How to Marry a Warlock in 10 Days (19 page)

“No. I’m not
trying
to say anything. I just said it,” the former Crown Prince of Hell and current Adversary tossed back.

“Look, I’m cool with the relationship and all, but must you refer to your parts and my daughter’s dark places within my earshot? Really. Just wait until Sera Ann comes home with some sketchy demon in tow and see how you feel about it.” Raphael slugged Caspian in the shoulder.

Speak of the devil spawn, Sera Ann peered from around the other side of the plasma TV. Her horns were little pink nubs on the top of her head and her tail flipped off the television.

“Sera Ann, where are you supposed to be?” Grace asked. 

The little imp grinned until her mother narrowed her eyes at her further and then she wilted like an unhappy flower. “And what have I told you about wearing your horns and tail in front of company, hmm?”

“Pappy Merlin doesn’t care. And he
is
the boss of you.” She stuck out her tongue.

“If you fork that tongue at me . . .” Grace let the words hang.

Sera Ann giggled and stuck out her tongue again and it forked in the middle. Grace’s lavender wings exploded out of her back and that was when Sera Ann decided there were lots of things to do outside that needed her immediate attention.

“So, now that my darling monster is out of the way, you were all saying?”

“Your husband doesn’t like that I sent the man’s own cock to explain things to him in a dream,” Merlin said.

“He should just count his lucky stars that it wasn’t in real life.” Grace smirked.

“You don’t think that’s wrong, to make a man face his own cock?” Caspian asked as if he couldn’t quite believe the words that were coming out of his darling wife’s mouth.

“He shouldn’t have stuck it where he did. And really, at least it warned the guy. I mean, he could have been trying to get . . . what’s that terminology you use, husband? Yes, ‘balls’ deep, and then have it fail on him. I think it was pretty damned considerate.”

“What if your . . .” Caspian paused to look at Raphael and thought better of the terminology. “What if your
parts
decided to have a conversation with you?”

“They don’t need to. They talk all the time. It’s called PMS.”

“I don’t know, Aurora and I never had to deal with that. It’s all you, bro. I’m out.” Raphael leaned back in the chair.

“Look, I just think it was a shitty thing to do,” Caspian reiterated.

“Oh, unlike your idea to send the demon crabs to tell him? I think I’d prefer the cock myself.” Merlin snorted.

Grace giggled. So did Raphael.

“Of course, you do.” Caspian grinned and waited for realization to set in. “Sorry, you left yourself wide open on that one.”

“Why did I take this job again?” Merlin rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know if anything could be worse than the sentient demon crabs.” Merlin was referring to Caspian’s last gig as a Crown Prince where he’d met his wife. The man had been tormenting Grace and she’d summoned a demon to deal with him. It had been a last resort, but Caspian had taken great pleasure in harrying the man with demon crabs.

“You seem to be stuck on that.” Caspian smirked.

“The guy totally deserved it, but it was still disturbing to watch. Anyway, did you see this latest round of fuckwad-dery?” Merlin asked.

“Oh, the love potion? Poor Midnight. She would have fallen in love with him anyway, but now she’ll never know if it’s her own feelings or if it’s the potion.” Grace sighed for Middy’s plight.

“We really shouldn’t be meddling,” Merlin said, pursing his lips.

“Nope, we shouldn’t. But I’m the Devil.
Shouldn’t
isn’t in my vocabulary, you know?”

“That’s one of your qualities that’s a strike in the plus column.” Grace smiled and twined her fingers with her husband’s.

“There’s a minus column?” Caspian smirked again and then continued. “Well, this lamia thing is going to be a bitch to clean up if Middy and Dred don’t handle it directly.

I’m talking making an appearance sort of thing. I really don’t want to do the whole Armageddon-Destroyer of Worlds, but I think that’s all we’ll be left with after this last douche move from the Pantheon.” Caspian’s brow furrowed with displeasure. “Nothing is ever accomplished by committee. I don’t see why the other gods get a say. Their time has come and gone. The mortals don’t believe in them anymore. Most of them, anyway. But instead, they get to sit in judgment and tie our hands with all their votes and bullshit.”

