Ysabel tried to prepare herself the following afternoon when the time of her death came around. She filled the tub with cold water and climbed in naked. The shocking temperature instantly had her teeth chattering. I can do this. Think of it as a hot day on the Hade’s Beach.

It didn’t work. The flames arrived right on time, licking up her legs, her body, until they reached her head. But by then, she was already screaming, the tub full of steam. People could boast of bravery and handling pain all they wanted. No one could withstand this kind of agony, even if it petered out when its two minutes were up. She lay for a moment afterward in the tub, its water evaporated from the inferno that raged a minute before. While not a mark remained of her ordeal, her mind and body still reacted as if she suffered. The pain lingered like a bad hangover and her psyche shrieked, rejecting all attempts at calm. It sucked. And this blast from my past is going to keep happening every day until I catch the other four souls. It made her want to cry, a weak indulgence she’d not allowed herself since death.

She still remembered with disgust her first day in Hell. Weak, sobbing and afraid. Despite the contract she’d signed with Lucifer and her second chance at life, albeit in the Pit, she’d shivered, miserable and fearful. The memory of the flames mocked her every time she closed her eyes.

Nefertiti, Lucifer’s sorceress, took one look at her and brought her home. Under her care, Ysabel learned to protect herself, her magic becoming strong enough to protect her from most of the predators in Hell. Confidence restored, she got her revenge on those who condemned her to burn, dragging five souls, the number she’d bargained for, straight to Hell, laughing as they screamed.

The hardest of the captures though, much as it shamed her, was Francisco’s.

She still recalled that day, all those years ago, when she rode a broom from the portal in the woods to the village she’d grown up in. The village that denounced her.

How benign it seemed. How quaint with its thatched cottages, and dirt paths lined with gardens. But she didn’t linger, even if her fingers itched to douse it in flames. She swooped with purpose to the big house on the hill, its windows dark as its occupants slept, the hour late. Landing on the sill of the window to her ex-lover’s room, she slipped inside and padded on bare feet to the large bed, a bed they’d never trysted in. No, all she merited were grassy fields, and her straw filled pallet. Sometimes she didn’t even get such softness, as he often liked to take her braced against a tree, her skirts flipped up so he could quickly take his pleasure. And while those brief moments left her unsatisfied, she allowed them for love.

How foolish of her to not recognize the signs of his selfishness.

Amidst the mound of pillows and bedding, he snored softly. In repose, his features were smooth, his tousled hair dark and silky to the touch. A pang of longing struck her. Why did things have to turn out this way? What evil had she truly done other than to love this man?

She must have made a sound, or the chill of her presence alerted him, because his eyes flicked open. For a long moment, he stared at her unblinking, then confusion set in and his brow creased.

“Ysabel?”

“Funny how you remember me now, yet couldn’t when you watched me burn,” she replied with a bitterness she couldn’t stem.

“I had nothing to do with it. It was my mother.”

The excuse angered her. “And you did nothing to stop it! How could you? I thought you loved me?”

Shifting his body, he sat up. “Love you? A peasant with no dowry? No land or title?” A sneer tilted his features into someone ugly. Why had she not noticed the cruelty in his face before? Not recognized his lies? “Is it my fault you were stupid enough to believe I would tie myself to someone like you?”

A part of her must have known he didn’t care, known he led her on falsely, yet to hear him so baldly state it… To have him throw her stupidity in her face. She struggled against the tears at her naivety, and let the anger at his duplicity take over. “You miserable excuse for a man. I can’t believe I ever let you touch me with those lying lips.”

“You did. And you loved it. It’s a shame mother found out about us. While inexperienced, you were quite an eager learner. At least she saved me the trouble of ridding myself of you later.”

Any last doubt at her choice evaporated. “Stupid, stupid man. Did your mother never teach you not to mess with a witch?”

He dared to mock. “You’re dead. You can do nothing to me now. Go ahead. Moan to your heart’s content or shake your chains. You’re dead and buried in an unmarked grave. Although, you can find it by looking for the dead grass that I’ve killed pissing on it. Go back to Hell, evil spirit, where you belong.”

