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  Jay was the result.

  She had created him as a weapon. And a lure. Jezebeth had known Lucifer would forgive her infidelity if Jay would fight for him. But no one had suspected she would actually get him to agree to a marriage contract. The balance of power had certainly changed, but it wasn’t clear yet how—or for how long it would stay this way.

  “I’m not going to stay here and fight for Lucifer, no matter what my mother wants.”

  Verin laughed. “You say that as if you have a choice.” She leaned forward, her eyes alight.

  She was enjoying taunting him. Cackling delight filled her thoughts, bouncing around in his brain. He’d forgotten how damn loud that could be, with Hell acting as an amplifier to his abilities.

  Verin cocked her head. “Perhaps you have a choice after all. You’ve certainly made some interesting friends in your time on earth, Jevroth.”

  “I am charming.”

  “Did you know the angels sent a girl into Hell after you? And she isn’t just a girl, is she, cousin?”

  Sasha. His heart began to pound. Hell was dangerous even for those who knew it well. He didn’t want her anywhere near this place, but still his stupid heart rose at the thought of her coming for him.

  Verin scowled. “You should have told me what Sasha really is. Secrets are bad for the soul.”

  Jay locked his jaw. He’d learned his lesson about secrets the hard way. He’d lost his chance to tell Sasha the truth himself. Now he had no way of knowing what the angels had told her. Lies, truth, they could be equally damning if she believed them.

  By now, they would certainly have told her he was a demon. No more breaking it gently. His mind raced, supplying a thousand possible reactions she might have had.

  “Do you know what her quest is?” Verin asked conversationally. “We’ve been taking bets on it all evening. Does she come to redeem you? Or to kill you for her angelic masters?”

  He couldn’t believe Sasha would kill him. Leave him to Hell, yes. Seek him out to exterminate him? He didn’t think he’d gotten her quite that angry.

  “No bets? You aren’t being a very good sport about this, Jay. Where’s your sense of humor?”

  “It must be chained up in a different cell.”

  Verin laughed. “Don’t worry about the chains. I know you want to see your precious Sasha and we’re going to make sure she finds you. We have to know if she’s going to save us the trouble of killing you.”

  “My mother won’t allow me to be killed.” He was too useful.

  “No, you’re probably right. But Sasha on the other hand… well, she probably won’t be killed right away either. She’s valuable to you, isn’t she? What would you do to spare her life, do you suppose?”

  Something feral rose up in him. “Don’t you threaten her,” he snarled.

  “What did you think would happen, cousin? You ride off into the sunset together and spawn adorable little demon cherubs? I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Light and dark can’t coexist together. You know the rules.” Verin smiled. “And she’ll make such a pretty whipping girl.”

  Jay lunged up, snapping the chains taut, so quickly Verin barely had time to jerk out of his reach. Her back slammed against the far wall of the cell and she stayed there, only her eyes visible in the darkness, her breath coming fast. “Damn, you’re quick.” She crept back into the light and he heard the echo of her thoughts growing more arrogant with each step. “Harming me won’t do you any good, cousin. I’m not the one holding an ax over Sasha’s pretty head.”

  No. That was his mother. Jay sagged back against the wall, letting the chains fall lax.

  “It shouldn’t be long now,” Verin commented as she faded back into the shadows again. He heard a creaking groan, a heavy wooden door being opened. “Patience,” she said, the word sounding like a curse—and from Verin, Demon of Impatience, it could be.

  The door rattled on its hinges when it slammed shut, leaving Jay alone with his thoughts. Chained in a holding cell, with only his doubts for company, awaiting Lucifer’s judgment on his truancy these last few months. Awaiting the arrival of the girlfriend his very existence had put in danger.

  Just another sterling Christmas Eve.

  ***

  Hell wasn’t at all what Sasha had expected. No fire. No brimstone. Just a series of empty beige halls permeated by the indefinable odor of the DMV, not quite masked by the scents of ammonia and lemon Pledge.

