Hell is Where the Heart Is

by Eden Winters

  “You’re human?” How had Vik wound up with a human? Humans dreaded demons, and had to be mind-altered sometimes if they learned the truth about who they’d slept with. Vik should know. He’d woken up to shrieks often enough. Nothing about Dillon’s casual attitude indicated fear. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll steal your soul?”

  “Ralph’s been my neighbor for three years, and the only thing he’s ever stolen from me is an old boyfriend—and he did me a favor, so all’s good.”

  “You… you know about demons?” If he didn’t, Vik would gladly teach him.

  “Sure. There’s some real bad ones out there, but unless I miss my guess, you’re sixth level, so kinda all right.” He ran his hand down to Vik’s morning erection and grinned. “Some parts more all right than others.”

  How the Home did he know so much about demons? And sixth level demons in particular. “It doesn’t bother you that you slept with a demon?”

  Dillon’s cheeks flushed. Ah, a new addition to the growing list of things Vik found attractive in the human. “Don’t take this the wrong way, hot stuff, but this ain’t my first rodeo. Besides, you were a bit obvious.”

  “Obvious how?” Really? And Vik had been so careful.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Dillon sat next to Vik, ticking off points on his fingers. “Losing control, melting glass with your bare hands, your drinks going up in steam. The view from your window is the New York Skyline—about forty years ago—and we made it to your supposedly New York apartment in ten minutes, in a cab that was probably only a figment of my imagination. We started off in Vegas. Your appearance? That’s why most of the guys at last night’s party avoided you. Most new demons only come up to the surface to find mates, and the party crowd aren’t really into one night stands that last thousands of years. Kinda shallow if you ask me.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Ralph has a big mouth, and he called me up, told me he had a special friend coming. I dusted off my costume and you know the rest.”

  Vik sat up with his knees to his chest, the stone floor cold against his bare butt. Damn, he’d dropped his glamour of thick carpeting somewhere in the night. He draped his arms over his legs and stared at his hands. “Then you know about my mother.”

  Dillon snickered. “Yeah. Talk about the mother-in-law from Hell!”

  “I have a few hours left to find a mate or she plans to choose one for me.” Vik heaved out a sigh. “And whoever I pick will have to challenge two female demons for me.”

  Amazing how Dillon managed to raise Vik’s head with a single finger. “I know how it was for Ralph when we first met, hiding from his parents’ demands, never really free to live his own life.”

  “You and Ralph?”

  “Old news. But I’m willing to help you. You take me home to Mama, she gets off your back, we both go back to doing what we wanna do.”

  Vik narrowed his eyes. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Dude! Have you ever slept with a demon? No, don’t answer that.”

  “Have you ever NOT slept with one?” Vik grumbled under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing.” The guy did offer to help. Vik couldn’t be too hard on him. Besides, he wasn’t too bad in bed. He glanced around the apartment at the surfaces they’d used the night before. Okay, the guy wasn’t bad on couches either. Or kitchen tables. The spin they’d taken on the ottoman had been a bit awkward, but… “I didn’t know you were human. Do you really think you stand a chance against two female demons?”

  “I don’t intend to fight them—I intend to make them yield.”

  A thin, pale human who came up to Vik’s shoulder? Taking on two demonesses? “Really? How?”

  “Watch and learn, hot stuff. Watch and learn.”

  “And you don’t mind living here until Mom is satisfied, when I can’t make the place look good all the time?” Vik waved a hand to indicate his cave.

  “I’m a stylist extraordinaire, your own personal Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Fab Five, all rolled into one, and will take it as a personal challenge to turn your little slice of Hell into a palace.” Dillon’s eyes gleamed and he brought his nose within inches of Vik’s. “Later. First… I believe you liked me licking your tail?”

  Vik’s heart slammed against his ribs. “Yessssss!”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  “If you could have anything in this world, what would it be?” Dillon sat at the booth of a greasy spoon breakfast place, Vik crammed against him and Kiana shooting them both suspicious glances from across the table. At five a.m. in Vegas, their appearances didn’t attract the first stare. Of course, the guy at the grill, tattooed to look like a lizard, with implanted bumps on his forehead, raised the weirdness bar pretty high.

