Page 18 of Devils Don’t Deal

“So you’re also an idiot?”

He pursed his soft lips, glancing down at my bare legs. “Indeed. I’m having many regrets about the deal I made with you, the sweet, gentle fairy girl who would sacrifice herself to save her father. The rabbit hasn’t ever bitten anyone before. But you’d bite him back?”

“Well, I’m sorry I hurt him with the ointment, but his sores really do look much better now. And you can’t take the deal back just because he’s looking slightly better instead of worse. We have a deal.”

He sighed and didn’t speak for the rest of our descent to the main floor. Soon, we were stepping off the last step and onto the pale-and-indigo checked floor.

“You clean up nice,” the goblin said, voice like skidding rocks, eyes even more grating as they landed heavily on my bare skin. The skirt was absolutely too short. Glad I’d figured that out for the future.

I didn’t adjust my clothing, just looked past him at the burning lady like he wasn’t important. Also like my heart wasn’t beating faster and faster. There were so many goblins with him. At least a dozen. And the devil didn’t seem strong or threatening. Pretty, sure, but that had never saved anyone. If the goblins hadn’t wanted to take me alive in my apartment, I’d already be dead.

“And you don’t clean up at all,” Philius said, bored and slightly contemptuous, but not like it was personal. He turned to Rawley, who stood to the left of the bottom of the stairs in her beige suit, looking out of place with all the other servers who were monochromatic red, white, or black, including skin paint. “You have the prisoner?”

She nodded and held up a pocket-watch, level on her palm. The silver filigree told a story of tangled woods filled with shadowy wolves. Philius picked up the watch, clicked it open then stood there while smoke spilled out, smelling of wild woods and dried blood, settling between us and the goblins. The smoke flowed around and around until it coalesced into the figure of a woman. She wore a broad hat, long black robes, and her face, when she looked up at Philius, was paler than the moon but flecked liberally with dried blood.

She inhaled deeply and brought up her arms, each hand holding a metal fan made for decapitation. The rabbit in my arms kicked like he wanted to get away from her.

Same, rabbit. Same.

Her eyes tracked the rabbit’s movement like a feral animal.

“Lady of the Wild Woods,” Philius said formally, adding a slight bow. “You have been released due to the care of this goblin band. Welcome back to the land of the living. Would you care to join us for dinner?” He took my hand and raised it gracefully, like we were dancing.

I smiled brightly with my sharp teeth. “We’d love to have you.”

Her eyes flickered dark red then, with a rush like a thousand cockroaches skittering across the sky, she turned to dust and disappeared, leaving the hall pulsing with her memory.

Philius glanced at me. “We’d love to have you?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want her to think she’d be interrupting anything romantic. One isn’t romantic with one’s belongings.” I batted my lashes at him.

He blinked at me, a slight frown drawing between his mesmerizing, luminous dark eyes before he refocused on the goblins. “The deal is done. Feel free to leave.”

The goblin bared his teeth and snapped in Philius’s direction. With a shimmer of taupe on the edge of my vision, Rawley shifted into this enormous, ten-foot tall, saber-toothed tiger.

Cat-shifter? My practically exposed butt. She was a saber-shifter, only her coloring was taupe and indigo. Kind of gorgeous, and it totally worked with the blue floor.

The goblins were escorted away by the hissing cat with her lashing tail while I stood still, watching the muscles bunch beneath her gorgeous fur.

“You are not an object owned by me,” Philius said once the lobby cleared, because no one had stuck around, including the fire lady, once he’d unlocked the prisoner from his pocket watch. And what kind of deal was that, him releasing someone for the goblins, unless she was a dangerous goblin ally?

I smiled brightly. Too bad my teeth didn’t make him flinch. “But I could be. You’d just wave a hand and turn me into a pocket watch, and then I’d be able to contain a lady made of blood and wolves. Was her dress pure darkness or thousands of gallons of blood? What else is in your pocket watch?”

He raised a brow but didn’t answer as we walked past an elaborate screen made of white coral grown up to the ceiling, a barricade to sight and sound. After we passed it, there was only the gentle murmur of low voices, the clink of dishes, and the scent of something I would’ve died for. Lamb? Garlic-studded roast with rosemary, I’d bet my favorite baking pan on it.

I thought I was sniffing subtly, but he gave me a look. “You’re starving to death, and you almost went back to work. You’re a workaholic.”

“I’m a bakeaholic. There’s a difference. And I’m not starving.” My stomach took that moment to snarl loudly. I cleared my throat. “That wasn’t me.”

His eyes read as amused for a beat before he led me on, still holding my hand as if we were in a dance, past all the tables until we reached a bright blue door.

He opened it and gestured me into the cutest room I’d ever seen. It was round, with metallic walls dripping with water, leaving everything slick and glistening. A curved bench opened near the door, close enough to the wall that I could touch it with my fingers, pulling away wet digits that tasted like soap.

“You shouldn’t put things in your mouth without asking whether they’re safe to eat,” he said, sitting down across from me.

There was enough room for ten people around the table, so it felt a bit odd to be perched on one side and him to be on the other, so near that I could cover his elegant hand where it rested on the white lace cloth.

Bubbles started dripping down the chandelier until it was one big mass of bubbles above us. Smaller bubbles formed and popped on the curved wall.