“Nope. If you want to know, you have to pick Team Hell.”
“You’re a dick.” She sighed, unhappily.
“As you’ve told me. But time to go home now, ducks, or Falcon is going to notice you were gone. If he smells the sulfur, tell him you went out for a smoke.” Ethelred laughed at his own joke.
“If he notices, I’ll tell him the truth.”
“That’s even better. Now, you think about this later. I think you’ll see that we have a great benefit package and the perks are to die for.”
He blinked them back into Falcon’s room, and just to be contrary, took the clothes he’d manifested on her with him. If her eyes could have burned him, he’d be flaming like a marshmallow dropped into a campfire. Only, he wasn’t as gooey on the inside.
Feeling that he’d put in a good day’s work, Ethelred decided it was time for tea at his favorite café in Brussels. Yes, being a demon was much like American Express—membership did indeed have its privileges.
He settled into his chair with his tea and was jostled by the appearance of one Luminista Grey. She popped into the chair opposite him like she was a witch born to it. She was talking, but he didn’t care much for what she had to say. Although, he didn’t mind watching her various bits jiggle about as she expressed herself.
“Did you hear me?” Luminista demanded.
“Everyone heard you, wench. Do be still while I have my breakfast tea.” How had she found him? He was minding his own business in his favorite café in Brussels—nowhere near the Appalachian cabin where he’d left her and Emilian. How had she even gotten there? Although, it was the perfect opportunity to set the first of his plans in motion.
“You’re not having breakfast tea. You’re spying.”
“Pardon me?”
“Cut the crap,” Luminista clarified. “You’re reading tea leaves. And with your demon power, you’re watching poor little Tally.” She snorted.
“So what if I am?” he said, just to be contrary. “She’s been cleaning Cupid’s love gun all morning. She’s rather good at it, actually, so it’s quite a show.”
“I know what you’re thinking and I won’t have it.”
Had he heard her correctly? Perhaps he had brimstone in his ears.
“Don’t act like you didn’t hear me. You’re the only thing that’s keeping my brother from losing his humanity. You need to rearrange your parole schedule or whatever.”
“Yes, Princess. Because the world revolves around you.” Ethelred did enjoy needling her. He hadn’t bothered to tell her that he had, indeed, rearranged not only his schedule, but everything.
“Did you forget the part where the world stops revolving if my brother—”
Ethelred flicked his thumb and his fingers together like little chattery mouths. “Don’t you know any other songs?”
“Okay, how about this one? You’re my demon. Apocalypse Barbie already has an angel. She can’t have you, too.”
“Hmm. And your brother is Apocalypse Ken. Maybe we should set them up? That could be fun.” It really could. It might even solve the cursed end of the world problem.
“No. I don’t want her near anything that belongs to me.”
“Jealous much?” Ethelred arched a brow. He was enjoying this little creature. She was petulant, selfish, demanding, but her insides were soft and melty. Like M&Ms. She was desperate to save her brother, and desperate to be something apart from him as well. There was really so much raw material to work with.
“No.” Her plump bottom lip seemed to swell further with her pout.
“Really, you have nothing to be jealous of. She had it worse than Emilian. He gets to forget what he does when he’s a beast. Tally has to remember those she hurt, killed. Emilian grew up knowing his change would come. His mother’s rage. He never expected her love. A man Tally loved turned her into a portal for some of the darkest magick known to the universe.”
“Do I care? No.”
“Your brother did almost rip her apart.”
“Whatever. He’s done that to me before, too. She needs to grow a pair.”
“Easy for you to judge when you haven’t been in her shoes.”
“Why are you defending her?” Luminista growled.
“How many times must I say it? I’m the Devil’s Advocate.”
“Fine. Advocate.”
He shrugged, finding he had nothing else to say now that she wanted to hear it.
“Okay, then who was the guy with the pink wings? I really liked those guns.”
Ethelred found himself unreasonably irritated. “He belongs to Tally.”
“Oh, really? Well, if she gets what belongs to me . . .” Luminista smirked, as if all of her machinations had just manifested in one big trophy.
“I don’t belong to you, you tiresome slag.” He sipped his tea. “That guy was Cupid. Would you like to know how he got the job?”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me, whether I want you to or not.”
“Why yes, yes I am.” He was pleased. “You’re learning. The little witch became a lamia. He and his brothers—”
“He has brothers?”
“He’s one of three. Triplets.”
“Dear Goddess, save me. There’s more than one of him?”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Yes, back to me. “Drusilla Tallow increased the ranks of both Heaven and Hell by leaps and bounds. She’s had power unlike anything you shall ever know.” He couldn’t resist a little dig at her. She deserved to suffer for making him feel things for her. It was her fault, after all. He’d told her what the consequences would be if she didn’t take her proposition back, but no. So she’d signed up for this gig with full disclosure.
“I have lots of power, demon.” She wiggled into his lap, knocking over his tea.
It occurred to him that she was just like a damned cat, demanding his attention. She wasn’t the least bit sorry to deprive him of his morning ritual. To his further irritation, he found it endearing.
“Thankfully, I’m immune.” He managed a bored tone.
