bar and landed with a sizzle in the kitchen sink. “Well, damn.”
Before she had a chance to move Darrak was right in front of her. He pulled out the chain she wore around her neck so her amulet lay flat against her freshly ironed white shirt.
“It’s even darker than it was yesterday.”
She clamped her hand over the visible state of her soul. The more she used her magic, the more damage it did. A black witch, even an extremely reluctant one like her, started with a pure white soul, but it grew darker and darker every time she accessed her very accessible black magic. Eden’s amulet was still pale gray, but it had darker veins branching through it, making it look like a piece of marble.
She shook her head. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Then what are these?” He pushed her hand away and slid his index finger over the veins.
She grimaced. “A glitch.”
“A glitch,” Darrak repeated skeptically. “Not sure it works like that.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Eden—” All amusement was gone from his voice now. “I’m worried about you.”
A demon from Hell was worried about her immortal soul. It sounded like a joke. But Darrak wasn’t any normal demon. And she wasn’t any normal black witch.
Once upon a time, Darrak had been just as bad as any demon who’d ever existed—as immortal as he was immoral, sadistic, powerful, selfish, manipulative, and deadly. He’d even conspired with a demonic pal to overthrow Lucifer himself in an attempt to take his power as Prince of Hell. However, they’d failed. Rather spectacularly, in fact.
Darrak had been summoned into the human world over three hundred years ago and a curse put on him that destroyed his original body and his ability to manifest a new one. He’d been forced to possess humans ever since. A side effect of this was that he’d absorbed humanity slowly but surely, and it infused his being. The demon had developed a conscience. Morals. A sense of right and wrong.
But that wasn’t the whole story.
To add to Eden’s growing paranormal resume, she’d recently been shocked to learn in addition to being a black witch she was also a nephilim.
A human mother plus an angel father equaled one very confused twenty-nine-year-old woman—black witch plus half-angel in the same body. It wasn’t exactly a combination that was working out perfectly, kind of like oil and water.
And the bonus prize—she was possessed by a demon.
It had been an interesting year to say the least.
Her angel side infused her with celestial energy, something she’d never even sensed before apart from a smidgeon of unreliable psychic insight. But it was what Darrak had absorbed over the last month due to their situation. And he’d absorbed a lot of it.
Bottom line, a human conscience was the least of Darrak’s troubles. A demon who’d been neck-deep in celestial energy as he had been in the last month . . .
Well, it was changing him on a core level. Only he didn’t exactly know it yet.
Eden knew it would shake his already shaky confidence, not to mention his entire identity, to find out he was becoming a little more . . . angelic. Whether he liked it or not.
The news could wait a little longer.
“Eden,” Darrak prompted when she didn’t speak for a while. “Are you going to talk to me or what?”
“You mean I have a choice?”
“No. No choices. This is not a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Your amulet is darkening and you say you’re doing nothing to cause this. Is that right?”
Eden didn’t want to deal with this, but sometimes fate didn’t give you a chance to catch your breath before it threw another bucket of water in your face.
She looked up at him. “I can feel it this morning stronger than ever. I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can control it.”
Darrak took her face between his hands. “But you want to control it.”
She touched one of his hands but didn’t pull away from him. “Of course I do.”
“I wish to hell I could protect you from all of this.” His jaw tensed. “Looks like it’s time to get some outside help.”
He walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed the phone.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
Darrak held a finger up to her. She flopped down on a chair at the table, already exhausted from talking about something she would much prefer to continue trying to ignore—magically melted BlackBerry or not.
She really hoped Andy had taken out a warranty on the device.