Raising Hell Read online

  Raising Hell

  By Julie Kenner

  Copyright © 2006, 2014

  Kindle Edition

  Originally published in trade paper format by The Penguin Group

  Excerpts from Hell Fire by Dee Davis, Copyright © 2006, 2014 by Dee Oberwetter. All rights reserved. Reprint only with permission from author. Please contact [email protected].

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  They were the baddest of the bad, the illegitimate sons and daughters of Satan, who had managed to make love, raise hell, and milk life in a manner worthy of their heritage. Until the day the devil himself needs to name his heir apparent. So who will the next ruler of Sin City be?

  As the second son of Satan, Nicholas Velnias is certain he has no chance of stepping into his father’s shoes. But when his older brother fails to win the keys to hell, Nick is suddenly the favored son. And the task to prove his worth is so simple he knows that he can’t fail—all he has to do is steal the soul of a woman. How hard can that be? After all, Nick steals bits of soul every day, infusing them into canvas and pigment to add that panache to the masterpieces that have brought him fame and fortune.

  But when Nick meets Delilah Burnett, the innocent daughter of a preacher who’s bad for the devil’s business, all hell breaks lose. Because while Nick may have set out to steal the girl’s soul, in the end she’s the one who steals his heart.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About Raising Hell

  Dear Reader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Excerpt from Hell Fire

  Julie’s Booklist

  About Julie

  Dear Reader,

  We began critiquing together in early 1999, back when we were young (sort of), naive (not really), and unpublished (that part’s true). Since we were both determined to do something about the unpublished part of the equation, we committed to brutally and honestly reviewing and commenting on each others’ work (the brutality and honesty softened by the presence of coffee, tea, chocolate … and often wine).

  Our standard ritual was to share a chapter of an ongoing work each week by email, then take turns critiquing the pages at the weekly in-person meeting. And it wasn’t long after this process began that we realized how successful the collaboration was, both on a professional and a personal level. Not only did we soon see our books bought by publishers (and then on the shelves!), but our friendship grew as well, eventually matching and overshadowing the ritual of critiquing (cue heartwarming music).

  For years, we thought it would be fun to work on a book together, but we never had the opportunity or the idea. And then, one day …

  We were sitting at a table during a conference talking about bad boy heroes. And who better to be the ultimate bad boy than a son of Satan? And if there were brothers … then maybe there were sisters, too, because writing wild child women is just as fun.

  Needless to say we were excited about the idea. And, so Nick, Marcus, Lucia and Jezebel were born and, as such, gave us the chance to work together on a project, just like we’d been wanting to do for years!

  We hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as we enjoyed writing them.

  XXOO

  Julie & Dee

  ‡

  Chapter One

  The evening sun outside the window cast an orange glow over the inside of Nick’s SoHo loft, setting the bed on fire even more than the three women already there, their bodies slick and willing atop the satin sheets. Nick stood naked at the foot of the bed, paintbrush in hand, the canvas in front of him a perfect reflection of the hedonistic revelry of the women who now cooed and called to him, urging him to abandon his work as the day abandoned its light.

  Not an unpleasant proposition, all things considered, and he felt himself harden in response to the women’s call. Soon he would take his pleasure, make no mistake. But first, he wanted to take a bit more from these women. Just a spark, just a glint. Just the tiniest morsel to flesh out their portrait and make the work come alive.

  Almost reverentially, he dipped his brush into the paint, then dabbed at the canvas, which now came alive as the brilliant hues of the sun’s glow shimmered on the women’s oil-paint skin. In front of him, the women cuddled and giggled, tasting and suckling and urging him to join them.

  But Nick was lost in his art, lost in the light. He’d always loved this time of day, an expression of his artist’s heart, he supposed. Or, perhaps the fiery glow simply reminded him of home.

  He stroked the canvas, urging his brush to exalt the women. To lift them up and make them more than they were in life. He pushed and urged, teasing out the colors, the subtle shades, the very heart of the portrait as he struggled to lift it toward an almost celestial perfection.

  By anyone else’s standard, the portrait would be considered perfect. Another Nicholas Velnias masterpiece. And yet Nick knew that it was flawed. That the depth of emotion—of beauty and passion—had yet to be plumbed.

  He had yet to find her. A woman so beautiful that she could awe even his jaded heart.

  Someday, he thought. Someday, his brush would grace her form…

  “Nicky…” The woman’s pouting voice came from behind him, and Nick realized that he’d lost himself to his work once again. Now only two women were in front of him on the bed. The third—Nancy? Clancy?—stood behind him, her lips grazing his ear, her breath hot on his skin. “Nicky, baby, we miss you.”

  And then her arms wrapped around him and her hands stroked his chest, easing down lower. Nick closed his eyes, prepared to lose himself once again to the touch of these women.

  “Oh, Nick. It’s so big! Girls, you have to come look!”

  Nick’s eyes flew open, and he couldn’t help the amused quirk of his mouth. He knew with perfect clarity what she was looking at, and he felt a twinge of pride. “You’re pleased?”