  She’d imagined Hell as a crowded place, noisy with the screams of those burning in its fires, but the only sound was the constant hum of the air conditioners. She had yet to see a single demon, but an itching between her shoulder blades, the unmistakable sensation of being watched, had plagued her ever since she stepped through Geryon’s door.

  She’d never felt so uncomfortable in someplace quite so innocuous. The dull corporate hallways had to be an illusion, a veil over the real Hell. What could be more deceptively innocent than unflattering fluorescent lighting?

  Sasha navigated the maze of abandoned Hell halls, guided by nothing more than instinct, a gut feeling she was headed toward Jay. She’d always been hyperaware of him, from the first time they met.

  She’d been feeding her fiction addiction at the Malibu public library when she felt a tingling wakefulness shiver through her thoughts, like a tuning fork ringing inside her mind. She’d looked up and he’d been standing right in front of her, a question in the bottomless black of his eyes.

  Physically he was a god, but the mild-mannered library dweller had never been her type. He looked like Clark Kent, apologetic and shy, but she’d let herself be talked into grabbing an espresso at the Starbucks down the street, hoping Superman would make an appearance.

  He’d talked about digging through old family records, looking for traces of aunts, uncles and cousins he’d never known. He was interesting, occasionally quite funny, but so tentative with her, like he expected her to reject him at any moment. Sasha didn’t understand how someone so pretty could be so insecure one second and then brash and confident the next.

  He wasn’t the type of guy who usually flipped her switches, but she really liked him. It was hard not to. So when he asked if he could see her again, she said yes. And then outside the movie theater on their first date, she let him brush a hesitant kiss across her mouth and agreed to go out again.

  Jay was a puzzle—capable but guarded—and she was intrigued. So she kept saying yes, because there was never a good reason to say no. She kept hoping the tingles, the humming awareness of him, would translate into wild passion, but even though she couldn’t complain in the bedroom department, she’d always been waiting for the fireworks that never came. There were hints of Superman lurking inside, but he never made an appearance, and she’d discovered she rather liked dating Clark Kent.

  Until he started wigging out about meeting her parents.

  At first she thought he was intimidated by her celebrity family, but he’d never seemed to care about the fame game before. The more he had evaded, the more she had begun to wonder about the secrets he kept, the distance that was always between them. Dating the alter ego was only fun when she was in on his secret identity.

  Jay could play the role of devoted boyfriend beautifully, but when real commitment was involved the character fell away. What she’d thought was their relationship developing was just him playing house. This was why she didn’t date actors. They only wanted to perform their connections, not live them.

  But Jay was different. Or she’d thought he was. Now she didn’t know what to think.

  He was just a guy trapped in Hell. A mission to complete.

  He couldn’t be more to her. Not right now. She couldn’t worry about him. She needed to focus.

  Sasha stopped beside a beige wall, flooded by the sense Jay was behind it, but there were no doors in either direction for a hundred feet. Holding the Desert Eagle against her thigh, she put her free hand flat against the plaster, then jerked it back when the wall began to move beneath her fingers, r
ippling across her palm. “Jesus.”

  A low laugh reverberated at the end of the hallway, accompanied by skittering sounds. Sasha spun toward the noise, taking aim, but only caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her vision. The hall stretched away from her, empty as far as she could see.

  “Note to self—Hell is creepy and you’re being watched by invisible hyenas.” Suck it up, Sasha. She turned back to the wall hiding Jay. “Things aren’t always as they seem,” she muttered to herself, drawing comfort from the familiarity of her own voice.

  She lifted one hand to the wall again, shuddering when it came alive under her fingers. It felt like wet stone—and as soon as she thought the word stone, the plaster and drywall flickered like a mirage and vanished, leaving the section of the wall directly in front of her a damp stone-and-mortar construction. This was her access point to Jay.

