Page 45 of The Devil of London

I hated how badly my hands shook.

Instead of him kicking down the door like I expected, darkness filled the entire bathroom until it enveloped everything inside of it in eternal night. My chest rose and fell with labored breaths as I struggled to see within the darkness. Knocking sounded at the door, and I whimpered in fear.

“If I were you, I’d let me in, my love.”

“Fuck you!” I wouldn’t escape Khaos. You didn’t escape the devil, ever. I knew it better than most. I couldn’t see, which could have been because Khaos’s magic was blinding me, or the toxins were. Either way, I’d been blinded in eternal darkness.

“Do you honestly think you can escape me?” the darkness whispered against my ear, but then fingers—Nasir’s fingers—wrapped around my throat and his lips brushed against mine. “You’re shaking like a leaf,” he murmured before his other hand threaded into my hair, wrenching my head back. I brought the gun up against his skull, but it hit something else. Embers ignited where it had struck, and then his dark silhouette was revealed as the candles inside the bathroom erupted with flames.

Broken horns protruded from his skull, dripping fiery sparks onto the floor. Lines of glowing crimson slithered over his arms and torso. The hand holding my jaw grew bigger, and wicked-looking wings unfolded from his spine, shielding us from the candlelight.

I’d never seen Khaos in anything other than a human form. This one was terrifying. Crimson-colored eyes held a hushed threat, but I remained silent, frozen in shock. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I was seeing. The dark laughter he released told me he was enjoying my fright at the sight of the monstrous beast he’d become.

“Khaos?” I whispered. The smug, masculine amusement he exuded crowded the bathroom, while something hard and hot curled around my calves and then moved to my thighs.

All at once, I was forced into the air with my thighs spread apart. A shriek ripped from my lungs as I felt the same thing slithering around my wrists. My arms were yanked up above my head, which caused my brain to misfire. Tears swam in my eyes as he stepped back, his inhuman focus feasting on my vulnerable body.

“Naughty girl. I warned you not to push me. Didn’t I?” His voice was strangely layered and sharper than ever before. It was otherworldly andright. Something pushed my cunt open, and I glanced down, seeing strange tendrils of vine-like magic forcing my pussy to spread open. They almost appeared to be tentacles, but they weren’t. They slithered like vines, but they were attached to Khaos somehow. Either this was turning into a horror show or the toxins were causing me to hallucinate. “So pretty, yet tender. I was going to make this easy on you. I’d intended to slit your throat and take you home until you’d fully healed, so just remember who started this, my love.” He released me, dropping me unceremoniously to the floor, where I almost blacked out from the pain of landing.

Before I could get my bearings and control the lightheadedness, his fingers were sliding through my hair, and he was dragging me into the bedroom and onto the bed. The monstrous beast who stood next to me looked like a mix of avenging angel and devil, and I wanted nothing more than to flee from him. I attempted to crawl away, but dark tendrils wrapped around my wrists and ankles. They went taut, spreading me out like a sacrifice to the gods.

Khaos stared down at me, his eyes raking over my naked, broken body. There was madness in his eyes, and fuck if I didn’t crave a taste of it. My body ached, but the pain was a slave to the madness that was sinking deeper and deeper into my mind, madness that flooded my veins with need. For once, I wanted him to lose control and fuck me like the rabid, cruel beast he was.

A strangled groan erupted beside the bed, which had come from Merikh. He’d grown as well, now standing taller than the doorframe with large gossamer wings fanning out behind him. Where Khaos had red veins slithering over his flesh, Merikh had obsidian markings. His horns, which weren’t broken like Khaos’s, twisted in a spiral and ended in lethal-looking points. Gone were the vibrant green eyes, replaced with voids of darkness that couldn’t seem to look away from me. His shirt had been ripped from his chest, exposing intricate ink that covered every inch in dark, sinful tattoos.

Khaos’s hand gripped my throat, forcing my attention to return to him. The anger radiating from him was palpable. I’d expected pain, but his mouth lowered to brush against mine in a soft whisper of tenderness.

“I was intending to make your death as painless as possible, darling. But you push me to violence.” Fear snaked through me as he pulled back. “You are gasoline that burns so fucking brilliantly. I can’t wait to make you scream my name.”

Chapter Twenty

“Goawayandleaveme to die in peace! Isn’t your bimbo fiancée waiting for you? Go back to her. At least she wants you, bastard.”

