Demon Bound (Bound Series, Book One) (6 page)

He sighs.

No one, except his dear Jezebelle, has ever made it past phase two.

“Darius,” he says quietly and his personal bodyguard appears silently in the shadows. “Take care of this, will you.” Luc doesn’t take his eyes off Axelle as he blocks out the screams of his former lover as Darius rips into her, tearing her into tiny little pieces just for the blood and violence of it, before he consumes her essence.

Darius is special. An essence-eater is a rarity and one that Luc treasures, and ensures is kept well fed and happy. This is the third woman this week that Luc has discarded and Darius’s power is at it’s highest right now. He is going to need a release and very soon.

“Go to the dungeons and find yourself a morsel to take it out on,” he absently orders his demon guard.

“Sir,” Darius grunts his appreciation and vanishes to find himself a weak, new soul to take out his depravities on.

Luc would normal take audience to the rape and torture of Darius’s chosen one, but tonight he is riveted to the scene on the wall. Axelle is still thrashing about, her body is throwing itself all around the bed, her demonic essence is trying to tear itself away from her human form, to get away from the agony, but this is the moment of truth. This is where all but one of his bitches has demised, withering up into a form so unrecognizable before her essence dissipates into the void. He watches in mild disgust as she vomits over the side of the bed.

But it catches his interest and he sits up and peers closer. He is on the edge of his seat, almost clasping his hands together in glee as he sees her crawl off the bed and to the toilet to empty her stomach of its entire contents.

She has survived.

Once again she has taken what he has given her and beat it.

A wide smile passes over his face as he sits back and watches as she rinses out her mouth and then goes to clean up. She is on her feet even quicker than Jezebelle was, and it stirs a burning lust in him that he can’t help. His cock gets hard and he almost wishes that Vaska hadn’t been dispatched of earlier.

No matter. He will take another little bitch to do his bidding, to suck him off as he continues to watch his bound one enter phase three with the new strength that has been bestowed upon her in order for her to complete her task.

“Fuck,” Axelle groans as she flops out of bed with all the grace of a fish out of water. Never in all her demonic life has she felt this awful. Her mouth feels like a bird shat in it and her skin is prickly and twitchy. On the plus side, the burning on her wrist has subsided, even though the bronze bangle is still hanging around her arm.

“Damn Devil,” she mutters as she makes coffee and stumbles into the shower, yet again, to wash the sweat and grossness off her.

“Any chance I can call in sick?” she asks her coffee mug as she starts to get dressed.

“No,” Roberta says opening her apartment door and just barging in.

“Manners!” Axelle snaps quickly covering up her breasts with her blouse. “This is my home.”
Home
? Well, she supposes it is now and she better get used to it.

Roberta sneers at her. “All of this, including you, belong to the Devil. I have authority over all of our master’s Inbound assets.”

“So that gives you the right to just walk in her whenever you want?” Axelle asks her nastily.

“Yes,” Roberta replies, hefting her large frame onto Axelle’s very messy bed. “Want to try tidying up after yourself? This place is a pig sty.”

Axelle wants to tell this lumbering bitch where to go, after her night from the pits of hell, but she keeps her mouth shut and turns her back to continue getting dressed.

“Nice bracelet,” Roberta remarks after a moment and Axelle turns around at the hint of jealousy in her voice. “Don’t think it will do you any favors with me.”

Axelle catches the slight note of fear in Roberta’s voice and it worries her. “I don’t even know what it’s for,” Axelle mutters irritated that everyone seems to know except her.

Roberta just sniffs and Axelle tilts her head. She doesn’t know either. In fact, she would be willing to bet that the twins didn’t either. They probably know as much as Axelle does and all that is, is Luc did a ritual with her for some unknown reason. “Well,
Luc
thinks I am special,” she boasts and Roberta narrows her eyes at her use of the Devil’s first name. The look of envy almost makes what she went through last night worthwhile. Even the side-splitting cramps and the axe-in-the-head migraine she endured after she vomited up a whole load of suckling pig.

“Yes he does,” Roberta says quietly to her, lowering her eyes to Axelle’s astonishment.

Caught off guard by this sudden turn around, Axelle glares at her and demands, “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I am here to give you this,” Roberta declares and holds her hand out in a show room gesture at the kitchen.

In the next second there is a feast of breakfast foods in front of her, some of which make her empty stomach churn in protest.

Axelle puts her hand to her mouth and turns away. “Why?” she croaks out.

