Damned and Desirable (Eternally Yours Book 2) (23 page)

“I know, but he is a powerful demon, and I could use his haunting skills in the mortal realm.”

He said this without care that my heart was breaking. Callum wasn’t just another demon plaything for my enjoyment. He was my last tie to my mortal life, a reminder of my carefree days and freedom, a time when all I’d had to do was bat my lashes, and men of my choosing would fall over their feet to win my favors. My charms had even worked on Callum once; though it hadn’t been too long ago, it felt like ages.

But I could not let my master know the real reason I needed Callum, though it pained me to hide the truth from him. Over the years, I’d found weaknesses in the blood bond and learned how to secretly defy him while adapting to the discomfort.

“Do you think it wise to release him, Master?” I asked, a bold move to challenge his authority. My servitude had turned into one of testing boundaries, for I quickly learned he enjoyed my defiance, especially as it prompted him to come up with new forms of punishment.

He turned on me with a snarl, unsheathing his fangs as his tail rattled and curved above him. “Do you think it wise to question me?” Six hands hauled me out of bed, pulling my nude body up against his hard chest, dangling his venomous tail precariously close to my face.

I knew he wouldn’t strike there. My beauty was like a prize to him, a symbol of his status. My baby hissed as she slithered up my neck. I silently beckoned her to lie still. Though her venom was strong, she was no match for Scorpius.

“Forgive me, Master,” I begged as I forced my limbs to shake.

He cupped my cheek in his hand. “You’ve grown too brash, fair one. Perhaps I should beat you more often.” He must have seen the excitement in my expression, for his eyes lit up with a demonic glow as he chuckled. “Ahhh, but you’d enjoy it too much, wouldn’t you? I’ve forgotten what a whore you are.”

I blushed as I thought of the instruments of torture Master had used on me the previous night, and how I’d come to enjoy the sting of the cracking whip and the crushing grip of his tail wrapped around my throat while all six of his hands squeezed and prodded my tender flesh.

“Pleasure must be meted with pain,” I answered demurely, casting my gaze to the floor, knowing he took satisfaction in my subservience.

He cupped my breast in his strong grip, squeezing until I cried out. “My demons tell me my prisoner has not succumbed to your charms, though you appeared naked in his cell and tempted him with water. Why would he refuse such a fair angel?”

My lower lip quivered as I shook off the sting of Callum’s rejection. “I don’t know.”

He leaned into me, menace in his gaze. “Tell me the real reason you don’t want me to release him. Is it because he’s resistant to my torture or immune to your advances?”

I tried to pull away. “I simply do not want him causing trouble for you, Master.” He knew I was lying. I could sense it in his erratic pulse as he crushed me in his embrace.

“He won’t,” he answered on a low growl.

Batting my lashes, I looked at him with wide eyes, eyes that I knew drove him mad with desire. “How can you be sure?”

“Because he promised me he would not.”

I heard the rattle of his tail and then cried out when he struck my shoulder. The pain was so intense, I would have crumbled to the floor if he hadn’t held me in place.

The poison instantly took hold, causing my head to spin and my breaths to come in shallow gasps, and still I defied him. “And you believe his promise?”

“No, but he believes mine,” he said as he scraped a path down my neck and shoulder with sharp teeth. He suckled the poison from my wound, moments before the agony consumed me. “That if he ever were to cross me, I would bring him back to my dungeon and torture him for all eternity.”

Ash

I woke up with a splitting headache and a throbbing backside, shuddering as memories of my torture washed over me.

Fucking bitch.

She brought crazy ex-wife to a whole new level.

I sat up and looked at Callum, wondering how long I’d slept in the crook of his arm. His face was still pale, though there was a touch of color in his cheeks. He was sleeping soundly, the even rise and fall of his chest making me sigh with relief. Had the snake anti-venom worked?

I spun around at the booming commotion coming from the other end of the cell. That’s when I saw two bulging, grey eyes staring back at me. The giant. Katherine had locked him in the cage with us. I looked around the cell to see it was otherwise bare. Nobody had brought us food or beverage. I sure hoped this monster wasn’t hungry, and if he was, I sure hoped he was a vegetarian.

“Eat?” He asked as he held something out to me, the chains around his wrists clanking with the movement.

For a moment, I thought it was a corndog before I realized it was the headless body of a rat.

I ignored the rumbling in my stomach and waved it away. “No thanks,” I lied. “I’m not hungry.”

Truthfully, I was hungry enough to eat almost anything, even gluten, though I knew it would run right through me, but I had to draw the line at cave rat.

My idea of eating almost anything was more along the lines of a hot dog without mustard or an overcooked chicken sandwich with no mayo.

Yeah, roughing it, I know.

Garf commenced to eating the rat without me, curling it up in his long tongue and rolling it into his wide mouth, swallowing it whole. I briefly wondered if Garf was related to a frog, because he had the mannerisms of one. I almost wanted to tell him to chew his food or he’d get indigestion, but I left it alone. If he didn’t get an upset stomach from dirty, raw rat, he had a gut of iron.

“Do those chains hurt you?” I asked as I pointed to the scars on his wrists and neck.

He frowned. “Yah.”

He got up and stomped over to me, falling to his knees with a thud that made me bounce off my pallet.

“I’m sorry, Garf.” I scooted back and smoothed a hand through my frizzy hair, trying my best to keep my composure. I held out a hand, praying he wouldn’t crush it. “I’m Ash. Nice to meet you.”

