Page 49 of Stalked By Pestilence

I wasn’t the only one torn apart at the sight of her, and I suddenly felt the need to say the words I’d been guarding and refusing to acknowledge since meeting my Viper.

“I love her. I wasn’t going to—”

Her green eyes rose to meet mine. “Yeah, I know. I still don’t like you, but she’s…” Her voice hitched with a silent cry of anguish, her hand clinging to Emily’s. “She’s everything to me, Zelus. You have to help us get her back. Then we can figure the rest out. I can’t lose her.”

“I can’t lose her either. I’d do it even if you hadn’t wanted me to.” My arms tightened around the lifeless woman who’d changed everything. “So how are we doing this?”

Thanatos summoned his shadow portal and gestured to it. “We remind them what happens when you cross the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Chapter Twenty

Emily

I’d had more time to work out my present what-the-fuck situation, and the odds of getting myself out of it weren’t great. I didn’t have any idea how a girl escaped Hell, or really even who this dude was. But odds not being in my favor had never stopped me before, and it wouldn’t now.

I’d expected demons to be a bit more beastly, but this demon reminded me of several men I’d had the misfortune of dealing with at my nine-to-five job. Pretty, well-dressed, and arrogant. The only thing different about him were those bird wings and terrifying demon eyes.

My captor hadn’t left me for a single moment. It’d been hours of him at a desk, doing whatever it was demons like him did—make their master plans for world domination?

It quickly became apparent I didn’t need to eat or pee. My bodily functions were nonexistent. I breathed out of habit, and because it felt fucking weird not to, but something told me I didn’t need to. I was dead.

My throat seized at the thought and panic prickled across my skin.

Asha would find me in my bedroom, lifeless and gone from the world, and think the worst. The way they’d made it sound, I didn’t have a chance in hell—ha!—of getting out after he’d brought me here. It was the reason Zelus had worked so hard to protect me.

Because he had.

I believed it when I peered around at my new prison. He’d wanted to keep me from this place, and he’d begged my best friend and her terrifying new boyfriend, Death, to do it for him.

The more time I sat with Zelus’s last desperate act, the more I was convinced that what I felt for him wasn’t one-sided. Maybe the way my bestie had changed Thanatos’s mind was the way I’d changed Zelus’s.

Didn’t much matter anymore. I was already dead and in Hell. My captor, whose name I still didn’t know, hadn’t said anything more than that. He’d ordered me to sit quietly and went to his desk to do whatever it was asshole’s who kidnapped helpless human chicks did in their spare time.

I’d become one of the many room decorations over the last few hours. It was better than him touching me, though, so I was grateful I didn’t have to fight off a rapistwhile I was at it. I hadn’t been tortured, let alone touched. Other than labeling me as the bride my father had promised, he hadn’t done much else.

It fucking figured my own father had a hand in this. I’d always wondered how he’d gotten his money and power when I was confident he didn’t have any before I was born. His rise to the rich and powerful didn’t track. It was just like that asshole to strike a contract with a devil to get his way in life. But how was that even legal? Why my soul and not his? That wasn’t fucking fair.

First my childhood, now my afterlife.

Thanks, Dad.

I stared at the demon as he continued to peck at his laptop. I didn’t expect technology to be a thing in Hell. Magic and brimstone seemed more their vibe. Maybe some weird chanting and blood sacrifices. But I guess they appreciated the annoyance of a computer that sometimes decided it wouldn’t function properly. Not unlike the humans they abducted and forced to sit on couches.

I’d grown tired and annoyed that he hadn’t explained why I was here, so I finally stood and stomped over. “Why am I really here?”

The demon’s red eyes jerked up to me as if he never imagined I was capable of talking or justifiable anger. “That was already covered, Emily Jackson. You’re here to be my bride.”

“Yeah, sure. I got that. But why?”

His eyebrow rose in question. “Why what?”

“Why a bride? What do you need one for?”

That pretty mouth of his lifted into a sly smile and he leaned back. “Loneliness, perhaps.”

My arms locked over my chest, hip out. “Yeah, no. We both know that’s bullshit. If you’ve been keeping tabs on me, I’m sureyou’re already painfully aware how little evasive tactics work on someone like me.”

He was on his feet and towering over me in another heartbeat, but I didn’t step back. I didn’t need to. If he was going to torture me, then so be it.