devil 04 - the devil you know Read Online Free Page A

to miss me?”
    I snorted in a less than ladylike way. “Of course not! But I’m on the cusp here. I might need some spiritual guidance or something.”
    It was his turn to snort. “You’re a funny girl, Astra.”
    I turned away in disgust and started pacing again. Flick continued to throw white clothing into a white suitcase in his monochromatically white cloud.
    Finally, sighing, I gave a thought to sitting down and a chair appeared under my butt. I dropped into it, feeling unaccountably squirmy and uncertain. Something brewed in the center of my chest and made my stomach churn with worry. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt something coming my way and I was pretty sure I wasn’t gonna like it.
    Whatever it was.
    The premonition made it hard to sit still. Standing up, I thought the chair away and resumed pacing.
    Flick closed his suitcase with a white click and turned to me. “You’re a mess, Astra.”
    I glared at him. “You think? That’s why I need my angel contingent around. This is a terrible time for all of you to desert me.”
    Flick shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Astra. This conference occurs only once every thousand years and it’s mandatory.” He glanced around. “You’re welcome to stay here on my cloud if you want. Until the Settling is over…” He glanced away. A five-hundred-year-old virgin, Flick was hopelessly uncomfortable with all things sexual. And even he couldn’t miss the recent spike in my libido brought on by my Settling. I even walked differently these days, with a kind of feline sway and glide, rather than my usual stomp and stalk.
    Sighing, I resisted the devilish urge to give over to the skank side of my nature and tweak Flick a little with some outrageous flirting. I mean, let’s face it, as a five-hundred-year-old virgin he had enough problems of his own to deal with.
    “Okay. Enjoy your damn conference. Bring me back a t-shirt.”
    Flick grinned at me. “Size small…in white?”
    “Bleurgh!” I shifted off the cloud and back to my office, where I proceeded to pace some more. I was so immersed in my thoughts that a soft knock on the doorframe of my office door made me jerk around in surprise.
    My business partner Emo’s dark, handsome face peered in at me. He stayed in the hallway, his dark eyes filled with wariness, which I knew hid a deep-seated yearning that was making both of us increasingly uncomfortable.
    He was a Tweener just like I was, but as a young boy, Emo had been turned by an evil Devil King into a lower form of devil because he wouldn’t kill one of his parents. I had known him strictly in that form, at least as far back as I could remember, since King Nerul had also messed with people’s memories of Emo so that we wouldn’t remember him as the adorable dark-haired little waif he must have been.
    As my partner and a short, squat, red guy with blazing red eyes and horns, there hadn’t been any sexual tension between us. At least on my part. But since Nerul had died and Emo had been released from his curse, showing his true, Royal Devil form, I’d been fighting some serious yummy reactions to him.
    Which had only exacerbated his longtime um…fondness…for me.
    My Settling had made everything ten times worse.
    Sometimes, when we stood too close, with his heat and unique, incredible musk enveloping me, I was hard-pressed to remember why I couldn’t just strip him, throw him to the ground and hop on his ditty.
    I gave him a wary smile. “Hey, partner.”
    Emo’s smile was strained. Royals could smell lust. He was probably getting a snoutful at that moment. “Astra.”
    I frowned to hide my hurt feelings at his icy greeting. “What’s up?”
    “There’s a troll uprising downtown. It appears they’ve taken an interest in the underwear store at the mall. According to the very frantic manager, who was locked in her office with a few of the clerks who managed to escape when the trolls broke in, they’ve been putting the