I stiffened. “We have work to do.”
“We do? We do.” He stepped away in a daze, and blushed a deeper shade than I had.
I might have been flattered if I hadn’t thought his affections had something to do with his illicit nature and the fact that he was spending too much time training with me to get it out of his system properly. It did seem odd that his comfort level had shifted. I’d seen far crasser advances from him in the past, and none that ever made him blush.
“Where were we?” He shook his head. “Okay, close your eyes.”
I let my arms fall to my sides and did what he said.
“Now, concentrate and tell me when you can feel my heat against you.”
I felt myself flush as I grinned. Sometimes I wondered if he just couldn’t help sounding perverse. Perhaps it came as naturally as breathing to him. In a few moments I felt a slight warmth to my right. I opened my eyes and found Bub standing six feet away from me.
“Well, that was better than I expected from you, but it’s still not good enough to do you any good in battle. We can do better.” He put the raskov roll between his lips and lit it with a small zippo, taking a deep pull.
The thick smoke drifted over to me and soon fogged over the entire room. The scent was soothing, like ancient spices being burned over a woodstove. I was momentarily lightheaded and hesitated when Bub offered the smoke to me.
“The dizziness will pass,” he assured me.
I took the smoke and lifted it to my lips, taking a slow drag. The sensation Bub had been trying to describe hit me at full force. His body was suddenly a pulsing, red light burned into my consciousness. I was shocked to sense a fainter red pulse coming from further away in the house. My eyes widened. “There’s another-“
“Jack. My butler,” he answered, reading my mind.
I relaxed. The haze in the room seemed to thicken and the red pulses of Bub and Jack intensified until they were mere outlines containing webbed, neon lights. I turned away from Jack’s glow and focused on Bub’s, stepping closer to the demon. I lifted a hand and reached out for him, watching as the pulse of his glow quickened. My own pulse seemed to slow. It was a dull, heavy sound that vibrated through my chest and down to my fingertips, hovering over Bub’s chest. The heat coming from him was almost too much. I started to pull my hand back, but Bub caught it and pressed it to his chest, drawing a gasp from me. The pulsing red light shot through my fingers, up my arm, and into my chest, sparking my dull heartbeat to life once again. I felt dizzy. Laughing, I pressed my remaining hand to the other side of his chest and drew a gasp from him this time. Like an electrical current, the red light flowed through my other arm, back into him. Even through the haze, I saw the whites of his eyes expand in surprise.
Bub’s hands slid over mine, up to my shoulders, and then down my sides to rest on my hips. The red pulse quickened again as he pulled me against him. Some little nagging voice in my head kept insisting that this was all wrong, but for the life of me, I couldn’t say why. My consciousness was floating around somewhere in the smoke, and I was enthralled with the pulsing red light. Absolutely hypnotized. Which is why I couldn’t even fathom pulling away when Bub crushed his mouth against mine.
His forked tongue slipped out and caressed the inside of my mouth, deeper than anyone had ever explored before. He tasted like hot chocolate. I felt the length of his lust press into my stomach and I moaned into his mouth. The nagging voice was getting louder. Something stabbed at my heart, and guilt began to settle in my gut. I ripped myself away from him.
“No,” I rasped.
“No?” he echoed, as though the very word was foreign to him. I imagined it usually was when it came to women.
“No,” I said, firmer this time and pried our bodies apart. I was taken, and as mad as I was at Maalik, I couldn’t do this to him. I’m not perfect, and I’ve screwed up my fair share of relationships, but I’ve got my limits.
“Maalik,” he said, reading my mind again. He looked angry for a moment, but it slowly fizzled into a distant sadness. “Right.” He let go of me and backed away, shaking his head as though he were clearing his mind.
I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t even look at him. My hands felt awkward. Now that they weren’t on him, I hardly knew what to do with them. I laid one across my stomach and crossed the other over my chest.
“We’ll pick this up tomorrow. I don’t think there’s much more we can do today with the state we’re in,” he said, the innuendo holding more bitterness rather than its typical cheer. He rounded the couch and picked up the wooden box of smokes, closing it sharply.
I didn’t say goodbye. I just left, slipping quietly out of the den. I found Coreen and Saul outside and waited for them to brush against my legs before rolling my coin to take us back to the front gates of Holly House. Abe and a new female guard were waiting for me. I gritted my teeth, fiercely hoping she wouldn’t try to follow me into my own bathroom. I had the miserable desire to cry my eyes out in the privacy of my shower. I really didn’t need an audience.
Chapter 21
“Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul.
Activity will cleanse and brighten it.”
-Samuel Johnson
I was apprehensive about seeing Bub again the next day. I thought I might go into cardiac arrest when he called to tell me to wear running shoes and light workout clothes. This was a new turn in my training. That much exposed flesh couldn’t be a good idea around him.
I was so damned nervous that I tried on six different outfits, twice each, finally settling on an orange sports bra and gray spandex shorts that cut off just above the knee. I dug through the antique wardrobe until I found a loose gray tank top to pull over the revealing ensemble. I didn’t bother covering my neck. It wasn’t like it was a big secret anymore and the scar had faded quite a bit. I slipped on matching orange and gray sneakers and pulled my curls back with an elastic band.
