Damned if I do | Damned trilogy #1

Chapter One: Drake

"Son!" the dude who was not winning father of the year yelled as he threw open my bedroom doors dramatically.

I sat up, the girls giggling as they tumbled to my sides. "What now?" I asked him.

"Human children would be expected to show their parents more respect than you get away without," he said, his voice low and deep.

"Human children are far more expendable than me, apparently."

His eyes glowed red as he glared at me.

I couldn't have told you if we looked similar, if we looked like father and son. He was definitely my father though – not sure where else I got what he termed 'made me special'. I didn't even know what he really looked like. But most of the time, he looked like a suave middle-aged man with a fondness for dress-ups and musical theatre.

"Leave us," he told the girls.

They scrambled out of my bed, picked up their clothes and ran out. I raked a hand through my hair and didn't move. The sheet covered my lower half, but I wouldn't much have cared if it didn't.

"What do you want, Dad?" I asked with a sigh. "More babies for eternal torment? Or, is it virgins today? The corruption of a powerful soul? Oh no, wait. They tend to do that all by themselves these days."

"When you're done with your sarcasm..." my father warned before he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You do not know how I regret the years you spent with your mother."

"You do not know how I regret the years I spent without her."

"It was the best for you."

"Your father, sir," Truman puffed as he skidded into the room.

"Yeah, I worked that one out. Thanks, lads," I said to him as Kyle and Ignacio ran into the back of him. I ignored the three devilbums and turned to my father again. "If I'm immortal, it was irrelevant, wasn't it?" I snapped. "I could have stayed with her through her natural life then come to you."

Dad held his hand up as though it was obvious. "It is unseemly for a Prince of Hell to be raised by humans!"

"Firstly, not technically a Prince of Hell. Secondly, maybe you should stop fucking random human women, then."

His glare hardened. "On the topic of unseemly, it is time you found a wife."

Well, that certainly hadn't been what I was expecting and it certainly shut me up. Kyle had his claws over his mouth in excited anticipation. Ignacio was watching the room with his usual state of distrust. Truman was standing patiently with his arms behind his back, rocking back slightly on his hooves. And my father and I just stared at each other for ages.

"Sorry. You, what?" I finally asked when he didn't elaborate.

"A Prince of Hell–"

"Not that kind of Prince..." I interjected with a mutter.

"A prince of Hell..." he paused for my approval and I nodded, "should be married. It's unseemly that my last living son is unmarried after all these years."

I'd been wondering when Dad was going to get his next big idea stuck in his head. It had been ages since he'd turned Hell upside down in the quest to see through his latest endeavour. It now seemed that his new endeavour was going to involve me and nuptials. Well, if I was going to be looking at Grandad knew how long of him annoying the Heaven out of me, the least I could do was annoy him a little first.

"Oh, Esther's kids will love that. 'Sorry, boys, no Christmas presents this year, I've just remembered you don't count'–"

"Would you shut up?" Dad sighed. But he tended to get that way at any mention of my step-mother. Although, was she really a step-mother if they were married before I was conceived...?