He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot

by Stephanie Rowe

  Nick stared at the apprentice. “She said that about me?”

  Paige cocked her head to study Nick. He knew he was being judged, and he didn’t like it. “She told me about her senior prom and you showed up at the after party at two in the morning and tossed her date through the wall.”

  Nick scowled. “The guy was trying to get her naked. What was I supposed to do? Let him? She’s my little sister.” Dani hadn’t spoken to him for weeks after that, but he’d never regretted it. Without a dad around, he’d taken on the role as best he could, even if she didn’t appreciate it.

  “She said you were overcontrolling because you had no life of your own and so you tried to rule hers,” Paige continued. “She said you needed to get lai—”

  “Who is her boyfriend?” he interrupted quickly, glancing at Becca.

  “I don’t know,” Paige said. “We never used names, because of the whole being-on-opposite-sides thing. If I knew who her boyfriend was, then I’d have to kill him, and that would have been a major strain on our friendship, you know?” Paige threw her legs off the bed and landed on the floor. “This is all the fault of that loser boyfriend of hers!” Paige stalked toward the bubble. “Frozen, my ass. That son-of-a-bitch put her up to it and screwed with us both—” She walked into the side of the bubble and bounced off it, landing on her butt. “I’m going to go find him and kill him and—”

  “Frozen?” Nick echoed in stunned disbelief. “Did you just say her boyfriend was frozen?”

  “She calls him the ice king ever since he stopped calling her, as if that’s an excuse. Cell phones work in subfreezing temperatures. Everyone knows that, but would she listen to me? No. She just mooned on about him even when I threatened to send her to the Afterlife with a fireball.” Paige hopped up and charged the bubble but was flung backward, crashing into the bed. “Dammit.” She pounded her fists on the floor. “Get me out of here!”

  “You can’t leave,” Becca said. “You’re an innocent.”

  “I’m not innocent!” Paige shouted. “I’m a Rivka! I’m supported by Satan’s life force! How can I possibly be an innocent?”

  Nick slammed his fist in his palm, fury ripping through him. How dare Satan Jr. seduce his sister and put her in a death blister? “I have that bastard’s head in my freezer right now! How do I get out of here?” He knew he should have defrosted him at Council headquarters and taken him out right there.

  But Becca didn’t move, her brow furrowed in thought. “Satan Jr.’s been frozen for three weeks. He didn’t put her in this vesicle.”

  “Who the hell cares? He seduced my sister, and that’s enough.” He took a moment to try to calm himself. “Can you get us out with that shimmer thing?”

  “It won’t work through the bubble.” She eyed the steaming black cauldron in the corner. “I can get myself out through the acid pit. But I don’t know if you’ll be okay or not. The bubble will let you go through the pit if you’re not an innocent, but your relationship to hell is pretty distant. I think the acid will notice your presence and eat you.” She shrugged. “It’s a sucky way to go, from what I’ve heard.”

  “Only gold can hurt me.”

  “Stick your finger in there and see.”

  “It won’t hurt me either. I’ll come, too.” Paige dove over to the pit and jabbed her finger into it, then ripped it out with a screech. “Holy mother of hell!” She stuck it in her mouth and bounced around the room, cursing.

  Nick held his hand over the pit and felt the heat from it, then touched it with the tip of his finger. Pain shot through him, but he gritted his teeth and left it in there to see what happened. After a full minute, he took it out, and he and Becca peered at it. His finger was bright red and burning like a mother, but it was still attached. “I can handle that,” he said. “Take me through.”

  “We’ll be in it for about five minutes.”

  He nodded. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

  She didn’t move. “How do you generate your own life force now? How come you don’t need Satan? What did your ancestors do? How did you break the link?”

  He cursed. “Can we talk about this later?”

  There was a flicker of regret in her eyes, then she tightened her jaw and shook her head. “Tell me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? How to get free of Satan? So you can be your own woman.” He couldn’t keep his voice from softening in empathy.

  Her gaze flicked to Paige, who was fluffing Dani’s pillow and not listening to them. “My goals are irrelevant. I want the information.”