  Hmmm…Hadn’t Vik seen him once on level seven?

  Kiana tapped an orange-taloned fingertip against her chin. “Anything I want?

  “Anything.”

  She glanced right and left, then took a bite of beaten, scrambled, mauled, or whatever hash browns. After a few bites and much Mmmmmmmmming, she finally came up for air. “Well, I certainly don’t want to spend my life chasing Vik’s little demons.” She shot an apologetic glance Vik’s way. “No offense, Highness.”

  “Hey!” Most demonesses would be honored to chase Vik’s spawn around. If he chose to have any.

  Kiana scowled. “Right, like you’re in a hurry to do what your mother wants.”

  “Okay, you non-love birds.” Dillon drummed his fingertips against a scarred tabletop. “We need to focus here. Kiana, what do you want to do with your life? Really want to do.”

  “I want to be a Victoria’s Secret model.”

  Really? Wow! Vik could have been married to a model—and he would have gone for it if Mom offered him Tyson Beckford or Marcus Schenkenburg. Maybe.

  “How good are you at glamour?” Dillon held up the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue.

  Kiana took and held a deep breath. Her eyes crossed with her efforts. Slowly her skin tones faded to tan, and her hair to strawberry blond. Even her horn nubs disappeared. She looked up and smiled, the perfect image of an attractive human female.

  Nice. Too bad Vik couldn’t glamour his own appearance so easily.

  Dillon cocked his head to the side and regarded Kiana. He tilted her face this way and that with one index finger. “Close enough.”

  “Can you really make this happen?” The demoness bounced on her chair, far more excited than she’d been about the prospect of being tied for all eternity to Vik. Should he be hurt?

  “An ex sets up photo shoots for several retail giants. Victoria’s Secret is a client. He can get you right in.” Dillon snuck a piece of potato off Kiana’s plate when she wasn’t looking.

  Vik did a double take. “This is the third or fourth ex you’ve mentioned. Exactly how many men have you been with?” Vik was hardly a virgin himself, but pride dictated that a lord of the underworld—a centuries-old lord of the underworld—have more sexual conquests than a mere twenty-something human.

  “Don’t sweat it, big guy. All in practice for you.”

  Damn, but Dillon had a way with words.

  Vik managed to conjure up the illusion of a dungeon in his apartment. He couldn’t let Tazlina have the upper hand, even if he didn’t know how to use all the spikes, spears, axes, Uzis, et cetera, he hung from the walls.

  “We’ll try those out later.” Dillon nudged Vik’s side, winked, and nodded toward a Saint Andrew’s Cross and cat o’ nine tails in the corner.

  Oh no! That image needed to leave his mind before their guest arrived. “Can’t we change the appointment to later?” A lot later.

  Dillon sighed. “Sadly, the clock is ticking.”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “You sit,” Dillon said, pointing toward the couch. “Remember your rank. Use it if you have to.”

  Dillon opened the door. Even somewhat prepared, Vik gave an involuntary shiv
er as Tazlina ducked through the door.

  “Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.” Dillon managed to keep his normal high-energy thrumming to a minimum.

  Tazlina attempted to sit down on the couch, as far away from Vik as possible to still occupy the same piece of furniture. Her armor clinked, stopping her midway. “I think I’ll stand, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Vic stood too. If she’d attacked…

  Dillon was doing well, so Vic kept his mouth shut. Why ruin a good thing?

  Dillon said, “The reason we brought you here—"

  Tazlina splayed her palm toward Dillon’s face. “No need to tell me. Mommy Scariest announces she wants her little boy”—she hiked a thumb at Vik—“to settle down and have kids. Then she throws me under the bus. I’m not happy about it either, but she’s the boss, what can I say?” Her sigh wafted out a two-foot flame.

