Page 49 of The Misfit Mage and His Dashing Devil

“You picked life?” Mora asked, holding two plastic cups. “Odd.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” I extended a bloody hand, which she ignored because she was the worst, so I helped myself up, brushing my tattered and blood-soaked blazer to look half presentable. Honestly, the wrinkles made me look so garish.

“You had a choice, sweetheart. I presented you with two options.”

“No. I’ve never removed essence before. It’s like those movies with the wires and bombs and the dying if the wrong blue one—because they’re always blue—is cut. I couldn’t risk blowing up,” I explained. “It was purely pragmatic.”

“Hmm. Sure, that sounds honest.” Mora slid a plastic cup across her dining room table as an offering. Dining room. This was her dining, kitchen, and possibly greeting area. How quaint.

“You also had that wicked grin you get when keeping information,” I said, grabbing the cup. “Couldn’t chance you were deceiving me.”

“Never, Bezzy. I was merely curious what’d you do when given the opportunity.” Mora cast shadows on the wall with delicate movements of her fingers, stick figures meant to represent shapeless worthless mortals surrounding a Diabolic shadow. It came with wings, horns, and tails. Even the shadow itself held a crimson hue. Gods, she’d planned to bore me with some fable tale of my life. Mora truly was the worst being I’d endured. “The Beelzebub I know cuts ties and runs whenever forced to confront his feelings. Hacking down anyone he deems guilty of wronging him.” The shitty shadow interpretation of me ripped apart the other shadows and flapped its wings, flying along the wall until it reached the dark recess above the refrigerator. “I knew you were infatuated with this mortal. I could smell the lust wafting off each of you.”

“That’s quite a gift you have,” I scoffed. “But it’s lacking.Hislust, perhaps. Walter, like most mortals, is a fool for aesthetics, and I’ve always been quite pleasing to look at.”

“I’ve got two millennia of perceiving body language and sniffing out pheromones; I’m hardly ever wrong. Still, quite shocking to see my favorite lonely devil choose someone over himself.”

“Especially since the last time I put someone else’s needs above my own, I ended up locked away, betrayed, abandoned, and left to rot for far too long.”

“Precisely. You’re quite enamored.” She pursed her lips in the direction of the sleeping Walter, ignoring my scowl and enraged comment. “He must be quite entertaining. The awkward, wordy mortals are often filled with all sorts of surprises once you unwrap them.”

I glared. Mora had met Walter all of five seconds before vanishing, which meant she’d kept a close watch, studying us. Irksome. “It’s this damn emotional connection. He’s infected me with his feelings because of the bond. It’s made me make careless choices. This one was not, though. I kept him alive. Now we can lock him up in your hovel. Honestly, all these centuries, and you live in a tiny apartment?”

“Kell enjoys the atmosphere, and I’ve grown to enjoy living modestly.”

I raised a brow. “How do you bear the noise?”

Cities were exhausting even when dimming our senses, but to live inside an apartment building with the scuffling sounds of a thousand mortals. Disgusting.

“Neighbors? Oh, I kill them.” Mora sipped her drink. “I limit myself to one indiscretion a month for the sake of maintaining a low profile, but truthfully, if you’re gonna blast music at two in the morning because you believe your ears deserve to drown in the acoustics of bad sounds, you deserve to die.”

“Quite the opinion.”

“I won’t be kept awake because of someone else’s poor life choices.”

“So you take their life.” I drank the fruity concoction she’d offered. It sizzled on my tongue with the faintest acidic trace. “Mmm. What is this?”

“Unicorn. Hard to get but worth every drop.”

“Delicious. I could get used to this humble place for a time.”

“You can’t stay here, sweetheart. I adore your presence—despite your curt attitude—but you’re on everyone’s radar, and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to shake the attention away like I did before.”

I glowered, taking a big gulp of the wonderful drink. It was like swallowing rainbows. Sweet and sour and sharp all at once. Gods, I’d love to devour some good unicorn meat.

“However, you’re welcome to stay until your mortal lover recovers or until Kell returns to the city. Gives you a week.”

“Two things.” I held up my fingers because, between the toxins of the drink blurring my vision and the blood loss to heal Walter, I felt woozy. “First, he’s not my lover. That’s the Diabolic bond. Already explained that which, if you’d listened, you’d know. Two—second, after first… How is Kell out of the city? How are you functioning with your bond yanking at your host body?”

“Three things, my dearest, darling, dashing Bezzy. One, you’ve got to learn to hold your drinks.” She finished her cup. “Two, the emotional connection conjured through a Diabolic bond doesn’t exist. Loyalty is forced by commands. It compels the body. Not the heart or mind. Lie to yourself if you wish, but you’re not fooling me.”

I prepared to interrupt, but my jaw dropped, and I remained speechless. Mora had ranted about how every bond she’d gone into had made her and her mortals closer, implying the bond itself held some emotional tether. That was what this had to be. I was ready to kill Worthless Walter. It was the bond that prevented that. It was the bond that made me agree to his asinine plan. It was the bond that made me save his life. My heart raced. That was all this was. A Diabolic connection out of my control. Either of our control.

“Third, and this one’s important.” Mora stood, smiling. “The leash that holds you two is dictated by the Diabolic. You’re only forced to remain at his side because you wish it. I’ve got enough slack and comfort to let Kell cross an ocean before I feel the reel of our tether.”

“That makes sense,” I interjected, ignoring her second comment, which I lacked a response to. “Subconsciously, I know Walter is utterly incompetent and would die the instant I lost track of him. Hence him literally almost dying, so clearly, that’s why the leash is so tight.”

“Or, like a good puppy, you want to stay close by.” She patted my head like a dog until I bared my teeth. “Angry puppy. Come along. I’ll make you something else to drink with less of a kick. I’ve got pixie kidneys. Blend them with a bit of orca blubber, and you’ve got a divine, tame cocktail.”

---