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“The beetles.”
Holy shit, it’s real. This is all real.
He smirked. “I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night. Shoo. Off to bed with you.”
I nodded, suddenly feeling the lateness of the hour; it had to be near three in the morning. I started down the hall of the opulent flat that felt ancient. Not musty or shabby butold.Like how a haunted house feels, with history imbedded in its walls. But the idea of Ambri going out to touch other humans… To kiss and fuck them and make them come like he made me…
“Stop it,” I muttered. “You can’t bejealous.You just told him nothing can happen.Get real.”
Still, the twinge in my stomach wouldn’t go away.
I found the spare bedroom—like an elegant room in a bed-and-breakfast I could never afford—and face-planted onto the pillows. I nearly groaned at how good it felt. The mattress that wasn’t a hard slab, the silk against my cheek like a caress.
Against all odds, I found myself drifting off.
Even more impossibly, for the first time in months, the chorus of nasty whispers telling me I was no good, talentless, hopeless… They’d all gone silent.
And that, I thought as I drifted down, was almost worth selling my soul to the devil.
eleven
Cole shuffles down the hall. When I hear the door to the spare room shut, I slump against the wall. The window is open, the night is waiting, but my desire to go out and feast is somehow absent.
Impossible.
And yet I remain where I am, watching the night recede with the coming sunlight, my gaze inward, recalling how Cole’s hand felt on my skin and how, when he looked into my death, he was afraid. But not for himself.
For me.
This is quicksand. Tread carefully,I tell myself.Tread very, very carefully.
A prudent thought, but another whispers that I might already be sinking.
twelve
I woke with sunlight streaming into a room I didn’t recognize. Rich, antique furniture and me ensconced in a bed that someone was going to have to pay me to get out of. Then it all came flooding back. Instead of panicking or freaking out, my heart thudded with excitement. Enthusiasm. I—Cole Andrew Matheson—was about to greet a new day without self-doubt or depression pressing me down like an unseen hand. I felt like I’d slept a hundred years to make up for all the sleepless nights I’d had over the last year. I felt…
“Normal.”
Your new patron is a demon. Perfectly normal. Nothing to see here…
A chuckle began in my stomach and grew. I let it have me, laughing until I was wrung out. Then I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling.
“What. The. Fuck.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The room was bigger in the light of day. A desk, chair, small sofa, and king-sized bed all shared the space without crowding each other.
I cracked the window for a breath of fresh, cold air. It was nearly noon, I guessed. The day was gray and golden and full of possibility, lightyears from where I’d been yesterday.
I took the longest, hottest shower of my life in the en suite bathroom. In my old place in Whitechapel, the hot water ran out in exactly three minutes and twelve seconds. I’d timed it.
After wrapping a towel around my waist, I came out of the bathroom to find my old clothes were gone, replaced by new pants, a white undershirt, boxer-briefs, and a long-sleeved fleece. There was even a thick winter coat and a scarf. I didn’t know how to feel about Ambri buying clothes for me (or that he got my measurements exactly right) but it was either put on the new stuff or walk out naked.
The possibilities that scenario created made my blood heat and I had to take a personal moment.
“Remember your own rule,” I muttered, but what were rules to a demon?
I dressed in everything but the coat and scarf and headed out. The aforementioned demon was in the living room. He was dressed in a different suit of expensive slacks, shirt, and jacket, all in black, but otherwise was nearly in the same spot I’d left him last night, standing by the window. Sunlight streamed in, bathing him in gold and silver, and making his skin luminescent.
