Phantasma (Wicked Games, #1)

by Kaylie Smith

There were two golden rules their mother had taught them about roaming New Orleans after dark: the first was that if the dark looks at you, you never look back. That was a surefire way to be caught by a Devil.

The second rule was that if you did break the first, never ever make any deals with a Devil. Not unless you wanted to lose your soul.

Ophelia couldn’t help but wonder if she was wildly unprepared to assimilate into normal society without their

mother as her guide. Death she was familiar with. Living would be the real challenge.

Then Blackwell solidified himself completely. “Call her a name one more time,” he threatened, his tone bored but his eyes alight with mischief. “I dare you.”

“It looks like you gave that imposter a Hell of a fight at least. Good girl.” His fingertips warmed as he reached out to brush them over the wound once more, and she relished the relief of his magic as it healed her. “There.”

“So again. Who did that to you?”

She buried her face into the crook of his throat. “You came.” “You called,” he answered. After a long moment, she took a deep breath and unwound her arms from his neck.

“Next time your mind tries to convince you otherwise, remember this: there is nothing about you that I find undesirable. Okay?”

“I want to know everything. I want to see all the darkest corners of your mind.” He tilted his face up to whisper his next words right

into her ear. “I want to taste your sins.”

“I need you to know if I had heard you, there would have been nothing that could’ve stopped me from getting to you. Hell, nothing did stop me from getting to you.

He grasped her face in his hands. “In a different life, in a fair one, I would’ve kept you until my eternal soul withered away to dust,” he vowed to her. Then he was gone.

“In all the darkness, in all the loneliness, you have been my one source of light,” he lamented as she began to come undone. “My soul will go to its grave with your name echoing in my mind.”