A Demon Scorned Read online

  Copyright

  Pink Horn Press

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  A DEMON SCORNED

  The Demon's Daddy: III

  Copyright © 2019 Keiryn L. MacClain

  Cover Art Copyright © 2019 Keiryn L. MacClain

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  ASIN: B07ZCD8PVV

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  Edited by Keiryn L. MacClain

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  eBook License Notes

  You may not use, reproduce, or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

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  Warnings for Sensitive Readers

  Please note that this short story contains graphic sex and alcohol use. This manuscript is intended for readers who are eighteen (18) years of age or older. Please note that themes of sex and contract-bound relationships are explored. Sex in this volume includes tentacle-like anal penetration, anal penetration, rough sex, dubious consent, fingering, and vaginal-like genitalia. If any of these themes may be disturbing to you, the author encourages you not to continue reading.

  Other Books by Keiryn L. MacClain

  The Demon's Daddy

  Billionaire's Debt (available now on Amazon)

  A Sinful Gamble (available now on Amazon)

  A Demon Scorned (available now on Amazon)

  Trial by Fire (coming soon)

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  The Demon's Daddy Extended Universe

  His Wicked Lust (available now on Amazon)

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  Sunchaser

  Sunchaser: Part One (available now on Amazon)

  Sunchaser: Part Two (available now on Amazon)

  Sunchaser: Part Three (coming soon)

  Sunchaser: Part Four (coming soon)

  Sunchaser: Part Five (coming soon)

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  Alpha Auction

  Raine & Gerik

  Blooming Obsession (coming Dec. 10, 2019)

  Budding Omega (coming soon)

  Blossoming Onward (coming soon)

  Dedication

  For you.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Demon Scorned

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  What's Next?

  A Demon Scorned

  Jarlath lay in the enormous bed, alone. The furious pit burning in his stomach all night had faded from a roaring bonfire to a low, hissing flame buried in hot coals and embers. If he stirred the embers, the fire would spit and roar to life again, so he did his best to focus on keeping calm.

  It was not easy, though. Not in the least.

  He glowered over at the French doors across from him, watching as the pale early morning sun trickled through the frosted glass. His tail swiped back and forth across the bed in impatient flicks, the vibrations of its impact thumping behind him. The call of the rings near the base was muffled by the charcoal duvet and sheets, but he still heard their chimes, though he didn't aid it with his own magic.

  Finally, he shoved the covers back and sat up. Dark fingers of corruption traced up his taut, tan thighs and toward his stomach. More raked up over his hands and toward his shoulders and chest. Generally, he was in more control than this, but when it came to Jason Clifford, that control slipped more and more. It was embarrassing for a demon to lose control of his corruption like this, especially in such a short time.

  He'd only known the mortal for a little over a day, and he was already fighting to maintain the seductive façade he'd donned when coming to the mortal plain.

  It wasn't the best sign, but at least he was aware of it and could thus stop it. Or at least try.

  As his clawed feet hit the floor and he stood, Jarlath again wondered why he was letting one mortal man get to him so much. He'd had human lovers in the past—more than he could count. Hundreds and hundreds of them, male and female alike. He'd even bedded a few divine beings and hundreds of demons. He'd fucked his way through time, enjoying the sins of the flesh to the fullest extent and passing his mortal toys on to their rightful place in Heaven, as promised, once their life had extinguished. Whether they stayed there was up to them, of course. Not many did.

  Old habits were hard to break, after all, even for him.

  Jason, though, was different.

  He was the first human who Jarlath wanted to take with him back to Greed. It wasn't normal, wasn't right, for the demon to want to go back on his oath, but he couldn't stand the thought of his daddy going to Heaven and spending eternity without him. He wasn't exactly lonely in Greed. More than a few of his followers were always happy to sate his sexual needs, but he found himself wanting their touch less and less as the hours crawled by.

  The truth of it was simple: He and Jason belonged together, and the heated envy still coiling in his gut only reminded him more of that fact—and of the fallen who had dared touch him the day before.

  And Jason had let him.

  It was absurd for Jarlath to be so possessive, but fallen angels rarely got involved in his deals. When they did, it was usually for their own selfish reasons, and the demon was not about to let this bastard take Jason from him.

  As he walked out of the bedroom, Jason's fat gray cat, Master, on his heels, he tucked his black silk robe around his body, careful to make sure every inch of his stomach and hips was covered. It wasn't that he was shy; no, Jarlath was anything but that. For the most part, he didn't care who saw his body.

  But a mortal? Yeah. He wasn't interested in the ramifications of Jason seeing him naked. He didn't want to deal with the fallout of what would happen. He didn't even really want to think about it.

  Last night, though, after seeing his daddy being groped and touched by the fallen, Jason's insistence to see his body without the robe had pushed Jarlath over the edge.

