These past twenty-four hours had me feeling like I was in some type of limbo. Seesawing between acclimating to this new reality, and fighting back the need to jump into the furnace half-cocked. My anxiety levels were through the roof. I needed Persallus dead yesterday. At the same time, I was afraid, as I had every right to be. My death experience last night continued to keep me on edge, and learning about being a demon made me feel like both predator and prey. After all, I hadn’t asked for this. Normally when someone died, they didn’t come back as an actual prince of hell…

But something about being with Lumi brought me comfort, like, everything was going to be okay. She didn’t make a big deal about anything, her care-free and easy attitude radiating off of her as we sat in the bus for campus. To her, this was commonplace, and her being so nonchalant about my new arrangement was starting to rub off on me.

Being a reincarnation of Samael? Normal.

On a mission to fight demons? Normal.

Having a harem of demon girls living on your college campus? Pretty f’ing sweet.

The longer I sat next to her swimming in another oversized shirt from my bigger days on the bus, the more the idea of us being together felt natural. To be honest, it felt like I’d known her all of my life…

That would explain why she felt less of a stranger than she should have been.

“You want some?” She offered me the tuna sandwich she’d made in my apartment when I glanced down at her, that cute smile on her face as she chewed bringing out a smile of my own.

“No thanks. I’m still not hungry…” Not in the traditional sense at least. There was a different type of hunger overwhelming me as I sat in a bus filled with humans…

When we arrived, Lumi led the way. It was Saturday, but the club doors were still open. The campus ran twenty-four seven, class sizes not dropping any even on the weekends. The number of actively enrolled students at any given year was high. So when Lumi walked to the opposite side of where I took all of my classes, it made sense why I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting my harem sooner.

I’d almost forgotten how big this university really was…

Well, what Lumi had said earlier about demon deals started to resonate with me. Desperate people made desperate decisions. And I’d bet my Magic card collection that at least half of these students had their parents sign on the dotted line for bragging rights.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t relate with how anyone would sell their soul to attend this cutthroat school, the only university in the state that required uniforms during class hours. Sure, CU was an Ivy League school, but a soul was a soul. A soul should be seen as priceless, not a means to getting a fancy degree over a mantle.

“We’re here!” Lumi cheered, the both of us standing in front of a tall mahogany door. Chills suddenly swept me out of nowhere. I had no clue why I was sweating bullets! I mean, these girls were already mine, right? They were part of the House of Samael.

Even so, I could barely handle one girl in my previous life, let alone a group of them. I’d forgotten to ask Lumi how many girls were in there, all of this bottled up nervous anticipation pouring out at once.

When she opened up the door, I was greeted with a white lacey number wedged between two round ass cheeks. It was the first thing to catch my eye, followed by the pair of smooth legs and the black-haired girl hovering over a chess table. “Oh?” she whispered softly as I stared under her incredibly short skirt, and then her demeanor shifted faster than I could bat an eye.

“Lunch!” she screeched, leaping on the armchair and over to me with madness flickering in her excited eyes. “Oh Lumi, you shouldn’t have!”

Lumi jumped. “Wait, Ruby!”

This Ruby girl grabbed me by my wrist and dragged me to the couch stitched in crimson red upholstery. I was tossed so abruptly that I didn’t get to digest the idea that she wanted to digest me! And she was adamant about it, curling on my lap, and tilting my head up so she could inspect me. “What a catch! He looks positively delicious!”

I grunted. “Hey! Wait a minute—”

She took a hard whiff of me, basking in my scent. “Mmm, he has such a nice manly musk, too! I’m getting so wet!”

Lumi blushed and deadpanned. “Ruby...”

“What a sexy meal, I’ve been starving for days!”

“Okay, now you’re being overdramatic!” Lumi huffed at her.

Ruby stroked up my hair before she grabbed a handful of it. The feisty girl yanked down on them and then licked along my neck, her wet tongue pressed up against my vein. I tensed up when her warm breath rolled off my skin, feeling her fangs elongate over my neck. It was now I caught the faint scent of sulfur from her, the telltale mark of a demon. “You’re the perfect answer for my drought, you tasty mouth-watering piece of eye candy. Tell me, mister tall, dark, and handsome, have you ever done it with a demon before?” she cooed, pulling down the collar of her white uniform top, flashing me her bouncy cleavage. “I could show you a good time before things get real bloody.”

