Matt leaned down to kiss me sweetly, nuzzling at me with his nose as he tightened his grip around my waist, deepening the kiss. “Screw it.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me,” he said.
“I did, but I’d like the record to reflect that you were the one who said to screw the fact my father—aka Satan—is right across the hallway.”
“Yeah, well, it won’t be the first time he’s been disappointed, and it won’t be the last.”
Chapter Twenty
“So?” Matt tapped a black feather on my nose, a wicked glint lighting his eyes. “The fire thing.”
“What about it?” I usually kept a tight rein on my emotions around others, especially men, and didn’t let my more, shall we say, primitive attributes come out to play. But Matt had this effect on me, something that made me feel safe enough to let it all hang out, so to speak. Who was he to freak out over a bit of demonic power, anyway?
He traced the side of my face with the feather, sending a ripple of pleasure through me. “It’s a good thing, right?”
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping now? Avoiding any sort of cuddling or talk of our feelings?” I said. When my attentions were distracted as much as they’d been the last hour, I lost my ability to control hellfire. And my hair caught fire. Yeah, maybe I should have kept myself reined in. Stupid nephilim men and their You Show Me Yours, and I’ll Freak Out When Your Hair Catches Fire and Completely Forget to Show You Mine crap.
He moved himself so that he rested on his forearms and gazed down at me. “I could, but come on, we’re immortal. We don’t actually have to sleep. Remember?”
I became so self-conscious, my body nearly caught fire again. “I actually, um, well.”
“Oh, fuck, you haven’t stopped aging yet?”
I shrugged, covering my eyes with my hands. “Not quite. You have?”
“About five years ago,” he said, removing my hands. “Right around my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“That’s pretty young.”
“Young? How old does your kind get?”
“We start slowing down about twenty-four or twenty-five, but we don’t stop aging completely until about thirty. So I don’t need much sleep and I can go without meals for a couple days, but I can’t give either up entirely.”
“That’s—”
“Lousy, I know.”
“Amazing is what I was thinking. So… ”
“What?”
“Well, I sort of have this question and I really don’t know how to ask it. But since we’re sharing our secrets... ”
I sighed. This couldn’t be good. “Out with it.”
“Well, I’d heard once, from another Angale so it’s probably total bullshit, but I heard you could give it up.”
“Give what up?”
“Immortality. I’d heard you could give up immortality and live one normal life span. That you had the ability to give up your powers and be human.”
“Since I had planned on marrying a human, I might know how to make you mortal? Sorry, no. I can’t make you mortal. I can’t make me mortal. And in reverse, I can’t make anyone who is mortal immortal.” I should have known there was a catch. There’s always a catch when it comes to immortals. Screw that, there’s always a catch. Period.
“What were you going to do? Tell him? Fake being mortal and hope he didn’t notice? Glamour yourself old?”
“That was the plan.” This was not a discussion I wanted to have, and any sane immortal knew when a demoness didn’t want to have a conversation, the conversation ended. “I’m sorry I can’t help you commit suicide by giving up immortality, but I am useful for other things. Need a random hailstorm? I’m also good at finding suddenly available parking spots.”
“What?” he said, anger darkening his features. “No, no, I don’t want you to do anything for me.”
“Really?”
“Well, okay, not anything related to your powers, at least.” He blushed and didn’t meet my eyes for a moment. “I only wanted to know because I was curious. I mean how often does someone like me end up in bed with a demoness?”
“Well, you’ve managed it twice in as many days,” I said and rolled my eyes at his nervousness. “I think you’re managing pretty well.”
“Point taken.” He shifted slightly, stretching out his wings. “But, so we’re clear, I don’t want your powers.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Not even for a little test-drive?”
“What? A test-drive? I can borrow your powers?”
“Theoretically,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal. It so was a big deal, though. I’d never let anyone else control my powers. Ever. “I’d have to voluntarily let you use them and I could break off your connection at any time, but if you knew what you were doing you could channel my powers.”
“And what would me borrowing them do to you?” he asked, concern written all over his face.
How sweet. But there was no chance I would hand him complete control, so I wasn’t worried. “Nothing. Why?”
“Doesn’t it drain you?”
“I wouldn’t be up for taking on the whole of the Angale army but no, it wouldn’t drain me. It’s exactly like me using them, but a little more strenuous mentally. More like studying than pleasure reading.”
“That’s—”
“Weird?”
“Pretty cool.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him, smiling. “I thought you didn’t want my powers?”
“I don’t. I mean, I don’t want to take them from you.”
“But test-driving them?”
“Would I sound like an ass if I said that my inner child is bouncing up and down at the idea?”
“No.” I pushed myself up and sat cross-legged on the bed, facing him. My tail slid to the floor to snatch the button-down shirt he’d worn earlier, and I slipped it on. If I was going to hand even a little bit of my powers off to someone else, I’d rather be at least partially dressed.
He was torn between the desire to pout and the excitement rolling off him at the idea of test-driving my powers. Nothing smells quite like pure, unadulterated glee. It reeks like burnt sugar and popcorn. “Damn, I was enjoying the view.”
