“This is excellent, son!” Father turned to his human, poking him in the ribs. “I should have trusted you when you said that you thought SJ had it under control.” His eyes returned to the Token. “All that beautiful pain, being stored up for my—our workers. Just from one human!” He shook his head in bewildered amazement.

I tucked the Token into my pocket, planting my feet against the dizziness that threatened to overcome me. They were talking about Jemma … my Jemma … like she was an object. A possession. Nothing more than a power source for Hell.

Can’t let them see my … feelings.

“Have you plans for the next task? And on how you will bring this all home to us?”

I swallowed, masking my emotions with arrogance. “Let us not concern ourselves with the … intricacies of my experiment. We have a night of dancing and debauchery to plan!”

30. Both Her Downstairs Holes

Chapter 30

Both Her Downstairs Holes

Jemma

“I still just can’t get my head around his actions, though!” Ezra muttered, his lump of clay spinning, forgotten, on the wheel. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was catching feelings for you, too!”

I snorted, keeping my eyes firmly trained on my line of stitches. Thank goodness for crocheting. It had this almost magical way of grounding me when my thoughts were spinning and my emotions were out of control. It had been the thing that got me through those first few months after Mum and Dad died, when the grief was so raw that I would do anything not to feel it.

“You know what I can’t get over?” I whispered so the other trainee potters wouldn’t overhear. “The fact that you’re fixated on his feelings, and not that he’s the son of the Devil, and he sent me a bunch of crazy text messages to trick me into selling my soul to him so I could satisfy my drunken donut craving!”

Ezra’s eyes pierced me. “Jem, if the reason you kept all this from me was because you didn’t think I’d believe you … remember who was the one who roped you into bingeing every episode of Lucifer. I do not need convincing on this front!”

I tugged at my yarn, giving myself a bit more slack. “Fiction versus reality, Ezra. I know you know the difference.”

He glared down at his clay, sinking his fingers into the centre of his glob and attempting to make a hollow. “And yet here you are, dating a big, glowing devil man.”