The human leaped out of the chair, sending it rolling back as he stood with his hands on his hips. “Excuse me! How in the… Shit. How did I end up in hell. Wait! Am I dead? Did you kill me?”
Bel turned up his nose as his tail uncontrollably gave a thrash into the air. Mate or not, Atlas wasn’t very nice. He was loud.And kept accusing Bel of things. Although it was a very good question of how Atlas had ended up in his office. Bel could clearly remember leaving the human behind the counter of the concession stand.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Atlas stomped his foot.
He was…cute. Bel figured it would probably be a bad idea to point that out though. Humans were fussy about things like that. At least that was what he’d found out in his very limited experience. “Look at you like…?”
“Like I’m crazy! I’m not crazy.”
“Okay,” Bel agreed. Even he could hear the doubt in his tone. Not that Bel cared if his mate was crazy or not. A mate was a mate. Bel never believed that he’d find his. Even after Lucifer had claimed both of his.
Atlas slammed his lips together into such a tight line that they lost all color.
Bel blinked slowly at him. He really didn’t know what to say here. Oh, he knew what he wanted to do. Bel would really love to move closer to his mate. He’d already been yelled at for that.
“What?” Atlas demanded.
“What, what?” Bel asked. Hey! He was really trying here. There had to be a way to get the human to calm down. There must be a reasonable explanation. Even with the help of magic, mates didn’t just normally pop into hell. Wait, hadn’t Lucifer’s mates delivered themselves? Maybe it was a thing and Bel just hadn’t known that?
“Why are you just staring at me?” Atlas asked him. “And I said don’t look at me like that.”
“How am I supposed to look at you?”
Atlas made some kind of sound between a scream and laugh. Yes, a laugh. Maybe a laugh?
“I think you should calm down so we can figure this out,” Bel said reasonably.
“Did you just tell me to calm down?” Now anger flared over Atlas’s face.
“Yes.” Bel gave him a grateful nod. “It would be easier to talk if you didn’t yell so much.”
Atlas’s mouth dropped open.
A very pretty mouth. Bel sucked in his bottom lip, wondering what it would feel like to press his lips to the human’s. No. No kissing yet. First, he needed answers. They needed answers. And he needed to figure out how to keep his mate. That was very important. Probably the most important thing to him. Bel really hoped Atlas wouldn’t want him to live in the human realm. Just the thought made him shudder. All those humans and kids with sticky fingers. No, they needed to stay in hell. At least there Atlas could make friends with the other mates. There were even some humans for him to be around!
What if he showed Atlas how nice his home realm was? That had to be a good first step. Bel had all the magic in the realm at his disposal. It was time to show off a little.
He waved his hand toward the hearth on the opposite wall. The fire exploded with his magic before the golden logs began to burn. Bel snapped his fingers and two large plush chairs appeared in front of the hearth. “How about we sit?”
“What was that?” For the first time since Bel had reentered his office, the human showed real fear.
“Just a little magic. I was just hoping to make you more comfortable,” Bel offered. And begin courting the little human. Was it still courting? That didn’t sound right but Bel didn’t know what else to call it.
“Comfortable,” Atlas repeated. “In hell.”
“It’s a very nice part of hell,” Bel said once again. He was proud of their little dimension. Lucifer had made a private plane for himself, princes, and a few of the older demons. After finding his mates, Lucifer had moved their plane into part of the hell realm so his mates could easily move about. Still private but more connected than they had been for the last several decades.
“I’m sure it’s lovely.” Atlas turned and stomped toward one of the chairs across the room.
Bel started to follow and the towel around his hips loosened. Oh! That might be a problem too. He quickly clothed himself in a black suit with a blue shirt that matched his mate’s gorgeous eyes before he joined the human.
“You have clothes on now,” Atlas pointed out.
“I’d forgotten,” he admitted. It wasn’t like he’d ever walked into his office and found a strange human just hanging around before. He’d just finished his shower to get all the yucky human scents off him when he remembered he’d promised to look something up for Mammon, one of the other hell princes. “My apologies.”
“So, you don’t normally walk around half naked in front of humans?”
Was that jealousy in the human’s tone? Surely not. Although Atlas might feel some of the mate bond pull. Not as strongly as Bel but it would be there. Maybe that was why Atlas wasn’t screaming as he ran away.
