A Devil Named Desire (10 page)

Chapter Ten

“T
he solution is simple, darling.” Pandora stretched like a cat, basking in the sun. “The child needs a tutor. His studies shouldn’t interrupt your leisure time.” She was sunbathing, naked, on the deck of a private yacht. They were alone, the boat a tiny white speck in the vast blue waters of the Aegean. “He could use a companion, as well, someone his own age to play with.”

Sammy turned his head, admiring Pandora’s ample curves, enhanced by the wearing of a large sapphire in her belly button. Even naked, the shamelessly wanton goddess could not forgo her bling.

“I’ll admit that having a playmate can be fun,” he returned equably, “but it’s not as though children grow on trees in the Underworld. Their spirits are too pure for them to end up in my domain, and the ones that do, well”—his lip curled in an involuntary expression of dislike—“they are not the ones I want my own child spending time with.”

“That ghoul you call a lieutenant is a useless companion for a boy his age . . . not a speck of spontaneity in him.”

“I should hope not,” Sammy murmured dryly, returning his eyes to the sparkling blue water. “Spontaneity is not an attribute I expect among my legions. They are to obey, not take the initiative. I don’t want them to think for themselves.”

“Is that what you want for Cain?” Pandora eyed him archly, and he was forced to admit that he didn’t.

“The boy is chafing under your restrictions,” she told him, adjusting her Fendi sunglasses against the glare. “He needs a companion, someone his own age, with whom to run free.”

Sammy frowned, remembering what happened the last time Cain had “run free.” He’d gotten lost, kidnapped, and nearly been turned to stone by a basilisk. “The child has no fear,” he told Pandora, “and I trust no one save Nyx with his safety.”

“Then you must teach him fear, darling.” Pandora reached for her drink, tall and fruity, and sipped it through a straw. “Ah, ambrosia,” she murmured, after she’d swallowed. “You must have the sylphs of Circe give me the recipe.”

Sammy answered her absently, his mind on the concept of fear. “The sylphs would never do that, my dear, and you know it. You’re far too generous in your curves, which they envy madly.”

Pandora gave a throaty chuckle, and took another sip. “They do, don’t they?”

“Why must I teach him fear?” Sammy’s mind was still on Cain. “Why would I want to crush the boy’s spirit?”

“I said nothing about crushing his spirit, darling.” Pandora put her drink down and turned over, exposing the round globes of her bottom to the sun. Her breasts dangled like ripe fruit as she rested herself on her elbows. “The child must learn that actions have consequences, and children learn by example, not by rote. If you wish him to be more prudent about his safety, you must give him
reason
to be prudent.”

Sammy’s Ray-Bans hid his expression, but Pandora smiled, knowing she had his attention, in more ways than one.

“I’m not sure I should be taking parental advice from you, my delightful Pandora,” he said, reaching out a finger to trace the line of her shoulder, plump and warm. “You’re one of the least prudent, and least motherly, women I’ve ever known.”

She laughed, genuinely delighted. “Thank you, Majesty.” Tiny bells, worn on an anklet, tinkled as she kicked her feet, wiggling her toes rapturously.

“In fact,” Sammy went on, his voice shifting to a lower timbre, “I’m quite certain I could never fuck anyone’s mother the way I’m about to fuck you.”

Pandora’s generous lips curled into an entirely different kind of smile. “Please do, my prince. Please do.”

And there, between the blue of the heavens and the blue of the sea, Sammy slaked himself once again on warm, female flesh. The smooth skin of Pandora’s back became a playground for his lips and tongue, the rounded globes of her ass delectable targets for wicked nips from his teeth. He teased her with his body, crushing his naked loins against her, letting her feel the hard length of his cock. Mercilessly, sensually, he rubbed his hardness all over her softness, all the while withholding its entrance to her body.

Pandora gasped her pleasure at every turn, her mews of delight turning to those of mock frustration as he kept her pinned on her belly, leaving her hands unable to reach him.

