Contents

  Dear Readers

  Other titles by K. Elle Morrison

  1. Celeste

  2. Vassago

  3. Celeste

  4. Vassago

  5. Celeste

  6. Vassago

  7. Celeste

  8. Vassago

  9. Celeste

  10. Vassago

  11. Celeste

  12. Vassago

  13. Celeste

  14. Vassago

  15. Celeste

  16. Vassago

  17. Celeste

  18. Vassago

  Acknowledgments

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed are products of author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Editing by Caroline Acebo

  Proofreading by Norma’s Nook Proofreading

  Cover Designed by Cassie Chapman at Opulent Designs

  Interior page design by K. Elle Morrison

  Kellemorrison.com

  Copyright ©2023 K. Elle Morrison

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, expect for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Print ISBN: 979-8-9887063-7-3

  Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9887063-8-0

  This one is for those who are braver than they think.

  Dear Readers

  Please read carefully

  This book contains material that may be considered inappropriate for readers under the age of 18.

  These materials cover:

  Elements of religious trauma, alcohol, and graphic language. Graphic sex between consenting adults but also SA and gore ON PAGE.

  Your mental health is so important. There will be a notice within the pages to direct you back to this warnings page for a synopsis. The sensitive material discussed and displayed may trigger some readers who have experienced SA, spousal abuse, or assault at the hand of a partner or friend.

  If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or abuse please consider reaching out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233

  https://www.kellemorrison.com/trigger-warnings-synopsis-1

  Other titles by K. Elle Morrison

  Blood On My Name

  Audiobook:

  Blood On My Name

  The Princes of Sin series:

  Prince Of Lust

  Prince Of Greed

  Prince Of Sloth

  Prince Of Pride

  Prince Of Gluttony

  Prince Of Envy

  Prince Of Wrath

  The Black Banners Series:

  Under The Black Banners

  Dagger Of Ash & Gold

  To stay up-to-date on upcoming titles, bonus material, advanced reader opportunities, and so much more visit Kellemorrison.com to join the newsletter!

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  Chapter 1

  Celeste

  I hadn’t meant to summon a real demon. The Ouija board was pink, for fuck’s sake!

  The planchette I’d found in that blasted book had lifted off the board and spun in circles until the incantation I’d been repeating was done. With a hollow thud, it fell onto the cardboard, and the room swelled around me.

  A menacing presence had answered my call, and when he appeared, my thick-headed self stayed still while every one of my self-preservation-having friends ran as fast as their fluffy socks could take them up the basement stairs.

  I wasn’t brave or dimwitted. I was scared shitless and frozen in place when he stepped out of the shadows, gruesome, decaying, and reeking of death. The smell was so putrid that it choked the scream in my throat.

  With each step, he grew taller until he was a jagged cliff that impaled anything that dared climb it. Haunting and treacherous, he cocked his head down at me, still on my knees. My legs were useless sausages.

  “Speak, human,” he demanded. His voice was salt on raw skin.

  “I-I . . .”

  My friends’ screams from the upper levels of the house were muffled by the being in front of me. The being we had brought through what Ellen called “the void.”

  “Your courage has gone, and your spine is as feeble as reeds. But you have summoned greatness. Do not squander it.”

  He had reached out a corroded skeletal hand and lifted my chin until I was forced to my feet. He was still over a foot taller than me.

  One second, I was swallowing down his rancid, hot breath, and the next, an impossibly beautiful man stood in the monster’s place.

  Judging books by their covers was part of my job, and this creature with savage power was evil incarnate. Something about him reached deep inside of me and fomented every dark thought I’d ever had to my surface. Sins that I’d committed pooled in my belly to stir and ripple at the gentle caress of his fingers down my throat.

  “Name.” Another demand from him, but his voice was as smooth as silk in this new form.

  “Celeste.”

  His gaze on mine was detrimental. If he pulled away, I would die of suffocation. My lungs would scramble to follow him, but only after my pounding heart had broken free of the prison within my ribs. He was life and death and all that was in between.

  “My Celeste.” His fingers embraced the column of my neck, a perfect fit.

  “Yes.”

  Of course I was his. Right?

  I’d called upon him from that blasted book I’d found in the archives. The one I was supposed to have brought to my professor but had said was missing instead.

  It had called to me. I’d felt it. When I picked it out of the stacks, it wrapped me in a sensation that I could only describe as home. Written just for me.

  That was all clear to me now, in this moment, with his hand around my throat and his eyes so heated that I was going to melt into a puddle at his feet, then apologize for staining his soles.

  I’d brought it to the party to show my friends and fellow occult-loving weirdos. To show them the meticulous journaling of a sixteenth-century priest who’d documented every exorcism he’d performed down to the color of the vomit each victim expelled.

