Demon Bound (Bound Series, Book One) (14 page)

His curtness did what he wanted it to do. It hurts her. She flinches from his harsh words and he has some hope that she will come around to this news.

“Just a vessel,” she repeats slowly backing away. “I see. I see.” She turns to run out of the dining hall, but Luc cannot allow her to go just yet.

“Axelle, wait,” he says standing up. He has never chased down a wench in his life. This is so confusing. “Axelle!”

She keeps running, picking up the long dress so that she doesn’t trip over it, ignoring his calls. She reaches the bottom of the stairs and he pauses halfway down the corridor. This is ridiculous. She is acting like a child.

“If you think you can break the ritual now, you are mistaken. All males have been dismissed from this house and you cannot leave here,” he says to her quietly and she hesitates, her shoulders slumping slightly.

He knew it! He knows her mind and it infuriates him that he does.

“Even Darius is gone,” he adds.

She huffs slightly and it makes him angry. She is that against this she was prepared to even take on Darius to break the bond. He is glad now that he put Darius where all traitors to him belong. Locked away where he will never feed from another soul again. Even though he hasn’t betrayed Luc yet, he would be a fool to think that Jezebelle won’t try and turn him as she has threatened.

Axelle straightens her back and takes the stairs slowly now. Luc lets her go without another word. He wants to follow her and tell her of all the things that he is hiding from her, and himself, and convince her that they can be a family together, but he knows better than that. She needs to come to this conclusion herself, and she will. She is just in shock, she will come around.

So he lets her go.

A baby? A baby?
He wants her to have his fucking baby? What kind of a freak is he? Axelle paces up and down in her room--her prison--her thoughts racing. This idea had never entered her mind. Why would he want a child? He doesn’t strike her as being paternal in any way whatsoever. Whatever his reasons for doing this is something she has to find out so that she can understand it better. Not that she will agree to any of this. The thought of a little parasite growing inside her, sucking her essence from her to further it’s own survival makes her run to the toilet to throw up her cheeseburger. Not a pretty sight.

As she wipes her mouth on a damp towel and pushes her sweaty hair out of her face she catches a glance at herself in the mirror. Her long, lithe, beautiful body will be ruined by that… thing… that Luc wants her to do. No, she won’t do it. She has to find a way out of here or hope that she dies during the next phase.

Just a vessel
. She can’t get those words out of her head. That is all that he thinks about her. She isn’t even good enough for him to want her to stick around afterwards. He will send her packing, probably back to her Admin job, and never even see or think of her again. She doesn’t know what upsets her more: the thought of being forced to grow the spawn of the Devil, or that he will dump her like a hot potato afterwards.

After much reflection, she decides it is definitely the spawning part that upsets her. She strips off her dress and crumples it into a ball and shoves it once again in the back of the closet along with the shoes. She never wants to see that dress again for as long as she has left on this, her own personal, hell.

“A baby,” she scoffs out loud as she whips the covers back on the enormous bed and slides in. “He is insane, crazier than a gerbil on acid. He can go and fuck himself,” she adds and flops back into the pillows.

She wants out. Of that she is now absolutely certain. He cannot convince her that this is something that she can do, or want to do for that matter. Somehow she has to make an escape from this house and hell. She got out once when she wasn’t supposed to, she can definitely do it again, or die trying.

Axelle lets her thoughts wander to how she accomplished it before. She was full of rage and vengeance at Slade Johnson for rejecting her, trapping her and sending her back here. She clawed her way out, her only thoughts on how she could exact revenge on that slave and his pathetic, little wife. She growls when she remembers seeing them exit the church right before Luc came for her and brought her back here to rot. Such a big part of her wishes that she were still in that fiery cage. It would be so much better than this uncertain, and most definitely unwanted, future that has been thrust upon her.

She closes her eyes and tries to sleep. Maybe she will wake up and it will all have been an awful, horrible nightmare.

Axelle is restless in her slumber. She tosses and turns, Slade’s taunting face haunting her dreams as her body grows fat with a child. In her dreams she feels like her essence is trying to tear it’s way out of her body to get away from Luc and this house. She can see the inky black of her true self shimmering and stuttering against the body that Luc gave her. The one that looks so much like Lacey. In her dream she wishes that she was back on earth, back in Lacey’s body, ready to seduce weak men to their death’s with sex and promises. Oh how she misses sex. And killing. She wants it so badly; she can feel it at her fingertips.

