Demon Bound (Bound Series, Book One)

Book 1 of the Bound Series

By Eve Newton

Copyright © Eve Newton, 2015

Produced by Newton Publishing

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner

The demon, Axelle, sat in that cheap car and watched them leave the church, happy and smiling and newly married. So disgusting. She wanted to rip their happiness apart at the seams.

Axelle had clawed her way back out of hell after the exorcism--something very few demons ever accomplish--and she had been really disappointed to find that her host body had found a way to keep her out by drinking holy water. She had wanted to come back and destroy the lives that had done that to her.

But she was incredibly weak and she’d had to find the next nearest host and it happened to be
this
.

She looked down at herself in this body and shuddered. It was a man for a start. And an overweight one at that. Axelle wanted slim, beautiful, blonde Lacey back. How was she supposed to wreak havoc among men if she was one, for hell’s sake? She would have to turn the tide and wreak havoc among women instead. Didn’t sound so much fun.

Axelle had tried to jump ship a few days ago, but she was stuck here until she regained enough strength to leave. Who knew how long that would be? All she knew was that marriage had to end. That bitch had no right to take her slave and change him. Slade looked, eurgh, happy.

He was supposed to be suffering. She hadn’t worked for two years to create the perfect slave to have him decide to be
happy
. He was all she could think about during her short time back in hell. His body was strong, even though his mind was weak. The perfect combination in her opinion. He had survived when she had tried to kill him in a fit of temper at him for defying her. And she wanted him back. All she had to do was get rid of that tramp, Trixie, that Lacey hides behind, get her out of hiding and Slade would be hers again.

“Ah, ah, ah,” a terrifyingly smooth voice behind her said, and her blood ran cold.

Axelle turned to see the Devil seated on the backseat behind her and she swallowed loudly. She was so busted.

“You know the rules,” he continued. “No demon bitch gets to leave
twice
. You got caught and now you stay.” He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and she gulped. She was a goner, for real this time.

Axelle felt herself being ripped from the fat man’s body and the last thing she remembered was the happy, smiling faces of a couple in love as she was swallowed whole, consumed by the purest evil, and then there was one less demon in the world.

“Let me out of here!” Axelle screams for what feels like the millionth time. She beats her inky, black ‘fists’ on the fire bars of her prison cell.

“NOW!” she screams again, but as usual, she is screaming to herself.

Axelle hates her voice down here. It is always an unholy shriek, never anything remotely melodic. She screams in frustration and whips around in a circle.

She hates everything about being down here. She has no body--only this black smudge that is her true essence, no proper voice, no food, no wine, and the worst part is no sex!

Axelle is a seductress. A demon created especially for the purpose of seducing humans, tempting them with sex and then luring them into her web and ultimately their deaths, for their souls to be collected and sent straight to hell. The fact that Axelle likes to maim and torture and torment her victims is just a little something she adds to keep her own depraved nature fed. She had been back on earth doing her job and loving every second of it for nearly two hundred years, but now she is trapped for eternity with only her memories to comfort her.

She is a black smudge that has been wiped away, banished to the inner circle of hell for her crime. Her only crime of being caught and sent back here. Well, and the clawing her way back out again. She supposes that is the real reason why she is in this hell hole.

The Devil lets you out of the gate once. If you get exorcised back home then that’s your lot, you stay here to live out your existence at the whim of your creator. Axelle had never expected that her weak-minded slave-man, Slade Johnson, would have had the balls to get rid of her.

The bastard
. She sighs. It’s such a pity he betrayed her. She thought she’d taught him better than that. She misses him--in as much as she can actually miss anything--she misses him. He was the perfect slave, always so attentive and willing to indulge her dark side and damaged. Oh, how damaged he was, he was ready for the taking. It didn’t take much tempting to get him into her clutches. No, he was ripe for the picking and really she should have killed him months ago, but she wanted to keep him just for herself for just a little bit longer. It was just too much fun to play with him.

