Deal with a Demon by Celeste Easton

Author:Celeste Easton [Easton, Celeste]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2013-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

Episode Six

Chapter Eighteen

Shock hit Nic like a slap in the face. She stepped back. “I thought it was a demon who killed her.” The info dropped a huge wrench in her perception of things. Before she’d agreed to his offer of help to get her brother back, she’d had a clear understanding of the basics—good and evil. No crossovers. No deviations. Sure, humans were capable of evil too, but she thought demons were all bad, all the time. And now, besides traipsing through the real Hell, having all of her preconceptions about the place blown into oblivion, she had to accept more horrors.

On top of that, she had to resist the urge to comfort Arden while every cell in her body longed to reach out to him, pull him to her chest, and wrap her arms around him to ease his pain.

“No, she was betrayed while on earth.” He started walking again, and she matched him step for step, refusing to miss one word. “My mother’s twin was dying and she was desperate to see her. She ignored my father’s warnings and went up to say good-bye. That’s when she was taken.”

“But why…who?”

“A religious zealot. My aunt had confessed my mother’s perceived sin to her priest and the man was insane. He waited for her, counting on her connection to her sister. Then he stabbed her in the heart.” He paused and shook his head. “The wife of a demon, yes, but an innocent, slaughtered by a man of the cloth.”

“Not all of us are believers.”

“I know that. But if it weren’t for my mother’s humanity, her human need to see her sister, she would still be alive. Her human heart made her weak.”

“Not all humans are weak.”

His eyes glinted. “If my mother were a demon, she would still be alive.”

A retort hovered on her lips. All creatures—human, demon, and any other kind she’d yet to learn of—had the capacity for vileness. But nothing she could say would undo all that had been done. He believed humans weak, brutal, betrayers.

And that meant any closeness she had felt while wrapped in his embrace was nothing more than good old-fashioned physical attraction on his end. Lust, plain and simple.

She might be only human, but she wasn’t stupid. Although if she’d been lucky enough to be anything other than human, the knowledge that he’d just been getting his rocks off wouldn’t hurt as much.

The weight of his stare lingered, but she refused to look at him. Without a word, he turned and headed down another alley. She followed, unspoken words clogging up her throat. He had to know there was more to humans than what he’d experienced, right? Did he think there was more to her than that? She doubted he’d ever be able to see beyond the past.

And she didn’t care, she reminded herself. His opinions didn’t matter…did they?

While she’d been busy inside her head, he’d led them down another alley—a dead end. In the center of a brick wall, a black door stood between two overflowing Dumpsters.

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