Fortunately, he only held out one grimy finger. I tried not to think about where that finger had been when I shook it.

He pouted and scratched his head. “You not act like demon.”

“I’m not a demon.” I shrugged. “I’m not supposed to be, anyway.”

He pointed at my feathers. “You haf wings, like angel.”

“I wish.” I rolled my eyes, thinking of the night I’d died. The sex. The party. The cheesecake. Did I mention the sex? I’d fallen a long way down since that night. Getting kicked out of Heaven and winding up in this shithole had to be the worst demotion of the century. Not even close to the time my old boss, Mr. Schwartz, had cut my hours after I called him a dickwad. I heaved a sigh as I crossed my legs. “If God would have let me stay in Heaven, I wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

His eyes widened as he angled back his long neck. “A fawen Angel.”

“Sort of.”

His bottom lip trembled for a moment, and then he straightened his shoulders. Whew. For a minute there, I’d thought he was going to lose it. And then he buried his face in his hands and bawled so loud, he sounded like a dying elephant.

Just great.

“Please don’t cry,” I begged.

He pulled his hands from his eyes and sat up, smiling ear to ear. “Okay, Garf no cry.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. “You’re not like a demon, either.” He was more like a ginormous toddler than anything. An ugly ginormous toddler. Poor guy.

His grin tilted to one side. “Garf not demon. Garf Nephilim.”

“Nephilim?” I briefly remembered hearing about them in Sunday school during one of those rare times I’d been paying attention. I thought they were the children of a forbidden love affair between fallen angels and mortals. I couldn’t understand why he had been cast down to hell, and I certainly didn’t get why he’d been chained up like a dog. “You’re too nice to be her slave.”

His bottom lip hung off his face like a deflated tire. “Garf not like being Miftress’s slave. Miftress trick Nephilim. She come to Nephilim den and say she angel come to take Garf to Heaven.” He wiped a tear off his face with the back of his hand. “She no angel. She no take Garf to Heaven.”

My heart broke at the sorrow reflected in his watery eyes. Forget the torture Katherine had put me through. What she’d done to this gentle giant was far worse. She deserved to be cast down to the lowest level of this rat-infested shit hole. “I’m sorry. When was this?”

He frowned as his shoulders slumped. “Garf no remember. Long, long time.”

I fluttered up to him and placed both hands on his grimy knuckles, squeezing. The look of appreciation in those big grey eyes almost made my trip to Hell worth it. Almost.

“I wish there was a way we could all get out of here,” I said as I squeezed harder. But I knew there was no way out, not when we were at the mercy of such powerful demons. Unless God decided to take pity on a frizzy-haired fallen angel, a scorned son of sin, and a damned and desirable dragon, our future looked pretty hopeless.

Present Day

Katherine O’Connor

I rode on top of my demon master, careful not to disturb his venomous tail, which hovered above us. Sliding up and down the slick length of his massive shaft, I cried out as my orgasm crested. I paused, holding my breath, grinding his thick head deep into my channel as my juices flooded around him. Heaving a sigh of contentment, I fell against his chest. I always took my pleasure first, for I knew if I did not, he would leave me unsated.

His tail rattled as he yanked the chain around my neck and flipped me over, digging his claws into the globes of my ass while stretching my anus open with another set of strong hands. I hissed when he jammed his head into my puckered hole without having prepared me for his girth. My delicate skin ripped open when he slid in with one forceful thrust.

Screaming, I tried to pull away, but he dug another set of claws into my sides, anchoring himself inside me, thrusting once, twice, three times more before he roared and stilled. His warm seed spurted in deep pulses, causing another orgasm to rip through me with painful pleasure. I groaned my delight. The agony had been so worth it. When he was entirely spent, he slid out, saying not a word as I mopped up blood and sperm.

Frowning, I looked at his broad backside, which would have been magnificent had it not been shrouded by that skeletal tail. It clacked like a sack full of marbles as he flexed all six muscular arms and admired his form in the chipped, full-length mirror. He truly was a specimen to behold, tall and muscular with skin the color of polished onyx, an immortal demon king, and I, as his lover, was his queen.

But something about our lovemaking troubled me. Though Master’s passion was rarely tender, he tempered his brutality with soothing words. Not today. I suspected he was upset by Callum’s betrayal, or perhaps he’d heard the rumor that a Grim Reaper had been spotted wandering the caves with a two-headed beast. I could only wonder if that Grim was my former husband searching for his bitch, impossible as it seemed. Why would he save her, when he never bothered to come looking for me?

I turned down my lip, pretending I was a petulant child. “You did not call me your ‘fair one’ today.”

He turned to me slowly, orange eyes glowing against dark, smooth skin. “Maybe I do not find you as fair as you once were.”

My breath hitched, and I was momentarily stunned into silence. “Surely you don’t mean it.”

He gestured to the cage beyond our bed. “My demons tell me you abused my prisoner, though I did not give you leave to torture her.”

“She was asking for it,” I spat. How could he care more for the hide of some worthless whore than for my tender heart?

“You fool.” He stormed up to the bed, leaning over me with a menacing snarl. “I need her spirit whole.”

I fell back, my baby slithering beside me as she hissed at my lover. “She will recover in time,” I answered weakly, hoping my master was playing a game, though I did not detect the familiar spark of desire beneath the thunderous look in his eyes.

His gaze raked my nude body as if the sight of me somehow left a sour taste in his mouth. “Do you not know who she is?”