30. Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Belial

Bleeding, weeping Hells. Rayven’s screams were the sexiest sounds I’d ever heard, especially underwater. The sound of her strangled breathing, her choking, the way she fought me while her hips pressed back into my pelvis, begging me for more…it sank straight to my balls.

The spell I’d put on the plum was powerful, ancient arcana. Every lick, every pinch, every bite in the magic-induced dream would feel true to life.

I could make her feel good even while we were miles apart. Even realms apart, if Belphegor had managed to steal her away from Mammon and drag her deeper through the Hells.

No. I couldn’t stand to think about that right now.

Gritting my teeth, I foisted the storm of dark thoughts—and all my fears of what could happen to Rayven if I didn’t reach her in time—to the furthest reaches of my mind. Right now, I was helpless to do anything but wait for Cecil and his soul to find a weak point in the gate’s construction.

So what better way to pass the time than to play with my favorite mortal’s dreams? Even though she put on a brave face the way she had since I’d dragged her to my realm days ago, I knew she was terrified.

She needed a distraction, and I needed to drown myself in her as much as fucking possible. I savored every sweet cry that fell from her perfect lips, every flex and flutter of her inner muscles as they gripped my dick tight, every gasping breath.

I threw all of myself into tormenting her in that wicked way that had her pussy sopping, thick pearls of arousal rushing down her legs and making her flesh glisten in the dull red light that illuminated the Styx.

I adjusted my hold on her raven hair, wrapping the long trusses around my wrist like a leash before sinking my fingertips back into her scalp, my nails scraping her flesh hard enough to leave angry red welts just visible beneath her roots.

Wrenching her head back, I pulled her up on her knees so her back was flush against my chest and pressed the supple flesh of her cheek against my ruined lips. “Fuck, there’s nothing that makes my dick harder than when I see your pretty skin turn red and bloody for me.”

“O–of course you like it, you depraved fuck,” she huffed. Her eyes dropped to the rushing waters below, beads of crimson clinging like dew to her dark lashes. “It’s the color of death.”

My mouth curled with a smile against her cheek, and when I laughed, my breath washed over her face, making her blush deepen in hue. “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. Red is the color of life…” Keeping one hand anchored in her hair, I took my other and dragged a sharp nail down her jawline.

She shivered, and the baby hairs on her nape rose as I sliced the shallowest of cuts into her flesh. Her gaze darted back to me, side-eyeing me as best she could with the way I had her held as I lapped up the bead of blood dripping from the fresh wound.

“Only the living bleed,” I purred, the sound melting into a growl as the taste of her blood bloomed across my tongue. “Why do you think I had such an aversion to seeing you dressed in black when you first arrived in Limbo? That’s the color of death, and you, my bratty mortal, are very much alive.”

“That’s funny.” The corner of her mouth lifted into a messy, lopsided grin, strands of her wet hair clinging to her bloody face. “I think I wear death well.”

To emphasize her meaning, she writhed her hips, which had my dick throbbing inside her tight little ass.

“That you fucking do.”

I shoved her head back into the water and smirked at the bubbles rushing to the surface as she struggled to breathe. We’d already played this game once before in the bathtub back home, and I’d gotten stabbed for it, but she couldn’t fool me.

She fucking loved when I catered to her darker, more twisted appetites. There was still a part of her human sensibilities that felt a hint of shame for getting off on things like this. I’d strangle that part out of her yet.

I spit on her backside—normally, there wasn’t as much saliva as there would be in my Lord of Bones form—but since this was a dream, I could tweak the details. I could do anything, be anything in this altered reality, though all I wanted was to fuck my little human senseless.

Large gobs of saliva slid down between her ass cheeks and oozed around where I penetrated her. With a few more thrusts, I coated my shaft in the makeshift lube.

This was a dream, so we didn’t necessarily need the extra lubrication, but I liked the way her skin shimmered under the film of my saliva and the obscene sounds that filled the air as I fucked into her.

The swirling pleasure mounted. My balls drew up. My ministrations grew more frantic as I chased my release with feral desperation.

I smacked her ass. Once. Three times. Five. I kept spanking her, addicted to the little rush of bubbles every time my hand slapped the round globe of her ass. With every strike, she clenched around me.

With her ass thoroughly pinked and covered in several welts in the smeared shape of my hand, I turned my attention back to her clit. I pinched it with just enough pressure to have her clenching in that telling way.

She was coming.

Fuck. The dark magic I’d cast to make it so I never had to leave her heat again.

My hand left her clit to grab her by the back of the neck and wrench her head from the water one final time. She came, hard. An animalistic sound crawled up her throat, wet and garbled and thick with pleasure.

It was with that that I unloaded into her ass. I pulled out before I’d finished dumping the copious amount of seed inside her, just for the pleasure of watching the milky ropes ooze from her ass, connecting us before they snapped and coated the backs of her thighs.

My fingers encircled my shaft, and I pumped myself a few more times, draining the last of my seed from my balls before wiping my head on her ass cheek. Then, I gathered her in my arms, spinning her around to face me.

