Hell's Consort

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Arhcdemon Empress Luna

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As she lifted the skirts of her emerald gown, Luna revealed a brown leather sheath strapped to her thigh and pulled the dagger quick before Xerxes could look away.

The young lad was a gentleman through and through, which was different from her Apollyon, who watched her every move with a hooded gaze, mesmerized at the way she exposed one pale leg and covered them with a flick of her skirts.

Giving her husband a mischievous grin, Luna tested how sharp the dagger was and stabbed it at the innkeeper's desk and wrenched it back.

The edge of the blade made a clean hole that was about three and a half inches deep, and the innkeeper's wide mouth was agape that she could see his esophagus.

Luna shrugged her shoulders at Apollyon in satisfaction after showing off, and he winked at her in return.

She clicked her tongue.

Her husband was flirting again like it was only the two of them in this glass room!

Hopefully, this lightheartedness would continue.

Apollyon bought it for her at the marketplace, drifting away while she and the shop's attendants were focused on the gown measurements.

Her husband desired Luna to use a dagger to wound herself instead of her claws.

Apparently, Apollyon said that he liked how Luna used weapons, especially daggers, with a hypnotic grace that made him obsessed with her even more—well, not unless she used the weapon against him.

He would probably let her but only during play fighting. Her husband never ceased to surprise her.

"Please don't hurt me." The innkeeper croaked as he dropped his folded legs from the sofa and sat properly— primly—with his webbed hands on his small knees.

As he straightened his spine, he watched the dagger in a rapid blink while his moist green skin brightened into almost yellow.

Frogs must have paled that way!

"This isn't for you, Mister—"

The innkeeper supplied. "Mister Henry, Your Highness."

"Do you have a cup around this glass room?"

Mister Henry opened his desk drawer before he could even nod to affirm that and produced a golden chalice.

"Lumiendo." Apollyon muttered under his breath before a strong cerulean stream of fragments turned the thick glass into a surface of mirrors where lights reflected and bounced into unpredictable angles.

The last thing Luna had witnessed something close to this was at the Masquerade Ball, where he tried to hide both of them doing dirty things in the balcony away from prying eyes.

Apollyon's spell unleashed a blinding light for a short period of time, cloaking them from the guests at the tavern since this glass room made them too visible from outside the innkeeper's receiving area.

The innkeeper fixed his stare at him, and his dark eyes squinted in suspicion, "You did that same spell for this room before I could. Your familiarity with Fae Magic astound me."

He handed him the chalice, and Apollyon took it from him. "You are the Vampire King, you say?" He slowly croaked, "Are you perhaps… the son of Empress Ourania and King Gwythyr of the Vampire Realm who she was forced to have an arranged marriage with?"

Apollyon shrugged. "That's right."

"I thought the entire Vampire Realm was annihilated by a monster!"

"Yes." Apollyon said with nonchalance. "I am that monster."

The innkeeper said grimly. "You killed your own father that's why Empress Ourania was forced to leave you there in the Vampire Realm."

Apollyon chuckled, but there was a manic edge to it. "Everybody is telling me my mother is alive except me. So it is true."

Despite her husband brushing the subject off like it didn't matter to him, she knew it mattered a lot more when she saw him fisting the stem of the golden chalice in anger that she was afraid it would break.

"Husband." Luna said softly and settled her hand on his muscled thigh to comfort him—remind him--that she was still there with him and he wouldn't abandon him as his mother did.

Apollyon's cold Prussian blue eyes turned neutral as she melted the frost in them with her caresses. Her husband exhaled a sigh as if saying, 'Let's get this over with.'

When Apollyon was sure that his spell was established while Xerxes and Princess Lucia kept their watch, Apollyon positioned the chalice under her bleeding wrist when she slashed her skin with her husband's gift.

Luna did it thrice before she was satisfied, and every cut took a bit longer to heal.

Her body had weakened because of the portal she made, and now, she was going to break this stranger's curse with her Arch-demon blood.

Never had she ever imagined that she would be helping people to break their curse—especially if it was done by demons--when she has cursed herself for the rest of her life as an Archdemon.

Luna and Apollyon were 'functionally immortal' in the sense that they will live forever unless something unnatural occurs to them, such as a curse or straight-up murder through magic.

Her soul was an Archdemon now, and she had no clue if she can still be killed with a stab in the heart.

Nevertheless, she wasn't going to try and test that.

Apollyon gave her the chalice, and Luna placed a palm on the rim and closed her eyes, setting her intention for a solid minute chanting a mantra in her mind.

She focused her entire being on the chalice as her demonic energy transferred from the warmth of her palm to the rim, encasing the golden cup with the potency of the blood magic.

"Now, drink my blood, Henry." Luna ordered as she handed him the chalice when she was done. "if my blood is stronger than the witch who turned you into a frog, this should repeal the curse and turn you back to--"

Henry didn't even let her finish talking because he already grabbed the chalice and drank her blood in one gulp.

There was a blinding light before Luna could finally see the real Henry.

"I am eternally indebted to you, Vampire King…" Henry's head turned towards her and looked her in the eye for the first time. "Empress."

Apollyon titled his head in amusement. "Then, swear your allegiance to the Vampire Crown."