Page 12 of Snowed in with the Demon Lord
His boots were easy to take off. I’d half expected to find cloven hooves in them, but aside from the red skin there was nothing unusual about his feet. Then came the intimidating part. With trembling fingers, I undid his belt, sliding the supple leather free. Before going on to unbutton his pants, I gave Abaddon a prod in the side, hoping he’d wake. No such luck.
It took time and effort to pull his pants down, more because I did my best to avoid touching or looking at him. My face glowing red as his skin, I struggled on until I finally got them off.
Good news: no sign of burns or any other injuries on his magnificently muscled legs. Bad news:oh fuck he’s gorgeous.The demon lord had been overpoweringly sexy in his clothes. Undressed, letting me see his muscles, his face relaxed from its usual hard mask?
No work of art could compete with Abaddon’s dark beauty, and no human was as attractive. A shiver ran through me, not from cold but from desire, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from drifting down from his face, across his chest and abs, and to the massive bulge in his boxers.
In theory, I should check under them for harm. In practice,no fucking way.I felt creepy enough as it was.
“Okay, Belial,” I said to the hellhound. “No damage that I can see, but I don’t know what’s normal for a demon. So now I guess we wait.”
9
ABADDON
Cold crept in at the edges of my awareness. Strange, since I hadn’t expected to feel anything at all. For a while, I floated in a haze, thoughts not properly forming, but the cold told me there was something more and eventually I tried to work out what it was.
Someone was speaking. The words were just noise to me, but there was a music to them, beauty that I couldn’t resist. Reluctantly, unable to ignore the sound, I forced my eyes open and wondered where I was.
I’d expected to see the black stone ceiling of my bedchamber, high in the spire that was my home in Dis. Instead, a low wooden ceiling hung over me, lit only by flickering red firelight. A hunting lodge, perhaps? Somewhere on a primitive world? That didn’t sound right.
The mattress on which I lay was far from comfortable, and it took a moment to realize that was because it was the floor. Pain shot through me at every movement, my throat burned, and even the simple cover draped over me was heavy enough to restrain me in this state.
No. I am Abaddon the Destroyer, I have conquered worlds, and I commanded one of the mightiest houses in Dis. I will not be defeated by ablanket.
On the second try, I sat up and threw the cover aside. It was hard to see anything with the room spinning around me, but if I focused on the fireplace, I could keep myself oriented. The theory was good, but it did nothing to settle my dizziness. Something had happened, something terrible, and I needed to remember.
“What the fuck, Abaddon?” The shout caught me by surprise, and I jumped to my feet, spinning to face the speaker with claws ready to strike. It was a maneuver to make my instructors proud, or would have been if my spin hadn’t continued, sending me staggering across the room fighting for balance.
A small, compact body swept in under my arm, catching me and keeping me from a fall that would complete my humiliation. Memories flooded back at her touch. Holly. The storm. The accident with my hellfire generator. I groaned and, with Holly’s help, staggered to the sofa and collapsed onto it. The wooden frame creaked ominously, but held.
“You should not have come back for me.” I tried for a stern tone, but with the roughness from smoke inhalation, it came out more like a cough. “I threw you clear to save you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. If I get myself killed, I’m ‘disrespecting your gift’ or whatever. Deal with it.”
Framed in the firelight, Holly stood over me, and I’d never seen a more beautiful sight. Her crooked smile, the glint in her eyes, her poise. I stared up at her, drinking in the delightful sight of this mortal woman. A long moment of silence stretched between us before she spoke again.
“So, what the fuck happened?”
“I do not know,” I replied, pulling my jumbled memories into place. “The energy I put into that sigil was not enough to causethat explosion. Or it shouldn’t have been, but then the generator shouldn’t have burned out either.”
“Sabotage?” She didn’t sound convinced, and neither was I.
“Not unless you are confessing. We are the only people for miles, and no one would brave this storm just to meddle with my power supply.”
I sat up, testing my strength. Better. The dizziness had faded too. “Come, Holly, let us not waste my last few hours on useless speculation. There are more pleasant matters.”
Her brow furrowed, and she pursed her lips. “What do you mean, last hours?”
With a sigh, I realized I wouldn’t escape the conversation that easily.
“That circle did more than power the generator, Holly. It channeled all the magic here, including my binding. Your dimension is hostile to demons, and we cannot survive long without help. That’s where your legends of us come from; there are techniques to call demons here from our home plane, and keep us here to perform some task for our summoner.”
“The runes.” Holly looked around at the walls where she’d seen them burn before. “They bound you? Who thefuck?—”
I raised my hand to stop her before her rant got properly started. “I did, mortal. When I arrived here, I set up wards to keep myself alive. Few demons have the power to do that, and even I could not do it indefinitely. The circle was efficient, and would last centuries, but now I lack the strength to replace it. In a few hours, I will cease to exist.”
I expected Holly’s anger to fade into something else. Grief, indifference, something. I wasn’t prepared for her punching my arm, her anger boiling over. “Youselfishmotherfucker.”
