Naughty Karma: Karmic Consultants, Book 7 (26 page)

So much for that.

Neither of them seemed inclined to succumb to trusting the other—which worked just fucking fine since trust wasn’t required in today’s summoning. And after the summoning… Well, he’d known they were done. He just hadn’t expected it to end quite like that. He’d never really given any thought to how it would end, actually. He wasn’t much for looking into the future. That was more Karma’s terrain, and if knowing the future was going to make him as miserable as she was, he’d pass, thank you very much.

The elevator doors shushed open and the Karma who stepped out of the lift was every inch the rigid ice queen he’d first met. Every hair in place. The stick up her ass firmly in position. Ms. Holier-Than-Thou Professionalism was back.

“Rodriguez will be here any minute.” She looked at him, her eyes cool and expressionless. No more passionate, dazed Karma for him.

Prometheus waved at the box containing his fucked-up heart. “We’re all set.”

She nodded briskly. “Good.” Then she slipped into the outer office, likely to unlock the door even though he could have done it with a thought. She probably wanted to get away from him. Cool and collected she may be on the surface, but her energy was all over the place, flaring out then pulling back behind those fucking walls she’d erected again.

He half-expected her to wait out front for reinforcements, but she returned to her office and strode to take the seat behind her massive desk. He’d always have fond memories of that desk. Even if he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable toward the woman sitting behind it at the moment.

He folded his arms. “I wouldn’t have done it. Traded you to her.”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“You see what you want to see Karma. When there is a chance your people might be in trouble, you see the worst-case scenario. When you need a happy moment, you see cuddly babies and everything beautiful. When you’re doubting me, what the fuck did you expect to see?”

“I wasn’t doubting you.”

“Weren’t you?”

They both heard the front door open.

“They’re here,” Karma said unnecessarily, rising.

Brittany and Rodriguez entered, Brittany bouncing like Christmas morning and Rodriguez with a wry smile as he watched her enthusiasm. “Who’s ready for a summoning?” she chirped.

Karma didn’t chirp. “Brittany, I’d like you to go.”

The secretary visibly deflated. “But I’m good luck.”

“We’ll have to make our own luck today. I don’t want to risk you. Rodriguez needs to be here, but I don’t want anyone else in range who can be used by this devil.” The way she hit the last two words made Prometheus wonder if she was referring to Deuma or himself. As if he would ever let anything happen to Brittany. She was the only one here who actually gave him credit for being a semi-decent human being.

Rodriguez’s gaze flicked back and forth between them, reading the currents in the air, but Brittany looked confused. “I guess…” she mumbled.

“Come on,” Rodriguez urged. “I’ll walk you to the car. Let’s let Mom and Dad fight in peace.”

Brittany frowned, talking over her shoulder as Rodriguez guided her through the door. “Are you guys fighting? You shouldn’t be fighting. You need only good energy going into the universe right now. Kiss and make up, okay?”

Prometheus looked to Karma, wondering if Brittany’s words were having any effect, but even the receptionist wasn’t that lucky. She was still the ice queen and he was still frozen out.

Rodriguez returned and set about getting ready without a word. They had maybe thirty minutes until sunrise.

Thirty minutes. Twenty years of power, nearly forty of life, and it all came down to thirty minutes. Of all the mistakes he’d made in a long life of pissing people off, the only one he wanted to fix, the only thing that felt
wrong
was the way things were ending with Karma.

Fuck that. He wasn’t going to sit on his hands like a good boy and let her cut him off. That wasn’t him.

Prometheus stalked silently across the room. This wasn’t how they were going to end. He wouldn’t let it be. Karma looked at him with a flash of panic and scrambled to put the width of her desk between them.

“What are you doing?”

She would have kept them circling that damn desk all day, but he was faster, more determined, and he didn’t play fair. He slapped up a telekinetic roadblock—just enough to slow her down so he could get his hands on her. “Come here.” He caught her upper arm and pulled her toward the privacy of the outer office, but Karma wasn’t coming easily.

“Let me go.” She squirmed and dug in her heels, twisting enough to make him seriously consider throwing her over his shoulder—or maybe pulling her across his lap and paddling her ass. She always had to make everything so fucking difficult.

“Damn it, Karma. I just want to talk to you,” he growled.

“I have no interest in listening to anything you have to say.”

Rodriguez muttered something about leaving his favorite crucifix in the lobby and all but ran out of the office, the door snapping shut behind them.

Her struggles lessened when their audience was gone, but Prometheus didn’t loosen his hold. He didn’t trust Karma not to bolt if he did. Instead, he shifted his grip, grabbing her by both shoulders and walking her backward until she bumped up against the wall.

She glared up at him, fire beginning to burn through the ice goddess stare. “You’re a bully and a liar and nothing you can say will change any of that, so you might as well save your breath.”

“I am a bully and a liar and a thousand other things, but I love you.”

Fuck. Where had that come from?
Prometheus gulped, as startled as Karma looked by the words that had popped out of his mouth.
No turning back now.

“I may not be Prince Charming, but I’m it for you and you know it. No one is ever going to get you like I do. I’m going to push you and challenge you and make you crazy and it will be worth it because we’re better together than we could ever be apart.
Fuck
.” He swore and dropped his forehead onto hers. She hadn’t said a word. Didn’t look capable of speech, actually. “Love sucks, okay? It’s giving the other person a knife and spending every hour of your life waiting for them to stab you in the heart with it. I never wanted that. I never wanted
you
, but there you were and when you find the person you can’t live without, you don’t let them go. It’s inconvenient and a pain in the ass and we’ll fight—you know we’ll fight—but I’ll also fight
for
you. I would never let anyone hurt you—not for any price—so don’t you dare think that. Whatever the fuck you saw, that isn’t our future. You’re mine, Karma. And I fucking protect what’s mine.” He conjured the charm he’d made for her, that modified yin-yang, to fall around her neck. “I will always protect you. Is that clear enough for you?”

