Hades

  He wondered how having a Seraphim fallen angel as a warden in the Inner Sanctum would play out. Then Cat dragged her palms down his chest to his abs, and he forgot all about everything except what was happening right now, right here in his home.

  “And what do you feel when you’re near me?” He knew he shouldn’t ask. Knew he was encouraging something that shouldn’t be encouraged, but holy hell, he was starving for female contact. Maybe this little bit would be enough.

  And maybe he was lying to himself.

  Closing her eyes, she inhaled. “Like I want to climb your body like a tree so you can wrap yourself around me.”

  Hot...damn. He wasn’t sure if the rum had gone to her head or if she was affected by his inner evil, but what she’d said made him want desperately to play giant oak for her so she could do whatever she wanted with his hardwood.

  Giant oak. Hardwood. Man, he cracked himself up sometimes.

  His amusement fled as her fingers brushed his waistband and reality crashed down on him, splintering the tree fantasy. She was clearly not in the right state of mind to understand the consequences of getting physical with him, while he understood far too well.

  Cataclysm is off limits to you.

  Azagoth’s deep voice echoed inside Hades’s ears. He’d gone to Azagoth a few months ago, hoping he’d grant Hades permission to see Cat. Hades would have been happy to just talk to her, to get to know her, but Azagoth had been immovable. And then, when Hades had asked Azagoth why, after thousands of years of service, he couldn’t even take a walk in Sheoul-gra’s lush forests with Cat, the unsatisfying answer had been, You know why.

  Yeah, he did. And what if I disobey?

  Do you remember the last time you disobeyed me?

  As if Hades could forget. The very memory still made Hades’s testicles shrivel. Reluctantly, he stepped back from Cat, but she moved with him, her hands splaying on his torso as they caressed him in slow, sensual circles.

  So. Fucking. Good.

  Gods, he felt like he’d been deprived of air for so long that he no longer knew how to breathe, and now someone was offering him an oxygen mask but he wasn’t allowed to take it.

  “Is this really what you want?” He forced the question from his mouth, because dammit, this was really what he wanted. He just wanted to take a breath. “To get me worked up?”

  “Didn’t you just accuse me of panting after you?”

  He had. He’d been teasing, but there was nothing funny about this anymore. Her flirtation had been cute and flattering, but it had to stop. For both of their sakes.

  “Yes,” he drawled, reaching for the cockiness that had served him well when things got too serious. “But to be fair, all females do.”

  A slow, seductive smile curved her mouth, and it took a lot more restraint than he cared to admit to keep from dipping his head and kissing her senseless. “I’d tell you that you’re arrogant, but I’m sure you already know that. And I like it.”

  Man, he had no idea how to handle this little vixen. She seemed both innocent and experienced, and he wasn’t sure which was the truth.

  Maybe it was time to find out.

  Chapter Nine

  Cat’s heart was pounding so hard that she wondered if the surrounding tissue was going to be bruised. After months of trying to catch Hades’s eye, she had him all to herself. She had his ear, his eye, and with luck, she’d have him in that coffin-bed.

  Yes, there were pressing matters to attend to, but in this moment, they were in background because all she cared about was the foreground. And what a foreground it was.

  The problem, she realized, was that she had no idea how to proceed. Things with Zhubaal had gone disastrously wrong, so she didn’t want to repeat the mistakes she’d made with him. She just wished she knew what, exactly, she’d done.

  Gods, this had better not be a replay of her incident with Z.

  Closing her eyes, she let herself feel Hades’s unique blend of good and evil on her skin. She’d made the comparison of good feeling like sparkling wine, while evil felt like whiskey, and Hades was a swirling mix of both. Carbonated whiskey. Might taste funky, but her skin felt alive with a tingling heat that spread to her scalp, her toes, and everything in between.

  It was especially concentrated in her feminine parts.

  So delicious.

