Page 4 of Tortured Soul
“Stand down, Carter,” someone else said. “Know your place.”
“Yeah,” I wheezed. “Know your place, Carter.”
“For fuck’s sakes,” the other guy mumbled.
As I heaved on the floor, I’m almost certain I was about one second away from a kick in the face. Hurried footsteps sent sand and dirt flying, sticking to the damp skin of my naked arms, getting under the pillowcase, in my mouth, my throat, my eyes.
The tumble stopped and people grunted and cursed at each other.
Discord. Chaos.
I smiled through the pain.
“Stand up, Succubus. We’re losing daylight here.”
The voice was low and rough, but softer than the Divine who was manhandling me a minute ago. One of the two Hellriser men. A demon. My kind of people.
I managed to get up on wobbly legs and started walking when he placed a hand between my shoulderblades. My arms were free, falling on my sides, hands fisted against my thighs.
“Here I thought chivalry was dead,” I said. “Thank you for—”
“Don’t push your luck,” he cut me off flatly. “Carter might not be above all, but he’s a hothead. If you go too far, the only one who’ll be able to stop him isn’t here with us.”
Divines and their enormous egos. I sometimes missed the time where they stayed among themselves, no matter how hard both ourkind fought each other. We were never meant to get along and live in harmony.
Humans unfortunately changed all that with the war over fifty years ago.
Which led me here, manhandled by a Divine scumbag, walking my ass off under the scorching desert heat. My bike, helmet, and leather jacket were left who knows where, and I was still waiting for a damn coffee.
It’s been barely a week, and so far, freedom sucks.
Chapter 2
Lola
When Lucifer mentioned a camp, I was expecting a dirty place covered with tents and miserable people. Not that the people were dirty—in fact I could barely see them from the window at the top of the tower I’d been stashed in—but in the middle of a desert surrounded by ruins, dirt and dust was everywhere.
Safe to say that I was definitely not picturing a whole ass town surrounded by thick and high fortifications.
A fancy post-apocalyptic city in a medieval fortress of some sorts. In the middle of the Arizona desert.Lovely.
It’s been almost an hour since I was led upstairs by the—not so friendly—Hellriser. He did nothing as I stumbledtwiceon the steps. He chuckled when my covered face collided with the wooden door and I almost fell backward, only stopped by his body behind mine.
“You’re a clumsy one,” he had said, leaning over me to open the door with what sounded like a key. “Try not to break your own neck.”
And then he’d pushed me inside the room, locking the door behind me.
Here I thought he was the nicest of them all, when he was just as much of a rude asshole as his Divine friend.
At least this time my hands were free and I was able to catch myself on some kind of furniture in front of me.
I stayed quiet and still for a while before I realized that I was alone in here and took the pillowcase off my own head to drop it on the floor.
For an hour I’ve circled the room, studying the town outside the window, scanning the sparse equipment in the dusty space.
Some old wooden chairs and a single table in the middle, a damaged brown leather couch under the window, a large dirty persian rug covering almost the whole wooden floor.
It all screamed “meeting room for people you don’t really want to meet.”
