How to Lose a Demon in 10 Days (12 page)

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Authors: Saranna DeWylde

BOOK: How to Lose a Demon in 10 Days
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“I’m bleeding on the inside.”
Seraphim snorted and rolled her eyes.
“What do I have to do to convince you, angel?” Hades asked, the smile on his face suddenly softening. “What would you like? Shall I break one of the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse like a Communion wafer? What would make you happy, my love? Rivers of blood and plagues of—”
“Stop this nonsense for once. Get me the hooker and we can forget this insanity.”
“I don’t want to forget,” Hades said.
“Fine. I love you. Get me the hooker.” Seraphim struggled to keep her words monotone. Still, she couldn’t deny that a tremendous weight was lifted off her shoulders. But, it wasn’t like a Grand Confession or anything. He had to know she didn’t mean it. Not really.
“More romantic words have never been spoken.” Hades produced the required body, and it dropped unceremoniously on Seraphim’s worktable. “A betrothal gift, perhaps?”
She stared at him. “Have you lost your mind?”
“We can keep a summerhouse in Texas. I’ve always liked Texas.”
Seraphim eyed the heavens. “He’s lost it. Really, he has.” She glanced back at Hades. “I have some supplies I need to acquire, and I think you have a rebellion to quell.”
“Not outright rebellion, no. But there is talk. I was thinking of retiring.”
“Can you retire from being the Devil?” Seraphim was incredulous that he’d even suggested it.
“I don’t know if anyone has tried. I guess we’ll find out. But not until I’ve cleaned all this up, of course.”
Seraphim was unconvinced. “Why now? You haven’t even been in office a century.”
He looked serious. “Honestly, because it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I love you, Seraphim. I want to be with you.”
If she’d been made of anything less than steel, she would have cried. She turned away to find her broom. “And you said you weren’t going to rip my heart out of my chest.”
“We’re not done here. But we’ll talk after you’ve raised Jill.”
Damn him! Then Seraphim realized she’d have to get a more original curse. Something with more teeth. Hades was already damned, so this really wasn’t much of an oath. She also realized that she’d said it about ten times since seeing him again. It didn’t continually pack the same punch.
“And I hate Texas!” she snapped, but he was gone. She hated that he always had the last word.
He popped back. “You didn’t hate that weekend on Padre Island.” Then he disappeared again.
If he was serious, which she doubted, she’d take the house on Padre.
Sighing, Seraphim grabbed her broom and headed to Haiti. She liked Haiti. The children all knew her for what she was, though in Haiti they called her a
loa,
a type of guardian. So did the man she would see about the powder. They called him Papa, in reverence to
Papa Legba,
the spirit god that was said to possess him from time to time.
Then she would be off to Ireland for the best shea butter available. One had to keep the flesh pliant to get the soul back in, and long enough at least to bind mortal flesh to demonic.
C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN
A Rabid Rabbit Assassination
G
race was watching Caspian sleep after another wild romp between the sheets. They’d been rutting like rabbits on ambergris since he’d come topside a week ago to answer her summons. What was
with
her? She’d never been quite this into anyone. It was amazing.
Worse, this behavior was completely unacceptable—staring at him while he slept. For her, for him, for the masses that saw the Virgin Mary in a
gordita,
for the universe in general; she knew this was wrong for everyone. It was just that he looked so innocent when he slept; she was forced to recall the taste of him and the images that invoked. Such sweet innocence. The summer rain on her tongue, everything fresh and new. Was that one of his survival mechanisms? Was he like a chameleon; he could blend to match whatever she found most desirable? Or perhaps he mimicked that which she most lamented losing—her own innocence.
His scent wasn’t pure at all. It was male, dominant and delicious. It made her tingle in all the right places. But his face made her soft. Black lashes against those tanned, sculpted cheeks. She wondered if he was tan from the glare of all that raging hellfire. Then she realized Hell was probably nothing like she thought.
She wanted to see his wings again, touch them. Grace remembered that they were downy and black like a raven’s wings, not the hard, stretched skin like a bat’s that she’d thought demons would have. Even those rolling waves of flame had been stunning. Yes, man or demon, Caspian was a beautiful specimen.
Grace ghosted her fingertips up to let his again-black hair curl around her finger. It still felt like silk, soft and shiny. It was hair that a woman would kill for, just like those decadent lashes. Yet, there was nothing feminine about him. He was all hard, caveman alpha dog.
She wondered again what it was like to be him, how he perceived the world. If he was lonely. If it was an unknown ache that had hurt so long that he didn’t know anything else. She couldn’t get past his admission that he’d forgotten what it was like to be angry. Grace had thought he was subhuman because he was a demon, that he didn’t understand the workings of a human heart, but maybe he did. Maybe he comprehended more than any mortal.
