Prince Of Lust (Princes Of Sin: The Seven Deadly Sins series Book 1)

Stolas and Orobas were my first calls. A trip to Sin City would not have been the same without the Princes of Greed and Gluttony. Several years back, they resided in Las Vegas. It suited them well until Gaap and Ipos had abandoned their thrones and I’d requested that Stolas and Orobas band together with me here in Los Angeles to manage all of our territories centrally.

The weekend was what I’d needed it to be: a blur of sex, drugs, alcohol, and numb distortion that allowed me to escape from my own thoughts. But as with all enjoyment, it came and went too fast.

When the call came in, I tumbled out of bed in a tangle of sheets and human limbs. The women from the girls’ trip I had met after a poker game had been eager to please. There had been plenty of them, and with Ezequiel as my second, no one noticed that I hadn’t used my cock at all. But they’d all fallen asleep drunk and satisfied nonetheless.

“Good morning, my king,” I rasped, my throat strained from smoke, liquor, and pussy.

Lucifer called when he was bored or agitated. Or often both.

“My office,” the silky voice on the other side demanded. “At your earliest convenience.”

“Of course,” I answered, but the line had cut before my second syllable.

“King?” a sleepy someone asked from my ruffled sheets. “You know a king?”

“All manner of important people know me,” I mumbled and got to my feet.

I peered down at the three sets of eyes fixated on my morning wood. Though it would have been opportunistic, I didn’t want to risk the wrath of Lucifer over a lackluster morning tryst.

“I need to shower,” I threw over my shoulder as I headed to the bathroom door. “You should probably call your future husband. Your phone has been buzzing on the nightstand for the last hour.”

There was an obvious pause between all of them, either from surprise at the shift in my attitude or at the realization of what they had all committed the night before. All but one was married or engaged, and she was currently on the second bed stroking Ezequiel’s cock through the sheet. He was ignoring the entire room, bored to death of the humans he’d conquered the night before.

When her hand picked up speed, he craned his neck to whisper something egregious that made her face contort with hurt and surprise. The tears easily welled in her eyes, and her cheeks blazed red with embarrassment or anger. She dressed quickly and stormed out of the room, a few of her girlfriends running to her emotional aid.

By the time the water heated, there was silence. Ezequiel lazily checked his notifications in his bed.

He finally spoke but didn’t meet my eye. “What does he want?”

“Three of his princes fucked off to Vegas for a weekend. He’s either calling to place blame on me or to congratulate us on the number of souls we harvested while tearing through the Strip.”

He huffed out a laugh and continued his scrolling through videos with disjointed music and several seconds of catchy conversations.

The water in Vegas was harder than it was in L.A., which left a film of soap on my skin. Normally, I would have waited to shower until I was back home, but the smell of sex would attract all sorts of mischief in Hell. The last thing I needed was an incubus trying to follow me back to The Deacon. The last time one had gotten loose, it impregnated one of our waitresses. That had been a PR nightmare.

I dressed and headed down the hall. Orobas had returned to L.A. late last night after getting far too drunk and losing his shirt to Stolas in poker. He was the most likely of us to throw such a tantrum and run home with his tail between his legs. But Stolas had taken a small party back to his room, and I didn’t want to leave without informing the last of my brothers of my sudden summoning and subsequent departure.

I knocked on the door, and Stolas opened it moments later with very little clothing on.

I leaned against the frame and looked past him to the two humans still asleep in his bed. “I was wondering what sort of trouble you found. Just two? Losing your touch, darling.” I cocked a brow and gave him a gloating grin.

“We can’t all be blessed with the stamina to entertain a whole wedding party and then fuck them all,” he said, unaware of my affliction. “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?” I fixed a wrinkle in my shirt.

Stolas glanced back. Though I suspected he hadn’t wanted to stay the whole weekend in Las Vegas, he seemed to be debating leaving so soon.

Perhaps he had more stamina than he gave himself credit for.

Stolas cleared his throat loudly, startling the man in bed from his blissful sleep. The human looked down at the naked woman then searched for the being who had lured him there the night before. He homed in on me and Stolas at the door, and he turned a deep shade of shame.

With the grace of an elephant, he tumbled out of the bed and dropped to the floor to find his clothing.

“There’s no need to be bashful,” Stolas said.

The man’s eyes snapped to him.

“No . . . I just. I have a conference several blocks away,” he stuttered out as he slipped his slacks up his bare behind.

Wherever his underpants were, he had counted them as a lost cause.

Behind him, the woman sat up and stretched.

The sheets dropped down her full, dark curves, displaying her bare breasts and satisfied face. “Good morning, puppy.”

The man avoided looking at her by finding every corner of the room, either out of respect for her naked body or out of embarrassment because the next exchange showed his true colors.

Stolas leaned down and picked up a wedding band from the floor and held it between his fingers to show the rest of us.

“You dropped this last night before you plowed into our friend, but not before you buried your face in her tits,” Stolas said with a telling smirk.

The human tripped over himself to get to Stolas, who dropped the thin ring into his palm.

“She’ll never know, right?” he groveled. “You promised.”

“Of course, Carl. She will never know.”