She gasps in her sleep and shudders violently feeling the searing burn of her essence struggling to get free, to get back to where she can feel blood on her hands and a cock in her pussy. Her eyes fly open as she feels like she was slammed back to the bed from a dizzying height and her labored breathing is loud in her ears. She looks around from behind her curtain of honey-colored hair, her eyes wide.

What the fuck?

***

Luc is frantic. He has worn a path in the carpet with his pacing. Damn that witch! He should never have listened to her warning about Axelle. He should have kept this news to himself. Her look of disgust is all he can see and it bothers him more than it should.

He hears a low chuckling coming from behind him and he spins around to see Jezebelle floating in the corner.

“Don’t think that destroying that painting will get rid of me,” she says wagging her finger at him. “There was nothing left of my essence in it.”

“What a pity,” Luc drawls. “But it was time to get rid of it. Out with old…”

Jezebelle hisses at him and her face goes ugly as she advances on him. “Old?” she spits out, the dig needling her just as he’d intended. Jez, unlike other regular demons, had a tendency to age. Very, very slowly of course, but noticeable to the discerning eye over a couple of centuries, and his eye had been very discerning with regard to her. She had turned his head like no other before her, but since? Well, there is no need to go over that… but just to piss her off further he adds, “Yes, you are looking a little tired and drab, my dear. Perhaps it is time to give up and rest, no?”

“You fucker!” she screeches at him, flying towards him with her hands hooked into claws.

“Such language,” he tuts as she goes straight through him, and he steps to the side to see her try again to reach him. “A lady doesn’t cuss with such gusto.”

As Jezebelle once again fails to touch him she lets out a loud howl of rage. “I will get into that bitch one way or another, Luc. Mark my words, this isn’t over!”

She vanishes from his sight and he knows exactly where she has gone. He takes himself off to Axelle’s bedroom and sees Jezebelle hovering face down, lengthways over Axelle’s body as if to enter her form.

“The ward will stop you,” he snarls.

“Don’t count on it,” she snarls back and lowers her wispy form closer to Axelle’s.

Luc steps forward, ready to try to tear what is left of her essence to shreds, when she pauses with a shrewd look.

“Oh my,” she laughs and turns her head in his direction. “What a pickle.”

“What do you mean?” he demands, glaring down into Axelle’s face. But his eyes are drawn to the ward etched into her chest. Meant to glow a reddy-gold under her skin while it is active, is now a dark red, turning black before his very eyes.

“What have you done to her?” Luc roars at Jezebelle, but she grins at him and shrugs.

“Why nothing, my love. It seems we can be reunited after all,” she answers.

“No!” Luc bellows and places his hand on Axelle’s chest to stop Jezebelle from entering her body.

The ice under his palm hits him like a sledgehammer. He hisses as he feels the cold permeate his skin, right to his very core. “What is this?” he mutters as he looks closer at Axelle’s lifeless form. Something is very wrong. Surely she would have woken up with all the shouting going on right over her?

“Axelle?” he says into her face as he grips her shoulders tightly and shakes her. “Axelle?”

“Oh, she’s not in there,” Jezebelle taunts him. “Seems I gave this bitch less credit than she deserves. She has escaped you.”

Luc feels the stab of panic in his gut, but there is more. He feels the sting of betrayal. She has left him. She has found a way to once again remove herself from his domain.

“Damn you!” he roars, clenching his fists and waving them at the ceiling in his rage. He should have known better than to trust her. She did this before; he should have known she would try it again. The protection around the house would only have kept her form from physically leaving. It would do nothing against her true essence and he should have been better prepared. He would have been if the vicious, tempting, seductress he chose to be his Demon Bound hadn’t swayed his mind. He let his guard down ever so slightly and he neglected to be his usual monstrous self around her. He gave her just enough leeway to escape him and that is all his fault.

“Stay away from her!” he yells at Jezebelle who is sneaking up on the body.

“Why? Without her essence this vessel is useless. Let me take it,” she says eagerly licking her lips.

“She will return,” Luc says trying to calm his anger. “Once she has had time to think, she will be back. You will stay away from this body.”

