The scream she supposed Vergil was waiting for never came as she felt paralyzed by the awe and fright that he provoked in her heart. He was still standing in front of her with the same gray pajama pants but the rest of him was nearly unrecognizable.

His skin was now pitch black, the white bangs she adored were longer—almost reaching his waist—and two spiraled horns, as black as his skin, emerged diagonally from his forehead. Blue energy sizzled around him as if the air itself was charged with too much electricity and created small explosions whenever the sparks collided with each other.

This must be why he wanted me to stay in the bed. He is gorgeous and frightening.

“Mina?” He took a step forward but stopped when her beautiful, gray eyes rounded with fright and her breathing sped up. “This isn’t working.”

Her sexy demon looked at her with a blank expression and returned to his human form so quickly her brain barely had time to register the change. His lips separated a bit as if they were itching to say something, but he clenched them, turned, and strode away from her.

“Vergil, wait!” Mina called, intercepting him before he arrived at the door. “I’m sorry. We can try this again.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re afraid of what I am, and … I don’t want to see you fear me again.”

“Then help me conquer my fear.” She circled his waist and looked into his intense blue eyes. “Isn’t that what a good husband should do?”

Vergil could feel the willpower behind her words and read the determination in her mind. His beautiful, delicate dove truly wanted their stupid marriage to work out. It filled him with … happiness? Yes! It filled him with happiness that she wanted their marriage to work out despite everything. But what would happen if someday she knew the truth behind it all? What would happen to him?

It would be best not to dwell in future possibilities. Just enjoy the ride while it lasts! “I prefer the title of naughty husband instead,” he whispered before taking her lips like a hungry beast.

His hands grabbed her waist and crushed her against him while his mouth worked his magic on her. She moaned when his tongue slipped past her lips, desperately caressing hers. Her hands glided up his chest, over his shoulders, and around his neck until they tangled between the short hairs on the back of his head. Vergil growled low, rubbing himself against her and slipping his hands under the hem of her short nightgown.

“This feels so good, but we must stop, my hungry devil,” Mina whispered between breaths when Vergil released her lips so she could breathe.

“Why?” His question sounded like a tortured growl.

“Because the next time we make love I want to be able to accept the true you; red eyes, horns, and claws.”

He kissed her fervently again, his tongue delving deep inside of her mouth, but released her as abruptly as he started the kiss. His eyes locked with her gray irises and sighed. “Get dress.”

“Are we going somewhere?”

Another shaky breath escaped him. “We need to get out of this room, or I’ll take you even if I have to force you.”

“O-Okay.” Her voice shook before she took her baggage and locked herself in the bathroom. Like a door would hold off a demon!

She exited a few minutes later dressed in some tight jeans, ankle boots, and a one-shoulder, black blouse with the golden imprint of a tiger. Her lovely husband was already dressed and pacing the room like a caged animal.

Vergil stopped the moment she appeared and took in her beauty like a starved man. Those jeans she had on squeezed her hips in a way that made his blood boil for a piece of them, but he just took a few breaths and offered his hand to lead her away from the danger zone.

“Did you feel that?” a woman in a black leather catsuit asked her companion when they felt a wave of dark energy reach them. Their target had transformed, giving them his location unknowingly. “It looks like we won’t need the sacrifice to find him,” she said with a smile while she released the girl they were about to kill and told her to disappear from her sight. “I want to be the first one to attack him.”

“Calm down, Alecto. Remember that we are not after your little brother but his mortal wife.”

“Either way, we will have to kill him to get to her,” the woman said angrily. She hated when he referred to her father’s bastard half-breed as her sibling.

“That urgency to kill your brother …” The man sighed. “Could it be you are blaming Vergil for Hades’ lack of attention on you and your sisters?”

“Son of a bitch!” she screamed before lunging at him with her bared fangs.

Summoning a long scythe to his hands, the cloaked man became a blur and the edge of his weapon stopped a few inches from Alecto’s neck. “You forget who I am, Fury. Attack me again and not even your father, the almighty Hades, will save you from my scythe.” He released her and walked away. “Now, go fetch Cerberus. Egypt awaits us.”

They were holding hands, walking through a market street that was crowded with small shops selling everything a tourist could dream of: mini statues of the old Egyptian gods, jewelry, pottery, belly dancers and traditional Arabian outfits, and much more could be seen wherever they looked. Everything was so colorful and lively that Mina felt like the protagonist of one of the paperback novels she loved so much.

She stopped and released Vergil’s hand when a warm and inviting energy called to her. Forgetting her husband completely, she retraced her steps until she stood in front of an unusually named little shop. Its signboard showed a Greek name. Abyss is a very strange name for a trinket’s shop.

Curiously enough, the energy waves were coming from inside of the small store.

It was then that a woman dressed in a black and red robe and a matching veil came out of the shadows, smiling at her. “Do you like something? I have these amulets for good luck. They are very popular around tourists.”

Correction. The source of the waves wasn’t the shop but the woman.

Compelled by this warmness, Mina got closer and stretched a hand to touch, fingertips barely caressing an eye of Horus but she stopped suddenly, her attention shifting to the Egyptian. The brunette had detected a ripple of dark energy between the warm waves. Fear ran down her back and made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. There’s something strange about this woman.

Yet instead of leaving, she kept looking around the store.

