Page 6 of Bellamy
“Walk with me,” he said.
I fell into step beside him. It was a place of honor by his side, a position I was fortunate to have. And hated by those around me for having. Glares bore into me from the other demons. I saw them. Felt them. They envied me. I was younger than them, yet I held such a coveted position. Despite my age, I had worked hard and become powerful, though it wasn’t merely my level of power that earned me a place by the king’s side.
According to Asa, I had a pretty face. Something nice to look at. Even if said pretty face was pushed into a pillow most of the time.
We advanced down a corridor, the sconces floating along the wall lighting our way. Electricity, running water, and other modern-day conveniences existed in the underworld, but the castle with its stone turrets and antiquated décor was reminiscent of the medieval age. A balance of both worlds.
“I replay that day over and over in my mind,” Asa said, pulling me from my thoughts. “Light Bringer was in my grasp, its magical energy merging with mine. The power… gods, Phoenix, I’ve never felt anything else like it. Men have slaughtered hundreds of thousands to have only a fraction of the power I had in my possession.” He gritted his teeth. “And then Sloth took it away. A mistake on my part. I underestimated him.”
“Permission to speak, my king?”
“Granted.” Asa ignored the servant who stopped in the corridor to let us pass.
The servant kept his gaze downcast, more so out of fear than respect.
“You never did tell me the reason for not allowing me to fight during the battle in the celestial realm.” I had been ordered to stay in the underworld. No explanation, not that I was owed one. He was the king, after all. “If it’s not my place to know, I apologize for—”
Asa turned to me, his hand going to my elbow. “The reason? Simple. You are too valuable. Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, for if someone smashes that basket, all will be lost in a mess of bloody shells. You and Belphegor are my closest advisors. With him beside me, I needed you here. If I lost him, I couldn’t lose you too.”
“I’m pleased to serve you.” I bowed my head. When I lifted it again, he was watching me, red eyes narrowed.
“Objects may lose value over time though.” Asa took a small step closer. “All it takes is a single chip in armor for a sword to find a way to pierce the soft flesh beneath it. No matter how many battles you fought together, when a thing proves it’s no longer useful, it must be discarded.” He grazed his nails up the side of my neck and dug them into the tender area of my nape, tilting my head up. “Don’t lose your value, Phoenix.”
I knew what he was truly saying:Don’t betray me.
“You,” Asa said to a passing servant, dropping his hand from my nape. “Prepare me a hot bath.” His eyes shifted to me. “And you? Go take off your clothes and wait for me there.”
“Yes, my king.”
As I headed up the stairs toward his bedchamber, the middle of my chest tingled, the same place a bullet had struck months ago. Mason Hawk, a human now mated to Sloth, had shot me dead center with a silver bullet. I should’ve died that night. The reason why I didn’t?
Him. The same goddamn Nephilim I hadn’t been able to get out of my fucking head since last year when he’d pressed a dagger to my throat.
A battle had waged around us that day, but only he’d existed. With golden hair and a face befitting of the gods, he was sex, desire, and fantasy all rolled up into one. The epitome of lust. At his mercy, at the end of his blade, the air had shifted.
I had felt it then, a shock to my entire system, as if my insides had blown apart and reknitted itself together, like a fucked-up Frankenstein’s monster. Without a doubt, I knew he’d felt it too. It was why he hadn’t been able to kill me.
The night Mason shot me, Bellamy had dropped to his knees beside me and gathered me in his arms. Months later, I still remembered the softness of that touch and the intense desperation in his eyes as they fell to the hole in my chest. He had then placed his hand over it and healed me.
He could’ve killed me or let me die. But he’d chosen to spare me.
When I reached Asa’s room, moonlight streamed in through the open windows of the balcony. Unlike in the human world, two moons hung in the sky of our realm: one with a blue ring around it and the other red. The moons cast the night in a faint blue hue with a second beam filtering through it, like red particles of dust.
I unbuttoned my shirt as I entered the connecting bathroom. The servant rushed in behind me and made quick work of starting water for the bath. Once finished, he bowed his head to me before rushing back out.
Naked, I waited for the king. The hairs on my nape prickled as the bathroom door clicked closed and the heavy thumps of his boots echoed behind me. He caressed my bicep and trailed his fingers over to my shoulder, down my spine.
Asa got what he wanted when he wanted it. That included me.
He used me however he saw fit. Errand boy, soldier, sex toy.
Anything he wanted, I was his to command.
***
A table sat in the council room, big enough to seat twelve comfortably. Though, its only use right then was to hold the various pitchers of red wine as we gathered to discuss the war.
Fallen angels were cursed souls, and as a sign of that curse, they were forced to consume blood to survive. So Belphegor and the latest additions to our council drank a special concoction of wine and blood. They drank alotof it.
