by Мишель Роуэн
He sighed. “Honestly Valerie, I’ve never met anyone so vain.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to call me vain. After everything I’ve been through today.”
“See? I, I, I, I. It’s all about you.”
“But—”
He grabbed her arm. “Do you seriously believe that everything that has happened, from
Julian’s theft of the key to Reggie’s current unknown location, is all your fault?”
She nodded. “Of course it is.”
“And that’s why you tried to get Julian alone? In the hope of stealing the key right from underneath his nose?”
“I almost had him.”
“No you didn’t. You’re fooling yourself. Had you tried to take the key from him, he would have ended you without a second thought. I have no doubt of that.”
She stared at him fiercely for a moment before her shoulders dropped. “You’re right. But at least I would have tried. Instead of being a big old chicken who runs away at the first opportunity.”
“A very beautiful, incredibly annoying chicken,” he said, with a small smile.
She eyed him warily. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”
“Is it working?”
“Not even close. So what are we going to do now?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking me?”
“At the moment I’m extremely open to suggestion.”
“Very well. Here’s my suggestion, my little angel. I will return to the mansion, find your friend, and deliver him back to the earthly realm where he can work out his domestic issues with his girlfriend.”
“Okay. So what about me? What am I supposed to do?”
“You will go back to your home.”
“The motel?”
“No.” He paused. “Heaven.”
“Oh, that home. Right. And how exactly do you propose I do that?”
Nathaniel pulled a long gold chain out from underneath his gray-striped shirt.
Val stared at him, gaping at the golden key the demon now wore.
Chapter Eighteen
Nathaniel’s lips twitched with amusement at her shocked expression.
“How?” Val said. “But, Julian had it, and now you . . . did you fight him for it?”
“Julian would have fought me to the end of time for this, I believe. But he couldn’t once he was unconscious. I simply removed it from around his neck.”
She reached out to almost touch it, but then pulled her hand back again. “The key.”
He looked down it. “This is the correct one, I hope.”
She nodded. “It is. Definitely.”
“I can feel its power. It hums against my skin.”
Before she could say another thing, Nathaniel slipped the chain from around his neck and held it out to her.
“Here.”
Her gaze flashed up to meet his in shock and amazement. “You’re giving it to me? Just like that?”
“Wasn’t that the reason for this trip to the Underworld in the first place?”
Her hand moved up to twist nervously through her hair. “Well, yeah. Of course.”
“Then take it.”
“Aren’t you afraid of what’s going to happen to you by helping me like this?”
He stepped closer to her and took her hand in his to place the chain and key into it.
“The key is yours. Don’t worry about me.”
She looked up at him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Do I have to have a reason?”
Val’s heart beat so loud and fast she thought it might burst from her chest. “For this? Uh, yeah, you do. Not that I’m not happy about it, don’t get me wrong. But look, I’ve known you for precisely three days. Has it even been that long? In that time I’ve pissed you off, you’ve pissed me off, I summoned you and have been bossing you around for the longest two days of my human life, you tell me the first moment you’re free you will make me pay dearly for the unpleasantness I’ve put you through, and now, after all of that, you hand me exactly what I’ve been searching for? When I know very well—thanks to Lloyd—what major trouble you’re already in with head office. Yeah. I want to know why.”
He turned toward the door. “I need to go find your rodent.”
Val grabbed his arm. “I command you to give me an answer, Nathaniel.”
His shoulder twitched, and he turned around to stare flames at her. “Don’t do this.”
“Why? Just tell me why.”
“I’ve given you the key because”—he grimaced—“I want you to be happy.”
Val’s eyebrows shot up. “Say what?”
He glared at her. “Happy. You. Being happy. So now that you have the key you can go back to Heaven.”
She stared at him, then blankly at the key in her hand as she tried to process what he’d just said.
He studied her stunned reaction for a moment. “You’ll notice that you didn’t have to command me to give the key back to you.”
She blinked. “I did notice that.”
“Then stop making me want to wring your neck and just go. Use your key. Go back to your fluffy white cloud.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Whatever.” He met her eyes. “Just be happy, Valerie.”
“You really want me to be happy?” She looked down at the key again.
“How many times do I have to say it before you’ll believe me? Yes.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “You ask a lot of questions.”
She stared at him for a moment longer and wondered if she should command him to tell her why. But instead she took a decisive step toward him and threw her arms around his solid frame to hug him tightly to her. “Thank you.”
He wants me to be happy, she thought with amazement.
Nathaniel, a Tempter Demon, whose assignment it was to lure her, a fallen angel, to Hell . . . wanted her to be happy. And he was willing to risk his own existence to ensure it.
She frowned and stepped back from him. How did that make any sense? He’d only known her three days and he was willing to risk that much?
He looked at her uncertainly.
No. Scratch that. He must want her gone. That was all it was. Had to be.
