Her Deadly Angels by Ginna Moran
Chapter 8
Soulmates
RAVEN
“YOU SAID NO torture, pretty soul. I thought that included us.” Dante comes up behind me and rests his chin to my shoulder. “If I have to sleep on the couch another night instead of in my bed, I’m going to—”
“Be heavily rewarded,” I say, twisting on my feet to face him. “Especially if you take him to the bathroom again. He’s been bitching for ten minutes.”
Elias hollers from Dante’s bed, learning exactly what it feels like to have been kidnapped and restrained. He’s lucky he’s not hanging in the closet like he had done to me and also that Kase and Dante take him to the bathroom when he needs to go, and we’re not starving him. He just can’t leave. Ever. I haven’t told him as much yet. I’m waiting until the urge to pummel him unconscious again subsides before facing him. Knowing that we had a thing for each other in another life blows my mind. What the hell is it about me that draws me to bastards. Who knew that my sweet yet psychotic devils would be an upgrade?
“You’re going to finally let me have my way with you?” Dante asks incredulously, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t get my hopes up. It is hard enough for me. Here. Feel.”
Grabbing my hand, Dante gets me to rub my palm against the length of his shaft through his jeans. I bust up laughing, practically cackling, loving exactly what I do to him.
I stroke him harder. “If you do this favor for me, I’ll—”
“Fucking please!” Elias shouts, cutting off my words. “I’ve had enough. Just tell me what it is you want from me or kill me already. I’ll suffer enough in Hell.”
“Not if I show you how to train your asshole, you won’t,” Dante quips, leaning into the doorway of his bedroom. “You might even have fun if you stop thinking butt play is torturous. I have a strap-on for Raven to use. If you’re a good boy, she’ll—”
I whack him on the shoulder. “Dante! Do not offer my services to him without asking me first. Don’t think I won’t turn that supposed strap-on on you.”
“Be my guest. I’m only offering to help. Remember that with your reward.” He chuckles, pinching my ass. “I have a couple double-ended dildos. We could fuck each other.”
“Yeah, no. Not happening as part of your reward for your attempt at being helpful. It was a nice try. But honestly, no one really wants to think about their ass belonging to a demon.” I try to remain expressionless, knowing that I just set myself up for one of his dirty responses. “Except for me when it comes to you.”
Flicking his tongue, he grazes my bottom lip, his barbells sparkling with the green light in his eyes. “I can’t wait. That sexy asshole of yours is going to feel so good. So tight. I promise you’ll welcome me in just fine.”
I clench my ass, the hum of his voice sending tingles through my body. I shouldn’t even get off on the idea, but he makes it seem like fun.
“Please,” Elias calls again, cooling the rising heat inside me. “Please.”
Sighing, I gather my nerve to confront him. Dante stays on my heels, following me into his room. Elias tips his head up to look at me. My mouth dries, my body turning rigid. In this moment, he looks utterly and completely defeated. Defenseless. And I feel bad.
I stop in my tracks as a storm of emotions crashes through me. How can I feel so hot and cold toward a man who has done nothing to deserve my sympathy? I should let Kase and Dante have at him and just let them handle it. But a part of me knows better. Whatever place in Hell he is supposed to take means that he will be a part of my eternity if I succeed. I don’t want to hate him. I truly don’t. I just want to secure my soul in a place that doesn’t mean eternal torment.
Shifting on my feet, I turn to Dante. “Can you give me a moment with him? You don’t have to go far, but maybe just a few feet of space?”
Dante looks ready to deny me. Like Kase can somehow sense my needs, he shouts Dante’s name from the living room. Raising his hand, he points at Elias. “Say anything disrespectful to my soul, hurt her feelings, try to lie or manipulate her, and you’ll learn the art of contortion to suck your own cock. Understand?”
Elias presses his lips together in a thin line and nods his head.
Damn. I love protective psycho on my jealous devil. I’m also a bit curious about this art form he speaks of. Blinking a few times, I push thoughts of Dante sucking his own dick from my mind and nudge him to go to Kase, who calls his name again.
“I’ll yell if I need you, okay?” I murmur, stretching on my tiptoes until he meets me for a kiss.
Reacting with passion, he slips his tongue in my mouth and makes a show out of it by squeezing my ass. I bat his chest, getting him to stroll out of the room. Dante glances at me from the doorway and winks. I swivel on the balls of my feet. Elias stares at me in silence, a frown plastered on his face.
I straighten my shoulders. The bastard won’t get to me. I won’t let him. I’ve already been called an abomination. A demon slut. Nothing he can say will break me, because in the end, I’m breaking him. He will die and go to Hell by my hands.
