Page 45 of Demon with Benefits (Hell Bent #3)

His head tilted slightly, the shadow-fog shifting around him. Summoning every drop of courage in her body, she lifted a hand, reaching into the hood toward that monstrous face with its long slash of a mouth.

She didn’t want to touch him. He horrified her. Everything about him was anyone’s worst nightmare. And yet, somewhere deep inside, he was still Meph.

She whispered his name again.

The monster’s head tilted the other way.

And then his mouth opened... and his tongue emerged.

Jesus fucking Christ! A long, tentacle-like tendril slid out between his deadly teeth, and if she’d had any breath in her lungs, she would have screamed bloody murder.

It snaked toward her, extending further and further.

The tip was pointed. Saliva dripped onto her hands and all over her front, and she recoiled in revulsion.

Reality shifted.

She was being chased. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Valefor in his demon form sprinting toward her. With those leonine hind legs, his steps were powerful. Hers were not. No matter how hard she pushed herself, her legs were slow and wobbly and wouldn’t obey her command.

Terror clogged her throat, but she had to keep going—No, there was a wall of fire in front of her. Fire. She heard screams from within. The screams of her parents.

She had to get to them. She had to save them. This time she wouldn’t fail.

Her cries of despair were lost against the roar of flames, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t penetrate the inferno.

“Iris, help!” It was Lily’s voice.

Iris spun around. Lily was on the ground, bleeding from a wound in her middle.

“No!” Iris ran to her, dropping to the ground at her side, trying to stem the bleeding with her hands.

“You can’t save me,” Lily said. “You couldn’t save them. You can’t even save yourself.”

“Will you shut up already? I’m trying to help you!”

But Lily was gone.

“Iris!”

She jumped to her feet and spun around again. Meph was there, in human form, trapped behind a wall of steel bars.

“I can get you free!” She ran to him and started wiggling the bars like she’d done to another bar somewhere else. It had worked then; it would work now.

“Stop!”

She glanced at Meph. “I can get you out of here.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“What? Why not?”

“I want to stay here. You have to leave me here.”

“No bloody way!” She yanked on the bars again. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“I belong here. This is what I am. Who I really am.”

“Shut the fuck up. I’m not weak, and I’m not a failure, and I’m sure as shite not leaving here without you.”

“I don’t want to go with you. I want to be here. This is where I belong.”

She gave up tugging on the bars and leaned through to get as close to Meph as she could.

“You listen to me. You have brothers who love you waiting for you to come home. And don’t give me some crap about how demons can’t love because we already know that’s bullshit.

How pissed will Raum be when he finds out where you are? ”

And suddenly, she was spilling her guts.

“You make me a better person. I’ve never laughed so much in my life as when I’m with you. You might think you’re some dark, demented beast, but to me, you’re a ray of goddamn sunshine.”

She was still clutching the cage bars, but the fight and fear had bled out of her. She forgot what she’d been running from or what the urgency was. All she was focused on was getting through to him.

“I need you, Meph. I can’t do this alone anymore.

I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being afraid.

And I know it doesn’t make up for how I treated you, but I only said that shit to you because I’m falling for you, and it scares the piss out of me.

So don’t try to convince me that you’re better off alone, because I’m not buying it. ”

Her head pounded suddenly, so she blinked hard to push the pain away.

When she opened her eyes again, she was staring into glowing red eyes in a sunken skull face.

His tentacle tongue was still sliming all over her, and it was the nastiest thing she’d ever felt.

At the moment, however, she didn’t give a damn.

“Meph?”

She was out of the vision. He hadn’t eaten her. Had she gotten through to him?

“ Ssss. ”

She froze. It almost sounded like he was trying to say...

“ Isss. ”

It was her name. Her eyes widened. He was trying to say her name. He was trying to communicate.

“Meph.” Her heart pounded, but this time it wasn’t with fear. “Meph.” She lifted her hand to his terrible face, and this time, she didn’t hesitate to touch him. His skin was cold and hard. Did he even have skin? It just looked like bone.

“ Isss. ”

“Iris, yeah. That’s me.”

And then she heard the footsteps—the scritch, scritch, scritch of claws.

The air went still as the steps halted, and a low voice echoed down the hallway. “Leave the witch and return to me, Mephistopheles.”

Meph went still. Even his flowing, shadowy cloak went still.

Then, slowly, his head turned. It turned like an owl’s head, without twisting his body. Yet another terrifying aspect of him, but right now, he was the only thing standing between her and Valefor, and she didn’t give a damn what he looked like.

What she did give a damn about was the centuries of conditioning he’d undergone to obey Valefor’s every word. She’d seen it for herself before, how quickly he’d listened. Would he now? Or had their moment of connection gotten through to him?

“Now,” Valefor said firmly. He lifted a hand toward his coat as if reaching for something inside it. And just like that, Meph turned away from her and slunk obediently down the hallway.

Iris’s heart sank, and that hopeless despair threatened to choke her all over again.