8: CAT CAUGHT YOUR TONGUE, LILITH?
CELESTE
This was the worst day of my life. The most embarrassing one too.
“Peeping Tom, huh?”
The mystery distractingly muscled man whose arms I’d landed in teased me coldly.
My blood ran cold with shame and I pressed my eyes shut tighter, unable to bring myself to look at my savior. I couldn’t wrap my head around how my hormones had foolishly led me down such a rabbit hole.
Oh wait… I knew exactly how that happened.
It’s because I never got over how good Elijah fucked me years ago. I mean, I nearly lost my life while peeking at him as he fucked another woman the way I wished he’d do to me again.
“Are you never going to open those eyes and thank me for saving your life?” This time around, his voice sounded vaguely familiar despite the teasing tone.
It almost seemed like I’d heard his voice a couple of minutes ago…
Realizing that made curiosity grip me with an unusual fierceness and I found myself throwing my eyes open to look up at him.
“You?” I said incredulously, my throat clogging badly.
Before he could respond, someone else interrupted us, yelling from the same window I’d just fallen countless floors from…
“Lock that peeping creep up in the basement! I’ll be there soon,” Elijah barked an order at his second in command whose arms I was still lodged in.
Weirdly, Phillip tightened his grip around me as he nodded in response.
Anger consumed me as I looked up at Elijah, irritated at his proposed punishment for my harmless snooping. But he didn’t care about my visible rage and just shot me a mean glare before slamming the window shut.
I looked back at Phillip, “you’re not really going to lock me up in a basement are you?”
The playful tone in his voice from earlier completely vanished and his face turned stone cold as he responded.
“I never disobey an order from Elijah.”
The dimly lit basement made my skin creep.
I pulled at the chains that bound me to the cold metal chair I was seated in, but since I felt even less powerful than I did when that weakening bracelet was slapped over my wrist, I couldn't tap into my powers to free myself.
Phillip, Elijah’s puppy on a leash, was standing in a corner and watching me with an animated yet terrifying look.
He’d just opened his mouth to speak when I heard a thud and turned to see that Elijah had kicked the door open. He was wearing a white button up, but only one button in the middle was done, and his tatted arm was on display through the folded sleeves.
His mouth watering appearance wasn’t the most interesting thing about him though. It’s the treasure in his hand that made me pin my gaze on him.
Asa. He was holding my precious, lifeless Asa.
“Missed me so badly that you couldn’t wait for me to return?” his tone dripped with mockery, “so much that you settled for watching me fuck another woman?”
I heard shuffling of feet and looked to my side to find that Phillip seemed somewhat uncomfortable, but once he caught me staring, the expression vanished like it was never there.
“Get over yourself. I was trying to get out of your wretched dump and I stumbled on…” I swallowed, my core strangely heating up at the erotic memory.
“Cat caught your tongue, Lilith?” that mocking edge in his voice had gotten thicker and I’d gotten angrier.
“Cut the crap! Release me and hand my familiar over!” I demanded, clearly fuming.
Elijah regarded me calmly, his hazel eyes softening as though my rage pleased him greatly. He watched my chest heave angrily, and there was a hint of desire in his eyes that even he couldn’t mask.
Seconds after an intense stare down, he snapped his fingers in the air and a guard marched in.
“You called, sir.”
“Take the snake, burn it and throw the remains in the abandoned cemetery,” Elijah ordered, throwing Asa to the guard like she was worthless.
“Don’t you dare!” I screamed, a screeching noise that seemed to affect everyone’s ears in the basement. Including me.
The guard whose ears was bleeding slightly from my banshee scream ran off to do Elijah’s bidding without paying me any mind.
“Don’t… she needs to be buried the right way… don’t!” I yelled at Elijah, tears streaming down my face as I thought of that fate he’d resigned her to.
If Asa wasn’t buried with the ritual rites for familiars, her spirit would remain trapped in the underworld and she would never know peace.
I would never forgive him if he cursed her to that fate. That was the equivalent of eternal damnation.
“Stay the fuck away from my bedroom window, or it’ll be you screaming against my wall the next time,” he snarled at me, “good thing you’ve already proven what a great screamer you are.”