“Before you go judging me like every other righteous, entitled bastard, you should know that Dante and Kase have been here for me when everyone else thought I was a lost cause. They’ve faced Lucian on my behalf and have lifted me up and taught me how to summon strength I didn’t know I had. So whatever the fuck you have to say about my affection toward them, you can shove it down your throat.”
“Were you always so hostile,” Elias quips, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
I just glare at him.
“While your assumptions about what I think of your...unholy relationship with these evil creatures aren’t wrong, you should know that I can’t blame you. We are in similar positions, except my deal with a demon derives from selflessness and not self-preservation. I’ve been also trying to do God’s work while you’ve been serving your soul keepers in body and mind.” Elias smirks at me, waiting for my reaction.
And fuck it. If he wants one, he’s going to get one. He shouldn’t play with the soul he ultimately damned if he doesn’t want me to drag him into the fire to burn right alongside me.
Climbing onto the bed, I surprise Elias by jumping on top of him. He struggles against Dante’s restraints but isn’t strong enough to break out of them. I lock my fingers onto his shirt and pin him in place. Raising my hand, I pretend as if I’m going to slap him. He flinches and closes his eyes. I stop short of his face and pat his cheek, enjoying fucking with his head. My devils were right. He deserves a little torture, but not in the way they see fit.
“Hit me already,” Elias mutters, peeking through his eyelashes. “Just kill me and be done with it if you want so badly to send me to Hell. I’m dying anyway.”
I press my hands into his chest, pushing myself off of him. A racking cough heaves from him, stealing his breath. His face reddens with the coughing fit, startling me a bit. I can’t help myself from trying to re-position him to sit up.
He groans and shakes his head, wheezing and clearing his throat. “I knew you didn’t have it in you. I saw how you handled killing that man. Be thankful I took care of the wreckage you left behind.”
His comment leaves me speechless, and I sit beside him, staring into his stormy gray eyes. He doesn’t look away. If anything, he uses it as an excuse to stare at me more intently. My whole body tingles under the weight of his gaze, and I shiver.
“I do what I have to do,” I finally say, rubbing my lips together.
The fucker rolls his eyes. “You didn’t have to kidnap me.”
“Actually, I did. My soul depends on yours not going to Hell, and with the way you’re acting like a lunatic on a mission of self-sacrifice trying to do the impossible, well, you’re staying here. At least, until we find the demon controlling your soul.” I poke him in the stomach, startling him. It’s like he can feel the same shockwave of my touch like I can with his. “So why don’t you make things easy and just tell us? I can help you.”
“Help me? Help me how? I think I’d rather take my chances with my soul keeper over yours. They’re pissed that I bested and outsmarted them.” He lifts his chin and motions toward Dante’s shelves of sex toys. “And by the looks of this room, my farts would sound like a fucking wind tunnel after what they’d have in store.”
Did he just really say that? I tip my head back and laugh in exasperation. I fucking hate that I find so much amusement in his comment. He cracks a smile like he can’t help it, knowing damn well what an absurd turn this conversation has taken.
“At this point, I doubt they will touch you with a ten-foot pole. They only show that kind of affection to people they like, so relax. Your ass—”
“Is only going to get kicked if you don’t listen and do what we say.” Kase crosses his arms in the doorway, resting his back on the frame.
“Kase, you said I could handle it.” I huff a sigh through my nose.
“You’re getting distracted, angel-girl. He doesn’t need ass-urance. He needs to know what the fuck is at stake and why he’s been targeted by a bottom feeder. His little trip and fall into humanity ruined him, and I don’t have the patience to ease him into knowing the truth.” Kase strides forward, and Dante takes his place, leaning against the doorframe. While Kase takes the lead, Dante backs him up, and they look ready to toss me out of the room to do things their way.
I get off the bed and block Kase. “This is my job.”
“And it’s my job to help you. I’m not putting your fate in the hands of the fucker who abandoned your soul once. I won’t put it past him not to do it again.” Red light flickers across Kase’s burgundy irises.
Elias rattles the restraints. “What the fuck are you going on about? I don’t even know her. I heard about her—”
Growling, Kase lifts me up and spins me around, setting me on my feet out of his way. Elias cowers under Kase’s towering threat, proving that he might act like a hard ass, but he’s just as human as I am.
Locking his fingers to Elias’s chin, he turns his head for him and points at me. “Do you see that soul—I mean, really see her?”
“It doesn’t matter what I see,” Elias says, scrunching his nose.
Kase blows a hot breath, sending a tendril of smoke wafting through the air. Pointing to Dante, he says, “Come on. Give him a little bite, Dante. Show him the Hell that we see when looking at the two of them.”
