Chapter Nineteen
Skye tossed her legs out from under the silk sheets and wrapped herself in a satin robe.
She made her way across her bedroom in Hell to sit in front of the vanity mirror.
Running her thumb over the gem of her necklace, she coaxed the shadows to move and reveal Remi’s blue soul tucked underneath.
It wasn’t any brighter than before, but it wasn’t fading either.
One more stolen soul bargain should hopefully take it the rest of the way.
She just had to wait for one of Zara’s or Laurie’s leads to pan out.
The crisp snap of fingers and the subsequent flickering of flames drew her eyes up. She looked at the mirrored image of a naked demon lighting a cigarette as he lounged her bed. Her stomach twisted with a vague nauseous feeling that she couldn’t place.
Laurie interpreted Skye’s silence without so much as a glance in her direction. “Come now, darling,” he said between pursed lips as he sucked in smoke and blew it out. “Don’t get all human on me. You know I don’t mind being your revenge fuck.”
“I’m not getting human on you,” she huffed, opening the drawer to the vanity to fiddle around with her makeup.
“Would you like me to go rub it in your boy’s face?” Laurie asked with a smirk. “I love watching the vein in his temple pulse with anger.” Laurie shivered dramatically. “Gets me going.”
“He’s not my boy,” Skye grumbled. “It’s just the same demonic envy and lust that got you into my bed.”
She met Laurie’s gaze in the mirror, his sharp eyes narrowed in on her.
She was saved from having to tiptoe around the unsaid by Zara’s flames appearing as she sifted in. She flung herself down on Skye’s bed, Laurie’s nakedness not fazing her in the least.
“You smell like sex,” Laurie said, giving her a once over.
“Zara!” Skye turned in her seat to scold her. “I told you not to—”
Zara groaned. “Oh, stop. I kept to all your rules. I didn’t fuck the drummer nor the bass player, and they both still have their pretty little souls.”
Skye’s shoulders sunk in relief.
Laurie took another drag from his cigarette and said, “And the hickeys on your neck?”
“Zara!” Skye said.
A naughty gleam lit Zara’s eyes. She waved a hand toward her neck as if the marks were prized jewels.
“These are proof of my devotion to Skye. I only made out with them. Didn’t even touch them below the waist. Although…
they might have touched each other.” She cackled and kicked her feet in excitement.
Laurie turned to her. “You wicked thing. You made those two straight boys kiss?”
She waggled her eyebrows. “No kissing, but they gave each other a helping hand in exchange for making out with me.”
Laurie’s delighted laugh bellowed through the room.
Skye groaned. “Can you stop thinking with your dick for like one fucking day?”
“What?” Zara said. “I didn’t sleep with them! I just watched them jerk each other off.”
Skye gritted her teeth at Zara’s use of demon logic.
“Devil be damned, Skye,” Zara said. “What the fuck is your problem? Are Laurie and I not fucking you hard enough?”
Laurie snorted and snuffed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the nightstand.
“There’s nothing wrong with our fucking.
The problem is neither of us have blue eyes, black hair, and tattoos.
” He tilted his head and pursed his lips.
“Though I would get a piercing for you, darling. You pick. Anywhere you want. Lip, maybe?”
Zara laughed.
Skye made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and strode into the closet.
After only about a minute of peace, both demons followed her in, Laurie in a robe and Zara leaning against the door frame.
“Maybe we’ve been going about this wrong,” Zara said.
“I mean, the whole reason I’m not allowed to play with the boys is that Remi will get mad and it’ll, like, break up the band or something, but, like, breaking up the band would be the best-case scenario for you.
The bargain said nothing about the band staying together.
If it falls apart, then presto, there’s no bargain for you to keep.
Remi forfeits his soul. There’s no end for you to keep up.
You don’t have to anchor the magic. The Devil gets his soul and you get your freedom. ”
“Mmm. I second this plan,” Laurie said. “Let’s break up the band. That sounds way more fun than doing all the work of gathering soul bargains.”
“No!” Skye whipped around. Anger flared through her body, and her irises shifted as her demon vision tinted everything red.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Her voice lowered into a menacing whisper.
“I swear to the Devil, if either of you break up my band, I will murder you with my bare hands. I will torture you for years before I give you the pleasure of death if you fuck with them.”
