A Demon's Desire

By Lizzy Ford

http://www.guerrillawordfare.com/

Edited by Christine LePorte

http://www.christineleporte.com/

Cover art and design by Dafeenah

http://www.indiedesignz.com/

* * * * *

Special feature at the conclusion: excerpt
from

Abigail

By paranormal romance novelist Heather Marie
Adkins

http://heather.bishoffs.com/

* * * * *

A Demon’s Desire copyright October 2011 by
Lizzy Ford

Smashwords Edition

Cover art and design copyright 2011 by
Dafeenah

Abigail
excerpt copyright 2011 by
Heather Marie Adkins,

Used with permission

* * * * *

Smashwords edition license notes:

Thank you for downloading this free ebook.
You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be
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provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you
enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover
other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

* * * * *

See other titles by Lizzy Ford and Heather
Marie Adkins at

http://www.indie-eclective.com

You can follow the GW team and Heather Marie
Adkins on Twitter:

@LizzyFord2010

@cleporte

@dafeenajameel

@hmarieadkins

Twitter hashtags:

#guerrillawriter, #fantasy, #romance,
#paranormalromance, #eclective

* * * * *

Chapter One

Olivia flew through the restored Victorian, a
crumpled shopping bag clutched to her chest. Most of the members of
the coven were in the living room, watching the latest episode of
True Blood
. She didn’t stop to greet them but hurried
through the kitchen and to the door of the basement. She opened it,
her elated thoughts sliding into unease at the unnatural glow
emanating from one wall of the basement. She descended a few steps
and paused. The scent of sulfur made her nose wrinkle, and heat
rendered the basement hot compared to the rest of the drafty, old
house.

Forcing herself onward, she let her eyes fall
to the fissure in the basement wall through which the orange flames
of Hell glowed.

It had grown larger the past few months. Not
by much, maybe half a foot or so. Two years ago, it had appeared
after she killed her third victim and was no larger than a tiny
crack the size of her pinkie. The more black magic she practiced,
the larger it became. The only benefit of the heat of Hell: it kept
the coven’s electricity bill low during the coolness of the late
October autumn in rural northern Maryland.

One of her ghostly slaves moved from its
place in the poorly lit basement, and she jumped in surprise.

“Not now!” she barked at the shadow demon. It
slinked back to the corner. Olivia plucked the content of the bag
and set it on the wooden desk by the wall of the basement opposite
the fissure. She clapped her hands in delight at the sight of the
decomposed finger. It stank, but not as much as the portal to
Hell.

“You’ve been out all day,” a man’s voice
said. She tensed at his voice. She never heard him coming. “Must’ve
been important to leave my bed so early.”

“It is,” she said. “Leave me alone, Jeffrey.
I’m busy.”

“Not the proper way to thank your host,
especially since you’re a member of
my
coven.”

She spun on him with a glare. With silky
black hair, chiseled features and a lean frame, Jeffrey’s looks
alone had drawn more than one witch to his coven. And he slept with
all of them. He was not the kind of man who would ever know how
deep and satisfying loving another could be, which was why she
didn’t give two flips about pleasing him the way the other girls
did. She did what he expected of her to retain her place in the
coven-- and nothing more.

“None of them brought you that,” she said and
pointed to the fissure. “You were a poser, Jeffrey, and everyone
knows it. I made you legit.”

“I’m more legit than you’ll ever understand.
But yes, you brought me the fissure,” he said with irritation. He
lifted his chin toward the table. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

He strode across the basement and pushed her
aside to see her treasure. She shoved him back, but not before he
saw what it was.

“I’m being replaced by a dead man,” he said.
“Where’s the rest of him?”

“I’m trying to figure that out. He’s my soul
mate-- I’m meant to find him.”

“And I’m …?”

“Just a warm body.”

“You obsessed bitch,” he whispered. His jaw
ticked in anger. He was close enough for her to feel how tense he
was. “You know Hell will demand your soul for helping you.”

“I’ve promised it a soul. Doesn’t have to be
mine!” she snapped. “Leave me alone, Jeffrey!”

He gazed at her for a long minute. Of all the
witches in the house-- and people on the planet! -- he was the only
one who seemed immune to her mind influence spells. He turned away
finally, and she watched him go, again wondering why he was immune
to her spells. The basement’s darkness clung to him like it did her
shadow demons. He stopped near the stairs, and his gaze went to the
fissure. He closed his eyes, pleasure crossing his features.

With a shiver, she looked at the gateway to
Hell. As adept as she’d become at using black magic, even she
didn’t feel so comfortable around the fissure. The emotion passed,
and Jeffrey trotted up the stairs. She returned to the severed
finger and held it up. Her only love had been dead for two years,
and still her soul sang when she touched his body!

“Soon, my love, you’ll be back with me
forever,” she said and lovingly wrapped her hands around the finger
in the only hug she could give her dead lover. It was the
culmination of two years of spells and research. One of her shadow
demons had finally found him. “Just one more thing, and I’ll recall
you from the dead.” She set the finger down and pulled her wallet
free from her purse. “Slave!”

“Yes, mistress.” The shadow demon’s voice was
monotonous and his presence cold as he joined her.

