So I Married a Demon Slayer
Kathy Love
Angie Fox
Lexi George
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Hot!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
What Slays in Vegas
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
The Bride Wore Demon Dust
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Teaser chapter
Copyright Page
Hot!
Kathy Love
Chapter One
“You cannot keep making your staff disappear.”
Finola White smoothed back her stylish chignon, then looked away from the mirror toward her head editor.
Tristan’s brows crowded together in a full grimace, his lips in a hard line—not a good look at all. The expression distracted from his polished grooming and designer suit.
One’s looks should never be marred by unattractive emotions. Tristan needed to learn to school his features to show his feelings in a more appealing manner. Like she did.
His lack of control irritated her. Both with his features and with his words.
“You forget who you are,” she said, her voice soft, melodious, but leaving no doubt what would happen if he didn’t remember who was the boss. “You also forget this problem actually originated with you.”
Tristan didn’t speak. Wise boy.
She returned her attention to her own reflection. Yes, he should learn to be more like her. She was upset, but she didn’t let that show on her face. She certainly wouldn’t let some silly, and nosy, human employee, who worked in . . .
“Where did that wretched woman work again?”
Tristan released a slow breath before answering, “The mailroom.”
Finola dropped her Guerlain KissKiss Gold and Diamond’s Lipstick onto her desk. She supposed at $62,000 a tube, she should be more careful with the cosmetic, but really? Tristan could be so wearing. He was actually upset about an employee from—the mailroom?
“You cannot be serious. You are getting worked up about this”—she shuddered—“human for what reason?”
She tilted her head, not bothering to hide her confusion. Although she could make confusion look quite endearing, so why would she hide it?
“This is the twelfth employee since February.”
Finola couldn’t manage to keep the frown from creasing her brow. Just briefly.
“Well, it’s October now.” Surely, that wasn’t such a horrible track record.
“We’re not in Hell, Finola,” Tristan said, his voice beseeching. “Humans notice when other humans just disappear.”
She considered that, then shrugged. “Fine.”
She smoothed a smoky grey shadow over her lid. She didn’t have time to argue with Tristan tonight. She had to get ready for her romantic dinner at Jean Georges with . . . now what was his name?
Oh well, that didn’t matter. She knew he would be stunningly handsome and would photograph well beside her. Men were as important an accessory as jewelry and shoes.
And one must always consider what the paparazzi might catch.
A romantic dinner with the Finola White. That was a photo op no savvy member of the paparazzi would consider missing.
She couldn’t let silly stress over an unimportant human taint her enjoyment of the evening—or affect her perfect smile.
She stood, smoothing down her form-fitting Halston gown, in her signature color, white.
She reached for her white cashmere wrap and her Swarovski crystal-encrusted clutch. She paused in the doorway of her glass-walled office. “But you do understand why this one had to go?”
Tristan hesitated, then nodded.
She offered him a small sympathetic smile that didn’t quite reach her pale, pale grey eyes. She didn’t feel sympathy, but she knew she wore it well. It gave her features an ethereal quality like some altruistic soul pleading for monies for starving children or something.
“This disappearance is your fault.” No sympathy laced her voice.
“Yes.” He nodded again, having the good sense to look contrite. After all, he was her right-hand man for a reason.
“Send a memo to the mailroom to hire a person to replace . . .” She fumbled to think of the human’s name, then shrugged. She waved her clutch dismissively. “Have them hire someone new.”
She started out the door, then paused again. “And tell them a male this time. An attractive one. My magazine is about beauty; I shouldn’t have to look at ugly staff.”
“Of course, Finola.”
She strode through the maze of her inner offices toward the elevators, pleased her new Jimmy Choo sandals were exceedingly comfortable. Then she sighed about her head editor’s concerns.
Tristan might be upset with her, but she was right. The human woman needed to go. The woman had not only seen that Tristan wasn’t exactly human, but she’d had dreadful fashion sense too.
“He’s the one?”
“Yes, I knew as soon as I saw him.”
Charlie’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two men, who peered at him like he was a creature from another universe. And even though Charlie wanted to shift—nervously, he wouldn’t lie—in his chair, he resisted the urge. Instead he remained perfectly still, the metal of the folding chair cold against his rigid spine.
The chair was the only piece of furniture in the small room. A nondescript cube with gray painted cinderblock walls and a concrete floor. All that was missing was a bare light bulb swinging overhead, and he’d believe he was in some interrogation chamber.
