“Do you have any rules that you want to talk about?” he asked, grasping my hands.
There was one thing that had been bothering me, and I wasn’t sure how to ask it without appearing jealous. But after taking a deep breath, I gazed down at Eros’s ring—feeling drawn to it—and brushed my finger against the darkness. “Are you going to be having sex with other people when I’m not with you?”
Tonight, I learned that his sex drive was extremely high. What if I couldn’t please him the way he needed me to? I didn’t want to come home one day to find him in bed with someone else—even if there were no feelings attached. Trevon had little control over cheating on me—since he was under Javier’s lustful spell—but it still hurt. I needed Eros to be honest with what he needed.
He placed a finger on my chin and lifted it until my gaze reached his. “I am faithful to you, Dani. Only you. I will not have sex with someone else, unless you’re there and/or you’re okay with it. And, honestly, I prefer to only have sex with someone I’m romantically attracted to.”
I smiled and slowly nodded my head. Okay, I could do this. We could work.
Dr. U flipped through a file at her desk, the overhead light reflecting off of her glasses. I peeked my head into her office and knocked. She looked up from her work, her eyes growing wide. “Dani! What’re you doing here this late? It’s nearly 7 o’clock on a Friday.”
There were a lot of reasons that I was here. I held up a brown paper bag from Crimson’s Nouveau and smiled. “I wanted to bring you something before the office closes the next few days for Christmas.”
She closed her file and gave me a soft smile. I handed her the bag and sat across from her, gazing out the window. It was a terrifying kind of dark outside tonight and reminded me of the night Mom was murdered. We were walking down Fourth Street on Christmas Eve, listening to Joy to the World which was playing in the city center a few blocks over. Mom was twirling me around, her blonde hair blowing into her face. We were happier than we had ever been.
And then she saw a woman across the street, stopped dead in her tracks, and kissed my forehead, telling me that she loved me more than anything. I tugged on her hand, wanting to get to the ice-skating rink before it got too packed. She gave me a smile, her lips twitching, and looked at the woman again who was hurriedly crossing the street at the crosswalk. Even in the darkness, that woman’s eyes were a piercing red.
Mom told me that we would have a race to the rink, that she’d give me a head start. So, I sprinted as fast as I could down the road to the rink that I’d been to a thousand times before and stopped when I noticed that she wasn’t following me.
I couldn’t remember what happened next, just that Mom was lying on the ground not moving and the woman was standing over her and I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
Dr. U was coming out of her office, briefcase hanging off her shoulder, when she found me. She crouched down to my level and asked me what was wrong. At the time, I didn’t know, but I knew that something wasn’t right, so I just pointed to Mom and the woman with red eyes a block away and clutched the necklace that Mom put around my neck earlier that night. Dr. U looked over to them, fear clear in her eyes, and grabbed me.
Before I knew it, she was running down the street with me to the police station, taking me away from the only family I had. When I got to see Mom’s body on Christmas morning—at the time we were supposed to be at church—I pushed a strand of her blonde hair from her face and told her a bedtime story.
“Fervor Crisps?” Dr. U asked, pulling one out of the brown paper bag. “I love these!”
I grinned. “You’ve had them before?”
“Of course!” She bit into one and sighed. “You’ve had them before?”
“Eros makes them.”
Her eyes widened, and she slowly chewed. “Eros, as in the man you’re dating?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m going to visit his family for the holiday and am nervous.”
She placed the Fervor Crisp on a napkin and dusted off her hands. “You’re going to see his family?” While she had become comfortable with my relationship with Eros, she suddenly looked hesitant. “You’re moving rather quickly, but…” She sat up, took my hand, and smiled. “You’ll do great. I know you will. You’ve turned out to be the strongest woman I know.”
We gazed at each other for a few more moments, and I closed my eyes. Hoping that I had made Mom proud like I had Dr. U.
After a few seconds of silence, I stood. “Well, I don’t want to hold you up. Have a good Christmas. I’ll see you next Monday.”
I tugged on Mom’s pendant and walked to the door. I’d see her if I survived Hell.
“Dani!” she said before I walked through the doorway. I turned around to see her smiling weakly at me. “Be careful.”
CHAPTER 40
Dani
If I was going to visit the Kingdom of Lust, I was going to make an unforgettable first impression.
I shimmied into a long red satin gown that Eros brought over this morning and smoothed it out. It was as bright as Kasey’s lipstick, clung to every one of my curves, and had a plunging neckline that showed way more cleavage that I was used to.
Music was playing softly on the speaker in the living room. Maria peeked her head into the bathroom. “You look amazing!” She walked in—still wearing pajamas—and brushed her fingers against Mom’s pendant. “And your necklace is nearly glowing!”
My cheeks warmed. “You’re not going to the party?” I asked. “Didn’t Zane invite you?”
She sighed. “He did, but I don’t want to see Javier, and demons freak me the fuck out.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. It’d be nice to have some support there tonight.
“Zane said he was leaving the party early to come over, so I’m just going to stay in,” she said. I raised my brows. Maria, staying in? That was a first.
“So, you and Zane… you’re fine?” I asked, smiling.
She grabbed my hand, cheeks flaming, and pulled me toward the front door. “Yes, but I’ll tell you about that later. You can’t be late to a party in Hell,” she said.
After visiting Dr. U’s office last night, I had told Maria that I was going to Hell to visit Eros’s family. Of course, I only told her the essentials—that I’d be amongst a bunch of sex demons, having a lovely dinner with Eros’s disgustingly rude parents, trying not to embarrass myself—and made sure to leave out the part about Eros actually killing his parents and seizing the kingdom.
That part scared me the most. Not only was I going back to Hell, but this time I was going back to Hell with my boyfriend who was going to murder his family to take back his throne.
Maria opened the door and pushed me out. “Have fun and good luc—” She stopped half-way, her gaze traveling from me to the hallway behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder. Lucifer stood at Eros’s door, smirking in our direction. His icy eyes lingered on me. Maria’s mouth fell agape. “Holy fu—” She pulled me back into the house and slammed the door. “Who is that?”
“Lucifer.”
She leaned closer to me, her voice quiet. “Lucifer, as in the guy you had a threesome with?” When I nodded my head, her eyes widened. “You get it, girl. He’s so sexy!”