Zara and Laurie exchanged a look.
“Don’t fucking look at each other like that. I’m fine,” Skye said, even though a jittery energy percolated through her body. She knew what they were thinking and didn’t want to hear another joke about her having human feelings. Especially not from Laurie.
Skye took a deep breath. “Look,” she said, calmer. “I just—I—I don’t want the band broken up. It might seem like a loophole to you, but if they break up before the tour is over, the soul could revert, okay? So just don’t. You’re risking my wings. That’s all. I fucking want my wings where they are.”
She was fine. She wasn’t having human feelings. “I’ve just developed a little obsession. It’s lust and a potent mixture of pride and greed, okay?”
“And envy,” Laurie added. “I only got laid last night because Remi had that blonde in his lap all night.”
Zara nodded. “Oh! And wrath.” She gestured to the scorch marks on the floor from Skye’s outburst. Huh. Skye hadn’t noticed doing that.
Laurie shrugged one shoulder. “That’s five of the seven. No wonder you’re fucked up.”
Skye sighed. Relief replaced her anger and that weird nauseous feeling. She wasn’t having human feelings. She was just experiencing a very normal range of demon motivations.
Skye got dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and one of her mother’s vintage t-shirts while Zara told them how she convinced Liam and Ollie to touch each other.
Skye bit her tongue to hold back from scolding her again.
Maybe she was a little over the top with warning her friends away from the band.
It was just her greed. She wanted her band focused on the music and the tour.
And, okay, envy too.
Laurie had been right. Envy had sunk its teeth into her last night as she watched Jillian hang all over Remi, but that hadn’t been all of it.
Dancing with Laurie, fucking him, waking up next to him in bed—that was normal, familiar, right.
Remi had clearly been trying to piss her off, flaunting Jillian in front of her, and Skye wasn’t in the mood to watch. She just wanted to feel apathetically normal again instead of the toxic combination of demon motivations the Remi inspired in her.
Skye flung out her hair and applied her lip gloss in the vanity mirror before turning to the demons lounging in bed together.
Zara’s head was resting on Laurie’s chest, and his fingers were playing with her hair as they both whispered to each other. Skye had an out-of-body moment. A human encountering the sight would think they were in love.
Last year at this time, before Skye had caught Laurie stealing her mother’s journal, before she’d set her sights on Remi’s soul, she would have crawled in bed next to them.
It wasn’t love that kept the three of them together. It was familiarity and gluttony and greed for each other’s time. They weren’t monogamous, but they were possessive.
Human love always seemed so transactional and based on following a social contract with rules and reciprocity that looked both boring and tedious.
Zara’s and Laurie’s friendship was easy in a way humans would never understand. They were either around or not. When they were, they fulfilled a physical need for sex or for mischief or for each other, but it would never be love.
Human love was selfless. And Skye, Laurie, and Zara were out for themselves, first and foremost.
Skye shook her head to dislodge her pointless inner ramblings. “I’m leaving. No sifting in today. We’re on the tour bus for like sixteen hours, and you two showing up will just stir the pot.”
Zara waved a dismissive hand, not opening her eyes. Laurie didn’t look at her but nodded nonetheless.
Skye rolled her eyes. Yeah, demons were selfish and self-involved.
She sifted to the tour bus, but before she could open the latch to let herself in the door, her phone rang.
She answered it, and the venue manager at the next show started going off on her.
She paced outside the bus for a bit, letting him wear himself out.
“He can be a showman and entertain the crowd, but if your singer climbs the equipment and hangs from the balcony, it voids our insurance policy, so if anyone gets hurt, it’s on the venue, and you better believe we’ll sue the shit out of the band if it comes to that. Got it?”
“Uh huh,” Skye answered, checking the time on her phone. They needed to get going. She hiked up the tour bus stairs. Larry nodded his greeting from the driver’s seat. She covered the bottom of the phone and asked him, “Who are we missing?”
“They’re all here, sweetie.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Larry,” she whispered.
“Are you even listening?” the venue manager barked. She rubbed her forehead, balancing the phone between her shoulder and ear. “Yeah, I’m with him right now. I’ll tell him.”