Aroused, Sammy trailed his kisses and nips to the back of her neck, laying his full body weight upon her hips. His hands came around her, grasping her breasts. He squeezed and fondled them as he bit her neck, hands full of luscious flesh and nose full of the sun-warmed scent of flushed skin.

And in the end, he took Pandora from behind, slipping into her heated femininity and surging against it, time and again, as she cried out her pleasure, moaning against the cushions of her lounge chair.

When it was over, Sammy rolled to lie flat on his back. Beside him, a beautiful woman lay exhausted and well satisfied, while he . . . he stared up at the vaulted blue sky, and wondered if the satisfaction he felt in that moment would ever be enough.

L
ater, as Nyx gave him a report of Cain’s activities during his absence, he had reason to recall Pandora’s parental advice.

“The boy truly
is
the spawn of Satan,” Nyx told him, with a long-suffering shake of his shadowed head. “If he were mine, I’d have him beaten.” The blunt opinion demonstrated a familiarity Sammy would never have allowed anyone else.

“What’s he done now?” snapped the High Prince of Darkness, irritated at how the thought of punishing Cain annoyed him.

“He set fire to his own bedding with the Crystal of Khartoum,” Nyx told him, “and then escaped like an eel as I put out the flames. He was gone for several hours, and when he came back, he reeked of brimstone.”

“And how did he get the Crystal of Khartoum?” asked Sammy, with exquisite politeness. He kept all his magical treasures in one place, and it was a place no one was allowed to enter without his sanction.

“He raided the treasure room when he was supposed to be bathing,” Nyx answered flatly.

Sammy gave his second-in-command a dire look. “You were supposed to be watching him.”

Nyx drew himself up stiffly, a soldier, ready to take his punishment. “I’m not a wet nurse, my lord.” His wingtips quivered, whether trepidation or outrage, Sammy couldn’t say. “During his bath, I left him in the care of the water nymphs, who were pleased to be of service.”

“I’ll bet they were,” Sammy murmured, not entirely thrilled with the idea of the amoral, aquatic nymphs cavorting unsupervised with his son. They knew Satan for their master, it was true, but that would not stop them from teasing an impressionable young princeling with their sloe-eyed, dripping beauty. Or, apparently, being taken in by his childish charm. “Where is Cain now?”

“I confined him once again to his room, Great Shaitan. I knew you would want to deal with his disobedience immediately.”

“That I do,” Sammy agreed grimly. He strode toward the door, on the way to his son’s room. “Fetch me the imp known as Tesla.”

Nyx disappeared like smoke, but Sammy walked, hearing his footsteps echo coldly against hallways of stone. He’d always taken perverse pleasure in his home—an ancient temple, hidden in plain sight by magic that had endured through thousands of years, and would endure for thousands more, but for the first time, he saw it as a child might see it, and found it coldly imposing.

Just as it should be, he reminded himself.

When he opened the door to Cain’s room, he expected defiance, and wasn’t disappointed.

“I hate you,” the boy shouted, just as a pillow hit him in the face.

Completely taken aback, Sammy froze, giving Cain time to leap from the bed and charge him. Almost immediately, the boy realized whom he was facing, and froze as well.

“Father!” Cain was clearly stricken. “I didn’t mean to hit you . . . I didn’t know it was you! I thought it was—”

The boy broke off, the expression on the face of His Satanic Majesty obviously a bit too much for one of even his great courage.

“You defy my second-in-command?” Sammy’s dignity demanded he keep his tone even. “You strike my emissary? You disrespect my wishes?”

Cain looked crestfallen.

“You rifle through my possessions?”

Cain seemed to shrink, becoming even smaller.

“You set fire to my house?”

“Not the house,” Cain interjected hastily, “just a blanket.”

The withering look he received in return silenced him.

Sammy crossed his arms over his chest, knowing a line needed to be drawn. Pandora had been right, and the child needed to know that actions had consequences.

“The imp known as Tesla, my lord.” Nyx materialized, holding a scruffy, dirty, scrabbling imp in one hand. The little creature was doing his best to bite and claw at the eight-foot demon, who disregarded his efforts as though he were an insect.

