SWNOVELS Prince Of Greed: Chapter 3
The sun rose over Sin City in a lazy, hot haze. Two human bodies dozed next to me. One was a woman from the bachelorette party we crashed, and the other a man she had taken a fancy to when we got to the bar. His wedding ring had been tossed across the room in a drunken display last night and now lay on the floor.
Liquor had loosened his tongue in a confession of never being with another man, but the prospect of getting to fuck the young woman and be shared was too much for him to pass up. A quick promise that what happened in this bed would stay here, with his name in exchange, was all he needed to suck my cock while being pegged by our lovely bed companion.
She, a high school biology teacher, on the other hand, had made no such deal. Her soul had no shame upon it for what she wanted. No weight of insecurity lay on her when she rode my face to completion while getting her ass eaten by the tech salesman from Scottsdale. I would have liked to keep her around a bit longer, but with no name or promise, I had nothing to hold her by.
There was a knock on the door and I slipped out of the bed to answer. Sitri leaned against the frame, a cocky smile on his lips as he looked past me to the mess I had untangled from.
“I was wondering what sort of trouble you found. Just two? Losing your touch, darling,” he teased.
“We can’t all be blessed with he stamina to entertain a whole wedding party then fuck them all,” I replied. “Quality is sometimes more interesting than quantity.”
“I don’t believe you for a moment. Anyway, I have to see Lucifer then get back to The Deacon, care to come along?” He pushed off the frame and straightened the hem of his shirt.
I glanced back. Though I relished human embarrassment by the light of a new day, I was bored of Las Vegas and had wanted to go home days ago. I cleared my throat loudly, startling the man from his blissful sleep. He looked down to the school teacher then searched for the being who had filled his throat and ass the night before. His eyes honed in on me and Sitri at the door and his cheeks flushed deep red.
He scurried out of the bed, dropping to the floor to search for his clothes as quickly as he could.
“There’s no need to be bashful,” I said, his eyes snapping to me from his belt in his hand.
“No . . . I just. I have a conference several blocks away,” he shuttered out as he slipped his slacks up his bare behind. His boxers hung from the ceiling fan, out of his line of sight.
The woman still in the bed stretched and sat up. The cream sheets sloped down her soft, dusky curves and her bare breasts graced the room with her satisfied dreamy expression. “Good morning, puppy.”
He glanced around the room, avoiding her naked body. I leaned down and picked up his discarded promise and held it between my fingers to show him.
“You dropped this last night before you plowed into our friend, but not before you buried your face in her tits.” I winked.
He tripped over himself to get to me with his hand outstretched. I dropped the copper circle into his palm.
“She’ll never know, right? You promised.” His pitiful plea brought a smile to my face.
“Of course, Carl. She will never know.” His shoulders relaxed at my dark voice and his expression softened to a dreamy relief.
“Last night was”—He looked from me back to the bed to the naked woman now on her knees—“incredible.”
She winked at him, sending him back into his panicked escape. His pale face became as pink as a pig’s backside. He pulled the rest of his clothing into his chest and scooted past Sitri and me. His eyes stopped on each of us for a moment before he headed to the elevator, not daring to look back again.
Sitri huffed his amusement and swung his attention back to the woman on the bed. “By chance, do you know how to tend bar?”
She giggled and brought a knuckle to wedge between her teeth, “Sorry. Not my specialty.”
“Pity,” he returned.
“Give me an hour and I’ll meet you at The Deacon,” I told him before he nodded and disappeared into the void.
I turned back to my remaining bedmate from the evening. She was pulling her dress up her body and settled the straps on her shoulders. I went to the end of the bed to sit and put my shoes on when she leaned down and kissed me softly on the cheek.
“Thanks for the wild night, handsome,” she said, fingering the straps of her high heels and leaving without a second glance.
The door closed and the void swallowed me up. A moment later, my living room appeared around me. The windows were full of sunlight and the view of the ocean. The kitchen table was laden with my winnings from last night, including the glass tumbler that was alight with the blue flame of my new soul. Her father would be a useful component to a plan I had been ruminating on for years.
Whether Orobas knew it or not, he had given me the key to a fortune I had been thirsting over.
Being a prince of Hell granted me the gift to inflict ferocious greed upon the human race, but the power over legions of lesser demons and a few millennia of bartering human souls was fruitless and ash on my tongue.
I wanted to grip all of creation in my hands and squeeze until the pulp seeped through my fists.
I had the ability to instill greed, need, and covetousness in others, but their selfishness would not gain me my truest desires. It all had to be done in small steps.
In my other demonic brothers’ endeavors, they were free from any strings that bound them to the influences they produced. They also lacked the drive to dominate.
They weren’t greed incarnate.
I didn’t only have the urge to have it all. I had the itch over my skin and bones to grab anything and everything that I could and mark it as my own. The constant frenzy for more was what captivated me—just like the flesh of humans and demons captivated my brothers.
The seven us crowned in princely duty had been given unique battles to contend with. Becoming the embodiment of a sin was a power unmatched by any other angel or lesser demon.
But there was a fallback to every one of our abilities.
Orobas, Prince of Gluttony, could not and would not ever be sated of his cravings, no matter how much he indulged. Though he could give mortals of all their luscious worldly wants, he was doomed to seek out anyone or anything to feed his hunger until time stopped.
We were not so different in that way. It was why we got along and gravitated to one another.
Sitri, however, had found a way around the curse that was incidental to his throne—if he didn’t drown himself in his own misery.
He was once potent enough to bring down kingdoms. To inspire lords and ladies to place seeking pleasure and lust over their duties. They would offer him all their riches for just a small dose of his favor.
I’d always admired him for the ease with which he used the most carnal of human desires to build his empire. While he focused on his businesses in Los Angeles, his reach was global. Every major city was a mainline to Sitri’s pockets and consistently equipped him with more souls tempted by the sins of the flesh.
It had finally dawned on me that if I was going to use my own gift to bring me the world, I would need to appeal to the masses. I could not do that myself. There would be too many questions about my agelessness and murky paper trail. And Lucifer would never allow me to reign on Earth as he did in Hell or our Father did in Heaven. But with a human puppet to dance in front of the camera and use for my platform as a headpiece, I could finally be suffused with the power and influence I desperately needed.
I shifted the dancing flame in the glass and watched the base bloom and wilt with the movements of air around it.
Evie’s father would be a fine puppet, and what better way to get close to Harris than to get his daughter in my pocket?