  “Hades––” She’d barely gotten his name off her tongue when his mouth came down on hers.

  “Is this what you want?” he growled against her lips. “I’m not one to question motives when it comes to females who are willing to fuck me, but you have me confused as shit.”

  She wasn’t confused at all. Zhubaal...he’d been an experiment. A means to an end. Oh, she’d liked him, she supposed. He was gruff and rude, but he was never cruel. At least, not that she’d seen.

  But Hades was unique. From his clothing to his hair, he blew other fallen angels out of the water. And where most other fallen angels were all serious and dour, Hades was playful, even silly at times. Once, when Thanatos, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, had come to Sheoul-gra with his toddler son, she’d watched Hades chase the squealing boy through the courtyard before tackling him gently and then tickling the boy’s belly with his Mohawk.

  She’d been fascinated to see a legend like Hades, a male whose job it was to make life miserable for millions of demons, handle a child with such tenderness. And he did it with such exuberance, without a care who was watching. How many times had she seen male pride get in the way of fun, as if enjoying life and showing emotion was wrong or weak?

  No, it took strength to live the way Hades did and still be able to laugh at a joke or enjoy a child’s giggle.

  That was the fatal moment in which Cat had decided that she needed to get to know Hades a little better. It was also the moment in which she decided she wanted to feel that blue stripe of hair tickle her sensitive spots.

  Before she could tell him as much, he spun her, put her hard into the wall, his body against hers. She gasped at the feel of his erection as it pressed into her from her core to her belly. Oh, sweet Heaven, how was that going to feel inside her?

  “Most females want me because I’m a monster.” He arched against her, and she moaned at the erotic pressure against her sex. “Is that your game? Fuck the underworld’s most notorious jailor and earn some bragging points?”

  A note of bitterness crept into his voice, but she couldn’t tell if he was bitter because of what he was...or if he was bitter because he thought she only wanted him for bragging rights. Either way, it made her want to hug him.

  Not long ago, she’d have thought him a monster, but even if she hadn’t seen him playing with a child or pilfering bread from Azagoth’s kitchen to feed the doves, Lilliana’s stories about Azagoth’s redemption had touched her. Azagoth had been perched on the precipice of the kind of evil one couldn’t come back from, but Lilliana had lured him away from the ledge. Oh, there was still darkness in him––the kind that had made Cat sick for days after accidentally touching him. She had a feeling that if anything ever happened to Lilliana, Azagoth would fall into that black, evil hole and would never return.

  But Hades, for all his evil deeds and all the malevolence that surrounded him, had somehow avoided becoming toxic. So, no, he wasn’t some sort of fiend, and he wasn’t going to convince her otherwise.

  She lifted her leg and wrapped it around him, trying to get closer. Trying to get some friction going on. “I don’t believe you’re a monster.”

  He scraped his teeth over her ear. “Why not?” he growled, so softly that the crackling flames from the fire nearly drowned him out.

  She could have told him the Thanatos story. She could have told him how beautiful he was when he laughed with Lilliana. She could have mentioned the time she saw him smiling as he watched a couple of foxes playing on the edge of the forest just outside Azagoth’s mansion. But for some reason, she wanted him to know why her opinion of him was so personal.

  “Because I worke
d with Gethel,” she whispered. “She was a traitor who plotted with Pestilence to slaughter a newborn baby and start the Apocalypse.”

  He brought one hand between them to feather his fingertips across the swell of her breasts, and she went all rubbery in the knees. “So you’re saying that in comparison, I’m a saint.”

  “No.” She nipped his lip. “I’m saying you are nuanced. You’re evil, but there’s good in you, as well.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Expose more of my skin, and I will.”

  She felt his chest heave against hers. Once. Twice. And then, as if he’d given himself permission, he reached around behind her and ripped her corset off. Thank Heavens she’d chosen the one with the Velcro closure today.

  “Now tell me,” he breathed into her hair, “do you feel me?”

