Page 28 of Client from Hell

No matter how many times I knocked him down at chess, he came back for more.

After chess, we explored other classics, playing each one three times to determine who was the champion at the game. To my delight and his mortification, we proved equal matches.

“I’m supposed to be destroying you at this. I’m older, I have more experience, and I play half of these games all the time. How are you beating me?”

“I’m brilliance and beauty in the flesh,” I quipped, eyeballing our collection. “Really, I just hate to lose.”

“Same. Who taught you to play chess?”

I frowned, and my efforts to dredge up the memory produced nothing but annoying confusion. “I don’t know.”

“Some parts of your brain were destroyed, so it’s not surprising some memories are missing. Camael did what she could, but she can’t restore things completely gone like that without a great deal of effort, and healing you was challenging enough. She can, however, look into the past and tell you the answer if it bothers you a lot.”

As I refused to pitch a fit over a small consequence of being alive and in questionably good health, I shrugged. “It was probably my father.” Sucking in a breath, I stared at him. “Oh, shit. Do my parents know?”

“Lucifer paid them a personal visit, playing a human, to inform them you would be in rehabilitation for a while and unable to take visitors until your health stabilized. They aren’t aware he’s Lucifer, but he wanted to make certain they were cared for. He is aware your motivations involve caring for your parents, so he wanted to evaluate the situation.”

Crap. “If he’s prejudiced against the poor, I’ll kick his ass so hard his tail pops out of his ear.”

“When I last spoke to Lucifer, the situation involved him recruiting several of the fucking assholes to repair their car. He borrowed it for a day after pretending that his broke down, and he took your library books back so there wouldn’t be fines—and he made sure any old fines were covered.”

My mother tended to read books to death, which often resulted in fines she couldn’t afford to pay. “I’m going to owe him for that.”

“Not necessary. Repairing the car cost him little, it let him work with some of the fucking assholes who didn’t really need to be tortured but did need some ethical adjustments, and covering the library fines is habitual because Kanika is the same way.”

“Kanika goes to the library?” I blurted.

“Early and often. I love her, make no mistake about that, but she can be an utter skinflint. She doesn’t think to just go buy the books she wants. She goes to the library. And then she gets caught up in work and forgets to return the books she has finished, gets fined, and freaks out because she hasn’t managed to free herself from the past yet. So, Lucifer gathers the books she’s forgotten about and has already read, takes them back to the library, makes sure the fines are paid, and goes back to his business. He tries to extend the books she hasn’t read, and if they can’t be extended any more, he buys that specific book. He has an agreement with the library; they’ll call him if she’s having an episode of book hoarding, give him the titles in question, and he’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure he’s actually the Devil? People keep telling me he’s the Devil, but I’m not seeing good evidence of his evil behavior. That’s disgustingly good behavior, Jonas.”

“Having been kicked into lava pools numerous times by that asshole, I can confirm he’s an evil jerk and enjoys making me suffer.”

I giggled at the thought of the Devil kicking an incubus into a lava pool. “Yet, he’s tossed you in with me, expecting you to play board games and enjoy consistent meals for a change. Of dessert, apparently.”

“Virgins are delicious treats, and they remain delicious until said virgin selects a second partner,” he admitted. “A lot of people don’t realize that. It’s not really the virginity that trips our triggers, but the unworked potential. It doesn’t fade until our partner beds someone else. So, an incubus partnered with a virgin woman over a long period of time reaps full benefits from her for even years. Same with virgin men and a succubus. I think Lucifer set it up that way to control how far afield his demons and devils will go. It encourages procreation, too—we’re more likely to procreate with a human if we’re partnered with the same human for a while. We’ll procreate with other demons and devils, but we usually require a seed, so we just get a lot of exercise.”

Interesting. “So, as long as I only sleep with you, you really do get a scrumptious dessert every night?”

“And if you’re a species that has the same sort of magic, you’ll likewise benefit from a virgin partner. I am not a virgin partner, although that wouldn’t bar you from feeding. But, I can never tell with unicorns and the other species like that. They act like their permanent mates are virgins, but that’s often not the case. Honestly, I leave the unicorns alone. They are not to be trifled with. They redefine what it means to be grouchy if they haven’t gotten laid. Just watch Diana in the future. If Darian hasn’t been catering to her, she becomes a literal nightmare within three or four days. He went off for a whole week once, and she chewed on rocks in general frustration.”

Poor Diana. “Do you think spicy ponies with bite are going to have this problem?”

“I would count on it. He has a rather wicked sense of humor, and He has planned for you to be able to tolerate living in hell with Lucifer. He is well aware my sister is trying to get me hooked up with someone permanently, too. If He makes you a voracious species, we’re both happy with the bed buddy arrangement. And nothing says we have to do anything other than play board games and be active bed buddies. We could hate each other and get along just fine in that sort of relationship. We could become masters of the frequent booty call.” Jonas shrugged. “I’m not exactly the easiest person to get along with. For some reason, people get annoyed when I resort to trickery, and when I get bored, I resort to trickery. And then I lie about being the source of the trickery.”

“Jonas, I burned the Devil’s house down. I don’t think I have any grounds to complain about any trickery you may be involved with, have been involved with, or plan to be involved with.”

“Look, you can’t tell me things like that when you’re not ready to be my bed buddy. All it does is turn me on.”

I giggled. “How long until I can apply to be your bed buddy?”

Jonas frowned, reached out, and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “No sooner than two weeks. That’s a guess, but I’ll check you daily. Your hormone levels are still a mess, and your organs are still healing. Your virus also needs a chance to get comfortable without the strain of starting a campaign to tame me. The virus doesn’t understand I can purge it at will, so I’ll likely let it do its thing until we decide we no longer want to be bed buddies. That said, your virus will become very upset when I purge it, and you’ll deal with the same general consequences of a broken mating bond between lycanthropes. Disclosure is important.”

“You better make being my bed buddy worth it,” I informed him.

“Broken mating bonds are not pleasant,” he warned.

“I’m woman enough to handle my virus’s heartbreak. It—”