Hell's Gift (11 page)

All went black.

Chapter 13

Abigail

“Leave us,” Abigail said, after she was positive the handsome stranger was secure.

Miles and another minion, whose name she’d yet to remember, hurried out of her quarters.

Miles had injected a high amount of sodium pentothal, a powerful truth serum capable of making even Lucifer speak the truth, into the vein of the stranger.

She wasn’t waiting for it to take effect; she could tell it was working. What intrigued her most was how his body was as perfect as it had been the first time she’d seen him. There wasn’t a scratch on him. Anywhere. He was also dressed in clean denim jeans and a black cotton shirt, nothing that could’ve been found in any of the sydes of Hell.

Could Lucifer have been right? Could he really be holy? That would explain a lot of what she hadn’t understood earlier about him, but it didn’t explain why he was there in the first place.

She pulled the reaper’s cape further down, to hide any exposed skin, as the man’s head lifted, then bobbed a little on his neck. He moaned a bit, then his eyes fluttered open.

There they were. Those beautiful sky-blue eyes of his that were deeper than any ocean she had ever encountered. He stared at her, but he wasn’t fully alert yet. It would take him a few minutes.

Why would Lucifer set rules for her now? After three hundred years? She liked this new minion. She craved to touch his body now, even after what she’d just gone through with the master. It wasn’t a sexual feeling; well, not all of it seemed to be sexual. He made her want to…lay beside him and just let him hold her. When he was near she felt comfortable and secure. It seemed as though all her problems just floated away. She wanted more of that feeling.

The lesson she’d been taught earlier was quite mild compared to what would happen to her if she disobeyed Lucifer’s request for information about the newcomer. Her fantasies of being with the man could only be dreams now. She wasn’t allowed to touch anyone, nor they her.

She could tell he was about as ready as the medicine was going to get him for questioning, and she was tired of waiting. She needed to get this over with as quickly as possible and get him out of her sight before she did something Lucifer wouldn’t show mercy about.

Her movements slow and easy, she placed one foot on the floor and then the other. It was impossible to appear strong when one was so physically and mentally broken. Maybe it was too soon to do this, she thought as another sharp pain shot through her belly. It was all she could do not to show her weakness in front of the stranger, but maybe he would be too out of it to know any better.

The blank look the new minion was giving her made it a little easier. She never would have been able to go through with it if he hadn’t been drugged and incoherent. She couldn’t handle his arrogance at the moment. Her mindset was too rocky. She needed rest before she faced him at his strongest. Or maybe she could just keep him weak, she thought.

“You have been injected with sodium pentothal. It is a truth serum that will encourage you to tell the truth. Do you know where you are?”

His lids closed lazily a couple of times, then seemed to focus on her again before he spoke. “Yes,” he said, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and nodded once.

Abigail rolled her eyes. She had never been good at interrogation with the truth serum. The victim would tell the truth, but never really elaborate on the questions being asked.

“Okay, so where are you?”

“I’m sitting in a chair,” he said, voice slurred and almost incomprehensible.

Had Miles given him too much of the drug, she wondered? He wasn’t acting right, for some reason. Instead of panicking she asked him another question. “What is your name?”

His eyes crossed and he looked at the tip of his nose. “My name is-s-s…boy.”

“Are you an angel?” she asked, her voice rising.

“Nope.”

“Well, then what are you?”

He dropped his head and stared at the ropes wrapped around his body like he was trying to figure that answer out as well. “I’m a minion,” he said matter-of-factly.

Abigail’s fingers found her temples under the hood of the reaper’s cape and rubbed in tiny, slow circles until the ache eased. She wanted to cry with the way her luck was going lately, but what escaped her lips instead was a giggle, then another. Soon she was laughing so hard she was crying. The jerky movements hurt her fresh body aches, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t stop the bursts of laughter that left her mouth.

