As it has been quite some time since Lauren and myself have made it around to this blog, I thought it might be nice to share an excerpt from the novel we are working on right now. It is called "Devil of a Time"and features the unlikely and immortally tragic love between a fallen angel and a man who sold his soul for power.
Chapter Three
-- Luke --
Waking felt like a terrible idea, even as I was going through it against my will. My thoughts slipped and bumped against one another in time with the pounding inside my skull, and my throat and mouth burned for want of a sip of water. I must still be alive, then, on the mortal plane. I hadn’t let my mortal body get in such poor shape in a very long time. It was generally unpleasant to spend what little time I had to indulge amongst the host of humanity in discomfort.
But how did I…?
The last few hours came rolling back, and I peeled my eyes open, uncertain what I might be awakening to. The room was forgivingly dim. I blinked through the haze, staring at the dark blur in front of me. It focused into the visage of Donovan, sitting in a backwards chair with his arms propped on the top and his legs straddling either side. He was still in his slacks and shirt I had found him in, but his shoes and tie were missing, and the first few buttons of his shirt had been opened to loosen the collar and allow a tuft of dark hair to show from his chest.
He didn’t say a word as I looked up at him, didn’t smile or frown, didn’t even blink. I started to sit up, and flinched at the twin throb of pain and lingering pleasure of the bite he had left in my shoulder. I bit my tongue, willing myself not to make a sound as I straightened the rest of the way, slumping against the hard, wooden back of a chair. I flexed, feeling out why I couldn’t do more than sit up, and felt the bite of hemp around my knees, ankles, elbows and wrists.
“Rope?” I rasped, my voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Who the fuck still uses rope for kidnappings?”
He smirked at that. “I find it more satisfying and aesthetically pleasing than zip ties,” he answered. “And you look pretty handsome tied up.”
I coughed a rough laugh. “Why thank you.”
I tried to make out more of the room, but even as I sat there, my vision was beginning to darken threateningly around the edges. I shivered against the tight bonds, sending another bite of pleasure laced pain through my nerves. If I were in Hell, this would be nothing. He would be nothing. But amongst the mortals, wearing their guise, I had to oblige their laws. At least, until I returned to Hell. There were days before then, though, if he didn’t kill me.
Fuck, I had underestimated him. I had gotten soft dealing only with humans up here. They were so easy to predict and manipulate. So easy to motivate with veiled threats or small acts of violence. “I should have twisted your head off.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to try,” he assured me, straightening his back where he sat. “I wouldn’t have survived this long without some degree of caution. A sprinkling of immortality, as you called it, is a wild misinterpretation complicated by the festering boil that is popular culture of this modern age.”
“Whine about it all you like, you’ve lived this long. That’s more than all your mortal friends and neighbors can say -- if they could.”
He chuckled hard. “You don’t keep friends when you’re this long lived.”
I rolled my eyes, using the motion to hide my quick tug on the ropes behind me. They were quite snug. “I was being facetious, but the remark stands. You’ve outlived your mortal lifespan. What’s there to complain about?”
“Plenty, but you’re stalling explaining yourself.” Donovan rose from his chair and slid his hands into his pockets as he took a few slow steps towards me. “What do you want, demon?”
I felt the first little tweak of anger at the misnomer. Strictly speaking, it was far from the first or last time someone called me a demon. But I was not one of those…scrabbling, petty, shallow little… “I told you. You killed me. You owe me for the inconvenience.”
“And what do you expect?”
“Well, I came back planning to just peep a curtain open and see what myths about you are true, but I think it would be a waste of so much potential fun, Donovan. So, I want to make a deal, instead.” I rolled my wrist, reshaping it and my hand so they were more slender, drawing my muscles so they thinned down my arm. “It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. You could simply owe me a favour.”
“A purposefully vague favour?” he murmured, his eyes narrowing. “I have no soul to bargain with. You’re wasting your time.”
“Who said anything about a soul?” I rolled my other wrist, twisting the first until with a little tug, it came free of the rope. “Besides, if you made a bargain, I imagine I’ll be seeing you down there eventually. No, there are much more interesting and useful things I could ask for.”
The man took another step closer, enough that he could kick my chair over if he wanted. He looked at me but did not lower his chin, looking quite fearsome and regal. If I weren’t so annoyed, I might have found it becoming. “Like what?”
“Maybe I want to visit you whenever I please for a good solid fuck until you finally die,” I suggested, slipping my second hand free. That left only my elbows. My legs were a lost cause for now, bound as I was at the ankles and knees, but I was confident I could stand and reach him.