  He scowled at her attitude, at the reminder of who she was. Nothing but Satan’s minion. “You’re bargaining with my sister’s life, and that pisses me off.” He bent down until his face was level with hers. “If I tell you how the Markku broke free of Satan, then you’ll have no reason to stay and help me. I’m stuck in a damned pus blister, and without your help, my sister’s going to die. So you get nothing from me until my sister’s free.”

  She ground her teeth. “I won’t walk. I made a deal and I’ll follow through.”

  “You want me to risk my sister’s life on a promise by Satan’s right hand?” He shook his head. “I’m part Satan, remember? I know how it works in his world.”

  They stared at each other, and he felt the desperation coming from her. Guilt stabbed at his chest. “Dammit, Becca, I want to help you. But I have to save my sister. I swear on her life I will tell you all I know when this is over.” He grabbed her hand and set it over his heart so she could feel that he meant it.

  Her eyes widened as her fingers curled into his chest. “How do you do that?”

  “I told you, my ma’s a healer. Does weird shit to my emotions. You read me?”

  She nodded and dropped her hand. “Are there any other Markku left? Besides you?”

  He thought of the attack at the Council headquarters. “I didn’t think so, but I might be wrong. I met one that could be Markku.”

  “Dark hair? Violet eyes? Good with a knife?”

  He frowned. “Shaved head, dark eyes. Knife skills questionable. Why?”

  “Violet-eyed guy tried to kill me.” She tapped her fingers against her chin. “So there’s three of you?” She shifted, and he knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that maybe she didn’t need him, after all.

  So he threw out the one tidbit that he knew would snare her, the one tidbit that would sign his death warrant if Satan ever found out. “My grandfather was the leader of the Markku rebellion. He’s the one who got everyone out of hell. It’s my family who harvested Satan’s power so the rest of the Markku could live off it.” He met her gaze. “I’m it, Becca. I’m the one you’re looking for.”

  Without waiting for an invite, she pressed her hand to his heart again, and he opened to her. Let her see he was telling the truth. He felt her brush against his soul, cautiously probing as if she were afraid to go too deep. He couldn’t resist reaching out to her, and he felt such a stab of desperation that he grabbed her wrist and held her hand to his chest, summoning his healer gene to try to ease her pain…but he couldn’t get past her shields. He growled with frustration as she dropped her hand, seemingly unaware of his attempts to soothe her.

  “I hate needing anyone,” she muttered.

  “So, we’re good?”

  She eyed him with a disgruntled expression. “You keep feeding me tidbits, and I’ll hang around.”

  He felt like closing his eyes in relief, but instead, he kept his face stoic. “Then let’s go. Into the acid pit, right?”

  “Right.” She took his hand. “Don’t let go of me. I don’t know where you’ll end up if we get separated, and I have too much invested in you to get you get sucked off into some black vortex and disintegrated into a pile of acid-ridden flesh, okay?”

  “Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. I’ll hang on.” Her hand was cool in his, as if she was tamping back what little heat existed inside her. He tightened his grip and sent a little pulse into h
er.

  She jumped, and he felt her instinctively reach out and draw it into her, even as she glared at him. “Don’t tease me.”

  “Wait! You’re going?” Paige vaulted over the bed. “Take me with you!” She grabbed Becca’s other wrist. “I have to save Dani and kill that bastard who blistered her.”

  Becca raised her brows. “You mean, you need to save Satan from being assassinated? As a Rivka, aren’t all your loyalties to Satan?”

  Paige’s eyes widened. “Oh, crud, I do, don’t I? But I also need to save Dani.” She pressed her palms to her forehead. “God, I have such a headache. This is such a nightmare. I feel like two parts of my brain are trying to beat the daylights out of each other. How can I feel the call to save both of them?”

  Becca’s jaw flexed. “You need to get over Dani. Now.” Her voice was sharp. “It will only endanger her if you care about her.”

  “Oh, like she’s not already in danger now,” Paige snapped, then looked horrified. “Omigod. I didn’t mean to talk back to you like that. God, what’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re developing a backbone, which is good, but you need to get over your feelings for Dani.”

