Hell's Belle - Eve Newton Page 0,19

open the nightstand. I pull out the box.

Shax turns to me, hand held out. “Thought so,” he says. “You do care about what she thinks about you.”

I slap it into his hand with as much force as I can.

His hand doesn’t move, which just pisses me off.

He turns to leave again, but when he gets to the wall that separates my quarters from the kennels, he stops and says, “Don’t tell Annabelle about this and we won’t have a problem, am I clear?”

“About the box or that you took it from me?” I inquire, intrigued as to why he would want to keep it a secret from her.

“All of it,” he says and then in a flurry of black feathers, he is gone, leaving me alone to contemplate what the fuck all of this is about.

10

Annabelle

I whack the last Demon of the day over the head with my bat, his brains splattering all over the arena floor and I bite my lip. I hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. Roberta is gonna be so pissed at me. Again!

“Sorry,” I mutter as she lands next to me like a beached fucking whale. She is freaking enormous and so ugly it hurts my eyes to look at her.

She heaves a massive sigh and picks up the body. “Why him?” she complains as the crowd cheers and hoots at the murder of their peer. “He actually wasn’t that bad, in spite of his lazy tendencies on occasion.”

“Don’t send them to me then. You know it’s a risk.”

“Hm, indeed,” she mutters and vanishes, leaving me to do the same.

For the first time ever, I just want to shower off the Demon blood and climb into bed to sleep. Alone. What the fuck is up with that?

Usually I get all riled up and spend the night in an orgy after beating up and killing naughty Demons. As I strip off my blood covered clothes, I realize again that I need more than that now. I’m getting unsatisfied with my life and it’s worrying because I feel that I may never find anything that makes me truly happy.

I think briefly about Drescal but shake my head as I duck under the shower and turn on the jets. The water pounds down on me. I just stand there not moving for a while. I suddenly feel drained, exhausted.

I slowly wash my hair and body and then step out, wrapping a towel around me. I pad back into my bedroom and dry off the manual way. I feel like I need to keep my hands busy. I pull open my dresser and grab a super short, slinky black satin babydoll and slip it over my head. It barely encases my tits and just about covers my ass. I cheat with my hair and dry it with my power and then I climb into bed. I swipe my hand in front of me and say loudly, “Call Mom.”

I really should go down there to speak to her in person, but I can’t be bothered now that I’m all cozy in bed.

“Hey,” she says, showing up as a projection in mid-air. “Everything okay?”

I smile at her. I know she is dying to ask me if I found anything out about Dad, but she makes sure to ask about me first. “Yep. I didn’t find anything,” I say. “Sorry. I seemed to chase my tail half the day and hardly got anything accomplished. I’ll find something tomorrow, I promise you.”

“It’s okay, baby girl,” she says, giving me a bright smile, which is slightly forced. “I know you’ll find something.”

“Okay. How’re you feeling?”

“Tired,” she sighs.

“I’ll let you go then. I’m about to crash myself.”

“’Night,” she says with a yawn.

“’Night.” I shut down the projection and feel bad. She was clearly waiting up for me to call or visit. Damn this guilt. Where has it come from and why is it pestering me so much right now?

I flop back to the bed and close my eyes. I feel the pull of sleep drag me under quickly. I turn onto my side and curl up, relaxing as slumber takes me over.

I awake with a start. I blink, but there is nothing but blackness everywhere. Not even a single speck of light. I sit up and look around. I can’t feel my bed underneath me, only the cold, hard ground.

“Annabelle,” a really creepy, male voice whispers in my ear.

I jump a mile, putting my hand over my heart. “Fuck! What? Who are you?” I