“You sure know how to charm them, don’t you, Ruby?” her pink-haired chess opponent in glasses eating a donut said before turning over to Lumi. “Lumi, it’s unlike you to bring a snack into the nest.”

“He’s not a snack!” Lumi barked.

“You’re right! He’s a full course meal!” Ruby said, and then gave me a squeeze between my legs.

“Hey!”

“Oh! The size on him!” She blushed, biting the corner of her lip. “We might have to keep you as a ghoul instead. I wouldn’t mind stuffing you in my dungeon for keeps! I’m thinking a red collar. The color would really bring out your eyes.”

“I’m no pet.”

“Who said anything about you being my pet? I want you as a sex slave.”

“Enough embarrassing yourself, Ruby!” Lumi retorted. “He isn’t food, and he isn’t a slave! He is our master!”

Ruby’s eyes jumped, the girl in glasses having the same reaction. “What?”

“His name is Isaac Baldwin. And he is the reincarnation of Prince Samael.”

“This guy?” someone said as she walked out of the hallway. I should have turned away, but my eyes were glued on her naked skin glazed in red. My eyes grew when the scent of blood wafted through my nose, the goth girl with the black bob cut hair and blue eyes looking down at me in my seat. “He’s too scrawny to be Samael,” she dissed me while she wiped the streaks of blood along her cheek.

“Don’t say that, Wren! Sugar bun is plenty strong!” Lumi said, defending me.

“Who cares about looking scrawny? Our prince has a nice and girthy pleasure pleaser! And it’s big enough for all of us!”

“Please excuse my insatiable sister. She allows her horniness to cloud her better judgment.”

I got up as she walked closer to the chess table and addressed her. “I’m not exactly sure what you expected, but I’m not Samael. Not really. That being said, if you don’t approve, you are more than free to leave. I’m here for one thing and one thing only. To save my mother.”

“This is my group,” she said in her mellow and intimidating tone. “I’m the president of the Paranormal Club. If anyone should leave, it’s you.”

“Wren!” Ruby hissed. “Don’t talk to our master like that!”

Wren glossed her eyes over to her sister. “Just a minute ago, you were calling him your slave.”

“That better not be human blood you were bathing in,” I retorted, feeling my stance in this harem taking me in. Something about Wren brought out a different side of me, a more dominant side. She seemed to have been the only one who had a problem with me being here, and I wasn’t going to bend over backwards and take it.

“And what if it was?”

“Don’t worry, master! It’s demon blood!” Lumi defended as she rushed to my side.

“Aren’t demons just spirits in human bodies?”

“Not all of them,” the pink haired girl in glasses said as she got off her seat. She wolfed down the rest of her donut and greeted me with a handshake, her fingertips covered with powdered sugar. “My name is Trista. I’m sort of like the techy girl in your domain. It’s very nice to meet you, master.”

I took her offer with a smile. “Please, call me Isaac.”

She smiled. “Isaac, it seems like there’s a lot you still don’t know about demons. Allow me to introduce you to your harem. You’ve already met Lumi. This is Ruby, and this is Wren, Ruby’s younger sister. We came from an express portal from the Underworld called Lithidicum. This portal is special, and not everyone has access to it. To put things ridiculously simple, there are two ways demons may enter the mortal realm: through the traditional gates of hell as demonic spirits, or through Lithidicum as true demons with both body and soul intact. We are true demons, where passage was granted to us by Samael’s ticket. Only members of the House of Princes and the king himself have access to the Lithidicum portal, but unfortunately, with how things are running down there, that’s no longer the case. What you’re seeing now is our human disguises. Just like Lumi here looks like a neko, we too have our true demonic appearances. We are unable to spot true demons in disguises from possessed humans, but when they get careless and slip into their true monstrous forms, we pluck them out, and reap in the rewards.”

“Blood, master,” Ruby cooed. “Lots and lots of nutritious blood! Except my sister wants to bathe in it! What a waste!”

