Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
“I love you, too,” she said desperately to him. “Dev, I love you…”
There was a great release speaking the words, but they were too late, he was too far gone—
Snap!
The female entity reappeared in front of them, still in her purple skirted business suit, but that long, luscious brunette hair was an absolute mess, and the silk blouse was untucked.
“Goddamn him,” it muttered as she threw out her hand and a lit cigarette appeared between her fingers. “He always was a good fuck.”
She looked down as she exhaled. And promptly her annoyed expression left her flushed face.
The female lowered herself beside Dev. “My boy. My beautiful boy…”
Devina. The demon. Dev’s mahmen.
“Bring him back,” Lyric begged. “With everything I’ve heard about you, I know you’re powerful enough. You can raise the dead. You can bring him… back.”
She was crying now, the tears flowing freely onto her flannel nightgown.
“He is the one thing I love most in all the world,” Devina said. “And so I won’t do that to him. I can’t.”
“What.” Lyric slapped a hold on that arm. “Please, you have to, he can’t die like this—”
“If I bring him back, he’ll have me in him again. He wouldn’t want that, even if you were with him and you love him like you say you do—he’d be back where he started.” A bloody tear formed at the corner of one of those black eyes. “He hates his father and me, and I don’t blame him.”
“You can’t let him die—”
“But you can do something about this.”
“What?” Lyric frowned. “I have no magic, I have—”
“You have a piece of him in you. I can sense it. I don’t know how it happened, and it doesn’t matter, really. But you… give that back to him. Let his essence flow from you back into him, a mixture of the two of you, your mortality cleansing me and his father from him, clearing the decks, so to speak.”
There was such sadness in the female, but also a resolve.
“Take his hand, Lyric—and question nothing. Just feel and let it flow back into him.” The demon glanced out toward the broken glass. “And don’t worry, you’re safe, because Lash isn’t coming back here. He’s an asshole, but I promised him a blow job later and I’m very good at that. Turns out he’s missed me, the piece of shit—and I’m doing my damnedest to not be charmed by that.”
The entity tilted her head as she rose to a full stand. “My son’s chosen wisely in you. You’re going to do well together. Now, wake him up with the kiss of life, and know that this is where you two end… and also where you begin. Save the one I love most in the world, for both you and me.”
Riding a sense of fear and disbelief, Lyric refocused on Dev, staring into his sightless eyes. Then she took a deep breath, closed her lids, and pressed her mouth to his.
Prepared to attempt the most important thing in the world.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Dev heard his name being called from a great distance. In the dark swill around him, the sound was a reassuring anchor, but he had to fight to focus on it and try to move forward. His effort became like swimming through sluggish, frigid water, great strokes getting him almost nowhere. Yet the voice became louder and presently he recognized it.
“Lyric…?” he said into the void. “Lyric—”
A current flowed into him, and it peeled the black pressure away, but in the absence of the full-body constriction, pain flared as every part of him struggled to contain itself. Moving more freely at last, he started to ascend with a sudden buoyancy, going faster and faster, until, like an inflatable surfacing, he popped—
—open his eyes.
Lyric was kissing him, pushing life-force into him, while standing off to the side, with tears of red streaming down her face, was his mother.
Dev took a deep breath and coughed through a wretched suffocation. But his lungs got with the program soon enough and began to do their duty properly, pulling air in, expelling it out. And then he forgot all about that.
“I love you,” Lyric cried as she pulled him up and held him to her heart.
Now he found the strength to reach out his arms and hold her back; now he had the strength to sit himself up and cradle her. Except he didn’t know how this had happened… he didn’t know how any of this had happened.
Except really, who the fuck cared.
He kissed Lyric back with everything he had. And then he said hoarsely, “I’m sorry, I love you, I’m so—”
Babbling. But again, who the fuck cared, really. He was alive, she was here, and…
Dev slowly eased apart from his female and looked over at his mother. “What are you doing here?”
“She helped me,” Lyric said. “She protected us and told me what to do to save you.”