Chapter Fourteen #2
Laurie flicked the bottle cap in the air and caught it again.
“To tell you the truth, I’m a little jealous.
The last time Skye toyed with someone, we kept him tied up in a dungeon in Hell and fucked him senseless for a month.
It was quite fun. I can’t remember how that fulfilled whatever it was he bargain for, but”—he smirked—“I think we both know Skye is quite creative with bargains.”
“You’re lying. Skye doesn’t fuck the soulless,” Remi said on instinct.
Laurie’s eyes widened, just a little, then his gaze traced over Remi, sizing him up. “Unless they bargain for it. Yes, I know. But how do you know that? Was that your second choice after becoming a rock star?” Laurie laughed. “I’d say you chose very poorly.”
Remi gritted his teeth, imagining Laurie and Skye fucking someone together. Imagining this dangerous man with silver hair holding someone’s arms behind their back as Skye with her red irises fondled and tortured their victim’s cock until they were begging and pleading for release.
He’d promise anything. Everything. What would they make him do? Would they only let him come if he made them come first? A memory from his dreams overtook him of Skye’s wings shuddering as she orgasmed from his touch.
He blinked and shook away those thoughts. With gritted teeth, he asked, “Why are you here?”
Laurie didn’t answer at first. He retrieved a gold cigarette case from his pocket, oddly similar to the one Skye had in the alley, and took a cigarette from inside.
Holding the filter between his lips, he snapped his fingers and created a flame, then inhaled, lighting the end before exhaling a perfect wisp of smoke.
He pondered something with a faraway gaze. “Do you read classic literature?”
“What? No.”
“Shame,” Laurie said. He took another drag. “Wilde wrote this line that I love. ‘A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It’s exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?’”
Remi furrowed his brow. “What the hell are you talking about?
“There’s very little in a demon’s life that we can’t have with a snap of our fingers,” Laurie said. “So when we find a vice that keeps us coming back for more.” He shrugged and inhaled the cigarette again. “It’s hard for us to stop playing the game. That is until we win. Or our toys break.”
Fear prickled down Remi’s spine. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, pretty boy,” Laurie said. He took a few steps closer and leaned into Remi, pressing their chests into one another as he reached for something over Remi’s shoulder.
“I don’t like being left out of the fun.
If I ruin Skye’s game by telling you the real score, then she’ll come back to Hell and take her anger out on me.
” Remi froze like the prey he was, caught between the counter and Laurie’s body.
Laurie flicked his cigarette, ashes falling into the tray next to Remi’s arm.
“Trust me. You haven’t lived until you’ve felt the threat of her heeled boots near your balls.
” The enticing words were whispered against Remi’s cheek.
Remi’s heart was racing, anger coursing through him. His body got confused, like it usually did when these demons were around, and that pissed him the fuck off. He shoved Laurie, hard enough that his cigarette fell into the sink.
They both looked at it, and then Laurie glowered at him with pinched lips, his eyes flashing red. “Quite rude,” Laurie said.
“I already know that I’m just a game to Skye,” Remi said. “If I could get her to quit messing with my bargain and go back to Hell for good, I would. All you demons can just leave me and my band the fuck alone.”
Laurie laughed. “If compulsion doesn’t work on you, then a bargain isn’t ever going to stick either.”
“Why not?”
Laurie grabbed Remi’s chin and twisted it this way and that.
“You aren’t entirely human. You aren’t a demon or an angel or a witch.
You aren’t any magical race that I’ve ever encountered before.
Skye should have seen that, but perhaps she was too distracted by your soul glow.
That the bargain worked at all must mean whatever non-human piece of you that you have is minuscule and puny.
But, nevertheless, whatever power you have is incompatible with our bargaining magic. ”
Remi tried to yank his chin away, but Laurie’s grip tightened. “I don’t understand,” he said, more high-pitched and whiny than he meant it to be. “You’re saying that my bargain—”
“—was never supposed to happen,” Laurie said, his eyes pulling down at the corners, a slight pout to his lips as if he was deeply sorry for Remi.
