her own tail thrashing violently. Her claws gouged tracks in the lava stone, and her skin pulsed in a variety of shades of eggplant.

“What’s going on?” I hissed just as Father called out, his voice echoing with his fury.

“Silence!”

The chanting did not cease, although the volume did reduce somewhat into angry grumbles rather than an unholy roar. My stomach knotted. This was the closest they had come to an outright rebellion.

How bad had things gotten down here? How had Father allowed it to get this dire?

“If you actually paid attention at dinner when Father and I discuss the important topics impacting our kingdom, you would know what is happening!” Hellen snarled through her teeth. “And if you were putting any effort whatsoever into your little ‘plan’ that Father seems so enamoured with, you could help him to fix this!”

“We should go to war wiv them upstairs!” one particularly brave … or stupid … demon shouted, silencing Hellen’s tirade. “They been stealing from us, and it’s time to take back what’s ours!”

A vicious cheer throbbed through the sea of demons at his words. My stomach lurched. Did he mean us … or was he actually suggesting that we declare war on …?

Father blew out a long-suffering breath. “Open war with Heaven has never ended well for us,” he announced. Mutinous rumbles met his words.

So they were suggesting a war with Heaven.

“They been taking souls meant for us down ‘ere in the Pit!” another demon bellowed. “And what ‘ave you lot, up there in your fancy castle, done to ‘elp us survive! We’re fuckin’ starvin’ down ‘ere!”

Another loud roar throbbed in my eardrums, interspersed with more crashing of horns, more sparking fireworks.

“If you would let me finish!” Father roared over the top of them. “I understand your plight!”

The grumbling was disbelieving. Father slammed his horns into a stalactite, the sound echoing like a gong around the cavernous pit.

“I do understand … but if we want to beat Heaven at their own insidious game, we must be devious about it. If She and Her minions insist on using underhanded methods to rob us of souls that are rightfully ours, we shall employ the same tactics. We can beat them at their own game! My son, your prince, has been working on a scheme to tie more eternal souls to Hell, while also providing sustenance from the living!”

“How?” another demon demanded, over the ‘rabble rabble rabble’ noises of the mob.

Hellen’s claws dug into my upper arm. “Help him! You want this future so badly, it’s about time you learned how to manage the Pit.”

I barely had time to suck in a breath to protest before she’d shoved me forwards to the very edge of the platform. I skidded to a halt, my groin smacking up against a very solid stalagmite. I groaned in pain as I winced down at the sea of furious, desperate demon faces.

Father gripped me by my tail and tugged me, clapping me on the back as I staggered and fell into place beside him.

“Your future King here has a plan!” he announced proudly to the hoard. The discontented rumblings from below only made that knotting feeling in my stomach worse.

“You will listen!” he roared over them, and for the first time since they’d started their tantrum, they fell silent. I swallowed hard.

“Tell them your plan,” Father muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“So …” I began, then paused to clear my throat. Hellen huffed out a derisive laugh behind me, which had the opposite effect to what she would have intended. Words began bubbling out of my throat.

“Through thorough research, I have discovered that modern humans are a ridiculously covetous and consumerist-driven society. They have developed systems by which they can spend money they have not yet earned on things they do not wish to wait for, and repay their debt in instalments,” I began. The demons below growled their impatience.

I hurried to explain the ‘FiendPay’ system and how it worked along similar lines, but instead of them offering money they didn’t have, they would offer their soul. And instead of making repayments, they would be forced into torturous tasks, under the mistaken belief that they had a chance of achieving the tasks and repaying their debts, earning their souls back.

“I believe in the short term, we can fuel the Pit through these torturous interactions in the Human Realm,” I explained. My hand slipped into my pocket, feeling the warmth of the piece of Jemma’s soul in there. I could bring it out, could show them that even without me directly torturing her, I was already harvesting her misery.

But something stopped me.

It’s too soon , I told myself. I don’t have enough evidence. I don’t want to get their hopes up.

I needed to explore this more with Jemma Bliss.

I clutched the Token in my fist like a talisman. “And when they inevitably fail in their four tasks, their soul becomes the property of Hell, and upon their deaths, it defaults to us. We lock Heaven out of a chance to steal them from us.”

The roar that blasted its way up from the Pit was deafening. But it wasn’t angry. It was vicious, and excited, and bloodthirsty.

“Your prince is rolling out this ‘FiendPay’ program as we speak!” Father announced. My chest jolted, and my gaze darted nervously to him. He met my eyes for a split second, shaking his head minutely.

He wanted me to help him lie to them.

“In-indeed!” I agreed as Father gripped my arm and raised my hand above our heads to a renewed thunder of cheers and horn smashing.

“Now, back to work!” Father cried and immediately turned his back on them. My head was spinning as I hurried to follow him.

How had this gone from a barely formed plan, to a trial run, to ‘your prince is rolling out his scheme as we speak’?

Hellen fell into step beside me, gripping me by the shoulder. “It appears that the entire future of the Lucifer Empire is relying on your bit of fun with the humans,” she remarked, her voice too sweet to be anything but poisonous. “No pressure …”