Page 79 of Devils Don’t Deal

And then he fell over, landing hard, clearly unconscious. I climbed over to him and spent way too long singing to him and stroking his scar before my brain came back.

I yanked back from him, horror and more horror welling up and up. What the crap was wrong with me? Everything. Absolutely everything. Shouldn’t my feelings for the devil keep me from such horrifying embarrassments?

I shuddered as I made my way to the pond. I walked into it and immediately went under. The green water swirled around me as I struggled to the surface, gasping. This wasn’t a shallow pond, and the water was ice. I swam in my waterlogged, tea-party outfit to the devil, who was further out than I’d expected, and my body was much heavier than it should’ve been. I swam and swam until I finally grabbed the devil and pulled myself up onto his still-floating body. I sat, dripping and gasping, on his legs and stomach. Still rock-hard abs, it was good to see.

So many scars.

I coughed and shivered until I could breathe. I moved over his body, because I was going to kiss him while kneeling on his chest. That’s how I was going to get his heart into him, right? It seemed like that made sense. A kiss of true love? I wished. I mean, on my side, but on his…

I leaned over and pressed my lips to his before I thought about how weird it was to kiss a comatose person. I mean, forget about consent. Except his heart had kind of consented, and he’d let me kiss him before so…

How long did I have to kiss his cold, stiff lips before he woke up? He was going to wake up, right? Maybe he was really dead, dead. Would I have to deal with the king and the enchantress on my own? Would I have to deal with going to bed without him to kiss my forehead and wish me sweet dreams? Would I have to wake up without him to smile at me and share how our days went?

“Please wake up,” I whispered against his mouth then pressed a desperate kiss to him, ignoring his lack of response.

I kissed him and kissed him until I was breathless. I turned my head, dropping my forehead into the skin of his bare neck. I was lying on top of him, cold, wet, and shivering, and he was frozen, still, like a floating statue. Was this it? It couldn’t be.

I caught my breath and, using his hair to pull me back up, I kissed his lips. Wait. Maybe he needed to breathe. Oxygen. To get his heart to beat. Right. And the drops my dad gave me! I took a deep breath then sealed out mouths together and breathed into his lungs.

I pulled back and gave him chest compressions, one-two, one-two, until it was time to breathe again. I did a set of twelve compressions before I collapsed on his chest, breathing hard. The drops. Then I’d try again.

I knelt on his chest, almost losing my balance and falling back into the pond, but balancing at the last moment. Finally, I got the lid off, the dropper at his mouth, and released the plunger, shooting a stream of golden liquid that smelled like the most potent goblin poisons into his mouth.

His hands grabbed my throat first, fingers digging into my flesh, closing off my air. His barbed tail was against my back. Nope, that was into my back.

I would have screamed, but the throat compression wasn’t giving me that option.

The world started spinning, unless that was us in the pond, and the sky turned black, the pond glowed red, and all in all, it wasn’t how I’d imagined this would go.

He sat up, holding me by the neck so I slid down his chest and onto his lap, but not into the icy water. No, the water was steaming now. Boiling. Yeah, that wasn’t going to be a good thing to fall into.

His tail came out of my back, twisting around until it curled around his shoulders, barb near his mouth. He licked my blood off his tail then gave me a smile of absolute diabolical proportions.

“Such sweet blood. I will destroy worlds with the power in it.” His voice was a rumble of doom, rage, and destruction.

I tugged on his hands, still around my throat. “My blood wasn’t part of the deal,” I whispered.

A flicker of annoyance passed over his face. “I made a deal with you? What did you ask for? Immortality?”

“I asked for my father. You had him in a cage. Do you seriously not remember?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And your soul bit me. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

He blinked, studying me for a long time before he blinked again and actually looked around at the cliffs now echoing the color of the bolts of red lightning that streaked the black sky. His eyes stopped on the fallen fairy king.

“His blood is mine. I didn’t make a deal with him.” He glanced at me like he was waiting for me to contradict him.

I put my palms to his cheeks. “You don’t remember me? Not at all?”

He slid his hands from my throat to my face, staring at me until his expression shifted to something hot and soft. The look made me aware of his bare skin, my wet clothes, and how lonely and cold I was. He would make me so warm.

I pulled away and almost tumbled into the steaming, boiling red water. Maybe not water. He caught my waist and tucked me close to his chest.

“You’re mine,” he murmured, arms wrapped around me, hands smoothing over my arms, throat, face, like he needed to touch every piece of me.

“No, I’m not. I mean, we have a deal, but that doesn’t mean that you own me.” I pushed away from him by putting my hand on his chest, and there, beneath my palm was the steady throbbing of his heart.

I beamed at him, so happy and relieved that I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He held me around the waist and kissed me back. Finally, it wasn’t like kissing a corpse! He tasted like burnt caramels with a hint of treachery and betrayal.