Princess of Lust (For the Love of Evil) Read online

  Wemken, a village elder and minor devil, shook his head and crossed his arms over his narrow chest. “Begging your pardon, Princess, but we won’t be leaving until the job is done.” The other men muttered in agreement, and her heart swelled with pride and despair.

  Gregor stepped forward and looked each man in the eye as he spoke. “What the princess is trying to say is this spell is extremely dangerous and she needs to concentrate all of her attention on it. If you are here, she will be worrying about you instead of the spell.” He stroked the golden collar around his neck, a visible symbol of his role as her concubine. “I know you want to help, and if you insist on staying behind, we could use your experienced eyes and hands to search every building to make sure no one is inadvertently left behind.”

  Natalia let out a slow breath as the men broke off into pairs, planning how best to carry out the last sweep of the village. Gregor cupped her face in his hands and brushed his lips against hers, the warmth of his pleasure flooding her body in a rush of magic. Her protests died in her throat as he deepened the kiss, stroking against her tongue and demanding a response. Desire burned through her veins and settled between her legs, making her grow damp with need as he bit her lower lip. She could taste the salt of his sweat on his mouth and breathed in his musk. Male, he was so deliciously male.

  When he broke the kiss and stepped back from her, his dark gaze burned into hers, promising a hot and savage bedding once they were alone. Images of her riding him while he was tied to her bed flashed through her mind, and she marveled at his power and control of their bond. She couldn’t send images to him yet, but Gregor had studied their bond with his usual brilliant determination and had figured out how to use it far better than she had. It came in handy when he had things to tell her no one else should hear, but was rather annoying when he used it to torment her with lustful images while she tried to conduct her duties as a princess.

  Eline bit the side of her neck, making her shriek and jump. Both men laughed and she glared at them. “If you’re through trying to annoy me to death, can I get this spell done?”

  Raising his gauntlet into the air, Eline motioned for the other guards to join them. The guards and her men formed a circle around her, completed as Raum and Kirin stood at her side.

  “All the children are gone?” she asked as she tried to keep from fidgeting with her skirt.

  The look Eline gave her was at once kind and firm. “Yes, Princess. All is ready for the spell.”

  “All right.”

  The four-foot by four-foot block of black-and-silver stone hummed as she stepped closer. The vibrations made her bones ache, and she tried to brace herself for what lay ahead. This would be the second keystone she’d had to absorb, and the first had left her in bed for a week as she recovered.

  She whispered the words of the breaking spell, but they echoed as if she had screamed them from a mountaintop. “Come unto me, by my father’s decree.” The ache in her bones turned to a freezing burn as she placed her palms on the smooth surface of the rock and choked on a scream. Power rushed into her, racing through her body as it looked for a proper receptacle. The human portion of her soul died a thousand deaths beneath the onslaught while the shadowy, demon side of her nature turned into a bottomless pit and swallowed the energy whole.

  One moment she wanted to shout her pleasure to the sky as the raw energy filled her, and the next she wanted to beg someone, anyone, to kill her. The torment went on and on as her hands remained stuck to the stone. Good thing, because the human side of her mind tried to pull her body from its grasp. She thought she screamed, but it was a dim sound beneath the roar of magic.

  The pressure wasn’t as bad as the first time, but she still wept in gratitude as the torrent of energy faded to a trickle. The new pathways the blast of power had burned into her hurt, and she moaned as someone gathered her into their arms. Her face pressed into a warm chest, and she knew right away by the smell of his skin and the deep comfort enveloping her that Gregor held her.

  Voices yelled in fear and a heavy pounding seemed to come from all around, forcing her to open her eyes. “What’s going on?” she cried in a ravaged whisper.

  “It took a long time for you to empty the stone.” Gregor looked at her, the whites of his eyes big with fear. “The Chaos is almost upon us.”

  Her head weighed a thousand pounds as she strained her neck to see. On three sides, the Chaos hovered less than a dozen steps away. The keystone had been reduced to pile of dull gray sand.

