Okay, fine. Maybe she was all bad.
She was sex on a stick, though, and she could be good to a lover. If she felt like it. If it worked for her. So come on.
Stopping in front of her full-length gowns, she pulled out the white one she had put on to be inside Balthazar’s mind when he’d been having his post-bleed-out nap. The satin was so virginal and smooth and cool over her hands and she loved how the red of her glossy fingernails looked against the sheen. Like blood on a wisping cloud.
Lifting her head, she stared across all her hangers, all her babies.
The Book was up against the far wall, suspended as if in an invisible sling. The damn thing was snoring, the front cover bubbling in a soft, rhythmic purr, the pages beneath shuffling quietly.
Exhaling, she felt her shoulders droop. She couldn’t keep doing this, getting pushed aside for so-called “better options” by males. The rejections were giving her a complex. Fuck being someone’s priority. She wasn’t even an alternative.
“Please,” she said with defeat. “Please help me find true love.”
Fuck knew, if she were left to her own devices, it was never going to happen—
The Book’s cover popped open and slapped down, as if it woke up. Then it sat itself up, so that it was facing her instead of lying flat on the thin air.
She wasn’t getting her hopes up, though. For all she knew, it was going to Uber Eats some Thai food to the lair. Or maybe an office chair. Fuck if she could tell what was going through its head.
There was a series of coughs and then the pages seemed to lick themselves. After a final shake, as a bird might rearrange its feathers, that ugly, mottled cover blew wide open and stayed that way.
Those pages started flipping.
Devina blinked a couple of times. Then she dropped the dress’s skirting and walked forward, called by the movement of the parchment, at first furiously fast, and now slowing. It was the strangest thing. More pages turned than were bound, but she had always believed there were an infinite number of folios confined within the tome—
The flipping stopped.
Just dead-on halted.
“Don’t be cruel,” she said before she took a look. And she meant it as a warning, but the words came out as a plaintive appeal to the thing’s better nature. If the Book even had one.
When the tome didn’t move at all, when it just stayed inanimate, she hitched her breath and leaned down.
The first thing she saw, in a graceful, handwritten script, was “Love Spell for a Beautiful Demon.”
Her eyes flooded with tears. “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch.”
One of the pages lifted up and brushed her cheek, catching her tear. Then the Book resettled as if it was done both with fighting with her, and any soppy emotion.
“Right.” She sniffled and rubbed her nose. “What do we have here.”
Like she was whipping up a pot roast and had to see whether all the ingredients were in her cupboard.
Her eyes watered again as she read out loud. “?‘If faithfully followed, this shall bring unto the caster a true love for the whole of her, all parts contained within her, evil or no.’?”
She reached out and stroked the page. “Thank you, old friend.”
There was a sniffle from the Book, the upper right corner of the folios whiffling.
“Now… what do I need,” she murmured as she resumed reading.
* * *
“What do you need, Erika?”
As Balz asked the question, it was one hell of a leading one. But here was the thing: Her body was already with him. He could scent her arousal, and even if his nose was wrong—which it wasn’t—there was no mistaking where her eyes kept going.
He wanted her to look at him like that for the rest of both their lives.
It was as if she not only approved of his body… but wanted to touch him. Taste him.
And big frickin’ surprise, he was incapable of not responding to the sexual need in her. Even though the Brotherhood’s hidden garage was about as romantic as an AutoZone store, and he was beat to shit, and there was absolutely nothing comfortable to lie down on, he was still more than ready to…
“Tell me,” he whispered. “What do you need.”
Her eyes went back to his mouth, and it was like she was testing them out with her own already, taking from him, having a proverbial bite—and it was then he knew he was going to have her. The “yes” was in her hungry stare, the turn in her body, and that holy-shit scent.
As she took a deep breath, he wanted to keep talking, if it would put her at ease—
“I need you to let me go,” she said hoarsely. “Please.”
Balz dropped his lids. And prayed that he could hide his reaction. It wasn’t anger; it was disappointment—and not just because he wasn’t going to get the chance to mount her, and penetrate her, and give her the best orgasms of her life. The biggest regret was with himself. As usual.