Kobal
My gaze ran over River lying on top of me. Her hand was tucked beneath her head on my chest as she slept. I’d marked her hard and taken her repeatedly. My bites were unmistakable upon her neck, shoulders, breasts, and thighs.
My hands rested on her back when she stirred but didn’t wake. I’d been too rough on her. She’d been exhausted when she’d fallen asleep, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself. She had to understand how vital she was to my existence. And I had caused her to doubt that knowledge. She’d given herself to me, she lay within my arms again, but I sensed the damage lingering within her.
Her mother had betrayed her, and in her mind, so had I to some degree. It didn’t matter that her mother was a despicable bitch I’d gladly remove from the earth and that I’d been trying to protect her. It had been a betrayal.
“Kobal,” River murmured. Her lashes fluttered against my skin and her eyes danced behind her closed lids as she dreamt. I rested my hands on the small of her back, pulling her closer. My touch didn’t settle her as it usually did; she whimpered in her sleep.
“River,” I whispered, brushing the hair back from her delicate features. Her nails dug into my chest, tearing into my skin as she continued to whimper. “Wake up,” I coaxed while running my finger over her cheek.
She settled for a minute; then her eyes flew open and she bolted upright so fast she tore free of my grasp. Too tired to have gotten dressed again, she was completely naked as she launched to her feet. Midnight blue sparks blazed to life so brightly on her fingertips that I blinked against their brilliance. Her head tipped back, and her mouth parted as she gazed at the ceiling.
“The angels,” she murmured before collapsing.
“River!” I bellowed. I leapt forward, catching her in my arms before she hit the ground. “River! Wake up, Mah Kush-la, you must wake now.”
My heart hammered in my chest, and my throat went completely dry as I lightly slapped at her abnormally pale cheeks to get her to wake. She remained unmoving in my arms, her breath coming in shallow pants, and her pulse racing.
The door at the other end of the room flung open. “What’s going on?” Corson demanded as he ran into the chamber with his talons extended and his head swinging back and forth as he searched for a threat.
I snagged the fur we’d been lying on from the floor and threw it over River as I spun her away from the curious eyes of everyone who entered. I had no care for my nudity, but I would never allow them to see her.
I backed away from them with her. “I don’t know.”
Corson’s talons retracted when he realized there was no enemy within. The others stopped approaching when I bared my fangs at them.
“Did you hurt her?” Hawk demanded.
“Of course not,” I snarled at him.
He stared doubtfully between the two of us before he took another cautious step forward. Corson’s hand shot out to hold him back. “What happened?” Corson inquired.
I kept my body in between River and them as I told them what had occurred.
“What does that mean?” Bale inquired.
“I have no idea,” I admitted as I stroked River’s cheek again. Panic clawed at my insides as I willed her to open her eyes.
She showed some reaction when she turned into my touch and murmured something unintelligible before settling down again. “Has anything like that ever happened before?” Magnus inquired, his silver eyes focused on her limp form.
“No,” I replied, turning her further away from him. She may be fully covered, but I didn’t want anyone near her while she was in such a vulnerable state.
He stepped away from the warning look I shot him and held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. I cradled River closer against me, bending to kiss her forehead as she remained unmoving. So frail in her mortality, yet so powerful and growing stronger every day.
I gazed down at her, taking in the sweeping black lashes lying against her skin and the lovely features I knew so well. My finger traced the scar in her eyebrow. Her lashes fluttered open, her amethyst eyes burned into mine as she gazed at me.
“You’re awake,” I murmured.
She smiled at me, but when Corson and Hawk took a step forward, her eyes darted toward everyone else. “Why is everyone in here?” she whispered.
“You don’t remember what happened?” She shook her head, and I proceeded to fill her in on the details of what she’d done.
Her brow furrowed as she stared at the rocks overhead. “I don’t remember doing that. Why would I say that?”
“Maybe the angels have finally decided to get in the game too and join our side,” Hawk suggested.
“The only angels who have left heaven were the ones who were cast out. They definitely aren’t on our side,” Bale said.
“Can’t the ones who are still up there cut off their wings and fall or something?” Hawk asked. “Isn’t that some kind of legend?”
“Exactly, it’s a legend,” Bale replied. “They can remove their wings, but it’s excruciating for them to do so, and they grow back just as Lucifer’s and his brethren’s have. Except their wings grew back different and more malevolent looking than what they’d been before.”
“I saw how hideous Azote’s were,” Hawk said.
