by Emma Castle
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there before she realized she wasn’t alone. The fine hair at the back of her neck rose as she had that eerie sensation of unseen eyes gazing upon her. Some ancient instinct warned her that she was in the presence of a predator.
Turning slowly, she looked over her shoulder, near the dimly lit entry. She saw a figure that was wreathed in shadows. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. It was as if every nightmare she’d ever had about shapes in the dark, choking, suffocating, and endless nothingness buried in layers of smoke were all there in that doorway. Then she blinked and the shadows vanished.
Instead, a man stood framed in the doorway. His black suit and red silk tie were strangely intense for a hospital setting. She was so used to seeing people in casual, comfortable clothes while they spent long hours at the bedside of a loved one. He held himself in a confident, dominant manner that made her shiver. Gazing upward, she gulped when she realized he was staring at her with the same intensity. The instant their eyes locked, her breath rushed out of her and all the thoughts in her head rattled around. Those eyes—fathomless twin pools of deadly intent that she couldn’t understand—caused fear to sink its claws into her as every basic animal instinct in her shrieked to run. She blinked and the strange, frightening spell was somewhat broken, and she was able to take in the rest of his face.
He was frighteningly attractive, like a model from a fashion magazine. He had dark hair, not quite black, and his eyes were just as dark. She could see no hint of warmth there. His features were perfect, a straight nose, chiseled jaw, and full lips that a girl could get lost in daydreams about kissing. There was an edge of danger about him, something that warned her deep down to be careful, to not run, because she was prey and he was a predator. As silly as the thought was, she sensed it was true on some level. She had to be careful.
Yet Diana couldn’t help but wonder about this man and who he might be. He was fascinating to look at. She had dated her fair share of guys, but this man…he made the whole world fall away. He was completely absorbing in a way she couldn’t explain.
Silence stretched between them. She wanted to wipe away the tears drying on her cheeks, but she couldn’t move, frozen by both fear and enchantment.
“I hope I didn’t disturb your prayers.”
She shivered at his low, silken voice. That voice could tempt a woman to think of her darkest fantasies. Fantasies she fought every day to ignore, yet she couldn’t stop her body’s reaction. She pulled her control together and forced herself to finally move. She had to get out of this room. Her instincts still screamed at her to get the hell out of there.
“Er…no, I was just leaving.” She stood and exited the pew.
He took a step closer, sliding his hands into the pockets of his black pants. The light from the windows moved over him in the strangest way, as though he was bending the light to move away from him, leaving him more in shadow.
Was that even possible? Diana glanced around, very aware that she was alone with this man, and the cold, emotionless faces of the occupants of the stained-glass windows weren’t there to help her.
“Visiting someone?”
“My…dad.” Just saying it dispelled the fear and desire that this man created inside her. She wiped at her eyes, making sure he couldn’t see any fresh tears.
“I’m sorry.” He took another step closer, his gaze sliding from her to the stained-glass window behind her. He stared at Saint Francis with an odd, knowing smile as if he were intimately familiar with the saint, which of course wasn’t possible.
“Thank you.” She grappled for something polite to say. “Are you visiting someone here too?” She studied his profile and the way the light from the stained glass fractured over his features in dozens of colors.
His lips curled in a ghost of a grin. “Not exactly.”
“Are you a doctor?” If he wasn’t there visiting, he had to be there for some reason, right?
He suddenly chuckled as if at some private joke. “Do I look like I save lives?”
“I…I’m sorry, I just assumed.” She started for the door again, disturbed and way too interested in the man.
“Diana, wait.”
Her name upon his lips stopped her dead in her tracks.
“How do you know who I am?” Terror clenched her throat so hard the words barely escaped her mouth.
The man turned to face her. His head inclined toward her, his body moving with a slow grace, his eyes pinning her in place as he came closer.
“You sent a prayer out for your father.”
Stunned, she nodded.
“I’m here to answer your prayer.”
His dark eyes seem to swallow her whole as his words punched her gut. Was this some kind of cruel joke? Was he a doctor playing a game? Or worse, just some creep who lurked in hospital chapels to prey on emotional women?
“I’m not a creep lurking around waiting to prey on emotional women.”
He chuckled again, the darkness edging the sound giving her chills. He’d heard her thoughts. “But…how? You’re not a doctor. You said you don’t save lives. I don’t understand—”
He raised one hand, his index finger pointing up to command silence. She closed her mouth. The man drifted closer step by step, and she still couldn’t move. They were now only a foot apart, and she could feel that awful, crushing darkness rolling off him in waves.
“I’m not a doctor, and I only save lives when there’s something in it for me.”
Diana wrapped her arms around herself. “I still don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re a sweet, innocent mortal. No need to worry. I am happy to spell it out for you.” He reached out to touch her cheek.
Suddenly the chapel vanished around them and they were in front of her father’s room, peering in at him and her mother from the doorway. Her father lay still, his face waxen with approaching death, and the sight tore at her heart so fiercely she nearly cried out. The man from the chapel was right behind her, his warm breath fanning against her neck. She shivered.
