Title: The Devil’s Necromancer
Series: Hellbound 1
Author: Alexa Piper
Publisher: Changeling Press LLC
Release Date: October 1, 2021
Length: 154
Genre: Romance, Action Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Paranorma, Suspense, Urban Fantasy, Gay, Magical Creatures, Dark Desire, Zombies, Murder Mystery
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Synopsis
Lionel, a necromancer and consultant for the Brunswick Police Department, wants nothing to do with immortals. Specifically, he wants nothing to do with Lucifer, who shows up on his doorstep one day with a ridiculous proposal. Lucifer, also known as the Devil, wants Lionel to be his pretend boyfriend. Except the pretend part is something the Devil doesn’t really seem to care for.
Lucifer has read enough romance novels to know that a good dose of forced proximity might be just the thing to get the stubborn necromancer he desires into his bed. The Devil’s plans are soon complicated when Lionel proves more uncooperative and oblivious to love than Lucifer could ever anticipate.
While the Devil wants to claim Lionel, all Lionel wants is to get away from Lucifer. Meanwhile, magic users are being murdered in the city. Lionel cannot escape the implications of those murders for long, and the case soon takes a different turn. Will Lionel be able to escape the Devil’s thrall, or will the necromancer fall for the immortal seducer?
Publisher’s Note: The Devil’s Necromancer contains scenes involving dubious consent that some readers may find offensive.
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2021 Alexa Piper
Uncaffeinated, I stumbled toward the door of my loft apartment on bare feet, trying to rub the sleep from my eyes. I’d closed the curtains, but they weren’t very good curtains if what you went for was a darkened room, and so there was enough light to see by without getting too blinded by it.
My black Converse shoes lay where I’d pulled them off after a trip to the morgue late last night, and because my eyes were on strike, the shoes almost made me face plant into the floor, but I narrowly managed to regain my footing by gripping one of the four mismatched chairs around my office slash dining table. It skidded and screeched a little, but I remained about ninety percent upright.
After cursing the Devil at my door, I opened said door, and before I could even tell the Devil to fuck right off and only come back with coffee, he handed me a white poodle with a determined shove. I knew that poodle. I’d given it to the Devil a year ago, not ideal, but better than the alternatives. It occurred to me that I should really learn to lock my door chain and buy earplugs.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked.
“What does it look like, Nelly? I’m giving you your Soul back, and you owe me a favor in return.”
He had to be kidding. Granted, with his looks, sapphire eyes, alabaster skin, ink-black hair, and a smile that made people urgently reach for fig leaves, he could get away with a lot, but I had given him the damn cursed poodle to be fucking rid of it. There was just no way in hell I was going to take the canine back.
“And how does that follow? Walk me through it, Lucy. All logic-like.”
The dapper Devil shrugged. “Tiamat is dropping by for a visit, and I need you to be my human necromancer boyfriend. She likes it when we mingle. With humans. She says it keeps the immortal mind humble, and I don’t know a better human to keep me humble than you.”
I was going to let the logic bit and the underhanded insult slide, because… “Tiamat?”
“The dragon mother, yes. Not mother of dragons. Do not ever call her that.” Lucifer’s eyes roamed over me. I was uncomfortably aware I was wearing an off-yellow pajama shirt with dark green bottoms, because the corresponding and matching pieces were in the laundry.
The poodle drooled on the sleeve of my mismatched pajama top, but fuck it, my interest was piqued. Not in Lucifer. There was no way I would get cozy with the Devil, or any immortal for that matter. To them, humans were no more than entertaining side characters, much like a lap dog might be to us humans. I deserved better than that. I may not have been a prize — what with the frequency corpse juices ruined my clothes, and the mud brown hair I only remembered to cut once every three months or so and the unimpressive light brown eyes — but even still, I deserved better than being turned into an immortal’s pet.
I put the poodle down and stepped aside. “I need coffee before I can agree to anything,” I told him, hedging. Meeting a primordial Babylonian goddess with tons of magical knowledge did interest me, but I wouldn’t cozy up to the Devil to meet Tiamat. Lucifer walked past me. Gods, he smelled good. No hint of sulfur and ash, just spices and wood smoke. I wouldn’t mind burying my nose in his hair and — no. Nooo. I couldn’t let my sleep-drunk mind go down that path. Letting myself get obsessed with the Devil could only end badly for me, which was why I had always done my best to stay as far away from him as I could. Running into him as frequently as I did was just one other way in which the universe had decided to fuck with me. There was no reason to encourage that or engage beyond a bare minimum.
I closed the door behind him and shambled to the kitchen. I usually made a point of making a pot of coffee at night so that I only had to microwave it in the morning, but Detective Rice had called me to the morgue with a warrant and consent from next of kin for a raising, which had taken long due to advanced decomp, and I’d just not bothered with the coffee once I got home. I was a necromancer and not skittish, but the lingering smell of death still made me queasy sometimes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in your apartment, Nelly,” Lucifer said. He looked around the place. The furniture was mostly secondhand, and the floor needed a cleaning. I’d given up on carpets long ago, because my job just made that impractical due to all the fluids I invariably came into contact with. So mildly scratched-up laminate it was. Lucifer wrinkled his nose. “It lacks both charm and style.” He turned toward me, and I focused on coffee. His gaze was boring into the back of my head, and it didn’t help my coordination any. I spilled a half-tablespoon of coffee grounds on the counter. “What on earth are you trying to do with that, kill a nest of cockroaches?”
“I like my coffee strong, and you woke me before fucking noon to give me back a cursed poodle I can’t keep.” The pet in question growled from some dark corner. I really didn’t care. I had trouble caring before coffee on a good day. This was not shaping up to be one of those.
“Of course, you’ll keep Soul. She’s no danger to you. And as your boyfriend, I should probably get you to go on a cleanse. Mmh. We should do a juice cleanse together. Yes. Tiamat will just love that. Do you need my help packing a bag?”
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Alexa Piper writes steamy romance that ranges from light to dark, from straight to queer. She’s also a coffee addict. Alexa loves writing stories that make her readers laugh and fall in love with the characters in them. Connect with Alexa on Facebook or Instagram, follow her on Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter!
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