Laurie patted his cheek, twice. Remi flinched back.
Laurie picked up his ruined cigarette from the sink.
“You’re living on borrowed time. I’d suggest enjoying the ride while you’re on it because it’s destined to crash very soon, and the only one to walk away from the rubble is going to be Skye.
If you want her to tire of the game she’s playing, then you need to give her what she wants. ”
“And what’s that?” Remi asked, irritated.
“Oh, you can figure it out, pretty boy,” Laurie said, grinning. He grabbed the beer bottle in Remi’s hand and shoved the cigarette into the neck. “And just remember, while you might be her toy for now, Zara and I are the playmates she always comes back to.”
Remi slammed his ruined beer on the counter as Laurie’s sadistic laugh faded into smoke along with the rest of him.
The tour bus door opened. Skye hung up the phone as she climbed the stairs. She clapped her hands together and smiled. Remi poured his beer down the drain.
“Our luck is turning around,” Skye said. “The opening band got mono, but your agent says he has another band lined up. The next big thing, apparently. He’s flying them out tonight.”
“Great,” he said with zero enthusiasm. “Do you want to tell me what that shit with that guy was about?”
Skye rolled her eyes and started tapping away on her phone. “It’s nothing. Laurie is just…” She sighed. “Laurie.”
“And that stuff about compulsion not working on me? My bargain isn’t ever going to work because I’m not entirely human?” Remi demanded. It was all just more demon bullshit.
Skye chewed on her lip. “I don’t really know, but Zara and I have a plan to get more magic to rebind the bargain—”
“Are you dating them? Zara and Laurie? Is he, like, your boyfriend or something?” Remi interrupted.
Skye leveled Remi with a glare. “It’s really none of your fucking business, is it?”
“He burnt my coat, and Zara made my band sick!”
“Oh, piss off, Remi,” Skye said. “And you accuse me of being jealous.”
“Is that what that was?” Remi asked. “You trying to get back at me? Just another trick for the game you’re playing—”
Skye marched over and twisted her fingers into Remi’s jacket, pressing him into the counter with the same amount of strength that Laurie had.
“This is not a game,” she said, enunciating each word.
“You are not a game to me. You’re literally nothing.
Nothing but a pain in my ass. I’m only here so the Devil doesn’t clip my wings. ”
Their bodies aligned, and the swell of her breasts pressed against his chest.
“Right,” Remi said, a little breathless and without the bite he’d been trying to muster. “Sure.”
Skye’s eyes roamed over his face, and he couldn’t be mistaking the way they lingered on his mouth. Desire shot through him, settling as heat in his groin.
No, it wasn’t desire. It was fucked-up demon magic making his brain go to goo and his body remember all the nasty things she did to him in his dreams.
Remi forced himself to step away from her. She released her grip and let him escape. He went to the fridge to get a new beer and stormed off the tour bus and back into the venue, just to find some goddamn peace and quiet to think.
Skye said she wasn’t fucking with him. Laurie said she was. Remi knew he couldn’t trust either of them.
He didn’t know what to believe.
But he’d get his answer the next evening, right before the Anaheim show.
“And because I’m an amazing agent,” Kevin said. “I got you the best opening band in less than a day.”
“Who are they?” Remi asked.
“Key of Atlas,” Kevin said with a wide grin. “We just signed them. They’re going to be huge.”
Remi, Liam, West, and Ollie all stared at one another with blank expressions.
Skye rubbed her eyes, frustrated, one hand on her hip. She’d been gone almost all day, running around, doing who the hell knows what with Zara.
“We’ve never heard of them,” West said.
Skye groaned. “I have.”
An enraged guy in expensive-looking ripped-up jeans walked up, pointing at Skye. “You,” he seethed. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”