His attempt to rile her up didn’t make her explode with anger. She went past that straight into glee. She laughed. Not a nice laugh or a hysterical one. A low chuckle, a fearless one, tinted with a touch of madness, slipped past her lips. “Oh, I’ll return to Hell, Francisco, but I’m not going alone.”

The knife she brought, an ebony etched blade her new friend gifted her, flashed down before he could even grasp her intent. And she thrust again and again until he gurgled his last. Seeing his soul rise from his body, still wearing a look of surprise, she blew him a kiss.

Finally losing his arrogant expression, he called her foul names and reached for her. His ghostly fingers grasped at nothing as Hell’s reaper came for him. Panicked, he tried to evade his fate. But no one escaped Death on a mission, especially not a soul as dark as Francisco’s. Oh how he screamed as he left the mortal plane.

But even hearing his screams, sometimes even causing them, never erased the pain of his betrayal. Never restored her ability to trust. But it sure did make her smile.

Memories of her past were interrupted as someone knocked at her repaired, and now steel reinforced, door.

“Go away,” she muttered, lifting herself from the tub with limbs that reflected every one of her five hundred years. Funny how getting burned alive could make her feel so old.

She grabbed a robe and wrapped it around her frame before tottering into her bedroom. The pounding came again, along with a muffled shout. She ignored it in favor of scrounging through her underwear drawer. Yanking on her black briefs and matching athletic bra, she’d just turned to her closet when the loud bang occurred. It didn’t surprise her to see Remy in her bedroom doorway a moment later.

Sighing, she turned her back to him and kept fingering the clothes in her closet.

“Hello, little witch.”

“You’re early.”

“I couldn’t wait to see you.”

Now why did his casually tossed words have to make her heart flutter? So unfair, especially since she knew he didn’t mean them. “Just so you know, I’m sending you the bill for the repair of the door again.”

“Yeah, I meant to ask you why you did that.”

She flashed him an incredulous look. “Seriously? You broke it down. Twice now.”

“I wouldn’t have to keep forcing my way in if you’d answer the damned thing.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I was occupied?”

Sniffing the air, he grimaced. “Busy doing what? Barbecuing? Smells like charred flesh and burnt hair in here? Have you been indulging in some kind of weird witch ritual?”

So, Lucifer hadn’t told him of her curse. Good. Flirty Remy she could handle. Joking Remy too. A Remy who felt sorry for her? That would just piss her off. More than usual, at any rate.

“What you smell is what happens when people fuck with me.” What do you know? She managed to tell the truth, if not in the manner he expected. Lucifer was probably grinding his teeth in his office.

“You set them on fire? I’d be willing to burn for a taste of what’s between your thighs.”

She ground her teeth. “I hate you.”

“Is that any way to speak to your future lover?”

Suddenly tired of sparring, the ordeal still fresh in her mind, her shoulders slumped. As if sensing her mood, he changed the subject to something, gasp, nonsexual.

“So my little cougar, which target are we after today?”

That she had an answer to. “Emmanuelle. A little demon who cleans her cell told me,” after she tortured the information out of him, “she has a rather keen interest in her heirs. Especially the oldest daughters, who, over the years, inherited the bakery Emmanuelle took over after she killed her husband.” The bitch had screamed to all who would listen that it was Ysabel’s fault the bread wouldn’t rise, instead of blaming the true reason – improperly stored yeast.

Once in Hell and planning her revenge, Ysabel also became privy to the knowledge that Francisco was fucking the baking whore on the side. She’d quite enjoyed shoving Emmanuelle into the oven and slamming the door shut when she’d gone to collect the bitch’s soul.

“So we’re off to Spain. Excellent. I’ve been meaning to practice my Spanish.” The leer on his lips and shine in his eyes let her know he didn’t mean the language.

“We’re not leaving yet. It’s not quite nine p.m. over there. I figure we’ll most likely catch Emmanuelle in the morning when her heirs begin their baking day. So we’ve got about six hours to wait.”

“I’ve got an idea to kill a few hours.”

“I doubt what you have in mind will take more than a few minutes.”

“Only because you excite me so much, but that wasn’t what I was suggesting. Something about the method your little friends escaped the prison is bugging me. I thought maybe you’d like to come along and help me check it out.”

Okay, that totally surprised her. One, that he’d looked into it, and two, that he even gave a shit. It roused her suspicion. “Why do you care?”