  Jason just didn't understand. The demon knew that his daddy was curious and wanted to see more of him, that he thought Jarlath's apprehension was about trust, but it wasn't. Jarlath didn't do trust, anyway. No one in Hell did. The truth of it was, the demon couldn't allow his daddy to see his body naked because of what would happen to Jason.

  He paused by the enormous saltwater tank that made up part of the right side of the hallway. As he pondered over his situation, he watched colorful reef fish swim and swirl through the water. A dark purple starfish clung to the glass, and he leaned in to examine it. The small suction cups reminded him of one of the demons back in Hell. Everything else about the tank, though, was calming. It was strange, seeing blue and yellow and other colors not associated with torture or brimstone and fire.

  There was more to not letting Jason see him naked than the repercussions it could cause to the mortal. On a personal level, he had to keep some barriers between them. Without those barriers, he was as good as smitten, and a demon—any demon—couldn't allow that to happen. Ever.

  It was one thing for him to fuck mortals, to make deals and offer salvation in return for getting what he wanted—he was a greedy bastard, after all—but it was something else entirely
to fall in love with a mortal.

  Besides, Jarlath didn't love. Affection wasn't something a demon did. It wasn't part of their nature, wasn't part of their being. They were wholly comprised of their sinful natures, and the fact that Jason affected him so much made the demon uncomfortable for the first time in eons.

  He turned away from the tank and made his way over to the top of the stairs that led into the basement of the enormous house.

  I don't love him. It just wasn't possible.

  The thought alone made his round, plush lips pull into a grimace. Love. He wasn't in love with Jason, he was sure of that much. Jarlath was a younger son of Lucifer Morningstar, a child of the great fallen angel himself, made from lust and greed and all things sinful. He didn't love anyone.

  He simply couldn't.

  Could he?

  He stood at the top of the stairs, peering down into the dim gray early morning light bathing the lower level of the house. He'd spent a lot of time wandering this house while Jason slept. Demons didn't really need sleep, after all. Even the previous night, Jarlath had just . . . laid in bed, awake and thinking, listening to his daddy's anger and confusion and hurt before finally blocking it out.

  Just because Jarlath could hear the mortal's thoughts didn't mean he always wanted to. He had enough practice with his abilities to know how to turn them off, and that was exactly what he'd done. He'd been too furious to listen to Jason at the time, but now the anger faded as doubt crept in.

  Maybe he didn't know. That was the only explanation Jarlath could come up with. Jason hadn't known the fallen had been trying to sway him, trying to draw him away from the demon and into his own greedy, corrupt hands for whatever stupid reason.

  Thankfully, Jarlath had been present to stop him, though the familiarity between the two still bothered him immensely. The other man had acted like he'd known Jason well, and for a long time.

  If that was the case, then keeping the two apart would be quite difficult, maybe even impossible. Fallen angels rarely adhered to any rules but their own during their fall. They had nothing more to lose, after all.

  As he headed down the stairs, hand gripping the seams of his robe to keep it closed, he scowled.

  A fallen on Earth wasn't uncommon. Earth was the midway, the plain between Heaven and Hell. An angel in the midst of falling couldn't enter either celestial realm until their fall was complete. While on Earth, the fallen had to figure out how to survive on their own, too, though in this modern era, it was becoming less difficult. Fallen angels often stayed on Earth as long as they could, prolonging the fall to Hell and their punishment.

  The Kingdom of Heaven would always be more appealing to angels than Earth, but the mortal realm was far more preferable to the dark pits of Hell. Jarlath had never seen Heaven, of course; he was a demon, after all. Unlike others who fell into Hell from grace, he couldn't be redeemed and make his way into Heaven. Mortal souls that ended up in one of the nine pits of Hell could, in essence, find ways to be forgiven for their transgressions. To sin was mortal, after all, and forgiveness was supposedly divine.

  Fallen angels could also reclaim their place in Heaven—but they had to do so before stepping into Hell. Once the fall was complete, they were trapped in the realms of sin, too tainted to ever achieve eternal salvation.

  As Jarlath stopped outside the door of the room Jason was sleeping in, he rolled his eyes at the notion.

  Salvation sounded boring. Sure, he'd never been to Heaven, but he also had no desire to go. As far as he knew, it was a dull, drab place without any of the delights of mortal flesh. No sex, no lust or desire or greed or gluttony. It sounded horribly drab to him.

  Jarlath needed stimulation, needed constant challenge. A place with no challenges was no place for him.

  He rested his hand on the doorknob and hesitated. Cold doubt curled tighter in his gut, and he scowled at the brushed silver knob.

  What if Jason didn't want to see him?

  What if he'd screwed everything up between them by kicking the mortal out the night before?

  He shook his head. Jason wouldn't be foolish enough to break the contract after a little spat. He needed Jarlath, and that need was what the demon was relying on to fulfill his own selfish desires. Besides, this wasn't anything more than a mutually beneficial partnership. Jason got out of Hell, and Jarlath had a mortal to fuck and enjoy, as well as a reason to stay on Earth and away from his duties and the idiots who trailed him everywhere in Greed.