  The stone didn’t look very stable, so Sasha gave an experimental shove. Rumbling like an avalanche, the rocks tumbled away—but rather than down, they fell sideways, rippling away from her touch until a portal opened, wide enough for her to step through.

  “Jay?” She wrapped both hands around the Desert Eagle.

  There was nothing but shadows on the other side of the wall.

  And the sound of rattling chains. “Sasha?”

  Her breathing snagged at the sound of his voice. “Jay.” Sasha forgot about being watched, forgot about the quest, the creepy moving walls and Gerry’s ominous warnings. She rushed toward the sound of Jay’s voice, not realizing until she heard him speak, heard that he was still able to speak, how frightened she had been for him. Relieved tears pricked in her eyes, but she ignored them. There’s no crying in Hell.

  The avalanche reversed, sealing her in darkness, but Sasha didn’t look back. She groped forward through the pitch, toward where she thought she’d heard Jay. “Are you all right?”

  “Over here,” Jay called and Sasha whipped around.

  How could she have gotten so disoriented? She thought that was where the entrance was, but now her dark-adjusted eyes made out a flicker of candlelight on metal and flesh. What had they done to him?

  Sasha hurried toward him, knocking her shin hard on something solid, but not even looking down to see what it was. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Jay—filthy, bare-chested, nothing-had-ever-looked-better-to-her-in-her-entire-life Jay.

  “Oh God, is that blood?”

  She fell to her knees at his side, wanting to throw herself into his arms, just to feel his skin against hers and know he was all right, but not wanting to hurt him if there were injuries beneath the dirt and dried blood.

  “It’s nothing.” He cupped her face, searching her eyes for something, then bared his teeth in an unfamiliar, fierce smile, holding up his shackled wrists. “Take the light. See if you can find something to open these.”

  A bud of unease sprouted in her chest—her Jay was never so commanding. He wasn’t the take-charge type. He didn’t have that edge. Could Hell have changed him in a matter of hours?

  Ignoring the sense of disquiet, she holstered her gun, grabbed a candle and began searching for keys, tools, anything that could be used on his bindings.

  Seeing the room for the first time, Sasha shuddered. Is that an iron maiden? “What is this place?”

  “Whatever its owner needs it to be. Hell isn’t static like earth.”

  How did he know that? Had his captors told him? Sasha found a fireplace poker she somehow doubted had been used only for stoking fires, given the bits of charred stuff stuck to the end. She refused to wonder what that stuff was, or who it came from. She held it up.

  Jay nodded sharply. “Good girl. That’s perfect. Bring it here.”

  He extended one leg, bracing the shackle at his ankle against a stone and wincing at the change in position.

  “Are you hurt? Can you walk?” What had they done to him? And how could she get him out if she couldn’t move him? Was that what Gerry had meant with his vague warnings?

  “Don’t worry,” Jay said without looking up, his focus on positioning the shackle to his satisfaction. “Demons heal quickly.”

  Sasha froze a step away from him, raising the poker defensively. “What did you say?” she whispered.

  Jay looked up and she watched the expression drain from his face until it was completely neutral, guarded. “I can explain,” he said carefully—and those words were all the confirmation she needed.

  A demon. I’m dating a demon.

  Chapter Seven

  So You’re Dating a Demon

  Oh shit. Jay had been so stupidly certain the angels would have told her everything. When she’d rushed to his side and seemed so grateful to see him, he’d assumed she must have forgiven his deception, understood his true feelings for her, and come to redeem him so they could stay together.

  The sight of her, his very own avenging angel, gun in hand, hair streaming behind her, had knocked the breath right out of him.

  But the angelic bastards hadn’t told her shit, and now she was winding up like a major league hitter with that fireplace poker, ready to swing it at his head. He raised a hand, ready to catch the poker if she tried to club him. “Sasha, baby, listen to me.”

  Her eyes narrowed and the poker wagged threateningly. “Don’t call me baby, demon.”

