Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1) (17 page)

Still, he hated being forced to sit and do nothing. That’s what babysitters were for. And he was not one of them.

Succored from the crib on war and annihilation, Behr was a warrior through and through. It went against everything in him to stand idly by with nothing to occupy
him, but
then times were scarce as of late on towns to pi
l
lage and demons to slaughter. He would just have to make
do.

“There you are,” a sultry female voice said from within the darkness. “I have been calling for you.”

“Reception up here isn’t so great,” Behr said sarca
s
tically. “What did you need me for, Sephy?”

Dressed in elegant white chiffon so sheer you could see every nuance of her curvaceous
body; Persephone
sau
n
tered forward with a cunning smile playing on her perfect features. Her
honey-blond hair
fell to her hips in smooth waves
,
making the picture of her absolutely stunning to b
e
hold.  “Does there have to be a reason for me to call on
you?”

“Yes.” He studied her as she ran her fingers across the polished granite walls thoughtfully.

“You
know; I
haven’t been here in
ages.”
Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply. “Even smells the same. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear their screams.” She cast her eyes down to him, a wicked gleam flickering in her
brilliant
green
irises. “Angel says if you concentrate hard enough, you can feel the emotions burned into the earth all around you.” Slipping down the wall to rest beside him, she stroked his forearm and shrugged. “I prefer the real
thing.”

Scoring him with her nails, he hissed and drew his arm back seeing beads of blood already beginning to form
on
his broken flesh. “Damn, someone should declaw your ass. I haven’t had all my
shots,
and I’d hate to come down with cat scratch fever or some shit.”

Laughing in amusement, Persephone wiped her fi
n
ger over his wounds
, then licked it clean. “Yum. Y
ou a
l
ways did taste amazing.”

Disgusted, Behr put some distance between them. “Yeah, I hear that all the
time, but
usually I don’t have to bleed
first.”

Tsking, she gave him a teasing slap on the arm. “You’re such a baby
sometimes."
With a heated once over, she leaned closer. “Want mama to kiss it and make it all
better?”

“Fuck no,” Behr snapped, leaping to his feet. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you pretending to be my momma is wrong on so many levels, not to mention just straight up nasty. No
, thanks.” H
e shook his head vigorou
s
ly.

Persephone rose to her feet with a scowl so fierce it could have put fear in the devil himself. And considering that she was his wife, it probably had. She had the man whipped
frontward,
backward,
and sideways. It was a wo
n
der that she wasn’t the one running Hell. The woman kn
ew how to lay
down the gauntlet in a way that would make even the strongest hard ass cry for his
mommy.

“Now I remember why I always preferred Erias over you. He doesn’t cry like a pussy.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Behr gave her an
I am not a pussy
look.

Glancing around again, Persephone narrowed her eyes on her surroundings
,
then returned her hateful gaze to him. “What are you doing here
,
anyway?
I didn’t give you any orders. T
his is Erias’s station.”

He shrugged. “He called me in last night to watch the place. Since we no longer have Camiel  and Solodad to rely on, apparently we are a bit understaffed,” he said, r
e
ferring to the Brotherhood and their refined numbers. He shook a playful finger at her. “Someone’s been slacking lately.”

“It’s not my fault those two lacked the skills to hold off a demon attack.” She pursed her lips in a pitiful pout. “Besides, finding a suitable subject takes
time, something
I am short on lately.” She turned her pretty pout on him, looking up at him from under a row of thick pale lashes. “You don’t know how hard it is to be a wife and a warden and still be expected to create life while overseeing all of you and making sure your needs are met.”

Behr wasn’t moved in the least. No doubt, she probably was a busy little god
,
but she had never made sure their needs were met. Not in the least. Persephone preyed on the dying and played on their weaknesses. For the me
m
bers of The
Brotherhood,
she would promise them what they craved most, vengeance. In return, they pledged their eternal
servitude.

And their soul.

“What did you come here for, Sephy? I know it looks like I have nothing better to do than listen to you rambled all night, but I do.”

She screwed her face up in distaste. “Whatever. I want you to watch over Erias. He is monitoring a
female,
and since he’s been neglecting to answer my calls, I want to make sure he isn’t getting off
course.”

Yeah ‘cause heavens forbid they should care about anyone besides her highness. Never mind have someone who might care about them in return.

The problem with that
was
he had already seen
E,
and even though
he hadn’t witnessed his direct interaction with the female, he
’d recognize
that anguished, preocc
u
pied look on a man’s face any day. And knowing E and his winning personality, the only thing that could throw him or a man of his caliber off his game would be
a woman.

They were a trifling bunch.

“Just watch him and report back to me if you see anything… funny going on.”

By her
tone,
he knew exactly what she meant by ‘funny’. She didn’t want him getting attached to his su
b
ject. And since it was obvious that he already had, it could only end one way:
badly.

