Page 43 of The Sinner and the Scholar
I wish I could hold my sisters’ hands, but I can’t reach them. I clench my fists at my side and pretend. As we continue chanting, natural light darkens like a storm gathers outside. But it’s already night. I look up, and the gym lights are on, but eerily not.
Where is the darkness coming from?
Candles flare. Flames flicker and gutter. A tunnel of air shimmers at the pentagram's center, from the rubber mat to the wooden beams high above us.
He’s coming.
I’m prepared for the beast but not for a crouching, handsome, nude man with dark, short hair. He straightens to his full six-foot-something height. High cheekbones. Lips wide and sinful. His face has all the charm and wickedness of the myth—the prince of hell who likes to gamble, debauch, and roll with the devious humans. He stretches as though he’s been stuck in that crouched position for eternity and then shakes his muscular limbs like an athlete about to race. But he doesn’t run. He turns in a circle and inspects us with growing satisfaction. Literalgrowingsatisfaction. He becomes impressively erect, his cock juts out, engorged. I suppose the demonic representation of lust wouldn’t have it any other way.
Slowly, his black and soulless eyes focus on me—the one who called him first.
A wry smile tugs his lips. “Darling, no need to continue chanting. I am here, in the tawdry flesh.”
His voice is a liquid drug, sliding down our throats, heating our bellies, tightening our nipples, and burning our loins. We breathe hard. It’s as though the air has become a potent aphrodisiac.
He’s not what we expected, but when Wesley’s demeanor switches from confident to alarmed and ready to fight, I wonder if he sees the three-headed beast. If he does, then which is the demon’s true form?
“Asmodeus,” I drawl, intent on keeping fear from my voice. “We’ve summoned you to ask a question.”
He’s not listening but prowling around his cage, pressing up to the pentagram’s center and inspecting us. There’s something about his gait. He limps but disguises himself with the prowling roll of his hips and the flex of his taut ass. A scar over his thigh is puckered and looks like a claw—his only flaw.
“My, my,” he drawls and stops before Leila. “Aren’t you the little firecracker? I’ll bet you’re a dynamite in the sack. You love your snuggles, don’t you? But you love those pistols more.”
He thrusts his hips in time as he annunciates the wordpistols. His hard dick wobbles, a fact he’s acutely proud of.
She stares at him but says nothing. He’s said something that affects her because she’s gone Sinner still. Asmodeus smirks and then continues his turn around the pentagram. He stops at Raven. “Nice to see you again,bruja.”
“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” she replies.
“Have I?”
He pouts mockingly and then prowls to Mercy, inhaling deeply as though he’s taking in her perfume like wine. His eyes flutter, and when he refocuses on her, he gives a low, arousing growl that skates down my spine like a lover’s caress.
“You,” he drawls. “You’re one of mine, aren’t you?”
“Fuck off, demon. I belong to myself,” she shoots back.
His laugh is a rich sound that flexes every hard muscle in his body and tingles every extremity in mine. We gaze upon his perfection with hot eyes. How can we not?
This is part of his act.
I grind my teeth, wanting to remind him that I’m in control, but he seems to enjoy his little sojourn around the pentacle. Let him believe he has agency here.
When his laughter dies and he wipes his eyes, he turns to Tawny and stills. For a moment, I think he’s lost for words. A spark flashes in his midnight eyes. Shock? Then his breath hitches like he’s just taken a hit of heroin. He sidles up to her, all sugar and spice.
“But you,” he whispers in a low, seductive tone. “Little Birdy, you’re the most vicious of them all.”
She takes his bait. “I am not.”
“Don’t lie. It’s unbecoming on someone as dazzling as you. The wicked beast rumbles in your soul. It tastes like honey.” He steps across the first chalked ring inside the pentagram, and we all gasp. He’s not supposed to leave it. Right?
I glance at Wesley, and his expression remains unchanged. Alert but not afraid. But then I see his knuckles whiten around the dagger.
“He can’t get out of the pentagram,” he confirms.
Asmodeus can, however, slide up the inner point of the star to meet Tawny and bite the air before her face. He is a dragon, nipping at inconsequential prey. Teasing and playing with his food.
He purrs, “I can smell you,Sister, and all those delicious desires buried deep, just bursting to get out.”
