Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) Read Online Free PDF Page B

beat you, wife.”
    “Why me?” She backed away, her nerves crawling. “You must have a thousand minions. Why do you want me?”
    He smiled, devilish. “Give yourself some credit. You fuck like a goddess. Best tits I’ve seen this century, and you can do the splits. You hate me more than the others, too. I love a good fight. Screaming Jesus, my dick’s getting hard just thinking about it—”
    “You’re disgusting!” The words burst out before she could stop them. She knew he liked to do this. Provoke her, punish her, make her beg for forgiveness. But the memory of what he’d done to her—what she’d done to Bridie because of him—clogged her guts with hot-sick guilt.
    Angry smoke curled from Fluvium’s fingernails. “Are you displeasing me, Rose? You know what happens if you displease me. Caliban’s already told me you’re being uncooperative.”
    Rose shuddered. Caliban was master of the West Village vampire coven, a Chosen maniac who believed that wallowing in blood was his destiny. He’d invited her to play his sickeninggames. She’d refused. It hadn’t ended well. Caliban’s Chosen favorites had been hunting her ever since.
    She shrugged bravely. “I don’t like his style.”
    “You’ll like what I tell you to like. Do I need to remind you who your master is?”
    “Go ahead,” she snapped, defiant. God, she was so sick of his games. “Hell can’t be worse than five more minutes in your company—ugh!”
    He vanished and snapped back in a puff of stinking smoke, inches away. He yanked her against him, and she struggled but he was too strong.
    “Oh, it can. You know it can.” He stroked her cheek, possessive. His knucklebone bracelet clattered against her face. His ashen scent nauseated her, the silky fabric of his coat, warm and horrid on her skin. “Hell’s become quite…inventive, with Azaroth in charge. Imagine when Satan returns and brings it all to earth. Shall I describe the torment, Rose? Shall I try it out on you?”
    His breath crawled down her throat, a smoky devil hungry to take her. She choked, but his spell had already taken hold, and agony flayed her skin raw.
    She struggled, helpless. Dimly, she heard Fluvium laughing.
    Images drowned her, poisoned quicksand that dragged her down, down into the stifling dark… Bridie screaming, a mess of blood… Thirst, howling like a beast, demanding more, harder, again and forever, blood, always the blood, rich and delicious, feeding the shrieking emptiness in her soul, only the hole was bottomless, an endless, ravenous void that could never be satisfied…
    “No!” Her scream ripped her ears. Before Fluvium, she hadn’t truly believed in heaven or hell. But now, she knew they were terrifyingly real. Hell haunted her nightmares, smoking, burning, raw with howls and the stink of excruciated flesh. She’d scream and thrash and beg them to stop, but they never would. They’d never let her out. She’d never be forgiven…
    Her legs went to water. God, she was sobbing in Fluvium’s arms. “No, please, I can’t, not that. Not again…”
    “Then you’ll have to try harder to please me.” Fluvium branded her lips with another kiss. “Say you’ll try harder, Rose.”
    Disgust scorched her throat raw. But she swallowed the bile, and made herself say it. “Yes.”
    “Yes…?”
    “Yes, master. I’ll try.” Yes, she loathed Fluvium to his hell-cursed bones. But she feared hell more.
    “Good.” He released her, and gave a smug grin. “Then tell me about tonight.”
    “Huh?”
    “The angel.” Impatience smoked black from his fingertips.
    “Oh. Yeah, I got another one. Stabbed him right through the heart—”
    “Not that one.” His tone slicked cold. “The other one.”
    “What other one?”
    The demon’s claws dug like needles into her wrist. “Don’t lie. I can smell his filth on you. What happened?”
    “Nothing.” The lie sounded false, even to her. “I just…he got away.”
    “Mmm-hmm. And did he have a