  “Sasha, you know me.” Jay gathered his feet under him. Could he disarm her without hurting her? Or taking a fireplace poker to the cranium? “I haven’t changed. I’m just not one hundred percent human. I thought the angels told you.”

  “So you only confessed to being a demon because you thought someone else had already told me?”

  Jay winced. “I know it looks that way, but I was trying to tell you—”

  “When you were conveniently sucked into a demonic vortex? I have to say, Jay, it would have eased my mind at that point to know you belong in Hell.”

  “I meant to tell you sooner.”

  “I’m supposed to believe a demon?” She huffed out an angry breath. “It makes sense, in a way. Demons are known for lying and that’s definitely your strong suit, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t mean to deceive you. At first I thought you knew what I was.”

  “Do I look like I have some kind of demon radar?”

  Jay figured it was best not to answer that question. Apparently his demonic nature wasn’t the only secret the angels were still keeping from Sasha. “Can I have the poker? We don’t have much time.” And he’d really rather have this conversation when she wasn’t threatening him with a sharp object.

  He barely caught the poker she flung at him before it could smack him in the face.

  In the same move, she drew a gleaming silver gun and pointed it straight at his chest. “Better?”

  Out of the frying pan. The poker would have hurt like the devil, but he could have shaken it off. He could have asked her to shoot the manacles off before—he knew she was a crack shot—but he hadn’t wanted that gun pointed anywhere near him.

  A bullet from a human gun was unlikely to kill him, but the swirling etched into the barrel meant she was holding an angel’s sword. She could do some serious damage even if she just tried to wing him. Angel swords—whatever form they chose to take—were created to destroy demons.

  Did she know that? Did she know if she squeezed the trigger she could end him? Just what mission had the angels assigned her that she needed a Demon Killer?

  “Sasha…” he began cautiously, but couldn’t find the words to continue. Getting her to trust him again seemed too big a task for a collection of verbs and nouns.

  Her expression was fierce. “You said you could explain. Start talking.”

  It wasn’t the threat of the gun that spurred his tongue, so much as the wounded flicker in her eyes. The betrayed ache he was solely responsible for putting there.

  “I’m only half demon. My father was human. An anthropologist working at USC. My mother…” There really was no way of painting his mother in a positive light with
out outright lying and he refused to lie to Sasha any more. “My mother is an ambitious demoness who thought having a hybrid child would enhance her standing in the demonic court.” And she hadn’t been wrong. “But I never wanted to spend my life as a pawn in an endless string of intrigues. I didn’t know what I wanted…”

  “You better not say until you met me. My bullshit tolerance is low right now, Jay.”

  At least she was calling him Jay again. It was a definite improvement over the way she’d spat demon at him like an epithet. “I went to the mortal realm looking for… I don’t know. Guidance. Answers. Some kind of direction. I thought if I could find my father’s family, find where the human half of me came from, I would understand why I never felt complete in Hell.”

  “I will shoot you if you say ‘you complete me.’”

  Jay suppressed a smile. The demonic part of his nature was unspeakably turned on by her rage. She had no idea how enthralling she was right now. “I found out my father was an orphan with no known relatives, but by then I already knew I wanted to stay on the mortal plane. Everything was so alive. Humans seemed to feel things so much more strongly because their lives were so much shorter they had to pack their experiences in tightly. I couldn’t go back to the chess game of the demon realm, where manipulations and intrigues can take a thousand years to develop. Not after I experienced the rush of human existence. I knew I had to find a way to stay…and that’s when I met you.”

  The gun’s muzzle lowered a few inches. Sasha’s eyes were still wary, but there was a hopeful crack in her angry mask that hadn’t been there moments ago.

  “I thought you could help me be less demonic. I wanted to be good. For you. You made me feel like I was human and normal, sometimes too normal for you, but I couldn’t tell you the truth and have you look at me like—like you’re looking at me now.”

  “How am I looking at you?” she asked softly.