Page 50 of Falling for Famine
Chapter Twenty
Nomi
Glacies danced around me, glowing brightly in distress and trying to get my attention, absent the usual red wisp who followed it around.
I was in a room now, sitting on a long couch, left with my own personal collection of demon guards. They didn’t have bodies like I did. More shape than anything. Red-orange eyes stayed fixed on me, never moving away. With twelve of them, I didn’t have any choice but to stay where I was.
The only solace I took out of my current situation was that no one had noticed my little colorful cutie, which was a damn relief. I did what I could not to call attention to the blue wisp, and its flickering got more insistent as time went on. It was trying to get me to do something, but I couldn’t even begin to understand what that was.
Lucifer was a name anyone would know. The first fallen angel. The Devil himself.
I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t think for a second I had any power to fight the beginning of evil itself, but I had nothing left to lose. He hurt the man who used his last act in life to protect me. He killed Felix, and I’d use that vengeance to find a way to do something—anything—even if it meant I died after death. Even if it meant an eternity of torture.
A tear crawled down my cheek, my grief crippling.
I’d been ready to die, but I hadn’t been ready to see the man I loved most in the world die beside me. The sight of Felix flying and hitting the ground played over and over in my head. No torture they contrived here in Hell could match the pure agony of watching him die and being unable to do anything.
I hadn’t been this angry in a very long time. I’d nearly forgotten the feeling of it. It was a powerful, all-consuming rage that festered inside my chest. It twisted my thoughts into ones of violence and maximum damage.
I stared at my hands, uncomfortable with how white they’d become, how lifeless. After I’d been left in here—the cage that was far more luxurious than expected—I’d started to realize thatI no longer needed to breathe. I did it purely on instinct, but the signs were glaring.
I was dead.
Glacies flashed again, icing my tears. I wiped at them and swept my gaze over the demons positioned all over the room, afraid they’d noticed. None of them moved or did anything that indicated they had.
I breathed out a sigh and tossed the little blue wisp a scowl. Speaking to my cutie was out of the question, so I hoped my threat came across. I needed to keep its presence hidden until I knew what to do. Assuming I could do anything, that is.
Suddenly, the demons around the room stood taller, reacting to someone’s arrival. Sure enough, my kidnapper came strolling in with all the airs of someone who ran the place. And he did. Hell was his playground.
His dark hair was combed back in a smart look and his suit was tailored to absolute perfection. Some might’ve called him handsome, but all I saw was the monster who murdered my dad—the man who spent the last sixteen years putting the pieces of my heart back together. To me, he’d be the ugliest, most abhorrent thing to ever cross my path no matter how pretty his face was.
My expression twisted with disgust as he turned to look at me after saying something to one of the demons near the weird area he’d come through. It was all black and liquid. Some kind of door or portal, but to where I couldn’t say.
His gaze first went to Glacies next to my cheek, making the air in my nonexistent lungs rush back out in panic, but then it quickly slid to mine instead. He didn’t mention Glacies, just beamed a grin at me as if he hadn’t torn my life to shreds.
Guess even the King of Hell himself had things he couldn’t do. My cold friend remained my secret for another day.
The Devil wandered over, and I couldn’t help how I retreated as far as I could get on the couch. The deadly stare he’d given Felix, the ease with which he killed the man who’d shown me what love truly was, it was in my head as he sat down and peered at me with an obnoxious smirk on his face.
“My, my, you’re a real beauty, aren’t you?” he murmured. “Lilith will be beside herself with jealousy. Well, I guess she already is. I’ll have a lot of explaining to do after I secure you as Hell’s queen.”
I lifted my chin, hoping to strengthen my posture, even if only a little. “I won’t be your bride.”
He seemed genuinely amused I’d say so. He leaned back and regarded me with laughing eyes. “Oh? Think you can take on the ruler of Hell, do you, little mortal?”
When he tried to touch my face, I smacked his hand away with a growl. “I’m certainly going to try.”
“That’s some spunk you have,” he mused, delighted instead of angry. “It’ll serve you well here. I think it’s time you meet the Fallen Brothers, my queen.”
Confusion got the better of me. “Fallen Brothers?”
“Mmm.” He gave my body another one of his long, assessing glances. It made me uncomfortable, but I’d been leered at by men my whole life. I wouldn’t give him the reaction he wanted.
His dark red eyes were nothing like Ghost’s. Nothing gentle or affectionate lurked inside them. Everything was greed and possession. But I wouldn’t expect anything less of the Devil.
With a snap of his fingers, I was suddenly in a dress that was the farthest thing from what Ghost left out for me the last two mornings. It hugged every corner, every curve, and if I’d needed to breathe, I’d find myself unable to. It was a dark blue that matched the color of my hair and starkly contrasted my ghost-white skin.
“Much better,” he murmured, licking his lips. My own mouth downturned in growing revulsion, and it only served to amuse him. “Don’t worry, little mortal. You might hate me now, but your afterlife body will love everything I do to it.”
