Betrayed by hell, p.1
Betrayed by Hell, page 1
Betrayed By Hell
Betrayed by Hell © 2021 Embrace the Fantasy Publishing, LLC
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Edited by Copeland Edits
Cover Design by The Book Brander
Interior By Embrace the Fantasy Publishing
Also By Erin Bedford
The Underground Series
Chasing Rabbits
Chasing Cats
Chasing Princes
Chasing Shadows
Chasing Hearts
The Crimes of Alice
The Crimes of Alice
Hatter’s Heart
Cheshire’s Smile
The Mary Wiles Chronicles
Marked by Hell
Bound by Hell
Deceived by Hell
Tempted by Hell
Starcrossed Dragons
Riding Lightning
Grinding Frost
Swallowing Fire
Pounding Earth
The Crimson Fold
Until Midnight
Until Dawn
Until Sunset
Curse of the Fairy Tales
Rapunzel Untamed
Rapunzel Unveiled
Rapunzel Unchained
Her Angels
Heaven’s Embrace
Heaven’s A Beach
Heaven’s Most Wanted
House of Durand
Indebted to the Vampires
Wanted by the Vampires
Protected by the Vampires
Embrace of the Vampires
Tempted by the Butler
Loved by the Vampires
Huntress of the Vampires
Judged by the Vampires
Imprisoned by the Vampires
Academy of Witches
Witching On A Star
As You Witch
Witch You Were Here
Just Witch It
Summer Witchin’
Children of the Fallen
Death In Her Eyes
Fire In Her Blood
House of Van Helsing
Her Cross To Bear
Blood Betrayal
The Beast of the Fae Court
Granting Her Wish
Vampire CEO
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MURIEL.
Muriel.
MURIEL!
“Shut up,” I muttered and shifted away from the voice. It didn’t help. The voice persisted.
Muriel.
“Leave me alone.” I lifted my head and grabbed the closest thing to me, throwing it at the voice.
“Ouch, shit, Mary!”
I jerked up all the way, my eyes blinking at the light. “Huh, what?” My gaze swung around the room and seeing the familiar walls of my office/bedroom as I searched for the familiar voice. “Trish?”
“Yeah, you jerk.” My black-haired secretary rubbed her head as she bent to pick up the wireless mouse I’d thrown at her. She’d streaked her hair blue today, probably to match the blue stripes of her long-sleeved shirtdress, several heavily decorated black belts overlapping at the waist.
A shirtdress. Really? Either wear a shirt or wear a dress. Why does it have to be both?
“Sorry,” I grumbled and pushed back from my chair and the desk. The side of my face was stiff and sore from lying on it all night, and I had a weird, metallic taste in my mouth.
“Are you alright?” Trisha asked, bringing my mouse back over to the desk, her platform heeled black boots louder than an elephant stampede on the dingy hard wood floors. “I was calling your name for a good five minutes and barely got anything out of you.”
I leaned over in my chair and rubbed a hand over my face, groaning. “Yeah. Just not sleeping well lately.”
Trisha leaned against my desk, grinning mischievously. “Oooh, late nights with your demon boyfriend?”
Lifting my head, I stared at her incredulously. “Really? Sid, is only half demon and sadly, no.” I pushed up out of my chair and practically raced for the coffee pot. I had to get this taste out of my mouth.
“So, what was it? Demon fighting? Research?” Trisha slid into my chair and clacked away on my keyboard. “Please tell me you finally started binge-watching that demon hunter series I told you about.”
My cup in my hand, I noticed my nails were caked with dirt. How’d that happen?
Returning my attention to Trisha, I glanced at her over my cup of coffee. I let the bitter liquid sweep over my tongue as I thought of what I was going to tell her. In all honesty, last night was a blur. I wasn’t exactly sure what I did. I just knew that I was completely exhausted and felt like I hadn’t slept a wink. Not wanting to worry Trisha, I sidestepped the question.
“I’m not going to watch some show about demon hunting when I do it in real life. That’s like a doctor watching a sitcom about being a doctor.” I strode across the room and reached for a shirt off the office floor. Holding it up to my nose, I sniffed it before shrugging and setting my coffee cup down.
While I exchanged one shirt for the other, Trisha kept at it. “Come on, it’s not even about the demon hunting. It’s about two brothers as they bond over fighting evil and saving the world. Doesn’t hurt that they are hot as hell too.”
I shot her a look.
Trisha grimaced. “Sorry, I know hell is kind of a touchy subject . . .” She paused for a moment, pulling her lip between her teeth.
I sat on the end of my pullout bed and changed my socks. “Spit it out already. I know you have something else to say.”
Swiveling the chair around to face me, Trisha laced her hands between her legs and leaned forward. “I was going to say, speaking of hell, have you had a chance to get rid of . . .” she wagged her hand around her head.
I frowned. “What?”