Out of his life. Out of his hair. And not along for the ride to rescue Reggie.
“No,” she finally said.
“What do you mean, no?”
Val slipped the chain over her head and felt the comforting weight of the key drop against her chest. “Here’s my plan. You glamour me up again and we go back to the mansion and get
Reggie. Then we all go back to the motel. I can’t go anywhere until I get back to Barlow.”
He shook his head. “You’re not going back to the mansion.”
“Why not?”
“I have to explain this to you? Julian isn’t vanquished, I’ll have you know. He’s going to be looking for you, glamour or no glamour, and now he knows I’ve taken the key he’ll be looking for me, too. And you tell me that he’s Lucifer’s son, a little piece of information I wish I’d known before I just beat the shit out of him. You want to walk back into that?”
“I don’t see that I have any choice.”
“You do have a choice.” Exasperation colored every one of his words. “I’ll find Reggie. Trust me.”
She felt her bottom lip start to quiver. “It’s my fault Reggie’s stuck at the mansion in the first place. I don’t care what you say, it’s all my fault.”
She covered her face with her hands and started to cry. She knew she was a nervous wreck.
Prozac, here I come, she thought.
Nathaniel grabbed her wrists and pulled them away from her face. “Stop crying.”
She continued to blubber.
“Damn it, Valerie. Stop crying.”
She momentarily put the floodworks on pause and looked up at him.
His frown was very deep. “You’ve gone after this key with everything you’ve got. Liste
n to me. Do you know how amazing that is? You’re just so filled with light and life I can barely believe you’re real. No one else I’ve ever known in my entire existence could make me go from despising them to adoring them in less than three days.”
She blinked back a tear. “Huh?”
“You heard me.”
“No, I don’t think I did.”
“Valerie, you make me feel . . .” He trailed off and frowned.
“Feel what?”
He glared at her. “Just feel.”
“Why are you looking at me like that’s a bad thing?”
He let go of her. “Because it is. The whole demon/ angel thing? Not good. I don’t want to feel this way. But I can’t help it anymore.”
“So that’s why you want to get rid of me?”
“What are you talking about now?”
Val sighed. “You want me to use the key so I’m not around anymore.”
“I want you to use the key so you can be happy.”
She frowned. “Can we rewind a little? Seriously, I’m really confused—”
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to him and kissed her deeply.
He adored her? What was he, crazy or something?
Just then, she heard a cell phone.
“Um . . .” She pulled away a little and looked up at him. “I think your pants are ringing.”
Without moving his gaze from her face, he reached into his pocket to pull out the small phone, then quickly glanced at the call display. He pressed a button and slid it back in his pocket. “They can wait.”
“You don’t want to get in any more trouble than you’re already in.” She frowned again, thinking about Julian’s cell phone exchange with the head office earlier. “So, now what do—”
He sighed. “What more do I have to do to prove myself to you?” He kissed her again.
She pushed against his chest, feeling dizzy and unsteady on her feet. “Look, buddy. Reggie’s not going to wait at that mansion forever, you know. We’re talking priorities here. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I—”
Third time was the charm. She finally shut up.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her up the flight of stairs without another word.
Reggie could keep himself occupied at the mansion till the cavalry rode in, she thought. He was a self-sufficient rodent, after all.
Nathaniel explored her mouth fully and completely before he moved down her body in hot, electric lines. Val wasn’t thinking about anything anymore. It didn’t matter where they were.
Heaven, Earth, the Underworld, Hell. She was with him. He was with her. And it felt so right.
So perfect.
This is Heaven, she thought.
Oh.
No, wait. That was Heaven.
“Valerie . . .” Nathaniel moaned just before he met her lips again.
“Uh-huh?”
“Is this okay?”
“Oh . . . yeah.”
“Good.” He smiled at her, his mouth only a couple of inches from her own.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re sure you’re not going to stop this time? Maybe throw another side table? You want to just get it out of your system?”
He leaned back to look down at her, his eyes were dark with desire now . . . no flames need apply. “Not unless you want me to stop.”
“Um. Nope.” She ran her hands through his hair, down his back. “It’s all good.”
“Good.” He moved down to kiss her neck, her collarbone, and—
She grabbed his face and pulled him up to meet her gaze again. “Nathaniel . . . what about the rules?”
“What about the rules?”
“Aren’t you worried they’re going to find out?”
He stared down at her and smiled. “I don’t care about the rules anymore.”
“That’s not a very good answer. Nathaniel?”
“Yes?”
“Is that your cell phone again?”
“Ignore it.”
“But aren’t they—”
“Just ignore it.” He kissed her slowly and deeply, and then pulled back again to stare into her eyes as she held his handsome face in her hands. “Oh, and Valerie . . .”
“Mm-hmm?”
He nuzzled close to her neck and his lips grazed against her ear. “Remember that ‘adoring you’ thing I mentioned earlier?”