  Suddenly Vik felt sorry for a demoness as trapped in this situation as he was. “So, you really don’t want to get married.” Whew! Maybe if he told his mother…

  “Let’s face it. No, offense, Vik, but I don’t want to spend eternity in your mother’s dreary throne room chasing around a passel of little demons.” The biggest, baddest, female demon warrior folded her massive frame down to see five-feet-six-inch Dillon eye to eye. “Kiana told me all about the sweet deal you made with her. What I really want is to be in movies. Can you get me in with a Hollywood agent?”

  “Maybe.” Dillon brushed at a spot on his impeccable sleeve that wouldn’t dare harbor lint. “What do you know about personal training?”

  “Are you kidding? I bench press Mack trucks!”

  “Hmm… maybe you need to learn to tone things down for a human audience. Listen, I’ve got this friend…”

  “He means ex,” Vik offered, falling into established patterns.

  Dillon snorted. “You can’t honestly believe I’ve slept with every single man I know.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Point taken. Anyway, I have this friend in need of a personal trainer. I get you in, you impress the hell out of him, and he’ll have you in movies in no time. Oh, think you can appear a bit more human?”

  Tazlina shaded from red to pink to blue.

  “Unless you want to audition for some weird giant alien movie, I suggest you try again. While your current look is attention getting, I’m thinking it might not be the kind of attention you want at this point.”

  “Oh, all right.” In the twinkling of an eye Tazlina morphed into a human female—a human female who could kick Vik’s ass without breaking a sweat, but a human female nonetheless—at least appearance-wise.

  “Perfect!” Dillon made a circling motion with his hand and Tazlina twirled. Damn, maybe he really could get anyone to do what he wanted. That was some trick.

  “Dillon?”

  “Yes, oh tall, dark, and horny?”

  Vik chose not to take the bait. Anything he said would only make him look like the dunce in a comedy routine. Besides, he had a favor to ask. “Can you really pull strings with TV and movie people?”

  “Some.”

  “Good. ’Cause, you see, there used to be a show on TV where all these gay guys hung out on an island—”

  “Nope, sorry. You’re talking cable, and I’ve never slept with any cable people.”

  “Could you? It was a really good show.”

  “Vik!”

  4

  “Are you ready?” Vik eased his tail through the specially designed slit in his ‘around the house’ jeans. Ah, so much better than having to hide the family tool while above ground.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Dillon eyed Vik up and down. “We’re going to see your mother. Don’t you think you should put on a shirt?”

  “Why? I have it on good authority that most human males never wear a shirt—ever!” Vik should know; he’d performed the research himself.

  One side of Dillon’s mouth twitched. “And where exactly did you hear this little nugget of misinformation?”

  On the other hand, a stylist might know better. And Dillon wore shirts. Lots of them. He changed them, like, every ten minutes or so, even if the little mesh number he currently sported left nothing to the imagination.

  “We get cable here,” Vik informed his out-of-town guest. “We keep up with human habits by watching their lives on TV. We just keep it hidden from Mom.”

  “Whose lives, in particular?”

  “Toby and Kevin and their friends.”

  “And who exactly are Toby and Kevin?”

  “You might not know them since you live in Vegas. They’re on the coast somewhere. Some cove or something.”

  Dillon rolled his eyes so hard Vik swore they sounded like tumbling dice.

  “You learned everything you know about humanity by watching Dante’s Cove? That explains so much.”

  “Hey, Dante was right about the inferno, wasn’t he?”

  Dillon’s sigh could have wavered the flames in Mom’s throne room. “No shirt, no shoes, no service. Remember that.” An arched brow hinted at what kind of service Dillon referred to.

  Vik donned a pressed button-down in two seconds flat. “Better?” Dillon was pushy, opinionated, and prone to bouts of furniture rearranging. And yet, there was something about him. Something familiar that Vik couldn’t quite put his finger on. Once they gained Vik his freedom, Dillon was free to return home. Somehow picturing the apartment without him made Vik’s horns sag.

  “Much better. Now remember, I don’t care if she is your mother, let me do the talking. I have a way with people.” Dillon paused to smooth down Vik’s collar.

  Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. Mom would rip a human to shreds and send him home in a box. Maybe they could hide out on the ninth level. She would never think to look there.