But then that little bitch, Trixie, came out and took him away from her. Axelle had really wanted to stick around and make sure that Lacey became the dominant personality of that host body again, so she could see to it that their happiness was destroyed. Unfortunately, the Devil caught up with her and she was sent back here, banished into this fiery cell to rot away until he decides to set her free.

If
he hasn’t forgotten about her already. It is a strong possibility as she can hear the cries of hundreds of other lost essences trapped in this pit.

Axelle really hopes that he hasn’t forgotten her. She doesn’t think that she can cope with being imprisoned for much longer. Time has lost all meaning now and she has no idea how long she has been locked in here.

Long enough
. Axelle vaporizes her inky black self and tries once more in vain to get out of this ring of fire keeping her trapped. As expected, she fails and she screams again into the dark in frustration.

“Axelle!” the Devil suddenly snaps at her. “Be quiet, that incessant shrieking is grating on my nerves,” he adds in his beautifully terrifying, yet somehow soothing voice.

Sure, he gets to sound pretty while she only gets to wail like a banshee. No offense to banshees, of course, nasty bitches.

“Please let me out,” she cries to him, floating over to the bars of the cell, getting as close as she dares before he zaps her back into the middle of the circle. He smiles at her, it is a perfect curve of his lips and it has her mesmerized for just a moment.

“I’m not sure I can trust you,” he says, examining his perfectly manicured nails. He has come to her in a disguise so perfect and handsome, she loathes him. She wishes he would show her his true self instead of this sexy, smoldering, suited, dark-haired, blue-eyed creature before her cage.

Rumor has it, only one lucky demon bitch has ever seen his true self. Or should that be
unlucky
? She was too weak and it fried her eyes out of her head before she went mentally insane. Axelle knows she is stronger than that. She is the only female demon to get out of this place once she’d been sent back. One of three in the whole history of hell to accomplish this task. The Devil knows what she has in her and she hopes that he has found a use for her many talents and hasn’t just come down here to torment her and then leave her down here for eternity.

“You can,” she wails again. “You can trust me. I am yours to command, just let me out of here!”

“Yes, you are mine,” he says lasciviously, raking his eyes over her. She is unsure why he finds this black smudge so appealing, but there again he did create her out of someone’s damned soul two hundred years ago. There must be something here that he finds attractive. “All mine,” he adds and then vanishes from her sight and she wails. Loudly and for a really long time.

He left her here.

Axelle was at the top of her game before she underestimated Slade. It was a foolish move, but she hadn’t realized that he had drawn a strength from that silly slut, Trixie. She should have seen it coming and now her punishment is well and truly underway.

She hovers in mid-air, shutting off her shrieks with a grim determination. She will show the Devil that he can’t break her. No one can break Axelle. She is to be feared and respected and worshipped, not dumped in some hell pit to be forgotten. The Devil came down here for a reason and wailing at him in a weak and pathetic manner will get her nowhere. No, she needs to show him her strength, remind him what she is capable of. She will float here in this very spot, quiet and composed, until he returns for her.

Fuck, she hopes he returns for her.

***

The Devil watches Axelle from his place right in front of her cell. He hasn’t gone anywhere, just made his form invisible to her. He tilts his head and narrows his eyes at her. What is she doing? She has stopped making that relentless noise and is hovering in the center of the circle; the only movement being made is the shimmer of her form as she flickers up and down. He has been watching her for sometime now. She has been locked away for seven months and not once has she stopped moving or screaming. She has more energy in her than he has ever seen from a female essence. It has drawn his attention to her for a very specific task and now he waits to see what her next move will be.

Nothing.

He stands there, as still as she, watching her for hours. She makes not a peep, nor a movement.