Saul and Coreen waited anxiously by the front door with their leads. The hounds were smart and knew that when I wore workout clothes, it usually meant a good, long run for them. They had polished off their breakfast in record time. I had skipped breakfast altogether, and I’d only drank one cup of my beloved coffee. I was jittery enough as it was.
Abe and Linda, the new female guard assigned to me, waited just outside my door. They both managed to look tired, yet still fiercely alert. After my pity party in the shower, I had found my manners and offered the guest bed to them if they wanted to stand watch in shifts. They had politely refused, stating they would sleep while I was training with Bub.
I had to hand it to the nephilim. They were top notch guards. Not a one of them had said a cross word to me or questioned what I was doing at the academy or why I was training with the Lord of the Flies. Their demeanor was entirely professional and focused. They were really proud of their new station in Limbo and seemed desperate not to screw things up for their kind.
Abe and Linda silently walked me just outside the front gates of Holly House where coin travel was accessible. They scanned the sidewalks and stood firm as I bid them farewell and rolled my coin.
Bub had asked that I come directly to his house and forgo the gates of Hell. It was a hell of a lot more expensive to travel that far by coin, but he was picking up the tab, so I did as he asked. I was more than a little bummed to be missing out on the boat ride down the Styx.
I found Bub waiting outside for me. He was in a pair of black spandex shorts that hugged his muscled thighs. A white cutoff tee shirt showed off his arms. I hadn’t realized just how nicely built he was before. Of course, he had felt nice beneath my hands. I blushed at the memory and shook my head to clear it before approaching him.
He stretched one arm across his chest and stepped forward into a lunge. “We’re working on endurance and speed today. Your hounds will love this. We’re taking a run through the mountain trails.”
“A run? I do that all the time with the hounds in the park.”
“Trust me.
You’ve never taken a run like the one we’re taking today. You’re going to want to stretch first.”
I rolled my eyes and mirrored his lunge, pulling an arm across my chest. We stretched together in silence for another twenty minutes. Each second felt more awkward than the last, but I knew anything I tried to say would sound like forced filler to distract us from the incident of the day before, which would in turn make us think about the incident even more.
Bub finally gave me a strained smile. “Okay, try to keep up.” And then he was off. Saul and Coreen dashed ahead of him, occasionally glancing back to make sure they were going the right direction. I started off slower, bringing up the rear.
The red-orange mountains behind Bub’s house were closer than they had originally appeared. It took all of ten minutes to run across the flat, dusty desert and reach their base. I was good and warmed up by then, but I was used to mild terrains. The steep, uphill climb was going to be a challenge. Saul and Coreen looked more excited about the challenge than I.
Bub stopped at the foot of the mountain trail and stretched a moment as he waited for me to catch up. “Doing alright?”
“Yeah.” I had hardly broken sweat.
“Good.” He took off at a steady pace uphill. The hounds sprang ahead once again.
My body began to protest about thirty minutes later. Although, the scenery on the mountain trail was a blissful distraction. Small, tangled shrubs dotted the parched earth, with a splash of green cacti here and there. The trail weaved through mountain tunnels that provided occasional shade, but little relief from the heat. The view of the Styx from so high up was inspiring. I could see all the way to Hades’ smoking manor at the heart of Tartarus. The sky was a deep pink, tinted with tangy shades of orange. It contrasted beautifully with the parched red and gray landscape.
I caught up to Bub at a level interval in the trail that held an observation deck with a massive telescope. He was stretching again and looked entirely unfazed by the run so far. I bent over and placed my hands on my knees, panting to catch my breath. My tank top was soaked.
“That was a nice warm-up,” he said, grinning.
I glared up at him and then over to the telescope. He followed my gaze and blushed. “My estate is bespelled to show the stars from the living realm. That little charm cost almost as much as the house.”
I had seen the stars on the human side a few times while working late. Normally, I was on a nine-to-five type of schedule, but Grim liked to punish me with an extra heavy workload when I bent his rules. The stars were almost worth the late night harvests. They were breathtaking. Apparently, Bub thought so too. His eyes lit up at my interest.
“You could come out one evening and view them, if you like,” he offered, uncharacteristically blushing again.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
He shuffled his feet around a moment and then seemed to remember what we were doing. “Let’s get back on track. We’ve got a ways to go.” He took off back up the trail.
The hounds lingered behind him this time, glancing back at me. I groaned and sprinted after them.
Three hours later, I decided that I hated Bub. Every muscle in my body screamed. I was drenched. My curls were dripping with sweat and my skin felt gritty with salt. I had the dreaded feeling that he was trying to break me for some reason, but I refused to complain.
We finally reached the top of the mountain and the end of the trail. Bub turned around to face me. His cheeks were red and his hair artfully mused. He was breathing hard, but not like we had just ran our asses off for nearly four hours. He smiled at me and then gazed out at Tartarus, fanned out below us.
