Page 3 of Sinful Pride

“Michael overworked himself again, and he’s being punished,” Lucifer explained simply. “And the state of his dress is only the beginning of the punishment. Would you like to take part in reminding him to take care of himself?”

“And how do I do that?” the blonde squinted at us suspiciously.

Lucifer brandished a golden pen.

“Take this. And write whatever you want. On Michael.”

“Write whatever I want… can I draw something?” the blonde asked.

“No. I fear that if I allow you all to draw, many of you will be tempted to actually produce beautiful work. I don’t want Michael to end up with a masterpiece on his back. That would be a reward and not a punishment.”

“Fair enough,” Aurelius said, but his eyes sparkled mischievously. “I have an idea what to write.”

The blonde took the pen and fluttered about, trying to find a perfect spot for his writing. In the end, he chose my upper arm and created a circular design, written in a beautiful font. That was probably as close to art as he could get with text. I didn’t actually know what kind of language it was, but the universal power of an angel meant I could understand what was written.

One to rule them all? Was that some reference to my high status as an Archangel? That didn’t seem so bad. So why several people around me were in stitches and laughter spread around the room?

“That’s a good one,” Kreshadon cackled.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky…” Hellion started reciting some weird prose, making me frown even harder, as he didn’t explain anything.

“Will someone put him out of his misery?” Lucifer asked, even if it was obvious he was enjoying my obliviousness.

“It’s a reference to Lord of the Rings. There’s a powerful ring that’s used for evil, and it has this inscription written on the side of it. It’s pretty funny to have that line on an angel,” Hellion explained with a shrug.

“If I have been given the power to rule them all, then I command you to desist attempting to write on me,” I tried but judging by the laughter it did not work that way.

“There’s no escape, angel,” Beelzebub said as he stepped up and grabbed a red pen. He circled around me, enjoying playing with his food, making me tense and bristle. “Anything, you say?”

He stopped behind my back, and I was pretty sure he was locked in a staring contest with Lucifer, if my lover’s displeased expression was anything to go by.

As the pen touched my skin, I had to suppress a flinch. I knew how much of a dangerous creature Beelzebub was, so having him touching such a vulnerable part of myself was awful. He used big letters to spell a word on my back, but I was too distracted to puzzle out what it was from feeling alone.

Someone in the crowd whistled.

How bad was what Beelzebub wrote? Judging by the stares… pretty bad.

“What did he write?!” I had to ask.

I scanned the crowd for a person most likely to spill the beans, and my eyes landed on Tirael. But when I met his gaze and lifted my brow expectantly, the angel squeaked and hid behind Jaheel. The burly angel snorted.

“You will know when it’s time,” Jaheel drawled.

So the word on my back remained a mystery while others lined up to fill my skin with their own writing. Anael wrote an Egyptian proverb (‘A beautiful thing is never perfect’) and Jaheel a fragment of his favorite song titled Sleeping Sun. Serena, frustrated and not willing to offend me, penned in her beautiful calligraphy a generic word ‘angel’. Those were pretty tame, but others went to town with their chance to make me sweat.

Raphael pointedly wrote, ‘Rest is good’ on my arm. The text was positioned in such a way that I could read it from my perspective. Nathaniel stretched the definition of writing, so I ended up with a bunch of weird text emoticons, which he called kaomoji, on one of my legs. Kreshadon wrote COAL on my stomach and, when questioned, murmured something about hearing of an old tradition where Santa would bring coal instead of gifts to children who had been naughty. I resented the implication of being immature. Hellion wrote the word IDIOT, each of the letters sporting a different color. Zachariel went with number 42—at least that was a literary reference I knew; theanswertolife,theuniverse, and everything. Abaddon made a careful rendition of the word ‘true’ on my palm and I quickly discovered when I turned my hand upside down the same word spelled ‘false’ now. A neat trick. In the end, Tirael remained the only person who didn’t have a go at me.

“Oh no, I can’t, how could I possibly…” Tirael muttered, but the others pounced on him and encouraged his participation with bizarre requests. Surprisingly, it was Hellion who put an end to the bullying.

“Leave him alone. We have other things to do. How about we raise the stakes? May I present to you the first game: Truth or Dare!”

My luck being what it was, Lucifer volunteered us. And while the Ascended Club participants besides Zachariel had decided to skip the game to catch up with each other, forming their own group, the others joined the free entertainment. Even Tirael took part, though I suspected Hellion used the leverage of having protected him from the bullying to draw him into the game. Kreshadon produced an empty bottle for us and we all took some of the myriad of decorative pillows strewn around to sit down on the floor in a loose circle.

Hellion gestured to the bachelor couple to start and Aurelius eagerly accepted the invitation, spinning the bottle until it landed on Lucifer.

“Truth or dare?”

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