Blood Reigns

I watched Johnny's face in the darkness of my room, lit only by the candles around it. Natural lighting cast a red glow around the room and made it look sinister-well more sinister than a chamber in hell usually looked. The candles helped that and put Johnny at ease. His small frame only took up a quarter of my too-large bed and to my complete surprise the quarter he chose was the place smushed as close to me as he could get. He had roaming hands in his sleep, proving his dreams weren't as innocent as his day-time thoughts usually were and this made for a lot of sticky morning for both of us.

I woke up the week of Johnny's birthday and he wasn't draped over me like had been here recently. I didn't like the feeling and started to panic. What if he'd crossed Father somehow and was being punished? What if he went to the surface and got in trouble? What if he'd decided to back out of the deal and just leave-not that he could do that without suffering Father's wrath? I sat up and reached for jeans, panicking worse.

Calm down, Shadows. I'm in the bathroom. Come join me?

I smiled a bit and sighed, relieved. No, I think I'm gonna go back to sleep.

Sloth.

I come by it naturally.

I heard a chuckle from inside the bathroom and smiled again. Johnny was finally comfortable with me, enough to leave my side without being scared. I hoped that meant that he'd enjoy staying here . . .for the rest of forever. I laid back down, crossing my arms under my head. Johnny had become someone more than just the person I wanted in my bed under me. I talked to Johnny, he roamed my mind freely sometimes without me protesting and knew more about what I thought and believed than any person. He let down his guard enough to let me do the same and both of us were aware that feelings, which had no place in hell and certainly not in the life of the spawn of Satan, were cropping up about each other that we never expected. His was lust, he wanted me but he was afraid. Mine were . . . something I didn't want to contemplate too much. This morning's reaction to him not being there kind of forced me to though.

I wanted Johnny, plain and simple. I wanted him by my side. He was my direct opposite, but he completed me. He made me want him and I was afraid to admit it but I sorta felt like it was more than want. It was need.

I scrambled up from the bed. I'm gong to Mother's chambers. I'll be back in a few.

Um, okay . .Splash!

I bit back a groan cause now I had images of him naked, his black wings dark against pale skin that glistened in the hot water traveling through my head.

I headed down the twisting corridors to Mother's chambers. She opened the door to me, "Shadows! What a surprise."

"Liar." I pointed at her and then hugged her.

She laughed and nodded. In that moment I could see why father had seduced her. I hugged her again and sat down. She sat down across from me instantly, "Tell him."

I jerked my gaze to her, "Tell who what?"

"Either tell your father to let Johnny go and see if he tries to come back or tell Johnny that you want him to stay on his own. Those are your only two options, Shadows." She shook her head at me, slightly, smirking.

Honesty? She wanted me to be honest? Did she forget that that was a rarity down here? I sighed, "I wish it were that simple. You know Father would take the hide off my back for even thinking that."

She shrugged, "That's the risk you take being in love. I risked everything for your father."

"And what did it get you?" I asked her softly.

"You and Maria." She smiled. Honestly, somedays I wondered how mother became a demon.

I huffed, "Who said I was in love anyway?"

"You didn't have to but that's what I'd call the panicking you did this morning. You realize you woke up everyone that can hear you?"

I groaned.

She laughed again, "Now go."

I sighed and nodded. I suppose she was right, but couldn't I just put off having sex with Johnny until after his birthday, thus giving him the option of staying or going? I knew that that ran the risk of him leaving but I really didn't want to force him to stay and I really wanted to have sex with him knowing that it was because we both wanted to not out of obligation to some deal.

The week passed in a haze of me being as natural to Johnny as possible. This week there wasn't any hot grinding sessions against the wall of my chambers, trying to get him use to the feel of my heavy bulge pressed against him. I didn't tease and taste him, resulting in him masturbating in front of me and I stayed out of his baths. Most of the week anyway. Two days before his birthday, Johnny woke me up with sucking, biting kisses on my neck. I moaned, bucking my hips up at him.

He pulled back, "Good, you're awake. Let's go take a bath."

I groaned, "Johnny . . ."

"Shadows." His hands on my chest made small circles. I sighed and latched my arms around his small frame, standing up with him. His arms immediately latched around my neck, his face going to the crook there to bite and nibble again. I made a noise in the back of my throat and reached with one hand to turn on the water. Johnny slid down me, his hips rubbing into mine in a deliciously painful way, before he got undressed. I wasn't surprised anymore to see Johnny hard as a rock, or his small hand stroking himself breifly before he stepped into the water with me. He slipped onto my lap and I hissed because this pressed the head of my cock against his hole. He smirked at me.

I gripped his hips, debating. The lusty, wanting look in his eyes made me want to drive myself deeper, but steely determination took over. I pushed him back and reached for the heavy soap I used. He sighed but reveled in my touching. His eyes met mine time and again and there was something else there that I didn't recognize. Something I'd never seen before. I tried to probe his mind and found it out of reach. I was shocked. Johnny had never blocked me before. I returned my gaze to soft skin and ran the soap over it one more time before it slipped from my grasp to his and he started to touch. A compulsion, a need to kiss him gripped me but when I pulled him in for it, he turned his head. What had I done?

Johnny's POV

When I came here, I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be back up there, where I belonged even if I didn't look like I belonged. Up there no one forced alcohol down my throat, although Shadows had a way about him that made me want to do what he asked so I can't really call it forcing. Up there no one touched my dick or wanted me to touch theres. No one up there made a deal to try to make me stay where I didn't want to be.

