The Demon King’s Bride by Skye Wilson
Don
By the time our song came to an end, I nearly had her eating out of the palm of my hand.
And as we fed each other pieces of wedding cake, I supposed she really was.
“Don’t mess up my lipstick,” Bea warned me. She opened her mouth slowly and sensually. It was enough to make my cock ache. Her brown eyes glimmered wickedly when they met mine.
“No?” I teased her with the piece of cake between my fingers, relishing the way she leaned toward me every time I moved it near. “Maybe I’d like to see your makeup smeared across that pretty face of yours.”
“Don’t even think about it, darling.” She grinned, nipping at the air in a flash of lovely white teeth as I pulled the cake away again. “If you do, I’ll make you pay for it. Dearly.”
“Is that so?” I liked the sound of that. “Tempting. Name your price.”
Bea’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then she laughed. “I doubt you can afford it.”
I slipped the bite of cake between her lips, behaving myself. For a moment, at least.
But I was sure to run my fingers slowly against her soft, wet tongue as I pulled them away.
“You’d be surprised what I can afford, darling,” I said back to her in a dark hush.
After all—a man could only be trusted to behave so much.
A woman, too, for that matter.
My cock stiffened in an instant as Bea’s lips wrapped around my fingertips. My pants were suddenly far too tight as she sucked my fingers clean.
Fuck. For once, the crowd around us was dead silent. It was all too easy to imagine that they weren’t there at all.
Easy to imagine taking Bea by the shoulders, pushing her down into that beautiful, expensive wedding cake we were eating from, flipping her skirts up and taking her then and there, too.
It was her turn to feed me, now.
But I could think of at least one thing I’d much rather be eating. Bea’s cunt would be a far better thing to have on my tongue than wedding cake—though, as I recalled, it was just as sweet.
“That was dangerous of you, you know.” Now, it was my time to give the warnings. Already, I was salivating. “I won’t be quick to forget that.”
In that moment, to have her lips wrapped around my cock instead, I would have paid any price she named.
“Let me help you take your mind off of it, then.” Bea’s nose wrinkled adorably as she snatched up her own piece of cake—and immediately mashed it against my lips.
After that, I couldn’t really help myself—and she could hardly blame me.
I grabbed her waist and pulled her slender body against mine like a man starved. If she wanted to play dirty, she was welcome to it.
But as my lips crushed against hers, cake smearing between our mouths and tongues alike, I was more than happy to play dirty right back.
Frankly, she was too fucking cute not to kiss.
I half-expected her to slap me for it. After all, she’d made it very clear that she was hating every moment of our little charade.
But as her lips moved against mine, kissing me back, I couldn’t help but wonder if they told a truth that her words had lacked.
She reached up to run her cake-covered fingers through my hair. Her hips moved against mine, firmly enough that I knew she couldn’t miss how hard for her I was.
She kissed me like she’d never forgotten me at all. Kissed me passionately enough, I was beginning to question whether this was just a continuation of her act to appease the guests…or if she was starting to get as lost in this as I was.
When our lips finally parted, a single glance at the guests solved that riddle for me quickly enough.
I knew how little Bea and Simon had cared for each other during their forced lifelong courtship. The one time that he’d ever tried to kiss her, she’d made sure that he would never try anything like that again. She’d told me so herself.
Bea’s wedding guests were apparently just as aware of this reality. They’d expected to show up to see a bride and groom uniting in name and name alone—not making out over wedding cake.
They all looked stunned.
When Bea caught their wide-eyed gazes, after a moment, so did she.
At that point, I didn’t think either of us could pretend that she was putting on an act anymore. The realization made me grin.
That kiss had been all for me.
I grabbed a napkin from the table and drew her away from the crowd to wipe the cake from her lips. She stared at me in wonder as I did it.
It was only when I finished that her brows furrowed together in anger again.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she hissed up at me. “What do you think you’re playing at?”
“Being your husband, I suppose.” I folded the napkin and turned it over to wipe my own mouth clean as well. When I pulled it away from my lips once more, my grin had turned into a smirk. “But I don’t think either of us is playing anymore.”
“Oh, you’re playing all right. With fire, I’ll have you know.” She snatched the napkin back from me to wipe her fingers clean. “So don’t be surprised when you wind up—” Bea’s eyes focused on something behind me. “Dad?”
“Well, look at you two lovebirds.” An older man with a similar bone structure to Bea came up behind me and clapped me on the back. His dark hair was streaked with silver. His brown eyes were twinkling as he grinned at us both. “Seems like you’re finally warming up to each other, aren’t you?”
