Jenna Black - The Devil's Due

When he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to light into him anymore, he spoke again.

“Adam is one of my subjects. If I command him to step aside while Saul takes his lover, he will do it.”

If I ground my teeth any harder, they would break. However, I managed to keep my temper in check, waiting for him to finish.

“However, Dominic is not one of my subjects, and I have no authority to give him orders. I will request that he agree to host Saul once more, but in the end, it will be his decision.”

Dominic, like most legal demon hosts, had a hero complex. He might agree to take Saul back even if he knew it would mean losing what he now had with Adam. And even if losing him would break Adam’s heart. But I wasn’t one of Lugh’s subjects. Perhaps I could conveniently “forget” to mention his request.

Lugh shook his head at me. “Would you rather I take over the next time you’re asleep and give Adam a call myself?”

My heart sank at the thought. “You’re probably doing that right this moment, aren’t you?” It would hardly be the first time.

Slowly, Lugh unfolded from his throne, forcing me to take a couple of steps back to maintain my personal space. I’m a tall woman, but Lugh is at least six foot five, and he towered over me. He reached for me, and I’d have backed up farther if I didn’t think I might fall off the edge of the dais. His hands landed on my shoulders, and he gave them a firm squeeze.

“I’ll do you the courtesy of giving you the chance to do it yourself, first. But the request will be made, one way or another.”

I swallowed past a lump that had formed in my throat. “I hate you.” I couldn’t stand to look up at him anymore, so instead I stared at one of the ornamental gold buttons on his waistcoat.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why does it have to be Dominic? Can’t someone else host him?” I was still staring at the button, but it didn’t seem to bother Lugh.

“Do you have someone else in mind?”

I scowled, because, of course, I didn’t. We no longer had anyone on the inside with the Spirit Society, so it wasn’t like we could get Saul into a legal host. So just who would I “volunteer” for the role?

“Keep in mind also what you know of Saul’s. . inclinations, shall we call them?” Lugh said, forcibly reminding me of the kind of relationship he’d had with Adam. I didn’t know—and sure as hell didn’t want to know—what kind of S&M “play” they’d engaged in, but I knew it was brutal enough to be too much for Dominic—and to require a demon’s healing ability.

“Many, if not most hosts would have trouble coping with his particular tastes,” Lugh continued, hammering away at me. “I know his union with his last host before Dominic was not a happy one.” He frowned. “I’m afraid Saul can be most abrasive when he doesn’t like someone.”

“You mean more abrasive than Adam?” I asked incredulously, and I forgot to stare at the button and looked up into his amber eyes.

“There’s a reason he and Adam are friends.”

“You mean because they’re each the only creature in existence who can tolerate the other?”

Lugh smiled crookedly. “A bit of an exaggeration, but fairly accurate.” The smile faded, and his grip on my shoulders tightened. “We already know Dominic and Saul get along well. Any other host might. . suffer.”

I wasn’t keen on the idea of shoving a demon, especially an abrasive one, into any human host. If Saul ended up in another host, I’d feel guilty as hell at the idea that the host was suffering and being ill-treated. But better some stranger than Dominic. I suppose that was selfish of me, but I didn’t care.

“Don’t do this,” I begged. “Don’t ask this of me, or of Dom.”

His hands slid up the sides of my neck until he was cupping my face in his palms. His eyes were wells of regret, but there was no hint of yielding in them. His thumbs caressed my cheeks in a way that was either supposed to be soothing or sexy, I wasn’t sure which. And for the first time ever, my body failed to respond to him in any way.

“Take your hands off me,” I said, and I’d never heard my own voice so cold.

Lugh’s jaw tightened with what might have been anger, but he let go. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to approach Dominic and Adam with the proposal. If you haven’t done it by then, I’ll do it myself.”

There were times I’d been angry, even furious, with Lugh before. None of them compared to how I felt now. I glared at him, for once glad that he knew exactly how I felt. His face didn’t change expression.

Knowing things were only going to get uglier if I stuck around, I mustered my mental forces and slammed the doors of my mind shut.

I woke up back in my own room, the rage still burning high. I wanted to break something, but I settled for hurling my pillow across the room instead. It wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying.

It was only a little after four in the morning when I woke up, but I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep. Cursing Lugh some more, I gave up the effort and hauled my sleep-deprived carcass into the kitchen to brew some extra-strength coffee. After I’d gotten the first cup down, a few of my still-sleeping brain cells woke up, and I realized I’d forgotten to ask Lugh an important question.

Lugh was talking about summoning Saul to the Mortal Plain, but as far as I knew, the only way to summon a specific demon was by its True Name. As Lugh had explained it, only demons who were extraordinary in some way earned the dubious honor of being granted a True Name. Lugh and his brothers had them because they were part of the royal family. The only other demon I’d known who had a True Name was Der Jäger, and he’d earned it through being a sociopath with the unique ability to hunt demons on the Mortal Plain.

I could only assume if Lugh meant to summon him that Saul had earned a True Name, but I had no idea how. Maybe that wasn’t important, but if he had any special abilities, I’d rather know about them. Of course, since I was planning never to speak to Lugh again—yes, I knew I’d have no choice, but it made a nice fantasy—I wouldn’t be able to question him. I could ask Adam, but since Adam wouldn’t tell me squat without Lugh’s permission, I knew it wouldn’t do me any good.

When the sun came up, I made myself a cold breakfast of Cheerios with slices of a banana that was past its prime. I had until four o’clock tomorrow morning, give or take, to tell Adam and Dominic what His Majesty had requested. Until then, I would keep my lips tightly zipped, and I would do my best to ignore the problem.

Instead, I focused on the problem of Tommy Brewster. Even if Adam dropped by Sammy Cho’s office and discovered he was possessed, there would be no proof that he’d been possessed when he’d examined Tommy. Demons might not have the same rights as humans in our legal system, but I still had to have some concrete evidence that Tommy’s demon had done something wrong in order to legally exorcize him.

However, if Raphael believed that reality would cause me to drop the case, he didn’t know me as well as he thought. I’d just have to figure out a way to get proof.

Easier said than done, naturally. I wasn’t what you’d call a private investigator. But it occurred to me that perhaps the best way to prove that Tommy’s demon had possessed him illegally was to get the demon to admit it.

I supposed that meant it was time for me to have a face-to-face chat with Tommy, the superhost, and the scum-sucking bottom-feeder who currently inhabited his body.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to engineer this meeting with Tommy Brewster. After all, exorcists had very little excuse to hang out with legal demons, and I didn’t imagine I could just call him up and ask him to meet me for a friendly chat. Well, I could, but I sort of doubted he’d agree.