something!”
Ben’s pace slowed and his mouth went dry. “If you want help, you’re asking the wrong guy.”
He was followed only by silence as his footsteps echoed along the long hall.
He took the stairs to the top floor and came to a halt just outside of Oliver Gale’s office when he heard Sandy’s familiar voice. Ben hadn’t even known she’d be in the office today.
“—won’t be much longer,” she said.
“And you don’t have any new intel?”
“No, I think I need to—”
“What you need to do is focus on your assignment,” Oliver hissed.
Ben tensed. Oliver had been rough with Sandy before, given her a black eye when she’d done something he didn’t approve of. It had taken everything inside of Ben not to beat the shit out of the old man, but raising a hand in violence against one of the Malleus elders would have resulted in Sandy — and himself — being reprimanded in a much stronger and more unpleasant manner.
“The problem with Ben”—oddly, Sandy’s voice held none of the timidity Ben was accustomed to hearing—“is what you see is what you get. He’s here because he wants to help rid the world of evil. He has no deeper agenda than that.”
“Is he still obsessed with Eden Riley?”
“His connection to her is fading.”
“Have you succeeded in making him fall in love with you?”
Sandy cleared her throat. “Love isn’t something that can be forced naturally.”
“Did he love Eden?”
“He didn’t know her very long. I think he might have if given more time. He’s still obsessed with saving her from the demon because Ben’s fiancee from years ago was murdered. He thinks saving Eden will somehow right that wrong on his conscience.”
“How sad.”
“He’s a noble guy. Stupid, stubborn, and boring, but very noble.”
Every muscle in Ben’s body was tense. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Sandy was normally so sweet, so genuine. Or so he’d assumed.
“So you have failed to have him fall for your womanly charms,” Oliver said.
“I didn’t say that. We are sleeping together.”
A smile entered Oliver’s voice. “Even though he was told such a relationship between those associated with the Malleus is forbidden.”
“There is a rebel inside of him.”
“He’s too much of a wild card to have here right now. If he loves you, he’ll toe the line and won’t get in my way. Use a strong spell to make him fall in love with you. Control him, Sandy. Wrap him around your little finger, and, along with the other matter we’ve discussed, you’ll be well rewarded when the time comes. And that time is coming very soon.”
“Consider it done,” Sandy replied. “He’s mine.”
There were footsteps on the hardwood floor, but by the time the witch had left her boss’s office, Ben was already gone.
Ben had signed away his freedom, his life, in order to do the right thing. And now he was being betrayed by those he trusted. By a woman he was sleeping with.
Nothing made sense anymore. Maybe it never had in the first place.
* * *
Eden stayed quiet on the twenty-minute drive from Maksim’s bachelor-pad mansion to the small office that housed Triple-A Investigations as they absorbed the information presented to them by the wizard. Darrak had chosen not to try to get her talking. He wasn’t feeling too chatty at the moment anyway.
Something felt off about visiting the wizard, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Perhaps it was that Maksim had “helped” them without asking for anything in return. Darrak was accustomed to practitioners of magic being on the greedy side. Greed was one of the most popular deadly sins, after all. Right after lust.
It was also one of the most reliable.
“We’ll check in with Andy,” Darrak said. “Then you and me — we need to talk. In private.”
He reached for the door handle to let himself out, but felt Eden’s hand on his arm stopping him. He looked at her cautiously. Her beautiful face was tense.
He immediately worried she was experiencing the tearing pain again. “Are you all right?”
She just nodded.
“Then what?”
“What you said back there when he asked you what you felt about me.”
“Oh, that.”
“I just…” She rubbed her lips together, and her gaze flicked up to meet his. “Sometimes… I–I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“You didn’t have to be so blunt with him. You could have held something back.”
“Why would I want to do that? What I said was the truth.” He almost laughed at the shadow of doubt in her gaze. “Do you think I was lying to him?”
“No, but…” She shook her head. “Nobody’s ever felt like that about me before.”
He drew closer to her. “Stupid of them, but less competition is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m a little rusty on my sword fighting against other suitors. And pistols at dawn isn’t that appealing. I’m not really a morning person if I can help it.”
She searched his expression. “You really think this has a chance?”
“What?”
“You and me.”
Darrak thought he understood that doubt in her eyes. He wasn’t thinking quite so far ahead, but Eden was already looking years into the future to try to figure out if a relationship between someone like her and someone like him had a chance in a world of white-picket-fence dreams competing with a high-divorce-rate reality.
He knew he wasn’t Eden’s perfect choice in a man. He wasn’t even a man, really. Never had been, never would be. Some demons were former humans, with lives and memories and morals that they could cling to even if they’d made a few wrong choices in their lives that caused them to sell their soul to a demon lord or Lucifer himself.
Darrak had been reminded time and time again by the big boss that he was a big fat nothing. A lesser demon created at Lucifer’s whim once upon a time with a bit of hellfire and some powerful magic. That he lived, breathed, desired, lusted, loved, wanted, needed, and hungered was only a side effect of that magic.
How could something like
But he did. He aspired.
There was a fire inside of him that had nothing to do with Hell anymore. It was a fire ignited by the auburn- haired woman who studied him intently like whatever he said next was going to be some sort of prophecy for their future together.
“Kiss me,” he said.
It appeared to be a prophecy that had immediate results. She drew closer, took his face between her hands, and pressed her lips against his with a kiss that would have swelled his immortal soul if he’d been in possession of one. Her tongue slipped past his lips and slid against his own.
The kiss grew heated very quickly and his body responded in kind, hardening with a need he could barely hold back, especially when her hand moved up his thigh to brush against his groin. He didn’t stop her; he only managed a dark groan from the back of his throat.
He wanted her. In a parking lot at eleven o’clock in the morning, he desperately wanted her.
