Page 21 of His Bride

I’ve never been more alone. My chest is filled with a bitter emptiness that sucks the warmth from my veins.

For the first time since this nightmare began, I am utterly and hopelessly lost.

Chapter 6

CAELIAN

“Fuck. On a scale of one to total asshat, you’re about…total asshat times twenty.” I glare at my reflection, grow utterly sick of myself, and spin on my heel in the ensuite to stalk the bedroom.

My bedroom.

The one without the fucking woman I had to marry.

The one my body seems to lust for, and upon whom my mouth wants to inflict pain. Woman, not the bedroom. I’ve yet to reach that level of bizarre kink.

Also, I’ve had a fair bit to drink since I left her room, but clearly not nearly enough.

“Fuck all the scales. It’s where I’m going,” I say, glaring at the bottle in my hand. “I’m going to a dumbass hell to be annoyed by the dumbass demons there. For eternity, and that’s gonna piss me the fuck off. Dumbass demons.”

And they’re gonna be dumb. And asses. Fire and brimstone? Fuck that. Stupid horns and arrow tails and hooves for feet and…Whatever else they are, they’re just gonna be fucking dumb and annoy the absolute living shit out of me. Or death. Because…hell.

I breathe out and undo the lid of the scotch and down some, right before remembering I’m not a scotch man.

Thing is, hell is a concept when we go on about that crap. On Earth? Real fucking monsters? That kind of self-inflicted torture? Yeah, that’s real. And it sucks.

I rub a hand over my eyes and take another swallow.

New York is a rare breed. She can soothe me and rile me up and climb under my skin.

But fuck. When I said…that…to her, I didn’t mean it the way the words came out; I didn’t mean the way they ricocheted like a slap over her. Like the slap she gave me.

I deserved it.

I deserve worse for what I said—that I shouldn’t have married her. But I didn’t mean it like that. If we didn’t wear these rings, if I hadn’t discovered how delicious she is, how delightful and filthy she is, then I might not have lost the plot and gotten my brother shot.

But I did. And here we all are, ladies and dicks, hell on fucking Earth.

“Fuck!”

I stop in my stalk and throw back more of the booze, then toss the bottle onto the sofa in the room, myself next to it, and light an angry cigarette. The fucking cigarette’s inanimate, so it’s not angry. I am.

Because if I hadn’t married the most annoying, luscious, hottest woman I’ve met, none of this would be happening.

I smoke furiously, then I scrape a hand over my face as a shudder of pain hits, lancing all my soft and pathetic parts.

If I hadn’t married New York, if I hadn’t let myself get caught in her spell, maybe Mom would be alive. Alexius would be terrorizing Chicago as he should be.

But no, I let the woman get to me. If you look at it through a certain lens, it is also all her fault.

My fault. Hers. Ours. Us. I blame us, because if there were no us, we wouldn’t be in this giant ball of shit.

I grab the bottle and throw back more, then inhale more tobacco.

It’s her fault that it’s my fault. Because…shit.If she hadn’t climbed so deep under my skin that I don’t know which way’s up, maybe I wouldn’t have pushed Aurelio so far.

Maybe Alexius would have found us all a way out of that mess without someone getting hurt.

“Let’s face it, bottle,” I mutter, taking another swig because it’s not real big on talking or getting me where I want, which is passed the fuck out, “we know a stupid, weak dick like Aurelio would’ve come for us at some point.”

---