“Heaven is a closed portal, just like Hell was before the humans ripped it open. Kobal can open a gateway between Hell and Earth, and his ancestors used to do so for some demons, but whoever controls the gates for Heaven only opens them to toss out the trash.”
“Is it God?” Hawk inquired.
Bale shrugged. “If that’s what you prefer to call the controller, then yes, it’s God.”
“Can the angels survive on Earth?” Hawk asked.
“Before, they could survive, but they were no longer immortal. They were far easier to kill and would have eventually died, the same with demons who entered Earth and didn’t return to Hell,” Corson said. “Now, with the unnatural gateway to Hell opened, we are able to maintain our immortality while on Earth. The angels still floating above might be able to do the same, but we have no way of knowing for sure. The only angels we’ve ever met are the pricks in Hell with us. They’re so different than what they once were that they most likely can retain their immortality on Earth too.”
“Maybe God or whoever has decided to step up to the plate and help end Lucifer,” Hawk suggested.
“Don’t count on that, kid,” Magnus said. “You’re looking at Lucifer’s daughter. He started the rebellion in Heaven, and from what we’ve heard, many angels were slaughtered before they were able to toss him and their other brothers and sisters out. They’re not exactly going to be falling over themselves to help his daughter, the king of Hell’s Chosen.”
“So you’re saying we can expect no help from the angels and Lucifer is going to keep breaking seals until there is no shot of us defeating him. What can we possibly do to stop him that you demons haven’t tried in the past six thousand years?” Hawk demanded.
“Ah, young sir, the answer is lying in his arms right now.” Magnus flicked his fingers at River, who scowled at him. “She’s the only thing we’ve never tried. The only hope we have against the fallen angels, because on a basic, cellular level, she is similar to them, and by drawing on life, she can wield the one weapon all the fallen angels have lost.”
“Maybe, because of her, things are different with the angels now and they’re trying to help,” Hawk said.
“I feel no different,” River said slowly. “I feel no stirring in the world or universe that means the angels have come forth, but perhaps I wouldn’t beneath all this stone. Or perhaps I simply can’t feel anything to do with them. Or maybe it was just a dream.”
“Dreams are sometimes fickle things,” Magnus said.
“Do you still feel a solid connection to life?” I demanded. No matter what, we could not risk that connection being broken.
River lifted her hand and brushed her fingers over my jaw. “I do,” she replied. “It is different here, as it was by the gateway, and it takes me a little longer to draw on it, but I am already getting better at it. There is more life here than I would have thought, and it is similar to what is above.
“I’m not sure if Earth’s flow of life is spreading down from above because the gateway is open, or if I am somehow able to latch onto that life and draw it down from above. Maybe because Heaven, Hell, and Earth were all once so closely connected, the life flow has always been here. Different, but here.”
“That could be possible as we have always been able to look on your world, and humans were able to glimpse parts of ours,” I said and kissed the fingers she rested briefly against my lips. “Are you sure it is not affecting you badly?”
She lowered her hand. “I am. I can handle what is here, Kobal. My connection to life has nothing to do with whatever I just did.”
I nodded and kissed her forehead, inhaling her refreshing scent. I’d been so worried about what feeding from Hell would do to her, if she would be able to handle it, or if it would break her, but for now, she was doing well with it. “You’ll let me know if that changes.”
“I will.” She squirmed in my arms and then froze. “I’m naked,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing at the realization.
“You are,” I confirmed and hugged her closer.
“Ah, can I get dressed?”
“Come on,” Bale said and gestured for everyone to leave the room.
I waited until the door was closed before setting her on her feet. “You really don’t remember anything?” I inquired as she gathered her clothes.
“No.” She glanced at me over her shoulder, her raven-colored hair falling forward to shield one of her breasts. “I would tell you if I did, and I really feel no different.”
Her arms fell to her sides as she turned to face me. I couldn’t stop my hungry gaze from running over her lithe body and the marks I’d left on her. On my neck, the bites she’d left on me heated in response to seeing mine. She may not have fangs like most demons, but she could mark me as her Chosen almost as well as I could mark her as mine.
“If they were trying to let me know that they’re planning on trying to help, or that they are coming, then maybe we’ll have a new ally in all of this,” she said.
“Perhaps,” I murmured.
“You don’t trust them,” she stated as she bent to retrieve her bra.
“I have no reason to, and they’ve yet to get involved.”
“I know, but I don’t think they ever expected everything that has happened to occur when they threw Lucifer out of Heaven.”
“You are defending them?”
“No, they were wrong for placing their burden on the humans and later on the demons, but if they are willing to help put a stop to all of this, then I’m not about to turn them away. We could use all the help we can get. It may have been nothing too, you know. I do have dreams about things that mean nothing.”