Okay, this was truly the weirdest job interview he’d ever experienced, and if he wasn’t so desperate to work for HOT! magazine in any capacity, he’d walk out. But he couldn’t. He’d tried every other way of breaking into the industry’s most successful magazine. Now, he was willing to take this route. The mailroom. Far, far from where he wanted to work as a staff photographer for HOT!, but it was a foot in the door.
The man with the name Eugene emblazoned on his blue work smock moved away from the other one. Slowly he walked around Charlie, rubbing his chin and nodding. His blue eyes were intense as he studied Charlie.
Eerie eyes, Charlie realized. So blue, the color appeared almost fake. But he didn’t seem like the type of guy to wear colored contacts. Maybe the lack of light from working in the basement made them all a little strange.
The guy disappeared behind him, and Charlie suppressed the cold shiver that snaked down his spine.
Yeah, this was weird. Very weird.
Finally the man reappeared and stopped in front of him. Then he nodded for the other man, the one innocu
ously named Dave, who’d been conducting the interview before it took this odd twist.
Both men stepped to the side, several feet away from Charlie. But not far enough that he couldn’t make out a few of the things they were saying. Things like “Are you sure?” “Even if he is the one, would his looks pass?” and “What about the red hair?”
Would his looks pass? How good looking did you need to be to work in a mailroom? Not that he considered himself ugly. He raised an eyebrow as he regarded the other two men. They were hardly hunks themselves. And his red hair . . . well, he’d heard about that his whole life, but it wasn’t a valid reason not to hire him.
Charlie paused, frowning. What the hell was he doing? This was nuts. The one? Needing the right look? His red hair? Yeah, this wasn’t a good idea.
He’d started to get up when the two men noticed and returned to stand in front of them.
Charlie told himself he wasn’t feeling intimidated as he settled back down, waiting.
Eugene regarded him, narrowing his eyes as if he was trying to see something beyond Charlie’s features, something deep inside.
Charlie shifted, deciding it was time to gracefully tell them maybe this job wasn’t exactly what he’d anticipated.
Before Charlie could find the right words, Eugene’s intense expression dissolved into a wide smile, revealing white teeth—almost perfect except for a slight gap between the front two. And just like that, the strange vibe in the room disappeared.
“Charlie Bowen, I think you could be perfect for the job. Just the guy we’ve been looking for.” Eugene held out a hand to him.
Charlie blinked, a little dazed at how quickly the atmosphere had changed. But after a moment, he accepted Eugene’s handshake, noting that the man’s grip was perfectly normal. No cold, clammy skin. No death grip. Just a customary welcome.
“I will let Dave show you around,” Eugene said, offering Charlie another warm smile. He nodded to Dave, his blue eyes intense again, and for a moment, Charlie got that feeling something was still not quite right here. As if the two men were having some silent exchange. But then Eugene was gone, opening the door to step out into the bustling workroom beyond.
“Ready?” Dave asked.
Charlie wasn’t sure, but he nodded. “Yes.”
As soon as he stepped out into the busy mailroom, his concerns faded. The room buzzed, people busily doing their jobs like diligent bees in a hive. The most prestigious hive in all the New York fashion industry. Maybe even the world.
This was a good thing. One step closer to his dream job. Maybe he was going in through the backdoor, but he wouldn’t be the first to get creative to land the job of his dreams.
Weird job interview or not, he was where he’d always wanted to be—working for Finola White Enterprises, and more specifically HOT! magazine. And soon, he would get his portfolio in front of the queen bee herself. The powerful, notorious and insanely successful Finola White.
Once Ms. White saw Charlie’s photographs, she would realize she had her next star photographer right here under her very nose.
Chapter Two
Charlie sighed as he bundled another group of mail, then dropped it onto the appropriate cart next to him. He repeated the process, then repeated it again.
The cart he was loading would go to the fifteenth floor. The main offices of HOT! magazine. A place that had become his version of the end of the rainbow. He could see the end, he knew the pot of gold was out there somewhere, but he couldn’t seem to reach it.
The fact was he’d been working in the mailroom for a month now and all he saw was this workroom and this sorting station.
In his hand was a parcel labeled clearly with the great Finola White’s name. He stared at that name in black, serif font, imagining what it would be like to work directly with her and her art department instead of here—he glanced around and couldn’t contain the slight grimace that curled his lips—here, in strangeland.
