thanks,” he said. “No offense, but I don’t think you’re my type. You haven’t seen a redhead wandering around here, have you?”
She hissed, which ruined the shiny look when it revealed her sharp teeth.
Wraiths. No better than the Netherworld’s answer to vampires, really.
“Go play with your girlfriend,” Darrak suggested. “I’m not interested in a make-out session with either of you. Sorry to disappoint.”
Both of them flew at him then, and he tried with all his strength to throw them off. He’d been fooling himself to think that he had a chance here. They were petite, but they were supernaturally strong once they attached themselves, like humanoid leeches. It was impossible to shake them off.
An image of long, beautiful auburn hair flashed across his vision as they kissed him, one on his mouth, one on his throat and he felt the edge of those sharp teeth.
A word flitted through his mind—a garden of paradise, somewhere warm and safe and beautiful where he wanted to live forever.
Eden.
Great. One mention of angels and he was getting all Adam and Eve.
Although, still, for last thoughts there could be worse ones, he supposed.
The wraiths suddenly detached themselves and recoiled from him. It wasn’t something he’d expected. He’d figured that was it, he was a goner. They both had their hoods pushed back from their lovely but sour faces.
“What?” he asked. “Not as delicious as you thought I’d be?”
Their eyes grew larger, now focused on something right behind Darrak. Anything that would get a reaction like that from the walking death duo didn’t make him want to turn around. He waited until the wraiths swept themselves away as if they’d just seen oblivion itself.
Darrak put his hands on his hips. “So I’m guessing that this isn’t going to be my night no matter what direction I go, is it?”
“That’s up to you, demon.”
He finally glanced over his shoulder. It wasn’t Theo again, he already knew that thanks to the woman’s voice. But this face was also familiar. A woman, in her twenties, with long dark hair and a beautiful face.
“Selina,” he said.
She put a hand on her hip and smiled. Her lips were red and glossy. “Sort of.”
“Not Selina.” Not the witch who’d summoned him hundreds of years ago. Along with the pain that had begun to infuse his core he was getting a little well-needed clarity.
“Am I on an episode of This Is Your Life?”
Her smile held. “No.”
“How about Candid Camera?”
“Strike two.”
Darrak’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Lucifer, aren’t you?”
She shook her head. “Wrong again.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. He’d been certain he was right, that Lucifer had brought him here, wherever here was, and messed with his memories, just to play one of his stupid reindeer games. “Then who the hell are you?”
“I told you before. A friend.”
“A friend who was going to let two wraiths make a tasty meal of me.”
“They didn’t.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re clinging to the sides of existence, digging in with your fingernails so hard that I thought I’d come and perhaps give you a bit of a hand.”
Darrak blinked. “Thanks?”
She continued to study him with that cool detached look of amusement. “Why don’t you follow me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
Selina turned and started walking. She wore four-inch heels and a flowing black dress that was low cut in the front and laced up in the back.
The Love Witch, that’s what she liked to be called. She’d written books—self-help books for women who had a difficult time with the men in their lives.
Darrak had made her a black witch back during the Salem witch trials—she’d cast a spell that siphoned dark power from him. She’d wanted the black magic in order to get vengeance on the men who’d put her sister to death.
Selina had tried but failed to destroy Darrak shortly after she’d gotten what she wanted from him, and he’d only recently found her again. He wanted her to break the curse she put on him. It had destroyed his ability to maintain his corporeal form. To break that curse he would have had to tear out her heart.
But he hadn’t.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Thinking about the good old days?”
“Hardly.”
“You didn’t kill me when you had the chance,” she said.
“You know what I’m thinking?”
“I know lots of things, demon.”
He raked a hand through his hair and looked back in the direction he’d come from, but all he could see was darkness now. “Do you know why those wraiths were calling me demon-angel?”
“Yes.”
“Want to share?”
“Actually, it doesn’t