  What I hadn’t expected was for Laura to have brought a novelty Ouija board from the kink shop where she worked. The glitter penises between the letters and numbers showed it was a bachelorette party gag gift. It had even come with a list of questions to ask “the beyond” about your future husband. We’d taken turns asking the spirits about our partners or somewhere-out-there soulmates.

  When it was my turn, all hell had broken loose.

  Literally.

  My body had been taken over so easily by some unknown force. I’d had the priest’s diary on my lap for safekeeping when words formed on my tongue and began twisting into phrases that sounded like Latin or Aramaic, a mix at my best guess. Languages I could decipher but could not speak in conversation.

  “Please.” I didn’t know what I was asking, but he did.

  “Don’t be frightened, my gift,” he said, his low voice a whisper feathering over my lips. “I have been waiting for you.”

  “For me?” I breathed.

  “You freed me.” His sincere gratitude was melodic. Bells and harps sang behind his words only to crash to silence in the pauses we shared. “I am in great debt to you for ending my solitude.”

  “But I didn’t do anything.” I tried to reason with myself more than the demon I had inadvertently been carrying around with me for weeks.

  “Celeste, ask for whatever your heart desires. Wish it and I’ll make it so.”

  The space between our bodies was beginning to hurt. The tiny hairs along my spine rose and my skin ached to be touched. My fuzzy, jumbled mess of a brain reached for any desire outside of wanting him to rip my clothes off and do unspeakable things to me for hours.

  Clarity would not come, but greed did.

  “The fellowship. I want the first pick of the cultural anthropology fellowship.”

  It sounded small in comparison to what he was offering. I imagined, if I had thought of it, the demon would have given me the world on a platter. But the fellowship had been my goal for the last six years. All of my postgrad work had been solely focused on the opportunity to join some of the brightest minds who were rewriting history as we knew it with technology that would give Malinowski wet dreams.

  I was in the running, but the choice hadn’t been made yet, and the candidates were just as, if not more, impressive than me.

  I had no plan B.

  “Speak my truest name and it is yours.”

  His truest name. How was I supposed to know that?

  No sooner had the confusion clouded my mind than my lips formed the syllables, the taste of them stinging and scratching to the tip of my tongue.

  “Vassago.”

  Chapter 2

  Vassago

  Celeste was my reward. A gift created and given to me by our Father for all His years of mistreatment and dissolution. I was once one of His most loved sons. Back when He was feared. Vengeful. A wrathful Creator who doled out punishments to His children in spades.

  When we were driven beneath His heel in exile, I knew one day He would realize the mistake He made and bestow the most precious offering to wi

n over my favor.

  Celeste was that and so much more.

  There was nothing short of magic lurking under her skin. Her voice was the most powerful command. Every nerve, cell, molecule in my being answered to the slightest hum of her breath.

  When she moved, each cord of her muscles strummed the blood through my veins. The pump of her heart was reason alone for my eyes to open and endure another day on this plane.

  Her mere existence was messianic. A prophecy promised unto me and fulfilled in the purest form of glory. Not a day ended without the pleonectic need to taste her flesh on the tip of my tongue like ambrosia. Carnal desire to sink my teeth into her while I senselessly ravaged her consumed me. My desperation to be close to her wouldn’t be sated until my heart beat within her chest and hers in mine.

  The moment my true name left her delectable lips, there had been a resonating confirmation that no one else would own her the way I would. We belonged together, and eventually, she would see it too. The itch was there. The mutual connection of our souls wasn’t only in the deal we’d struck. Her pupils gobbled me up, and her body responded so easily to my touch.

  She couldn’t rid herself of me. Not in any aspect of the concept. Our souls were intertwined in a tight weave, and I would never allow anything to sever that bond, not even her fear. It would be natural to fear such an engulfing presence. A fate so grand that it would threaten to burn her from her soul to her fingertips.

  Without a doubt in the grand design, Celeste would sit upon my throne with a sea of blood and broken bones at her feet. My altar. Mine to worship, and the world’s to fear.

  The one being I knew who would be able to help see my vision become a reality was across the country but a small step through the dark, sucking void between time and space.

  The apartments above The Deacon were occupied by those Sitri saw fit. I could feel the presence of more than just demons lurking beyond the door of Sitri’s penthouse. I knocked softly at first, unsure if he would even welcome a visit from me after all my time away.

  After no answer, I pounded my fist over and over.

  “All right!” Sitri opened the door wide, and his expression melted from anger to something else. Pity? “Vassago?”

  “Hello, brother.” I smiled and walked into his home.

