Page 27 of The Bell’s Toll (Wanderlust Emporium Presents, Season One)

chapter eighteen

Raziel

A s carefully as possible, I remove Nasiah’s arm from around my chest. Her naked body is sprawled on top of me. After we made it back to the penthouse and made sure that Erazel was on the mend, I took her back to our room and fucked her until she fell asleep.

Seeing her in danger and knowing how close she came to being taken from me, does something to me. And the only thing that has proven to calm me down when I’m that fucking angry is sliding between her thighs.

I quickly dress in dark gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt. Sticking my feet in my tennis shoes, I head out of the room. I look back over my shoulder at my heart lying in the bed.

Nasiah still has no idea how important she is to me. She doesn’t yet grasp the lengths I’ll go to for her. That bond is just the beginning of my connection to her, but this shit is deeper. So deep that I’m about to start a got damn war over her.

The covers are pulled up to her neck, covering her body. I step out the door. The knight remains stationed outside our bedroom.

“Do not move from this spot. If you hear anything coming from that room other than her snores, you go in. Do you understand?”

He dips his chin. “Yes, dominus.”

My house is protected from anything just slipping through the void, but I wasn’t taking chances with her.

I stop by the guest room to check on Erazel. He’s sitting up in bed, his chest, shoulder and back are wrapped in white gauze. Tanisha is sitting by his bed, her head resting down by his side. Her soft snores tell me she’s fast asleep. Erazel opens an eye, peeking at me.

“How long are you going to pretend you’re hurt?” I ask through our mind link.

He looks down at the girl, then back at me with a big grin. “Give me until tomorrow afternoon. I’m making progress with her. She held my hand.”

I shake my head. “Alright, but I want you back at your post by nightfall tomorrow.”

“I got you.”

Tanisha stirs. He quickly shuts his eyes. I slip back out of the room. Conah meets me on the other side of the door.

“Is he still faking hurt for that girl?”

Erazel took some serious injuries from the bog fiends, but he’s a high-level demon. His injuries were healed about ten minutes after he got them.

“I gave him until tomorrow night to make his move.”

Conah chuckles as he walks beside me. Without another word, I enter the void. He follows behind me. When we come out on the other side, we’re back in the apartment of Nasiah’s ex.

The ex is in the living room, sitting in a wheelchair. From my understanding, he’s only there because he’s in rehab for his bruised spine. He’s lucky.

The sister walks in with a bowl in her hands. “I have your dinner, baby,” she purrs.

“Damn it, Ro, I don’t want any more fucking soup,” the piece of shit yells at the sister shoving the soup out of his face. It spills over, falling onto the blanket in his lap.

The sad and forlorn look on her face would make me feel sorry for her, but I don’t. I step out from behind the wall separating the void from the human realm. The looks on both of their faces are comical. Pure fear stares back at me.

“Hello again,” I say a lot calmer than I feel.

“We don’t want any more problems,” the ex pleads. “I’m staying away from Nasiah.”

My jaw ticks hearing her name slip from his mouth. I move my head from side to side.

“I advise you to keep her name out of your mouth. Unless you want to hold your tongue in your hand.”

The color drains from his face.

I put my attention back on the sister. “I’m going to ask you only once; did you place a death mark on your sister?”

Her brows pinch. “What?”

Again, my jaw tenses. I don’t know why these two humans pretend to be daft.

“Did you summon a demon to go after Nasiah?” Conah asks. I guess he could feel my tension rising. I’m trying not to leave any more bodies than I need to. If the sister placed the mark on Nasiah, then I have every right to kill her.

“What are they talking about?” the ex asks, confused.

Rochelle’s gaze bounces from us to Jamieson. “I…I..” she stutters.

I take slow steps toward her.

“The night I placed him in that wheelchair,” I say, continuing to walk up on her.

With each step I take she takes one back until her back hits the wall. “You told your sister that you wished she’d died. Now, I’m here to find out just how low you’d go to make that shit happen.”

“Did you seriously tell Nas….”

When I turn to glare at the ex he swallows the last few syllables of Nasiah’s name down.

“Your sister that?” he finishes his sentence.

I turn back to the woman in front of me. Her eyes water. Mine turn black. Her whole-body shakes, rattling the spoon inside the soup bowl in her hand.

“Okay, yes, I said that to her. But I was angry. I thought they killed you,” she tries to plead to the worthless man behind me.

“I can’t believe you. You should have never—”

“Fuck that,” I growl.