“Certainly took you long enough,” said the elegant brunette at the man’s side. Bea’s mother, I assumed. She looked exactly how I imagined Bea would in twenty years or so—though, I preferred Bea’s brown eyes to her greens, truth be told. “We’re relieved, of course, but…a little surprised. You should have warned us—we would have booked you one room on your honeymoon instead of two!”
“Well, I know how you love your surprises, Mom.” Bea’s lips shifted into a polite smile. Her tone suggested that her mother didn’t enjoy surprises at all.
“It’s just nice, Bea. That’s all we’re saying.” Bea’s father turned his grin toward me again. “It’s good to see the two of you finally getting along.”
“It’s not difficult.” My own grin was reserved only for Bea. She was the one who had put it on my lips, after all. “She’s a very easy woman to get along with.”
“I could make it harder for you, if you like.” Bea lips were still curled politely, but her eyes were full of threats when they met mine.
“I’m sure you could.” I dropped my gaze for half a second. Just to remind her that she’d been grinding her hips against my cock just a few moments ago. The way her smile had disappeared by the time I looked up again told me that she’d gotten the message loud and clear. I decided to make myself scarce before her parents caught on as well. “Champagne, anyone?”
I left them to catch up in my absence without waiting for an answer.
On our wedding day, I was hardly going to let my bride’s glass stay empty for long.
A waiter wasn’t hard to find at this reception. The entire garden was thick with them, tuxedos perfectly pressed and champagne or hors d’oeuvres on every tray.
But given the way Bea and I had just kissed…
If I wanted to keep my cock from busting through the zipper of these pants tonight, I was going to need something stiffer than champagne to take my mind off of my bride’s luscious lips.
I found the bar set up at the back of the garden. As I sat down and ordered an old fashioned, another man slipped onto the barstool next to mine.
“Enjoying yourself, son?”
I glanced over at him. He was tall with hair that was as much steely gray as it was black. His goatee was well-kempt, and his eyes were an icy blue.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I gave him a warm smile and tossed a twenty down for the bartender. “How about you, Dad?”
I hadn’t had much time between taking Simon’s form and stealing his wife, but with the time I’d had, I’d done my research.
This was Simon’s father I was talking to. Levi Roth, finance mogul.
If I kept this charade up, I supposed in a way he’d be my father as well. That notion almost made me laugh. Whoever my dad was, I’d certainly never met him. Never cared to, either.
Sometimes, when it came to fathers, they were best left a mystery.
Specifically, when they were of the demonic persuasion.
I didn’t know how to expect Levi to react to my question, but the last thing I’d imagined was a look of surprise crossing his face.
“Interesting.” As the bartender brought over my drink, Levi gestured to it, ordering one of the same. “You’re putting on a good show, boy, but you can drop the act.”
The act…?
I knew what he expected. A reaction. Any kind. Either I’d deny it outright, feign confusion, swear at him—something. Anything.
But I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
If anything, I was impressed. There I was, a man sitting next to him looking like the spitting image of his son—and yet, he knew with a casual certainty that I wasn’t Simon Roth at all.
All night, only Bea had been close enough to me to see me for who I really was. Even after witnessing that kiss over the cake, Bea’s own parents had simply assumed that after so many years of chilly affections, Simon and Bea had finally started to fall in love.
But Levi Roth hadn’t been fooled. It meant he was either very clever, or he truly knew his son.
Or…
“Where do I know you from, Levi?” I took a sip of my drink and kept my eyes on the bartender’s hands. “I feel like you and I must have met somewhere before.”
“That depends on who you are, I suppose.” He tossed another twenty down on the bar, right next to mine. The bartender gave us both a nod of thanks as he gathered up his tips and served Levi his drink. “Let me guess—is it Malacoda? Moloch? Or…surely not Abaddon, is it?”
“Those are some big names to throw around so casually.” I placed my drink back down and licked a stray drop of bourbon from my lips. “A man has to wonder where you might have gotten them from.”
“Same place you did, I imagine.” Levi turned his body toward me. “Look at me.”
Slowly, I wheeled around on my barstool to face him as well.
“Hmm.” Levi caught my gaze and studied my eyes with interest. After a long moment, his lips twitched in a facsimile of a smile. “Ah. There you are. Abaddon. Nice glamor. It’s been a while.”
“Has it?”
He shrugged. “You tell me.”
I searched his eyes as well. Behind his icy blues, there was definitely something there. Something vast and unyielding. A pale, intense fire.
He was right.
It had been a while.
“Leviathan.” A laugh escaped my lips as everything clicked together for me. Leviathan Financial—all this time, he’d been hiding in plain sight. Before, I’d entertained the notion that Bea’s family might have made a deal with him somewhere down the line, but I’d never suspected that the man who’d sired ineffectual, pathetic Simon could possibly be a threat. The apple couldn’t have fallen farther from the tree if someone had chucked it across the garden. “Well. Fancy seeing you here.”
