Free Redemption by Sherrilyn Kenyon Page A

“I know you’re joking with the title, but don’t call me that anymore.”
    Stepping back, Asmodeus inclined his head as if he understood why that reminder stung him. “What do I call you then?”
    “Seth.”
    He started to chuckle, then stopped the moment Seth lifted a questioning eyebrow. “Sorry, Lord Master... that which I cannot say.”
    “What’s so funny about my name?”
    “I just thought you’d have a more sinister one than Seth. Although it does rhyme with death... Perhaps apropos after all.” Asmodeus clapped him on the back, then changed the subject. “Are you nervous about this?”
    Not really. Bored. Irritated. Impatient. But definitely not nervous. “Am I supposed to be?”
    “I’m told many are when they go to tie their lives to someone else. I, personally, would be vomitous over it.”
    “Why?”
    “One woman? Forever?” Asmodeus choked himself.
    Seth shook his head at the demon. “She’s not just any woman.” She was unlike anyone he’d ever known.
    “That’s what they all claim. Then you marry them and they spend the rest of their lives trying to kill you.”
    “How so?”
    Asmodeus checked the list off his fingers. “Whining. Nagging. Expanding.”
    Seth scowled. “Expanding?”
    “You know, getting fat on you.”
    Seth was baffled by his reasoning. “Lydia’s pregnant, not fat.” And that was definitely his fault and not hers.
    “Asmodeus!” Maahes snapped as he flashed into the room. “Stop trying to run him off.”
    “Run him off? I’m trying to save him.”
    Maahes grinned at Seth. “I don’t think he wants to be saved.”
    Definitely not from Lydia, but he wasn’t about to say that to them.
    “Is it time?” he asked the god.
    “Almost.” Maahes squinted at him as he studied his clothes. “You’re not wearing your hair like that, are you?”
    Yeah, okay, that succeeded in making him nervous. “Why? I thought I’d tamed it.”
    Maahes snorted. “Looks good, Poindexter.”
    “Poindexter?”
    Without answering, Maahes grabbed him and pulled him away from the mirror so that he could tug at Seth’s hair.
    Seth tried to pull away, but Maahes wouldn’t let him. Then he tried to fend the obnoxious god off. “What are you doing?”
    “Put your hands down.”
    Like hell.
    “What in the world is going on here?”
    Seth pushed Maahes back at the sound of Ma’at’s voice. He turned to see an amused light in her eyes as she watched them. “Nothing.”
    “I’m trying to make his hair semi-attractive.”
    Ma’at arched a brow. “That is not attractive.”
    Seth turned to look in the mirror. He’d had his hair kind of smoothed down. Now it stuck out all over his head like Asmodeus’s.
    “I wasn’t through with it.”
    Tsking at them, Ma’at came forward. “Come here, child.”
    Seth’s first instinct was to glare, but he’d slowly learned over the last few months that Ma’at and Maahes weren’t his enemies.
    They were his family. After all this time, he really did have one. He still couldn’t believe it.
    That had been the hardest adjustment. Forcing himself to remember that not everyone wanted to hurt him. That there really were people in the world who could love him and not cause him harm.
    Smiling, Ma’at patted him gently on the arm. “You’ll have to sit or kneel, Seth. I can’t reach your hair from here.”
    Her powers and personality were such that it was easy to forget just how tiny she really was. Like Lydia, she barely reached mid chest on him.
    Seth knelt down so that she could quickly style his hair.
    Once she finished, he rose and went to look at it. The curls were all over his head again. Curling his lip, he reached to straighten it.
    “Don’t you dare!” Ma’at’s voice was as stern as he’d ever heard it.
    “I look like a woman.”
    “No, you definitely don’t. Trust me.” She turned a sharp glare toward Maahes and Asmodeus. “And don’t you dare contradict me.”
    Maahes held his hands up in surrender. “I would