“I thought being the Bigger Boss would eliminate all the red tape. Not by a long shot.” Merlin sighed.

“Tagrin should still be in Chaldonean Hall. How did he escape?” Raphael growled.

“Sold his soul,” Merlin said blandly.

“Middy doesn’t know who he is, does she?” Grace’s mouth was set in a thin line.

“No, but she will,” Merlin promised, though it sounded more ominous than hopeful.

“I like her, just so you know. She’s a good person.” Grace nodded as she spoke. “It’s hard watching people live their lives and only interfering when it suits Fate.”

“We’ll figure this out, Gracie, I promise,” Caspian assured her.

And if you can’t trust the Devil, Grace thought, who can you trust?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Stuck in Old Loudun Again

Midnight was damned uncomfortable. The Harpy Tea had been worse than shopping for her first bra with her brothers in tow. It didn’t stop there, no. That would have been too simple. It had been her mistake to assume her life couldn’t get any worse than shooting Dred in the eye with a cranberry. It was a mistake still to think that having him walk in on her in a mad masturbatory session with his likeness was the deepest pit of humiliation in which she could immerse herself.

Because as soon as she’d opened the door to their room after slinking back from the Harpy Tea, she’d found herself face to face with Dred in the glorious and magnificent flesh.

The words had just jumped out of her mouth like a kamikaze F-16.

“I love . . .” She’d been able to hear the words coming, but she couldn’t actually feel her mouth making them, or her tongue, which should have been moving against her teeth to make those sounds. Instead, the damn thing felt like it was wearing chenille.

She loved what? It was like that cheesy horror movie where the tramp trips in her tacky heels that were a poor fashion choice anyway, since she was gallivanting in the middle of the woods and—no, don’t say it!

She loved what? Ham? But she didn’t. Chocolate? Cheesecake? Grooming charms? Her hair after a Biolage deep conditioning treatment? Burt’s Bees lip stain? Puppies?

Her mouth was opening and she could feel it moving, but it was like she’d crammed a whole donut in her mouth: the powdered kind that had been rolled in peanut butter.

She wanted to run before the words could come out.

Middy’s conscious mind didn’t know what they were, but it had an inkling.

“You.” Middy could hear her own voice and she sounded like a toddler who’d been dropped on her head too many times. Each part of the word was slow like sap running from a mandrake root in the middle of January.

Dred’s eyes widened and then the bastard had the gall to laugh. It wasn’t just a little giggle, or a smirk, it was an all-out belly laugh. As if that weren’t enough, it was a deep sound that curled somewhere in her nethers and made her feel all warm inside. Middy found that to be a particularly inappropriate feeling.

She’d made her Grand Confession and he’d laughed and patted her on the head as if she were a favorite puppy who’d been caught chewing on his shoe. “Mother gave you the potion, didn’t she?”

What pissed her off further was that he didn’t sound surprised. He could have warned her not to eat or drink anything. Unless he wanted her to be in love with him? That notion was completely unacceptable. Alice had definitely fallen down the rabbit hole; she was still careening through the dark and she had no idea where she would land or if she would land at all, while Dred was like the Cheshire Cat. He was grinning like . . . well, that. Not to mention looking very pleased with himself.

Now this morning, she was pressed intimately against him on a broom riding hell-bent for bristle on the way to France of all places. Some hidden, picturesque version of a town that embodied Martha Stewart’s idea of Country French because a nun had a hard-on for a priest and accused him of being a sex demon.

She refused to look at the parallels there because Dred really was a sex demon, sex god, whatever.

“Are you still mad at me because I laughed?”

Middy didn’t say anything. She was actually trying to keep her parts as far away from his parts as possible and she was having shit for luck. Traveling by broom was definitely more intimate than teleporting. She didn’t know why they couldn’t have used the broom carriage. More conspicuous, probably. It would leave a more obvious trace of magick to conceal something that large.

Or Dred was just being perverse and that was just as likely.

Yes, it was definitely a chore to keep from relaxing against his hard chest, allowing those strong arms to keep her secured on the broom, or grinding her ass against him because being cradled between his powerful thighs made her brutally aware of all of the other things that those thighs were capable of, what they felt like while he was inside of her.

