Hell's Revenge by Eve Langlais

to talk about her?” Auric shook his head. “You can’t keep avoiding her existence, Muri. I don’t expect you to have a warm fuzzy relationship with her or invite her to Thanksgiving dinner given what she’s done. But we need to discuss her because I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what she said. While Nefertiti thinks you should abort, Gaia on the other hands wants us to hand the baby over.”
    “Like fuck,” I spat.
    “Exactly,” he nodded. “But her request means she’s tipped her hand and I for one would like to know more about why she wants our child. I also want to discover if we need to worry about her trying to kidnap the child once it’s born.”
    “Just kill her now and get it over with.” In my life, decisions were simple.
    Auric blew out a breath. “I know you’re upset with her for abandoning you, so am I actually, but we can’t just kill her. There could be severe repercussions for destroying Mother Earth after all.”

    “Great. Take her side.” I grumbled as I crossed my arms.
    “I am not taking her side. She touches one hair on your head or our child’s and I’ll kill her without a second thought. And, you seem to have forgotten, in our battle with Gabriel, the other power pulling the strings of his minion puppets, knew who your mother was. Don’t you think we should at the least question your mother about whom this being is? Find out all the facts before we make a decision and act.” I rolled my eyes. “You and your facts. Fine. She lives for now. But here’s one fact you haven’t clued in on. I’m horny and have less than an hour before I need to get to work. So do you mind cutting the talk and getting busy over here?” Some might say laughter was the best remedy, I begged to differ. Sex—the sweaty, emotionally charged kind—was much, much better.
    Looking into Auric’s eyes as he made love to me made me realize that no matter what the future held, I wouldn’t face it alone. And when my orgasm crashed over me in a sensual wave that made me writhe, I clutched him to me tightly in an attempt to fight the darkness I sensed hovering on the horizon. A foreboding that seemed to mock my brave attempt to fool myself.
    We were basking in the afterglow when I remembered something I’d forgotten from the previous day’s attack. A tidbit of knowledge that Auric needed to know.
    “Azazel is up to his tricks again.”
    “What?” Auric rolled himself on top of me and peered down with concern.
    “Explain.”
    “The demons who attacked me yesterday did so on his orders. Somehow, even though he’s supposed to be under guard and tortured daily, he’s found a way to give his lackeys orders.” And that meant whoever controlled Azazel, that mysterious power who’d fucked with my life a lot recently, had access to him, too. I wondered if my dad suspected but I wondered even more just who in blazes this super power was? I wasn’t naive enough to think my dad, Uncle God and my mother were the only powerful entities around. There were many planes of existence. Heaven, Hell and Earth were just the ones I was most familiar with. Who knew what existed out there in Limbo, space and elsewhere. It could have been the one eyed, four armed, flying purple people eaters pulling the strings and entertaining themselves at our expense. However, while the identity of Azazel’s true master interested me, I didn’t allow it to sway my opinion about Azazel. The demon needed to die.
    “He won’t be giving fucking orders for much longer,” Auric growled reading my mind. He slipped out of bed to pull on some clothes.
    I loved it when he got all protective. I rolled on my stomach and watched him hide his yummy flesh with clothing—wrapping paper, as I called it—that always seemed to beg to be torn off. “What are you going to do?”
    “Tear his limbs from him one at a time and then finish him off permanently.” Say what you would, when my consort went all tough ass alpha, it was freaking