I wagged my finger at him. “You need to concentrate if you’re going to channel demonic power. Otherwise, you’ll lose control and bad things happen.”
“Like enveloping my hair in hellfire?”
“Do you want to test-drive this thing or not?” I motioned to my body.
He sat up and faced me, mirroring my position. His eyes lingered at the gap in his shirt between my breasts, and he licked his lips.
I wondered if he was thinking about my powers or me.
“Yes, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
“What question?”
“Is the hellfire halo around your hair a good thing?”
I took his hand, trying to move the subject away from my involuntary pyrotechnics in the bedroom. How had he let the wings slide, as well as the tail and the horns, but for some reason be completely hung up on the hellfire? “You need to lower your shielding completely.”
“Done that already.” His tongue ran along his bottom lip, and he dragged his teeth over it, staring on our linked hands. Energy crackled from his fingertips to mine.
I opened my own mind and found he’d fully opened himself to me. If I wanted to be evil I could steal his powers completely, and if he had even an inkling of an inclination to try to make a grab for mine, they’d be mine. Even if the Angale thought I was some sort of lightweight as the Devil’s nice daughter, that didn’t mean I’d hand over my powers without a fight.
Nice was relative.
“And you need to relax completely. Close your eyes and feel.”
His eyes slid closed.
When I felt him pushing against my mind, I let it open to him. “Good,” I said. “Now stretch out your powers.”
“What do you mean?”
“R
elax and treat my power like it’s your own. You can feel it, right?”
“Yes.”
“So use it.” When he pushed further into my mind, my body warmed. Stealing a quick peek at our hands, I smiled at the blue-black flames dancing over our fingertips. “That’s it.”
“Wow,” Matt said breathlessly. His wings arched and spread out to their full wingspan.
Golden flames mixed with my Hellfire, engulfing us completely.
I winked. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“I can’t believe we’re sitting here like this and it’s not a problem.”
“Why would it be a problem? You didn’t know we’re fireproof?”
“I knew we were fireproof. Or at least, I figured you were fireproof and sort of guessed I was, too. At least when we were linked.”
“And the problem would be what?”
“Well, we’re fireproof but the sheets aren’t. Or your shirt.”
“Anything touching a demon when she uses hellfire stays intact.”
“Really?”
“It wouldn’t do a lot of good to give demons armor and have it promptly burn off the first time they used their greatest weapon, would it? Besides, don’t you think going into battle naked would be a bit distracting?”
“The Scots used to do it.”
“Do I look Scottish to you?”
“Um, no?”
“Demons don’t go into battle naked. It’s this thing we have. So, therefore, hellfire does not burn anything touching the wielder of hellfire.”
“So why does the headboard have scorch marks?” Matt asked with an impish smile.
My cheeks heated. “My hands were busy elsewhere, if you remember. Now, focus on the power you’re wielding before you catch the apartment on fire. Do you remember what my father’s car looked like?”
“Black Lamborghini Diablo. Gorgeous car.”
“Can you picture it completely in your head? Every little detail?” Of course, he could. “Boys and their toys,” my mother always said.
“Yeah.”
“Good. When you’ve got it firmly fixed in your mind, I want you to concentrate on picking it up and moving it.”
His eyes widened in disbelief. “Excuse me?”
“Imagine the car floating out of its spot and into another one. Or pick it straight up and set it back down in the same place, if you’re worried about pissing the Devil off.”
“Option B is far more appealing. How will we know I did it?”
“Trust me. We’ll know.”
“Okay.” Power surged through our hands, and a second later, the sound of a shrieking car alarm tore through the night.
I laughed. “Well done.”
“What the Hell?” Matt yanked his hand away from mine. The power he’d been manipulating ricocheted through my body.
I winced when a live current of demonic power rippled down my spine. “Ouch.”
His hand turned red, and blisters covered his palm.
“Don’t break off a connection that suddenly,” I said, still grappling with the power surge.
“Sorry, sorry, I was just surprised. Is that how you planned on seeing if I succeeded?”
“Yeah.” I managed to regain control of my hellfire, extinguishing it before stretching across the bed and onto the pillows. “Everybody always forgets to disable the car alarm their first time. It’s a rookie mistake.”
“Really?”
“Hope’s first time was a disaster. Tolliver was trying to teach her how to move the car and she managed to get it airborne, but it hit a branch and set off the car alarm. It freaked her out so badly she lost focus and dropped it into the lake.”
“That must have pissed him off.”
“Oh yeah, the fallout was particularly nasty. We didn’t even bother going home to pack our stuff. Mom threw us into her car, and we bolted.”
“Why?”
“She’s terrified of being caught.” I thought about my mother’s paranoia when it came to the neighbors. I hated knowing her habits had rubbed off on me, but at the same time I couldn’t help it. Or blame her. Who we were, what we were, was a secret that had to be kept at all costs.
“Anytime Dad has a slipup, she moves us out of town as quickly as possible. She’s completely mortal, and terrified that one of these days we’ll be found out and this holy mob is going to descend on us before Dad can get there. The worse the slipup, the faster we bail.”
