Neon Blue by E Frost (best book reader .TXT) 📗

look up at him. He’s leaning against my desk, watching me. Steam, scythe and horns are gone. His eyes glow faintly blue but other than that, he could be just a man.

But he’s not. Even if I never see the horns again, or that unholy light shining from his skin, I’ll always know what he is.

What I just agreed to have sex with. On his terms. I shudder.

“Put Peter back,” I say.

The demon glances at Peter’s crumpled form. “Now? How ‘bout dinner first? Bein’ where he is ain’t doing him any harm. Besides, you’re gonna need to whip up a big fucking memory charm before I put him back. Unless you want him screamin’ the place down.”

I start to protest, but he has a point. I nod.

The demon reaches out a hand to me. No talons. “Get up, witchy-poo.”

“I really hate it when you call me that,” I mutter, rising shakily. On my own.

“What d’you prefer? Beti?”

I freeze, grab the edge of my desk to steady myself. “What have you done to my grandmother?”

“Nothin’. Yet.” The demon shrugs and collects his shirt off Peter’s head. “You gettin’ the picture?”

Loud and clear. I refuse him and he threatens someone I care about. Know thy enemy, he said. In a day, he’s learned almost all there is to know about me. Who I care about. How to hurt me. And I’ve learned almost nothing about him.

That’s going to change. “Did you say something about dinner?”

He lifts a dark eyebrow. “You hungry all of a sudden?”

I don’t think I can carry the lie, so I just nod.

“Posturin’ takes it out of you, don’t it?” His wicked leer. “I started dinner but Pee-ter here interrupted me.” He angles a very dark glance in Peter’s direction. “How ‘bout tapas?”

Thinking about the grim state of my credit card, I shake my head. “How about take-out? I’ll raid the petty cash.”

“To them all the riches of the earth,” the demon says with a deep chuckle. “It’s on me, sweet meat.”

I glance at him skeptically. He can’t possibly have money. Or a credit card, although, God knows, MBNA will issue them to anyone these days. Even the undead. But he did go to the mall yesterday, so he must be paying for things somehow. Maybe he just bespells the store attendants into giving him whatever he wants.

“Fine.”

He shrugs his shirt back on, but as it settles around him, it shifts. A long-sleeved, v-neck, black cashmere sweater, which fits him perfectly. Defines his huge chest and arm muscles. Deepens his skin to mocha.

“You look nice in that,” I say grudgingly.

“Yeah?” He flashes me a smile. A real smile. Not as many teeth as the shark’s grin. Then he frowns. “You look like you’re wearing a sack.” He reaches out and fingers the frayed edge of my sweater. “An old sack. Fuck, you need a makeover.”

He leans toward me and I flinch away from him. But like before, he simply breathes on me. I feel that one breath all through me, fluttering warm across my skin. Like the lightest brush of his hands. Everything in me responds. My nipples harden. My insides melt. Legs go so wobbly I have to clutch at the desk again.

The demon chuckles, and where his chuckle can sound purely evil, now it’s wicked and rich with sexual promise. “See? If you’d relax, we could have all kinds of fun.”

Sure. Right before he eats my soul.

I shift and startle at a creak of leather. There’s no way my Keds could make that sound.

I glance down. My sneakers are gone. Along with my cargo pants and sweater and everything else that I put on this morning. Polished black leather boots hug my calves. Black tights outline an embarrassingly long expanse of leg between the tops of the boots and the bottom of a very short trapeze dress. I’ve never owned boots other than the clumpy winter variety, and the swirly black and orange dress definitely did not come out of my closet.

“These aren’t mine,” I say suspiciously.

“No?” The demon kneels and puts one hand behind Peter’s back. Folds him forward like a rag doll. My mind rejects what I see next. Those huge hands mashing and molding Peter’s body back into a small ball. The demon bounces the ball on his palm and rises. “Look like they fit you.”

I swallow hard. One of the foremost goals in my life has just become never being mashed into a demon-ball. “Right,” I mutter.

“Nice legs.” He touches his tongue to his upper lip. I follow it with my eyes. Fascinated. Fearful. Like watching the movements of a snake.

Or a salamander.

“Do you—?” I pause, wondering. It couldn’t be. But, it was so odd, the salamander showing up without me calling the Elements. And it’s usually Air Elementals that I get by accident. Air to balance my Earth. I can’t think of the last time a Fire Elemental showed up on its own. “You can’t change shape, can you?”

“Some,” the demon says. “Not as much as your buddy the werewolf. Why?”

The reminder of what I did to Peter makes me grit my teeth. “Can you change into a fire salamander?”

“No, but I know one.” He grins. “You want to take Izzy to dinner with us?”

“Izzy!” I spit. “He’s yours?! I should have known.”

The demon holds out the hand he’s not bouncing Peter-the-Ball with. In a foosh of flame, the crimson and cream salamander appears. It wraps its tail around the demon’s wrist and flicks its black tongue at me. Its grin mirrors the demon’s.

I shake my head in disgust. “And to think I shared power with you.”

“He appreciated it.” The demon tucks the Peter-ball under his arm and gives the salamander a friendly scratch under the jaw. “Didn’t you, Iz? You been on short rations while I’ve been under the dead bitch’s thumb.”

The salamander promptly rolls over in the demon’s hand, exposing its ridged tummy. The demon gives it an indulgent scratch.

“You sent it,” I say sourly. “Why?”

The salamander gives me an