  With no clue what he’d soon face, Dillon marched down the corridor to his doom. Flames licked along the walls in some places, providing illumination. The force to be reckoned with named Dillon paid them no mind. How could he be human and unimpressed? To Vik, the flickering shadows and ominous thrumming of a distant gong brought to mind a movie he’d seen on cable, with valiant heroes entering just such a place, and a malevolent demon lying in wait.

  Wait a minute! Who’d ripped off his life for a movie? At last they arrived at the great arched door that separated the relatively quiet corridor from where fate awaited.

  “Are you positive about this?” Because Vik sure wasn’t. “It’s not too late to back out.” They could always go back to Dillon’s apartment, hide out upstairs a while with Ralph and the other escapees.

  “You know what they say. ‘A friend says, I’m sorry your life sucks’, but a good friend says, ‘Bitch, please! We’re gonna fix this shit riiiiight now!’” Dillon gave Vik a toothy grin.

  Actually, Vik hadn’t known that.

  Dillon flung open the doors uninvited and strolled into Vik’s mother’s inner sanctum like he owned the place.

  “What is the meaning of this?” She-who-will-kick-your-ass-into-the-next-century roared.

  Her voluminous silk robes flared out behind her as though borne on her own personal wind. The assorted gathered demons and minions drew back in fear.

  Neat trick. Vik had tried it once during a two-for-one taco fest. Rule to the wise: avoid refried beans—and the resulting gas—when flames permeated your entire dwelling. His apartment walls still bore scorch marks on the stone.

  Head tilted at a challenging angle, Dillon marched right up to the BFD’s throne. “You call this an underworld? What century are you living in?”

  “Now see here!” The BFD drew back her hand, drawing power for a fireball. Damn, looked like Vik wouldn’t be getting lucky tonight, not with his newly acquired lover reduced to a pile of ash. Oh shit. His feet started moving, faster than ever before. Before he knew what came over him, Vik found himself between the throne and Dillon, standing up to his mother for the first time in… well… ever.

  “Hi, Your Royalness Mom. I’d
like you to meet Dillon. Dillon, my mother, the Big Fucking Deal of the Sixth Level, Terror of the…”

  Dillon poked his head around Vik’s bulk. “Do you always dress like that?”

  Vik’s mother smoothed a hand down her ever-twitching attire. “Dress how? I’ll have you know this is the finest silk…”

  “And so Joan Crawford, circa 1935. Look, sweet cheeks, if you wanna be evil in this day and age, catch up with the times. What you need is a makeover.”

  “Dillon’s a stylist,” Vik offered with a one-sided shrug.

  The BFD’s shoulders lost a bit of their rigidity. “Go on.”

  The most audacious human to ever draw breath stepped out from behind Vik to run appraising eyes up and down Her Badness’s frame. “Do you want to be kick-your-ass-and-eat-your-liver evil, or sexy-evil?”

  “There’s a difference?” The BFD stared down at her blood red dress. Vik was still reeling over the guy being alive after referring to evil incarnate as “sweet cheeks.”

  She’d always loved this dress. For centuries she’d loved this dress. And Dillon was going to spend his last pre-ash moment talking her out of her favorite clothing. Vik’s tail drooped to curl around one ankle.

  “Imagine this…” Dillon dared, DARED to touch her arm and lead her away from the throne. All assembled drew back in horror. “…a spandex cat suit that fits you perfectly, moves with you and not on its own. That’s just… creepy.” He nodded at her writhing mass of silk.

  When he glanced up a demon lurking in the shadows gave a little half-smile and a fluttery wave. Dillon replied with a curt nod before returning to the task at hand. He stopped mid-motion. Five fire minions waved. “Hi, Dillon!” they shouted.

  Oh, Home. Wasn’t there anyone Dillon hadn’t fucked?

  “Old news, Vik. What happened before we met at the party doesn’t count,” Dillon hissed. To the BFD, he said, “Or we could go kick-ass, lots of leather. Only, that may be a little hot down here. And there’s chafing to worry about. Anyway, I could work up a few drawings if you’d like. Then I’ll bring swatches. While we’re at it, how about a little redecorating? Just because you live in Hell doesn’t mean it has to look like it.”