Free How to Seduce an Angel in 10 Days by Saranna DeWylde Page A

fingers.
    “It’s not even your turn,” she whined.
    “I’m never going to get my turn the way things are going. You’re just going to crash and burn. Literally. I already told you, I don’t want to win by default.”
    “You’re perverse.” She flopped back down on the bed. Tally shrieked when a bolt of energy zapped her in the ass, but she still made no move to get up.
    “Get. Up.”
    “What are you going to do if I don’t, hmm? You are not the boss of me until it’s your day.”
    The stabbing pain in her belly intensified a hundredfold and Tally cried out.
    “That’s what. Maybe I’m not supposed to have you today, but I will. It’s for your own good. Get up and I’ll make it stop.”
    “All of it?” she demanded through clenched teeth.
    He sighed. “Yes, fine. All of it. Can’t have you swimming in the Gulf with your Aunt Flo. Might cause a shark frenzy and you’d die before I get what I want.”
    The pain eased. “I don’t want to swim in the—” Tally broke off as the twinges began again. “Fine.” He was a right bastard to use that against her, but Tally supposed she couldn’t expect any better. He was a demon after all.
    “Meet me down on the beach in five.” He walked through her locked door as if it didn’t exist.
    So much for locking the damn door . Falcon could have come through it at any time last night if he’d really wanted to. Or any time. Falcon . Tally sighed aloud. She had to get it through her head that sexy time with Falcon equaled apocalyptic humiliation.
    And it was a Shall Not.
    Ethelred had done her a favor. It had been unpleasant in the execution, but it was a screwed-up world where it was a demon who’d done right by her—a demon she’d just met while the warlock she’d known her whole life was shoving her down a slippery slope with both hands.
    She wasn’t naïve enough to think Ethelred’s motives were altruistic, or that he wasn’t actively seeking her failure. But still.
    Tally changed in the bathroom, thankful that Ethelred’s little gift had made itself scarce, and then she wandered past Falcon’s bedroom. She hadn’t wanted to see him, not yet, but it still pricked her that he wasn’t there. How was he supposed to see to her rehabilitation in absentia ? Hadn’t he just sworn that he’d always be with her through this? Hadn’t he promised her that he wouldn’t let her fail?
    The simple answer would be that he couldn’t do any of those things.
    Tally wandered down to the beach, flitting across the road in her bare feet only to bury them in the sand. Thousands of shells lay scattered up and down the shoreline and Tally dug her toes into the warmth.
    Ethelred waited for her, waist deep in the water. The sunlight fell on his golden skin, crowning him, and he looked almost angelic.
    “Don’t you think that’s a little much?” She snorted. “I expected to hear a choir or something.”
    “Go big or go home, dollface. All demons are showmen.” The light behind him disappeared.
    “So, what is this about?” She tried to open herself to the experience. The sooner she learned what she had to do, the sooner he would be out of her face and she could get her magick back.
    “Come out here to me, and I’ll show you.”
    Doubt flared. “I don’t think so.”
    “Look, sweetheart. We’ve got a lot on our plate today and we can’t even get started until you come here.”
    She sighed and stepped into the water. Tally waded out to him carefully, the water rising up to her chest quickly. Something told her to turn around, to go back, but she didn’t. He had to be on a sandbar—unless he wasn’t standing at all, but was held up by some demon magick.
    Tally was good at a lot of things, but swimming wasn’t one of them. She’d always used magick to keep herself afloat. He continued to smile as realization dawned on her. Tally backed away from him, shaking her head in earnest, but suddenly she couldn’t move. Seaweed had tangled around her legs and