Page 15 of Witch's Rebirth
I couldn't tell him the rest of it. I didn't even want to admit it to myself.
Beelzebub was obsessed with Lilith, especially since word spread among demonkind that she was returning to her whole self again. He filled my head with images of her throughout the ages, all his memories and sick fantasies of her. She was beautiful, seductive, and powerful as any demon in the First Hierarchy. No mortal man could resist her, but she was a picky bitch and resisted everyone but those three that followed her around like obedient dogs.
She never gave Beelz anything more than a polite smile and he hated her for it. He knew she had a ravenous sexual appetite and often fucked all three of those lesser demons at once. Why not him? He was just as powerful as Ashtaroth, if not more. Their union could create a new species of ultra powerful witches no mortals would dare to burn. She could make children who'd be proud of her, not these weak modern witches trying to burn away all their demon heritage.
His obsession never stopped. I tried so hard to be a normal teenager but with every girl I dated, Beelzebub compared her to Lilith. Mortal girls, even witches, were not beautiful or powerful or smart enough. He'd convince me how weak they were, that they'd lie back in bed not making a sound and be horrible at blowjobs. No woman on Earth could measure up toher.
And Deja wondered why I was such an asshole. She was the person my tormentor loved and worshiped to a psychotic degree. It'd be one thing if he had it all wrong, if all his thoughts and feelings were just an obsessive fantasy that reality couldn't measure up to. But what pissed me off the most was that he was fucking right. Everything he believed about her was true.
"I'll think about it," I murmured, sending a hand wearily through my hair. Fuck, I needed a haircut. "But right now I'm going to bed."
"Last chance to take a right down the hall," Raum called after me as I trudged up the stairs. "A nice, big bed with a gorgeous woman sleeping in it. If you don't go in there, I will."
I paused at the top of the stairs and looked toward the right. The master bedroom was dark but I could just make out a curled up, sleeping form. Physically, I ached to feel a woman sleeping on my chest. With all my travel and undercover work for the hunter's guild, I had little time for anything besides the occasional one-night stand.
Even long after I shut Beelzebub out of my mind for good, those experiences were especially empty because they still could never measure up to the woman in my head. He controlled me for so long, sometimes I still didn't know which thoughts were really mine or his. They had blurred and bled into each other over the years.
And I couldn't even begin to touch on how surreal it was that the woman he used me for, the object of his sick, twisted affection was sleeping in a bed ten feet away from me.
So I scrubbed a hand down my face and turned to the left, to my own bedroom at the opposite end of the hall.
I closed the door softly and lit my circle of candles with a wave of my hand. The flickering light danced and cast long shadows on the bare walls and floor. Shadows, the only place I felt myself, welcomed and beckoned me.
I peeled off my shirt and stepped over the candles. The sigils on my skin seemed to move with the shadows as if telling a living story. Shadows told the story ofwhy, the reasons for what happened at the surface. All shadows were true, even if they were unique as the people they hid within.
Careful not to break the circle, I sat down, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath as I prepared to read Diana's shadows.
Beelzebub was still trying to get in like a persistent unwanted solicitor at the front door. Years later and he wasn't giving up. I always felt him there and was grateful for it in a weird way. I wouldn't want to let my guard down and accidentally allow him back in. His rage surrounded my subconscious as it looked for a weakness, a chink in my mental armor, but he'd never find one.
He couldn't stand the humiliation of being pushed out by his own creation, even though it was his own damned fault. It never occurred to him that I would become stronger, not a weak, broken puppet.
Within minutes, I burrowed deep in my own subconscious looking for a very specific mind to access. Each person's shadows felt different when you read them. When I first read Deja, her shadows felt like home. I couldn't explain the feeling besides warmth, contentment, and comfort. Diana's on the other hand felt cold and slimy, like walking through a swamp.
Once I found it, her subconscious feelings hit me and I nearly lost focus from how shocked I was. She was... happy?
By now she knew that Juno and the hunters she sent out were dead or missing, as there had been no contact from either one in over a day. And yet the emotions I was getting from her didn't feel annoyed, worried, or anxious. Rather, she felt downrightgleeful.
That confused me so I searched deeper. Why was she so damn happy? But Diana's shadows were murky and tinged with the rusty red shade of blood. Of course, the blood magic was driving her even more insane. It was possible she didn't even have a reason to be so happy, the blood magic just got her high.
But the twisting in my gut told me this wasn't just that. She was happy for a reason, I just couldn't see it through the dark, blood magic haze. Still, it was important. Deja had to know.
I came out of her shadows slowly, less of a head rush that way. My candles extinguished the moment I opened my eyes and my awareness came back to the surface. Stepping out of the circle, I grabbed my shirt and pulled it on as I made my way down the hall.
The master bedroom door was now closed but I never paused until my hand wrapped around the knob. Murmured voices came from the other side. I held my breath to listen.
A woman's moan, sexy and musical, followed by a man's, deep and primal. I released the doorknob and stepped away. The muffled sounds of flesh against flesh and the headboard crashing against the wall followed me back to my room.
Only after closing the door behind me did I adjust my quickly growing erection. Damn, I wanted a drink. I didnotwant to be feeling this way or thinking of these things right now. Of course I was attracted to Deja, I didn't have a choice in that. But was it just hearing her that made me hard, or hearing her with someone else?
Determined not to touch myself over this, I resigned that telling her about Diana's shadows would have to wait until morning, and fell into a fitful sleep.
7
DEJA
Rough stubble and hot breath on my neck roused me from sleep.
"My babies." A large hand reached around me and touched my lower belly protectively. "My sweet little witch babies."
