Page 30 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

B EE L ZE B U B

“Come on, Asmodeus,” I groaned, glancing around the communal area where his favored pets waited to entertain him.

Some of them had already engaged with partners, seeking pleasure from one another while they waited for him to make his choice of who he might favor that night.

Like he was some kind of a blessing and not a pain in the ass, as if it was an honor to engage in sexual games with a man who got off on suffering as much as he did pleasure.

His favor was easily gained, but just as easily lost, and each of these poor souls who existed in the luxury of his home believed they would be different.

That he would favor them for an eternity the way he did Amelia, keeping them here and allowing them to avoid the pain of the fate that awaited them on those cliffs.

But in all our time here, in the centuries since Amelia had arrived and filled the void, nobody had even been aware how Asmodeus felt, no one had piqued his interest in such a way.

No one had earned the right to remain, and all had returned to their eternity when he tired of them.

It shouldn’t have been possible for the witch to ensnare him as the lord of Lust, yet his infatuation with her company never faded.

“You know I cannot just allow her to pass. She has to earn the right like any of the other souls who think they can just stroll through my circle,” he said, keeping his voice low.

It wasn’t common knowledge among the souls that they could avoid their eternity of suffering by earning the approval of each of the circles, by passing through each one and offering up their sins for judgment.

While some knew, I was sure, few ever made it past their own circle.

Few could conquer the sin that had claimed them, keeping them trapped endlessly.

“She’s not even fucking dead! Why should she need to pay the circles with her own sins when she still breathes?

She’s hardly looking to become one of us,” I said with a scoff.

The idea of my sweet Margot desiring to become a demon was an impossibility, her fear and terror of this place founded in a lifetime of lessons about the evils at play here.

I couldn’t blame her, because I’d seen them for myself over my eternity of life, but I had to admit, I’d seen less pure goodness on the surface than I’d expected.

Her Coven had been misguided at best, cruel and deserving of their eventual fate if we focused on reality.

“The rules are the rules, Beelzebub. If I waived them for her, it would open my circle up to the possibility of needing to do so in the future. I cannot allow souls that belong to me to have a free pass just because you want to fuck one of them,” Asmodeus said, the tone of his voice hardening.

He wasn’t known for his anger because the lifestyle he led was one of casual, late-night comforts and sleepy mornings in bed.

He was flirtatious and at ease, relaxed where I had to be structured.

For him to be the stickler for rules was a flip in our relationship I had never seen coming.

Usually I was the one who had to harp on the other lords to keep to our natural order.

“She isn’t yours,” I said, watching as his brow rose at the growl in my voice.

At the way the Enochian runes covering my body seemed to shimmer with their agreement.

I grasped my necklace between my fingers to calm my violent energy, fingering the scythe that was my weapon of choice.

With a flick of my wrist, I would have it in hand, able to defend Margot should it come to that.

But no matter how hard I fought, no matter who I killed, I wouldn’t be able to drag her through the boundary between the Second and Third Circles if the lust here didn’t will it to be possible.

Asmodeus readied his stance, having known me long enough to recognize when I was ready to fight.

Our impulses ran hot, but where mine ran to fighting for the ability to consume my possessions thanks to the gluttony that was mine to command, his ran to fucking them.

He glanced over my shoulder, his eyes straying to the top of the stairs as his brows rose.

“Tell that to her magic,” he said, leaning closer to speak the words softly.

He was right, I knew. Because even though Margot so rarely dared to touch the magic that hummed within her, it was impossible to miss.

It radiated off of her like waves of light, making her skin appear to shimmer faintly like a goddess.

“She is more than her magic,” I said in dismissal, despising the order of things for the first time in my long existence.

The need to protect her was so at odds with the way I was meant to feel.

I was supposed to revel in the fact that another witch would suffer.

I sighed, hating that I’d had to resort to the second part of my plan to get Margot through the Second Circle without any cost to her. “If you won’t let her pass out of loyalty to Lucifer and what He would want, then do it as a favor to me.”

Asmodeus stilled, his face turning thoughtful. Favors were not something the archdemons handed out often, a commodity we rarely dared to deal in with one another. The ways that the receiving party could demand they be paid back were often far more terrible than just facing the initial problem.

Yet here I was, offering myself up on behalf of a witch that had wormed her way beneath my skin and sung a song I couldn’t unhear.

“Tempting,” Asmodeus drawled, lifting a hand and tapping his fingers against his bottom lip thoughtfully. “I never thought I’d see the day that the great and mighty Beelzebub would need a favor from me.”

“Don’t expect it to happen again, so I suggest you take me up on this offer while it lasts,” I grunted, crossing my arms over my chest as I waited for the inevitable.

Only a fool wouldn’t take the offer of a favor from me.

“No,” he said, drawing the word out far too slowly for my liking.

“She matters to you if you’re willing to make me an offer like that.

Now I am very interested in finding out why.

I can only do that if I have some more time with her, you see?

” he asked, a twisted chuckle escaping his mouth.

It was gleeful, almost childlike, as if he enjoyed the prospect of keeping my favorite toy trapped in a cage to which only he held the key.

“You fucking asshole—”

“There is a way for you to avoid all of this, you know,” Asmodeus said, his grin spreading as he turned to make eye contact with one of the women who trailed her hand over the back of his shoulders as she passed.

“Invoke Dominion and she’s all yours. None of us would be able to attempt to lay claim to her if you do,” he said, and I pursed my lips in frustration.