“Are you going to answer?” Dred’s breath was warm and tickled her ear.

She still had nothing to say.

His hand drifted to her hip and he pulled her flush against him. Weak, weak, wanton creature that she was, she let him. Midnight was starting to see why Ginger had gifted her with mechanical fortification.

Dred’s other hand slid up her arm with a feather-light touch.

“Stop that! You can’t steer without your hands.”

“Ah, she speaks. Thank you, Goddess, for granting me the sweet sounds of your melodic voice.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Okay, so I’m a dick if I laugh and I’m a dick if I compliment you. What is it that I’m allowed to do besides fuck you seven shades of blue?”

“Nothing!” Middy snapped before she realized what she’d said.

“Have it your way.”

Middy could almost feel his smirk.

Dred fastened his mouth on the creamy expanse of skin between her shoulder and her throat. The hand on her hip snaked forward between her thighs and quickly found its way beneath her skirt.

Why had she worn a skirt again?

Oh, yes. To punish Dred, to entice him with the way the material gathered around the tops of her thighs, showing her long legs. She’d hoped he’d remember what it was like to have them wrapped around his waist.

The problem with this was
she
remembered it all too clearly: every second of every day, every night, her body against his.

Damn traitorous thing that it was! She’d left the thing to its own devices for five seconds to examine her own thoughts and suddenly, his erection was pressing into her backside and she had arched her back to rest her head on his shoulder and give him better access to anything he would have of her. Right now, that included having his other hand on her left breast and his mouth lingering on the tender part of her neck.

Dred’s touch was better than chocolate, better than the chocolate orgasm cake, better than anything she’d ever imagined. Middy leaned forward now, pushing her ass harder against him and he growled.

She was vaguely aware that they were cruising at thirty-thousand feet, but that was a thrill, too. It had to be the potion! The threat of certain death had never been a turn-on before.

Dred raised her up, both hands on her hips to guide her to a better position. He’d freed his cock from his slacks with an incantation and as he tried to settle her, he used the motion to push her skirt up around her hips.

The initial contact wasn’t what she expected.

In her haste to be anchored safely to him, she sat down before he was ready for her. She didn’t much care to be dangling away from his strong arms and looking down at the scenery that was going by so fast it looked like it had been drawn by a toddler with a tantrum and a paintbrush.

This also meant that Dred didn’t have time to aim like the world-renowned snatch hunter that he was. Though he didn’t breach the perimeter, having the head of his weapon knocking on the back door of her stronghold was a startling sensation.

If they’d been on solid ground, like sane people, she’d have leapt from his lap with a high-pitched squeal of protest and he could have made it up to her with his tongue. Even though it was her fault for plopping her goods back down before he was ready. If she’d trusted him, Middy would have also been able to trust his grip on her hips.

But since they were mid-flight, her high-pitched squeal of protest was now at a glass-shattering decibel as she recoiled from his grip and plummeted like a walrus that had been unceremoniously dumped out of the cargo hold of a 747.

Dred tightened his thighs around the broom and leaned forward, taking the broom into a dive. He careened face-first toward the ground, but it wasn’t fast enough. There was no way that he was going to be able to catch Midnight before she hit the ground. The built-in safety features on the broom wouldn’t allow him to match her speed.

His decision was made before he had time to process it as a conscious thought. He dove from the broom into the empty sea of ether below. Dred sped toward the ground at an inhuman speed and he wasn’t thinking about what he was going to do after he caught her, only that he must reach her.

The land beneath him, the endless sky above, it was all a wet canvas, the colors swirling together. Nothing was real except Midnight. She was the one thing he was focused on and he knew that their time was quickly running out, even though it seemed as if the freefall had pulled them out of space and time—that velocity and gravity didn’t apply to them.

Spell after spell was running through his fevered brain, but nothing that would save her.

When their fingers touched, threads of Fate snapped; time and space returned to the status quo. It was the motivation he needed and Dred recited the incantation that would pluck them from the freefall. Too bad he misjudged the distance. They materialized two feet above what would have been a safe and perhaps even graceful landing on a grassy hillside, then fell unceremoniously to the ground.