Free The Devil's Wife by Holly Hunt Page A

hit me, that's all."
          "Oh." I looked at my bare feet, swinging them gently in the air. My stomach twinged, but I ignored it.
          I couldn't remember where I'd left my shoes. I frowned, trying to remember. The Hellraisers had found me a few blocks from their robbery, and dragged me all the way to the alley. I remembered being barefoot by the time I'd been thrown to the ground. I sighed. Some lucky bastard's probably scored a pair of expensive Jimmy Choo shoes by
    now.
          "Do you have a partner or someone you need to call, to reassure them that you're all right?" Lucifer asked, sniffing and clearing the tears from his eyes, leaning his head back to let the sun's rays fall on his face. "I was going to ask you last night, but it was almost midnight when we had dinner, then you fell asleep and I forgot."
          I shook my head. "No. No, there's no one else. Well, Aspen might be missing me, but he's resourceful. He'll find his own food for a while."
          "Your cat?"
          "Yeah."
          Lucifer nodded, still looking out at the countryside.
          "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but do you want to try to heal my stomach again?" I asked, touching the wound just to the left of my belly button. "Or at least help me fix the bandages? I'm not as neat with them as you are."
          Lucifer smiled carefully and looked back at me. "All right. I'll try again," he said hesitantly. He reached over, lifting my shirt so he could see what I'd done with the bandages. He snickered as he took them off.
          "What?" I asked, curious. He was probably laughing at my shoddy dressings.
          "Good thing I'm doing the bandaging," he said in a teasing tone. "Because you're terrible at it."
          I lifted my nose slightly, acting insulted. "Well, I'm sorry, I haven't had ten thousand years'—"
          "Five," he corrected me with a laugh.
          "—five thousand years' experience patching myself up," I continued without missing a beat, crossing my arms and pouting.
          Lucifer laughed again, helping me lie down. "I didn't spend the entire five millennia patching myself up, you know."
          "Well, your fighting skills seem to be limited to 'point and shoot,' so it wouldn't surprise me if you did," I said tartly, glaring at him.
          "The 'point and shoot' part's right," he said, resting his hand against the wound, "but it was also a lot easier to duck spears, arrows and even crossbow bolts than bullets or musket balls." He frowned slightly for a second, closing his
    eyes.
          I watched a cloud drift past, then a second, noting the absence of a roof or rails on the deck. I figured it was handy not to have a roof if he took off and landed here rather than the overgrown front lawn.
          The last two clouds in the sky were almost beyond my line of sight, hidden by the roof of the house above my head, when Lucifer stirred, yawning and opening his eyes. He rubbed his hands, as though they'd gone numb with using his magic.
          "Sorry that took so long," he said, pulling his hand back and covering a yawn with it, "but I'm tired."
          I sat up and he moved to help me, but I didn't need help. His hands fell into his lap as I realized that there was no pulling sensation in my stomach. Well, no more than usual. I looked at the area the wound had been and found just a scar in its place, with lines in the same shape as stitches intersecting it.
          "Sorry, that was the best I could do," he apologized from behind another yawn.
          "It's okay. I think scars show survival skills. I like it." I ran my finger over the scar. It stood above the rest of my skin like a relief. I looked back at him, a smile on my face. I stood up, and Lucifer climbed to his feet faster, helping me. "You should get some more sleep."
          "So should you," he returned, opening the front door for