He’d been born to a human mother, she knew. What was that like? Had he always known that he was to become a demon because of his heritage? She wanted to ask him so many questions, but she also needed him to leave. It was the strangest thing. This wasn’t just about Michael and Nikoli anymore. She needed him to leave for her own peace of mind. She was starting to crave his touch. Sex with a mortal man was now going to always leave her wanting something more, which led to a different fear. This was supposed to be just a business transaction, these encounters. She wasn’t supposed to look forward to them. But she did.
Grace knew where this would lead if it continued. She wasn’t stupid. Of course, she’d fallen for Michael before she knew the full truth about him, and that had been pretty dumb. She just couldn’t resist the bad boys, especially when they seemed slightly redeemable. That had to be where Caspian’s power began. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt her and suddenly she’d shoved him into armor that, albeit black, had its own special shine. Next thing she knew, she’d have him wielding a sword and asking her to let down her hair so he could climb up her tower and rescue her.
The reality of it was, however, if she fell in love with Caspian, painting him up like a French whore with her antihero cosmetics, she’d spend her life waiting for him to pop in and visit. She’d be alone with her spells and crochet, and the next time she looked in the mirror she’d be an old woman with no family, having never lived life. And, Caspian would almost certainly lose interest when she became too old to be exciting. He might like fucking her now, but demons didn’t have hearts. He couldn’t fall in love with her. It was all an exercise in futility. She didn’t even know why she was thinking about love. It wasn’t like she had such soft feelings anymore. She’d learned better.
Her fingers strayed to Caspian’s shoulders, his biceps, down his forearm to his hands. Goddess, how she loved his hands. The things those hands had done to her, the way those fingers had moved inside her. His fingers were long and elegant but strong and talented.
She twined her fingers with his and exhaled deeply, rolled onto her back, and drifted off to sleep. But only seconds later she started awake again because his arm clamped down on her belly. It was like being caught in a Chinese finger trap; the more she struggled, the tighter he held her. She slapped at his hand to get him to let go, but of course, it did no good. He was still sleeping like a coma patient.
This was going to end in the “suck” column, because she really had to pee. And sweet bleeding hell of hells, it had begun raining outside. The gentle pitter-patter of the raindrops hitting the window would have been enough torture by themselves, but she could hear the water trickling through the downspout like a musical waterfall.
Grace tried to clamp her thighs together, but it didn’t seem to help. Dreaming of a trip to the porcelain god, she struggled against Caspian but accomplished nothing. Well, that wasn’t completely true; she felt his erection pressing against her rump as she managed to roll over. So . . . she’d accomplished a hard-on. Or it could just be the Morning Wood fairy. She didn’t know if demons were susceptible to that.
She squirmed some more, hoping that if she rubbed against him enough, it would wake him up and he’d let her go. No such luck was to be had. Grace only had enough room to roll over, back to Caspian. She did so and pinched his nose shut, hoping that would wake him up, waited patiently for his brain to tell the rest of the body that he was getting no oxygen and to rise before his life functions ceased. But after her arm ached from holding his nostrils together, she realized he didn’t actually have any life functions.
She was about to let go when his eyes popped open. There was almost an audible snap. Grace shrieked and dropped her arm, and a moment later found herself flat on her back with a horny demon atop her.
“Not nice, Gracie,” he said against the edge of her mouth. He didn’t even have morning breath. She didn’t know whether to be thankful or jealous.
“What’s not nice is that I have to pee and you won’t let go of me. Now, get off unless you want a . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, even as a silly threat. He might just be that perverse.
She suddenly found herself sitting atop the aforementioned porcelain god. Of course, Caspian had forgotten to miracle her knickers down.
“Will you stop that? You can’t just transport—” she called out.
She was interrupted by the slamming of the bathroom door. Obviously, he wasn’t as perverse as she’d thought. This made her unreasonably happy. Grace was a big fan of never being so comfortable with someone that it was okay to leave the bathroom door open. After all, if she was to put her mouth anywhere, she didn’t want to see—
She decided not to pursue that thought.
When everything was finished, she found herself back on the bed underneath Caspian, just as she’d left him.
“You really have to stop that.”
Caspian didn’t say anything, just crushed his mouth to hers. Grace was immediately on fire. His talented tongue ignited sensations in her akin to dropping a blowtorch in a drum of gasoline. She needed him in a way that was previously unknown to her, which was totally unacceptable. This was
business
. She had to get rid of him fast—and yet the bad-sex idea was still at the very bottom of her list of plausible courses of action.
She broke away. “Wait.” She was going to ask him what he was thinking about right now. She was going to be disgustingly cute about it, too. He was male, so this had to work. Of course, she’d said that before.