  “How? I don’t want to.”

  Becca shrugged. “I don’t know. Try some aversion therapy. Every time you think about how much you like Dani, stab yourself with a pencil.”

  Paige squeaked, and Nick shot a look at Becca. “Chill out, Becca, she’s just a kid.”

  “She’s not a kid. She’s Satan’s Rivka. Big difference, trust me. She can’t afford to care about anyone but him.” She clenched her free hand, and Nick saw the tension in her neck, felt pain radiating from where they clasped hands. “It doesn’t matter anyway, Paige. You’re stuck here until you do something that makes you no longer innocent. Kill Dani and the bubble will let you come out through the acid pit.”

  “Kill Dani?” Paige echoed, looking so horrified that Nick didn’t mind leaving his sister in her care, despite Becca’s suggestion.

  Becca turned away, and he could feel a war inside her that surprised him. She wasn’t completely empty inside. Far, far from it. But the emotions were stunted, like they were buried deep and couldn’t get free. He tightened his grip on her hand, trying to feel what was going on inside her. So much pain, and in so much denial.

  “You coming, Nick?”

  He reluctantly stopped trying to search out her core and glanced at the bubbling acid pit. “Yeah.”

  She nodded, then wrapped her hand around his wrist. He did the same to hers, locking their grip tight. “Hang on.”

  “I’m hanging.”

  She met his gaze and then stepped over the edge and disappeared into the boiling pit of acid. He had a fraction of a second to prepare, and then he was in it with her.

  The pain hit him so hard and so fast it slammed the air out of his lungs. It felt like his skin was being ripped off, like his eyeballs were being clawed out of his face. Jesus. He’d never make it. He could tell it was consuming him, devouring him, eating through his essence.

  “Come on, hell boy.” Becca’s voice came at him through the darkness. “Channel your dark side.”

  He ground his teeth. “How?”

  And then she was there, her body against his. “Reverse the flow of emotions between us. Take mine.”

  He wrapped his body around hers and buried his face in her neck, and started to draw on her emotions. Icy cold hit him, chased away the heat inside him. Emptiness, a void that began to build in his chest and spread throughout his soul.

  “Keep it up,” she whispered against his chest. “Keep drawing from me.”

  God, but he didn’t want to. It was a horrible feeling.

  But he did it anyway, and the emptier he got, the less his body hurt. He stopped worrying about Dani. He stopped hating the Council for killing his pa. He stopped lusting after Becca, even with her body pressed up against his, her breasts crushed against his chest. He just was.

  And then they were hit with light and they tumbled to a hard marble floor. He protected Becca’s body from the impact, instinctively.

  He frowned as she looked down at him, stretched across his body. “Nice work, Markku. You did all right.”

  “Get off me.” He couldn’t stand that empty feeling anymore. He needed light. He needed to feel whole. “Off.”

  Hurt flickered in Becca’s face, but she rolled off him and hopped to her feet. “You’re welcome.”

  He stood up and thought about Dani, tapped into his love for her, his anger at whoever put her in the bubble, and his life force returned with a roar that had him stumbling. He took a deep breath and flexed his fingers, embracing who he was. He opened his eyes to see Becca watching him with envy, and now he understood why. “That’s how you live?”

  She shrugged. “It’s what it is.”

  “How do you survive it?”

  “It’s not a big deal.” She rolled her shoulders.

  “How can you say that?” He was still shaken by the experience, and she didn’t seem bothered?

  She looked at him. “Because it’s not a big deal. Really.”

  He moved closer and reached out to clasp her wrist, needing to know whether that emptiness was a result of the bubble, or whether it was her. “It’s really you. That’s how you live.”

  “I’m fine.” She wrenched her arm free and glared at him. “Don’t go all soft on me, hell boy. We’ve got things to do.”

  But in her eyes was such deep pain, such vibrant loneliness, that he felt his own heart stutter from it. A faint humming filled his body as he slipped his hands to her shoulders, cupping the bare skin, unable to stop himself. “You hate it.”