Karma blinked up at him, shock and something like panic in her wide eyes. Her fingers rose to brush the soft metal of the charm. She opened her mouth and he held his breath. This was it, the moment when she either saved him or sent him crashing down to hell. “I…”

“My, my.” The silky feminine purr sounded behind him. “Prometheus in love. I never thought I’d see the day. How sweet.”

He stiffened and turned, using his body to shield Karma as much as possible as he faced the she-devil across the room. She perched on the crate containing his heart, a snug red dress leaving little to the imagination and showing off the expanse of her crossed legs. She swung one stiletto-clad foot and tapped the top of the box with a long black nail—in perfect time with the accelerating thump of the heart within.

“It’s nice to see you again, pet. Though from the sound of things, you’ve been a very naughty boy indeed.”

She was early. Which meant they hadn’t summoned her. Which meant she was under no compulsion to deal with them. She knew he’d been trying to double cross her and she’d come before the dawn just to fuck with him. They’d just lost home field advantage. They would be playing by Deuma’s rules now.

Inside the box, Prometheus’s heart began to race.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Nightmares in Wonderland

Karma had fallen down the rabbit hole. Only instead of Cheshire Cats she had a she-devil who was
not
supposed to be able to appear and disappear at will on this plane, and instead of the White Rabbit she had a six-and-a-half foot warlock professing his love. Something was very wrong in Wonderland.

Karma decided to focus on the less alarming of those two developments. She edged around Prometheus until she had a clear view of the maenad.

“How can you be here without being summoned?”

Deuma giggled and wagged her head flirtatiously. “Now that would be telling and a lady never reveals her secrets.”

Prometheus watched Deuma like a man studying a rattlesnake. “She’s ascending to a new level of power.”

Deuma giggled. “Does it show? I think it flatters me.”

The devil rose from the crate and preened, rubbing her hands over her hips. There was a faint glow rising from Deuma’s skin, like paintings of saints and gods. She was hypnotic, seductive and projecting harmlessness so hard the hair on Karma’s arms lifted from the underlying danger.

“I’m so close to perfection.” Deuma sighed, her face falling into an exaggerated pout. “And then my favorite pet warlock decided to try to cheat me out of our bargain. That wasn’t very nice, Prometheus.”

“Forgive me for wanting to live,” he said dryly.

“I don’t forgive.” Deuma’s face flashed to deadly seriousness—a flicker of vicious reality beneath her constant cotton candy veneer, the sight of it all the more brutally chilling for being so quickly masked by another gooey smile. “But I do renegotiate. If you can make it worth my while. And you
have
been one of my favorite pets.”

Karma’s heart stuttered, doubt surging with the sense that this was it, the moment when her vision would come true. Then reality intruded and she realized how completely different her dream had been from what she was seeing now. Brittany and Rodriguez weren’t even here. There was no summoning circle binding Deuma and time wasn’t frozen. Her dream
hadn’t
been the truth. From the power radiating off Deuma, she wasn’t likely to have allowed herself to be summoned and bound, so it seemed highly improbable that any part of that vision might have come true. Karma’s doubts had conjured up the unlikely future that most closely matched her fears. She really had seen what she wanted to see.
Prometheus loves me. He would never do that to me
.

Karma evicted that thought. No time for dwelling on it at the moment. Right now they had to find a way to tempt the semi-deified devil. “We have Bacchus’s Cloak.”

The sinuously moving devil went very, very still. “Do you? My, my, that is a precious find. However did you come by it?”

Karma borrowed a line from her dream. “Does it matter?”

“Not particularly.” She smiled. “Do you know what it does? Never mind, never mind, you’re right, unimportant.” She closed her eyes and shook her head sharply, giving a delicate little shiver. “Tempting, but as it happens, I’m not interested in Bacchus’s Cloak.”

Prometheus conjured a charm to his hand, the gesture eerily identical to Karma’s dream. “Are you interested in this?”

Karma didn’t know what it was. She only knew it gave off a silky gleam of magic and made Deuma’s eyes almost feral with greed.

“Oh, Prometheus, you do have the best toys. But no…sadly, I’ll have to decline.” She smiled, wagging a finger. “You’re trying to tempt me with objects, but they’re just things. Powerful, beautiful things, but they don’t have will. Do you know how a devil gets her power, dear boy? The power to appear unsummoned…the power to keep a man alive after you’ve taken his beating heart…the power to grant unimaginable wishes…where does it all come from?”

“I’d never given it much thought,” Prometheus said expressionlessly.

“Oh, now that’s a lie. You are all curiosity. It’s one of the things I love about you.” She danced closer, graceful and lithe. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? From the will. From my darling little contract signers ceding their free will up to me. Do you think we collect souls for the fun of it? What good is a soul, really? Bothersome things. But the signing, the completion of the contract, that moment when he places his very being into my possession—
voluntarily
.” She gasped. “What a rush. Contracts are power—not like your silly little magic, but
real
power. Freedom to move between the planes, coming and going as I please. Not a puppet to be summoned, called up whenever someone wants a she-devil to eat the flesh of their enemies. I’m almost a god now.” Her expression darkened abruptly, thunder gathering. “But that will all go away if one of my contracts breaks. So you see, Prometheus, I can’t let you out of our little deal. Not unless you’re willing to sign an addendum…”

“If you don’t want objects, what do you want?”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

Karma held her breath. She knew what was coming. Deuma would ask for her. It had all been leading up to this…

“I want
you
, Prometheus.”

Prometheus frowned at Deuma as she pranced and danced flirtatiously around Karma’s office. He couldn’t have heard her right. “What do you mean, you want me?”