Page 15 of Interior Design for Demons
“Good,” he whispers fiercely. His grip on my waist tightens; he’s pulling me closer. There’s a crazed heat in his eyes that sets my heart racing wildly. “I hate you, too.”
“Yeah?” I breathe. Why am I looking at his mouth? Why are his lips so perfectly arched? Why do I feel tingling warmth trickling through my belly, desire spiking inside me?
I don’t want Rath. He took me away from my well-ordered human life and threw me into this insane death-contest.
But his mouth—oh god, his mouth. And those eyes, dark as coals, with cores of fire. I tip my face up, moving a tiny bit nearer to his.
The tip of his nose grazes mine. His thick lashes droop, sooty fringes over his blazing eyes.
I don’t know what I want. His kiss or his claws, pleasure or pain? I feel wilder and more reckless than I’ve ever been in my cautious, anxiety-riddled life.
“Angel,” I whisper.
Rath growls and catches my bottom lip in his teeth. He bites it hard, but the tiny spike of pain thrills me as thoroughly as if he’d run his hand between my thighs. I gasp, trembling in his grip, and my palms graze his ribs.
Immediately he releases me, backing away. I run my tongue over the spot he bit, tasting my own salty blood. He watches me, hungry and furious at the same time.
“I’m taking you back to the group,” he says. “Walk ahead of me, and don’t turn around again. Or else.”
I’m tempted to ask,Or else what?and to push him further. But heisa demon. And I do harbor a savage anger at him for putting me in this position, where my very life and soul are in danger. Even if a design contest in Hell is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me...
Rath prowls behind me, directing me with terse words like “Right” or “Left,” or “Keep straight.” Finally we reach the atrium again, just as the tour guide is counting heads. Her eyes flash a poisonous green when she sees me and Rath.
“Miss Labelle. We were looking for you,” she says. “Thank you for bringing back our little lost lamb, Razenath.”
“Glad to, Naamah. You should keep a closer eye on your flock.”
“This one seems to have wandering feet and a meddlesome mind,” Naamah replies. But she doesn’t look angry; she’s smirking at me, with that green light in her eyes again. “Come along, Miss Labelle—we’re headed back to headquarters for a meal.”
I’m suddenly conscious of the aching hollow in my stomach—we never had lunch, and I’m ravenous. Some of the other humans are looking weak as well. Maybe the deprivation is a form of subtle torture and manipulation. Who am I kidding—ofcourseit is. For all their talk of keeping us in top condition, these demons apparently can’t help tormenting us just a little. It’s in their nature, after all.
“Razenath, perhaps you’d lead the way?” Naamah sweeps her hand toward a doorway, and Rath grunts in reluctant assent. I get the feeling the two of them are connected somehow—friends, maybe?
As we troop out of the library, Naamah sidles up to me and whispers, “After the meal, come find me. I want to show you something that’s not on the approved tour.”
What does Naamah want to show me?
I can’t stop wondering while I stuff myself with roasted vegetables, tender steak, and mounds of fluffy potatoes dripping with the most flavorful gravy I’ve ever tasted. The food in Heaven can’t be any better than this, can it?
Rath is gone again. He picked up a huge sizzling steak with two fingers and stalked out, not even bothering with a plate. Though our table is crowded with humans and a motley crowd of demons mill through the dining mall, the place feels emptier without Rath’s presence. Much as I resent him for kidnapping me, he’s the closest thing to safety and protection that I have in this literally godforsaken plane.
My angel. How he hated it when I called him that! Maybe I do have a guardian angel somewhere. If so, they did a sloppy job of protecting me when I needed it.
When I can’t fit another bite of food into my stomach, I rise from the table and move toward the flickering screen at one end of the dining mall. It’s divided into maybe a thousand smaller screens, each one showing a live feed from the human plane. There’s footage from all over the globe—some of it broad, from an aerial height, and some focused on individuals. My eyes linger on a boy with brown skin, intent on crafting a small toy from castoff mechanical bits.
“He’ll be a great inventor someday,” says a voice at my ear. It’s Naamah, her lips redder than they’ve been all day. As I watch, she wipes a drop of blood from her chin and then licks her finger, slowly. “The boy has a demon assigned to guide him toward destructive uses for his gift—weapons, war tech, that sort of thing.”
“Why?”
She frowns at me, confused.
“Why do you want humans to destroy themselves? Why encourage war and terror and death?”
“God’s bones, maybe you’re not as sharp as I thought you were,” she says. “Sweetie, did you forget where you are? We’re demons. We want all the human souls to come to us, instead of going to the heavenly plane.”
“Butwhy? There must be some deeper reason besides ‘that’s the way it is.’”
“The fear and torment of human souls fuels this place. It enables our powers, strengthens our defenses. We have a delicate ecosystem constructed around the terror and pain of human beings.” Her smile is shark teeth and viper fangs. “So yes, there’s more to it than the sheer joy of power and wickedness. We’re nothing if not practical.”