The engine started up as Skye walked down the narrow hall and hung up the phone. The door to the back room was closed, and Ollie was passed out on the couch. Key of Atlas’s drummer sat next to him, a headset on and controller in hand.
Skye groaned inwardly. She’d forgotten the opening band’s tour bus had gotten a flat, and they were bunking together on the way to the next city where they’d pick up the replacement bus.
Skye checked the bunks and found West and Liam sleeping in two of them and Key of Atlas’s guitarist and bassist in the other two. Which just left…
Levi walked out of the bathroom and shouldered past Skye, not bothering to acknowledge her existence.
Okay, so she had two singers pissed at her, but they could both take their little drama queen acts and shove them.
Skye ignored Levi as he messed around in the kitchen.
She sat at the table and pulled out her laptop, verifying the next show’s accommodations.
She could triple check these details, and they’d still blow up on her, but the work kept her mind busy.
A few hours in, the door to the back room opened. A feminine giggle yanked Skye out of her budgetary considerations.
Remi walked out, holding hands with Jillian.
Levi and Skye watched them as they made coffee in the kitchen.
“So we’re bringing groupies on the bus now?” Levi grumbled.
Remi turned and eyed Levi. “My bus. My tour. I’ll bring whoever the fuck I want.”
“Actually, it’s my bus and my tour,” Skye said.
Remi centered his hatred on her. “Right. How could I forget you blew up our first bus and almost destroyed our tour?”
“The bus breaking down was not my fault, and I’ve told you a million times that—”
“I can only stay until the next stop,” Jillian said. Her hand curled around Remi’s neck. “No need for anyone to get worked up.”
Skye’s eye twitched. She took a deep breath before her hellfire overreacted.
“Are you sure you can’t stay longer?” Remi asked, nuzzling his face against her throat while keeping his gaze pinned on Skye.
“I have an ad to shoot for a skincare line, so no, but we can have a lot of fun until then,” Jillian said. “By the way, can I post the selfie we took last night on my socials?”
“No—” Skye said as Remi replied, “Sure.”
Skye glared. “Nothing goes on social media that your publicist doesn’t approve.”
Remi rolled his eyes. “Our publicist sucks, and I’ve been managing our socials since the band started.”
“If you need a publicist,” Jillian said. “I can help out.”
“Absolutely not—” Skye said at the same time Remi said, “That’s a great idea, babe.”
“This is unacceptable, Remi,” she said. “She has no qualifications. You know things with the band are sensitive. The last thing we need is for some little drug-dealing socialite to fuck up your image—”
“I have a million followers, several sponsorship deals, and I told you those drugs weren’t mine,” Jillian said, though her focus had returned to her phone.
“Oh, hey!” Liam said as he moseyed out of the bunk area. “I didn’t know you were coming with us, Jillian. You got any more of that coke from last night? That was good shit.”
Jillian shook her head, but Remi said, “Yeah, here.” He tossed a baggie over.
Where did that come from? Skye took the one they’d bought last night. She snatched it out of the air before Liam could catch it.
“No one is becoming an addict on this tour,” she said. “You hear me? You can save your clichéd overdoses for the second tour. Yeah? Your new band manager can fucking deal with it then.”
“Skye,” Liam whined. “We don’t want a new band manager.”
“Speak for yourself,” Remi muttered.
Liam slapped him upside the head, and Remi punched him in the gut. They proceeded to slam into each other and get into a friendly tussle that had them backing down the hall and waking up the rest of the guys from their bunks.
They were both laughing by the time it was done, and Jillian grabbed Remi’s attention again, pulling him to sit beside her on the couch.
West, newly awoken, poured himself coffee, and Liam picked up Ollie’s head and plopped down beside the Key of Atlas’s drummer on the couch.
He grabbed a controller, and they started playing together, while Ollie continued to sleep on Liam’s lap.
Levi and the rest of his band started chatting as they made breakfast.
Skye wanted to sift out of there, but she’d have no excuse for a sudden disappearance, so she silently seethed over her laptop, while doing everything in her power to make sure her band didn’t get screwed over.
Lust, envy, greed, and pride swirled inside of her. She barely kept wrath from showing up in the form of hellfire every time Jillian’s high-pitched giggle floated through the air.
The girl would be lucky if Skye didn’t murder her before they got to the next city.