Now I realize other things. There were no kisses to wake up to up there. No random grabbing my hand. No showing me off to a mother proudly. No one to snuggle up to for the sake of bad dreams and loneliness in the middle of the night-obviously not for warmth down here. In short, heaven was lacking and I knew what it was lacking. Shadows. There wasn't a good-boy version of him or even a girl version. He was unique and I knew in my heart, and in my head, that I'd made a mistake that could trap me in Hell forever. I had fallen in love with the son of the devil-who admittedly seemed like he should just be a normal guy because he didn't act evil, didn't condone the nasty and depraved acts of his family. He was just charming, handsome, and made me want him.

I was surprised just from touching myself, touching him, my wings hadn't fallen off. Maybe God understood experimenting. Maybe the situation I was in called for it, or maybe down here all that was considered normal and I couldn't be condemned for it. I knew one thing was for sure-even if having sex with Shadows didn't force me into staying, I could never go back to Heaven when I did. Touching, tasting that might have been okay but I was pretty sure once he was in me, I'd have crossed that secret all-too-obvious line.

I crossed my arms under my chin, laying across the bed and watching Shadows flip through cds. I'd chuckled when I first realized he listened to CD's like a normal human, but then again he had to do something for entertainment when he wasn't sorting through and setting up punishment for damned souls. The only time I'd seen him amused by this act is when it was followed up by a visit to Zacky's antechamber. Something about the things he'd set up for Zacky to do to these poor unsaved men and women and the delight in Zacky's face amused Shadows to no end. That was the only time his natural sadism poked through. That and when he was sinking his fangs into my skin while rubbing me hard between the legs.

I groaned and flipped over, wincing when I felt my wings give a bit to support my weight. Down here they really were a pain to have. I almost wished that Shadows would hurry and fuck me so they'd fall off. He wouldn't though, for some reason. This morning he'd practically been in me and he'd pulled away. Why would he do that when for the past three weeks it'd been nothing but trying to make me want that as much as him? Not that I hadn't in the first place, I'd just been scared. It was going to hurt and I didn't deal with pain well. I'd finally come to terms that staying down here with him was worth some moments of pain and the lust he inspired had taken over more then once. Apparently, he didn't want me as much as I thought he had though and for some reason that hurt me a lot. I'd felt him probing at my mind just a couple of minutes after and I'd shut him out. I didn't want to seem like a kid or like the innocent guy he'd first taken in by showing him that my feelings had been hurt. Surely the son of the devil believed like his father-there was no place for feelings in Hell.
Knowing that, I knew I had a decision to make. If Shadows didn't take me before my birthday, in two days, I'd have to either stay on my own or leave. I knew one thing. Being here, so close to him, I wasn't going to be able to decide. I'd have to go to the surface.

The next day passed in a blur of meetings with Satan for Shadows while I stayed in our chambers. I could feel someone, not Shadows, probing at my head but I kept it under tight lockdown. I didn't know who it was and the last thing I need was to hear Maria and Satan going at it or even Synyster and Zacky, who seemed to spend all their free time in their chambers. Finally it was eleven on the night before my birthday. In one hour I would be free to go back to heaven if that's what I wanted. I slipped out from under Shadows' heavy arm and walked out of the chamber, pulling my shirt over my head. I traveled down the corridors to the gates. Synyster was lazily flicking his hand and directing people into one chamber or the other. From the looks of it, Shadows would be on duty tomorrow as well as his father. I walked over to him, "Busy night?"

He nodded, "Yep. Zacky'll have fun tomorrow though. A plane crash, two buses wrecked, and a building burned down all in New York."

"Oh." I laughed a little. No wonder it was so busy.

He frowned at me and then sighed, "We're corrupting you, Johnny-boy. Can't say I hate it but Shadows is slightly infatuated with your innocence."

Might be one of the reasons he kept pulling away, "Yeah well . . ."

"Speaking of which, you realize if you do what you're about to do, all of Earth is gonna hear his roaring when he figures it out?" He stared down at me.

"They'll just assume it's thunder."

"Nice way of avoiding my point. Just make sure you don't completely disappear when you decide to go back to heaven. At least tell him first." He sighed again.

I frowned, "What makes you think I'm going to choose heaven?"

"Because no matter what you feel for Shadows . . . you still have wings and a halo, Johnny. You're an angel and unless Shadows has sex with you, that's not going to change."

He shrugged.

From the way things were looking, it wasn't going to change then. I looked at him, "Look for me to come back."

"It's not that simple. You're gonna have to contact Jimmy to come back, so it's pretty certain I won't be the one to know about it first. But okay, if you really think you're going to, then why leave at all?" He held his hand up to stop a pretty little blonde girl from passing by. He stared at her for a moment, laughed, and nodded toward Satan's chamber, "Go on with you."

I looked up at him curiously.

"She's what is referred to as a Black Widow. Know what that is?"

"Kills her boyfriends in lust?" I raised my eyebrows.

He nodded, "Snaps their necks as soon as she orgasms. Satan will like her. So would Zacky if he was into girls."

I shuddered.

He laughed again and swung his hand at the gates, "Go on. Just don't let any other guy have what's Shadows' if you like Earth where it's at."

I took his warning with a nod and left. I hoped this would help.