“It’s okay, SJ. You go deal with Yellin’ Hellen. Just come back here after, okay?”

I nodded, unable to trust words. Jemma’s lips twitched downwards, and my chest panged with the knowledge that I was making them that way. I wondered just how much the Soul Token would be pulsing right now, absorbing yet more misery I was dealing her, however reluctantly.

“Fuck!” I cursed, realising that I had come through a portal naked with her. Which meant the Soul Token was still back in my breeches, wadded up on the floor of my bedchamber.

Where Hellen, with her greedy obsession with the power stored in the Token, was no doubt storming about at that very moment.

“What’s wrong?” Jemma asked, dragging a pair of underpants and a T-shirt on over her head.

“Nothing,” I lied, widening the portal seam that I thought might need to permanently remain in her bedroom for ease of access. “I’ll sort out whatever drama the hounds are howling about, and I’ll return … as soon as I can.”

“Because I need to finish what I just started,” she murmured, and her lips were a sly grin, but her eyes were tight with worry.

I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I need that, too.” That, and so much more, when it came to this little, pink-haired human.

And then I stepped through the portal, prepared to meet whatever was waiting for me. Or, as prepared as a naked devil in a human disguise could be, in any case.

39. A Leaf Out of Her Book

Chapter 39

A Leaf Out of Her Book

SJ

“Boss!” Beezle yipped in evident relief, launching himself at me as I stepped through, my human skin slipping away. Bub was on his heels. For once in his infernal life, he had nothing to add, his mouth clamped shut.

“What is happening?” I demanded. My bedchamber looked like a tornado had wreaked havoc within. Clothing and knick-knacks and all my things were tossed violently to the floor. But amidst all that chaos, I could not spy the pair of breeches I had worn the previous night. The ones I had discarded in a rush before making love to Jemma.

They were not on the floor. Not against the wall. I did a full circuit of the space. Twice. “Where in the Home are they?”

“Hellen took ‘em.”

My eyes darted to Beezle, shock stuttering the thud in my chest. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

The Token was in those breeches.

“Mmmph!” Bub whined, nudging my bare leg with his snout. I glanced down to meet his intense, inky eyes.

“You traitorous little shit!”

My head snapped up, finding Hellen looming in the doorway, her face purple, her eyes wild. I staggered at the sudden blast of wind through the window behind me that pushed me closer to her.