  “Oh, God,” she said and turned back to Gregor. “Get us out of here.”

  He backed up with her in his arms and growled, “We’re trying. The bubble has us trapped. The only way out is through the side of a brick house. Unfortunately, the brick has wards on it and breaking it down is taking precious time we don’t have.”

  Strength began to return to her, quicker than before, and she raised her head up to look. Raum, Kirin, Eline, and a half-dozen guards were tearing at the wall in a frenzy.

  “Why don’t they open up a portal?” she asked. A small hole appeared in the wall where it was being battered by the pommel of one of the guard’s swords.

  Gregor stared at the men, then said in a voice laced with distrust, “Raum said we don’t know if the Chaos can use portals, so he didn’t want to give it an opening to your father’s palace.”

  The thought of her new home being unmade caused a shudder to race through her. “No, that would be horrible.”

  “Bring the princess,” Kirin shouted, and her world lurched as Gregor sprinted with her in his arms.

  Eline went first, squeezing and pushing past the edges of the hole as the other guards worked to make it bigger. Sunlight streamed from the other side, and she barely had time to register what happened before she found herself pushed into Eline’s arms and past the shattered brick. They were in the abandoned kitchen of one of the homes. Broken plates and abandoned cutlery crunched beneath Eline’s boots as he shifted his hold on her.

  “I have you,” he said, and backed away from the hole in the wall.

  On the other side, darkness framed the remaining men as Raum ordered them through one by one. Kirin and Gregor were the last to come out into the kitchen and the bubble of Chaos seemed to be right on top of them. The last bit of earth disappeared from her view beyond the opening as Raum grasped the broken edges of the wall to pull himself into the home.

  An instant before he did, she got a clear mental picture from her bond with Gregor. In it, Gregor pushed Raum into the Chaos and a fierce joy tinged with regret and guilt raced across his thoughts. Time seemed to slow as Raum hung on the precipice, scrambling to get through the hole when he had nothing behind him to step on.

  Gregor held out his hand to Raum and Natalia tried to yell out a warning, but she was afraid if she did, Raum would lose his concentration and fall. With their bond still wide open, Gregor’s anger poured into her as he caught Kirin’s pleading gaze. With a muttered oath, Gregor hauled Raum through the opening hard enough that he landed on the floor with a thump.

  Profound relief took the little strength remaining in her legs, and she leaned her head against Eline’s hard breastplate. The tears she had been holding at bay coursed down her cheeks as she realized how close Gregor had come to killing Raum, and how badly she had misjudged his ability to share her with the other man.

  Chapter Three

  Natalia spent the ride back to the palace alone in her carriage, claiming exhaustion after the draining of the stone. In reality, she couldn’t stand the sight of either Raum or Gregor.

  For the past eight months she’d been in Hell, scrambling to learn as much as she could about being a demon princess and trying to help her father retain his power. The fight became more dire by the day, and as her father’s only living child, she had a vital role to play in protecting their people. The last thing she needed was two of the men she loved being a breath away from killing each other.

  What she’d thought were just some bad feeling
s between Raum and Gregor had changed into true hate. Even now, with her shields shut down as tight as she could get them between herself and Gregor, she could feel his seething anger at not killing Raum and his self-disgust for his momentary weakness. Her concubine truly, deeply loved her but he was human and had been raised and groomed to be a powerful mafia lord, not, in his words, a “kept man.” Sharing the woman he loved with another man, or in this case demons and a damned soul, went against everything he’d been taught about how a man behaved.

  Raum wasn’t helping the situation, either. While he was a potential blood mate to Natalia, he didn’t have the same right to her affections Gregor did as her concubine, but he still loved her and she loved him. Considering Raum had a concubine of his own, he knew how she felt about Gregor. He would no more harm Gregor than he would harm her, but if Gregor continued to try to keep them apart, she was afraid Raum would do…something. She didn’t know what, but she could sense his patience with her concubine reaching the snapping point.

