Triumph filled her. She played it cool. She couldn’t let him see how badly she wanted this. “My name is Suyin.”
“I don’t particularly care.”
Well, that was nice.
“You were right to tempt me with your blood willingly offered,” he said “You have indeed found something I want enough to be willing to negotiate. So here are my terms. I willprovide for your human needs and agree to release you back to Earth when the time is right.”
“How long will that be?”
“Who can say?”
She lifted a brow.
“However, time is short,” he added. “I believe that if this doesn’t happen soon, it won’t happen at all. The stakes have never been higher.”
She frowned, wondering again what he was up to. He was hardly offering a guarantee that she’d get out of here any time soon, but somehow, she believed he was telling the truth about the time constraint.
At least this way, if she could get out of this cell and have access to sustenance, she wouldn’t completely lose her mind before this was all over. Or worse, starve to death.
“You have to let me go …alive,” she added, realizing how careful she needed to be bargaining with a demon. If she let anything slip, he would use it against her, no question of it. “Alive and unharmed, for our entire time together.”
His pale lips quirked. “Agreed. I will return you from whence you came in more or less the same condition I found you in.”
“More or less?”
His brow cocked. “Perhaps with a pint or two less blood.”
“I want out of this cell,” she said. “I want somewhere safe where I can move about freely, away from demons. I want fresh air and sunlight, or whatever the equivalent is in Hell. I want a bed and a shower and access to food.”
“There is no such place in my lair.”
“Then make one. Those are my terms. If you want my blood sacrifice, freely given, you have no choice but to agree.”
His eyes narrowed. “I could simply walk away and leave you to rot in this cell for as long as I have to. It would mean nothing to me.”
She didn’t doubt it for a second. There wasn’t an ounce of emotion in those cold eyes. “But then your experiments might never be successful.”
He turned his head away with a growl, and her heart raced. She had him. He was going to agree.
“Fine,” he snapped, and it took everything she had not to let a victorious grin spread across her face. She pressed her lips together to hide it, but she could tell by the glare he shot her that he knew what she was thinking.
“You can have free reign of the empty floor below mine, in my tower. But you will not disturb me in my work unless I call for you, and if you value your life, you will not go wandering through the rest of the lair.”
“Deal,” she said easily. She had no intention of spending a second longer than necessary in his or any other demon’s company.
“You will not attempt to escape, by hellgate or other means. You will not try to reach out to anyone for help. You will not attempt to harm me or betray our bargain. You will cooperate with me whenever I require your participation in my work.”
She cursed mentally. He was careful, all right. With all those stipulations, he’d just obliterated all her potential plans of escape. She couldn’t eventry, and she definitely couldn’t gut him with his own knife just to watch him bleed. If she agreed, she would be stuck here for as long as he wanted her.
But … she would be able to return home safely at the end. She would have access to food and water. She wouldn’t have to rot in this dungeon, from which she had no hope of escape anyway.
In the end, there was only one choice.
“Fine,” she said. “But you have to let me tell my friends and coven I’m okay.”
“No.”
“At least let me send a message—”
