AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Something like that.”
He resumed his seat and indicated that I should take the chair by the fire. I eased down into it and kept my eyes on Ambri, as if he were that panther about to pounce.
“You don’t need to drink?” I asked.
“Or eat. Or sleep.”
“What do you do all night?”
“I fuck.”
Heat flushed my face instantly. “You…what?”
He grinned at my discomfort, swirling the liquor in his glass. “Before you bombard me with a thousand questions, tell me what you think you know of my kind.”
“Well, not much, considering until tonight I didn’t believeyourkindwere real.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’ve heard of Lucifer, of course. Or is it Sat—?”
“Ah-ah-ah,” Ambri said, holding up a hand. “Let’s not say the S-word. Safer that way. For you.”
My throat went dry, and I got out of the chair to pace the room. “Okay, look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about all this or what’s supposed to happen next. I’m going to paint your portrait but also paint you as a demon?”
“That’s precisely what’s supposed to happen next.” Ambri cocked his head. “Are you always this neurotic?”
I barked a laugh. “Right, because this happens every day. Demons justexistand show themselves to humans and hire them to—”
“You’re doing it again, Cole Matheson. Overthinking. And you have yet to tend to your wounds.” He nodded at the bowl of water and cloth still on the floor.
I sank back in the chair. “Half of me feels like I’m being epically duped and the other half of me—”
“Wants more?” Ambri smirked. He had an arsenal of those little smiles—most arrogant, all of them sexy. “Of course, you do. That’s why you came back. I have that effect on, well, basically everyone.”
“Because you’re a…sex demon?”
He laughed, rich and throaty, and I assumed the answer wasyesgiven how my body reacted. As if Ambri’s voice traveled on waves that went straight down my spine to my groin and danced along every nerve ending that suddenly called out to be touched.
“That’s one I haven’t heard before,” he said. “No, I’m not a sex demon. Not an incubus, either, as we’ve previously discussed. I assume you’re familiar with the seven deadly sins?”
I nodded.
“I am a demon of lust and gluttony. I stoke those sins in humans and drive them to forsake all else. To become enslaved to their own need.”
“Lust and gluttony…? Wait, the seven deadly sins are real?”
“Of course, they’rereal. Otherwise, my kind would be unemployed.”
“Committing them can send you to actual hell?”
“There is no hell. No heaven either. Not as you imagine it. There is only the Other Side. Demons reside in one realm and angels in the other. You might call those realms heaven or hell but they’re not actual places.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t…that makes no sense.”
“Of course, it doesn’t. The human mind cannot fathom the Other Side. Humans return to it upon death and remain there until their next lifetime, whereupon it’s Forgotten. Memory wiped. Fresh start and all that.” He studied my perplexed expression. “Don’t strain yourself, darling. The Other Side defies time, imagination, and the rules of the physical universe. Your human brain, with its limitations and shortcomings, cannot comprehend it.”
I shook my head, trying to absorb all this. “Wait, wait, there are actual angels? And we live more than one lifetime?”
“Indeed. Love, compassion, wisdom, art—it’s too much to explore in one lifetime. So, you go back, again and again, to learn. To suffer. To take one step closer toward what you’d call enlightenment.” He rolled his eyes and finished off his drink. “Given the state of things, I don’t have to tell you how frequentlythathappens.”
“Butyoudon’t live lifetime after lifetime, do you?”
