Chapter Three #2
West stands in a padded room of a psych ward, his fingers in his hair, ripping at the base of his skull, screaming and talking to the walls.
A flicker of her fingers, and the ball showed the last band member.
Ollie sits in a cubicle, his fingers flying over the number pad on a keyboard.
“Huh,” Remi said. “Ollie did say he had a degree in accounting, but I didn’t actually believe him.”
Skye squinted at Remi. “Seriously? That’s what you have to say after what I just showed you? You’re miserable. Your bandmates are miserable. One of them is in a mental institution. That’s what will happen if you don’t make a bargain with me.”
Remi smiled indulgently. He leaned back on his hands. “None of that was my future. You’re messing with me to make me give in, but it’s not going to work.”
Skye pursed her lips and untangled her tail from around him. She walked her crystal ball back to its resting place on the bookcase, trying to settle the sting of acid in her chest that this deal wouldn’t get done today.
It wasn’t ideal, but she’d wait. Before her mom died, she’d taught her that the key to making soul bargains was patience and finesse.
This bargain would be worth it. Remi’s soul was worth several years of Earth-walking privileges.
She knew from entering his dreams that he’d almost been offered a record contract five years ago, but his grief over his twin brother’s death destroyed his chance. He’d had a taste of what success could be, and he’d let it slip away.
His distrust would dissolve as the pain of missing out festered inside him.
Skye just needed to wait.
And finesse.
She stayed on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. “You’re really going to turn down your only shot? Ruin your bandmates’ lives by not making a deal?”
Remi rolled his eyes. “Yep,” he said, then tilted his head. “Actually…”
“Yes?” Skye said, smiling.
“If I did sell my soul to you, what happens to it? To me?”
“You’ll be a famous rock star, and your soul will hang in the Devil’s throne room,” Skye said.
“Really, it’s an excellent deal. When humans die, no one knows what happens to their souls.
Just that they disappear from their bodies.
Your religions like you to believe that your soul will go on to an afterlife of some sort, but if you make this deal, you’ll guarantee your soul will live on after your life force fades. ”
“As a trophy for the Devil?” Remi scoffed. “Yeah, no thanks.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Alright. I’ll take you back.”
Remi walked toward her. “Good. Let’s go.”
“It’s really a shame,” she said as she called upon her flames to sift them back to the bar. “Emerson would have wanted you to live out your dreams.”
His hands struck out and grabbed her neck, shoving her back until she was flattened against the wall. Her flames sizzled away.
“Did you know my brother?” Remi asked, his voice low, lip curled. Skye shrank away from the anger in his eyes.
“No,” she choked out.
“Do you have contact with him now?”
“No.”
“Then how the fuck would you know what he wanted?”
Skye squeezed his wrist, and he loosened his grip a bit. “I know that if you were willing to trade your soul to bring him back, you must have loved him, and he must have loved you. And anyone who loves you would want you to live your dreams.”
His jaw quivered, then tension expelled from him in a sudden burst. Grief replaced the anger in his eyes.
The fingers around her neck released, his palm sliding down to rest over her left collarbone.
Leaning in, he pressed his forehead to hers.
She scraped her fingernails up the back of his head and held him to her.
The intimacy of their closeness was familiar from the dreams she’d sifted into, and yet, the real feel of his skin against hers, rather than astral projected, was wholly new. Something low tugged in her belly.
Their breath mingled in the narrow space between their lips. Skye felt a dark heat spark alive between them. It distracted her so much that when his rough, deep voice spoke next, it took a second for her to react.
His lips brushed against her cheek as they traveled to her ear. “You’re a manipulative little liar, aren’t you?” he whispered.
He grabbed under her jaw to tilt her head up. “You—you’re playing this little con. You entered my dreams like some kind of succubus, spinning your web like a black widow. Using my dead twin brother and my bandmates against me.”
Skye smirked. “A succubus is a human’s idea of a sex demon, and don’t black widows fuck their mates before they eat them? Funny those are the two examples you compare me to.” She let her eyes trail down his body. “But you should know I don’t fuck the soulless unless they bargain for it.”
Skye was the only demon with that particular rule, but Remi didn’t need to know that.
She shrugged. “If you’d like to fuck me more than you’d like to become a rock star, then that just makes everything easier for me.” All sex was transactional for demons. He’d just be another bargain signed, sealed, and delivered.
Using the demon strength she’d been hiding, Skye twisted one of his arms back and reversed their positions, shoving him against the wall and holding him by the throat.
He sputtered as her lips lingered on the outer shell of his ear. “Is that what you want, Remi?” she taunted. “Me?”
Power fanned the flame of her desire as she gave in to the instinct to hurt, just a little.
Skye squeezed his throat, blocking his windpipe for a brief moment and pressed the length of her body into his.
His breathing hitched, even though his glare didn’t falter.
It only shifted from the heat of pure anger to something hotter—like molten lust.
“No,” he gasped as she let up her grip. “I don’t want anything you’re offering.”
She narrowed her eyes but kept her smile in place. She snapped in front of his face. A black business card appeared between her thumb and pointer finger.
Running her hand down his chest, she rubbed her palm over his leather pants, narrowly avoiding groping him outright, and slipped her business card into his pocket.
“Call me when you change your mind,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” he snapped as her flames flickered alive at her feet.
She sifted them out of Hell.
“You will,” she said in a sing-song cadence, leaving him in the dark and dank alleyway outside the bar.
I’ll make sure of it.