“Yeah
,
yeah, your wish is my command and all that,” he said blandly.

She flashed him a brilliant smile of satisfaction b
e
fore poofing out. Good riddance.

“E!” h
e called into the ether. “We need to talk.”

Taking up residence at his wall once again, he wai
t
ed for him to answer.

“Bi
te me again and I swear to the g
ods!”

Erias threw her across the room with such force that her feet rose a solid foot off the floor and when she came
down,
she flopped onto his bed with stunning
accuracy.

“Touch me again and your arm won’t be the only thing I take a chunk out of
,
you bastard!”

Leaping to her feet
,
she charged at him. He caught her with a stiff arm to the shoulder so hard she whirled around. Dizzy from the unexpected blow, Cheyenne stu
m
bled forward, barely having enough time to throw her arms out to catch herself before she collided with the wall.

A ferocious growl ripped from her throat as she gathered herself for round two. Before she could make it fully to her feet, Erias was grabbing her by the waist and hauling her to the bed. Like a feral feline, she twisted and contorted her body in an attempt to claw his eyes out.

“Get off of
me, you
oaf!” she
hollered.

He ignored her while he pinned her down with his own body. Even using all of his weight against
her, she
proved difficult to wrangle. Snatching her wrists, he stru
g
gled to pull them over her
head.

“Quit squirming,” he grunted, narrowly avoiding a black eye while she thrashed about beneath him.

“Fuck you!” she screamed before trying to spit at him.

Dodging it, Erias laughed through his fury. “Nice try, sweetheart, but you’re going to have to come up with something else to hit me with. I’m a fast learner.

“Fuck you!” she snarled, snapping her teeth at him like she would take a chunk out of his face if she could reach high enough.

Probably would too.

“Not big on originality are we?” He let out a heavy breath at having one arm securely tied to the iron
bed frame
over her
head.

“Go to hell!”

“And her vocabulary expands. I see you’re a fast learner
, as well. Now.” H
e grunted against a bolt of pain as his nether regions came under assault. Gripping her jaw in his fingers
,
he put them
face-to-
face. “You better knock that off before you make me
really
angry.” Ripping her arm over her head with enough force to tear it from the socket, Erias began securing it to the
bed frame.

“Guess you’re a bit of a slow learner, huh?” she taunted, going for another knee shot to the groin.

Jerking out of the way, Erias pinned her with a l
e
thal glare. “Not as slow as you might think.” Smiling tr
i
umphantly, he rose from the bed and surveyed his hand
i
work.

“When I get out of here I’m going to gut you like the pig that you are,” she promised, tugging at her r
e
straints. They didn’t budge an inch. What was he, some kind of fisherman or something? No one she knew could tie knots like
that,
unless they worked the
docks.

Or had experience escaping from
prisons, or
their bedroom as a teenager like she
had.

She almost smiled at the irony of it all.

As a teen, she had performed many escapes with the use
of bed linens and a little well-
placed rope. She had mastered the skill of knot tying. Now she was bei
ng held prisoner, tied to a
bed frame
much the same way she had tied her sheets to
hers.

Only then she hadn’t been a
prisoner. She
had been an
escapee.

Wrenching at the silken ropes until her wrists felt like they would detach, Cheyenne threw her head back on the pillow in total defeat.

Fuck it all, she was so screwed.

Screaming at the top of her lungs until her throat was raw; she had to reel in her emotions before she started crying from the fear and frustration coursing through her.

She would not let that bastard see her cry.

With a blank stare, Erias moved to check the bin
d
ings. Not that he wasn’t absolutely positive that they would hold. He was. He was a pro at bondage, both the scary kind and the fun.

“I’m heading out,” he said in a cold, distant voice. “You can scream all you want. No one will hear you. I
—”

“How do you figure that?” she cut him off, her voice thick with attitude. “You’re not the master of sound. Unless you’re some kind of magician and have figured out how to bottle it up or make everyone in a
fifty-mile radius
suddenly go deaf, you can’t promise that.”

“A
fifty-mile radius,
huh?” H
e laughed jovial
ly.
The woman was s
eriously warped if she
thought— Cove
r
ing
his ears against the ear shattering pain of her screaming like a banshee, he waited for her to
be quiet.

Looking pointedly around the room
,
then sliding his gaze back to her,
he
raised his brows in ap
preciation. “I
m
pressive. But”—
he cocked his head and cupped his ear
—
“nope, not a sound. As I said, no one will hear you. Scream your head off, baby. Scream all you like.”

He side stepped as her foot swept over the side of the bed trying to connect with his thigh. “Oh I d
o hope you hold on to that fire.
I love a woman with spunk.” She screeched in frustration that only amused him more. He gave her a patronizing pat on the head.