“So the blood bath that Wren was soaking in came from true demons, those who went through the Lithidicum portal. When they become careless, they become the biggest source of our power. I’m sure Lumi told you about our bloodlust already, right?”

“Yeah. I need blood for power.”

“It’s not only that, Isaac. You need it to survive. If you go below 5%, you’ll fall into a blood psychosis. You won’t be able to control your bloodlust, and see everyone as a resource for blood. And I mean everyone. The mental instability will turn you into a threat for the people, and demons, around you. You will drain your victims dry, and we aren’t exactly immortal beings. Usually when a demon reaches 0%, they die. But in your case, you may come back again, seeing as you are immortal. If you lose enough blood and die, you might come back with a smaller percentage. Right now it’s at 100%. You die once, it goes down to 90%. The second time, 80%. And so on and so forth.”

“You know what that means, right Isaac?” Lumi said, making my head pivot to her. “If you ever get to ten percent, you’re borderline blood psychosis.”

“At 0%, you’d be a mindless demonic pain in the ass,” Wren said sarcastically. “Something we all should suspect will happen sooner than later.”

“Hey, have faith in our sexy stud!” Ruby said, leaning over my shoulder. “He seems like he’s headstrong and fully capable of balancing his bloodlust. After all, he has us to keep him under control.”

“Ruby’s right. Your harem is here to keep your blood levels in check.”

“We have other benefits as well!” Lumi beamed.

“Right,” Trista chuckled. “I’m a Seer. I have the special ability to read demonic contracts off of people. I’m also a class two mage with a lightning proficiency. Lumi has the ability to transform as a familiar, as well as super speed and her eye gouging feline claws. Ruby here is a telepath who can talk to demons telepathically. Along with mind control, she can also turn corpses into pets she could summon whenever she likes. And Wren is telekinetic and a shadow-mancer.”

“Don’t forget your special feat, Trista! You’re the daughter of Gluttony, with the special power of wolfing down pounds and pounds of food in one sitting!” Ruby teased.

I veered to her. “Wait, as in the sin, Gluttony?”

“He’s not just a sin, he’s a knight of hell, as well as the other six deadly sins,” Trista clarified.

“I bet you couldn’t tell, the tiny girl doesn’t have a pudge but she sure eats like her father!” Ruby giggled.

Trista rolled her eyes playfully. “Shut up.”

I smiled. “Well, from what I’ve heard, I see how you all make one hell of an OP team.” I turned over to Wren as she huffed, the girl clearly not accepting of me being her master. She turned around, where I got a back shot of her springy heart-shaped ass. She might have been the sour one in the group, but she was sure sexy, distracting me as she sauntered her way down the hallway she came from without saying another word.

“Hey, ignore her. She’ll come around,” Trista said to me with a friendly smile. “Half the time, she walks around with a stick up her ass, but she means well. Very protective of the nest. Which could explain why she expects a lot from you, Isaac.”

“Well, if she gives me a chance, I’d love to show her what I’m made of.”

Her eyes grew. “Well, look at you. Enthusiastic already.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I have a bone to pick with Persallus.”

Ruby snapped her head at me. “Persallus? You mean, one of the demons of fate?”

Lumi sighed. “Long story. I didn’t get to debrief you guys yet. It was a crazy day!”

Trista raised her eyebrow at me. “Why would you bump into her? You don’t seem like the type who’d be on her list. Unless…”

“Look, I don’t care if I was on some type of list or not. She crossed the line when she went after my mother! I want that bitch dead!”

“Hmm, something’s not right…”

“Trista, Isaac wants to see if his mother had a demon deal,” Lumi asked.

“That I can do. Do you have something that belongs to her?”

“On me? Well… I used to use that girly Hello Kitty pen she gave me as backup, but I got so much flack for it that I tossed it back in her shrine years ago.”

Trista smiled. “Ah, I see your mother is a woman of culture, too.” She pulled out her cell phone with a Hello Kitty protective case, and a dangling kitty chain to match. “Well, we might have to use an alternative if you don’t have anything of hers.”

“Which is?” Lumi asked, her kitty ears twitching up with interest.

“Isaac.”

“Huh?”

“You are a part of her by default. You’re her son,” Ruby said with a sneaky smile.