“Find this girl,” she ordered, pulling out
the only picture in her wallet. It was of two people: her soul mate
and the interloper who stole her soul mate from her. Ages ago, the
three of them had been friends. Her gaze lingered with repressed
anger on the woman in the picture. The interloper’s was an earthy
beauty: peachy skin, light brown hair, dazzling green eyes, and a
beautiful smile. Olivia’s own beauty was cold, gothic: her skin was
porcelain, her hair straight and black, and her eyes a mesmerizing
blue. Her spells had taken some of her beauty from her, which made
the jealousy in her blood burn hotter.

“Adam,” the shadow demon said and took the
picture. “I will bring him back soon, as my mistress demands.”

“My sweet Adam. I’ve waited two years for
this,” she whispered. “I’m almost ready for you, bitch. You won’t
run from me this time, Emma, and Adam will stay with
me
forever.” She looked at the shadow demon. “Go find her, slave!”

* * *

Across the state line in northern Virginia,
Emma shivered as she reached the door to her sister’s apartment.
The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end, as if she
were being watched. It was the same sense she felt every time she
came to visit her sister, though this time, she could almost feel
the presence of someone lurking in the darkness of the stairwell.
She looked around then shook off the feeling. She was beyond tired
from her late work schedule and frequent visits to her sick
niece.

She entered the quiet apartment. Her sister
was curled on the couch, asleep. Emma pulled a blanket over her
before she went to the doorway of her niece’s bedroom. Sissy’s
baffled doctors had finally given up the day before with a grim
prognosis that Sissy would probably die within the week. Emma felt
the black witch’s curse: the coldness of the shadows crowding the
corners and stuffed animals. Earlier, in broad daylight, she’d
ventured into the room to snag a toy and shoved it in a box,
running out before the dark shadows could claim her, too.

She balled up her fists. She never suspected
Olivia’s cruelty ran so deep as to target a four-year-old.

Damn you, Adam. As usual, you took the easy
way out and left me alone to deal with the witch.

If he hadn’t jumped off the Bay Bridge two
years ago, she’d push him and Olivia off the bridge herself to make
sure they both stayed out of her life for good. The outcome of that
doomed affair-- sweet, innocent Sissy pale and limp on the bed
before her-- made her stomach roil.

“I’ll fix this, Amber, I swear it,” she
whispered to her sister.

“No one … can help her,” came the despondent,
drowsy response. Emma turned to face her sister, who pushed herself
up from the couch.

“I know I can. I did some research, and I’m
going up the Maryland coast to a small town north of
Annapolis.”

“You think you found a doctor?”

“Maybe,” Emma replied vaguely, unwilling to
tell her sister no
doctor
could fix Sissy.

“Hurry, Emma,” Amber said.

“I will, Amber, I promise,” she said. “Take
care. I won’t be gone long.” She took one last look at Sissy’s tiny
frame and Amber’s haunted features and left the apartment for the
parking lot. Even as she neared her car, she could feel the
coldness of the toy in the box on the passenger seat.

If someone like Olivia could inflict Sissy
with illness, only someone with the same skill could lift the
curse. A list of addresses and names of people and places
associated with the occult and witchcraft were scribbled hastily on
the notebook next to the box in the passenger’s seat and her GPS
was already loaded. She’d gone only to say farewell to her sister
on her way out of town.

The late October sun was setting earlier than
she wished. She flipped on the interior lights of her car, hating
the darkness. She already had a headache from a couple of sleepless
nights of research, but seeing Sissy’s helpless body reignited her
desperation.

She had to fix this. No doctor could help
Sissy, but maybe, just maybe, she could.

Her hope held out until sunset the next day,
after she’d visited the two dozen shops that lined Demon’s Alley,
the downtown of Wooster, Maryland, which boasted of its ties to
witchcraft and the occult.

“Sure, we can help. It’ll cost you your
soul.” The clerk with black nails and pink hair burst into
laughter.

“You know, that joke is getting really old!”
Emma snapped. She snatched the box off the counter and left,
agitated to see the sun was near setting. She’d been to almost
every store on the Alley with no success. The tourists had thinned
out for dinner and were replaced by Goth vampire wannabes and
fairies in heels. The locals took pride in their hallmark Alley,
enough so that the street was decorated in Halloween colors and
signs that read
Welcome to Hell on Earth.

“They got that right,” she mumbled to
herself. Her eyes settled on the only storefront she hadn’t
visited. The Devil’s Depot was directly across the street from her
car, behind a group of teenagers dressed as fairies in cheap
plastic wings. She set the box on her hood and checked her pockets
for the third time that day. She’d lost her keys somewhere along
the Alley.

The clerks in all the other shops grew uneasy
when warning her against visiting the Devil’s Depot
.
She’d
left it for last because every clerk claiming to be a vampire,
witch, or demon had become strangely uncomfortable discussing the
shop’s owner.

He’s the only
real
demon in the
Alley
, one clerk confided in her after the joke about her soul.
Emma, torn as to whether she wanted to try the store, had tried
everywhere else first. After all, she needed a witch to counter
Olivia’s spell, not a demon.

The Devil’s Depot was her last chance. With a
deep breath, Emma crossed the street and noticed the small sign on
the window advertising
Occult and Unnatural Incident
Consultations
. She knelt before the panting hellhound lying on
the wooden stoop in front of the shop. It was much tamer than the
barking Rottweiler hellhounds with spiked collars guarding one of
the shops down the street. The Great Dane showed its age; gray
trimmed its muzzle, flanks, and ears. She waved a hand in front of
milky-white eyes. The dog didn’t blink, but its long tail thumped,
and a tongue flicked out in search of her.