Carl’s shoulders relaxed. “Last night was”—he looked from Stolas to the naked woman, who had moved to the foot of the bed—“incredible.”

She winked at him, and he blushed from the top of his balding head down to his fingers. He pulled the rest of his clothing into his chest and scooted past Stolas and me. Before he headed into the elevator, he did his best to refuse himself one last glance at what was likely the most adventurous night he would ever have on this plane.

I laughed and shook my head at the pathetic sight, then I turned back to the remaining human.

“By chance, do you know how to tend bar?” I asked. If she was up for a wild threesome, maybe she had what it took to bartend with demons.

She giggled and brought a finger between her teeth. “Sorry. Not my specialty.”

“Pity.”

And it was. She was very beautiful and would have been eaten up by our more ravenous patrons.

“Give me an hour and I’ll meet you at The Deacon,” Stolas said, tearing my attention from his conquest.

I arched a brow but gave him a nod before stepping into the void and reappearing in Hell.

I rarely had to wait in His Majesty’s atrium to be seen. The damned who were waiting, though, all gave a relieved sigh when I bypassed them and was received immediately.

The black, polished stone of the floor, pillars, and long table glinted with the many lit chandeliers overhead. I passed by the row of chairs meant for the seventy-one high demons under Lucifer’s command.

I glanced instinctively at the one that held my name. My sigil was carved into the backrest. It had been ages since I’d had to sit with our brothers to discuss the state of our exile. The days of scheming to raid the gates of Heaven were a distant memory, but when ranks were pulled, we united and were expected to thank Lucifer for the high honor of being at his side.

My feet slowed as I approached where he sat on his throne. His favorite king, Paimon, stood at his side. Through the ages, Lucifer was said to have been one of the most beautiful of all the angels. Statues had been carved from stone and marble to depict the ruler of Hell.

None had come close to his true embodiment.

Much like the serpent, he was cunning, dangerous, mysterious, beautiful—and underestimated. His tall, lean frame was topped with a crown of blond ringlets, reminding me of Ezequiel. He tied his hair back so that all focus was on his sharp cheeks and jaw. His long, straight nose had a bulb at the tip that perfectly mimicked the valley in his Cupid’s bow. Dimples and smile lines framed his full, pouty lips due to his easy and magnetic humor.

He was loved and feared by all who knew him. When put in his presence, you were graced with his quick wit or became the butt end of it, and you weren’t aware of which until it was too late.

The last time I had stood in this spot, I’d been on a mission from my constraining angel. I was still waiting for that shoe to drop. They always did.

“The Prince of Lust to see Your Highness.” Paimon’s whiny voice irked the nerve in my jaw more than usual.

Lucifer glanced over at him but didn’t say a word.

I bowed my head and waited for punishment or praise.

“Sitri, your actions as of late have been those of a selfish and spoiled prince. I have decided it is time for you to take responsibility.”

My head rose, and my eyes fixed on the slack expression on his face.

He wasn’t angry or accusatory. I’d suspected for months that I would have to pay for what I’d done. For who I’d created.

“Of course, my supreme emperor.” The words rushed off of my tongue when a wrinkle of impatience pinched his golden-brown forehead.

He surveyed me for a moment then gave an instructive nod to Paimon, who walked to a door to the far left of the room. When he returned, he brought with him a scared . . . Reaper?

“Sitri, this is Dabria.” Lucifer laid a hand on her shoulder and led her to stand before me. “She is the newest appointed Reaper. You and Ezequiel have the distinct honor of assisting in training her and aiding in her successful retrieval of her first three charges.”

She clung to a linen bag that I assumed held a sparse number of belongings. In her line of work, she shouldn’t need things, but now that she was being shoved into my lap where I resided on Earth, she would need human items to assimilate to the environment.

Her dark-brown eyes darted between mine, and her whole body shook in fear. This wasn’t how Reapers were trained. Angels of Death were responsible for breaking in and supervising Reapers. It was rare a new one was appointed. Their role in the supernatural ecosystem was inherently neutral, but vastly important. Dabria would ferry souls from the mortal plane to their final destination in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.

“My king, I don’t—”

“You’ve created a mess, and this is how you will clean it up,” Lucifer answered before I could clarify my question.

“Right.” I had no argument.

It would have been fair to say that losing my gifts of seduction, pleasure, and sexual manipulation would have been punishment enough for falling in love with a woman who would never return my affections, but I supposed being set up for failure was also a surefire way to banish me to the lowest circle of Hell.

“Hello, Dabria.” I lowered my voice and did my best impression of a being who wasn’t being tied to a sinking ship.

She swallowed hard. She looked at Lucifer then back at me before she spoke with a shaky voice. “Hi, Sitri.”

“If you and Ezequiel fail to assist Dabria in her duty to deliver any of the three human souls to their final destination, it’ll be Purgatory duty for you and imprisonment for Ezequiel, however his overseers command it, until the sun plunges this galaxy into darkness.”

Lucifer sat regally back into his throne of skulls, twisted femurs, and gilded bones. He looked satisfied with his clever match and in what would most likely be a gratifying punishment I couldn’t avoid.