“Uh-huh?”
“I lied about that.”
She immediately tensed up and a breath caught in her throat. “What?”
“I don’t adore you. I . . .” He leaned back for the barest of moments to capture her gaze in his suddenly uncertain one. “I . . . love you.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Nathaniel?”
“Yes?”
“I love you, too. Now shut up already.”
There was a moment of complete and utter bliss, of two bodies, two souls becoming one. A taste of Heaven . . . before it all shattered.
Nathaniel screamed and clutched at his head before he slid completely off the bed and onto
Lloyd’s hardwood floor.
Val clutched the bedsheet to her, her eyes wide. “What’s wrong? What are you doing?”
She watched his chest rise and fall with his labored breaths. “Shit,” he managed. “Shit!”
“What? Talk to me!”
He scrambled for his black pants, now in a ball at the end of the bed—he was searching for something. He pulled out his cell phone and stared at it, then swore loudly and threw the phone against the wall where it shattered. Then he clutched his head again and screamed.
Val was beside herself by this time. What was happening to him? Everything was fine, and wonderful, and well, damn near perfect only moments ago when they’d made love, and now he was freaking out. What was going on?
He scooted back into the corner and held his knees to his chest. “I honestly didn’t think they’d find out about us. Stupid. I’m so stupid. Oh Valerie, I’m so sorry.”
“What?” She practically fell off the bed and crawled to his side. She grabbed his arm but he pushed her away, “No . . . don’t touch me . . .”
“What’s going on? Please! Nathaniel, tell me.”
He looked at her then, a half-crazed look in his eyes. “Head office. I . . . I didn’t answer their call. And now, they’re—”
He screamed again and clutched his head.
Val’s entire body shook as she helplessly watched him suffer.
He calmed down enough to say, “They’re . . . summoning me. Right now.” He pressed his hands against his head. “They’re in here. But I can’t move. I can’t leave this place or you.” He met her eyes. “Please . . . you have to help—”
He convulsed and curled up into the fetal position.
She stared at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. Hell was summoning him. They knew he’d just broken the rules by making love to her. Shit. Shit! And he couldn’t move, he couldn’t answer them because he was still bound to her.
“Nathaniel.” She gently touched his back and he flinched as if it caused him additional pain.
“I can fix this. I can. Just try to hold on.”
Where was it? She stood up on shaky legs and tore through the room looking for her jeans.
The summoning crystal Claire had given her. It had to be there. Where the hell were her jeans?
She looked up. Oh. Um, okay.
She yanked her jeans off the ceiling fan and said a silent prayer that the summoning crystal hadn’t disappeared during the course of the day. She honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d touched it. For the first little while during their trip to the Underworld she’d touched it in her pocket regularly to reassure herself that Nathaniel was still bound to her. But over the last few hours she’d completely forgotten about it.
Please. Please, let it still be here, she thought frantically.
She slid her hand into the pocket as she heard Nathaniel gasp in pain. The sound made he
r physically hurt. There. There it is. She exhaled deeply with relief as she wrapped her fingers around the cold, hard crystal and pulled it out. She squeezed it and frowned as she looked over at Nathaniel. His body seemed almost distorted, as if he was being reflected in a fun house mirror. Stretched. Like he was being pulled in two different directions. He cried out again in agony.
“Valerie!”
She clutched the crystal tight enough to hurt. “I release you! You are no longer bound to me!”
But nothing happened. He continued to suffer, but managed to look up at her through pain-
filled eyes. “It’s okay, my beautiful angel. If this is to be my end, then I will accept my fate—
” He gasped for breath and yelled, “Shit! I take it back. Valerie—damn it—do something! Do anything!”
“Okay! I’m trying!”
She squeezed the crystal even tighter. “Just release him. Let him go. Now. I demand it!” She stared at him. “I don’t know what to do. Claire never told me how to break the summoning.”
She tried again. And again. But no words she said seemed to make a damn bit of difference.
She couldn’t bear to watch him suffer any longer. It was going to drive her mad with grief.
She felt an anger such as she’d never felt before well up inside of her, spilling over as she failed and failed again. Time after time. Her words were just words. They had no power to save him from this. She wasn’t a witch like Claire. She had no power to stop this. He was being destroyed right in front of her.
And again, it was all her fault.
Val swore, so loud she thought she felt the house shudder under her feet and, frustrated, she threw the crystal as hard as she could against the wall.
The crystal shattered and fell like sparkling dust—like the shadow salt that had bound him to her in the first place—to cover Nathaniel where he lay curled up on the floor.
She saw his shoulders immediately relax, and he swallowed. His chest rose and fell with his labored breathing. He pressed a shaking hand against the hardwood floor and pushed himself halfway up to look at her. A small smile began to form on his beautiful face and she knew the pain had gone. It was okay. He was okay. She let out a long, shaky sigh of relief.