“You think I want her? Why the fuck would I want some pathetic, narcissist bitch when I have a fucking battle queen?” he asked, forcing my eyes to narrow. “It’s pathetic that you can’t see how fucking beautifully wicked you are. You and me? We are the same. Am I evil? Absolutely, but so are you.”

“I am nothing like you,” I spat out vehemently.

“No? You are savagery in the purest form, darling. Like me, you claim what you want and don’t care about the consequences. It is how you ended up being mine. Not because you burned down my establishments. Nah, not that easy, I’m afraid. In your true form, you were forbidden to me and those like me. It didn’t stop you from taking what you craved, though. Aderyn, you weren’t just savage. You were this phenomenally gorgeous, murderous creature who cared naught for the laws or rules of men or gods. You were petty, mean, and so fucking violent.” Magic slithered up my legs, writhing around them as something warm and thick slid through my arousal. A soft whimper escaped my lips as he smirked. “I remember the day our souls connected. I’d never wanted a mate and prayed to the Fates I’d be forgotten by their threads of destiny. When I first saw you, I felt my soul come alive.

“You’re insane,” I murmured breathlessly. Blood dripped down my side, and I couldn’t find the willpower to care. My hands lifted and settled on his chest as my head rolled back against the wall. “Nasir.” My tone was laced with sex and need.

“The moment I kissed you, I tasted home upon your perfect pouty pink lips. You were a battle waiting to be waged. In your eyes, there was fear, desire, blood, and lust. Everything I knew I’d ever wanted was right in front of me. This dark, ethereal queen who’d been forbidden from me, and the other men like me. You were a region of moonlight, constellations, and chaos. I was sure the Fates had made a mistake, and you’d be snatched away from me. I never expected to end up with you, brat. I was nothing. A knight and prince who would not ever hold a throne, who had nothing to offer you, and yet, you didn’t care. ‘Kismet,’ you’d said, ‘requires nothing but a glance, the whisper of forever, and two people who crave one another more than material things.’ But we found one another too late, my love. You were on the brink of madness and refused to go to stasis to heal your broken mind. Instead, you fucked us all over. You betrayed me and the men who followed my lead. Now, you and I are cursed by the gods. They cursed you to never remember us or what we were. But the rest of us? They took what we desired most and then made it impossible for us to have it. Then they added a safeguard against us having that which we craved most. Can you guess what my curse is, Aderyn?”

“No, but I’m sure it is dark and filthy.”

“No, that is what you spread, mistress of darkness. I enjoy the depravity your presence creates in others. You think I’m the monster, but you are darkness in the purest, wickedest form.” His tendrils of magic slid against my opening, teasing me with the threat of being larger than anything I’d taken before. “But you don’t remember it, and you won’t remember what I’m about to do to you either. Scream for me, slut.” It pushed into my cunt, and I screamed in both pleasure and pain. “So, fucking tight and delicious,” he purred as tendrils wrapped around my waist and carried me to the bed. “Stop fighting me. You never win, darling.”

I was flipped over with my ass pointed in the air, and the tendril in my pussy began to thrust hard and fast. Nasir’s dark, wicked magic secured my hands above my head, and then his feverish breath fanned my cunt, licking along the stretched lips teasingly. The wet sounds of his solidified magic were almost as obscene as they were erotic. Nasir hummed against my inner thigh and then sucked one lip, then the other, into his fiery mouth. His magic forced my pussy to spread as his hands tightened on my thighs, digging into the flesh.

“Khaos,” I panted as my stomach clenched.

“Shut your pretty mouth, brat,” he growled. He spit on my ass and then pushed his thumb in, producing a hiss of air to escape my lips. It was carnal lust overruling my mind, ignoring the pain rushing through my side as his magic fucked me and he added agony.

“Khaos!” I cried as his magic attacked my clit.

“I said shut up, didn’t I?” he growled, slapping my ass cheek, which caused my lips to part on a sultry whimper. His magic invaded my mouth until I was forced to swallow around it, moaning wantonly as the one in my pussy mercilessly jack-hammered in and out of me. Tears rolled down my face as Khaos’s hand slid to my clit and rubbed small circles against it. “Such a naughty bitch, aren’t you? You’re bleeding out and all you want to do is come like a good girl for me,” he rumbled before my hips were lifted into the air, forcing my face into the mattress. “Messy girl,” he praised as he began flicking my clit with his tongue.

“Merde,” Merikh muttered, but neither of us paid him any mind. “Libre comme l’air.”

---