Lucifer Reborn by Dante King (the reader ebook .TXT) 📗

and as he stepped through the doors into the office, I could’ve sworn they were glowing, too. Enchantments? Some kind of protection spell, similar to the blessings Lucifer laid down on me? I had no idea, and I wasn’t eager to tap him on the shoulder and find out.

Maybe those runes were like my earring, or the bracelet Lucifer put around my wrist. A focus for his powers. Did that mean Lucifer gave the goat guy his tattoos? A disturbing possibility occurred to me: maybe my story wasn’t as extraordinary as I’d thought. How many of these demons had gotten the fatherly pep-talk from the Prince of Darkness before making their way to the Academy?

Fuck, I thought, looking the big goat-headed man up and down. If that guy’s one of my rivals, I’m in serious trouble.

“Healthy competition is a wonderful thing,” Xora was in the middle of saying to Christina. “Down here in Hell, we work on the principle known as ‘survival of the fittest.’ Those who deserve to rise in the ranks will, and those who do not. . . well. They are not worth thinking about.”

“Sounds like Earth,” I grunted, thinking of the rat race I’d just escaped from.

“Just so,” Xora agreed, a strange smile on her face. “We try our best to make the mortal realm just like home, after all.”

“We’re very good at it,” Mareth agreed, brushing up against me. I’d almost forgotten the succubus was still with us, she’d been so quiet during Xora’s speech. “Tempting humans into lust is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, Luke. A barrel where the fish are clustered at the top, begging to be shot…”

I had to suppress a shudder. “You didn’t answer my question,” I told Xura, circling back to her. “These other candidates—none of them are like me, are they? Humans chosen by Lucifer?”

“You’ll meet them all soon enough,” the rusalka assured me. “But. . . no. You’re the only human candidate, Luke. In fact, a human attending the Infernal Academy is an extremely rare event. Our list of human alumni is extremely short—though it comprises a true elite, some of the most important figures in your history.”

“Oh really?”

“Ghengis Khan,” the rusalka said, counting on a pale, slender figure. “Vlad the Impaler. Elizabeth Bathory—a very rare co-educational transfer student! Only the best and brightest emerge from these halls, Luke.”

“Though not in a while,” Mareth added. “I can’t remember the last time the Academy had a human student. You’re the most recent one by at least a century, I believe.”

I glanced over at Christina, taking her emotional temperature. Somehow that was even easier to do now that she was a demon. Maybe the bond the two of us formed in bed together had something to do with it: all I knew was that one look at her gorgeous pale skin, her winding horns and the sinuous, fishnet stocking scales working up and down her long legs and I could see exactly what she was thinking. Worried, hungry, horny—they all lit up behind her still-human eyes like signal flares, cluing me in to her innermost thoughts with the merest gesture. The curves and the long blonde hair she’d had as a human woman remained, but the rest of her couldn’t have been more different. Her long tail clenched around her taut tummy as she watched Xora hungrily, evidently sharing my thoughts about her suitability for our cause. Christina used her tail like it was a part of her she’d had her whole life, not something she’d sprouted a few hours ago. Hell, she wore her demonic form like she’d been born to it—like being human was the costume, not her ordinary state. It suited her so well.

 A strange feeling stole over me. Any of these demons I ran into at the Academy could be looking to shank me in the back. They’d be more than willing to step over my corpse if it got them another rung up the ladder toward being in Lucifer’s shoes.

I should have realized the truth. Nothing in Hell would be handed to me—I was going to have to take it. The Academy was a grounds for learning and scholarship, sure, but it was also a nest of vipers.

Now I understood why the Prince of Darkness had cautioned me to be choosy with the women I surrounded myself with. A demon bound to me was the only kind of demon I could fully trust. They were my confidants, my eyes and ears—and potentially my protection.

Which made me think all the more that Xora would make a hell of an addition to my team. She definitely seemed open to the idea, in any case.

I snaked a possessive hand around Christina’s waist. “Technically, two humans,” I said, pressing the demoness’s body against mine. “Christina only recently underwent her demonic transformation. Until last night, she was just as human as me…”

“Transformed demons—like your friend, Christina—are less rare, but still uncommon.” The emphasis Xora put on the word ‘friend’ told me she was thinking of an entirely different word. “In fact, if all of you on campus got together, you’d barely fill a single table at the cafeteria. Not that you would—most humans transformed into demons are Mogs like Christina, the thrall of some more-powerful demon.”

Christina let out a scoff. “I’m not Luke’s thrall,” she said, stamping a foot. “I’m my own person—an independent woman!”

“Of course,” Xora said smoothly. “You merely make love to Luke whenever he wishes, feel irresistibly attracted to him, and will perform any request he makes of you without complaint. But you’re not a thrall! What a thing to say!”

Her voice dripped with sarcasm, and I just had to join in. “Scratch the ‘without complaint’ part,” I said, giving Christina a good-natured chuckle. “I’ve heard plenty of it since I showed up at this girl’s doorstep…”

“Human girls complain about everything,” Mareth