Chapter One
No one could touch him.
Sweaty, overheated bodies slipped and slid against each other, all grinding hips and grabbing hands. He wanted them. Craved them and the pulse of sin and sex that surrounded him. The memory of the taste burst painfully through his mouth.
But none came close.
A sea of humanity writhed around him, and still he was utterly alone. A bubble of nothing enveloped him. Even through their hazy senses clouded with alcohol, drugs and sexual stimulation, they knew something was wrong.
And they were right.
The hair on the backs of their necks stood on end if they moved too close. A shiver of dread raced down their spines. Like pinballs, they spun away from him without even realizing a force had set them into motion.
Although, stripped of his powers, there wasn’t much Brone could do to them. Not anymore.
The dark club’s interior smelled of stale alcohol, overheated bodies and cast-off inhibitions. Heart-thumping rock vibrated through the center of his chest, where his heart would have been i f he’d actually possessed one. But his had stopped working long ago. He could hear, smell and even taste the temptation and pleasure as it tingled across their naked skin.
It tormented him.
How long since he’d been cast into his own personal hell? Brone didn’t know. Didn’t care. What did the number matter when the years ran together in an endless mass of singular deprivation?
For a creature that had used excess, sensation and pleasure to control and destroy, it was the cruelest punishment.
Hundreds of years since he’d heard the timbre of his own voice. Why speak if there was no one to hear or answer?
Nothing to eat. Nothing to drink. A gnawing hunger and unquenchable thirst that could never be sated. Someone passed close enough that the tempting scent of whiskey wafted up to him. His throat spasmed painfully. The drink was cheap, a bitter, nasty version of the smooth, rich concoction he’d bestowed on the ungrateful humans so long ago. It didn’t matter. He wanted it.
Hating himself for the desperation, Brone purposely turned his back. It was the only thing he had left: free will. He refused to morph into the blathering ball of agony his tormentor wanted.
Some would say purposely surrounding himself with everything he couldn’t have was masochistic torture. But then he was a dark angel, one of the fallen…a demon. Masochistic torture was kind of his thing. Although he had to admit he preferred inflicting the pain on others instead of himself.
One of Lucifer’s princes, he’d been all-powerful. Deadly. Dangerous. The inhabitants of Hell and Heaven alike had revered and feared him.
Now he was nothing.
After eight hundred years of excruciating solitude he’d give anything to be back in the thick of things. Tempting, tasting and licking his way to collecting multiple souls. Before, this club would have been his ultimate playground.
He watched the uncaring humans and wanted nothing more than to be able to fulfill his purpose for existence. They had no understanding of the danger that lurked among them.
Not that he posed much himself, stuck in a vast wasteland, walking the line between two worlds he could never again be a part of. But there were plenty of others. Plenty more where he had come from who could indulge, supply and bewitch.
He should slink off to some corner of Antarctica and let his mind go crazy talking to the penguins.
But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t give Lucifer the satisfaction. That’s what the Dark Lord wanted. He had surely expected Brone to succumb to the agony he’d devised long before now. Well, Lucifer had underestimated him.
He could take the torment of endless temptation with never the possibility for fulfillment and appreciate the irony of the situation his lord and master had devised. Just as he’d done with thousands of humans, Lucifer had looked deep inside Brone and seen his one weakness, then twisted and contorted it against him.
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