Page 8 of Sin: The Mate Games (Apocalypse #1)

Chapter

Eight

GRIM

“ Y ou’re late,” I rumbled from my place behind my desk as all three of my brothers filed into my office. “I summoned you here ten minutes ago.”

Sinclair rolled his eyes. “Okay, Dad.”

“Remind me why we’re in this dark cave of an office again? There’s an entire penthouse at our disposal.” Malice pulled open the curtains, revealing the London skyline in all its glory.

“Says the man who lived in a shack for the past few decades,” Chaos said under his breath.

“It was a lake house, thank you very much.”

“He’s afraid of the little succubus wandering the house,” Sin said in a bored drawl as he studied his cuticles.

“I am not,” I said, immediately bristling. The thought of me being afraid of anything, let alone that mere slip of a girl, was hilarious. And offensive.

“What was it Shakespeare said?” Sin stage-whispered. “Thou doth protest too much.”

Shadows slipped out from under me, threatening to wrap around his throat so they could silence him for me.

“Oops. Looks like somebody made Daddy angry.”

“Call me Daddy one more time, I fucking dare you.”

Sin winked at me. “Sure, you hate when I do it, but I bet you’d fucking nut yourself if she said it.”

The tingles that raced down my spine betrayed exactly how his suggestion affected me. He was closer to correct than I wanted to admit.

“And then he’d kill her, and we’d have to start from scratch figuring out who Lucifer’s new incubator is,” Chaos grumbled.

Mal nodded his agreement.

Sin flicked his gaze between them. “Why go through all this trouble of keeping her safe if he’s just planning to kill her?”

“Not because he plans to. Because he quite literally kills every living being he touches,” Chaos explained with a pointed stare.

“Oh right. That.” Sin shrugged. “So he wears his cute little gloves. Problem solved.”

“On his dick?” Malice asked with a lift of his brow.

“Not conducive to reproduction,” Chaos chimed in.

Sin’s shoulders drooped. “You’re right. But you know, he doesn’t have to be the one to knock her up. That’s what I’m here for. I can take care of putting a baby in her. You three can warm her up. The more aroused she is, the better, right?”

“If it’s that simple, Sinclair, why haven’t you gotten the job done yet?” I asked, leaning against my desk as I stared at him sprawled in one of my good chairs.

“You didn’t tell him?” Malice asked.

“Tell me what?”

Mal waved a hand, opening the floor for Sin to proceed.

“So... our girl Merri is celibate,” he said after a second, his expression shifting as if he was confused by the words coming out of his mouth.

“A celibate succubus?” Chaos’s words sounded as if he’d just asked “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Sin nodded. “Stupidest thing you ever heard, right?”

“You have to be joking.”

Fucking Lilith. She couldn’t have shared this tidbit of information with us before saddling us with the girl?

“She’ll come around,” I said, rising from my chair and walking to the windows.

London had always been one of my favorite cities, but it was especially stunning at night as the lights of modern-day buildings accentuated the contrast between old and new. There was a reason I’d made it my primary residence. I’d roamed these streets an uncountable number of times, taking souls, sparing others, a wraith playing at being alive. Now if I wanted to continue existence as I knew it, I’d have to help ensure one of us created life rather than snuff it out.

The irony.

Death tasked with the continuance of life.

Somewhere, God was having one hell of a laugh.

If he was even paying attention. Something told me it had been a long time since he peered in on the first of his creations.

“She won’t if you all keep being pricks to her.” This from Sin, the accusation clear in both his tone and expression.

“I’ve had minimal contact with her. Surely you can’t mean me.”

And by minimal, I meant none. I hadn’t seen the girl since we collected her.

He leveled a stare at me. “She calls you Grumpy Brit Number One. Yes, it means you. Chaos, you storm around the place like you’re ready to toss her over the balcony at any moment. Mal, you’re... well, you.”

“Grumpy Brit Number Two?” he supplied.

“You said it, buddy.”

Chaos chuckled. “And here she just calls me Moody.”

“Well, she’s accurate, if not particularly creative,” Sin mused.

He seemed to have forgotten that the rest of us weren’t built to exist on seduction and lust. I hadn’t been with a partner since my disastrous relationship with Helene. I’d thought, stupidly, that Death was the only one meant for me because of her nature. I realized now the whole thing was a stroke of madness on my part. We’d been doomed from the start, both of us far too selfish to ever make us good partners. But oh, how I’d craved the ability to touch another being aside from my brothers. To know firsthand what they’d been talking about when sharing their various exploits.

I shoved the thoughts away, along with the frisson of loneliness that always accompanied them.