I hadn’t shared that option with Margot, because I’d known beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not an option.

She would never forgive me if I tried to do it, would be repulsed by the very notion that I would lay claim to her and tie her to me and me alone.

It would make me no better than Itan, acting without thought or care for what she wanted.

“I can’t do that to her,” I said, and the words seemed to surprise Asmodeus as much as they did me.

I couldn’t do that to her. No mention of what being bound to one woman for eternity would do to me .

Fucking witches.

He smirked, catching his bottom lip between his teeth as he shifted his attention to the space behind me.

It left me no choice but to drop my grip on my scythe, turning to find Amelia and Margot arm in arm at the top of the stairs.

Amelia had paused there, a smile across her face as she spoke to Margot.

I saw it from the periphery of my vision as my stare narrowed in on Margot, my gaze sweeping from head to toe and back again.

Her hair was freshly styled, free from sweat and sand from our journey. Whatever Amelia had done to it, the loose curls framed her stunning face perfectly, accentuating the natural brown hues of the makeup she wore. She wore less than Amelia, and yet what was there brought out her natural beauty.

Amelia pulled her arm out from Margot’s after patting the other woman reassuringly, descending the staircase with the grace she’d learned after centuries of life in this twisted court.

I let my gaze drift from Margot for a brief moment, for the first time noticing the similarities between their faces.

While Amelia had dark hair and light eyes, she was Margot’s opposite in most ways but the angles of their faces, the softness of their features and delicate femininity to the curve of their jaws and the shape of their noses were all the same. Nearly identical, even.

That was where the similarities ended. Amelia was taller, more willowy, where Margot was an hourglass.

She was much taller than Willow and most of her other friends, but curves were packed onto her frame, making her look like walking sin.

The dress Amelia had given her, fitted in her waist and hugging her hips, brought out each of those curves as she started a slow, meticulous descent down the stairs when Amelia reached the bottom and turned to hold out a hand for her.

I was horrifically aware of the silence in the room, of the moans that had stopped and the breathing that had quieted to watch her.

I couldn’t separate my own desire from the need pulsing in the room, the power of lust coating my skin and strengthening the natural attraction that pulsed between Margot and I like a tangible, breathing thing.

As much as it pained me to admit, even without having heard her song and feeling the call to her, I would have known Margot was breathtaking and wanted her.

Her eyes came to me, her chest rising with her nerves. I forced myself to still, to try to give her a safe place to land as I approached the bottom of the stairs to wait for her.

But attraction didn’t explain the way my breathing hitched. It didn’t explain the very way my heart beat for her. That part was just the call of her song.

It had to be.

I couldn’t stop my gaze from leaving hers, from taking in the lines of her body, the swells of her breasts as they spilled out the top of her low-cut dress.

The red fabric hugged them, the faintest hint of her nipples visible through the fabric.

Everything in me went solid at the sight, my cock thickening in spite of my best intentions as I took in the clear sign of the very last thing I’d expected to find on my songbird’s body.

On either side of her nipple was another, smaller mark.

She was pierced.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry as my gaze rose back to hers.

Her lips pressed together, understanding lighting her eyes as she wet her mouth with her tongue.

She moved with more sway than I was used to, her hips moving from side to side as she came down those stairs.

As if her usual control had already been shed, her body lost to the magic of the circle and releasing her from her inhibitions.

As a Red witch, she was more susceptible to the magic here than most, her body complying with the sin that owned her without regard for what her mind wanted.

If that was the case, this night would test every bit of my control.

I wouldn’t allow her to make choices that would not be entirely her own, wouldn’t allow her to give me parts of her I hadn’t yet earned, and it shocked me just how fervently I wanted to earn them.

No matter how much I may have wanted to take them, to take them and claim them and use them as a reminder when she tried to change her mind when we left the next morning.

Her body already belonged to me. It was her mind I needed to possess, her mind I needed to convince to give in to whatever this fucking pulsating attraction came down to.

It was more than lust, making my blood simmer with unfamiliar warmth.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, pausing on the final one to glance between Amelia and me.

If she went with Amelia, I had little doubt the Red witch would guide her to engage in the festivities, to give herself into her lust wholeheartedly.

It wouldn’t even be done maliciously; I knew Amelia well enough to know that.

She seemed to believe nearly everything could be solved through sex, that it could be the ultimate outlet for all the pain that Margot held within, and would do it out of a desire to help Margot.

It certainly had been an outlet for Amelia personally, and while I was beyond grateful the witch had found that way to deal with her own trauma when she’d needed it, I hoped she could see that she and Margot were not the same in spite of their relation.

Margot turned to me with a deep sigh that deflated her chest, raising her hand cautiously to place within my waiting palm.

I smiled down at her, tucking her into my arm and raising a wing to shield her from view.

I didn’t obstruct her vision of what was in front of her, but used it to offer her privacy from prying eyes that might be behind us.

“Thank you,” Margot said, her voice soft enough that only I could hear as she peered up at me from beneath her lashes.

She didn’t so much as tip her head up to meet the full weight of my attention, but she reached out and ran a single finger down the edge of my wing.

The light, teasing touch shot straight to my groin, and I fought back the strangled sound that clawed up my throat from my shock.

She knew they were sensitive, and still she’d chosen to touch them.

Her inhibitions were already lowered, her walls dropping bit by bit, and the night had only just begun.

I was damned.