“Tesla!” Cain’s face showed his apprehension clearly. “Put my friend down, you creep!” His anger was directed toward Nyx, but Sammy was the one who answered him, using his voice like the crack of a whip.

“Silence!”

Cain looked at him fearfully, biting his lip, then looked at his friend, who’d gone still in Nyx’s grip.

“I’m told you left the safety of the temple yet again while I was gone,” Sammy said to the boy coldly. “I’ve warned you about going near the pit, have I not?”

“You didn’t actually
forbid
me,” the boy dared answer, splitting hairs hopefully.

The Great Beguiler was not beguiled, however, and kept his face impassive.

“I’ve clearly been too lax with you, as was your mother.” Persephone, fey and flighty, treated her offspring as the birds did, nudging them from the nest the moment they could fly. “You no longer live in a place where it’s safe for you to come and go as you please, and I believe I’ve made that clear to you.”

Cain shot another anxious look toward Tesla. The imp was the size of a child, but there any resemblance ended. Ash gray in color, knobby-kneed, long-fingered, with bulbous eyes full of fear and apprehension. To the creature’s credit, he said nothing, though his terrified expression spoke volumes.

“Nyx recommends you be beaten,” Sammy told Cain mildly.

The boy directed a fulminating look toward the demon. “
Him
,” he said, imbuing the word with disgust. “
He
won’t let me do anything—he expects me to sit in my room and read all day! He picks out my clothes and makes me bathe and calls me princeling all the time, even though I’ve told him I hate it!”

Sammy found himself mildly surprised at the boy’s outpouring of complaints, but let the child go on and get it all out.

“He doesn’t know the simplest of games, and refuses to learn any because he says it’s
beneath
him,” sneered Cain. “He treats me like I’m a helpless kid! I know perfectly well how to dress myself!”

“Oh my, yes,” Sammy murmured, taking in Cain’s tattered, charred T-shirt and shorts. His dirty tennis shoes were better suited to a basketball court than a marble palace. “I can see that. You certainly look like a child of the Great and Mighty Satan.”

Nyx gave a grunt that could easily have been taken as an I-told-you-so.

Cain flushed sullenly, looking away.

“My lieutenant was only doing as he was told,” Sammy said, “unlike my son, who was doing as he pleased. As I said earlier, Nyx believes you should be beaten, but I have a better idea.”

Cain left sullenness behind, and eyed his father anxiously.

“Your friend here, he’s your partner in crime, is he not?” Sammy gestured to the imp, who cringed, obviously hoping to remain unnoticed. “It’s him you go to see when you go down to the pit, isn’t it?”

Cain’s eyes, so like his own, grew wide. “Tesla has nothing to do with it,” he exclaimed, clearly seeing where the danger lay. “He doesn’t
make
me go! I go because I want to, and because there’s nothing to do around here!”

“Boredom is no excuse for disobedience,” Sammy stated sternly, then turned to the imp. “Is it?”

Tesla shook his head. “No, O Son of Morning,” he squeaked, clearly terrified. “Boredom is no excuse.”

“And you?” The Great Shaitan gave the imp his frighteningly full attention. “Are you bored?”

Frantically, Tesla shook his head again. “No, O Ruler of the Abyss. I have my duties.”

“Your duties.” Sammy sensed Cain shifting restlessly, but ignored him. “What are your duties?”

Tesla licked dry, gray lips with the tip of his tongue, bulbous eyes blinking rapidly. “I keep the hellfires stoked, O Great Mephistopheles.”

“A lowly fire imp,” Sammy mused, as though to himself. “My son defies me for a creature such as this.”

“I didn’t defy you, Father—”

Sammy cut Cain off with a lift of his hand, never taking his eyes from the imp. He was quaking now, knobby knees clacking, soot-covered limbs trembling. If Nyx weren’t still holding him tightly at the nape of his neck, he would no doubt have been cowering in a heap on the floor.

“What say you, imp? Are you my son’s true friend? Are you worth a beating?”