Page 5 of Sinful Pride

Peals of laughter followed the surprisingly bold action and I thought… maybe my punishment wasn’t so bad after all.

Chapter 3

Beelzebub

“Fancy seeing you here, Raphael. Heaven not paying you enough? And here I thought they bent over backwards for your every whim.” I leaned over the bar counter, leering at the Archangel who, for some reason, was playing the part of a bartender tonight.

“What do you want, Beelzebub? Order or scram,” Raphael said, not even looking at me, as he added a drop of violently green substance to the drink in front of him.

It hissed and started steaming.

“I will have one of those,” I gestured to the possibly lethal concoction.

“Oh, really?” Raphael asked, his green eyes finally focusing on me. “This potion will be used for later activities, so, no, I’m afraid you cannot have it now.”

“Spoilsport,” I pouted. “You need to learn to have some fun. Why won’t you give me just a little taste, hmm?” I leaned closer to him.

When I saw Raphael leaning towards me, reciprocating my body language, I thought I had him, but he moved closer only to say, “You need to learn to obey rules,” and moved away.

I snorted at the absurdity of that request.

“Rules? I don’t know them. I think all those folks are staying with a bore like you.”

Usually, I would be well on my way to annoying one of the angelic freaks into taking some inadvisable actions, but Raphael’s stare was disconcertingly calm. My barbs just slid off him, leaving the still lake of his demeanor with no waves, clear of any disturbance. My, oh my, it seemed it was me who was getting bothered right now. I hated the thought of being ignored, of being insignificant. Not good enough to mar the perfect, shining beauty of this Archangel. I wanted to sink my claws into him and see the darkness in those eyes. Cruelty in his hands.

“Thinking rules can only be boring makes you a fool, Beelzebub,” Raphael looked down his nose at me.

“Oh, really?” I asked, the claws of the only good hand Abaddon left me twitching. “Is that what you tell yourself when you take those poor playthings under your wing and make them study rules and answer a multitude of questions before you even touch them? And don’t get me started on safewords,” I said with disgust. “Thanks, but I am convinced that my way of doing things, of taking my prey apart until they become primal, unrestrained, is much better than your boring way.”

Raphael straightened up and looked at me in a way that penetrated right into my damned soul.

“You want to bet?” he said coldly.

A spark lit inside me. Here was the perfect representation of order inviting me to make chaos. Because no matter what rules Raphael wanted to show me, I was going to break them. Was the unstoppable force or immovable object going to win?

“How are we doing this?” I asked eagerly.

Raphael tapped his perfectly manicured finger against his lips. “As we are both pretty set in our own opinions, I think we need an unbiased party to decide which way is better. We are at a BDSM party, so it stands to reason to use what we have at hand…”

My eyes widened at the leading words.

“You want to use one of the guests for our bet? How heartless,” I said with admiration.

A quick look around made me grimace. Sure, all the people here were kinky, or at least had nothing against kink and possibly could be persuaded to take part in our experiment. But there was a different problem. Most of the guests attending this party were already in a relationship. Even if I could persuade one of the existing pairs to join us in the fun that was a different dynamic than what I wanted now. We really needed only one person. And that left us with a limited choice.

There was Jaheel, the gruff, bearded, rough-looking angel who, to be honest, wasn’t my type at all. I wasn’t sure about the status of the relationship of his two female companions but by the way they made eyes at each other. I thought I didn’t want to step between that. Which left… I looked at Raphael to see that he was contemplating the same person I was. The skittish-looking secretary of the Embassy.

For once, Tirael was out of his stuffy, official-looking clothing and in an outfit that belonged at a party like this. Red and black leather trousers clung to his legs, and his midriff was exposed to my hungry gaze, while the upper part of his torso was barely covered by a sleeveless mesh shirt.

Raphael lifted a questioning eyebrow at me.

“Are we in agreement?”

“Yes,” I said. The teeth of the terrifying visage of a skull on my face stretched wide as we shook hands.

I considered myself a connoisseur, and the angel in front of me seemed a little plain. He hid his face behind the bangs of his black hair and bit his lip frequently. While the rest of us came here to have fun, he looked as if a maths exam was going to spring up at him from behind the bar counter.

I took pleasure in sneaking right behind him and breathing on his neck.