What is he talking about? Dante strides past, not giving me a chance to stop him. Elias hollers at the sight of Dante’s fangs, and I stand frozen and watch Dante sink his teeth into Elias’s arm. I gasp at the same time Elias does. Jealousy cascades over me at the sight of Dante’s mouth on Elias. It kicks my ass out of my state of shock. Locking my hand to the back of Dante’s shirt, I yank him back, summoning the strength of Hell.
“Hey, now. Those fangs are mine.” I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders, trying to lock him to me.
Pulling me up higher, he kisses my wrist, teasing my skin with his sharp fangs. I shiver, remembering how he left a mark on my thigh, which still makes me clench my vagina in anticipation if anyone gets near it.
“If you want me to bite you, all you have to do is ask.” Dante flips me over and into his arms, cradling me like a bride.
Elias groans, his lolling head stealing my attention. “What did you do to me? I feel weird.”
Kase plops down beside him on the bed and drapes his arm over Elias’s shoulders. Leaning into him, Kase fucks with Elias by ruffling his fingers through his hair. “You’ll feel great in a minute. High and mighty as the angel you used to be until you fell for that soul right over there.” Twirling his finger, Kase motions at me. “Don’t you see it?”
Elias slowly blinks, squinting his eyes at me. “What do you mean I fell for her?”
“Not Raven—at least, not in this lifetime. The soul.” Kase pinches Elias’s chin and keeps him in place. “Look at that sexy bright thing.”
“All I see are the bands of darkness choking the light of that soul. The same darkness radiating from you. Her light has only grown darker since I first laid eyes on her. Nothing you say, and I mean, nothing, will ever attract me to an abomination.”
Dante releases a vibrating hiss. “I suppose you’d have to be a narcissist, considering it belongs to you.”
“What?” Elias’s head bobs before he touches his chin to his chest. “I’m too fucked up to follow.” His words slur and he attempts to raise his head again.
Kase pulls him by the hair, getting him to flop back and stare at the mirror on the ceiling. I can’t help following his line of sight. Catching my gaze, Elias smiles lazily, his hard features softening to expose how cute he looks, even under the influence of Dante’s venom.
“My God, my love. You haven’t changed, my breathtaking soulmate.” Elias stretches his arms in an attempt at coaxing my reflection to him, but the restraints lock him in place. A flash of anger steals the gentleness of his features, and he thrashes. “Let me go! I have to get to her. The darkness claims her because of me. Please, don’t hurt her.”
I shift in Dante’s arms. “I think he’s tripping.”
“Grace! My Grace, listen to me. They will come for you to use you against me. You must never give in to their temptation. They will only lure you to your doom. Run and don’t look back. I will come for you.” Elias’s eyes rim with tears, and he struggles again. “Promise me, Grace. You won’t let the saviors tempt you. You will do as we planned. I can’t live without you, and if they get what they want, they will use life and time to try to keep us apart.”
“He’s hallucinating, Dante. There has to be something you can do. I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself.” I try to shrug out of Dante’s arms, but he doesn’t let me go.
Kase scoots between the two of us and Elias, ensuring I don’t try anything crazy. Tilting his head toward the mirror on the ceiling, Kase watches Elias watch me. Dante watches too. It’s so strange to hear him call me by another name and treat me like I’m the most precious person to him, even if it’s not real.
“It’s a memory, Raven,” Kase finally says. He twists and waves his hand in front of Elias’s face, grabbing his attention. “You hear me, Elias? Whatever you see isn’t real.”
Whipping his head down, Elias breaks my stare in the mirror, widening his eyes at the sight of Kase like he just now realizes he sits in front of him. “Kase, my brethren. What are you doing here? Have you come for me?”
Kase clears his throat. “It took you long enough. You should’ve followed us and leaped.”
I gawk at the back of Kase’s head. I can’t believe he’s playing along, pretending to know what the hell Elias rambles on about in his venom-induced memory hallucination. It takes everything in me not to whack him on the back, because I want to find out how Elias’s memory of me in another life played out without devil intervention. Dante laces his fingers through mine and stops me.
“It wasn’t my time. Please, you have to understand,” Elias says, fighting against the chains. “I couldn’t. But I’m ready now. I need your help. Cassius—”
“You want a deal with the devil?” Kase says, cutting him off.
“No, Kase. I want your help, not a deal. You must keep Lucifer out of it. I know your alliance is strong, but he is Hell’s anchor, and I don’t want him touching my beautiful Grace.” Elias grinds his teeth, still fighting the restraints. “Please, will you help me?”
