Pandora's Demon Book Three

By Odette C. Bell

Well then, Ruby still has too much trouble – and too many reasons to get close to Blake. Sorry, close? She means closer.
The exorcists won’t stop, and soon it becomes apparent just how complicated this twisted plot is. When all their enemies start working together, Blake and Ruby must rely on more than their wings to keep one another safe. It’s time to learn that destiny must be wrangled and used before it kicks your teeth in and drags you to the end.
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A light-romance urban fantasy, Pandora’s Demon follows a prince and a half-breed battling to save the universe. If you crave your fiction with action, humor, romance, and fun, grab Pandora’s Demon Book Three today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
Pandora’s Demon is the 2nd My Better Devil series. A witty, action-packed, romance-dashed world where Satan’s sons must find love, but only after it sticks a ring on their finger. If you like your urban fantasies packed full of charming smiles, arrogant demons, and sprinkles of romance, dive in today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005828608

Book preview

Chapter 1

Ruby

Gretel hadn’t moved yet. She hadn’t seen the point. She was about to.

Just as the rest of my family members picked themselves up out of their sarcophagi – not, of course, that they were real – I saw something like fear flickering in Gretel’s gaze. I said like fear. For it to be real terror, you’d have to be able to put it into the context of your own life. Gretel had been putting fear into the context of other people’s lives by torturing them for years.

She was about to get a dose of her own medicine.

Ruby— she began, perfect painted lips plucking hard over her teeth, slicing around like daggers.

She grabbed my face. I elbowed her in the sternum. It was perhaps one of the most satisfying things I’d ever done. As the crack rang out, the zombie version of my dad screamed.

Enough of that, I cried. I opened my hands. I sent blasts of Hellfire spiraling towards every single zombie, pushing them back into the sarcophagi. I didn’t know where the real bodies were. I imagined they were far from here. If Gretel was a true necromancer… I didn’t want to think about that. I’d deal with it later. First things first, it was time to show Gretel that I had fallen far, far from the family tree.

As the zombies were forced back into their sarcophagi, I reached forward and grabbed Gretel by the collar. I pulled her up.

She hissed in my face, tried to swipe at me with her red nails, and went straight for my throat. So I… ok, I headbutted her. It was a kind of hooligan thing to do. No, I’d never done anything similar, and no, I’d never imagined it. I had to admit, the bone-crunching click that echoed through this tall ceilinged stone room happened to be one of the greatest sounds I’d ever heard. It helped that blood splattered Gretel’s once perfect features.

She twisted out of my grip, fell to the side, locked her hand over her face, then snarled, just one corner of her lip visible under her palm. I was going to do this the kind way, Ruby – considering you’re technically one of us. She dramatically dropped her hand. Now she wasn’t going to hide the fact that Hell fire continually rimmed her pupils. She brought attention to it instead as she slid her nail back over her temple and tapped once. Now, dear cousin, she spat, I’m gonna show you exactly what we Whittles were born to do.

Her wings were still visible, but now they became doubly so, because she forced fire from her face into them. It was a strange thing to watch. The flames were channeled across her skin, and they crackled with devious power until they reached her shoulders and shot out. I was used to Blake’s wings. Very used to them. It might have only been a couple of hours since I’d seen them, but that wasn’t my point. They’d become imprinted in my mind’s eye. They were what wings should be. Gretel’s were abominations in comparison.

Made from ice crystals that looked as if their sole purpose was to slice through space so nothing else could ever grow, I got the distinct impression that if they were to reach me, they’d do some serious damage. So I had to stop them from getting anywhere close. I rolled backward. I forced myself to my feet. I stared over at the sarcophagi. The queasy part of me didn’t want to go anywhere near them. I had no idea what was actually inside. There was… there was a sickening possibility that my family members were still there, and the zombies had simply rested on top of them. But like I’d said, I doubted that. I also needed to do something bold.