  “Pleased? I’m… I’m astounded.” She took her hands off his abdomen as she moved closer to the canvas, meeting her friends as they all stood in awed wonder, staring at the larger-than-life image that filled the huge canvas. “We’re so big. I had no idea the picture would be so huge. And our faces … It’s almost as if the painting is alive …” She reached out, almost brushed the canvas with her fingertip, but he pushed her hand away. “How did you do that?”

  He laughed, then kissed her fingertips. “That’s my little secret,” he said. He moved around the canvas, not wanting to look at the women’s images anymore. Not wanting them to ask questions. He’d thrown his entire being into painting their portrait, and the effort had exhausted him. But his devilish little secret was that he’d thrown a bit of them into the mix, too. Not so much that they’d miss it, but he’d captured a bit of their soul.

  Stolen it, really.

  Could he have become such a revered artist without that little trick? He didn’t know, and as the women tugged him into the bed and pulled him down between the sheets with them, he told himself he didn’t care. The trick served his purpose, keeping him in the spotlight. Couldn’t he have whatever woman he wanted whenever he wanted? Hadn’t his face graced People and Time and all those other magazines that claimed to reveal the richest, sexiest, most eligible men the world over?

  He was one of those men, and he knew it. For that matter, he loved it.

  He’d always craved
the spotlight. In his younger days, he’d reveled in his heritage, using his familial connections to wrangle introductions to the most stellar artists of the day. He’d sat as the subject for such brilliant artists as da Vinci, Botticelli, and even Michelangelo. Today, a walk through the Louvre was like strolling through his own private portrait gallery, and a marble image of his own perfection stood in Florence under the false name of “David.” In truth, Nick was glad for the fictitious name. Michelangelo had taken certain artistic liberties, and one of Nick’s best assets had been decidedly reduced in his stone image.

  The glory of the spotlight faded quickly for the subject, however, while the artist’s name lived on. That was a lesson Nick had learned soon enough, and in more modern times he’d been drawn to the flame of fame in the guise of an artist. Once again, he was the darling of the tabloids, caught up in the glare of photographers’ lights. Now, though, he was the artist and not the subject.

  Now, it was his name that was known.

  The truly remarkable thing about his newfound career was that he’d discovered a legitimate talent. Or, at least, he thought he had. So far, he’d not revealed a portrait to the public without first enhancing it with a bit of the subject’s soul. “A fiery rendition that seems to crackle with life,” one reviewer had said. And how very right they were…

  Still, there were days when he wanted to ply his craft utilizing nothing more than his own skill. Perhaps one day. If he ever found a worthy subject…

  A tug on his hand pulled him back to himself, and he smiled at the brunette, hoping he didn’t appear as uninterested as he felt. The women had obviously expected the bed to be more than simply the backdrop for a portrait sitting. And why not? That was his reputation after all. The bad-boy painter, dubbed by the press as the sexiest man alive.

  Far be it from him to disappoint his fans.

  As the brunette tugged, he went willingly, then slid under the sheets with the women. Above him, the blonde dipped a strawberry in chocolate, then passed it to the brunette’s open, moist mouth. She took it, then bent to share it with him, a sweet, chocolate kiss.

  He indulged her, taking her mouth in his, succumbing to the pressure of her tongue in his mouth, slipping his finger down to caress the wet heat between her thighs. As he did, the redhead slid down under the sheet, her mouth leaving a hot trail of kisses on his stomach and lower abs, the trail becoming all the more heated the lower she moved.

  The blonde pulled away, teasing him with her teeth on his lower lip. He made a rough growling noise in the back of his throat, but really, it was all for show. Already he was bored. Already his mind had wandered to the blank canvas prepped and stretched by the north window, a canvas waiting for the perfect subject, but which had yet to see a drop of paint.

  “Tell me, Nicky,” one of the women whispered, “do you like that?”

  He muttered a convincing “yes,” then let his mind turn back to the fantasy of the woman he wanted to paint. Hair so gold it seemed to reflect the light, and blue eyes so pale that they looked right at him even from the still depths of the canvas. She was out there, somewhere.

  Someday he’d find her.

  Someday he’d paint her.

  Until then, though, he had to take his pleasure where he could, and he forced his mind back to the three women. The redhead beneath the sheet was doing some delicious things down there, and Nick had to admit he had no complaints. The brunette was trailing chocolate-covered strawberries over his chest, then licking up the confection with decidedly feline laps of her tongue. And the blonde… oh, yes, the blonde was right there, her body writhing against his finger that still stroked her wet clit.

  With a seductive grin, she eased off of him, then bent down and took his mouth in hers, kissing him deep and hard, then pulling away, a cat-got-the-canary grin on her face. Nick could only assume he was the canary and that the woman believed she had him.

  Little did she know.

  She leaned forward again, twining herself on one side of his body just as the brunette pressed against him on the other. They both eased up his side, their tongues playing with the sensitive skin around his ear. Soon they moved on to other pastures, one woman—he had no idea which—claiming his mouth, and the other sucking on his fingertips.