He realized about two hours ago what she is trying to do. She is showing him that she has accepted her fate and that she is strong enough to endure it. He admires that about her. He has long since had his eye on her, she is his best seductress--
was
his best seductress--sending him soul after tormented soul to turn into new demon essences to do with as he chooses. It is a shame she got caught, he thought at the time, she has more smarts than that, but a rule is a rule. Once exorcised you remain here to make room for the new ones to be given a chance to prove themselves. There are only so many host bodies--humans able to harness a demon essence--on earth and seeing as essences cannot survive up there without a host, he cannot set free his entire nation of minions to wreak havoc and bring forth Armageddon. Much to his disgust and disappointment.

He blinks after another hour has passed and even though he could stand here and watch her for eternity, as she has the one of the darkest spirits he has ever seen and it excites him, but he really has something he needs to take care of now. He has decided and now it is time to take action and make his preparations.

She is the one.

As Axelle hovers she starts to get bored. Really, really bored. She felt like someone was watching her for the longest time, but now that feeling has gone and instead she feels like the cage is closing in on her. She wants to move, to scream, to vent her frustrations, but she has made her choice and so she must remain still and silent until the Devil comes back for her. She blocks out the cries of the other prisoners and wishes that she could sleep to pass the time away. Demons don’t sleep in this form; there is no need for such a triviality. Instead, the time just ticks away for an undetermined amount of time and she jumps slightly when she hears her name.

“Axelle,” the Devil says softly.

“Hello,” she says coolly, determined not to show him any emotion this time around.

“Hello,” he replies and if she didn’t know better, she could have sworn she saw him stifle a chuckle.

“Back so soon?” she asks glibly and hopes that he doesn’t take that as an invitation to leave.

“Hm,” he says and in the blink of an eye, he is inside the cage with her. “Accepted your fate?” he asks.

“Depends,” she says. “You got something better for me to do than waste away in this cage?”

“Perhaps,” he says and snaps his fingers.

Axelle feels the strangest feeling wash over her, almost as if someone has stuffed her into a package, and then she blinks. Blinks actual eyes and with her brand new eyes, she chances a look down at herself.

She has a body! He has given her a human form, and a gorgeous one at that. She flicks her long, blonde hair over her shoulder and runs her hands over her perfect breasts, over her slim waist and down to her thighs. She is dressed in a white blouse and black leather pants with six-inch black heels. Oh, yes!

“Your preferred look, yes?” he asks her with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, yes,” she moans in delight in a voice so beautiful she wants to weep. “It’s perfect.”

“So happy to please you,” he drawls and snaps his fingers again. The fiery ring disappears and she takes a hesitant step out tasting sweet freedom.

“I have a job for you,” he says and takes her arm, looping it through his.

“Anything,” she says eagerly. So bored is she, the idea of working is a welcome relief. She doesn’t think for a second that he will send her back to earth to continue in her chaos demon ways, but she keeps her long, elegant fingers crossed anyway.

“You will be collecting souls,” he says, as he leads her to an escalator that takes them up to the next level of hell. It’s like a damned, fiery mall down here.

“A
Reaper
?” she says in disgust before she can stop herself. They are the bottom of the food chain with regard to employment around here. Well, Reapers and Cleaners… as in actual cleaners, not the kind that get rid of dead bodies. She had been hoping for something more in the way of murder and mayhem.

“Oh no, that isn’t the right fit for you,” the Devil says and she breathes a sigh of relief.

Phew, that was close
. “Then what?” she asks.

“You will be in the Inbound Administration office cataloguing the souls as they come through the door,” he says with an evil glint to his sparkling, blue eyes.

“
Admin
?” she shrieks and he makes a face at her tone. If Reapers are the bottom of the food chain, then Inbound Administrators are the pond scum that pond scum feeds on! She had forgotten about those. She’d rather be a Cleaner.

“Someone has to do it,” he says with a shrug, “And the last one was just a temp.”

“A temp?” she asks. How do you ‘temp’ in hell?

“If you feel you are too good for this position, then I can always find someone else and you can go back to your cage, my dear,” the Devil says with a slight crease to his brow.