“I make life-changing deals.”
“Deals?” She didn’t understand how they’d gotten from the chapel to her father’s room.
I’m dreaming. That has to be it. No one around them moved. The nurses at the station were frozen, her parents too. The multiple monitors connected to her father were still and silent. This was how all her nightmares went. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, she just had to face whatever was happening. This was most definitely a dream.
“Yes.” The man’s voice was low, seductive, like a lover. “You want your father to be well again, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Diana stared at her father, his face a mask of pain and exhaustion.
“What would you give for him to be healed?”
She spun to face the dark-eyed man and came face-to-face with his red necktie. He was towering over her; he had to be at least six foot three. She barely came up to his shoulders.
“I…”
“Think now, think hard.” The man’s dark eyes lowered to her lips as though he was thinking about kissing her. A wild flush rippled through her.
“I would give anything.”
“Anything is an awfully dangerous word.” His dark eyes were like fathomless pools, but in them she saw her father walking, laughing, alive. The hunger for that moment, to see her father healthy and happy, was so strong that she was able to shed her fears of this man and bravely speak the truth.
She pursed her lips for a minute but then nodded. “Anything.”
He studied her, and she refused to flinch beneath his assessing gaze. She straightened her back and lifted her chin, wanting to project confidence. The man seemed amused by her sudden change, and a slow, seductive smile lifted the corners of his lips.
“Would you give yourself to me? Sell your soul?” the man asked, his voice hard-edged beneath that layer of silken seduction.
“Sell my…”
“Soul.”
He opened his palm, holding it flat as though waiting for her to take his hand.
“What do you mean, my soul?”
“I’ll show you.” He extended his hand closer to hers. She reached out, hesitating, but then finally placed her hand in his. The second his fingers curled around hers she was swallowed by darkness.
Fluttering sounds like the rush of a raven’s wings in the night made her shiver, and she clung to his hand, which still grasped hers. All around her was nothingness, and she couldn’t seem to get any air into her lungs for a long second. Then finally she was able to speak.
“What is this?” she whispered, fear choking her.
“The end of everything you know and love.”
“Hell,” she breathed. Where were the fires and the evil souls?
“Hell is different for everyone. It’s not all fire and brimstone.” His chuckle curled around her, hot and seductive.
“I see only darkness,” she gasped.
“Because your hell is one of nothingness.”
Suddenly they were back in the chapel, and Diana fell to her knees, shaking violently. He stood above her, hands tucked in his trouser pockets, waiting patiently.
“You agree to make a deal with me, and I will give you something in return.”
She put a hand to her chest as she looked up at him.
“You can…save my dad?” Part of her wondered if she was dreaming. She had to be. There was no way she was talking to the devil about making a deal to save her father’s life.
“I can.”
“But you said you don’t save lives.”
The man—no, the devil—slowly smiled. “I said I don’t look like I save lives, and as a general rule I do not.”
“Then why help me?” Diana got to her feet but sat down on the nearest pew. The devil strode to the stained-glass window, tilting his face up, the light playing upon his skin.
“Because you are a pure soul and I hunger for corruption. I need to corrupt you.”
“Corrupt me?” She shuddered at the dark word. When she thought of corruption, she thought of stealing, of hurting people, of unlawful things she’d never do.
The devil turned to face her again, and the shadows pooled around him, his eyes suddenly glowing with a soft ruby-red gleam.
“I want to own your body, your soul, to show you the pleasures of the dark side. I want you to tell me every wicked fantasy, the worst ones, and I want you to let me act them out with you. When I claim a pure soul through pleasure and bring it to the darkness, that soul then belongs to me in every way.”
Her darkest fantasies? She struggled to think, but she didn’t have any fantasies.
“Everyone has fantasies, Diana. Even pure souls like you.”
“You…you said you make deals, right? What would our deal be?” She couldn’t believe she was considering this, but if it meant saving her father, how could she not listen to what the devil offered? He would own her soul. Was her father’s life worth letting him drag her down into eternal darkness?
“You will come to me every Friday night at midnight. I can do with you as I please until dawn, then you can leave.”
“For how long?” She tried not to think about what the devil would do with her.
“Three months. It will be a delightful gift to myself to celebrate the anniversary of my fall from grace. When you die, whenever that may be, your soul will be fully mine, trapped forever in that nothingness I showed you.”
Twelve Fridays? She could survive whatever the devil wanted for her father’s sake. She wouldn’t think about what would happen when she died someday and how she’d be trapped—in hell—with him. “How…how do I know you won’t let him die after you’re through with me?”
The devil’s grin was scary, not because he was scary but because that sexy grin promised all sorts of sins, ones she didn’t think she could handle. “I may be the devil, but I’m not a liar. I get what I want, and I promise on my black heart you’ll get what you want.”
She didn’t immediately respond. Diana wasn’t stupid. She’d seen movies about deals with the devil. There was always a catch, and the trick was finding out what it was.
“What about my mom, or any other friends or family? You’ll save my dad but let someone else that I love die instead, right?”
His eyes widened the slightest bit, and then he smiled as though pleased she wasn’t simply agreeing.