He hadn’t mistaken the oddness he’d felt when he’d been interviewed. Over the past few weeks, he’d realized the staff of the mailroom was strange. He couldn’t place his finger on what was odd down here. It was just an intensity, a vibe in the air like the work went beyond mere mail delivery. Even though that was exactly what they did. Deliver mail.
He dropped another stack onto the cart. He knew that all too well.
And he didn’t even get to deliver it. He just sorted the mail and processed the mail, and subsequently never left the mailroom. Not how he’d envisioned his plan.
When he’d come up with this scheme, he’d actually imagined that he’d at least be in the vicinity of Finola White—or members of her artistic and design staff. In the offices where he could slip his portfolio into the mail and thus in front of some important person who would be wowed by his work and hire him on the spot.
Genius in a blue mailroom smock.
But so far, he hadn’t even seen any of those people. And he was losing hope. A month down here and he was starting to believe his brilliant plan was utterly stupid. He was closer to his dream job when he was doing wedding photography. And while brides, mothers of the brides and, well, anyone involved with weddings could be high-strung and demanding, they had nothing on this mailroom staff.
He looked around, watching his coworkers bustle around like they were doing some sort of clandestine service that was keeping the free world safe from imminent danger.
It’s just mail, Charlie wanted to shout, but instead he took his frustration out on the rubber band he used to secure another bundle of missives.
He really shouldn’t get mad at his fellow coworkers. It wasn’t their fault that the closest he’d come to photographing high fashion was when he happened upon a HOT! photo shoot in Bryant Park, and stopped to snap a few pictures like some inquisitive tourist. Not quite what he’d imagined when he’d started here.
He looked up from his work to see two men watching him and whispering. Clearly about him. Another older woman at her computer watched him too.
Okay, even if he didn’t have a plan and just wanted to work in a mailroom, this place would still strike him as strange. Everyone just exuded weirdness. Apparently it was a prerequisite for working here.
“And what does that say about me?” he muttered to himself.
Charlie sighed. He might as well be in the deepest, darkest circle of Hell rather than the lowest level of 66 West 46th Street in the heart of the garment district.
He looked around again. A woman who looked like a Russian fitness instructor circa 1960 was typing furiously on her computer as if she was inserting top secret data rather than logging in received packages. Another man, wearing a bow tie with his royal blue work smock talked to Eugene, the mailroom manager, their heads tucked close together, again like they were sharing some cloak and dagger plot.
Let’s face it, Charlie, old boy. Even if you did manage to get your portfolio in front of some bigwig, as soon as they discovered you worked in the mailroom, they’d probably cast your photos aside. No matter how good they were.
He should just quit.
“Charlie.”
Charlie fought back a groan. Great, Innocuous Dave. Man, when he’d considered this guy average and dull, he’d been right on the mark, and that was what made him so awful. He was a boring, long-winded pain in the ass, following Charlie around like a shadow, watching Charlie’s every move, repeating and repeating the importance of the mailroom and the way to perform even the simplest of tasks.
Pride in your work was one thing, but this went beyond that toward obsession. Creepy obsession.
“Charlie,” Dave repeated, his voice clipped and emphatic. He stopped on the other side of Charlie’s sorting area, his dark eyes serious, but also snapping with another emotion. Excitement? Anticipation? Worry? Charlie couldn’t really tell.
Charlie waited, sure this was going to be another lengthy diatribe on the importance of mail sorting. He needed to quit. This place was sucking away his soul. And if he was wise, he’d
do it before Dave started talking—otherwise he’d be stuck listening to something that made no sense and would likely go on for what felt like hours.
Charlie set down the envelopes on the metal sorting table and opened his mouth to do that very thing, but Dave spoke first.
“You are being promoted.”
Charlie’s mouth snapped closed; then he said, “Promoted?”
“Yes, you will now be delivering and collecting the mail for the fifteenth floor,” David announced, leaning forward as he said the floor number, as if he was revealing a secret assignment.
His mission—should he choose to accept it.
Despite his thoughts just seconds earlier, Charlie found himself smiling. “Great.”
Instead of looking pleased at Charlie’s acceptance, David pursed his lips, regarding him critically. “You need to realize this is a significant advancement. A very important part of the mailroom’s operation. You are expected to pay great attention while up there.”
So I Married A Demon Slayer Page 1