  He let his head fall deeper in the pillow and gave in to the pleasure of three women whose sole purpose was his ultimate satisfaction. The women themselves may not be the perfection Nick sought, but he wasn’t a stupid man. And only a very stupid man would turn down three very horny, very naked women.

  He focused on forgetting about his canvas and concentrating only on the pleasure of the moment, and just when he’d finally managed to clear his head of all things but the hot and willing women in bed with him, a thunderous boom shook the loft, setting the bed to shake and rattling the crystal chandelier that Nick had kept after one of his more adventurous conquests in the eighteenth century.

  Beside him, the blonde and the brunette froze, looking at him with concerned eyes. Even the redhead stilled beneath the sheet, a particularly unfortunate byproduct of the noise.

  Of course, while the women feared explosions, Nick was simply bored. He knew what caused the noise—his father. Lucifer. The devil himself. Announcing for anyone who cared to listen that he was about to make his presence known.

  And, of course, giving his son the opportunity not to be caught with his pants down.

  Nick didn’t bother to get dressed. Or to get up for that matter. Modesty wasn’t in his nature. And his father had certainly seen it all before.

  Beside him, the women shifted nervously. But that was nothing compared to the way their eyes widened in fright as the whirlwind of fire appeared in the middle of Nick’s loft, tongues of flame licking the walls and canvases as the column spun faster and faster, finally exploding in a burst of blue flame, leaving the stench of sulfur in its wake and one very irritated-looking Prince of Darkness.

  “Quite the entrance, Father,” Nick said, raising an eyebrow as he leaned up on one elbow. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

  The women, he noticed, were completely frozen. His father’s handiwork, no doubt. He lifted the brunette’s arm, pushed her aside, and managed to sit all the way up.

  “Only two in your bed,” his father said, his dark eyes flashing with something that might have been amusement, but probably wasn’t. “You disappoint me, son.”

  Nick met his father’s eyes, then lifted the sheet and gazed pointedly at the woman now frozen down there. “Three, actually.”

  Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth quirked at the corners. Good, Nick had managed to amuse his father. Usually that role was left to his younger brother, Marcus. “Peel yourself out from under the ladies’ attentions and join me. We need to talk.”

  Nick considered arguing, but he didn’t. As a rule, he rarely argued with his father. His position in the family tree was precarious. He wasn’t the oldest, so he didn’t stand to inherit from their father. Nor was he the youngest, the son who could get away with anything. No, Nick was in the middle, and he had to tread more carefully.

  He slipped the sheet back and climbed out of bed, pulling on a red silk robe as he did so. His father had moved to the window, and now Nick joined him.

  His father stood there, gazing out at the Manhattan night. Nick looked at him with an artist’s eye, once again itching to paint his father, a request that had been denied on repeated occasions. Once the most beautiful angel in all of Heaven, Lucifer’s looks had only sharpened and increased in the passing millennia. Nick had inherited the dark hair and complexion, but the shimmering gray eyes came from his mother, whoever she might have been.

  In stark contrast, Lucifer’s eyes were dark and unreadable, the kind of eyes that could be painted a thousand times and yet never completely captured. Eyes that reflected a million stories, and very few of them with happy endings.

  Today, in fact, the eyes reflected a raging storm.

  “You’re troubled,” Nick said
. “What’s wrong?”

  “Jack,” Lucifer said, referring to Nick’s eldest brother.

  Nick couldn’t help the little trill of pleasure, and he hoped it didn’t show. “Jack? What’s wrong with Jack?”

  This time, when his father turned, his eyes were no longer stormy. Instead, they were flat. And somehow, that was even more disturbing. “He failed me. One simple task I handed him. One task, the reward for which would be to inherit my kingdom.”

  “He failed?” Nick tried to keep the glee from his voice as he felt himself get shoved one rung up the familial ladder.

  “Dismally,” Lucifer confirmed. He made a motion with his hand as if shooing away flies. “But that is of the past. I’m concerned only with the present and the future. Your future.”

  “Yes?” He spoke the word calmly. Inside, however, he was cheering.

  “A quest, my son. One simple quest and, if you prevail, you will rule over my entire domain.”

  “And if I fail?”

  His father stayed silent, and Nick nodded. For this, at least, no one needed to draw him a picture. Not that it mattered. Jack might fail, but Nick had always been more competent than his older brother. His father had just been too blinded by his firstborn’s charms to see the truth.

  “So what’s the quest?”

  “Simply a soul,” Lucifer said. “Just like you dabble in every day. Only in this case, I need the entire soul.” He handed Nick a flat envelope. “Her name is Delilah Burnett.”

  Nick slid his finger under the flap, reached in to pull out the picture, then almost dropped the entire package when he saw the photograph inside. Her.

  He drew in a breath, managed to recover his voice, and asked, “Why her?”

  “I’ve nothing against her, actually. It’s her father. Pesky do-gooder. A reverend. Rather famous, too. He’s known for his aggressive campaigns to turn lost souls away from sin.” He leaned in close and put his hands on Nick’s shoulders. “It’s bad for business, Nicholas. And the man deserves to be punished.”