Blood roses: a Duke x reader story

Chapter 5

Hello my beasties! It's finally here! We're journeying back to the land of the dead where Duke will soon meet again with a figure from his past...(Random bonus note from like two years later where I'm two years older and a hell or a lot wiser: THIS IS A REWRITE. Mainly because I totally hate how I handled Duke and Lilith's scene, and I have a lot of ideas for how I want to re-write it....... And I think I can fix it now!)

But anyway, my first OC will be appearing in this chapter and I'm very excited to start including her in the story! The song above will be an introduction of sorts to my OC (It seems to fit her character) but watch the video from 0:00 to 0:41 and take a look at the final verse at the end because I'm not willing to put a whole song into the chapter again. Anyway, let us return to the land of the dead, where we open on the outside of one of the nastiest places in the underworld, Tartarus, where some of the nastiest beasts are imprisoned.....

Oh yeah, and since I'm editing and what-not, this chapter's going to feature some of that good stuff...... mainly complicated feelings and Duke kinda being terrible(but then again, Duke is kinda a terrible person... That's why we love him.), all good stuff (or at least it's stuff that I enjoy and think you darlings will enjoy too!)! Anyway, hope you guys enjoy!

Dukes P.O.V:

Outside Tartarus loomed ahead. Stepping out of the boat and tossing a coin to the ferryman Charon, Duke gazed up at the foreboding prison ahead of him. Damn, no matter how many times he saw this place, he was always filled with the same feeling.

What was it called..... Oh yeah..... terror. That's it. At least he never let it show directly how unsettled he was by this place, considering if fate had pulled a different card, he would have been confined in a practically inescapable cell for the rest of eternity, no chance of escape, no chance to enjoy the finer pleasures of the afterlife...... And he knew an afterlife without the chance to enjoy himself would be a fate worse than.... well, you know......

Jeez, even thinking about it sent a proverbial chill down his spine.

 He'd  been here over a year and he was still shocked into silence whenever he even went near the imposing place. But guess that's the effect a prison specifically designed to hold the worst of the worst for the rest of eternity was supposed to do......

And jeez, wasn't the whole decaptated heads upon an iron pike thing just a tad overdone? So fifteenth century. Wouldn't it have made more sense to add a little more skulls along those imposing looking stone walls? Seriously, who was the decorator down here.....

But then again, Tartarus was pretty piss-your-pants terrifying anyhow, even if you weren't being held as a prisoner. Guess that was the whole point of the place, after all.

 But who could blame him, some of the most evil souls in the underworld were held here including her.... The woman who still tormented him, who invaded the far reaches of his thoughts all these centuries later, the woman who he adored, whom he despised......

Shaking off his uneasiness, Duke started up the winding staircase built onto the side of the prison, his boots echoing against the onyx steps.

The cries of the damned and imprisoned echoed throughout the prison, a strange, almost deliciously dark type of music to his ears but he ignored them as he approached a recently familiar dark-skinned man with a top hat and wearing a dark suit. The man turned around, suddenly realizing that Duke was right behind him.

"My liege, I didn't realize that you were here.." With a tip of his hat, the smoothly accented man turned out an elegant bow, 

Duke waved off the man's simpering. Geez, he still wasn't entirely used to the whole "bowing before your supreme ruler" thing that very few of the denizens. But enough of that, it was time to turn on some of the wickedness and callousness....... "Enough of that Fallicier, I've come here for one reason and that's not to listen to you making excuses." (A/N: Yes, Dr.Fallicier is the "keeper of the keys" in the underworld, because Duke decided that this human would be useful in serving him.... And yes, I will probably forget about this at some point or reference something different instead of this, so I apologize ahead of time. )