“Liar,” Luminista said as she wiggled her ass against his erection.
“Conceited, aren’t you? How do you know I wasn’t thinking about your brother?”
“Because you love me.”
“Loving you doesn’t necessarily mean I’m attracted to you.”
She braced her hands on his shoulders, her stardust brows drawn together and genuine confusion marring her lovely face. “You’re not?”
“No. Not a single bit.” Liar, liar, pointy little tail on fire. “And I am not just a demon. I’m a Crown Prince of Hell.”
“You should get used to me because we’re moving in with you.”
“You most certainly are not.”
“We are.” She stomped her foot. “Otherwise, how are you going to keep my brother from devouring the world until we find a cure?”
He had to struggle not to laugh. It was so easy to get her to do what he wanted. All he had to do was push her hard in one direction to send her barreling the opposite way with all the force of a freight train.
“Well, at the vote this morning, the Powers That Be wanted to smite you and your brother. Erase your names and souls from the Book of Life. That would fix the problem.”
Luminista froze, her eyes wide and shadowed. “Erased? So, I would just end? No Heaven or Hell, just nothing?”
The indigestion was back—acid crawling up his windpipe from his gut. Ethelred wrinkled his nose. “No, we’ll find another solution. I already told them I’d keep you close. For now.”
She collapsed against him, her head on his shoulder, her breath tickling the side of his neck as she clung to him like a baby koala.
“Stop that.”
“No. I’m afraid. If you love me, it’s your job to comfort me.”
“I don’t love you. I don’t even like you.”
“Shut up and reassure me, demon,” she snapped.
“I can’t very well shut up and reassure you at the same t
ime. So which is it to be?”
The baby koala made a sound like it was choking. Or having an allergy attack. Luminista was crying. The wretched beast was actually crying.
For fuck’s sake.
Ethelred let his arms go around her slowly and he stroked a hand down her spine. He couldn’t help noticing she smelled like sugar cookie tea. She sobbed harder.
He guessed he was doing the comfort thing wrong. Demons were no good at this love stuff.
“You won’t let them erase me?” she hiccupped.
“No, I won’t.”
The part of this whole exchange that bothered Ethelred the most was that he knew he meant it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Going To See a Woman About a Clam
It had been one hell of a morning, to say the least.
First the stampede of people through Falcon’s bedroom, then fantastic sex, and a field trip with Ethelred. She needed a nap. There had been a lot to process.
Evil was not really evil, and a werewolf was going to be living in her house. Falcon was just being Falcon, and Tristan was in love with her? The world was coming apart at the seams.
Tally didn’t believe Tristan was really in love with her. She was thankful he’d forgiven her—it meant a lot—but his confession of love wasn’t worth the air he’d used to speak it. Still, she couldn’t stop pushing it around in her head like yesterday’s leftovers. Why now? She’d tried to kill him. What was he thinking? She was sure he only thought himself in love with her because she was with Falcon.
Well, as “with” any warlock a witch could be when he didn’t believe in love.
Not that the love part mattered. He’d defended her against evil, made her laugh, and fucked like an Olympic champion gigolo—after they’d both gotten over the initial fear of the great and terrible evil. He’d said it was because he wanted her so much, but Tally had a hard time believing that.
She stretched languidly, her body pleasantly exhausted from Falcon’s attentions, and promptly fell asleep.
Tally found herself standing with a sheet wrapped around her, still naked. She wondered why she wasn’t somewhere more pleasant, like flying or floating among a million stars. Or clothed. It was her dream, yet she had absolutely no say in the matter. No, she was still in the same old place. Naked. But without Falcon.
She struggled to wake up. She knew she wasn’t going to like this dream.
“Tally!” Merlin’s voice thundered through her dreamscape.
She screamed and in an attempt to clutch the sheet more tightly around her, dropped it. To add insult to grievous injury—or perhaps that would be injury to insult because in her mad scramble to reposition her sheet it became tangled around her ankles—Tally was shoved facedown on the bed like an ungrateful and unworthy supplicant.
If tripping wasn’t bad enough, she was naked. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she was freshly scrubbed from the shower naked, but no. She was post coital perversion naked. To Tally, it seemed to defy the laws of physics that while she had a reasonable behind for the sheet to gravitate to, the damn thing had a magnetic attraction to her ankles.
Yes, this was the pinnacle of misery. One would think she’d be grateful she hadn’t landed on the floor. Not Tally. The bed made her pose that much more obscene. She was facedown, ass up, with thighs spread.
“Wow. I only got to steal a glimpse at Middy when she was in the changing room. This is much better,” he chortled.
“You are a dirty old man, Merlin.” Tally squirmed to turn over on the bed while she clamped her legs together to avoid showing off any more than she already had. Merlin was kind enough to stand and gawk without so much as even an offer to look away, let alone come to her aid.
“I’ve never denied it. Will you hurry up? It’s a lovely landscape, but I’m here to talk business.”
“You could help me, you know.”
“I could, but it wouldn’t be as much fun. I already repealed the Shall Not. Now you want me to help you cover your ass, too?”
“The whole C—Y—A thing is subjective, don’t you think?”