“That is called cosmic balance, you clever child, and no, I do not have to bend to the will of cosmic balance. You won’t face anyone else’s death because of our little deal.”
Diana couldn’t ignore the possessiveness that seemed to emanate from him as he gazed at her. Was her soul really worth it to him? If so, then she had one heck of a bargaining chip, and she refused to waste it.
“I want you to promise that no one I love gets hurt and my dad gets totally healed forever.”
He waved a finger at her. “Now, now, you can’t demand—”
“Do you want my pure soul or not?” The second she issued her challenge, invisible electricity sparked between them. The heat burning through Diana held a promise of what was to come, and it scared the hell out of her. She had to make this deal, but only on her terms. If he didn’t agree, she still had the power to walk away, and she would.
When he didn’t respond, she stood up and started toward the chapel door.
“Fine.” He growled the word as he came up behind her. She turned to look at him, stepping back instinctively as he came too close. “I can give your other loved ones extra protection, but if the other side makes a decision, that’s on your precious angels, not me. I don’t have control over what those winged idiots do. But I swear that nothing I do will cause them harm.”
“Okay, so three months of my submitting to you and you heal my dad.”
“Submitting?” He laughed. “That’s a rather interesting word. Is that one of your fantasies? To have me dominating you?”
Diana shuddered at first, but then an inner voice whispered, “Yes. Dominate me.” A voice she’d buried every time the desires surfaced, because it filled her with shame “Is that the deal?” she repeated.
The devil grinned. “Yes. That’s the deal.”
“Do we…shake on it or something?” She held out her hand. He eyed it and then took her hand in his and tugged. She fell against him, surprised at the feel of his warm body against hers.
Before she could push him away, he bent his head and whispered, “You always seal a devil’s bargain with a kiss.” And then he slanted his mouth over hers, burning her lips with his as he ravaged her mouth, his tongue seeking hers. She was too stunned at first, but as his mouth softened on hers, she melted into him.
A frightening sense of falling forever in the darkness and fluttering black wings surged through her, but he held her, banding his arms around her and tethering her so she wouldn’t vanish in the nothingness.
She tried to banish her fears, praying for one spot of light in the darkness as they kissed. There was a brilliant flash of bright light, the feel of soft downy feathers brushing against her cheek, and then she glimpsed a shining city in the clouds.
Then it was gone. The nothingness remained.
His lips left hers, and the warmth of his body faded. Dimly, she heard his silken whisper in her mind. “You are mine now, Diana.”
When she opened her eyes and jolted awake, she lay on one of the pews in the hospital’s chapel.
She’d only had a wild dream. Her father wouldn’t get better. A tear rolled off her cheek onto the fabric of the seat beneath her. She sat up slowly, combed her fingers through her hair, and tried to compose herself. Then she left the chapel and returned to her father’s room. As the door to the chapel closed behind her, she swore she heard a faint, low masculine chuckle.
“I’m going crazy. The stress of all this is getting to me.”
As much as she would’ve done anything to save her dad, there was no such thing as bargaining with the devil. Because she didn’t bel
ieve in the devil.
2
But his doom reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought both of lost happiness and lasting pain torments him. - John Milton, Paradise Lost
Lucien stood in the chapel, invisible to Diana, watching her wipe away her tears and leave the room. She was a beautiful woman, with dark-brown hair and dove-gray eyes that reminded him of lightning in winter snowstorms. He’d seen lovelier women, yet there was something about her that drew him in, a natural beauty that seemed to come from within. It was possible that her pure soul was calling to him, but the longing to thread his hands through the straight waterfall of her hair…that was pure lust on his part.
“You don’t believe in me yet, but you will.” And by the time she realized what bargain she’d made, it would be too late. Her soul would be forever trapped in his clutches, corrupted by his darkness, and that soul would keep the gates of hell strong and secure.
After she left, he raised a hand to his lips, brushing the tips of his fingers over them, wondering.
It had been a most curious thing. When he’d kissed her and sealed their bargain, he had thought he’d seen something, just a quick second of a young girl’s hand brushing over cool blades of grass on a summer morning, the chilly drops of dew tickling his fingers as they tickled hers. It had felt…heavenly. He’d convinced himself that he didn’t want to remember what heaven felt like, how it tasted, how it looked, but kissing Diana had brought back forbidden memories. He buried the rush of pleasure that thoughts of heaven brought because it always brought back the pain of his fall. Instead, he focused on why he would experience that with Diana when he never had with any other mortal before.
He normally saw people’s darkest desires when he sealed their bargains. He exited the chapel and moved unseen through the hospital until he reached the room where Diana and her mother were saying their goodbyes for the night and going home. After they had left, he walked over to where Diana’s father lay breathing softly, his eyes closed. Lucien stared down at him for a long minute. The man was deep in a coma, wouldn’t last the night, not that Diana or her mother knew that. They only knew that time was limited. The doctors had assured them they would have another day or two to say goodbye and take him off the machines. But even the machines couldn’t stop the death that was creeping through Hal’s body.