“I can imagine.” Matt lay down beside me, linking our hands but not trying to reach for my powers.
I noticed he hadn’t shielded himself, and smiled. A small flame lit on our fingers and ignited up the length of his arm. I brought our linked hands to my mouth and kissed his burnt palm. We watched the redness and blisters fade completely, leaving his hand a healthy pink. Relaxed now, I let my tail descend fully and rolled onto my side, leisurely wagging it back and forth behind me.
“So what about you? How many times did you bail because of a slipup on someone’s part?”
He didn’t stop to think about it. “Never. But it would have been nice.”
“Nice?” I let my horns emerge.
He moved to face me and ran his fingers through my hair, scratching around my horns like you would a cat.
I knew I should have been annoyed—for the Alpha’s sake, I wasn’t a pet—but it felt good. My tail curled back and forth in time with his fingers and I closed my eyes, smiling.
“We lived in a pocket Bassano created,” Matt said. “No one realized we existed until he let us out. It was as if we were this big, gaping space locked to outsiders, like swimming in a fishbowl full of freaks, watching the normal people live their nice, normal lives. All I wanted when I was a kid was to find a way to climb out of the bowl.”
“And you did.”
“Once I was of age, he couldn’t keep me locked against my will anymore. Especially after I blackmailed him. So the minute I had the chance, I left. My mother tried to pull me back and I wouldn’t let her.”
“I get it.” I kissed him before resting my head on his chest.
“I figured you would,” Matt said. He shifted and wrapped his arms around my lower back.
“And you know?” I smiled, trying to distract him from the turn his thoughts had taken. “The hair thing?”
He smiled. “Yeah?”
“It’s a good thing.”
“I thought it might be,” he said.
“You know what’s even better, though?”
“What’s that?”
“When I accidentally set yours on fire instead.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
I snuggled into him, closing my eyes. This was never going to work out. A demoness in love with a nephilim? Come on. Not even in fairy tales does that one work. But for tonight, I was just going to enjoy the delusions.
Chapter Twenty-one
“So.” Matt watched me while I wiggled into my jeans. “Do you have plans for lunch?”
I searched the clothes scattered all over the floor for my shoe. Where had it gone? It couldn’t have just disappeared. “Lunch?”
“You know, the meal between breakfast and dinner. We tried having it together once and ended up in Paris?”
“Right, lunch. I am, in fact, familiar with the concept. And yes, I do plan to eat lunch today. Would you like to join me?”
“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of you joining me,” Matt said.
I tugged on my shirt and glanced around for my left shoe some more. How had it ended up on the top of the dresser? I shouldn’t have been surprised, what with the way Matt threw clothes everywhere last night. Grinning, I picked it up, sat on the bed, and slipped on both shoes. I combed my fingers through my hair, and wrestled it into a loose ponytail at the nape of my neck. Not that I should’ve been too worried about how I looked. It wasn’t like anyone would notice my ‘phase of shame’ from one apartment to the next.
“Today?” I said.
“That was the thought.” Matt collap
sed on the bed, sounding so annoyed I couldn’t help but pat his hand. Obviously, no one had told him how frustrating it was to date a demoness.
“Not sure if you meant today, or what?”
“Are all demonesses this complicated?”
“Yes.” I leaned over and kissed him, rubbing our noses together. “It’s part of our unholy charm.”
“It’s unholy, I’ll give you that.” Matt laced his fingers through my hair and kissed me, his tongue probing the inside of my mouth.
“You like me anyway,” I said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s all that matters, then.” Closing my eyes, I pictured my living room and began phasing.
“Hey!” Matt grabbed my fingers.
I opened my eyes and let my focus drop back onto him. “What?”
“You didn’t answer me about lunch.”
“I didn’t?”
“No.”
“Oh yeah, I’d like that. Where were you thinking?”
“I don’t know.” He let go of my hand, leaning up to kiss me one last time. “Think about it and let me know when I pick you up?”
“Okay.”
“About 12:30?”
“I’ll see you at 12:30.” Closing my eyes again, I focused on my living room and, when I pictured it clearly in my mind, relaxed my body so it would shift. Once the image was fixed, I tried to step into the threshold. Damned thing was stuck. It was like the window between Matt’s bedroom and my living room had been shut and locked.
“Good morning, Faith Anne,” my father said. He appeared suddenly from the living room side of my window, glowering like he had the time he’d caught me sneaking home at dawn after homecoming my sophomore year.
I stifled a groan. This couldn’t be good.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said.
“Dad,” I hissed and glanced over at Matt, who was staring wide-eyed at the vision of my father projected inside his bedroom. He didn’t move, and I wondered if it was because he really was brave, too shocked to think straight, or the most likely possibility—terrified the movement would alert my father to the fact he was naked underneath the sheet.
Regardless, I hoped he didn’t decide to make a mad dash for the door. Running stark naked from my father would not end well for either of us. I’d get a stern talking-to. And Matt? I didn’t even want to contemplate what my father would do to Matt.
Luck of the Devil Page 19
