Page 34 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires

In a flash, Bez lunged forward. He moved so suddenly, even my vision struggled to keep up, recalibrating to slow down reality and study his movements. Did I actually slow time, or did my essence merely alter the perception of my brain receptors so I could comprehend super speed in a digestible manner? I’d wager on the latter. Either way, I’d confer with Bez in private so I could gain a better grasp on this continuous growth in my Diabolic abilities. But first, I needed him to calm down.

“Bez, I’m fine.”

He stood completely naked, drenched in water and covered in soapy suds that didn’t hide his most private areas. Not that it concerned Bez to swing his dick while also swinging that menacing attitude. Part of me wanted to giggle, reminded of the first time he’d kidnapped me and threatened to chase me buck naked if I attempted to flee while he showered. But his furious expression made me swallow that humorous thought and keep it to myself.

“You dare presume to attack Lord Walter?” Bez snarled, glaring down at the demon who’d accidentally struck me.

The demon shivered, dropping the file. It clinked almost as loudly as the demon’s hands that slapped the marble floor when they knelt to apologize.

“I meant no harm.”

“Bah.” Bez waved a dismissive hand, his tails flicking in unison and smashing nearby furniture. “As if you could ever harm my great lord. It is your audacious nature, your impotence, that infuriates me.”

“Bez.” I grimaced and bit my lip because I’d agreed to follow his lead here in Hell. If that meant staying quiet while he verbally ripped this low-level demon to shreds, then so be it.

Whether for the show of authority or indulging in his own ego, Bez’s antics reminded me of every time a practitioner emotionally eviscerated me when I worked in the archives. The number of times I’d been called an “incompetent fucking moron who can’t do anything right” could fill a calendar. All three-hundred and sixty-five days, not the monthly spreads.

Bez slashed the demon across the face, watching the essence lash out defensively as the host body was hacked through. In one swift motion, Bez had torn open flesh, bone, muscle, and brain matter. All things the demon’s essence could restore, but Bez didn’t offer the chance.

As quickly as he’d leapt over and attacked, he summoned black flames between his hands and dropped an inferno of fire down onto the demon who’d struck me.

I bit my knuckles to stifle a shocked scream. Not that anyone would hear it over the horrified wails of agony unleashed by the demon Bez incinerated.

10

Bez

Wally nearly gave away his compassionate heart a dozen different times. But thankfully, he recalled my warnings and silenced his protests while I burned this daring demon to cinders. It wasn’t that there weren’t kind devils. There were. There were plenty, in fact. They’d been birthed into the universe to balance the scales, perhaps, but the universe underestimated the wickedness of the foulest creations.

Devils like mine, devils like Lilith, devils who reigned superior through the test of time, didn’t tolerate compassion and deemed it an easy weakness to exploit. The devil Walter couldn’t be considered weak. Not if we wanted to walk away from this unscathed. He’d want his life back, a life without Hell, without Lilith’s authority, without the ominous threat of death for daring to exist, and as such, it fell to me to ensure I evoked a level of terror befitting a devil.

I served as commander and needed every demon in the vicinity—not simply those in attendance to serve, but also the tens of thousands watching from a safe distance, studying and composing theories for Lilith on whether they should strike or submit. It was a delicate process, one I’d contributed to many times for Beelzebub over the eons. Demons conspire, cautious and obedient and always willing to take the fall for failure.

“Bez, what the fuck!” Wally ground his teeth, nostrils flaring because he loathed the smell of charred flesh. Always so sensitive, but I loved it almost as much as I loved him. “It was an accident!”

“It was an overstep, my lord.” I dropped to one knee, arms swiped to the side to bow in submission, and hoped for the love of everything simple that Wally caught the cue. “But this audacious behavior could not be tolerated.”

“Absolutely!” Orias wriggled and went to bow himself. “Lilith does not tolerate such obstinate failure. These demons were hand-picked for their precision of flattery and understanding, and I am ashamed to have considered that fool to be even remotely…”

Orias’ iris zipped erratically, and his voice slipped into the Diabolic language, the singular tones we shared across every Hell, proving that, despite immortality and massive power and dimensional travel, we lacked uniqueness like the obnoxious mortal Walter pitied.

“Enough,” Wally snapped. “Out. Out. Everyone out.”

I stood along with all the demon attendants, preparing to leave as I needed to appear as obedient as everyone else under the order of the devil’s command.

“Stay.” Wally seethed, pointing a finger to the broken floor I’d smashed, and honestly, there was something so hot about his rage in that singular second.Stay. I nearly dropped to my knees again.

Once everyone had exited, Wally’s enraged expression fell flat into a frazzled panic of disarray, and suddenly, my desire to kneel fizzled away along with his confidence.

“What the actual fuck, Bez?”

“No actual fucking thanks to that panicked pancake face.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

“You can’t just kill someone over a mistake.”

---