“My master asked me to,” Roberta says and that is clearly all that she needs.

“Again, why?” Axelle asks having regained control of her stomach.

Roberta just shrugs. “Eat up now, you have work to get to.” And with that, Roberta heaves herself off the bed and disappears in a flash of light.

Axelle stares enviously at the space that Roberta used to occupy. It’s not fair that she gets to do that. She looks back at the array of food and decides there is no way her stomach can take anything right now, but maybe a few things to go for when she gets the munchies later on. She fills up a bag of croissants and the such like and shoves her feet into her shoes.

“Back to the grindstone,” she mutters to herself, hoping that Luc will show up and tell her she is too important for the drudgery of Inbound Admin now.

No such luck.

Axelle makes it to work without any visits from the Devil. As she sits down on her uncomfortable stool, she wouldn’t mind even if Stanford turned up to take her away from this nightmare.

As she remembers his long, creepy fingers and big, bulbous eyes, she shudders and rethinks that. Although now that she is back at work in her dull, gray room with no outside distractions, Axelle also remembers seeing Luc’s true form. While it terrified the life out of her when he was doing the ritual, she now thinks it was quite sexy, even more so seeing as he revealed himself to her and her eyes remain unscathed and her mind intact.

The light goes on above her head and she turns to the little door with a sigh.

The Reaper on the other side hands her his scroll wordlessly and she doesn’t bother trying to make conversation. She is still too busy daydreaming about Luc and their, well, whatever it is that they now have.

After a couple of hours have passed Axelle starts to feel hungry so she delves into her bag of goodies and pulls out a croissant. It is light and buttery and tastes delicious. She is half way through when she is interrupted by a Reaper.

Bored out her skull again, by this time, Axelle smiles up at the Reaper. “Hi… Jacob,” she says scanning the scroll to get his name.

Jacob grunts at her, but it doesn’t deter her.

“Having a good day?” she asks as she takes in the soul’s temperament.

“What?” he snaps at her after a moment.

“I asked if you were having a good day,” Axelle repeats slowly. Is he stupid or something?

“Don’t speak to me Admin bitch,” he snarls at her.

Wow, okay. She knew the Reaper’s were a rude, cliquey bunch, but that was a bit mean when she was being so nice. She decides to get her own back.

“Hm, your soul is looking quite sad to be here,” she says with a mock sad face at Jacob.

She sees Jacob’s hand clench into a fist. Sad souls are the worst for a Reaper, they get shoved to the bottom of the waiting list for activities and it reflects poorly on the Reaper who brought them in. Sad is even worse than terrified.

“No, he isn’t,” Jacob says menacingly. “He is perfectly happy to be here.”

“Doesn’t look like it from where I am sitting,” Axelle taunts waving her pen in the soul’s direction.

The soul looks back at her confused, and perhaps a little interested but not at all sad.

Jacob shoves back his hood a fraction and glares at her out of his coal black eyes. “If you mark him down as sad, bitch, you will regret crossing me.”

“Geez, lighten up,” she says breezily and marks the soul down as “interested.”

Jacob gives her a nasty smile as she sends the scroll on it’s way and turns away with his soul in tow, thinking he got the better of her.

Axelle sticks her tongue out at his back and picks up her half eaten croissant and with all the force that she can, throws it into the darkness hoping to hit her mark.

“Ow,” comes a plaintive cry out of the inky blackness.

Axelle smiles triumphantly and brushes off her hands, only to be hit in the face with her croissant a moment later.

“Hey!” she snaps and brushes crumbs off her face. “Jackass!” she yells into the darkness.

“Bitch!” comes the distant reply.

“Humph,” Axelle says scooping up what is left of the croissant and dumping it in the trash.

“Not to your liking?” Luc asks as she slams the little door shut.

Axelle spins around on her stool and smiles up at him. He is wearing a black suit and a white shirt and he looks really sexy. Too bad he isn’t a monster in the sack like she had hoped he would be.

“It got into a fight,” Axelle says smoothly, leaning forward to flash her cleavage at him.

He pays no attention to her flirting and frowns at her. “Did you eat this morning?” he asks her briskly.

Axelle sits back. “A bit. Why did you send me all that food?”

“You need to keep your strength up,” he says, his bright-blue eyes focused on her bronze bracelet.

“What for?” she asks.

His eyes go back up to hers and he smiles mysteriously. “You will see,” he says.

“Soon?” she asks hopefully.

Luc shrugs nonchalantly and Axelle gives up. She isn’t getting anything out of him today.