I painfully choked on my reply as I watched him walk off, shameless and unrepentant after practically cursing my only family.
As soon as the door shut behind him, I pulled on my chains and rattled them uncontrollably hoping that my powers would get jumpstarted and I’d break free.
“Stop struggling, you’ll bruise your tender skin,” Phillip toyed with the keys to my freedom as he gave me his unsolicited advice.
After witnessing firsthand how blindly loyal he was to Elijah, I hated his bloody guts. And that meant, I didn’t care about a word that left his lips; a sentiment I also extended to his maniacal master.
“My skin isn’t tender, it’s been through the fires of the underworld and the blinding glory of Valhalla, but it’s never been scarred by either,” I boasted, reminding him—and myself—that I was a seastar who wasn’t to be messed with.
He chuckled and started towards me slowly, his heavy black boots causing every step to echo until he reached me.
“No wonder he’s keeping you,” the scar under his eye glinted despite the poor lighting and I saw a gem lodged in there, “you’re exactly his type.”
I frowned at him, both confused and annoyed by his insinuation. There’s no way on the fucking planet that I fit into the shallow bracket that reflected Elijah’s poor taste in women.
A man who had no respect for the afterlife or the grieving had poor judgment and poor taste in general.
“You’re wrong,” I bit out just as the door opened and a woman’s rosy perfumed scent filled the basement.
I turned towards the entrance, only to find the woman who’d been bent over and screaming for mercy with Elijah’s dick buried inside her walking towards me.
Medina. His magical chew toy.
From the hateful look in her eyes, I knew our meeting wouldn’t go by without a wicked clash.
“I never am, seastar,” Phillip whispered into the wind as he walked past me and towards the door.
When he stepped past Medina, they held each other’s gaze for a breath, and I could tell that they had a lot of sour history from the negative air clouding the basement.
As expected, the air cleared out the minute they broke eye contact and he left the basement.
“You remember it too, don’t you?” Medina pouted her hot red lips as she asked me a question without any context whatsoever.
I was unwilling to engage in useless banter with anyone when my Asa was being burnt and ripped of her glorious skin, so I just ignored Medina.
Her flowing wrap dress danced around her as she walked from one end of the basement to the other.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember, that’s why I’m here anyways. To make sure that you do, and that you’ll never forget,” her face turned a shade of venomous that I knew all too well.
That was the venom of a jealous and possessive lover.
“From the second he walked back into the house that morning, the stench of a supernatural being hung over him strongly,” Medina flicked her stiletto red nails then let out an unamused chuckle.
I already knew where she was headed, but I didn’t want to spoil the ending by interrupting. So, I let her drive her laughable point home.
“And all it took for me to figure out that the scent was from you, a wretched seastar, was performing a simple spell over his clothes when he stepped into the shower,” she looked at me with contempt.
Doesn’t she think it’s weird to have been snooping through a grown man’s dirty clothes?
“After whatever stunt you pulled when you hooked up with him. He was a block of ice for months, more closed off than I’d known him to be after over a century of knowing each other,” she flipped her sleek ponytail over her shoulder.
Elijah was a dramatic asshole. That night ended great for both of us based on the terms we agreed to, so it made no sense that he acted out afterwards.
“It’s a good thing I was here to pull him out of his shell and undo the damage you selfishly caused. And now that you’ve seen how good he fucks me, don’t you dare think you’ll ever enjoy that privilege again,” she hissed.
At this point, I was fed up with her crap.
“You sound dreadfully shallow and I can’t bear to listen to another word about a man I hate with every fiber of my being,” I told her in a dry, uninterested tone.
A resounding slap made my entire face burn, completely shocking me.
“Act ignorant and pretend you’re not desperate for him all you want, but you better heed my warning,” she grabbed my jaw so tightly that I thought it would snap into two.
“Keep your fucking legs closed while you’re here. And once you’re done granting Eijah his birthright, you’d better not think you can stay another second longer to seduce him. He’s mine and I’ll be his Luna, only me.”
She grunted and pushed my head as she let go of my jaw roughly, then stormed off without letting me even breathe in response.
Stunned, I wondered what birthright of Elijah’s lay in my hold.