  She sighed and thumped her head against the gilded window frame of her carriage. She would talk to her father when they returned and ask him for advice on how to handle this love triangle. Well, actually, it was a love pentagon, because she also had carnal relations with the captain of her guard, Eline, and Raum’s concubine Kirin, but they didn’t seem to bother Gregor as much. It was probably because Gregor had become friends with Eline’s concubine and knew Eline loved her very much, and Kirin was the closest thing he had to a friend in Hell. Raum loved his concubine as well, but because Kirin was another male, Gregor didn’t view their relationship the same way.

  If only she could get him to understand that her heart, her emotions weren’t those of a true human. She had more than enough love for all of the men, and she loved them each in different ways. The dark part of her soul, her demonic essence, viewed each man as her lover. Raum was the master of her heart, and when they were together she yearned to submit to him. Gregor was the keeper of her heart, the man she trusted beyond all others. Because of their psychic bond, she knew without a doubt Gregor would never hurt her. And last but not least, Eline guarded her heart. Like a knight of old, he would fight for her to the death.

  Eline rode on one side of her coach, mounted on her Nightmare. He was the only person other than Natalia that Nightmare would let ride her, and they made quite a picture together. The liquid black silk of the horse’s coat blended into Eline’s shiny, onyx-black armor. His demon-pale skin had hints of subtle gray to it, and he constantly scanned the surroundings. He was such a handsome man. The memory of his powerful thighs flexing against her bottom as she rode him seared through her. An echo of her lust must have reached Eline because he turned to the carriage and caught her staring.

  Embarrassment heated her cheeks, and she slumped back, staring out the opposite window as his muffled laughter came through the window. She pretended she didn’t hear him and resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. She kept on waiting for one of them to demand that she be theirs alone, but other than Gregor, everyone seemed perfectly content to share her time. Though she’d been in Hell for months now, it didn’t change the fact she’d been raised in the mortal world, where a woman indulging in her passions got labeled as a whore. Some members of the Court of Lust would view her blushing as a sign of her humanity, a weakness to be exploited for their own benefit.

  She closed her eyes and took in deep, cleansing breaths in an attempt to clear her mind. Her soul held a staggering amount of power, and she needed to keep her focus on it. The sumptuous silver silk seats embroidered with her father’s crest in scarlet thread were far more comfortable than anything she’d ever felt on mortal earth and the countryside slowly rolling past her window was as beautiful as any she’d seen. Too bad the peaceful image was ruined by one of her personal guards riding next to the coach, his black armor gleaming as he constantly scanned the surrounding area. She was tempted to ask him to move, but an unobstructed line of sight seemed like a petty request when it could make her vulnerable to attack.

  The energy from the stone shifted in her body, and she groaned softly as her bones ached. If only she had made the transition to full demon, she would be able to do this and so much more for her father. Every day, she heard about how she was too mortal to do this type of demonic magic, or too human to endure that particular spell. It frustrated her that no one could tell her when or even if she would ever make the full transition.

  She glanced at her pale arms, trying to imagine her skin lit with the iridescent shimmer that all full demons had. Her short nails would become golden claws, and she would even develop retractable fangs. Already her eyes shifted colors when she was in the grips of a strong emotion, but she had yet to master the ability of speaking in others’ minds—something all true demons learned not long after puberty. The best she could do was a vague trickle of emotion, so subtle that the person she tried to communicate with couldn’t even be sure if it was their emotion or hers.

  The wheels of the carriage clattered as they went from the dirt road to the giant paving stones leading to her father’s palace. She leaned her cheek against the window, looking into the sky where the shining black towers pierced the gold-and bronze-laced clouds. Somewhere inside, her father waited for them. The closer they got to the palace, the more the energy strained to escape her grip—as if sensing its true master nearby.

