Val blinked.
“There is no ice in Hell,” Lloyd laughed a little, before his face regained the serious expression it had to start with. “Sorry. Old joke. The point is, there are very strict rules that must be adhered to for all Tempters—including certain conduct with their assigned fallen angels. There are limits to how far they can tempt. Boundaries. Some Tempters have gone over that line, gotten to know their assignment too well, and they have been punished accordingly. To break the rules of being a Tempter Demon is a very dangerous undertaking, indeed.” He eyed Val with his one great big eye. “This is his last chance. Just one more screw up on his part . . . I can’t believe he would risk everything, even for one as beautiful as you.”
Val clutched her mug so tightly that her knuckles were white. “What do you mean ‘his last chance’?”
“I mean his last chance or . . .” He brought his two hands together to make them look like flapping wings.
Val shook her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lloyd stopped flapping. “Don’t you know what happens to failed demons?”
“No.”
“First their minds are manipulated. There are those who are quite adept at that sort of thing.
The demon will walk in behaving one way, and walk out an entirely different being. It’s as if what he once was has been wiped away forever.” He stood up from the sofa, walked to the window and looked out at the darkness. “That is the first stage. If that is not successful in making them behave how the head office wishes them to . . .” He trailed off.
“What?” Val prompted. “What happens then?”
He turned to face her. “They are turned into Nightflyers.”
Her eyes widened with shock. “Those things that attacked us? You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “Failed demons are turned into Nightflyers as their final punishment. An eternity of pain and mindless torment, and your only thought is to feed.”
Reggie’s legs began moving in his sleep as if he were trying to run away from something.
“Claire, save me, baby! I love you!”
“And you’re telling me that Nathaniel . . . is a failed demon.”
“Almost a failed demon. The last I heard, he’d been given one last chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Lucifer. To bring in a fallen one.”
“Me,” she said dully.
Val couldn’t believe what she was hearing. If he failed in his assignment to tempt her, he’d be turned into one of those terrible Nightflyer creatures? That he’d been made a demon by mistake?
And she was his last chance to make good on his past failures.
And yet still he protected her from the very monsters he might become in the very near future.
“You’re different,” Lloyd said after a moment.
“Me? Different?”
He sighed and absently thumbed through the romance novel he held. “You seem unlike other fallen ones I’ve come in contact with. Not that I’ve met very many. I was never a Tempter. I can see, though, why you’ve affected him. You must be very special.”
She tried to think of something to say in reply, but found she was now rather speechless.
Reggie took that moment to yawn, stretch each of his legs one at a time and open one black eye, then the other. “Whoa. I had some seriously weird dreams.” He looked at Lloyd, then blinked. “Never mind. Maybe it wasn’t a dream.”
Lloyd returned to his seat on the sofa. “Anyhow, I didn’t mean to turn this into ‘all about
Nathaniel’ night. We were talking about me earlier. And my new book.”
“We were?”
“Yes.” He suddenly had a blue Sharpie in his hand. “How would you like it autographed?”
Twenty minutes later, after Lloyd had personalized two hardcovers and a category romance for her, Val sat next to the bed where Nathaniel still lay unconscious and studied the demon in the dimly lit room.
His bare chest was no longer a torn-up mess. It had healed almost completely and she looked at his toned, golden body for longer than she probably should have. His face had healed, too, back to its prior unmarked perfection. And he’d always looked this good, even as a human?
Hardly seemed fair. It would have been easier to believe that he used some sort of glamour all this time. At least then she’d have an easy scapegoat for her undeniable attraction to him.
And that’s all it was. Just a physical attraction.
Just an appreciation of his demonly male physique.
Sure. And that’s why she was sitting vigil at his bedside.
That’s why she’d left Reggie downstairs after insisting that Lloyd give him a reading of the first three chapters of his latest book.
Val didn’t really know what to make of the demon in front of her, to tell the truth. Lloyd’s insights on the inner workings of Nathaniel had turned on some major lights in her mind, but she didn’t know how much to believe and how much was just made up. He was a writer, after all. It could all just be fiction. That seemed easier for her to believe than the fact that
Nathaniel hated what he did and felt guilty about it. So much so that he had failed many times and only had one chance left. She was his chance. If he didn’t tempt her, then . . .
She cringed, thinking that he might become one of those horrible creatures. It wasn’t fair.
After another ten minutes, Nathaniel moaned softly and shifted in the bed. Val tensed as he opened his blue-gray eyes and looked directly at her.
He licked his dry lips. “You.”
“Morning, sunshine.”
“You’ve decided to torment me even as I sleep?”
“Looks like. How do you feel?”
He attempted to sit up and grimaced. “As if a group of Nightflyers attempted to have me for dinner.”
“Actually, I think it was more like a late-night snack.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A couple hours. It’s still dark out, so we can’t go anywhere yet.”