“I’ve never seen you stand up, have your power erupt from you before speaking, and then pass out. Even when you connected with Lucifer in your dream, you stayed conscious after waking and you remembered what had occurred.”
“Maybe you wore me out so much earlier that I was too exhausted to stay awake,” she suggested with a playful smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“It was not normal, River.”
“I know,” she admitted on a sigh. “But I have no memory of it, feel no different, and have no idea what it meant, so dwelling on it will get us nowhere.”
What she’d just done had scared the shit out of me, but she was right. “Was I too rough with you last night?” I asked as she finished gathering her clothes.
The glance she cast me over her shoulder caused my cock to swell. “Only in a very good way,” she replied.
I stared after her as she sauntered over to the small pool of water at the back of the cavern. Her hips and breasts swayed enticingly with every step she took. She set her clothes next to the pool and dipped her toe in.
“Perfect,” she said.
I grew harder as she sank beneath the water and came back up to shake the water from her hair. Water trailed enticingly down her silken flesh and dripped off her taut nipples. I so badly wanted to be suckling that water from her flesh, but I held back. There were things we had to discuss first.
“Did you hear all of what Magnus said?” I asked her.
“I did.”
“No matter what he said about you being our first new weapon in six thousand years, you do not have to continue.” My voice became hoarse as she ran her hands over her breasts with the water. “Lucifer has to be defeated, but I’ll abide by whatever you decide to do on this.”
She stopped washing herself to focus on me. “This has to be done, Kobal.”
I strode across the cavern toward her. Her head tipped back when I stopped at the edge of the pool. I didn’t miss the fact her gaze lingered on my stiff dick before sliding up to meet my eyes. “I will fight Lucifer until the day I die, but I will pull you from here and take you back to the wall if you ask me to.”
“Kobal,” she breathed. “We can’t.”
“I will keep you from this war if you choose.”
“Are you saying this because I have no choice on if I want to be immortal or not?”
I closed my eyes against the anger the reminder caused to spear through me. “No,” I grated from between my teeth as I opened my eyes to take her in. “This is because no one has ever given you a choice. Not your mother, not Mack, and not me. You will die one day, River. It is only fair you get to decide how you live until then.”
Her mouth parted at my words. “But there are so many people, demons, and ghosts counting on me. I could never let them all down.”
“I will get your brothers and take all of you somewhere safe for now. I don’t know where yet, but I will find a place for you.”
“And you will continue the fight?”
“I will.”
“Has anyone ever given you a choice about that?”
My head canted to the side at her question. “I was created to rule Hell, and it is what I will do.”
“So no then.”
“No,” I admitted.
“Yet you would never walk away. Immortal does not equal un-killable. You also could die during this. Your ancestors have.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for giving me the choice, but I have already made it. I will do what I can to help defeat him.” She lifted her index finger and pointed at the ceiling as she smiled at me. “Maybe we’ll even find some new allies along the way. Besides, I’m supposed to be the queen of Hell now, am I not?”
“You are.”
“Then I will not let our followers down.”
She walked to the edge of the pool, rising out of the water as the rock level became higher near the edge. She looked far more alluring than any siren or canagh demon ever could. Her tongue slid over her lips as she held her hand out to me. I took it and stepped into the water with her.
“We can’t turn back,” she said.
I enclosed her securely within my embrace. “I mean it, River. Say the words, and we’ll go.”
“I know you do,” she whispered against my neck. “And I love you for it.”
I rested my head in the hollow of her neck, breathing in the scent of me on her.
“Now,” she said, “is there anything else you’ve kept from me? I can’t and won’t forgive you if you don’t tell me now and it comes out later.” Her fingers bit into the flesh of my biceps as she leaned back to look at me. “I mean it, Kobal. I’m not happy you didn’t tell me about Hawk or that humans can possibly become immortal, and I’ll be angry over it for a while, but I can understand your reasons and my anger will fade over time. If I find out you’re hiding something more from me, I won’t understand it, and I’ll never forgive you.”
“There is nothing else I’m keeping from you,” I vowed.
“And you’ll tell me everything from now on, even if you think it’s better I don’t know.” Her hand dipped beneath the water to wrap around my swollen cock. “You’ll treat me as your equal, as your Chosen, and your queen from here on out.”
“I will,” I bit out when her grip tightened and she worked her hand over my flesh.
A seductive smile curved the edges of her full mouth. “Good.”
I watched as she went to her knees before me in the water.