Page 31 of Devils Don’t Deal

“What happened?” I asked, my voice crackling and dusty.

“The devil brought you here.”

“Before that. You didn’t come to the front.”

He frowned. “Well, the goblin band came in the back and carried me off. So that’s where I was while the devil tended you.”

I stared at him and grabbed his pointed green ear. “What do you mean, the goblins carried you off? Did they torture you?” I moved his face back and forth, looking for signs of injuries.

He pushed my hand down. “Calm down. I’m fine. The devil doesn’t like his deals to be broken, so he took care of them.”

“Took care of them?”

“Dumped them on Lieutenant Sato, who’s married to the goblin king, who dislikes them and will make sure they’re thoroughly processed to the fullest extent of the law.”

I lay there, fingers twitching as I tried to stay calm and not attempt to sit up then wish to die when my stomach screamed at me. It hadn’t hurt nearly so much when it was happening. No, the kiss had been…

For a moment, the world got beamish and dreamy as I remembered caramel and lightning. What in the world had he kissed me for? We didn’t kiss. We weren’t dating; we were dealer and dealee, not kisser and kissee. But he had kissed me. Unless I was hallucinating. It was possible that everything, including the rabbit, had been a vivid hallucination.

I shook my head, and even that small movement hurt me. “How long was I out?”

“Three days.”

I glowered at him. “How long until I can get back to work?”

He glowered back at me. “As long as it takes to heal. You’re lucky to be alive, princess.”

“I have to get back to work!”

“You have to get better.”

“What deal did you make so they’d take me here? This room is way too nice.” I looked around at the horribly large, comfortable room with a bed, couch, and huge TV.

His face shuttered. “You’ll have to talk to the devil about it.”

“What do you mean? It had a confidentiality clause?”

“He said you made the deal.”

I blinked at him. “I made the deal? When?”

He shrugged uncomfortably then stood up. “I’ll go tell the nurse that you’re awake. They’ll want to do some tests on you.”

I glared after him then looked down at the rabbit. Did he have a pale blue nimbus around his pale white, fluffy fur coat? Yes, yes, he did.

“You sure got a glow-up. You definitely don’t look like you’re going to die.”

“No, he isn’t,” the devil said where he lounged in the doorway, forked tail twitching back and forth as steady as a metronome.

I stared at the tall drink of deliciousness who I’d hallucinated kissing. Unless it was real. Why had he kissed me when I was bleeding to death? It made as much sense as the vampire rabbit taking that moment to bite me. “I didn’t make a deal with you. I mean a second one.”

He hesitated then walked toward me, looking too dressed up in his three-piece suit compared to me in my blue hospital gown. “It was an unspoken deal. You let the rabbit bite you. Again.”

I blinked at him then down at Divinity. He really did look divine. So pretty. “I was bleeding to death. Not like I could stop him.”

“Quite. However, when you were so close to death, you didn’t need to add to his life force with your own. It was…” He frowned while the rabbit gave him the most judgmental glare I’d ever seen anyone in the whole world give, and I’d known a lot of proud fairies.

The devil straightened and adjusted his cuffs. “I suppose the unspoken deal needs clarification. The rabbit is my soul.”