  As long as he was here, he didn't need to go back. He wasn't about to let the mortal break the contract between them, so he had to fix this before any more damage could be done.

  He just had to go inside the room and do it.

  After taking a deep breath, he turned the knob and stepped over the threshold into the room. It was quiet. The steady, rhythmic rise and fall of Jason's shoulder was outlined in the dim light streaming into the room through the drapes.

  He was still asleep.

  Not that Jarlath hadn't expected as much. He'd listened to Jason's mind until late the previous night, only stopping when Jason's anger almost caused Jarlath to set the bed on fire. The mortal had been too angry to fall asleep for hours, so it wasn't surprising to see that he was still slumbering away.

  Jarlath closed the door to keep Master out and padded across the plush carpet toward his daddy. He took his time, clutching his black robe closed as he glanced around.

  The rooms down here were more cozy and homey than the master bedroom upstairs. Elegance was Jason's forte, but this area seemed more focused on giving guests a comfortable place to rest than on showing off any amount of wealth.

  The room had a single large bed with Jason's usual dark duvet and sheets. The walls were the same light gray as the rest of the house, and a few fossils decorated them. Rather than the dark hardwood that made up the upstairs floor, down here, the floors were carpeted in the rooms.

  At least the carpet silenced his footfalls. On hardwood, his copper claws clacked loudly enough that he probably would have woken the other man.

  As he crept closer to the bed, Jarlath's gaze trailed up Jason's body. Jason was not a small man. He was tall and strong, muscular and cut in ways that would make any Adonis envious. A sheet was draped over his hips and legs, tangled between his knees. The dark comforter had been kicked aside, and he had a strong arm wrapped around one pillow, tucking it to his face and chest.

  A sudden spark of warm fondness swelled in Jarlath's chest. Immediately, the demon frowned. That wasn't the reaction he should have when around a mortal, regardless of his association or relationship with that mortal. But the fondness only grew as he watched Jason's freckled shoulder rise and fall, his breathing even and steady.

  His brow was relaxed, his expression calm.

  Not that his daddy smiled or frowned much. Jason's expressions were generally fairly impassive. If he were a woman, people would have said he had resting bitch face. Honestly, Jarlath found his daddy's unwillingness to show his emotions endearing. It made his success at wheedling them out all the more pleasurable. Each smile was a prize, each frown a deep spike to his chest—just like last night. Anger—expressed anger, specifically—was like an assault on his person, and he hated how he felt when Jason glared at him with such loathing.

  It was foolish and stupid, and he didn't understand why he felt this way. Affection was as foreign to him as naturally occurring wildfires were to the Antarctic. But, bit by bit, the mortal man was sliding into Jarlath's chest and making a cozy home there, lighting an inner flame he'd never had before, and Jarlath was at a loss for what to do about it.

  He wanted to stop this from happening, wanted to keep Jason out. But every time he tried to put some distance between them, he was pulled back to his sugar daddy's side. He craved Jason's attention like nothing else. He never needed to drink or eat. Such mortal fallacies were not his burden to bear. But Jason?

  Jason was a craving, a need that wove deep into his chest and through his heart, down into his
spine and other bones. He was the string holding all of Jarlath together, and the demon loathed the feeling that without him, he'd succumb to madness.

  It just wasn't right.

  The demon sank onto the mattress beside his daddy and hesitated before running his fingers through Jason's soft hair. It was dark and thick, longer on top and cut close on the sides. He needed a trim, but not badly. The scruffy edges were endearing, in a way. They softened him and made him more approachable.

  Another pang swelled in the demon's chest, and he hissed under his breath, pulling his hand away.

  If he truly was feeling affection for this man, then something must be wrong with him. Jarlath didn't care about others. He had never needed to. As the son of Lucifer, he didn't need others. He didn't need to care for them. The lack of affection for others was a result of his nature. The rules of Hell didn't apply to him. He could do whatever he wanted, whoever he wanted, and not face the same retribution as lesser demons. He and his siblings were all formed and built of the same cloth, and every single one of them lived without adhering to any rules save their own. They didn't long for companionship in the same way mortals did, and they didn't care for living beings—mortal or immortal.

  So the strange tightness in his chest irritated and alarmed him. Jarlath, ageless and independent, had never felt this way about anyone before, and certainly not after such a short time. A few days had passed, nothing more.

  He shouldn't feel this for Jason.

  He shouldn't feel anything for Jason.

  But he did.

  He leaned down, pressing his lips softly against Jason's cheek. The sleeping man smelled like spices and something homey, something rich and warm that reminded Jarlath of a place he'd never been to but yearned to be at. He couldn't explain why he wanted more, but he did, so he let his lips linger, the tip of his tongue resting against his daddy's skin to steal away a small taste.

  Jason shifted and made a soft noise, and the demon withdrew in surprise.