  Raum helped her from the carriage with Gregor a split second behind. She took Raum’s hand as he led her down and didn’t miss the murderous glare Gregor gave his back. Kirin stood off to the side, and his hand stroked his hip where his sword would have been. Eline gave her a questioning glance, but she shook her head minutely. He bowed and left, leading Nightmare into the stables.

  “I want you to come to my estate after this, Natalia,” Raum murmured as he slid his lips over her knuckles. Passion filled his voice and phantom hands caressed her hips. “Let me take care of you.”

  A pleasant burn resounded through her body, and she had to stiffen her spine to keep her focus. “I need to finish setting up my apartments in the palace.”

  Gregor gave Raum a nasty smirk. “Yes, we need to pick out our bed.”

  Raum’s smile revealed his fangs. “Make sure it’s one big enough to hold me, and Kirin as well. I know how much you love being pressed between us.”

  Gregor’s face flushed, and he took a small step forward. “Funny, I’ve never needed another man in bed to satisfy her. Is Kirin your stud horse? Does he have to finish the job you can only start?”

  Kirin gave Gregor a hard glare. “That was uncalled for.”

  Natalia leaned back against the side of the coach, clutching her aching head as they argued. Their anger, resentment, and jealousy battered at her shields, and each harsh word became a small cut on her soul. She whimpered but the soft noise was drowned out beneath the increasing shouts of all three men as their anger exploded. At the harsh scrape of steel being drawn out of its sheath, she struggled to open her eyes past the pain. Raum had drawn his sword about halfway out, but Kirin stepped in front of Gregor with his hands held out, fighting to keep the men from each other.

  She tried to speak, tried to stop them, but it was all she could to control the power inside of her, surging and lurching like a restless animal against the bars of its cage. Black spots danced before her eyes, and her body became a battleground. What would come first? Would she pass out, throw up, or be incinerated from the inside out by her father’s power?

  “Silence!”

  The stern female voice rolled through the stone courtyard, rebounding until it echoed with the power of a deep compulsion. Man and demon alike clapped their hands to their ears, and Natalia crumpled to her feet, her forehead pressed to the smooth stones. Immediately, hands grabbed at her and the men started to snarl at each other again, but in much lower voices this time.

  “Back off. I’ve got her.”

  “Get your damned claws off her, she’s my mistress and the palace is our home.”
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br />   “You’re nothing but an ignorant human—”

  Galina’s silken voice cut through their growls. “Have you lost your minds? Look at what you’re doing to her!”

  Natalia struggled to sit, ignoring the male hands attempting to support her. She reached out and Galina, her father’s head concubine, clasped her hand and helped pull her to her feet. As usual, the beautiful woman was magnificently dressed in an almost transparent peach gown that showcased her spectacular body, but only a fool would miss the strength and power emanating from her. “Thank you.”

  “Captain Eline, your lady needs you.”

  Raum stepped into her line of sight, his sensual mouth tight with worry. “I—”

  “You’ll return at once to your estate until the high prince summons you.” Raum started to protest but Galina held up her hand. She narrowed her eyes at him and said in a warning growl, “That is a direct order from the high prince, General Raum. Ignore it at your own peril.”

  Natalia scarcely paid any attention to the drama around her. The ache in her bones was back again, worse now that they were at the seat of her father’s power. His essence had been poured into the stones of the palace and the energy inside her wanted to return to its source. She could almost pinpoint where her father was, somewhere far above them in the westernmost tower.

  Big arms lifted her, and she pressed her face against the smooth metal covering Eline’s chest. He smelled of man, leather, and a scent she could only identify as hers. As she clung to his powerful frame, taking strength from their connection, she heard Galina talking with Gregor in a low voice. “Pull yourself together. She needs you right now. The power of the cornerstone is trying to break free and your anger is destroying her shields.” Gregor said something too soft to hear and Galina sighed. “I know. Trust me, I know. After we get this over with, I promise I’ll have a talk with him.”