Page 47 of Princess of Hell

Caspian

My fists connected with the boxing sack, hard, punching it in crazed, rapid succession. My knuckles hurt as the skin split open and bled. Sweat and dust mixed inside the wound. It’s not as if I needed to worry about infection. Demons don’t get that shit. At least that was a perk.

I punched it again and again until the leather cracked and exploded under the rain of blows I didn’t get tired of applying. As I turned on the ball of my left foot, my right leg connected with the other boxing sack. It broke from its support and flew away.

“Better now?” The voice of my best friend and sparring partner, Carson, sounded from nearby. He has a smart mouth on him, mostly when we train or hunt together. We forget the difference in rank. As the son of Behemoth, my status was that of a high-ranking demon, royalty and stuff.

“Ugh!” I growled and spat on the floor.

The training area was not a pampering space like modern gyms. It was cold, dirty, and rugged. The weight machines had old rusty weights, pieces of engines, chains, and such. It felt exhilarating to push metal against metal, hear the pieces of equipment clink against each other, and watch flakes of rust float around.

I did my best to exhaust myself today, getting on a good sweat and my mind off this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. The damn humans call it anxiety. I call it being off. Being under fucked, maybe. I need to kill someone. My muscles hurt and cry out for me to stop, but I ignore the burning, ignore the injuries. I allow my Demon nature to fix me and I keep going.

Carson laughed.

“Do you have wedding night jitters, man?”

“Fuck you, asshole!”

“Talk to me, man. You keep beating up everything around you. I think we should act girly and either talk or be manly and kill and fuck. You pick. I lean towards the killing and the fucking part.”

I bit the inside of my cheek until blood filled my mouth. Hitting the boxing sack with short jabs, I tried to let go of what was bothering me.

Silver. She’s mine. She was promised to me. She is my possession, and if I want her, I shall have her. Not even Lucifer could stand in my way.

Or rather, her absence.

“Don’t you want to marry her?” asked Carson.

He had no idea. I was the only one who knew that she was my fated mate. I knew it, and the Oracle confirmed it a long time ago. Maybe that’s why her absence hurt. It felt like an empty hollowness that grew with each moment we were apart. It was more than that. I could feel it. It was a pull, a tightness inside my belly and my chest, the way she appeared in my dreams and what I did to her in them. It drove me crazy.

“Christobald said she retreated with the Fates before her wedding,” I yelled at Carson. “I don’t believe one word of that. Why would she do that? Why would she run away from the wedding preparations?”

I waited for him to say something, anything.

“I have no idea, man. You can ask to see her before the wedding. You don’t have to accept her. But everyone says that your fiancée is damn hot.”

Hearing Carson talking about Silver that way made my blood boil. Before I had a chance to stop, my hands landed on his throat. I pushed him against the wall hard enough for the plaster to peel off and fall around his feet.

Carson lifted his arms. “Man, what the fuck?”

Carson seemed surprised. He couldn’t understand the feeling of possession I had for this woman.

My woman.

Mine!

Just thinking about another man touching her drove me crazy and made my blood boil. Even if he touched her only with his eyes, I felt that I’d go crazy if I couldn’t touch her, claim her.

“Let’s go to her now.” Carson blurted the words out after I let go of him. He massaged his throat where I had pushed him.

“Are you crazy?”

“Why not? The Temple of The Fates is a neutral spot, a place of worship. We can go there. You know, find ourselves, pray, find purity, and bullshit like that.” Carson had a way to see things from a perspective that was positive for his wishes and desires. I always liked that about him.

I shrugged. Thinking about Silver was scary and exciting. I’m not. I am Caspian, Prince of Hell, leader of my father Behemoth's army. I am somebody. I make adversaries shake with fear and run away screaming. I am not afraid.

Hitting the wall with my fist, I cracked my knuckles. The tension rippled through my fingers, pain making it hard to breathe.

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