Forbidden Read Online Free Page A

greater the urge, the greater the pain; thus, the essence of their curse. In return, they received assignments that sent them to the surface to torment humans. The kicker? They reaped their own victims, meaning they didn’t have to wait for official reapers to close the deal. A Demon Knight could snatch a tormented soul so fast that it would be halfway to Hell before a guardian received the call for help.
    Hell’s Army of One.
    It was a pretty sweet setup, unless you ran with Dante. He and his friends were Demon Knights, and they had issues. They kept losing souls. Well, Dante would lose his temper, and then they would lose souls to Heaven or limbo. A major faux pas down below. Because of this, Dante and his pack had been grounded, literally, for nearly four hundred years. They hadn’t been given a single soul assignment—hadn’t seen a death contract in ages. All that could change today.
    “Trust me,” Dante reassured his friends. “They will vote in our favor.”
    Two hours ago he had sent a petition to The Order of Reapers. They controlled everything: who competed in the Demonic Games, who was sent to wither away in Hell’s most subterranean level called the Nether Region, and who was allowed to resurface with a death contract. Dante wanted to be reinstated so he asked for a specific death contract.
    He wanted the soul of Pastor St. James. Well, technically, he wanted the soul of the pastor’s daughter, Sophia.
    Dante hadn’t wasted four hundred years sitting around laying bets on the Demonic Games. He had been tracking his lost lover’s soul and found it in Sophia.
    Just the thought of finding her again sparked a fire inside him. He couldn’t wait to hold her again, to kiss her, to be with her. Moisture gathered in his eyes and his hands trembled in anticipation. It had been so long but it was finally going to happen; he could feel it, feel his hands caress her skin, feel his fingers slide through her hair, feel his mouth devour her sweet lips. She was home, his only light in a dark world. They had been inseparable. In love. “Until death do us part” had never been an option.
    First things first.
    Dante had to resurface and he had to have permission. Everybody did. But he couldn’t let The Order know he had been searching for his lover’s reincarnated soul. They must believe that he was trying to redeem himself, trying to get back into the King of Hell’s good graces, if he actually had any good graces. The King, simply referred to as the Master, had not been seen for centuries and left the daily operations of soul harvesting to The Order—six cantankerous old Demon Lords and their leader Lord Brutus. Only when things went terribly wrong was the Master’s dark energy felt. Something The Order tried to avoid because it usually meant someone would lose their head, literally. As such, soul assignments were carefully scrutinized, and personal assignments were never allowed because every soul Taken was strictly for the Master’s pleasure.
    Dante knew Lord Brutus would never let him resurface to stalk a Forgiven soul like other Demon Knights did; not Dante with his track record. But maybe Lord Brutus and The Order would allow him to hunt down a sure thing like the pastor.
    Pastor St. James had committed a mortal sin, one even his daughter didn’t knowabout, and it was Dante’s ticket to the surface. Only Vaughn Raider, Dante’s oldest friend, knew the real target, but even he doubted The Order would approve.
    “What makes you think they’ll go for it?” Vaughn looked up from the whetting stone where he had been sharpening daggers for the past two hours. With the Demon of Affliction buried inside him, he was constantly compelled to inflict pain on others. He had to alleviate his demon’s urges, somehow. If he refused, like he had tried in the past, his demon would eventually overpower him and thrash everyone around, only to end in a bloodbath with him chained to a wall. Demonic urges were insatiable