Living Hell: 'Daughters of the Night' (On-Hold), Chloe Knox & TayTay2000 & Bookaholic25 [the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT] 📗

“Eeeeeeewwwww! Naomi, that’s gross! Did you even wash your hands?”

“Are you kidding? Of course not!” I mumbled with a giggle, as I stuck my pinky in the bowl of cake batter a second time.

“NAOMI!” Jennifer squealed with amused disgust, snatching the bowl from my hands just a little too late, “Double dipper!” she yelled accusingly. I just shrugged and leaned against the counter to the kitchen, watching her mix the slightly clumpy cake mix till it was almost smooth as glass—non-shattered glass that is.

“You better just hope you don’t get salmonella.” She said with a disapproving nod. I laughed.

“Jen, I think I’ll survive.”

Just then Monique yelped from the other side of the kitchen. Her hands were gripping the handle of a cabinet, face pale, “What the hell?”

“What?”

“What’s wrong?” Jen and I asked as she sifted through the cabinet.

“Someone took my Japanese Cherry wine! It’s my favorite! Someone stole my booze!”

I blushed with guilt, more because I was caught then because I actually felt bad. It must have been obvious too, because Jen looked at me and immediately began giggling. She did her best to hide it from Monique—raising Monique’s curious eyebrows—yet she didn’t question either of us.

“Naomi?”

I turned around to see Harold standing in the hallway, out the kitchen door, “Yes, Harold?”

“I come bringing a message from Lucifer.”

The relaxed and humorous atmosphere immediately tensed. No one was laughing, everyone was quite and still. Jennifer had even dropped her mixer, the faint cracking whip of the spoon coming into contact with the bowl echoing in the quite kitchen. No exaggeration, you would have been able to hear a pin drop.

I gave a small nod of farewell to Jennifer and Monique and joined Harold outside in the hall. My heart was pounding, scared beyond belief. There were so many, too many, things that could be wrong. It could be anything from Lucifer being curious about my whereabouts last night to simply wanting me to join him in his bedchambers again tonight, since last night didn’t exactly work out…but I managed to stay calm on the outside, taking in a slow breath through my nose. Lifting my chin, to show whatever fragment of courage I had, I said, “You’ve come bringing a message?”

“Yes. Lucifer has asked me to tell you that your proposition on how to handle the situation with the shifter seems to be working.”

“That’s good…but somehow I can’t quite believe that Lucifer sent you to me to show his thanks.”

“Lucifer had offered all of his women to the shifter, expected to pick one out of them all to occupany him for as long as he stays here in the palace with us…”

He froze, as if unable to say anything else giving me my answer, but I asked anyway, “And…?”

“He picked you.”

I didn’t know what to do, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

If I didn’t obey this man(supposed Nick)’s wishes, he might tell Lucifer, or even take matters into his own hands. He didn’t seem like the type of guy to hit a woman, but still! Like I’ve already said and proven on multiple occasions ‘looks deceive’.

At least my situation had lightened a bit. It was horrible, to Agatha that I was taking this so lightly, when just yesterday I was utterly frightened of even stepping foot into a bedchambers. Too me, I was relieved. Yes it was bad, what I had to do, but it still could be worse. At least, now I could give myself up to a normal—-well, semi-normal—-person. I mean this Nick guy? He’s very attractive, and yea! So is Lucifer, but—-for some reason, which I cannot or quite frankly want to understand-—Nick’s presence, despite myself, makes me feel like a normal teenage girl. Don’t ask me how or why, because I don’t know.

Anyways, the overall point is, I might be being forced to do this…yet it doesn’t feel that way. I’m a lot more relaxed and comfortable with this then I would have been with Lucifer, so I’m just going to be thankful…and try and enjoy it.

Harold walked me to a room down a back hallway on the first floor of the palace till we came to two big and closed pocket doors.

“Alrighty! This is it, you’ll be expected to occupany him for the night and any other night he requests your presence. You will—“

“Harold?” I asked, cutting him off with a gentle smile, “I might not be that experienced, but I understand a little too well how this works.”

Harold nodded, “Okay then, you…you have a good night.”

“You too.”

And with that, Harold took off down the hall, back the way we had come.

* * *

Nick's room was almost an exact replica of Lucifer's bedchamber complete with the same color-scheme, décor, and everything. A silky red and black canopy hung over the bed which took up most of the empty space in the room yet it was obviously smaller than Lucifer’s. I looked to my left, expecting to see a line of graphic pictures, like Lucifer. Only I was fortunately disappointed and instead, when turned, came face to face with a blank red wall. In the far corner of the room is where all the pictures now lay, on a disheveled pile…guess Nick didn’t find the eerily descriptive paintings of rape and murder romantic.

Only then, for a reason I’m not sure of, did I realize I no longer heard the soft pattering sound which I had heard the moment I had stepped into the room. One second it was there, the next gone. The air suddenly became thick and damp, making me gasp with confusion.

That’s when the pocket doors behind me bursted open, making me yelp with surprise. I leapt forward, hoping out of the way for whoever was entering the room…it was Nick himself.

Completely naked with nothing but a small fluffy white towel wrapped loosely around his hips, he entered his room, looking aimlessly at the floor to oblivious to even notice my presence. Scrunching his wet hair and damp chest with a small cloth, he walked past me to stand at the foot of his bed.

I watched completely mesmerized by his physical appearance.

This was the first time I had really ever seen a boy up close and felt the way I did now; butterflies rolling in the pit of my stomach, heart thumping, blood rushing, cheeks burning. I could barely conjure a single train of thought let alone remember how to breathe.

And who could blame me, I mean, really?

I was taken from my home on earth before I was given the chance to realize boys didn’t have cooties. And by the time I finally did realize this, there were no boys around…at least none that were attractive or even normal. Granted this guy was a “shifter”, but at first glance you couldn’t tell. It was too easy to forget how dangerous and “inhuman” this guy supposedly was.

Seeing his perfectly tanned skin stretch over the flexing muscles in his back as small droplets of water roamed down his body was a strangely intoxicating sight. It was like I was being hypnotized of my own free-will. I never was, or even wanted to be, the type of girl to drool over guys no matter how good looking, but I literally felt like I couldn’t contain myself. I just couldn’t find the strength to tear my eyes away from the angelic sight of his coppered muscles as he rolled and stretched his shoulders making them ripple.

Well…I guess now’s as good a time as any…

Before I gave myself a chance to take a breath and process what it was I had to and was about to do, to chicken out, I pounced.

Nick looked at me from under the tips of his hair, the most devilish smirk on his face. He ran his hands through his hair and shrugged, "Why you lookin at me like that?"

I huffed with disbelief as anger burned within me, warming my insides. It grew and grew and grew, until I could feel it burn my skin and radiate a vicious heat that made me think of a growing forest fire: Usually starting off as a small spark or a little ash forgotten to be put out or underestimated, escalating into a wall of orange and red that, at average in North America, would end up being 54, 500 squared kilometers long. It wouldn't stop burning and destroying till it was forced to stop. My water bucket was usually Aggie, and since she's not here the fire within me continued to burn till the picture in my mind of me slapping the bee-Jesus out of Nick became a wish, a want...maybe even a premonition, a quick glimpse of the future.

The bastard!
'Why you glaring at me like that?' He had the decency to play dumb after what happened just seconds ago, after what he'd said just seconds ago!
The bastard!

* * *

Lips locked in a tight yet soft