He was intoxicated and would be absolutely no good to answer questions at the moment. She would have to check and make sure Miles had used the right stuff. Or maybe it was because of
what
he was. His body reacted to it differently.

She managed to tone the titters down to a smile, then took slow steps backward until she bumped into the mattress. She laid down gently, but was careful not to show her pain. He watched every move as she pulled the comforter over the reaper’s cape and hid herself within the material like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

He was tied securely to the chair. Not even Houdini would have been able to escape the series of crisscrossed ties and knots that Miles put the stranger in the middle of.

She yawned. She was exhausted and her body needed the rest to heal properly.

She gazed at him from under the hood of her cape like a predator in a cave looking out, totally unnoticed by its prey. He stared blankly at her form under all the blankets. She fought to stay awake. She wasn’t worried he would escape his bindings. He would definitely still be there when she awoke. She just didn’t want to close her eyes. She knew her dreams wouldn’t be pleasant. They never were. She didn’t want dreams of Lucifer and Hell. She wanted to stay there with him, the man that had fallen into her world and turned it upside down. Boy, she thought, and smiled as her eyes drifted involuntarily closed.

Chapter 14

Rhyan

I felt so dopey. It was difficult for me to concentrate on any one thing around me. I had double vision, but I knew I was back in the presence of…I grunted as I forced into focus the form on the massive bed. It was Abigail. He wanted me to kiss…that? That was so not happening.

I could vaguely remember the hooded figure standing before me, asking silly questions.
Do you know where you are?
Well, hell yeah I know where I am. I’m in Hell! I thought, and jerked at yet more bindings. What was her kink with tying people up?

I sighed and then gave up when there was no slack. The ropes, or whatever, were so tight, they were threatening to cut off the blood circulation in my veins. But that was all right, I was sure if I lost a limb it would just grow back, probably really slowly and very painfully, but it seemed to be the way things worked around there. Lose a life, get a new one. Lose a limb, grow another one. Now, I understood the torture part of Hell. It never freaking ended.

There wasn’t really much I could do with my time while the princess was napping. Evidently, she knew I wouldn’t be able to escape from the entrapment or she wouldn’t have gone to sleep, leaving me in the room with her and all the toys she’d used on me earlier.

She was either very confident or really stupid. I was guessing the latter, but it wasn’t an educated guess. I’d find out soon enough. Stupidity liked attention.

I studied the room around me. I was seated about ten feet from the bed she was laying on. She was covered with that reaper’s cape again. I had already seen her in a lot less. Why would she bother covering up? I thought, then dismissed it and looked to where our last adventure together had taken place.

The leather bindings hung loosely from the circle-shaped contraption. There was a large stone table up against the wall behind it, whips, chains and an assortment of other super fun-looking torture devices lay atop it. Something caught my eye and I squinted to bring the object into focus. A mysterious light glinted a second time, like it was trying to get my attention, off the blade of the dagger she’d used to kill me. I remembered Malcolm had said they would supply me with abilities, healing and weapons if I would give them the information I acquired of my surroundings in Hell. Had Malcolm done that? Could he see me now? I wondered.

I couldn’t remember him giving me anything except the fresh clothes, and I was still wondering how I was going to explain those. Maybe he slipped me an ability as I was swaying around in a drunken stupor. There weren’t any weapons that I could see or feel on my body. Of course, Abigail would have removed them in my unconscious state if there had been. I was sure she’d already noticed my injuries were healed and the new clothes I had managed to conjure up out of thin air.

I shook my head again. What had she drugged me with? My brain was still foggy from the stuff.

I focused on the blade again. Maybe…I glanced back to the bed as Abigail whimpered and rolled to her back. The soft fabric of the hood fell away, exposing to me a bruised and swollen face.

I gasped and my eyes grew wide in shock as I stared at the beaten image before me. The thing on the bed didn’t even look like her. Was it possible she turned into some hideous beast when she slept as part of her punishment in Hell? No. She had been beaten, severely, from what I could see.

