Page 19 of Consorting With The Enemy

He tilted his head and sniffed the air. “Damn, but doesn’t it smell deliciously wicked in there. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve got yourself a nice little buffet going on, Ariel, the seventh child of our late Dark Lord. Interested in sharing?”

“Fuck off, Jar,” I said. “He’s mine and you’ll never fucking touch him.” Surprising me, Az slapped me on the ass. Hard. I thought for a second and then corrected, “Well, I’m his.”

“Much better,” Az teased.

When the hell did Az start teasing? I liked it.

“Oh honey, you are absolutely gorgeous, but I don’t think it’s your angelic smell that has caught the, uh, attention of certain parts of my body.” He looked inside the loft. “Perhaps I could take a look around? Do some sampling? He’s young…yet old. Innocent, yet dangerous. I’ve never smelled anyone like him before.” Lost in the lust only an Incubus could experience, Jarsan rubbed his hands together in excitement.

“There’s no one here for you, Jarsan. What do you want? Spit out whatever line of bullshit my brother has sent you to say and then move the fuck on.”

“Pssht. I always thought you were supposed to be the fun one, Ariel,” he whined. “Oh well, I guess not.” He straightened to his full height of six feet four inches. “I don’t suppose a surrender is something you’d consider?”

Az stepped around me, dick swinging, and said, “If you wish to live another day, Incubus, don’t insult us like that again. We don’t surrender, especially not when we are clearly winning this demonic war between our two families.”

“Very alpha, angel. I like it.” Jarsan looked at me. “Good for you, Ariel. Too bad you won’t be alive to enjoy him much longer. Your eldest brother, Tantrumonious, future ruler of the underworld, requests that you meet him at the Pits of Rome at sundown today.” He winked. “Don’t make him come into the city to battle you. Innocents would certainly be sacrificed and whilewemight not care, I bet you and your merry band of misfits do. Don’t be late, love.” He started to walk off but turned around and added, “Be sure and bring the one that smells so delightful. I might just keep him for myself.”

I slammed the door before Az decided to go after the Incubus and kill him. Immediately, I turned around and slammed my body against Az, hugging him tightly. “I can’t do it, Az. I can’t let the rest of you fight my battles for me. I’m the one he wants.” Looking over Az’s shoulder, my eyes landed on Nic, Gabriel, Marchand, and Julian. No, I couldn’t risk their lives to spare my own.

Nic rolled his eyes and Gabriel outright laughed at me. “Put some clothing on, Azazel. We need to strategize, not compare dick lengths,” Nic said. Turning to Marchand, he said, “While he does that, I need you and Gabriel to run a quick errand for me.”

What the fuck? Who needed an errand at a time like this? Az turned to glare at Nic, but after a stare-down between the two alphas, Az finally nodded and turned his attention back to me. “Help me get dressed, babe.”

Laughing, I said, “I’m much better at helping you get undressed, but I guess I could be taught a new trick—putting clothes on instead of taking them off. I must go on the record of saying that I think this is a talent I won’t be using very often.”

Az’s laughter, which was something I’d rarely gotten to hear over the years, echoed off the walls of my loft.

It was the last thing I remembered before everything turned to blackness.

****

Azazel

Marchand and I landed on our side of the battlefield the demons referred to as the Pits seconds before Nic and Gabriel magically transported the rest of our supernatural army to stand alongside us. Luckily, I’d heard of the area veiled from human eyes and didn’t have to question Ariel as to where Tantrumonious wanted to meet. It was three square miles of uninhabited land that the demons made invisible to humans. Countless other supernatural battles had occurred on these very grounds, I suspected many more would follow.

Ariel’s eldest demonic brother had brought an army with him, but not nearly as large as I had anticipated. Once again, I wondered just exactly how much control Tantrumonious actually possessed in the underworld. Other than the powerful first-born child to the Dark Lord, there really wasn’t much of a challenge to face them.

Guilt gnawed at my gut. We’d used magic to subdue my lover, drained him of a large portion of his blood to weaken him, and then chained him in iron to render him helpless to escape. Our intentions had been pure, meant to protect the demon we loved, but I suspected he wouldn’t appreciate it any more than I would have if our roles had been reversed. I dreaded facing him when we got back.

I looked to Nic and said, “He’s never going to forgive us, Nicholas. Did we make the right decision?”

“Of course, we made the correct decision regarding Ariel. He’s the one they fear—the one they want destroyed. If he were here, we’d be nothing more than a distraction. Tantrum’s plan was to separate Ariel, destroy him, and then watch the rest of us tumble as we suffered the loss. I would never accuse the demon of being the owner of a large amount of brain power, but it wouldn’t take much intelligence to realize we would do anything to protect Ariel. He would use our affection for Ariel against us. Reversing that, he would also use Ariel’s affection for us to weaken him. We did the right thing and Ariel will forgive us all.”

Giving him a skeptical look, I said, “Have you met, Ariel? I’ve known him much longer than any of you and trust me when I tell you this, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

“If we all stay alive and destroy his brother, Ari will forgive us,” Marchand said calmly. Then with one of his soft smiles, he added, “After he makes us suffer all sorts of imaginable evils, of course.”

“Not sure you’re helping, Darkness,” Gabriel told his lover.

I kept one eye on Tantrum and his army while we talked. The bastard demon seemed fine with waiting for us to make the first move. No doubt he was waiting for Ariel to arrive, as well. From my best count, he had three demon lords with him. The Incubus that had delivered the message stood next to Tantrum. I supposed he must be the demon’s second in command. Again, I would have expected more. Each lord had five-to-ten demons surrounding them. Other than that, there was only Aramaius, Tantrum’s first wife of nearly twelve hundred years, standing alongside him.

“Something’s not right,” I said. “There should be more demons here, ready and willing to fight for their future ruler. Do you think he doesn’t have all the support he needs to take the throne? Ariel’s brothers aren’t even here.”

Taylor suddenly appeared in the room with a swirl of a long blue cape. He was dressed in some kind of Fairy court finery, and I hardly recognized him at first. I suddenly realized he must have been glamouring himself all this time and hiding his true form. I had heard that he was in actuality some kind of bastard Fairy Prince, but I hadn’t seen him since he revealed himself.

“I agree, Az,” he was saying. “There should be more warriors, but the fact that there isn’t gives credence to the rumors I’ve heard from my mother’s courtiers at the Seelie Court. And believe me, those courtiers know everything.”

“And those rumors are?” Nic asked, then added, “And why are we just now hearing about them? And why in the fuck are you here instead of on your honeymoon?”

---