The Kraken's Sacrifice (A Deal With a Demon #2)(2)

Oh, wow, you must be a handful for your girlfriend to deal with.

God, what boy would want to date someone who dances on tables and flirts with everyone who crosses their path?

You, Catalina, are a disappointment.

There’s only one way to escape the ghosts in my head, but Azazel takes my hand before I can do more than sweep a look around the bar. It’s just as well. For all my bravado, I don’t actually know what I’m walking into, and getting sloshed beforehand would be just another mistake in a long line of mistakes.

It’s tempting all the same.

The room goes wobbly and transforms to black in a swirling motion that makes me vaguely sick. And then there’s a lurch that feels like my guts are actually yanked right out of my body. I open my mouth to scream, but there’s no air to draw in.

Is this what dying feels like?

My feet hit the ground hard, almost as if I jumped from a high distance, and I crumple to my knees. “Ouch.”

“You didn’t pass out. Interesting.”

The voice above me still carries the cultured tones of the bargainer demon, but there’s a rougher edge to it now. It’s deeper too. My head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, but I manage to lift it and look at the . . . creature . . . standing next to me.

No, not creature. It’s Azazel. He may have grown over a foot, gained a bunch of weight in muscle, turned crimson, and sprouted horns, but . . .

Actually that’s a lot.

I hiccup. “You really take the demon thing literally, don’t you? How very Christian devil of you.”

“We came first, Catalina. Where do you think they got the inspiration from?” He sighs, and the sound cuts right through me.

Or maybe that’s my stomach suddenly surging. “Az—”

To his credit, he responds quickly. He moves faster than anyone has right to and manages to produce a bucket from somewhere, then shove it under my face just as I throw up. I’m nearly certain I feel his hand rubbing my back, but figure that must be a hallucination.

Azazel may have more use for me than anyone else in my life on account of me signing the contract, but that doesn’t mean he really wants me around. And now I’m puking in the hallway.

Typical Catalina.

Sometime later, his low voice penetrates my fog of misery. “It’s normal to have side effects from jumping realms. Frankly, I’m impressed you managed not to fall unconscious. Most people do.”

I close my eyes and try very hard not to think about how my mouth tastes right now. Surely the demon realm has toothpaste, right? Except I can’t focus on that, because Azazel’s pity crawls around beneath my skin, and I’d do anything to claw it free.

I let myself tip back on my ass, effectively breaking the contact with his hand on my back—not a hallucination, apparently—and force a grin. “Oh, please, this has nothing on the time I took a wrong turn and ended up in a biker bar that only served Jack Daniels.” Not strictly true. My boyfriend and I had a fight, and he left me on the side of the road, but I’m not about to admit that. It’s just sad, not entertaining, and I am nothing if I’m not entertaining.

He blinks those eerie dark eyes at me. “What?”

“Bikers only respect like two things—or at least these bikers. I can’t pretend to speak for bikers as a community just because I had one interaction with the people at this bar.”

Catalina, stop fucking talking.

But I can’t. I never can. Not when my nerves are strung tight like this. It’s not fear. That would be ridiculous. But . . . nerves. “Anyways, those two things are fighting and drinking, and I am a lover not a fighter.”

“Catalina—”

I talk right over him, his impatience only driving my words to bubble up faster, spill from my lips as if I can outrace his disappointment. “So I obviously couldn’t fight any of them if I wanted to keep my good looks and avoid a hefty hospital bill, which meant the only option was outdrinking every single person in the bar.” The memory still makes me shudder. No fear there, of course. Just nerves. “They found me as charming as you do, and I managed to walk out of there with cab fare and only a tiny bit of alcohol poisoning.”

I probably should have gone to the hospital, but if I’d done that, they would have called my emergency contact, a.k.a. my mother. Instead, I spent three days on my bathroom floor, wishing for death. Or, if not death, because that’s very permanent and I have commitment issues, then a nice little coma that I would wake from feeling refreshed.

“Catalina, sleep.”

I barely feel the press of Azazel’s fingers on my temples before everything goes gray, then fades to black. “Neat trick,” I slur.

Even falling into a magical sleep isn’t enough to make me miss his irritated sigh.





2





CATALINA





I spend two days recovering in the nicest room I’ve ever seen. I don’t have much choice, seeing as how I’ve been locked in. Hard not to take that personally, but I’m doing my best to be agreeable, so I try to keep myself occupied in the room itself instead of scheming on ways to break out.

To be fair, the room is luxurious. It looks like something out of a movie about what Hollywood people think ye olden days looked like. Giant bed filled with enough blankets to make a comfy burrow. Lush carpets underfoot to cushion the stone floor. Thick curtains on a window overlooking the city.