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.

“Go home,” the stranger advised. “A house of Devils is no place for an angel like you.”

“A heart and a key would set me free,” it said. “But you should hope we do not meet again, angel.”

“Call her a name one more time,” he threatened, his tone bored but his eyes alight with mischief. “I dare you.” Cade gawked at the sight of Blackwell’s tall frame, but his expression quickly soured as he spat, “Incredible, even Demons have whores⁠—” Blackwell grabbed Cade’s wrist and twisted his arm until he screeched in agony. “Incredible,” Blackwell echoed. “The audacity of men worth less than dirt.”

She buried her face into the crook of his throat. “You came.” “You called,” he answered.

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“Blackwell?” she whispered. “Firstly, let me reintroduce myself.” He dipped his head in a formal bow. “My name is Salemaestrus Erasmus Blackwell, Prince of the Devils. But you, angel, may call me Salem.”

“I want every single soul who knows my True Name to forget it,” Salem seethed.

“I want you to know that it was all very real for me. It still is. I was going to ask to use my Devil’s Grant to find and break your tether.”

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much. You saved me. So many times, in so many ways, and it barely took you a week to change me so intrinsically.

“Ophelia I… I am so fucking in love with you. I think I fell in love with you when you asked me how you could help me that first time we met.

“And if you do choose to be my tether, I need you to know that does not mean you have to stay with me. You’d be free to live your eternal life however you want. Even if that means you decide you never want to see me again.”