“Under one condition,” Kase says, swiveling his torso. “You must tell Dante who holds your mortal soul.”
I don’t get a chance to react before Dante drops me on the bed beside him and hisses, letting his devil façade break through his skin. I know one of his specialties is entrancing humans into a state of hypnosis to bend them to his will, but I’m not sure it will work on Elias. It didn’t work on me.
“I don’t have a mortal soul. I barely have my light. I gave it to Grace.” Elias heaves a breath and coughs, hacking so hard that blood spatters across his shirt. Fuck. It’s worse than I thought. He wasn’t joking about being sick and dying.
Dante towers over Elias and grabs him by the throat, getting him to stop fighting. Leaning in, he captures him with his gaze. “Snap out of it. You’re human and you sold your soul to a bottom feeder demon. Tell us who owns it, so we can handle the situation.”
Like Dante knocks sense back into him, Elias’s wide eyes narrow, and his features twist from fear and into hatred hot enough that I expect the world to ignite in flames around us. Flaring his nostrils, Elias jerks his attention back toward my reflection on the ceiling. I nearly dive into Kase’s arms, half expecting the fallen angel, now reborn as a mortal, to still have the capability to smite me.
“What the actual fuck! What have you done to my head?” Elias asks, his voice rising with his fury. “Just kill me and get it over with. I can’t give you the information you seek. It’s in my contract.”
Kase grows and snakes his tail toward Elias, wrapping it around his neck, constricting his airway. “Just because you can’t speak of it, doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to extract the information. Now, about a deal.”
“No. I’ve sold enough to Hell.” Elias bucks his body, trying to break free.
“Damn it, you son-of-a-bastard,” Dante snaps, flashing his fangs. “We are trying to help you—and your soulmate.” He hisses the word soulmate like it pains him to say it. “You’ve already failed her once. Don’t try to dismiss what you saw.”
“You messed with my head,” Elias accuses. “You want me to fucking pity the abomination.”
Annoyance grows inside me, and I climb across the bed, dodging out of Kase’s way. I slip under Dante’s arm and get into Elias’s face, meeting his eyes dead on. He stills under my closeness, sending my body buzzing. I nearly throw myself back. The intensity is too much. But like I’m trapped in some sort of magnetic hold, I can’t break away. All I can do is stare into Elias’s stormy gray eyes and how they look almost silver in the light.
“Elias, please. I don’t know what happened to us, but I do know what will happen to me if you don’t accept that what you remember is true. My soul depends on you. I depend on you. Please, if you won’t make a deal with my devils, then make one with me. As much as you piss me off and get under my skin, I wouldn’t wish your soul burning with mine when we can help each other.” I search his gaze for something, anything, to let me know that my words get to him, but he remains expressionless.
“You can’t honestly want to deny the chance to free your soul from a demon,” Kase says, his growly voice rumbling across my shoulder as he leans in to peer at Elias from behind me.
“Going from one demon to another isn’t freeing my soul. I know how contracts work. I want fucking redemption.” Elias tightens his scruffy jaw.
“We don’t want your soul. Just your mortality,” Dante says. He moves even closer, looming over Elias. “In exchange, we will free you from your demonic contract.”
“That sounds shitty. I want more.” Elias turns his attention to me, his eyes narrowing. The greedy bastard. “I want you to treat me like an equal. Give me one helluva good time until the end of my life, my own room, anything I can think to ask for...and time with my soulmate.”
“Fuck no,” Kase and Dante say in unison. “She’s ours.”
Be still, my black heart. I love how automatic their denial was in regards to me. “They’re right. I’m not something to possess. I want the same thing as you—my soul free from Hell’s binds.”
“Do we have a deal or not?” Elias asks, narrowing his eyes at the three of us. “Those are my terms.”
Red fire ignites in Kase’s palms, and I throw myself at him, knocking him on his back. I shove my palms into his thighs and push upright, giving Dante one look. He flashes his fangs at me, but doesn’t say anything. I hate to use the possibility of sex against him, but it’s a real motivator and gets him to keep himself in check as he desires to prove he doesn’t let his envy control him.
“Time does not mean sex, being your slave to do your bidding, or anything like that, understand?” I say, my heartbeat picking up speed. “I don’t even have to talk to you if I don’t want to.”
Elias dips his chin. “Don’t worry. I’m not some twisted as fuck demon. The only thing I want from your time is to get you away from them. You deserve a moment of not being under their constant control and demands. Maybe you’ll see things clearly.”
Is he for real? “Are you k—”
“Is it a deal or not?” he asks, locking his gaze on mine.
I sigh and look at my devils. It could be worse, right? “Fine, whatever. You have yourself a deal.”