“You’re a smart one, still bantering when your hind parts are in the air. Most women feel vulnerable in such a position.”
“Seriously, you’re asking how I’m feeling? Stop trying to shrink my head, or worse, hit on me,” Tally grumbled.
“I’m on a strict diet of Nimue, but she knows I browse the menu.”
“Ew. Don’t tell me about old people sex.” Tally finally righted herself and sat up on the bed, sheet in place. “You don’t look old at all.”
“Finally!” he exclaimed.
“I’m still not sleeping with you though, or displaying my parts,” Tally said primly.
“I’ve already seen the core of your parts, my dear. I could see all the way to your back teeth from my vantage on that last pose.”
She gasped. “What do you want?”
“Oh. Right. First of all, you’ve got early release from parole for good behavior. I’ve never seen anyone learn their lessons so quickly. And it was obvious you weren’t just ‘spewing the party line’ as they say.”
His verbiage was awfully familiar. It sounded much like her conversation with Falcon before they’d . . . Had Merlin been listening? The very idea made her feel dirty—in a bad way.
“As they say, huh? Okay, great, but I have the feeling you’re here for something else.”
“Yeah, that. You’re going to break the gypsy’s curse.”
“Excuse me?”
“Because you’re going to take it from him,” Merlin added with a much too innocent smile.
“How about when shit sticks to the moon?” Tally replied sweetly.
“Do you want Falcon to die?”
“He’s Cupid. He can’t die.”
“He will lose his job if he doesn’t believe in love. And that means he’s going to die. I’ve seen what’s coming. The choice, ultimately, is yours.”
“What does that have to do with me breaking the gypsy’s curse?” Merlin just shrugged, unwilling or unable to answer. “Will I die if I take on the curse?” Tally asked pointedly.
“I can’t tell you.” He didn’t look at all sorry about it, either.
“You’re an asshole.”
“What?”
“You. Are. An. Asshole. You come down here and give out little snippets of information, but then when we ask the important questions, you’re all Mr. Classified. It’s crap.”
“Look, I wasn’t even supposed to tell you that much.”
“And yet you did. You dole out these pieces of information for your own ends and half the time, it seems like those ends are entertainment purposes.”
“Hmm. It looks like when you do something, you do it in a big way.” Merlin laughed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you were never a mousy little thing like Middy, but you didn’t always say what was on your mind, either. Now, you open your mouth and out comes word vomit.”
“You know I hate word vomit. Stay out of my head. Is there no privacy?”
“Not really. I had to be sure you were actually learning your lessons.”
“Who says you get to decide if I’ve learned them or not?”
“Exactly.”
“Wait, what?” Tally blinked like a confused owl.
“Get dressed.”
“You’re the one who has me naked.”
“I do, don’t I?” Merlin eyed her lasciviously.
“Have I mentioned you’re a dick?” Tally sighed.
“No, but you did say I was an asshole. Just don’t call me a pussy and we’re good.” Merlin winked at her.
“Are you ever serious?”
“Are you ever not naked?”
“I don’t know how Nimue stands you,” Tally huffed.
“She’s worse. She always gets the last word.” Merlin looked her up and down and obviously didn’t like what he saw. “Are you going to get dressed?
“Are you going to
turn around?” she tossed back.
“I’ve already seen it. Why bother?”
“I thought men from your time were supposed be all about Round Table chivalry?”
“Oh, no, my dear. Arthur meant well, but most knights, even those of the Round Table were whoremongering louts. But louts though they all were, Arthur was a nice guy,” Merlin supplied.
Tally fussed with the sheet, hoping Merlin would get a clue she wasn’t moving until he turned around. “And look what happened to him. I guess nice guys really do finish last.”
“Don’t they? Look at me. Nimue locked me in a tree stump for a hundred years.”
“I’m sure you deserved it. Further, you are not a nice guy.”
“How am I not nice? I gave you to Falcon for parole, I repealed the Shall Not, I—” he began.
“For starters? You could give me my magick back.”
“I didn’t take it away.”
She sighed again. “You could let me use it.”
“I did say you were off parole.”
“Oh. Now I feel stupid.” Tally blushed.
“That’s because you were too busy trying to be right instead of listening to what I’m telling you.”
“Are you going to turn around or what?”
“I could incinerate that sheet,” he stated.
“I could tell Nimue.”
“You drive a hard bargain. What’s with you and Falcon both holding that woman over my head?”
“You need to think about your behavior instead of trying to be right,” Tally threw his own words back at him.
“I am right. It’s just you’re still talking.”
“Shut up.”
“Get dressed.”
“Turn around.”
“Fine. Sweet Me, but you’re difficult. Five minutes, woman. And no primping with your hair. Wait, why are we even arguing? You have your magick back. Charm yourself gorgeous and let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“To see a woman about a clam.”
“I don’t like how this sounds.”
“Too bad!” Merlin said gleefully. “I wonder if Caspian will like this one any better? It worked for Dred; we’ll see how it works on the fairer sex.” Merlin snickered.
“Wait, what?” Who was Caspian and what did he have to do with Dred?
How to Seduce an Angel in 10 Days Page 12