Bound By Lucifer by Aiden Pierce

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lucifer

Greed – Past

The Fourth Circle of Hell was almost like Paradise in comparison to what we’d gone through in the fifth on the River Styx.

It was almost too easy.

Ever since we entered the desert-like terrain of the fourth layer, all senses were on high alert. Waiting for something, anything to jump out at us. So far, the most interesting thing about the fourth layer was the giant hill at its center where Abaddon was forcing the souls sent to Hell on account of their greed push boulders to its peak.

They paid us no mind as Lilith and I approached.

“You know, as psychotic as your ex-lover is, he isn’t a terribly creative fellow, is he?” I mused.

She flung me a glare, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Don’t ever refer to him as my lover, Lucifer.”

Memories of the river jabbed at the still-open wound the Fifth Circle had left.

“Sorry…” I rubbed the back of my skull with the flat of my palm. “Er, I’m going to survey the rest of the hill, circle it, see if I can get them to stop pushing these rocks. Though I might leave the priests for a few hundred more years,” I said, my eyes narrowing on the old assholes in robes. “Hate priests.”

Lilith gave a dismissive nod, her gaze refusing to meet mine. She hadn’t looked me in the eye since we’d kissed on the River Styx.

My beast was still furious that I had stopped things from progressing any further. My aching cock commiserated.

“I’ll stay here,” she said, taking a seat in the sand.

Without another word spoken, I hurried off, fighting the urge to look back at her over my shoulder. It felt wrong walking away from her, the distance between us filling my chest with a taut, uncomfortable sensation. We’d spent so long together, and she had been my only companion since I’d fallen into the Ninth Circle. It was normal to miss her. I would miss any companion’s absence if we’d spent as much time together as the demon queen and I had.

Liar, my beast rumbled from deep inside my being. As I had done since the moment I laid eyes on Lilith, I ignored him.

It took several minutes to make it halfway around the perimeter of the hill where the greedy congregated, the shortest journey yet since I arrived in the Underworld. “Right. Listen here, you selfish pricks. You can stop pushing rocks now. How about manual labor that actually counts for something, hmm? You lot can help me build my dream paradise up on the second floor, and then you can work for me making a decent wage that you can blow on women and drugs or whatever gets your rocks off. Heh,” I chuckled at my own joke.

The greedy souls stopped their tasks, blinking at me with confusion glazing in their eyes. It was as if no one had actually tried to speak to them in ages. Like they’d forgotten how to communicate altogether. But their attention had dropped to the crown tied at my hip, and they all began to slowly shuffle away from their boulders.

“Splendid.” I clapped my hands together. “All of you start moving north then. Eh, except for any priests here on account of touching little boys. You can push your boulders up with your cocks, and when those fall off, then you can make your way up to Lust.”

My manic grin was ripped away with the distant scream of a woman in peril. Bleeding Almighty. Lilith.

My pulse turned wild with panic. I’d never flown so fast, the exception being when I had literal wings.

The moment I rounded the hill and Lilith came into view, my relief at seeing her standing there was washed away with the flames of my ire when I saw who was with her.

Abaddon.

The great archdemon stood nearly seven feet tall, his physique all muscle wrapped in gray, tattooed flesh. His horns were black, thick, and curved toward the sky. His leather wings were massive.

A thick knot of envy lodged in my throat at the sight of them. His tail, tipped with a spade, lashed behind him, kicking up dust from Greed’s parched desert. He held Lilith against him, the delicate neck of her human form looking so fragile against his meaty fingers wrapped around it.

“Luci—” She tried to choke out my name, but the syllables became strangled in her throat from her lack of airflow.

“Aw, Luci. Isn’t that just the cutest fucking thing?” Abaddon mocked through a cruel grin. “Her nickname for me was ‘Oh God,’ but generally, she only screamed that one,” he said with a salacious snicker. “Does that make me your daddy, ‘Luci?’”

My blood turned molten with rage. I flexed my fists at my sides, weighing my options. There weren’t many.

Oh, what I’d give to be able to read his mind, but the archdemon’s skull was too thick and his will too damn powerful. But I didn’t have to read his mind to know he’d snap Lilith’s neck if he didn’t get what he wanted.

