Page 98 of Lust

“Look at me!” I demand, then wince as I remember those are the words Rowena used on me before I…

Damn, she tasted so good.

“I’ve got a plan for that,” Anthura mutters. “I’ve ordered the most wonderful headdresses for us. No one will see the top half of your head.”

She looks away quickly, probably to hide the repulsion on her face.

I snatch the suit from her hands, irritation flooding through me. “Fine. I'll try it on, but I don't see how this is going to make us look any better than anyone else. Even reprobates like Dade Angelis can pick this stuff up in the shops.”

She waves away my concern. “Noémi has taken care of Dade, remember? Anyway, you don’t need to worry about him or anyone else. I've reserved every available salon on the entertainment level and purchased every suit and dress from all the clothing stores. You and I are going to be pampered beyond belief. And when the others are scrambling to find something to wear, they'll all discover they're out of luck.”

Once again, I’m reminded of why I put up with her. Even out of the leadership team for the games, she still holds some sway amongst the other demons. “You’re a conniving cunt, Anthura.”

“Yes I am,” she agrees, stepping up to me and baring her pointed teeth, “but luckily for you, I’m your conniving cunt.” She reaches down and grabs my balls roughly through my underwear. “Take em off.”

The tension is boiling away under my skin, but a quickie with Anthura isn’t going to scratch this particular itch. I grab her hand and pull it away.

“I tell you what? I’ll try this suit on alone and surprise you with how good it looks on me at the ball.”

“Alright,” she demurs with a sigh, before brightening up. “As long as you let me take it off you after?”

“Looking forward to it,” I lie, “but now I think I’ll go and hit the gym. Need to get myself looking my best for the ball, eh?”

I don’t know if she believes me and really I don’t give a fuck. I just need her off my back so I can breathe. I put my own clothes back on and pull a hat over my head to cover my face.

It doesn’t matter if Anthura has procured the best tailor in all of Hell, nothing twins with crushed skull and if Noémi is awarding points for beauty, I’m out.

I leave her penthouse and call the platform. As I descend, I bristle when I pass room twenty-four but the door remains shut.

I pass Noémi’s body guards who’re walking up the stairs and continue down to the ground floor.

The atrium looks like a flamingo threw up in it with the sheer amount of pink. The area is teeming with demons, setting the stage for tonight's ball. Noémi has gone all out.

Ignoring the tight feeling, I lower my hat, covering my face and sprint through the atrium and step into the elevator, descending to the entertainment floor. It’s just as vibrant and bustling with pink, though most of the commotion is concentrated around the entrance to the Earthery.

Only days ago, the whole thing came crashing to the ground, but now no one would be able to tell. Gold swathes of fabric are being erected by the entrance and, for some reason, there’s a large red windmill next to the entrance.

“Zat’s not straight,” Noémi instructs a demon standing on a ladder with a handful of gold fabric. “Tonight ‘as to be perfect. I want zem all to witness my triumph surrounded by ze very best decorations!”

The demon grimaces, but pulls the fabric tighter, straightening it up.

I stick to the shadows, avoiding any chance of Noémi spotting me. “‘Ades and ees stupid girlfriend won’t know what ‘it eem tonight.”

I rush past her to the gym, which is mercifully empty at this time in the morning. I pound out my frustration on the treadmill, which is marginally better than pounding it out with Anthura. There’s a tornado of emotions running riot through my body. I hit the incline and keep running. I barely used to go to the gym when I was alive, but here, it’s my only refuge and I need to feel the burn of my muscles. I need to feel something other than the unrelenting void that nothing else can fill. Once upon a time, I thrived off the thrill of money and power, but since dying, both of those things have been ripped away from me. Fucking Anthura only gives me the illusion of power and that’s not been much of a thrill from the very start. I can’t help but cast my mind back to my one drunken night with Rowena. The moment it sneaks back in, a sense of revulsion overwhelms me, yet beneath that, there lingers the sheer exhilaration of it. She didn’t look at my face in disgust the way Anthura does. She desired me. Everyone has always desired me, but with Rowena it was different. She didn’t give a shit that my face looked like shit. She flipped that shit round and demanded I look at her. That I taste her. It’s a taste I can’t forget no matter how much I want to.

I jab my finger back on the incline button and put the treadmill to full tilt before pushing the treadmill to top speed. My entire body screams in pain as I push it to the limit, but even though I try to exercise Rowena from my thoughts, I know I’m never going to be able to exorcise her from them.

48

HOLY HELL ROYALTY

ROWENA

“Will you stop pacing the room and get dressed?” Juliette says, flexing her body in front of my full-length mirror, showing off the pink corset top and matching frilly panties.

It’s easy for her to say. She’s the only one in the whole games that has full points except for Orlin, and she’s not going to have to dance with someone she accidentally, drunkenly lost her virginity to.

I know I’m going to have to see him tonight. He’s still my partner in the games, which means I’ll probably have to dance with him to satisfy Noémi’s weird perversions. I don’t know how to feel about it. On one hand, he’s still Felix Barclay and maybe I crushed through a massive barrier of his. It’s going to take more than one drunken sex session to make him into something resembling a decent human being. I’m not naïve enough to think that I magically changed his entire personality in one night. On the other hand, I never in my whole life felt anything remotely resembling what I felt the other night.

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