I didn’t give a shit about her threatening Nasiah. I need to know what she did after the threat. Wrapping a hand around the sister’s neck, I lift her off the ground. The bowl of soup falls to the floor.

“This is my last time asking you. Did you summon a demon to kill your sister?”

“N….n….no,” she chokes out. I sniff the air trying to see if she’s lying. She isn’t.

“Show me your arms,” I demand.

She quickly exposes her arms to me. Her mark wouldn’t be visible to the human eye like Nasiah’s, but I’d be able to see it. There’s nothing there.

I growl, releasing my hold on her. She drops to the floor at my feet.

Stepping away from her, I feel my anger rising. If it wasn’t her sister, who the fuck could’ve done it? I guess I’ll have to find who placed the mark and backtrack to find out who ordered it.

I walk back over to Conah. There is nothing else here for me.

“I won’t lie like Nasiah is my favorite person,” the sister says, causing me to turn and look at her.

She’s still lying on the ground, her back to the wall and her knees tucked into her chest. “But even as much as I hate her, I’d ask no one to kill her.” The scent of her words tells me she’s telling the truth.

Because I’m forsaken, I can scent truth and lies from humans. Demons are much better at it than the forsaken. They can scent lies even before they ask the question sometimes.

I dip my chin at her.

“Wait,” the ex calls out. “Is she okay?”

The sister turns and glares at him. I wonder if she’ll ever understand that no matter how much she does for him, she’ll never really have his heart.

He didn’t want the sister because he was in love with her; he wanted her only because he had Nasiah. He enjoyed the rush he got from cheating. However, there was no doubt he wanted Nasiah.

“She is no longer your concern,” I say through gritted teeth.

His fist comes down on the arm of his chair.

“Damn it,” he snarls. “I get it. Her mother made some fucked up deal with you a long time ago, but she is my fiancé. I’ve been with her for three years. I deserve to know if she’s safe.”

He’s right. This man spent three years being in love with her. I came in and took her right from under him. The right thing to do would be to tell him how she’s doing.

“I don’t owe you shit. She’s mine now.” I turn my back to him and open the void.

“You muthafucker,” he shouts behind me. “You don’t deserve Nasiah.”

He knew the moment the name came out of his mouth he’d fucked up. I smile at Conah before my wings spring from my back. The sister screams. I fly to the ex. Grabbing his face in my hand, I snarl down at him.

“You just won’t fucking learn, will you?”

I squeeze his face in my hand causing him to open his mouth. I reach in and grab his tongue, pulling it as far as it will go. Using the talon at the end of my wing, I remove the tip. It falls into his lap as he screams. Letting him go, I step back and admire my work.

Without another thought, I fly back over to the doorway into the void and slip through.

Conah’s chuckle has me looking at him as we walk through the shadowy realm of the void to get to our next destination.

“You warned him.”

“And yet he didn’t listen.”

I step out of the void and into my office. Unina is there waiting for us.

“How did it go?” she asks.

“Not the sister,” Conah says, taking a seat on the sofa in my office.

Despite ripping the ex’s tongue out, I wasn’t in a good mood. I figured if I could find the human that ordered the mark, I could illuminate the problem quickly.

However, in all honesty, the human could have been anyone. If a demon disliked me enough, he could’ve found any human to place the order. They may not even know Nasiah.

“I need to find who placed the mark,” I say. “It will be easier that way.” I take my seat behind my desk.

“I can reach out to a few people in the underworld,” Conah offers. “See if they know anything. Someone has to be talking down there.”

Death marks don’t really work that way. No one is going to openly discuss it. Only the demons hired to hunt the mark will know who sent them.

However, they are basically under a spell with only one focus: to eliminate the one that’s marked. Talking to them would be fruitless. But I’m desperate, so I’m willing to try anything.

“Do that for me,” I tell Conah. “I also think it’s time to take a visit to Gadiel.”

Conah’s eyes widen. “Without proof?”

“Fuck proof. If that asshole has a death mark on my mate, I don’t care about—”

My words are cut short when a waver in the void catches my attention. If someone is knocking to get into my office, it means something is wrong. I release the lock on the void, and Cadaman steps in. He’s a knight that works as security at the number eight portal. He looks frazzled.

“We have a problem. The portal is doing something strange.”

His words cause a sinking feeling in my stomach. The number eight portal is one of my largest portals, and it’s in my busiest casino. One that happens to be open to humans.

“Fuck,” I growl before slipping through the void. Conah, Unina, and Cadaman are on my heels.