Page 90 of The Devil and His Goddess

“It isnotyour fault. Not a goddamn thing that’s happened isyourfault,” Perseus insisted, not looking away from me once or releasing my hand. “If you want to point blame, point at the one who deserves it. Point your finger at Drake, Mandi—hell, direct it atmeif you need to. I don’t give a damn who you blame, but don’t for one fucking second point that finger at yourself. You did nothing wrong, baby. Do you hear me?Nothing.”

I sniffled and squeezed his hand. I wanted to hear him, to believe his truth. But no matter how hard I clung to his warmth, the cold wet rain continued to gather on my wings.

“I’m tired,” I whispered.

His frown deepened, and his hand tightened around mine. “Sleep. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Chapter 32

Perseus

I STARED AT HARPER AS she slept soundly, her small hand still in mine. A crease had started to form between her brows shortly after she’d drifted off, so I quickly entered her dream, redirecting it when I found her in her home studio with Drake rushing toward her. As an Incubus, I only had the ability to influence sexual dreams—good or bad ones. I certainly wasn’t about to make hers into apleasantsex dream. She didn’t need anything like that right now.

Since it wasthator darkness, I opted to give her no dream at all. Her mind would remain quiet and dark for her to sleep. With that done, I opened my own eyes, coming out of her head to watch over her from my place beside her.

“Xander,” I whispered into the quiet.

The shadow-speak of his name, something demons could use to contact each other through time and space, brought him to me moments later. The Mischief demon appeared from the shadows behind Harper’s side of the bed. His golden demonic eyes flicked from Harper’s slumbering form to meet my own stare over her shoulder.

“How is she?” he asked in a low voice.

“How would you be?” I shot back softly.

Xander shoved his hands into his jean pockets and leaned against the wall. “How are you?”

I dropped my gaze and watched Harper’s calm, resting face. There was no pain currently corrupting her mind, no tears escaping from her eyes, no frown marring her lips. Right now, she was at peace, but it was make-believe. The moment those eyes opened, the misery would rush in, consuming the light from inside her.

So how was I doing?Fuckhow I was doing. Only she mattered.

“I’m fine,” I eventually answered, meeting his gaze again. “I need you to do something for me.”

He pushed off the wall and straightened. “Anything. What do you need?”

“There’s a ballerina at Silverlight. Her name is—” I paused, gritting my teeth to keep from spitting the name out in a violent outburst. Taking a deep breath, I finished, “Mandi Everette.”

The name still came out as though it were the foulest thing to ever roll across my tongue, and it might as well have been. The human deserved to rot in filth and agony, and it was my pleasure to ensure that happened.

Harper still hadn’t opened up with the details, but I knew she’d been drugged. I’d returned to the ballet studio to clean it up after dealing with Drake. In the process, I’d found a bottle of mostly drunk water, and a mere whiff of the drink told me it had been laced. It didn’t take a genius to know Harper wouldn’t have accepted a drink from Drake but, rather, the person in the room she’d trusted. The same person who’d conveniently left right before the attack.

“What about her?” Xander asked with a curious raise of his brow.

“She helped Drake attack Harper,” I ground out. “I don’t know to what extent she was involved, but I know she was.”

Understanding dawned in Xander, and he grinned with rising excitement. “Do I get the honor of fucking with her?”

Mischief demons like Xander could be as obnoxious as a common house fly that refused to leave. They could cause car troubles, trip you after you just bought a tray full of hot coffees for all of your coworkers, or move your keys and wallet so you couldn’t find them.

They couldalsocause chaos on a grander scale—making both traffic lights show green so that an accident happened, shoving someone down a flight of stairs that resulted in broken bones, or causing disturbances with their voice and body in an attempt to convince someone that they were haunted.

Just as Incubi fed off of sexual energy, Mischief demons gained power from people’s reactions to their antics. The more frightened, anxious, angry, or emotional they got, the stronger the demon became. This all made him the perfect demon for what I needed.

“I don’t just want her fucked with,” I said to Xander. “I want herruined. As much as I want to get rid of her outright, that’s too easy. I want her life to feel like it’s over. I want her to exist in misery for the rest of her goddamn life.”

Motivation puffed Xander’s chest out. “You’re gonna turn me on if you keep talking like that. Any particular ideas in mind?”

“You can have creative freedom with it. All I ask is for the final bang to happen during next Saturday’s show.”

Xander grinned and toyed with his septum piercing. “You got it.”

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