It was a painfully beautiful view. The river Styx lazily floated past Bub’s manor and disappeared beyond the sunbaked horizon. Little smoke tails lifted from three tiny Styx Stops that could only be noticed from this high up. The sky had faded to a dusty orange, and it seemed to swallow us whole. The intensity of it took away what little breath I had left. I stood in awe for a long while, and when I turned around, Bub was watching me. In all my life I had never met someone who could break a heart with a single look, the way he was doing now.
He closed the distance between us in a few short steps and reached up to gently skim his fingers along my arm. I closed my eyes as my pulse quickened. There was no denying what his touch did to my body, but he didn’t need to know what it was doing to the rest of me.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes even tighter, shaking my head. He snatched my arms, forcing me to meet his stare with a gasp. His dark eyes were wilder than usual. Flecks of gold and red swirled in them like the stirrings of a cyclone. Then his lips were on mine. It could hardly be called a kiss. It was too harsh and forced. I struggled against him, knowing he was far stronger than I and it would do no good. He finally released me with a growl of frustration.
I pressed my fingers to my bruised mouth and gaped at him a second before my shock was replaced with anger. Before I could think twice about it, my hand sprang out in a wide arc and slapped him hard across the face.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He stepped back and ran a hand through his hair, haphazardly spiking it into a crazy mess. “I thought the exercise would help blow off some of this crazy energy I’ve got building up, but it seems to have grown worse.”
“Oh.” That was all I could muster as my heart twisted itself into a tangled knot inside my chest.
Bub paced the ridge of the mountaintop a few times, frustration and confusion seeping from. “I think we’re good for today. Let’s take a break tomorrow and start over on Monday. You can travel back by coin from here.” And poof, just like that, he was gone, leaving a blast of sulfuric smoke in his place.
I stood alone in the silence for a moment, shifting through a plethora of emotions with alarming speed. I was so angry and confused, I wanted to cry or scream. I was supposed to be in love with Maalik. This awkward situation with Bub shouldn’t have had this sort of effect on me. I shouldn’t have been wondering if I was falling for a demon. My life was complicated enough. Trusting the prince of darkness with my heart was so not a good idea. Of course, I had done dumber things in the past.
I had hardly made it through my front door with the hounds when the doorbell rang. I had a moment of panic. What if it was Maalik? Would he smell Bub on me? What if it was another demon trying to assassinate me? Of course, then I remembered I was at Holly House. I groaned and opened the door, still in my sweaty workout clothes.
Jenni Fang waited in the hall. I suddenly remembered there was a study party planned for the evening.
“You’re early.” I let her in and closed the door behind her.
“I wanted to talk to you before everyone else arrived.” She followed me into the kitchen. Maybe it was just me, but Jenni seemed different lately. She was lighter and more social. She smiled more and dressed in brighter colors. It seemed awkward and misplaced at times, but it was still a nice change. Today she wore a pair of jean capris with a ruffled, purple blouse. Her long, black hair was fastened in a knot and held up by a pair of glittery chopsticks. She smiled, noticing me admiring her.
I smiled back. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
I filled us each a mug and we ventured into the sitting room, taking opposite couches from each other. I tried to put Bub out of my mind so I could give her my full attention.
“Lana, I know we’re not very close, but I trust Josie’s judgment, and I’ve grown fond of you these past few months. I admire your newfound career ambitions. I’m not exactly sure what your motives are.” She paused, giving me a moment to consider filling in the blanks for her.
“Ah, that’s the million dollar question lately, isn’t it?” I laughed.
She chewed her bottom lip and frowned. “I have my theories.”
“Everyone does.” I hated it when people beat around the bush. Was it really so hard to come right out and ask a direct question? Not that I would answer it, but still
.
Jenni sighed. “Your current motives are really none of my business. However, I would like to offer another motive for you to consider, if you’re interested.”
Wow. I really hadn’t expected to ever draw this much attention from Jenni. This was the most I had ever heard her talk. She was normally more reserved and mysterious.
Jenni Fang, a sixth generation reaper who intimidated most second generation reapers, was rumored to be the head of an underground association of reapers working towards deityship rights. I had a feeling I knew what she was offering. A year ago, I would have refused her because I was in enough hot water with Grim. Now I would refuse her because the events of the previous year had redefined the term hot water for me.
I really should have known more about Jenni, considering how one of my best friends was her roommate. I imagined Josie stayed quiet because she either knew I wouldn’t be interested or because she was sworn to secrecy. Josie was a stickler for rules. She pointed out the ones I broke every chance she got. Not that I let that stop me. At least I had her beat in the stubborn department.
Jenni patiently stared me down. She crossed her legs and folded her hands on top of her knees.
“I’m sorry, Jenni. I think I know where you’re going with this, and I’m flattered. Really. But I just can’t fit anything else on my plate right now.” I gave her an apologetic smile.
Jenni blinked a few times and tilted her head to one side. “I’m sorry. I thought with all your new future goals that you would be interested in some better reward for your efforts.”
“I think better would be a matter of opinion at this point.” If a group of reapers did rebel and demand deityship, Grim would have no problem waving a hand and wiping them out of existence, and gosh, I really liked existing, even with all the current drama.
Jenni blushed. “Our profit yields are at least double that of any savings or investment plan available to reapers in Limbo City. Where exactly have you found a better deal?”
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