The old Ruby couldn’t have done this. The old Ruby would have run a mile, crying the entire time. The new Ruby knew she didn’t have time, so she shoved her hands down onto the moss-covered, cracked stones and flung herself forward like an Olympian after the crack of a starting gun. I reached the first sarcophagus – the one that should have belonged to my grandfather. I grabbed the edge of it and peered inside, and… thankfully, I didn’t see any body parts. I did, however, see a zombie trying to lurch out, and underneath it, this strange cordlike thing that connected it to an even stranger circle of power. I was used to the ones I’d seen Blake and Red using. Their mandalas were intricate, many-layered, and clearly powerful. These ones looked more like ice crystals come to life.

The one at the bottom of this sarcophagus suddenly twisted, almost as if it was embarrassed. Perhaps it knew it shouldn’t have revealed itself to me.

Too late now.

Ruby, Gretel roared. She flapped her wings dangerously. Then I heard the crack of something thinner and longer. It had to be a tail.

As for tails, I had no real preconceived notions about them, considering I’d had precious little to do with Blake’s. Sure, if you’d given me the time and somewhere safe, I might have let my fingers trail down my stomach to reignite the impression of its recent touch. I lacked all those things. I also had the prospect of Gretel’s ice-covered, sharp tail slicing toward my throat to put up with.

I ducked to the side. I would’ve looked quite athletic. I placed one hand on the coffin then darted and weaved to the left and right as the tail sliced over my face. It whipped around high. That’s when I saw it had a sharp, pointed tip like an arrowhead. It caught the light just above me, then it twisted around to plunge into my chest.

I had another idea. I didn’t know if I had the magic to destroy the zombie spell. I could bet you that Gretel’s tail did.

I lingered right up until the last moment. It took a lot of strength – courage I thought I’d never had. Courage I was almost certain that my cousins had thought I’d never acquire. Courage that still burnt in my veins and pulsed in my heart nonetheless until, at the very last moment, I darted to the side. The tail whistled past. Though I could be making this up, I thought I heard a guttural scream from somewhere. Maybe it was reflected through my ring, but if that was the case, something obscured it, because I only caught just the faintest whisper.

Was it Blake? Was he screaming my name from wherever he was?

I’d have to deal with that later. Right now, I watched as Gretel’s uncontrolled tail sliced past and smashed into grandfather’s coffin. There was this skewering sound. It was not what you’d get if you took something sharp and plunged it through something fleshy. It sounded like a hot knife going through ice, and in many ways, that’s what it was.

Gretel froze, her cheeks becoming stiff as her eyes widened, her eyebrows peaking hard. Dammit—

It’s too late. You shouldn’t have destroyed your own spell, Gretel, I muttered. I peered down into the stone sarcophagi, and sure enough, the strange spell root started to shiver. I watched it attempt to pulse as if it were trying to reject the tail skewering it – then it promptly gave up. Fracture lines spurted through it like water through holes in a pipe.

Gretel shrieked. Her chest was thrust forward, and her head was pushed back. It was an exaggerated move made possible only by the fact she had wings to keep her aloft.

It made it more dramatic – and doubly so when her chest finally crumpled inward, her arms wrapped around her middle loosely, and her head jolted forward. Her hair had long since fallen from its tight bun. The pearl clasp tumbled onto the cracked floor with a tinkering thump. Then her eyes, still rimmed by Hell fire, sliced up toward me. She could barely move her lips. She could still, however, move her eyes. She blinked once. When the lids opened, it was like curtains being abruptly flung back on a stage.

The Hellfire that now pulsed within her eyes was… wholly different from anything I’d ever seen in a demon’s gaze and wholly darker.

Clenching her teeth, slowly cinching her fingers in until she created tight fists, she rose. The air twisted around her, eddying strangely as it became visible, as it froze under her power. It curled around her chin and face until it got to her mouth, until she opened her lips with a snap and revealed pointed white teeth. We will now do this the hard way, Ruby. If you won’t give me your heart, I’ll take it.

No, Gretel, first you’ll have to find my heart. And I have somewhere to be. A date with a certain demon, I added.

The word date jumped into my head. I honestly didn’t intend it to mean a real date, but it was hard to come up with pertinent one-liners when my cousin was turning into a fiend far more dangerous than anything Hell could produce.