Each beat of my heart slammed hard against my ribcage. My breaths were loud and heavy as they entered through my nostrils and passed through my lips. The wooden legs of the chair were tapping a fast, steady rhythm on the stone floor from the violent shaking of my body. I had a strong urge to make someone suffer greatly for doing that to her.

I now knew a way to get the dagger, but my reasons for retrieving it were no longer the same as they had been only a few moments earlier. I had no interest in shoving it through Abigail’s heart as she had done to me. I wanted to cut myself free of the ties and cradle her safely in my arms. Nobody would dare touch her again without going through me first.

Kiss her.

I forced myself to relax in the chair, letting my head fall back to rest on the wood behind me. I glanced up to the ceiling and took a few deep breaths. What the hell was wrong with me? What was I thinking? This woman killed me. She didn’t just try to kill me, she actually did it. Why should I care if she took a beating from a thousand demons on a daily basis? It shouldn’t matter to me what happened to her at all.

Something willed me to look back to the girl on the bed. She had the appearance of an angel, even with the contusions. I wondered what she had done to land herself in Hell. There was something so familiar about her, like we’d met somewhere before, but Malcolm would have mentioned if she had fallen from Heaven, and I would have remembered.

Kiss her.

No, it wasn’t possible that my feelings had changed for her that quickly. I hated this girl.

A strange feeling washed over me, and I realized that it mattered very much to me what happened to her. Was Malcolm screwing with my mind? I wondered.

Kiss her.

Was the substance she’d drugged me with causing me to go crazy? Or was this some sort of side effect from being in Hell? Having an insane attraction to someone that got her kicks from killing you over and over again?

I may be crazy. And I may be attracted to the demon, but I didn’t have to trust her. I could never trust her.

I glanced at the dagger, then back to her again. Heaven wanted me to be with her, so if it was a trick of the mind, it would have come from Heaven, not Hell.

I let out a quick whistle to test how soundly she slept. She didn’t move an eyelash. My eyes still glued to her, I scooted my chair once toward the table, then again when she continued to lie unconscious and unaware of my activities.

The forty foot journey to the table took me every bit of twenty minutes to accomplish with the constant checking of Abigail’s breathing and trying to move as quietly as possible.

I scooted one last time and then just relaxed beside the table for a moment to rest and catch my breath. I sighed, a sly smile spread across my face. The hard part was over and done with; it was behind me. I had just leaned toward the table to pick the hilt of the dagger up with my lips when a knock came at the door.

I froze. My heart stopped in my chest, then kicked into overdrive when Abigail’s face turned to where she had placed me in the chair. Her eyes were still closed. But they wouldn’t be for long if whoever was on the other side of that door put knuckles to wood again. Dammit!

The knock came again, louder this time. It was now or never. I grabbed the leather hilt of the knife between my teeth the same time Abigail sat up in the bed. I could see the confusion and panic on her face that I had gone missing, and it was only going to be a matter of time before she saw me and what was so obviously sticking out of my mouth.

She tossed the covers from her body. The satin reaper’s cape had ridden up to mid-thigh during her nap, and I stared in horror at the cuts and bruises covering her legs. They were black and different shades of blue, and covered nearly every inch of flesh I could see.

I must have made some sort of a noise, because her swollen eyes shot to mine, then she quickly tucked her body and head back within the black material.

She sat in silence for a moment, likely trying to figure out how I had managed to get from point A, where she’d put me, to point B, where I was upon her waking.

The knock came again, but she only looked at me from the cave of her hood.

“Abigail, are you in there? I heard what happened, and I wanted to make sure you were alright before I left for my new syde,” a male voice said from the other side of the wooden door.

My head turned in interest toward the door. It was a familiar voice. A voice I detested with every ounce of my being. The male behind that voice had nearly succeeded in stealing the souls of Kendra and her soulmate and dragging them both to Hell with him to use as he pleased. My blood began to boil and race within my veins.