  “No, I—”

  “I can’t let you live like that. My healer side…I can’t walk away from your pain…” Before he could think, he yanked her against him and slammed his mouth onto hers, flooding her with his life force. Take it, Becca. Feel alive.

  Becca folded against him instantly, her body warm and soft against his, her mouth opening to him. He groaned and deepened the kiss, plunging into her depths, searching for more, desperate to find the heat he knew she was hiding, to extract it from the void. To heal her. To bring her the light he could sense she so desperately craved.

  Her fingers gripped his jacket, and he felt her lust…but that was it. Just empty lust. Nothing else. He was flooding her with his heat and she was giving nothing back. She was a void in the middle of his swirling energies. But he could tell it wasn’t the barren emptiness of Dani’s condo; it was more like a practiced barrier that was her world. Not as crushing, but equally empty in its own way.

  I can still help you. He dropped his mouth to the side of her neck, nibbling at her skin as he cupped her buttocks, pressing her hips against the front of his jeans, grinding into her. He didn’t hold back his emotions, saturating her energies with his worry over Dani, his admiration for Becca’s resistance to Satan, his anger over someone using his sister, his need to show Becca what her world could be like if she’d let it go. “Come on,” he whispered against her skin. “Becca, drop your shields.”

  She moaned softly and tipped her head back, exposing her throat to him. Her body moved against his, her fingers digging into the back of his hair, but the void was still there. It was actually growing, getting stronger and larger, trying to negate what he was thrusting at her. Now that she wasn’t being debilitated by the bubble, she was back in control, keeping him at bay, protecting her core. Maintaining rigid control.

  He frowned and released her.

  She stumbled back, her face flushed with lust and surprise. “What kind of kiss was that?” She fumbled with her skimpy top, not that he’d touched it.

  He narrowed his eyes and studied the Rivka. “That’s what I want to know. You always kiss like that?”

  “Do you?” She shuddered and ran her hand through her short hair, making it stand up.

  “Yeah. I do.” He caught her wrist again and pulled her close so he could look into her eyes. He searched
for the emotion he’d sensed in her when she’d been upset with Paige. The anger, the passion, everything he’d been so certain was there, which is why he’d kissed her, to draw out the emotions rumbling inside her, to center her and ease her pain. But now there was only cool blackness.

  No more pain, but it was a facade. Not peace. A wall that held the pain at bay, but didn’t take it away.

  He leaned forward and kissed her again, soft and promising, and her mouth yielded under his. He slipped his tongue between her lips, a gentle kiss, teasing her, coaxing her, playing with her. After a moment, he felt her sigh and relax into him, and he felt the wall weaken ever so slightly and got the whisper of a deeply painful emotion, and a name. He frowned and pulled back. “Who’s Gabriel?”

  Becca’s eyes widened. “How did you do that?”

  “There’s a lot of emotion attached to his name. Who is he?” He tugged on her hair, continuing to send heat into her.

  A faint smile curved her lips and she didn’t pull away. He could feel her basking in his energy. Not absorbing it, but letting it wash over her, like a coating

  “Gabriel was one of Satan’s executioners,” she said. “Sweet kid. Great with an axe.”

  Something inside him stirred at the obvious affection her voice. “What happened to him?”

  “Satan got mad when he found out I’d lost my virginity to him, so he made me kill him.” She shrugged and turned away. “It sucked, I got over it, and we move on.”

  Well, damn. He could feel the guilt when she said Gabriel’s name. His cold Rivka had actually loved Gabriel, and she’d shut it down after that. How could he compete with that kind of love?

  Wait a sec. Did he want to compete with it?

  He watched her walk away to study the heavy gold locks on a set of enormous double doors.

  “This is Satan’s Goody Room,” she said. “The blister machine is in here.” She tested the doors. “Locked. As I’d expect.”

  He knew he couldn’t let her live in the emptiness that consumed her. Before he’d met her, he wouldn’t have cared what torment raged inside her. A Rivka wasn’t innocent. Becca had no doubt harvested billions of souls and tortured many. She didn’t matter. Not in comparison to Dani. Becca didn’t deserve mercy.