I spun on my foot. I could fight Gretel. Maybe I’d have the power if I called on Pandora’s box, but I had something far more important to do.

Blake, I said as I lifted my ring, as I deliberately let my lips slide over the golden surface, I don’t know where you are, but hold on, because I’m coming.

I leapt right over one of the stone sarcophagi and glimpsed a black shape at the back of the room. I’d been in this crypt multiple times, and I knew there was only one room, but I could detect Hell energies collecting and descending through that dark spot. Maybe it was a door. Maybe it wasn’t. When it faced the full ferocity of my fists, however, I would punch right through to what was beyond.

Or at least I’d die trying.

Chapter 2

Blake

This wasn’t how it was meant to go down. In Alexa’s eyes, there was only one future. A future wrapped up with the descended, a future where they claimed Hell, and a future, apparently, where I sat behind her as an empty husk, the king’s body, but not the king’s mind.

But we can make beautiful plans for the future. The universe, in many ways, exists solely to destroy those plans, grab us by the head, and rub our noses in the reality of uncertainty until we surrender to its far greater power.

That footage still played in front of my face. I’d especially liked the bit when Ruby had headbutted her cousin. The crunch of bone and splatter of blood would stay with me for life.

I had no reason to be grinning. I didn’t have the power – I did it anyway. Because sometimes, we go against the odds to clutch at what we need.

I knew only the faintest amount of Hellfire rimmed my eyes, but I still widened them to make the most of it. I stared across at Alexa as she stood in front of me, her arms an a-frame of stiff anger, her hands curled into such tight fists, I wondered when her nails would perforate her palms and appear on the other side to scoop her knuckles out.

Impossible, she roared. She sliced her gaze over to me. You must be giving her power. It won’t last. No one can go against us for long.

Ruby is not just anyone. Ruby, I began, voice confident, but mind suddenly departing me. Ruby was… what?

Ruby was… strange. Granted. You knew that already. Ruby was powerful. You also knew that. Ruby was….

That question hung in my mind like a hook. It invited me to put anything on it. It would carry the weight of my thoughts – and dreams maybe – through to a brighter tomorrow.

If I turned my mind to answering the question.

To do that, I’d have to ignore Alexa as she suddenly thrust forward, her clawed fist pushing through the footage. It didn’t destroy it, but it did make it hard to track. I should care more about the fact her nails suddenly wrapped around my throat. Her thumbnail sliced close to my jugular, impacting the skin and revealing a few drops of blood that slid down my throat. She showed her true descended credentials as she slipped close, sniffed, then looked up into my eyes. Her mere presence froze the blood against my throat. It tickled against this stubble of my neck, even made it hard for my Adam’s apple to bounce up and down.

Blake, she said, you do realize that you will now be the one to rip Ruby’s heart out of her chest, don’t you? Oh, poor Blake. You weren’t starting to fall for my dear little cousin, were you? How ironic. You know half-breeds must be killed on sight.

She’s not—

Alexa’s perfect eyebrow slid up her face half a centimeter. Then it clunked down like a hangman’s noose around your throat. Were you about to say that she’s not a half-breed? Alexa used her free hand to tap her forehead. Whatever she touched, more ice crystals claimed. She was already utterly covered in them, so that was hardly impressive. But the air began to become more compounded with them. They were thick, they were dangerous, and if they spread out of this room, Lord knows what they’d do to the city.

If they spread out of the room? Statistics were very much on Alexa’s side.

I slid my gaze ever so slightly to the left, and I watched the broken footage of Ruby. She’d just reached a portal spell on the opposite side of the crypt. The idiot wouldn’t take it, would she? Lord knows where it went to. Maybe she could wrestle it into coming here. It would require too much knowledge.

Alexa sliced her gaze to the left and looked at what I was watching. She tilted her neck hard, so hard, I thought the lines of her trachea would slice through her flesh. My cousin got lucky, but she’s ultimately an idiot. She knows nothing about this world. If grandfather had really cared for her, perhaps he would have told her about us. But he wanted her pure heart more than anyone.