Page 35 of His Atonement

And now I'm going to make him pay for sending me my devilish attire because he forgot one very important detail.

I may be a she-devil, but first and foremost I'm a photographer, which means I have a real eye for capturing what people wish they could keep with them forever on film.

Zan is about to get a big dose of evil and I hope like hell he's ready for it.

Nerve Endings

Five days later. Thursday, August 24th.

My knee bounces uncontrollably, hands fidget, and my fingers pick at my nails. I check the clock on the wall for the hundredth time and curse the way the hands have barely moved.

A single bead of sweat rolls down my spine, and slips below the waistband of my shorts only to stop when it connects with the mesh.

I need to smoke, rather badly, but I promised my sister I would not leave until she was ready, and unfortunately for me that has taken far longer than I hoped. If she does not grace me with her presence soon I fear I will come undone completely, explode through my skin and there are at least two reasons for it.

A few more drops of sweat slide down my back and I feel more as they start to form against my forehead and my temples, my hair growing damp as they continue to drench my head.

I chew the inside of my cheek, the tick of the muscles in my jaw like little swords that stab the entire side of my face.

My head throbs, pulse races.

I waited far too long to smoke and am surely paying for it now.

It isn't just that though, not only the withdrawal starting to kick in, no it is so much more.

He who shall not be namedcame for me last night, the first visit in almost two months and he is not pleased with me.

He never is, not since before my gem came into my life anyway, because he claims her existence has made mesoft.

Perhaps it has, perhaps it has made me less eager to collect the souls of the semi innocent, made me use slightly more humane methods of extraction, and given my more pure targets the opportunity to back out of our deals. I'm less ruthless, less reckless since Cora, but that isn't saying much since I spent almost nine hundred years destroying lives and causing mayhem without so much as a backward glance or second thought prior to her.

He hates that though, and has been even more displeased with me since my gem was able to successfully extract my name and hold me captive these past ten months. He despises the way I did not fulfill my purpose before that, did not slaughter my sister on the eve of her twenty-seventh year as I'd done nine times before, but that wasn't entirely my fault.

Had my sweet Cora not found Havok and successfully mated him before that night, I would have carried out my punishment accordingly and waited until she was reborn to do it again, but fate intervened and The Maker obviously took matters into her own hands then had words with The Caster of Shadows because of it.

Still, he holds me responsible, blames me for everything that took place last fall and went as far as to accuse me of giving Cora my name willingly so that I had a temporary reprieve in my duties, forfeited my control in order to spare her and though there is no other I'd wish to have power over me—I did no such thing.

I couldn't have even if I wanted to.

And like he has done every few months since I've been here,he who shall not be namedhas demanded I do things to make Cora give up her power over me, relinquish my name and allow me to leave this place with the sole purpose of punishing me the way he has wanted to since last October.

Thankfully, my gem is wise to this, knows it without me having to tell her anything because she has the wisdom of her parents before her and understands the hierarchy of the demon race.

Cora knows that if she gives me back my name, returns my full power, that comes with it to me,he who shall not be namedwill take great joy in ripping my collected souls from my body until I am within mere inches of death, repeat it relentlessly until he has his fill before he does in fact kill me, then bring me back as the worst kind of demon ever created.

And while he pressures me to do things I refuse to do in order to make Cora want me to leave, he tortures my actual soul that he has added to his meager stolen collection until he decides to give it back.

Surprisingly though, my most unwelcome visitor is not the main cause for my unhinged behavior, my out of control feelings that are amplifying my withdrawal tenfold.

No, it is in fact Frankie.

I have not seen her in almost eight days, not since Thursday of last week, just before I discovered the goats she deposited in my dungeon, and it is doing quite the number on my currently fragile psyche.

Thursday went as the days usually do after we play our game, a cautious air to our interactions, the electrical current that surges around us constantly, the innuendo-laced knowing words exchanged in false sincerity. It was as it had been each time before, and it wasn't until Friday evening that a little seed of doubt took root in my chest.

I plotted the entire day how I was going to get her back, but my mind kept wandering to the places it always goes with her—dirty, sweaty sex-filled places—which is why I wound up ordering her what is essentially a BDSM starter kit.

My mind was so clouded with lust, so fogged with all the things I dream of doing to her that I ended up ordering the things needed to act some of that out, and somehow convinced myself it was a punishment.

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