“No, I’ll take it,” she says quickly, anxious to keep on his good side. Besides, anything to get out of that prison cell, right? And it doesn’t exactly sound too taxing. Surely she can kill this job and be promoted within a few days. If he is trying to teach her a lesson in starting on the bottom rung, then so be it. She knows she was given a great honor when she was given her seductress stripes right off the bat, but she is a fighter if nothing else. She will play his game and she will win.

The Devil leads her through a maze of corridors, all a dull shade of light gray, and into a large office with light gray walls and floor, and hideous fluorescent lightning that makes her eyes water.

“This is Roberta,” the Devil says to her, gesturing to a female body so immense she probably takes up three of Axelle and the Devil put together. “She will assign you a desk.”

Axelle looks around, but doesn’t see anything except miles of empty office space. “A desk?” she asks tentatively.

“I will leave you with Roberta now,” the Devil says by way of an answer. “Do not disappoint me again, Axelle. This is your last chance.” He vanishes with a puff of smoke after that warning and Axelle turns to Roberta and blinks.

The huge, ugly bitch is glaring down at her and she resists the urge to flinch.

“Not what I would have picked for you, but you should find yourself honored my liege was generous enough to fit you out himself,” Roberta sneers at her.

Axelle once again looks down at herself and feels mildly insulted by Roberta’s tone. She gives the other female a confused look. “You can create bodies?” she asks. She thought only the Devil himself had such a power.

Roberta gives her a scathing look. “Who do you think fits out all of the morons down here?” she scoffs.

“I’m guessing you,” Axelle says through the side of her mouth. “Sooo. What exactly am I supposed to be doing here?”

“Nothing dressed like that,” Roberta answers her and shuffles through the file in her hand.

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” Axelle says, much to her own shame. It seems that while demons inhabiting hell have powers ranging in basic to extreme depending on who you are, she doesn’t have any at all. She has been stripped of any ability and it angers her. How dare he force her to be so weak? In front of this bitch no less!

Roberta sighs and snaps her fingers. In an instant Axelle is dressed in a light gray skirt suit to match the walls and carpet. She stares down at herself in disgust. This is just…just…Argh!

“You have been assigned to desk number two-two-five,” Roberta says, and points to a door that magickally appears behind her. “His lordship has asked that you be assigned an apartment as well.” She shuffles through her papers some more.

His lordship? Who the fuck calls the Devil
that
anymore? “An apartment?” Axelle asks eagerly. Actually, this is shaping up quite nicely. She hadn’t even thought about a place to live yet.

“Apartment block D, room number four C,” Roberta says, handing her a piece of paper with the details on and a key.

Axelle takes them with a sinking heart. “The tenements?” she snaps. “I am not living in those awful places.”

Roberta glares at her again and says, “Then give me back the key and you can make your own arrangements. You don’t get paid until the end of the month, but I am sure a pretty girl like you can find somewhere to lay her head?” Roberta leers at her and she cringes. The thought of being homeless in hell suddenly makes the tenement blocks look very appealing.

Axelle grips the key tighter as Roberta tries to pry it from her hands. “I’ll take it,” she mutters quickly.

“Suit yourself,” Roberta shrugs, letting go. “The job is self explanatory,” she continues. “The Reapers bring the souls, you sign them in, fill out the paperwork and then post it in the slot and send them on their way to Assignments.”

“That’s it?” Axelle asks in dread. It sounds as dull as the suit she is wearing.

“That’s it,” Roberta says unkindly and then just vanishes into thin air, leaving Axelle completely alone.

Axelle makes her way to the door that Roberta pointed at and she opens it cautiously, peering around it. All she sees is another enormous room--exactly like the one she is standing in--completely empty except for one stool with a low back and no arms, placed in front of a small shelf-like desk with a small wooden door above it. It looks like a bank tellers workstation.

She sneers as she sits down, but has to remind herself that it is better than being in the fiery cell.

Just about.

At least she can speak properly and move about freely and interact with people. All things she has sorely missed.