“You know . . .” She lowered her voice and whispered quickly, “. . . the demon inside you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Trisha, whispering isn’t going to keep him from hearing you, and no, I haven’t. We have to find him a body to go to first, and that hasn’t exactly been a high priority at the moment.”
Trisha watched me, not completely convinced. “So you haven’t had any issues with him?”
My hands stopped mid-tie of my shoes as I really thought about her question. Todd or Zee, as he told me to refer to him, hadn’t really shown up in the last few days. Not since we had that showdown in Madam Serena’s shop downstairs. I mean, I guess I wouldn’t either. I did put a gun to my head and threaten to take us both out.
Working on my shoes again, I shrugged. “No, not really. He’s been pretty quiet for the most part.”
Trisha’s brow furrowed, bunching up her heavy eye makeup. “Doesn’t that worry you?”
I pushed up on my knees to stand and walked back over to my desk. “No, not really.” I opened the drawer I usually kept my gun in and frowned. It wasn’t there. Glancing around the room, I found it hanging on the coat rack with my jacket. As I moved toward it, I continued, “If he’s content just hanging in the background, I’m not going to complain and neither should you.” I gave her a stern look as I adjusted my shoulder holster. “I mean it. Leave it alone, Trish.”
Trisha made a popping sound with her mouth and sighed, sinking back into her chair. “Fine. I’ll drop it . . .” she pointed a finger at me and added on, “for now. But you can’t just live with a demon inside of you all the time. I mean, that’s got to be messing up your angelic mojo, you know?”
Shrugging on my jacket, I shook my head. “I think out of the two of us, I’m the bigger expert on what will mess up my ‘mojo.’ And I feel fine. Really. Now, I’m going to go check on my half demon boyfriend and see about getting paid from the police for all those jobs we’ve done for them.”
Trisha narrowed her eyes at me. “You actually care about getting paid?”
My hand on the office doorknob, I said, “Well, yeah. How else are we going to renovate Madame Serena’s shop? It does require money.”
“Yeah, it does,” Trisha answered, her eyes boring into my back as I walked away.
I didn’t know what her problem was. It wasn’t so out of the ordinary for me to worry about money. In heaven, we didn’t have to pay for things. It was share and share alike. You got assigned a job, and you did it. When you needed something, you went and got it.
However, this was the human world, and you needed money to survive. Everything cost, and no one was going to give you a free handout. It was about time I got paid for my services.
With Sid back, he was driving his truck again, and that meant I had to go back to driving the old beater that I’d acquired a while ago. At least I didn’t have to worry about damaging it on the job. It already had enough damage to it; any more would just be adding character.
My stomach gurgled as I jumped on the interstate to head to Sid’s bar. While my body was hungry for food, the very thought of it made me want to vomit. For the second time in a short time, I wondered what happened last night. Had I drunk too much?
I vaguely remembered going out to do some recon on Asmodeus and Lucifer. I needed to know what they were planning now that I had taken Michael’s blade and Sid back. They couldn’t use him anymore to make me open a portal to heaven. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t keep trying. As far as I was concerned, there was a target on my back and that of anyone I cared about.
After beating up a few demons for information, I didn’t remember if I’d exorcised them or if I’d just left them there. I knew I hadn’t gotten much out of them. Nobody wanted to piss off the big guys, and apparently, I wasn’t enough of a threat to make them talk.
Unfortunately, the more I tried to remember last night, the cloudier it became. Which didn’t bode well for anyone. Sighing, I pulled off the downtown exit.
Sid’s bar, the Night Owl, was a common hangout for the supernatural. Mostly demons, sometimes vampires and other beings, but every once in a while, humans would wander in, and then things got really interesting. I didn’t expect much to be happening at ten in the morning, especially since I was able to find a parking spot right up front.
I parked and climbed out of the car, not bothering to lock the thing. Personally, it would be a blessing to have the thing stolen. However, sitting next to Sid’s expensive truck, I think it was way down on the list of desirables.
The sign above the bar was off, but I knew Sid would be there anyway. He lived and breathed the bar, and if I ever wondered where he was, it would always be here.
The windows of the bar were tinted to hide what happened on the inside from prying eyes. Once I thought it was to hide demon activity but now I knew it was because Sid used his clientele to feed the incubus inside of him. No one wanted to be watched practically dry humping on the dance floor.
The door to the bar opened easily even with the closed sign on. I walked into the dimly lit room, the dark wood floor and bar making it even more ominous as I searched for my boyfriend.
I didn’t have long to search.
Sid’s voice called out from the office, “We’re closed. Come back later.”
I tucked my hands in the pockets of my jeans and sauntered through the empty dance floor, the silence in the place a bit morbid for my taste. I very rarely came outside of hours, and I wasn’t sure I liked the place so quiet.
I barely made it across the dance floor before Sid came barreling out of the back room. His forest green shirt pulled against the expansion of his chest, showing off the muscle deliciousness that I knew laid beneath. The shirt was wrinkled as well as the dark jeans he wore fitted tight enough that you couldn’t cop a feel if you wanted to. Believe me, I’ve tried.
