He shrugged, but I caught the sly flicker of pride in his eyes. “Hell is full of surprises.” He hit the final button, and the phone chirped as it connected. The voice on the other end was so loud and surly that I could hear it from where I sat, still perched on Samiel’s lap.
“Devil’s Throat Pizza, what the fuck do you want?”
Samiel’s face lit up with malevolent glee. “Two larges. One with meat, all of it. One plain cheese, extra garlic, extra sauce. And mozzarella sticks. And—” He glanced at me, question in his eyes.
“Peppers. Hot ones,” I said, channeling every yearning from every sad Florida pizza delivery. “And ranch. Like, a tub.”
He repeated my order verbatim, pausing only to add, “If you mess up the mozzarella, Clem, I’m coming down there.” He hung up with a sharp click, then set the phone aside now that it had performed its duty.
“You heard the demon,” I said, giggling. “We’re getting mozzarella or there will be blood.”
Samiel’s eyes—still black-limned from the last round of hunger—softened. “You have to have carbs and cheese for the Chase. The whole point is to run, isn’t it?”
“The whole pointis to get caught,” I said, and the words came out so quickly, I almost clapped a hand over my mouth. His mouth curved like the line of a wolf’s yawn.
“If you want to lose on purpose, I’ll make it worth your while,” he said. The suggestion in his voice made my thighs tense up, my mind blanking out anything but the thought of being pinned under him, back in that bed or maybe against the cool of the kitchen counter.
“I didn’t say I wanted to lose,” I said, “but if I do, it’ll be because I underestimated you. Or, I don’t know, because I tripped on a fucking tumbleweed.” I grinned, tempting him to call my bluff. "But if you win, I expect you to make good on every threat."
Samiel’s eyes lit with a fever I’d never seen in a man, mortal or otherwise. "I'll make sure you remember it. Every second." The promise was so blunt, it left my stomach flipping, but not in the bad way. I wanted it; I wanted him to win. I wanted to see what he’d do with me once he had permission to stop being careful. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be claimed—not as a bride, but as a prize. Even the idea of losing felt like a victory, if it meant more of this: more of him, more of the buzz,more of the way he looked at me like I was the only person on the planet who mattered.
The doorbell rang and I jumped up to answer it, finding a familiar face on the other side. Clem—the same demon who'd driven us to the house—stood there with pizza boxes balanced on one palm. His eyes lit up when he saw me alone, his eyes lingering on my braless chest.
"Well hello again, unclaimed," he purred, leaning against the doorframe. "Thought I'd deliver personally." He stepped closer, voice dropping. "You know, if tall-dark-and-horny isn't working out?—"
I gave him my coldest, most withering look, the one I reserved for men who still called women “chicks” in emails.
“You’re cute, Clem, but if I wanted a pizza guy with boundary issues, I’d go back to dating humans.” I took the boxes from his outstretched hand, but he didn’t move, just leaned in closer.
I thought he’d let it drop. Instead, he reached out and, with a single claw, traced a slow line down my cheek. His claw was shockingly cold, precise as a scalpel, and I jerked back, pizza boxes tilting dangerously. He caught my eye, a mocking, yellow glimmer in the center of the slit pupil. “That’s a shame,” he drawled. “I always liked a girl with a taste for danger.”
I opened my mouth to shut him down for good, but something flickered in the periphery—heat, pressure, a weather change in the house’s atmosphere. Before I could finish my next breath, Samiel was in the foyer, moving so fast the air actually whooshed.
His hand closed around Clem’s throat, claws dimpling skin but not breaking it, and pinned the other demon neatly against the wall. The pizza boxes teetered in my arms. Clem didn’t struggle; he just grinned sideways at me, as if we were in on some private joke.
“Hey, boss man,” he wheezed, voice gone thin. “I was just?—”
Samiel didn’t growl. He didn’t need to. He bent in, his lips brushing Clem’s ear, and said, “Deliveries are curbside only at the house, remember?” His voice was a razor blade wrapped in velvet.
Clem’s feet dangled a good two inches off the ground, but he didn’t drop the smirk. “She invited me to the porch. You got a problem with your bride greeting the help?”
Samiel squeezed, just enough to make the cartilage crackle. “I have a problem with my property being touched by anyone who isn’t me.” The words, so cold and simple, sent a flash of heat through my chest that was part terror, part joy. There was no pretense in it. No pretending they weren’t monsters.
Clem’s eyes rolled, making a show of it. “It’s just a little fun, Sam. Don’t get your horns in a twist.”
Samiel let go, the sudden absence of pressure making Clem sag like a wet towel. “If you touch her again,” Samiel said, voice flat as the surface of the lake, “I’m sending you back to Hell. In pieces. Understood?”
Clem rubbed his throat, gave a wheezing cough, then fixed his smirk on me. “Worth it,” he mouthed, then turned and slunk off the porch, shoes scraping the tile. The door clicked shut behind him.
For a second, Samiel watched the empty hallway, fists flexing and unflexing at his sides. I set the pizza on the kitchen counter and just looked at him.
“Jesus, Sam,” I said. “He was being a creep, but you didn’t have to go full Liam Neeson on his ass.”
He didn’t look at me, just stared at the door like it might open again if he blinked. His shoulders were bunched up around his ears, and his hands shook a little.
“He touched you,” he said, voice low and thick.
“And?” I said, a little sharper than intended. “I can handle it. I’ve been in HR meetings scarier than that demon.” I wantedto laugh it off, to drag the mood back to lightness, but it didn’t work. Samiel’s jaw clenched, and when he finally looked at me, his eyes were black all the way through, like someone had poured ink into them.