  “Yes,” she moaned, undulating her entire body, desperate to get as much skin-on-skin contact as possible. Her nipples, so sensitive they were almost painful, rubbed against the hard planes of his chest. She hadn’t known they could ache like that.

  “Shit,” he rasped. “Too much. This is too much.”

  Too much what? It wasn’t enough, as far as she was concerned. “I like touching you.”

  “No one ever touches me.” He took a deep, shuddering breath that somehow sounded...pained, and not in a good way. “Nothing but the wind and rain ever does.”

  Wind and rain? Was that why he often went bare-chested? He liked the feel of something caressing his skin because people wouldn’t? Or maybe he wouldn’t let them?

  She couldn’t imagine living like that. She liked to touch and be touched. To show him how much she enjoyed it, she shoved her hand between them and found his erection as it strained against his pants.

  Oh...my. She could feel every ridge and bump through the thin fabric as she ran her fingers along his length. Her strokes, made awkward by her inexperience and their position, still managed to elicit a tortured moan from him. The sound emboldened her, and she gripped him more firmly. His thick length pulsed, the hot blood pounding in her palm, and his shout of pleasure filled the room.

  Then, suddenly, he was standing near the portal door and she was slumped against the wall, which was the only thing holding her up. How had he moved so fast? More importantly, why had he moved so fast?

  “I have to go.” For a split second he looked frazzled, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring. Then he smiled, a cocky lopsided grin that did not fit the situation. “Hanging with you was great, but I have people to torture and shit. You can...” He looked around the room. “I don’t know. Clean or something.”

  “Clean?” Sure, she was still disoriented from the fog of lust and the surprise of him breaking it all off so quickly, but still...clean? “I work for Azagoth. Not you.”

  He shrugged. “Then sleep. Cook. Watch TV. Whatever. Just don’t leave this crypt.”

  “But I have to find that human.”

  Reaching behind him, he palmed the symbol carved into the portal door, and it flashed open, turning into a shimmering arch of light. “I’ll do it.”

  She pushed away from the wall, hoping her wobbly legs would hold her up. “I can help.”

  “No.” His tone was harsh, but he softened it as he continued. “The demons were using you for something. Until I know what, we can’t risk you being out in the general population. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.” Before she could protest, he stepped through the portal and disappeared.

  “Bastard,” she shouted after him.

  She swore she heard laughter echo from out of the portal.

  * * * *

  Lilliana strode through the halls of the building that, just a few short months ago, she’d thought of as her prison. Now it was her home, and the male who ran it was the love of her life.

  She found him in his library, standing in front of the fire, his big body outlined by its orange glow. He didn’t turn when she entered, even though she knew he’d heard her approach. Coming up behind Azagoth, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his broad back.

  “Hey.”

  He covered her hands with his. “My love,” he purred. She adored that, how he saved certain tones and words for her and her alone. “What’s up? I thought you were busy with the new Unfallen recruits.”

  “I was, but I couldn’t get Cat off my mind.”

  “Cat? Is she okay?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. Have you seen her?”

  “Not today.” His voice rumbled through her as he spoke. “But I’ve been busy trying to figure out why Hades won’t respond to my messages and why the fucking portals to the Inner Sanctum are sealed.”

  Yeah, Azagoth hadn’t just been busy with that mess––he’d been obsessed. Something was terribly wrong in the Inner Sanctum, and with Heaven breathing down his back over the human stuck inside, Azagoth had been going nonstop. Between researching ways to open the portals and requesting help from the best demon engineers alive, he’d barely had time to eat, let alone sleep.

  “You haven’t made any progress, I take it?” He made a hellish sound she was going to take as a no. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and that fast, he relaxed a little.

  “S’okay.” Within the cage of her arms, he turned to her, his gaze intense but concerned. “Now, what’s going on with Cat?”

  “Did you send her on an errand to the human realm?”