  “Where have you been? No one has heard from you in⁠—”

  “Fifty years. Almost fifty-one. I was trapped in a human board game.”

  Sitri’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”

  I was, sort of. The item I had been trapped in wasn’t original to the sparkly penis Ouija board, but it was still part of the reason I had been able to be released. That and Celeste’s ability to read the dead language that had bound me.

  All information that Sitri didn’t need right now.

  “I was saved and want to return the favor. But for that, I need your help.” I encapsulated my tale to him while I rummaged through his shiny stainless-steel refrigerator and took out an apple.

  He paled slightly. I took a bite from the fruit and savored the tart and sweet notes. I added apples to the list of things that had changed while I was gone, along with streetlights and traffic signs. No longer was there only one type of red, waxy apple with dry, mealy flesh.

  “Vass, you’ve been gone a long time,” Sitri said. “Things aren’t the way they used to be. I am not as powerful as I once was. I will do my best, but I can’t promise you the outcome you might be hoping for.”

  I didn’t know what I was hoping for or if Sitri would truly be able to give it to me.

  What I did know was that the Prince of Lust was reliable and our influences on human minds often correlated for more dramatic outcomes. Leaders of the world had crumbled under lust and envy. Ours was the touch that could make mountains move and seas wither to piles of salt. The mixture turned what could be seen as pleasure into obsession. Obsession was easily influenced into destruction and chaos.

  Perhaps on a smaller scale, his help paired with mine would be enough to clear the way for Celeste to achieve her dream, though inspiring her lust would also benefit me. But the look Sitri was giving me said more than he wished. He couldn’t help me because he wasn’t able, not because he didn’t want to.

  I watched his shoulders slump as he wandered around his kitchen and checked the hall for any eavesdropping beings. I couldn’t pinpoint the third supernatural presence in the vicinity, but I didn’t doubt Sitri had known it carnally.

  “My influence has been lacking,” he finally said, dropping his head in unwarranted shame.

  “I’m waiting for a riveting explanation.” I dipped my chin to meet his eyes when he finally looked up. “And remember that I haven’t had a real conversation in half a century, so spare no unsavory detail.”

  He made a sound that should have been a humorous laugh, but it was heavy with loss and regret.

  “A tale for another time. But the bottom line is that I haven’t been able to perform my tried-and-true powers over others in a long time. So, unless you’re wanting me to extend an invitation to one of the most exclusive clubs in L.A., I don’t know what I can offer you, brother.”

  I waited for a secondary option, but it didn’t come. “I don’t believe Celeste would be impressed with The Deacon. No offense.”

  “None taken.” He gave a real laugh this time. “You must be very grateful to Celeste to come and request a favor.”

  My mouth spread in a smile that even surprised me. Grateful? I was grateful to the sun for existing for as long as it had just so her soul could bless this plane. I was grateful to the hundreds of ancestors she had that carried her DNA until her conception.

  I was more than grateful. I was devoted.

  “I would bring her the moon if she wished for it. But all she wants is to fulfill a dream. My influence is powerful, but not the right kind for what I want to accomplish. I was hoping to cause a great deal of lust-filled scandals to pave the way for her to win out on her ambitions.”

  I tossed the core of the apple into the sink and leaned my hands on the counter behind me.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “She was made for me. Every speck of her being was gathered from the reaches of the universe into a soul that has been promised and presented for my repentance.”

  The power of that proclamation swelled in my chest and caught into a burning fire of need to touch her as soon as I possibly could.

  He nodded but didn’t question me. “Then you know what she desires. You don’t need my influence or help.”

  Sitri was right. The vibration behind my skin beckoned me to show her that I was what she needed. I looked down the slope of my body and at the hard muscles that stretched the fabric of my T-shirt. Each one was at her disposal for whatever whim she wished. I just had to be there at the right moment.

  I took a breath and was about to step through the void when my ears perked at a sound coming from down the hall.

  “Vassago?” It was Sitri’s angel, Ezequiel.

  “Watcher.” I acknowledged him with a nod.

  Sitri and Ezequiel’s relationship was detested by other demons. Watcher Angels were said to be the cowards who refused to fall with the rest of us. They only made their intentions clear afterward, breeding humans like cattle and living among them like kings. There were tales and humors that demons would spin and spread like thin veils of silky disdain. Jealousy was at the root of all those misgivings. Envy that the Watchers remained holy in their own way while the rest of the Fallen had had to watch our abilities rust into broken shards of their former glory.

  I, on the other hand, understood Watcher Angels. Maybe more now that I had been given my own human gift. If any of them had a fraction of the love for their human that I held for Celeste, then drowning the Earth for them would have been more than worth the atrocities.

 

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