Lumi furrowed her eyebrows. “Hey, Trist, have you ever done this before? I don’t want you using our master as your guinea pig! May I remind you of the time you zapped my tail?!”

Trista shrugged. “I was a class 1 mage, what do you want from me?”

“All right. Do it,” I said, giving her permission.

“A good sport! Always a nice sign. Okay, I’m going to try reading your mother’s contract. If she has one, of course. This may sting a bit.”

“Trista!” Lumi cried.

“Stop worrying, I got this. I need you to let Isaac’s arm go. You’ll ruin my connection.”

Lumi huffed.

“Quit filling the stereotype and let Isaac do this.”

I turned to Lumi with a warm smile. “Hey, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll learn not to trust Trista, Isaac! She likes to experiment!”

Ruby giggled. “No lie there.”

I snickered, but Lumi pulled away from me as requested.

“If I see his hairs standing up, I’m pulling him out!”

Trista placed her hand on my head that I leaned over to her so she could reach. She closed her eyes and whispered something that sounded like Latin, and then suddenly, it felt like I had a million needles stabbing my brain. The sensation came and went in two seconds—I could hear Lumi whimpering right next to me when I winced. After another ten seconds, Trista pulled her hand away from me and opened her eyes.

“Well,” she said, straightening her glasses. “That was interesting…”

“What? Did my mom have a contract?”

Trista looked up to me with her honey yellow eyes and confirmed, “She did. In fact, her contract was for you.”

“For me?” My stomach tanked. “Shit, don’t tell me that she made a deal with the devil to get me into this school!”

“Oh no, nothing crazy like that. She made a deal with a demon so she could conceive you.”

I choked. “What?”

“See, your mother was infertile. She’d been trying to have a baby for years. When she wouldn’t get pregnant, she sought out other means, after she’d exhausted all options, of course. Someone gave her a pact coin, and she summoned a demon called Ash. I know Ash, he’s a pompous prick, and can be very nefarious. He gave her what she wanted all right, but like most demon pacts, it came with a price. She allowed Ash access into her soul, and his demonic influence crippled her life, as well as the lives of her family. He probably placed a hereditary curse on you and your father, his signature move.”

“Wait, we are listed on the contract?”

“As a side note for Ash, yeah. He usually keeps the names of any immediate family members of the contractee on there for his own reference. Her soul is due on your 21st birthday.”

“What?! That’s a week from now!”

“Isaac, your mother’s been sick for a while, right?” Lumi asked. “How are we so sure it’s Persallus who had rendered her in a vegetative state and not Ash? It sounds like her contract term is coming to an end.”

Trista scratched her chin. “Persallus wasn’t supposed to interfere…”

“Like Lumi said, how are we sure it was her?” Ruby asked.

“Oh, it was her all right! Sasha has a unique flowery smell, and I also caught sulfur in the air when I visited my mom this morning. She killed me quickly, but she wanted my mother to suffer!”

“Did she kill anyone else that you know of? Anyone moral and nice?” Trista asked.

“Nice?”

“It’s customary for the demon of fate to kill malicious people,” Ruby clarified. “Criminals, truly evil humans. Persallus is the daughter of Minos, the judge of the damned. He is a nasty demon who wraps his long tail around each sinner, and the number of wraps equals the circle of hell where the sinner will be tossed into.”

“If her targets aren’t on her list, she is disobeying direct orders from the king, your father, who allows her to fish out bad guys in the mortal realm in the first place,” Trista said.

“Persallus had Sasha kill her family!” I growled. “That girl doesn’t have an evil bone in her body!”

“Then you know what we must do,” Trista said, looking over to Ruby and then to Lumi.

“So wait, that means that Isaac wasn’t of bad blood…” Lumi said, ashamed of herself. “I should have tried to stop her when she killed you…”

Trista’s eyes softened on Lumi. “There was no way of you knowing, Lumi. Same with Carmen.”

“That bitch already has a hit on her head for poisoning my mother and killing me! So I’m in! Whatever it takes! I’ll be the demon that you need to bury her six feet under! Same goes for that demon holding my mother’s contract.”

“Finding both Ash and Persallus won’t be easy,” Lumi said.

“I don’t care. I made a promise to my mother, and I intend on keeping it.”