The demon’s gaze dropped to the crown tied to my hip, his oceanic eyes flashing. “I see you don’t wear my stolen crown on your head.” He jerked Lilith’s head to the side, exposing her slender neck and his nostrils twitched as he inhaled her scent deeply. He grinned against her skin, cackling darkly. “Nor have you had my stolen queen on your cock. What’s the matter? Does her human form disgust you too? It won’t be long before you toss her aside. What good is a bitch too scared to let her beast reign?”

It all happened so quickly I would have missed it if I had blinked.

Lilith shifted right in Abaddon’s hold. In a heart’s single beat, her milky flesh turned pale pink, scales bursting out over her entire body. Her spine lengthened, her bones cracked, a tail erupted from her trousers and wings sprouted from her back. Deadly, razor-sharp claws grew from her fingertips, and before Abaddon could react, she thrust her arm back, penetrating his lower abdomen with her bare fingers.

His eyes flew open wide with shock. He hadn’t been expecting it, not from the demon queen fabled for detesting her own beast.

His grip dropped from her throat, and he swayed on his feet as she spun around and withdrew her hand from his stomach. Thick blood bubbled from his mouth, and a nauseating sound gurgled up from his throat. That’s when I saw what Lilith had extracted from his insides.

In her fist, she clutched a rubbery tube that was still attached to Abaddon. Her talons dripped with blood, peppering the desert sand. And on her face, bleeding Almighty. Rage looked so fucking beautiful on her. She didn’t need me to protect her against her ex-husband. The terrifying demoness had that category covered.

The shock on the archdemon’s face was just too damn sweet not to laugh at. His knees buckled beneath him, and I could feel the ground quake beneath me as he crumpled into a kneeling position before the queen he’d neglected for so long.

“L–Lilith,” he wheezed, blood dribbling down his lips and chest, streaking his gray skin with gore.

Her savage smile was all teeth, her lips pulling wide into a grin that made my cock pulse with pleasure.

You’re fucked up, you know that?I scolded my beast.

She’s perfect, he answered back.

At least we could agree on that. Abaddon had selected the perfect queen. His mistake was underestimating her.

I watched them intently, wondering if she’d make it his last mistake.

She draped the organ that I was now sure was his small intestines around his neck like a pretty necklace fit for the former King of Hell and stood back to admire her work. “You look fucking delicious draped in your own insides, Abby. I’m going to let you keep them so you can witness the Hell Lucifer rebuilds, fixing the mess you made. I want you to see what this realm could have been if you hadn’t fucked up so badly. But I promise you this. Follow us, and next time I’ll be keeping any organs I take from you as little keepsakes. Understand?”

Abaddon glared up at her with defiance. When she slammed her fist into his abdomen, just above the gaping wound she’d made, only then did he give a pathetic nod of understanding.

“Good,” she said with a brittle smirk. “You were a pathetic king, Abaddon. And an even more pathetic husband. I better not see you again.”

On those last sweet words of goodbye, she shifted back into her human form and licked the blood from her fingers as she marched over to me without so much as a glance back.

“Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this heat.”

I gapped at her, trailing a few feet behind her as I struggled to find the words. “That— That was… Hot. Kitten has claws.”

She grinned at me, looking pleased with herself. Her smile slipped when she twisted around to see the hole her tail had ripped through her pants, giving me an after-show encore that was almost as pleasing as the first. “Damn it, I’m going to have to sew these up. One of the many reasons I hate shifting.”

“Don’t fix it. I like it,” I said with a mischievous chuckle.

She glared at me, but she couldn’t reign back the smile on her lips. Her torn clothes aside, she was proud of herself for moving past her hatred for her beast in order to protect herself. And I was proud of her too.

“And how you made him wear his own intestines like a necklace? Bleeding brilliant.” I pressed the flat of my palm against my heart, grinning ear to ear. “I think I’m in love.”

Her gaze snapped to mine, her expression all serious. ”Really?”

I laughed off the question as if it were a joke and left it hanging in the torrid air of the Fourth Circle.

Coward, my beast grumbled.