Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
I wasn’t much of a drinker.
But if there was ever something to drink about, it was a demon Claiming you as his one true love.
I threw it back and came up coughing, getting a low, sexy laugh out of Bael.
“Don’t laugh,” I grumbled as my throat burned. “I’m drinking because of you.”
“And I was drinking because of you,” he said, shrugging. “The only difference is, you can get drunk and drink me away. I don’t get that luxury.”
“So, did we figure out why she’s here?” Dale asked as she grabbed the bottle and came back with it.
“I can’t,” I insisted.
“Honey, you need to,” she said, giving me a knowing smile.
And, well, I couldn’t fight that logic. So I took the next bit and threw it back too.
“A goddess called Atë warned her that she needed to disappear, so the other gods didn’t find her.”
“Oh, exciting,” Dale said. “Well, they probably wouldn’t look for you here,” she said. “But if you’re not comfortable here, I can put you up at the demonslayer academy. We’re pretty safe there too.”
“Dale,” Bael grumbled, making her gaze slide in his direction.
“What? I’m not going to force the poor woman to stay here if she doesn’t feel comfortable with it. Stop thinking with your dick.”
Just the mention of it made a heat start to flush over my skin, made my sex tighten hard at the memory of him inside of me.
Bael’s gaze slid in my direction. And something about the heat in his gaze made me think he could read my thoughts, or sense my feelings, or something like that. The sexy, smug little smirk that toyed with his lips only confirmed that theory for me.
“Do I have time to think it over?” I asked, breaking the eye contact to look at Dale, feeling like the air was getting thicker by the second between me and Bael, and needing a bit of separation.
“Of course. I am in and out all of the time. And if I’m not here, you can talk to Minos. He’s the hottest one of them,” she said, waving a hand at Bael. “Long hair. Sexy as hell. That’s my man. He will bring you to me. Or you can ask Lenore, Josephine, or Nova. They will also help you, no questions asked.”
“You make it sound like I’m going to try to fucking imprison her,” Bael said, giving Dale a hard look.
“Um, do we need to drudge up the whole Lenore situation? Or Josephine for that matter,” she said, giving him a pointed glance, then making her way toward the door. “Give it as much thought as you need to, okay?” she asked, waiting until I gave her a nod, then walking away.
“Um… so what happened with Lenore and Josephine?” I asked.
“Fuck,” Bael grumbled, raking his hands down over his face. “Short version. Lenore is a witch. Each generation, her coven gave us one of their witches as a sacrifice. They didn’t kill the witches, just used them to try to open Hellmouths. So, yeah, they were kind of kept here as prisoners for a while.”
“And Josephine?” I asked.
“Well, one of the demons, Red, she came back from Hell in bad shape. Ace grabbed the first medical professional he came across to force her to work on Red.”
Okay.
Yeah.
That wasn’t… great.
“They’re the only two,” he assured me.
“I’m not so sure that makes it any better,” I told him. “If a kidnapper only kidnapped two people, we would still say he’s a bad guy.”
“That’s fair. But, Charlotte, I won’t trap you here. If you want to go, you know where the door is,” he said, but the way he winced as those words came out from his lips said it pained him to say them.
“Okay.”
“You believe me?”
I had no good reason to agree. But everything inside me said he wasn’t going to hurt me. If that had been his intention, he had more than a handful of opportunities to do it in the past, before I could have even known about his, well, evil nature.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said, nodding. “Have you slept?” he asked.
“Ah, here and there. Not a lot. But enough, I guess. Why?”
“I have to go see a warlock today. Figured if you were rested, you could come along.”
“To see… a warlock?” I asked, looking at my empty glass, wondering if I needed another glass to keep my cool with all this information that was coming at me hard and fast.
“Yes.”
“About all of the god stuff?” I asked.
“That, yeah. And also about my brother.”
“What about your brother?”
“He’s missing,” Bael said.
“He’s… missing? He’s missing, and you’re not freaking out about it?”
“Well, he’s a demon. He’s immortal. So no matter where he is, he’s alive.”
“But he could be hurt, right?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, nodding. “What are you doing?” he asked as I got up, only swaying a little bit as I did so.