Fashionably Dead and Loving It (Hot Damned #14) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,12

am the Devil. I’m scared of nothing.”

“Blah blah, blah,” I said. “You’re so full of shit.”

Uncle Fucker looked like he wanted to decapitate me, but instead of acting on an impulse that wouldn’t kill me—only piss me off—he sat back down and pouted.

“Look,” I said, running my hands through my hair and sighing. “I have company that I’m not happy about arriving after midnight. Ethan is kicking undead ass on the West Coast, and I thought there were Zombies inside my chair. If you’re gonna be a dick, I’m not helping you. You feel me?”

“Fine,” Satan grumbled. “He likes Elle better than me.”

“Who? Luke?” I asked, swallowing back my amusement with enormous effort.

“Yessssss. Luke,” he hissed. “I think it might be her boobs. I’m not sure. Elle insists that he loves me. However, Elle lies as much as I do. When I pick Luke up, all he does is puke or crap on me. It’s appalling. I’ve taught the Prince of Hell profanities. I’ve offered him a massive bank account. I have shown him my instruments of torture and introduced him to horror classics. And still… he likes her better.” Satan paled and closed his eyes. His voice dropped to a horrified whisper. “At one point, I considered conjuring up a pair of boobs for myself. The thought was fleeting, but it was there. Loving something more than myself, something that doesn’t like me, has fucked with my narcissism.”

“Luke is not a something, he’s a someone.”

The Devil picked up a shard of glass and examined his reflection. With a grunt of disgust, he dropped it to the floor and crunched it under his tennis shoe. “I know,” he said. “And I also know Luke doesn’t like me. He rarely shits on Elle.”

“So, you’ve decided what?” I asked.

The Devil stood up and tucked his shirt into his pants. “I’ve decided to let Elle raise him. I had no hand in raising my other children and they turned out fine.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Define fine.”

“Well, one of them did,” he said, defensively.

I watched him pace the room having an internal war with himself.

“You have eight daughters and only Dixie turned out fine,” I reminded him.

“Your point?”

This was tedious, but he was truly at a loss. “You raised Dixie yourself. The rest of them are murdering asshats.”

Satan opened his mouth, but not a word came out.

Point for me.

“What did you do with Dixie?” I asked.

“I played dolls with her and dressed up like a princess—I looked gorgeous as Sleeping Beauty, by the way. I drank pretend tea and punished her for good grades,” he said, as his brain worked a mile a minute. “I also let her do my makeup. It was horrifying and quite undignified, but it made her happy.”

“Mmkay, most of that was good,” I said, grabbing my laptop. “Luke is a little young for that right now. Come sit with me.”

Pulling up a toy site, I began filling the cart with puppets, storybooks, soft stacking blocks and some adorable stuffed bugs. Satan watched with rapt attention.

“So, I give this stuff to Luke to bribe him to like me?” he asked in all seriousness.

“For the love of everything stupid,” I groused. “Luke is six months old. You can’t bribe a baby. They see right through that shit.”

“That was a joke, right?” Satan inquired, perplexed.

“Umm, no,” I said with a laugh. “We’re ordering this stuff so you can play with him. You’re going to read him stories and sing him songs. You’re going to sit your Armani-clad ass on the ground and build soft block towers with your son while you sing to him.”

“Journey songs?” he asked as his eyes lit up at the possibility of sharing his favorite band with his child. “I could procure Steve Perry to sing to Luke.”

I smacked the Devil upside the back of his head. “You will not kidnap Steve Perry… again.”

Satan rubbed his head and put a little distance between us. “I didn’t kidnap the greatest singer in the Universe. My daughters did as a gift to me. It was the nicest thing those ungrateful shits ever did.”

“Right,” I said with an eye roll. “No kidnapping. Anyone. Plus, Steve Perry still has a restraining order against you. And you’re missing the freaking point entirely. You are supposed to sing to him. Not hire someone to do it. You have to bond with Luke.”

“So, are you implying that giving him money, teaching him to swear and showing him my torture chamber doesn’t count?” he asked, trying