The grin he flashed her, pure and masculine, shot right to her sex and tickled. “I hate a mystery. Besides, if there’s a security breach, I want to know. Escaped slaves mean more work, which means less play time for me.”

“And we can’t have that now, can we?” She pulled out a pantsuit, appropriate for investigating a prison. Well, not really, but she wasn’t about to wear something sexy for the jerk when he’d not deigned to notice she stood there in only her underwear while they spoke.

Or did he?

A fingertip trailed down her spine and she whirled only to see him still leaning against her doorjamb, his lips quirked in a half smile, his eyes half lidded. “Yes?”

“Did you just touch me?”

He spread his hands in a gesture of ‘who, me?’ “How, when I’m standing over here?”

“I need to get dressed.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Says the man who managed to speak several coherent sentences without trying to get my panties off.”

“Would you have taken them off if I asked?”

“No.”

“Then why ask when I could fantasize? The entire time we were talking, with your hot cougar body borderline naked, I was thinking of how I’d peel that prim and proper underwear from you with my teeth. If we’d have kept talking, who knows how far we would have gotten. Although, from the little bit I imagined, I have to say, you are a very, very naughty witch.” Oh now there was a masculine grin to make even her melt.

She spun before he could see her answering blush. Harder to hide were the nipples poking through her cups, and the moisture wetting the crotch of her panties. Please don’t’ tell me he’s one of those demons with a wicked sense of smell.

“I’ll be waiting in the other room.”

Stunned he’d leave so easily, she whirled around but he was gone. Hmph. Figuring out his quick mood switches occupied her mind while she finished dressing. But she forewent the pantsuit for a short black skirt with pleats, a low cut red blouse and fishnet stockings.

Perusing her appearance in the mirror after, she smirked. Just because she didn’t want him didn’t mean she shouldn’t torture him.

It seemed she’d finally found a pastime she enjoyed – sparring with Remy. But how far am I willing to take this battle of words? For some reason, the words all the way, sprang to mind.

---

Pacing in Ysabel’s living room, Remy once against castigated himself for the madness leading him to beg Lucifer to keep him paired with the witch. He only had to picture her looking delicious in her proper underclothes – which begged to be ripped off – to know why.

Fuck, did he want her. His restraint in the face of the temptation she posed surprised him. With most females, he would have attempted a kiss by now. Or a full on seduction that never, ever failed. But with his feisty witch, he didn’t dare. Despite the sweet scent of her arousal, oh yes, he’d not missed it, he doubted she’d give in so easily.

So he backed off, disarmed her when she thought she had him pegged. Little did she know, the very things she accused him of were what he would have done in normal circumstances. However, there was nothing normal about his cougar.

Speaking of which, what the fuck happened before he arrived? He’d not just busted down the door because she didn’t answer. He could have sworn as he travelled the corridors leading to her suite that he heard screaming. Female screaming. Ysabel. He’d run the rest of the way and when she wouldn’t answer, he busted in, ready to commit murder, only he found her looking fetching in her underwear, though pale, with lines of pain bracketing her mouth and eyes.

Something or someone had hurt her. And yet, she was alone, the smells in her place belonging only to her and the weird burning scent which faded as he conversed with her.

She hid something, of that he’d wager, but what?

He’d find out sooner or later. And if it hurt her, he’d kick its ass.

First things first, though – investigating the prison where the souls she’d paid to have tortured resided.

Some would think it was unfair for one person to be able to sell their soul to the Devil in return for eternal punishment of others. And to be clear, it wasn’t allowed in all requests. In order for the exchange to work, the soul asking for vengeance needed just cause. Remy didn’t have access to Ysabel’s file, buried in his Lord’s private vault, but if she’d managed to get numerous souls condemned to the worst Hell had to offer, then they must have fucked up royally.

Knowing they must have hurt her, and bad, pissed him right off. Never mind he didn’t know her when it happened. Or that she pretended to dislike him now. He now felt like he had a vested interest in making sure those who’d done her harm got punished, starting with the being who aided five of them in escaping.

Why do that? And more importantly, who? Who possessed that kind of clout and more importantly, wanted to screw with his witch?

Remy intended to find out. And then he’d fuck them up.