“I want to thank you,” she murmurs lowering her eyes seductively.

“What for?” he asks her now.

“Showing me your true self,” she says bringing her eyes back up.

His bore into hers so fiercely she feels her brain turning to mush. “My true self?” he asks with no hint of emotion.

Axelle nods carefully. He doesn’t seem to know that he revealed himself to her.

“What did you see?” he asks in a low voice, licking his lips.

“A creature with eyes of fire and twisted horns as long as my arms,” she says.

“Oh,” he says with a laugh after a moment. “No, my dear. That is not my true self.”

“It isn’t?” Axelle asks deflated.

“You aren’t strong enough to bear witness to the ruler of hell,” he says with a cruel smirk.
Yet.

“Well,” Axelle says with a sniff. “It wasn’t that impressive anyway.”

Luc lets out a loud laugh and she feels herself blush furiously as he mocks her.

His laughter stops abruptly and his gaze penetrates hers again and then flicks to the place above her head where the light has switched on. Axelle glances up as well and when she looks back down, Luc has disappeared. Dammit.

***

Luc paces up and down the hallway of his residence. He is…pensive. Axelle is proving to be everything that he has hoped for, but he cannot allow himself to accept it yet. He has been disappointed too many times.

He stops in front of the portrait of his beautiful, wicked Jezebelle and grimaces at it. She wasn’t everything that he had hoped for. Not by a long shot.

He resumes his pacing and then comes to a halt in front of an enormous painting of a beast most would call terrifying. Eyes made of fire, long twisted horns, large hands with vicious claws and a forked tongue.

“Is she the one, father?” he asks the portrait quietly. “She saw you during our binding, that has to mean something. It
has
to mean she is stronger than the rest. Do you know? If you do, tell me.”

As expected all remains silent. His father is not of this domain anymore; he has long since lost the ability to communicate with his son.

“Sir,” Darius’s raspy voice interrupts his thoughts.

Luc turns around and stares for a moment at his guard. He is as ugly as they come with a big, square head, and two sets of stubby horns running from front to back on either side. His teeth are in rows of three, wickedly sharp, and his skin is a dark gray as hard as armor.

“What is it?” he asks.

“The bitch upstairs needs to be taken care of,” Darius says with no tolerance for the said bitch.

Luc chuckles. “Has it gone to her head already?” he asks and laughs harder at Darius’s slow nod. The female he picked out last night to suck his cock while he watched Axelle clearly has decided she likes it on the upper floor of the residence. “I’ll take care of it. Right after it has taken care of me.”

Darius snuffles quietly--his version of a raucous laughter--and watches Luc head upstairs two at a time to get laid by this one, one last time before she ends up back in the pit.

Luc enjoys her company, enjoys making her degrade herself for his pleasure, for a couple of hours, but his thoughts are never far away from Axelle. He is so anxious about her, it is twisting his stomach, but there’s something else. She makes him laugh. She has such a feisty attitude that she presents in such a way that it delights him. He has never, in all of his many eons, felt quite like this before. He doesn’t know what it is or how to deal with it, all he knows is that he needs to keep an eye on her so he can see that she is still alive.

***

After Luc vanished from her dingy office, Axelle grew bored. It is a seriously slow day and she wishes that Evan would stop by so they could have a banter. She hasn’t seen him all day and that is unusual.

“I must be desperate,” she says to herself as she beats her pen on the desk. “And now I’m also crazy,” she adds and sighs with relief when the light comes on.

She opens the door with a dazzling smile and it is Evan on the other side.

“Hey,” she says brightly and reaches out to take his scroll.

“Hey,” he says back gruffly and then freezes. His hand grips his end of the scroll as his other hand clamps down on her new fashion accessory.

“Ow,” Axelle says as he grips it so tightly with his fingers, it digs into her skin. “Let go, you dick.”

Evan doesn’t let go, in fact he grips it even tighter. “Where did you get this?” he asks in a tone that borders on menacing. The soul next to him whimpers, but both Axelle and Evan ignore her.

“None of your business,” Axelle says to him haughtily, taking his hand in hers and using all of her new strength to tear his hand away. She is dumbfounded to discover it was like batting away a pesky fly, but she covers up her surprise so that Evan doesn’t see it.

“Axelle,” Evan says softly and it catches her off guard. She is used to harshness and rudeness, not this gentle tone. It makes her extremely uncomfortable so she ruins it by spitting out, “I said it’s none of your fucking business.”