Now that I knew who Simon’s father really was, it all made more sense than I liked. The demon I’d heard speaking with Simon in the garden before I’d knocked him out and pushed him into the Abyss had mentioned that Simon had a powerful father.
And as far as powerful fathers went, Leviathan was certainly about as formidable as you could get.
“You’ll give your mother my regards when you see her next, I take it?” Levi smirked. “Haven’t seen her since the Fall.”
“Don’t suppose you would have,” I agreed. “You never quite made it to Hell, did you?”
“Not once I realized that Lucifer had already claimed it for himself.” Levi raised his glass to me. “Though, I hear its under new management these days. I suppose congratulations are in order. You’re king of Hell now, aren’t you?”
“One of them.” I didn’t bother raising my glass to him in return. Not until I knew what he wanted.
Leviathan had fallen from Heaven with Lucifer and the rest of the rebelling angels in the earliest days of Earth. My mother, Belial, had been among them as well. He’d been on here on Earth ever since, with all the powers of a fallen angel but none of the responsibilities of Hell.
I’d only met him a few times. Each of them had been marked by a major disaster for the humans shortly after. A financial panic in the year 33, after Roman bankers issued too many unsecured loans. The crisis of 692, when Emperor Justinian II refused to accept the gold coins as tribute from a caliphate and had his nose cut off as a public act of torture as a result. The stock market crash of 1929.
Now that I knew it wasn’t truly Levi Roth who controlled Leviathan Bank with Bea’s father, but the fallen angel Leviathan himself, I had the distinct sensation that this evening might take a sharp turn for the worse.
It was a shame.
I’d only just started having fun.
“You don’t need to worry, Abaddon,” Levi said. Somehow, I doubted that. “The last thing I want from this evening is to ruin it. The wedding is going well, don’t you think?”
I arched an eyebrow. “For me, sure. For your son, on the other hand—”
“I’m not concerned about him.” Levi waved the mere mention of his son away with the back of his hand. “He was always a bit of a disappointment, honestly. I tried to create him in my image this time around, but…” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s a task best left to the Almighty. I failed. The powers he inherited from me were weak from the start, and he never quite managed to control them properly. I had no choice but to bind them away, before he hurt himself with them.” Levi sighed and shook his head. “In truth, Abaddon, I was quite happy to realize that someone else had taken his place.”
I snorted. Bit brutal—not that I could blame him.
Fallen angels weren’t exactly known for being the most nurturing parents in existence. My own mother was proof of that. Lucifer was the only exception to the rule I’d ever met.
“Beatrice seems happy too, don’t you think?” Levi nodded across the garden, where Bea was laughing and dancing with her friends on the dance floor. She looked radiant.
She always did.
“Can hardly blame her,” I said. “She’s mine.”
“And if you’re willing to keep up this charade, I’m happy to keep things that way. Bea’s family likes this new, improved version of my son. My friends and investors are impressed as well. Why ruin a good thing when it’s been dropped so serendipitously in your lap?”
“Not a bad policy,” I agreed. But no matter how amicable Levi’s words were, I still didn’t trust him. Words weren’t always true. “Though, I have to wonder why you’re telling me any of this at all.”
“Because I want to warn you,” Levi said with a shrug. “You may be a king of Hell now, but the moment you stepped into my son’s place today, you entered into my domain. I have very old and very powerful things in the works here, Abaddon. Things you won’t want to fuck with.”
“The only thing I’m interested in fucking tonight is my new wife.” I finished my drink and rose. “But thanks for the advice, Dad.”
“Always happy to give it, son.”
For fuck’s sake. He really didn’t care about Simon at all.
But before I returned to Bea’s side, I had one question for Levi.
It wasn’t anything I could act on right now. Not with so many humans around.
But it was worth asking just the same.
“Tell me,” I said down to him. “How does Bea fit into all of these ancient and powerful plans of yours?”
From the way his eyes sparked at my words, I knew that he understood my meaning.
There had been a plot on Bea’s life tonight. A plot orchestrated by Levi’s own son.
I needed to know if Levi was in on it as well.
“All I want is to see her happy,” Levi said, still smiling. I didn’t know whether to buy that or not. “If that means being married to you—well. Who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
Who indeed.
Bea was still in danger. I didn’t know from who, or how—only that she was.
And no matter what Leviathan said, I was almost certain he had something to do with it.
But that was a problem for tomorrow.
For tonight, Bea was mine—
And she would be forever, as long as I played my cards right from here on out.