Death did not get lonely.

Death did not have emotions.

Death did not need anybody.

I repeated these mantras, wrapping them around me like armor until my control slipped firmly back into place.

“So, what do you think, Grim?” Sin asked, pulling me from my thoughts. I’d clearly missed some asinine plan.

“Whatever gets her pregnant fastest.”

Malice’s narrowed gaze met mine. “How does Sin leaving to feed get Merri pregnant?”

“Wait, what?”

“Told you he wasn’t listening,” Sin muttered.

Fuck. Merri’s presence had me spun up in ways I wasn’t prepared for. It was best I keep my distance for everyone’s sake. I was a liability. The biggest kink in our plan. If I slipped up and touched her, all hell would literally break loose.

Well, technically, it would be a couple decades later, once the next vessel was located and inseminated. But what were a few decades when you’d walked the earth since it was first formed?

“You can’t leave. None of us can. The last thing we need is one of Lucifer’s lackeys following you here.”

“Because hiding in the penthouse you’ve owned for just under a century isn’t an obvious place to look,” Chaos muttered.

Sin groaned. “C’mon, man. I’m starving.”

“Feed from her.”

He rolled his eyes, his favorite response. Then he spoke slowly, as though I were a child. “She is cel-i-bate. I can’t.”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day these words left my lips, but... Sin has a point.”

Sin’s mouth dropped open as his attention snapped to Chaos. “Say that again. More slowly this time.”

Chaos snorted but sat up straighter in his chair, looking to me. “He needs to feed. I need to fight. We are in a pressure cooker here. If I don’t release my mounting violence, you know what will happen.”

The memory of what had happened in my office just the other day was the mere tip of the iceberg when it came to what Chaos could do. He had to siphon off his violence regularly, or he was liable to bury us all beneath this entire tower and the city block it stood on.

“Fine. You make a good point, but drawing attention to ourselves is a risk. You and I both know this.” It would be naive to think War wouldn’t already have considered this. He was a brilliant tactician. “We will all spar with you between fights. Keep your encounters to the absolute minimum. Both of you.” I shot a pointed glare at Sin, who loved to be in the spotlight.

“You and Malice will have to step up if we’re gone. You understand that, right? You two can’t ignore her. She’ll leave.”

Chaos wasn’t wrong. I nodded in response, adjusting my gloves out of habit.

“I’ll do what must be done.”

Malice muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but I could only assume it was also some form of begrudging assent.

“That’s all well and good for Chaos, but I have to feed frequently and intentionally. It’s a hunger that’s never sated. You know this.” Sin shook out his shoulders as though he was ridding himself of an unwanted bit of clothing. The incubus was struggling even as he tried to disguise it with bravado. “My minimum is still more than you’re going to approve of. Especially when none of you are willing to help me out and the buffet-de-Merri is closed.”

Malice cleared his throat, distracting me from my rapidly growing ire as my shadows began spreading across the floor.

“She feeds by camming. Why can’t you?”

Sin opened his mouth, likely to protest, but closed it as his expression turned considering. “I’ve never needed to, but there might be something to it. All those adoring fans of mine are going to need to turn somewhere now that the tour’s ruined.”

So that’s why Sin kept muttering, “ This is going to ruin the tour,” when he arrived in Hel’s prison. The fucker was still living out his rock star dreams.

Malice checked his watch. “Merri’s about to start one of her daily sessions. Why don’t you test it out? Your room is next to hers, so if nothing else, maybe the proximity alone will benefit you.”

The way Sin lit up reminded me of a fireworks display.

“Say no more. OriginalSin reporting for duty.”

“How . . . original,” Malice teased.

Sin cocked a brow. “Oh, and you think TheSingularity is any better? I saw you trolling her page, creeper. You can deny it until you’re blue in the face, but you’re just as interested in her as I am.”

Malice shrugged, entirely unfazed. “She’s a succubus. My interest in her is about as controllable as flatulence.”

“Cute. Make sure you tell her that. It will definitely get her to spread her legs for you. Wait, weren’t you the one claiming to know all about seduction?” Sin laughed and rolled his eyes. “Man, if that’s the best you can do, the world is seriously in trouble. Thank God for me.”

“She doesn’t want to fuck you either,” Malice all but growled.

I found it interesting he went with that rebuttal instead of his usual insistence that he wasn’t going to participate at all so it didn’t matter what she thought of him.

Sin stood, sauntering toward the door, his incubus hunger already radiating from him as he turned and looked at the three of us.

“She wants me. She just doesn’t know it yet.”