“You did so fucking good for me, treasure.”

She coughed, bloody drops of water streaming down her flushed face. “You keep calling me that, like you think I’m some kind of prized possession.”

I adjusted her in my arms so her feet didn’t touch the bottom of the gondola and locked her eyes with mine, holding them while I dragged my tongue over her clavicle and lapped up the drop of water pooling at the hollow of her throat. “That’s exactly what you are.”

My little human gave the tiniest of huffs. “Do you abuse all your favorite things?”

She was too thoroughly fucked to argue much, but she’d always use the last bit of her breath to be defiant, down to the very end. I fucking loved that about her.

I dragged my lips up her throat, nipping her soft flesh along the way, gentle but firm enough to make her gasp and squirm in my arms. I kissed up her neck, her chin, then paused when her lips were level with mine.

“Yes,” I said with more sadness in my tone than I’d intended. “I’m the god of all things dead and forgotten. It shouldn’t be shocking that I’m not the most attentive keeper. But with you…”

I reached up to wring the excess water from one of her soaking locks of hair before tucking it behind her ear. “With you, it’s different. Ever since I caught my little thief scuttling around in the Petherick tomb, I can’t stand to think of anything else.”

“That’s why your brothers kidnapped me.” Her tone turned somber, her gaze distant, even as the last tingling sensations of her orgasm worked through her and she twitched in my arms. “They think you’ll get back to your job if I’m not around to distract you. They don’t know you at all, do they?”

I laid us down carefully at the bottom of the gondola and tucked her against me. She snuggled close, her face buried against my chest. Her heart was beating so hard, I could feel its thrum against my stomach.

Staring down at her head, I gently stroked her hair as her breathing steadied and her muscles relaxed. She was right. My brothers had known me for millennia, and yet, they didn’t know me at all. This human had known me for not even a full week and somehow knew me better than they ever would.

My fingers threaded through her hair, combing out the tangles and idly winding a strand around my knuckle. “They may be my brothers, but they’ve never been family.”

Family. Ha. That word had little meaning to me, and the thought of it only stirred the smallest twinges of loneliness. That was how it had always been for as long as I could remember. Even in my human life, from the little I could recall, I’d been alone, a soldier with no one to wait for me had the war not taken my life.

But maybe it didn’t always have to be that way.

My attention dropped back to Rayven in my arms, and I found her peering up at me through her dark lashes. Registering the anxiety churning behind her doe-like eyes, I frowned and pulled her closer. “I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

She was looking right at me, yet her gaze was distant. “I don’t want to wake up.”

A creature like me barely registered pain, but the ache in her voice sent an invisible dagger straight through my heart. The tears rolling down her cheeks gave it an extra agonizing twist.

“Shouldn’t you be able to summon me or something, now that you have my soul?”

“That’s not how it works, Rayven.” My voice came out hardly more than a rasp. “But by the nine Hells, do I wish that wasn’t the case.”

“What if Belphegor kills me before you find me?”

I bared my teeth, and every sinew in my body went rigid. Even the thought of Belphegor taking Rayven’s life, the thing that belonged to me and me alone, sent me into a rage. “He won’t. I’ll fucking kill him.”

“You’re going to kill him anyway! That won’t stop him from….” Her words began to wobble, and she trailed off. The tears had stopped, but then something worse happened. Her expression shifted, not a hint of emotion on her face. She looked resigned, like she was making peace with whatever Belphegor planned to do with her once she woke. “I guess it doesn’t matter if he kills me. You’ll just resurrect me, right?”

A sharp sensation hooked into my gut.

There was pain worse than death.

Knowing Belphegor, his plans to torture Rayven would be more complex than the other demon lords. Chances were, he wouldn’t kill her.

The Lord of the Gluttony was probably the worst of them all because he would hurt her in ways I couldn’t fix with magic.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that. All I could do was flash her that smile she hated to love and reach down, tugging ever so softly on her nipple piercing, just enough to make her gasp.

My mouth crashed down over hers to capture her sexy little mewl. I nipped her lower lip and growled into her mouth, “That’s right...”

My hand slid up her arm, and my thumb rubbed over the three marks I’d cut into her flesh. “You’ll never escape me. Even gods can’t keep you from me. No matter how deep through Hell they drag you, I’ll find you. I’ll decimate anything and anyone who stands in my goddamn way. Do you fucking understand me, little human?”

Days ago, Rayven would have cringed away. She would have fought me. She might have even willingly gone with my brothers if it meant escaping me.

Now, my vow seemed to comfort her. “Alright. When you get here, I want you to hold Belphegor down...”

Knowing the shapeshifter, he’d enjoy that too much. I bit back the thought and let her finish.

She drew back and pinned me with this mischievous look that had me hard again.

“And I’ll be the one to cut off his head. I’d say we should fuck on his headless corpse to celebrate, but from what I know of Belphegor, I think he’d like that too much.”