“We have a deal,” I said when I was able to pry my tongue off the roof of my mouth.
“We do?”
“Yes. When you were lying there being roadkill, I told you that I would give you blood and you would get Diamond and me out of the Akasha.”
“You made a deal with me while I was all but dead due to lack of blood?”
“Yes. You didn’t say you wouldn’t do it,” I pointed out.
He shot me a look.
“All right, all right, I know, it wasn’t a fair deal, but it was a deal nonetheless, and if you insist on walking around here looking like sex on two legs, then you can just honor the deal.”
“My appearance again,” he sighed. “I can’t help the way I look, Corazon.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “You could try looking ugly, you know.”
His green-eyed gaze cast upward for a few seconds in an obvious plea for patience. “If I covered myself in mud, would that help?”
I had a vision of him standing naked, his body slick with water, as I slowly, gently, carefully moved a soapy sponge over his flesh, cleaning him, leaving all that satiny, hot skin exposed, just waiting for me to touch it, taste it—
“You continue with that thought, and I will make love to you right here,” he warned with a growl.
“Sorry. Mind got away from me. What was the question ? ”
“Akasha. Getting you out. Me. Someone evidently named Diamond.”
“Oh, yes, well, as I said, I made this agreement with your unconscious self, and since you’re a big, bad vampire, and everyone is scared to death of you, I figured you could get Diamond—she’s the woman who stole my husband, not that I really mind because he’s a total dillwad, but still, there was a matter of pride for about five minutes—then I got over it and realized I should be grateful to her—anyway, she was in the house with me when Ulfur and the English Satan dude were arguing, and whammo! Here we are.”
It took Alec a minute to work through all of that. “English Satan dude? A demon lord, you mean? Which one? ”
“Um . . . Dean? No, Dale.”
“Bael? ”
“Yes, that’s the guy.”
“Christ,” he swore.
“I gather he’s the head bad guy.”
“Very much so.” He eyed me with speculation. “What did Ulfur do to bring down Bael’s wrath on him, and by extension you and the husband-stealer?”
“He stole some gold thing. Oh, and this.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out the broken bits of stone and twisted gold.
“Christ,” he repeated, staring at it in horror. “That’s one of the Tools.”
“It’s called the Oculus of Lucifer, I think.”
“Occio di Lucifer . . .” His gaze snapped up to mine, a sense of disbelief and wonder and amazement all rolling around inside him. “The Tool has been destroyed.”
“Yeah. I didn’t do it, though, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He lifted up my hand that he still held. “You’re glowing.”
“Well, I can’t see it on myself, but I did see Ulfur with a glow. How come you don’t glow? I mean, shouldn’t you, since you were sent here, too?”
He looked confused for a second before shaking his head. “Cora, you’re not glowing because you were sent to the Akasha. You’re glowing because somehow you’ve become infused with the power of the Occio di Lucifer. For all intents and purposes, you are the Tool now.”
“Hey! I am not a tool!” I said before what he had said filtered through the dim recesses of my mind. I gasped and grabbed his arm. “Oh my god, you don’t mean that! Tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean! You do, don’t you? You mean it! I’m Satan’s eyeball! I’m evil!”
“Calm down, you’re not evil. You’re simply . . . well, I don’t know what you are. The personification of the Occio, assumedly, although I don’t have a lot of experience in that sort of thing. Still, I would guess—”
I never did find out what he guessed, because at that moment he grabbed me around the waist and literally threw me aside. I smashed into a particularly pointy boulder the size of a small pony, cracking my head against it painfully.
“I am really not having a good day,” I groaned as I rolled off the boulder to glare at Alec. Or started to glare, but when I realized that he hadn’t just gone mad and thrown me aside because I was now the personification of evil, and had, instead, protected me, I snatched up a couple of rocks and got painfully to my feet.
The woman who had appeared before the English demon lord was now stalking toward Alec, a wickedlooking sword in her hand, pointed directly at his heart. “I have no quarrel with you, Dark One. Cease interfering and you will not be harmed.”
Alec, who stood with his back to me, balanced to spring forward, gave a dry little laugh. “I’ve lived in perpetual torment for the last six hundred years. I have no soul, my Beloved was killed almost before my eyes, I tried to destroy my best friend, was banished to the Akasha by my own people, and the woman sent to drive me insane makes me hard just looking at her. There is nothing you can do that will make my existence any more miserable than it already is, demon.”
I make you hard when you look at me?
Now is not the time for this discussion.
The woman smiled a particularly creepy smile. I moved closer to Alec.
Stay back, querida.
You’re unarmed. And she has a herkin’ big sword.
It’s not me she wishes to harm. Stay behind me.
“Move, Dark One,” the woman commanded.
I bent to pick up a couple more rocks. OK, you get a little inner squeal for the “hard” comment, and more importantly bonus points for wanting to protect me, but I’m not some delicate little flower who can’t protect herself.
“Give it up, demon. You won’t get her.” You’re not up to battling a wrath demon. This woman is second-in-command to Bael. She wields more power than you know.
And you think you’re going to fight her unarmed?
I have no choice.
“Do you know who I am?” she snarled.
“I don’t particularly care,” Alec said, shifting his weight as if he were bored with the conversation. “You’re wasting your time. Go back to Bael and tell him he will not have this woman.”
Alec truly felt he had no choice but to fight the demon; that I knew. He carefully nursed anger inside him, using its strength to focus his attention on the woman, his intentions quite clear even to me—he would die trying to protect me.
I didn’t ask myself why a man who a few minutes ago walked away from me, not to mention so callously killed others in the past, would risk his own life to protect me, a stranger; I just accepted that he felt that way, and started frantically looking around for something he could use as a weapon.
Thank you for not arguing with me.
Hey, I may not be comfortable with taking down Satan’s BFF, but I’m not stupid. You have a whole lot more experience fighting people like that woman than I do.
“She is your Beloved? ” the demon asked, speculation rife in her eyes as she tried to look around him to see me.
Alec hesitated for two heartbeats before answering, “Yes. Bael will not have her.”
I held my breath for a moment, gently feeling around the edges of his mind, relaxing when I realized that he believed he was lying.
“That she is bound to you will make your destruction that much sweeter, but it means little else to Lord Bael. If you wish to amuse me for a few minutes before I take her, then I will indulge you.”
Her blade flashed, causing Alec to leap back. I felt the sting of pain in his mind, and knew the demon’s sword had slashed him. How bad did she hurt you?