It was strange what having sex on the regular would do to one’s libido. Things I had once thought were strange and unusual to be obsessed with now made my blood heat and my body ache. For instance, the first time I’d seen Sid in a pair of grey sweatpants. Before having intercourse, I wouldn’t have thought anything of them. Now when Sid wore them, my brain seemed to decide all neurons were needed elsewhere. Particularly, low between my thighs.
“I said we’re closed . . . oh, it’s you.” He stopped in his tracks and stared at me.
I arched a brow. “Well, hello to you too.”
Sid’s lips ticked up in an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I’m a bit cranky when I haven’t eaten.”
Continuing my walk across the dance floor, I cocked my head to the side as I stopped in front of him. “Eaten as in eaten or as in eaten?”
Sid’s hazel gaze dipped down, his hands coming up to cup the back of my elbows. “Both.” When he looked up at me this time, the hazel of his eyes had darkened, his demon half peeking from beneath the surface.
Licking my lips, I shrugged out of my jacket and laid it on the top of the bar. “Well, I can help with one . . . however the other—”
“I’ll cook something after.” Sid picked me up by the back of my thighs and sat me on the bar. Pushing between them, he wasted no time pressing his mouth to mine. A rush of need swept through me as Sid let his demon half loose to feed. It caused me to shudder and groan into his mouth, thrusting my hips closer to him.
A year ago, Sid’s powers wouldn’t have affected me, but the longer I stayed on Earth and the longer I was without my wings, the more human I became. Now Sid’s powers were hard to resist. Not that I wanted to. Things between Sid and me were always fire, and with his powers added to the mix, they were molten lava.
“Take your pants off,” I commanded, unbuttoning my own.
Sid let out a feral growl as he did what I asked, his eyes watching my hands. I braced my feet on two of the bar stools and lifted my hips, unable to shove my pants off fast enough. Once they were gone, Sid was there, sinking his hot, thick length inside of me.
Every inch of me tightened in anticipation. Sid took his sweet, sweet time, giving me a moment to feel every agonizingly delicious inch of him. My eyes rolled up. My nails dug into the flesh of his arms. “Fuuuuck.”
“I thought that was what I was doing,” Sid grunted in response, his grip on my thighs almost bruising. The rosary around his wrist bumped against me, leaving cold spots on my skin.
Not thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed a hold of the rosary and jerked as hard as I could, snapping the string and sending beads scattering across the bar and floor.
Sid stared down at what I’d done, his eyes wide. “Mary, what the—” I grabbed both sides of his face and stared into his eyes before shoving him completely inside of me. I thrust my hips, doing most of the work while I watched that darkness behind his gaze push forth. A low growl rumbled from his throat, and then he took over, that growl turning in to a roar. His thrusts were hard and unforgiving, pushing so far inside of me that I knew I would be bruised later.
I didn’t care.
I curled my fingers into his hair and pulled on it. “Now you’re fucking me.”
The sinister smile on Sid’s face should have scared me, but it only spurred me on more. Sid jerked out of me and spun me around. Pinned face first against the bar, I couldn’t do anything other than let Sid have his way with me. This position gave him a deeper and sharper angle, making me cry out, torn between the pain and pleasure of it.
Sid grabbed a hand full of my hair and pulled on it, forcing my head into an awkward angle as he hissed into my ear. “Is this what you wanted, angel whore?”
I moaned in response.
“Admit it, you’ve always wanted good boy Sid to let loose on you like this.” He licked the side of my face and slapped a hand between my thighs, making me cry out. “You’re a slut for demons. That’s why you chased your boss out of heaven. It’s why you’ll never make it back there. Because you want it—this—too fucking bad.”
Stars burst behind my eyes as he slammed into me a few more times. Honestly, I lost count. I was too busy riding the wave of whatever the hell just happened. I blacked out for a moment, and the next thing I knew, I was on the bar floor, a towel draped over my privates.
Inching up, I groaned at the ache in my body. Every inch of me hurt, but in a good way. Like when your body ached from a good hard work out. Painful, but satisfying.
I blinked a few times, searching around for Sid. I didn’t see him. More than a bit confused, I sat up and found my pants. I used the towel to clean up the mess between my legs, a mixture of fluids and blood. I guess we got a little carried away.
Fully dressed, I grabbed my jacket and walked to the back room. Sid sat in the corner of the room, his head down and his hands cupped in front of him, a different rosary wrapped around his wrist.
“Hey, there you are.” I stopped by his desk and peered down at him. “What’re you doing?”
Sid lifted his head, anger pinching the skin around his eyes. “What am I doing? What am I doing, Mary?” He jumped out of his seat. “I’m wondering how I almost killed you!”
“Whoa.” I held my hands up and backed away from him. “Calm down. You didn’t kill me. I’m fine. See?” I held my hands out to my sides and did a little spin. “I’m not human, Sid. You can’t kill me from a little rough sex.”