“For what?” His hand slid to her breast, and his thumb across her nipple caused it to peak. Sensations shot from the sensitive bud deep into her belly.
“I want to know what you’re thinking about.” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. Damn it! She must really want to know what he was thinking. That couldn’t be good. Why did he have to think at all? He was eye candy. Who cared what he thought?
Apparently, she did.
His brow furrowed and he seemed confused. “What do you think I’m thinking about? You.”
Oh! That warmed her insides, but the warmth was far from comfortable. It began a wildfire, knowing that Caspian was concentrating on nothing but her. But what had she expected? Did she picture him pondering the exchange rate of the zloty against the U.S. dollar? Maybe the plight of the Galapagos booby? She was repeatedly amazed by her own naïveté.
“Well, what
about
me?” she demurred, her hand on his chest, his deliciously wide expanse of chest. Oh, this was hard. And so was that rock of manhood seeking entry between her thighs, making her all wet and slippery. How could she tell him that the club was closed, its velvet rope drawn shut, when her body was being so traitorous? She was standing there holding the doors wide open and bringing him in for a landing like a 747. She was even holding glow sticks.
“Caspian—” she began.
He closed his mouth over that same nipple and looked up at her.
“I’m serious,” she managed.
“Balls deep, baby doll. That’s what I’m thinking about.” His mouth was poised over her breast, his breath doing damnable things to that responsive flesh.
“That’s it?” she prevaricated.
“What do you want me to be thinking about? The gestation of a Galapagos turtle?”
Grace scowled. She’d just been thinking that word, “Galapagos.” Was he in her head again?
He laughed. “Oh, come now.”
Come? Yes! Right now. Oh, please.
But Grace didn’t listen to her body.
“You know you’d be angry if I was thinking about anything but being with you. What’s with all this conversation stuff anyway? We speak an older language. A more primal dialect.” He licked his lips before flashing his pearly whites and dipping his mouth back to its task.
Grace hated herself for a moment, but luxuriated in sensation. Then, she didn’t know where or how, but she found the strength to move her hand up to palm his face and stopped him mid-delight.
Caspian sighed. “What now? I can’t give you mind-numbing, earth-shattering, clit-wrecking pleasure if you keep interrupting me.”
“Maybe I don’t want mind-numbing, earth-shattering, clit-wrecking pleasure. Did you ever think about that? Hmm? I bet not.”
Right. Because it was so horrible and awful, and not at all what a sane woman would be after. Not that she had all of the sandwiches in her picnic basket. Grace wanted to shake herself, to rattle her teeth out of her head like pennies from a piggy bank for being so stupid. Talk about cutting off her nose to spite her face. She shouldn’t desire him as much as she did.
“Uh, no, Grace. I actually never did think about that. I thought we were past it.”
“What’s that supposed mean?”
“You know very well what it means,” he replied.
“You mean, when I first summoned you and you did that female change-y thing? Just because I said okay then? Well, a onetime ‘yes’ isn’t good for eternity. It’s not like Open Admission Day at Yankee Stadium.”
“Your hand is still on my face.”
“Sorry.” Grace moved her hand but didn’t put it down. She knew the minute she did, Operation Talk Him Out of Your Knickers was a bust, because he would be in them and she would be out.
“Do you want to do that again? Is that what this is about? Fine. We can experiment. I can change form—”
“Caspian!”
“That’s not the right answer either?” His brow furrowed, and she could see his mental wheels spinning fast and furious, clearly seeking the correct response. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve never worked this hard to please a woman. Mortal or no.”
He looked so genuinely confused that Grace actually felt sorry for him—until she imagined him pleasing other women. Immortal women with voodoo punani. All of whom she hated instantly on principle.
Hated? It couldn’t be jealousy. No, never that. She scowled at the thought. But it wasn’t written anywhere that she couldn’t lie to herself. She could tell herself any little thing she pleased. Thank God. Sometimes self-delusion was just what the doctor ordered.
“So, are you going to tell me the right answer or not? Usually that’s what you women do when you start having feelings or . . .” He trailed off, glancing around like a kid caught up to his elbow in the Christmas cookies.
Grace growled. “I’m not having . . . any kind of feelings. What’s wrong with you? Just because I’m female and you give great orgasms doesn’t mean I’m going to get all anime-eyed, a baby seal awaiting your attentions. I’d have to be sixty-three kinds of coconut-flavored dumbass to fall for a demon. Your kind has the attention span of a goldfish.”
“Whoa! I never said you were doing anything of the sort,” Caspian replied.
Grace cursed her idiot tongue and wondered where its filter had gone. She was sure there’d been one installed at birth, right there between her brain and mouth. Apparently, it was on the fritz, or it caught some sort of virus that had eaten its operating system. She would never have vented that little bit of information otherwise.

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