“I…” Jezebelle starts and then peers down at the body on the bed. “Oh my,” she says again.

“What?” he asks and spins around. “Axelle?” he asks anxiously as she sees the body stir and snuffle, bringing her hand up to her face to rub her eyes.

Her eyes open and Luc feels a flood of relief. She came back. She wants to do this with him after all.

“Axelle,” he says with a smile and he sees her face freeze with absolute terror at her name. Her eyes go wide and scared and she looks around her in a growing panic. She screams when she sees Jezebelle floating next to her and it makes his ghostly ex jump a bit.

And then she carries on screaming.

***

“Mornin’, baby. How are you feeling?” a low, sexy, very familiar voice asks Axelle this question and her heart slams in her chest. Not her Devil-created one, but this actual human one of the host she is currently residing in.

She gulps and looks at Slade Johnson through the eyes of her old host body, Lacey. Shit! Fuck! How in the name of all things unholy did she do this? Escaping hell is no easy business, certainly not the third time you attempt it, but yet here she is. She pinches herself to make sure she isn’t dreaming and she yelps, her weak human flesh stinging under the pressure.

“Trixie?” Slade asks her with a frown and that gets Axelle’s blood boiling.

Trixie!
That little trickster bitch that Lacey created in her mind to get rid of her. Somehow she has managed get back into Lacey’s body all the way from Luc’s prison house in hell. She grins up at Slade, her delight coursing through her at her amazing luck. And it is
very
amazing luck. This host is completely empty save for Axelle’s demonic essence currently housed in it. There is no sign of Lacey (or Trixie), and Axelle wonders for all of a second where she is, but then she doesn’t give a flying fuck. Actually she hopes she swapped places with Lacey and that she is now undergoing torture at Luc’s hand. There is no way he won’t know that she has done a runner on him - again!

She is free now. She will defy all odds to keep Luc from finding her and Slade is the right man for the job. She can feel the uncomfortable burn of the holy water in Lacey’s stomach. This was supposed to stop a demon from entering a host, but as it appears Axelle didn’t go about this in the conventional way, she has managed to bypass the barrier.

“Hi, lover,” she says with a salacious smile that he frowns at, but then he lurches forward as she tries to sit up. She struggles as there is something large sitting on her stomach, and she tries to brush it off impatiently, only to realize that this has gone from being the best thing that has ever happened to her, to the worst.

“Pregnant?” she sneers, horrified that she has gone from being Luc’s baby vessel straight into a body that is currently so heavy with child, she can’t even get up!

“Trixie?” Slade asks with concern. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh, yes fine,” Axelle says, needing to keep up the ruse. Slade will get rid of her the second he suspects she is back. She gives him a reassuring smile, but inside her mind is reeling. Oh, what has she gotten herself into? She needs to get out of this house to find a new suitable host ASAP.

“Whoa, there,” Slade says and quickly pushes her back down as she starts to get up. “Complete bed rest, means
complete
bed rest,” he chides her gently and Axelle grates her teeth together.

No fucking way! This is just her rotten luck, an absolute nightmare. With him hovering over her like a mother hen, how is she supposed to get out of this parasite-breeding host? She has traded her lot down in hell to an even worse one here. Her body is big and heavy and it is so difficult to move. She can feel the little insect squirming around in her belly and it sickens her. She wants to rip it out of her body, but all she is now is the weak, pathetic human of the body she has inhabited.

Axelle debates on what to do now. Should she try and get back into her body in hell, or should she stay here and try to escape. Slade has to leave her side at some point, doesn’t he?

“I’ll get you some tea,” he says and kisses her on the forehead in a loving gesture that makes Axelle want to slap him for. This isn’t the damaged man she knew and wanted to keep around because it was just such fun to break him that bit more. He seems
normal
. Eurgh!

Help!
she screams in her head, but to no one in particular, as she keeps the dumb smile plastered on her face.
Help!

She can’t stay here, not like this, but she can’t go back to do what Luc wants her to do either. She tries to expel her essence from the body--it is a risky move, she will have a matter of minutes to find a new suitable host--but she is trapped. She can’t even leave the host!

Axelle looks longingly out of the window, and sees the sun shining, and the birds chirping and it gets on her nerves, but at the same time she wants to get out there into the world and away from all this baby stuff. She can’t be a mother. She just can’t.