After a few minutes of gazing at the amulets, she once again sensed the same brief darkness. This time she heeded the warning, gave thanks to the vendor for her time, and turned to leave when the strange female grabbed her wrist.

“You are not going anywhere, little missy.”

Surprise filling her eyes, Mina swore she saw eagle-like talons holding her instead of a human hand and desperately tried to shake the merchant off. However, the woman had an iron grip on her. “Release me now, lady.”

“And what are you going to do if I don’t? You can’t hurt me, human.”

“But I can, creature,” a soft and melodic voice said from behind the demon bride. It was the same voice she had heard inside of the church the day of her wedding.

The Egyptian woman released her immediately, fright shining in her dark eyes, and disappeared in the darkness of the shop, leaving no trace of her warm energy anywhere.

Mina spun around quickly, hoping her savior hadn’t left like the last time, and was rewarded by his dazzling smile. “Th-Tha-anks … I-I—”

“You do not have to thank me, Mina. I have been protecting you since you were a baby,” he said, took her right hand, and put a necklace of a sword with a crescent moon on the background in her palm. “Let me properly introduce myself. I am Eiael, master of occult sciences and longevity, and your Guardian Angel.”

She didn’t even notice when he stopped talking; his voice was so rhythmic that it appeared he sang every time his lips moved. His beautiful, mismatched eyes, covered by long, dark lashes, squinted a little when he smiled at her for a second time, leaving her utterly speechless.

“Are you uninjured, child?” Worry made his right eye bluer and the left one greener.

“Y-Yes! By the way, I love your eyes.” Great, Mina, now your guardian will think you are a moron!

Eiael winked at her with his green eye and smirked, but then his features grew serious and he looked down the market street with a frown. “I need to go. Remember, my child, if you are in danger just hold the necklace I gave you and whisper my name,” he said before vanishing like some ghost of the Twilight Zone. 

Minutes later, she saw Vergil coming straight to her. His brow was furrowed and he clenched his jaw so hard she feared his teeth would break. Uh-oh, I’m in big trouble! Feeling like a little girl that made some mischief, the brunette walked up to her demon and embrace him tightly. At first, he didn’t return the gesture, but it took him less than a minute to finally give in.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again! I tried to find you with my abilities but something was blocking them,” he said, almost crushing her ribs for a second. “What happened? Who was with you?”

“It’s nothing, I’m okay now.”

The demon looked less than convinced, but by some miracle of God, he didn’t try to pry the information out of her mind. He just held her gaze for a couple of seconds—which felt like an eternity—combed his silvery hair with his hand, and grabbed her by the wrist. 

“Come.”

One word, a command more likely, and he was dragging her down the crowded street like some kind of ragged doll. She thought he intended to leave the market street, find a cab, and return to the hotel but how wrong she was. Vergil kept dragging her until they saw a dark alley beside one of the shops and headed there.

“Where are you taking me? It isn’t my fault that I got lost!” She tried to slip from his grasp, but his strength made it impossible. “What are you going to do to me?” Actual fear laced her voice.

“I’m taking you back to the hotel the fastest way possible,” he growled, dragging her to the far end of the alleyway and pulling her against him. “Close your eyes.”

Another command, and then the world around her disappeared as if a black hole had swallowed it. Less than a second later and some whirling colors, they appeared inside of their hotel room. Her head and stomach were spinning, so when Vergil released her, she quickly ran on wobbly legs to the bathroom and threw up all her dinner.

“I told you to close your eyes!” he emphasized, raising his voice so she could hear him even over the nasty sounds. “You humans are such weaklings! Getting sick over a teleportation is something not even demon children do.” A smirk played at the edges of his lips when his pretty wife peeked through the bathroom door and threw the soap bar at his head. “Like soap could kill me, dearest.” The soap holder was thrown his way, but he caught it effortlessly.

She took a few minutes more to re-freshen herself and exited the washroom to poke him in the chest. “Stop mocking my species! That’s not nice of you.” She cornered him between her and the bed.

“What are you going to do about it?”

His smirk only exasperated her more, but she gave one look at his bright blue orbs and her insides melted like butter. Those eyes were so endless, so intense that she could spend her entire life gazing at them and be unable to discover all the mysteries they guarded, all the secrets they held, and all the mischief they had done. Vergil was a Pandora’s Box to her, one that she was eager to open.

Her demon bit his lips in the most inviting manner, slipped a hand over her neck to grab the back of her head, and threw them both on the bed. She gasped when he landed on top of her and kissed her out of the blue, holding his weight on his forearms so his body wouldn’t crush her. Fire ignited inside of their veins when the kiss turned needier on both sides and the low moans started.

Vergil ran his hands down Mina’s arms and then grabbed her wrists to stretch her arms atop her head. She asked what he planned, but he only answered with a devilish smirk before summoning a long, translucent fabric that he used to tie her wrists together. His dove gasped when she was dragged farther up over the bed and begged him for another kiss.

“Just wait a little longer, my love,” the demon prince said, blindfolding her with a soft, black cloth before melting a hole on the wooden headboard. Then he slowly passed the fabric through the hole and trapped it by hardening the melted surface.

That will teach her to always stay by my side! Now to find the bastard who is searching for me.

Vergil looked one last time at his mortal wife, warded the room against every manner of creature that wanted to enter except him, of course, and teleported back to the market street. The last place where he had felt his aura.