His brows rose. “Interesting suggestion, and not entirely undesirable.”
“I’ve had arrangements like that in the past. They always die so soon, though.” I shimmied my elbows and felt the rope slide hesitantly down my shirtsleeves to my wrists. Not wasting a single precious second, I dropped the loops into my left hand and threw myself up out of the chair, swinging the rope for his face.
He brought his arm up, but not quite fast enough, and I caught him across the cheek with the knot -- right before my hand seemed to collide with a branding iron. The flesh of my hand sizzled audibly, and the air filled with the smell of cooking meat before the momentum of my swing carried me full into whatever invisible barrier stood between us. I screamed as the side of my face, my arm, and shoulder connected, searing in an instant before I was forcibly repelled, the chair still tied to me tangling with me before I hit the ground.
“Fuck!” I shouted, cradling my ruined hand to my chest, my nerves screaming.
“Fascinating,” I heard Donovan murmur nearby. “I didn’t think that would work at all.”
I shot him a livid glare. “What did you-” Then I saw it. The thick ring of white, unbroken salt I hadn’t taken the time to notice. “Son of a… Salt!” I kicked, dragging the chair around, its legs punching through the salt ring.
The man knelt, actually swiping the salt out of the way of his knees before he grabbed the leg of my chair and tipped it jarringly so that I landed flat on my back with a loud clack! Then his hands began to work the rope loose from my ankles. “That’s a neat trick with your arms. So was the one in the lounge.”
If I weren’t so disoriented and lightheaded from the pain, I might have been able to swing around and grab him, but the moment he had my legs freed, he hoisted me out of the mass of ropes and dragged me away from the chair and salt right up onto a firm yet soft surface that had apparently lain behind me while I was seated. I tried to look around, but the simple gesture made my head swim dangerously. I recognized a handsome bed set.
Donovan pinned my arms down against the comforter, the grip excruciating against my burned skin. “Now tell me who you are, or I’ll inconvenience you again. And again the next time you decide to track me down.”
"Not if I put a hammer through your skull first," I sneered, but my voice was barely a croak. "You still have to sleep."
“A lot less than you might suspect, and I am very capable of keeping you restrained.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.” His hand moved down my arm, away from the burned skin. It allowed a small break in the pain, and I couldn’t repress a groan of relief. “Although if you can slip through those ropes, I’m fairly certain you could escape any manner of restraint.”
“Only if I want to.” I tested his grip, but he wasn’t holding back. I would be surprised if I wasn’t bruised later. I arched against the soft comforter beneath me, forcing my mouth into a lopsided smile, half my face burning with pain at the motion. “Is this a bed? Did you bring me to some sort of sex dungeon?” I egged him on, hoping to force him to lose his temper. He would either kill me, and I would go back to Hell to try again -- annoying and inconvenient, but survivable -- or he might just make a mistake I could take advantage of.
“It is a bed, yes, but I haven’t had any sex in here yet,” he said with a smug grin that showed off the points of his canines.
“Oh, forgive me for not bringing any champagne for the occasion.”
“There is a wine cabinet in the other room,” he teased, his grip slackening just a bit. “If you give me your word you won’t try to murder me, maybe I’ll treat you to a glass and we can discuss that deal you tried to bully me into in the alley.”
“Bully is such a strong word. I prefer coerce, myself. But what about your word? How do I know you aren’t going to walk out past another line of salt and lock me in here to inconvenience me?”
His eyes flicked over me with a familiar hunger. “I doubt I could catch you by surprise a second time. Even if I did, I doubt I could stay away for long. Besides, I tired of songbirds long ago.” And with that, he stood, releasing my arms. He extended his hand to me, palm up. “Red or white?”
I eyed his hand, tempted both to take it and pull him down where I could reach his face with my fist, and to stubbornly ignore it. But he was offering to open conversation about a deal again, and I knew better than most that politeness, even feigned, won more hearts and minds than stubborn anger, tempting as it could be.
I set my right in his grip, letting him pull me up into a sitting position. “Red, I think, would suit the occasion.”
“Sweet or dry?” he asked, reaching to cup my elbow as he slowly helped me up to my feet, and I allowed myself to sink into his support when my head swam heavily.
“Sweet,” I slurred as he dragged me forward, “after your change of heart.”
He chuckled heartily. “I can’t tell if that was a compliment or not.”
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