That Old Black Magic - By Michelle Rowen Page 0,82

he caught her hand to draw her back. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I get it. It’s mine. But just so you know . . . that’s impossible.”

“There’s a lot of things that are impossible. And yet here we are.”

“Touché.”

He pulled her closer, swept her soft hair off her face, and kissed her very hard on her lips. It didn’t take long at all for her to kiss him back just as passionately. If he’d had any remaining doubts that she was real then they’d now be gone. That fire, that stubbornness, that taste of her mouth against his . . . all Eden. His Eden. The only woman he’d ever loved. Would ever love.

She’d saved him.

Eden had found a way to come to the Void because she loved him as much as he loved her—she was his princess in shining armor.

And she was pregnant with his baby.

It was too much to process. All too much.

But the kiss was a very good start.

Then she pulled away from him and glanced to the right. “Oh no!”

She ran toward the hellhound, falling to her knees next to it.

“Eden, be careful,” he warned. “Hellhounds are dangerous.”

“No . . . this is Andy.” Her voice caught. “Those monsters must have attacked him when I was trying to pull you up.”

That was Andy? But he was a werewolf the last time Darrak had seen him.

This . . . this definitely wasn’t a werewolf.

Darrak went to the hellhound’s side. “Is he . . . ?”

“Christ on a cracker . . . what happened?”

His eyebrows went up. “That’s definitely Andy.”

The hellhound raised his head and blinked at them through glowing red eyes. “Those two were hot as hell but not very nice girls, were they?”

“What happened?” Eden asked.

“I think they . . . they kissed me.”

Darrak made a face. “No offense, but gross. Wraiths are nasty. And hellhounds aren’t traditionally great kissers.”

“Wasn’t bad for a few seconds.” The hellhound cocked his head. “You’re alive!”

“I am.” He looked at Eden. “Thanks to both of you.”

“Thank Eden,” Andy said. “She’s the one who made the deal to get us here in the first place and that also shifted my, uh, shift.”

Darrak’s surge of happiness began to drain away leaving him feeling very cold. “What deal?” When Eden didn’t say anything he took her by her shoulders. “What kind of deal did you make? And with who?”

“With whom,” she said, grimacing, and not simply because of his bad grammar.

“Whatever. Eden, talk to me. Please don’t tell me you made another deal with Lucifer.”

She looked away. “Then I guess I won’t tell you that.”

“Are you looking for the buy-ten-get-one-free card?” He swore under his breath. “What did you promise him?”

Her expression wasn’t fierce anymore—it was worried. But she didn’t look away from him. “It was worth it. He made it so I could come here and find you without it killing me. He made Andy a werehellhound so he could be my guide.”

Her intentions were in all the right places, but he’d known this was too good to be true. “I know you think that Lucas is a friendly, good-looking guy with a dark past, but you have no idea what he’s truly capable of.”

“I know exactly what he is.”

“Do you? Are you sure about that? So you’re saying that you made a deal with the Prince of Hell himself in order for a fleeting chance to pull my ass out of the Void before it was too late.”

Eden held his gaze. “Well . . . yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

He wanted to be furious, but he couldn’t be. This was the bravest thing anyone had ever done for him. He would have done the same thing for her, so he supposed that made them even in their mutual insanity. “What did you promise him?”

She hesitated, which made him more nervous than he was to begin with. “Lucas wants to go back to Heaven, but he’s bound to Hell, like a chain around his ankle. I still don’t understand why.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer to his question.

He didn’t let go of her. “The darkness here needs to be controlled and that’s Lucifer’s job. That’s what the wraith meant when she talked about the shadows. When he gets upset or loses his composure, that darkness takes him over. They make him into Satan, a being of malevolent energy that likes to destroy and wreak havoc over everything. No one else has control over the darkness. He can’t leave.” An unwanted piece of empathy