  Concern creased his forehead. “No. What’s this about? Is she missing?”

  “For two days.” She stepped away from him, needing room to pace off her nervous energy now that she knew her friend was truly missing. “I didn’t worry until today because you sometimes send her off with messages or to fetch things. But she’s never been gone this long.”

  “And you’ve looked everywhere? The forest? The dorms? The old buildings? You know how she likes to explore.”

  True. Lilliana had never seen anyone so inquisitive and curious about the world around her. When Cat had first arrived, her constant, prying questions had irked Lilliana until she realized that Cat was simply trying to learn and experience.

  “I’ve scoured all of Sheoul-gra,” Lilliana sighed. “I suppose she could be hiding, but there’s no reason to do that.”

  “Maybe she got tired of working here.”

  She shook her head. “She feels safe here. And even if she did decide to leave, she wouldn’t have done it without saying good-bye first.” A bad feeling tightened her chest. “Could someone have hurt her?”

  He stiffened a little, just a slight shift of his broad shoulders, but Lilliana knew him well enough to recognize genuine unease. “You think one of the Unfallen living here has done something to her?”

  God, she hoped not. It had been Lilliana’s idea to use the old outer buildings to house Unfallen who didn’t want to enter Sheoul, who wanted a chance to make amends for whatever had gotten them booted from Heaven. If one of them had harmed Cat, she’d never forgive herself.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m telling you, she wouldn’t have gone this long without telling one of us. And Sheoul-gra is huge. I searched for her, but there are a lot of places where a person could hide a body or hold someone captive.”

  Azagoth’s eyes went stormy, and Lilliana was very glad the tempest of fury wasn’t aimed at her. “If anyone has dared to so much as touch a female under my protection,” he growled, “I will create a 6th Ring in the Inner Sanctum just for them, and I will fill it with every nightmare they’ve ever had. They will spend eternity alone, running from the things that scare them most, and just when they think they can’t take it anymore, I will become the thing they run from.”

  She shivered. And how twisted was she that she found his threats sexy? Not long ago she’d have thought him a fiend. Okay, he was still a fiend, but only to those who deserved it...and with them, he showed not a shred of mercy. Not even Lilliana would dare get between him and someone he set his vengeful sights on.

  So Heaven help anyone who touc
hed Cat, because Azagoth sure as hell wouldn’t.

  Chapter Ten

  Cataclysm spent the next few hours rummaging through Hades’s house-crypt. It was probably all kinds of rude to sort through his things, but it was also all kinds of rude to get her worked up and then suddenly back out, tell her to clean his dusty tomb, and then take off. So she didn’t feel too bad about snooping through his stuff.

  And what interesting stuff it was. Hell, his entire crypt turned out to be a treasure trove of mystery. In addition to the hidden kitchen and bathroom, there was an office, but instead of it being concealed behind a wall, it had been camouflaged by sorcery. His desk, a blocky monstrosity that appeared to have been carved with a pocket knife, sat just inches away from the rickety chair she’d sat in, but she never would have seen it––or bumped into it––if she hadn’t picked up the hollowed-out book she found on a shelf. The simple act of opening the book had revealed the hidden desk and file cabinets.

  Unfortunately, the cabinets were locked, presumably by more sorcery. But the contents of his desk were more than enough to keep her occupied. She found building plans for an expansion of the 1st Ring, an accounting of the prisoners in some fortress called the Rot, and a list of every fallen angel warden employed in the Inner Sanctum. Then there were the knickknacks on his desktop.

  She ran her finger over an egg-sized stone carving of a hellhound, laughing every time she touched its tail because the carving would come to life and snap at her before freezing again in its snarly, crouched stance. Then there was a framed photo of a blue lake nestled between snowcapped mountains. It was beautiful, but why did he have it?

  As she went to put it back on the desk, she bumped her elbow, and the picture fell to the floor. Glass shattered, sending shards skidding all over the place.