Page 6 of Hellfire & Bowties
Luc’s office was probably the worst thing Oren had ever seen. His skin itched at the sight of those poor, abused, crinkled binders. He just wanted to cradle them in his arms and tell them it would all be okay because he’d help them get nice and organized.
“Okay,” Luc said after he spent several long minutes trying to come up with a solution to Oren’s situation. “I’m gonna go and see where we can put you up until this is sorted. It’ll be at least a few weeks.”
Oren thought about it for a second.
“Do we… I mean…” he started but didn’t really know how to voice it without sounding stupid. “Do we sleep? Now that we’ve died?”
Luc gave him a smile that looked impressed for some reason. And nice. It looked very nice. Like most of him did.
Oren hadn’t known he had a thing for horns curling slightly above dark hair and forked tongues swiping over full lips, but there he was, sitting in all his virginal glory, looking at the boss of Hell like he was a full meal just for Oren.
The man—demon? Devil? Luc—was so large, so incredibly imposing, that Oren was sure he wouldn’t even feel Oren in his arms. His large, leathery wings were taking up so much space behind him, his yellow eyes shining just slightly like two beacons. His skin was a dark red that reminded Oren of blood, and his tail swished behind him restlessly, the tip pointed like a spear.
He was stunning. Scary as heck. But stunning.
“Excellent question, hon,” Luc said, and Oren shifted in his seat, the endearment doing strange things to his usually very disinterested insides. “Technically, no, you don’t need to sleep anymore. Or breathe, or eat, or any of that. You’re not exactly physically here. But that makes torture a logistic nightmare, so we designed this place to mimic the living world as best as we could. You’ll feel things as you would while alive. For all intents and purposes, nothing has changed but the location.”
“Right,” Oren said, finding the information fascinating. “So is it a spell or, like… magic?”
“It’s the Big Guy’s doing, so you’d have to ask him for specifics. I’m pretty sure he’ll personally apologize after this fuckup, so you’ll get the chance to ask him then. Dude is a huge people pleaser.”
“Got it.” Oren nodded, adjusting his glasses.
“Okay,” Luc said, standing to his full height, which was twice Oren’s. “I’ll go figure out your room. Somewhere away from the bad people, I think. Right?”
Oren went to answer ‘yes please,’ but when he looked up, he saw Luc looking at his—colleague? Assistant? Wingdemon?—who gave him a silent nod.
It was clearly all the confirmation Luc needed, because between one moment and the next, he was out of his office, leaving Oren alone with Wingdemon, and okay, he really couldn’t keep calling him Wingdemon. Felt rude as heck.
“Hi.” He tried for a smile but was pretty sure he wasn’t landing anywhere near it.
The demon flicked a flat stare over at him then pulled his gigantic leathery wings closer, the scrape of them over the stone floor loud and chilling. Since the demon had his head down, his set of double horns was pointed at Oren, and the faintly glowing markings on his stone-white skin washed the room in a pretty light.
Oren thought he looked very distinguished. Not hot like Luc, but… nice to look at.
“I’m Oren. What’s your name?”
The staring continued until the demon seemed to get bored and looked away again. “Zorun.”
Oren nodded, running the unfamiliar syllables over in his mind before saying, “Very nice to meet you, Zorun. What is it that you do around here?”
“Torture.”
Right.
Not the best thing to learn about the guy you were alone with in Hell, but Oren was dead anyway, so… what was the worst that could happen?
“Any particular kind you enjoy the most?” Oren asked politely, frowning when Zorun grunted something he didn’t really understand then went back to ignoring his existence.
Oren cleared his throat, searching for something, anything else to talk about. His gaze inevitably fell on Luc’s desk, and all his thoughts focused on the demon.
“Are you and Luc good friends?”
“I’m his second-in-command,” Zorun said flatly.
“Oh! So that’s like best friends, right?” Oren scooted his chair forward in interest. “You’d know if he was seeing someone then?”
“Seeing someone?”
