“I want you to give me the other hells.” His attention went straight to my oar. “Now that they’re without rulership.”
He licked his grinning lips, and his tongue snaked out to fiddle with the ring looped through his nose. “And we’ll seal the deal with a fuck. Then, you can take her and your old pet back to Limbo. I’ll even stay like this if it pleases you, Lord.”
If it pleases me.“The only thing that would please me is seeing your head on my fucking oar, Belphegor.”
He flashed me a smile that was all teeth. “Kinky.”
“Fine. Whatever you want,” I gnashed out through gritted teeth, not meaning a damn word of it. “But you’ll need to unchain her.”
Rayven’s eyes shot wide, and she opened her mouth to protest, but Belphegor’s hand slapped over her lips, muffling her protests. “I’m not going to unchain your slut until we’re done.”
I growled again in disapproval. The sound affected both versions of Rayven, goosebumps covering both sets of their breasts. “Then we don’t have a deal.”
My hand dropped to grip the semi-hard mass between my legs. I wasn’t proud that I was getting hard, seeing as I got no pleasure seeing Catherine and Rayven in pain like this. But if Belphegor excelled at anything, it was the art of the mindfuck. Even though I knew it was him, he still had the appearance of my naked pet.
“If I’m going to fuck you, it’s not going to be on top of her,” I pressed. “Get her out of the goddamn bed, or you can kiss control of the other realms goodbye. Imagine what everyone will say when they find out you gave up the other circles because you couldn’t give up control over one tiny fucking thing.”
“Fine. Put that one over there.” He gestured to Catherine with a nod and pointed to a sofa piled high in lavish pillows.
“But this one—” He patted Rayven’s cheek, hard enough to make me bristle. “This one goes back on the cross. You can untie her when we’re done, but she’s going to watch us in the meantime.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rayven
She can watch usin the meantime.
No, no. no. This wasn’t happening. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Please, don’t do this,I begged Belial with my eyes, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was scooping up Catherine and taking her to the sofa. As he went, he kept the muzzle of his flame-eyed skull pointed at Belphegor and the dagger clutched to my throat.
Catherine moaned and mumbled something unintelligible as Belial laid her carefully among the sofa cushions.
She’d passed out, which was probably a mercy after everything her poor soul had endured.
My breaths turned short and sharp when Belial came back to the bed. For a moment, Belphegor didn’t move, remaining straddled on top of my pelvis. He giggled evilly, wiggling in a way that ground against me, making my body burn.
“Sorry you don’t get to join in on the fun, rat,” the shapeshifter sing-songed. “Guess your demon lover isn’t into group activities. Shame.”
The moment he pulled the dagger away, he turned into a white cat and jumped on Belial’s shoulder. The sinews in the Lord of Bones’ neck tightened, and I knew he thought about grabbing the cat and breaking its neck. Instead, his hands went to me first.
He undid my manacles and hauled me off the bed into his embrace.
If I’d been told a week ago, hell, even three days ago, that I would feel this safe in the Lord of Bones’ arms, I would have laughed myself to death.
Now, I melted into his subtle warmth like I was sinking into a warm bath.
“Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?” The Lord of Bones’ guttural timbre was etched with a heady mixture of concern, fear, and violence.
The white cat was purring on his shoulder and rubbing up against one of his horns, but Belial paid him no mind. Right now, he only had attention for me.
“No, I’m okay,” I told him, even though it felt like a lie. I didn’t feel okay at all.
He carried me to the cross and paused. I looked up to see his muzzle pointed at where he’d made his explosive entrance to the cavern. He was probably considering our escape; what was stopping him from just leaving? Why in the world would he strap me back to that cross and give into Belphegor’s demands?
He wouldn’t.
As if reading my mind, he started for the door, and Belphegor, who’d been a cat a beat before, transformed into his male form—his true form, the one I’d seen for a blink in Mammon’s bathing chamber. He had the same long, silvery hair as his female form, perfect bone structure, and a bronze lip ring decorating the center of his upper lip.
