Title: How We Sell Our Souls
Series: In the Darkness, Book One
Author: Emilie Lucadamo
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: November 26, 2018
Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: M/NB
Length: 50000
Genre: Paranormal, Paranormal, Demons, Magic, gay, non-binary, romance, bisexual
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Synopsis
When George Soto turns twenty-six, his
life is less than perfect. Stuck in a dead-end job, watching his friends pass him
by, it’s quickly starting to feel like he’s going nowhere. When he finds a
strange ritual meant to contract a demon, he doesn’t imagine it could possibly
work.
Until there’s a demon standing in his
living room.
George doesn’t know what a contract with
a demon entails, but it seems like a great opportunity to get revenge on his
awful boss. Gradually, he and the demon—an abrasive entity who calls himself
Jack—form an alliance.
Excerpt
How We Sell Our Souls
Emilie Lucadamo © 2018
All Rights Reserved
Bitter alcohol runs down his throat,
burning like liquid fire. It’s sheer force of will that keeps George from
choking, even though he’s sure what he’s drinking has got to be at least half
ethanol, half nail polish remover. He slams the shot glass on the table and
sputters, struggling to breathe past the burning in his throat. Tears pool at
the corners of his eyes; he blinks them away to the sound of his friends’
raucous laughter.
“One more down the hatch!” Matt
exclaims. “Keep this up and you might catch up with us!”
“Might,” echoes Alex. “Optimism is a
beautiful thing.”
George wipes the tears from his eyes
before narrowing them at his friends. He can take a joke as well as the next
guy, but after the day he’s had he’d prefer a little sympathy.
“Come on, jerks, quit harping on me just
because I got here late.”
“An hour late,” interjects Josh, like
this is a point of extreme incredulity. “To your own birthday party.”
George snorts, glancing around at the
motley assembly of the three friends who make up his “party”—Matt with his hair
mussed, Alex hanging half off his barstool, and Josh slamming another empty
shot glass on the table. “You guys are the best I could get for my birthday? Oh
man, my life is tragic.”
Josh reaches over and punches him in the
arm. It shouldn’t hurt, except Josh sometimes doesn’t realize his own strength,
so it hurts a lot. George subtly shifts his numbing arm as he swipes at the
other man. Across from him, Matt is laughing again. Maybe it’s the alcohol
settling into his veins, or maybe Matt’s laugh is just so damn contagious, but
George finds himself grinning back.
He can feel his foul mood fading away,
and he’s glad for it. It’s not like getting a mountain of paperwork forced on
you by your boss is a weak reason to be pissed off. Still, it’s his damn
birthday—he deserves to have a good time.
“Sawyer’s an ass,” Matt says, still
snickering as he reaches for a shot of his own. “It’s not like this is a
surprise.”
“Still. He had to have known you’d have
plans,” Josh pipes up. It’s true; they have an office birthday calendar, and
people have been congratulating George on having made it through another year
all day long. (Not Sawyer, of course, but George’s jaw would have hit the floor
if his boss had.)
“Like I said: ass,” Matt says, at the
same time Alex mutters, “Satan incarnate.”
Matt slams the shot glass on the table,
remaining still for a few seconds as the burn of alcohol fades away. His sharp
hiccup dissolves into a round of snickering. The flush on Matt’s face reminds
George that his friends have been drinking for a solid hour longer than he has.
He finds himself moving to snatch his own shot from the tray before anyone else
can get to it. The last thing he wants is to end up the most sober person at
his own party.
He tosses back the alcohol and winds up
coughing, stunned by the burn of fiery liquid. He’s got no clue what these
shots are, but for the way they taste he hopes they cost his friends a small
fortune.
“Take it easy,” Alex mutters to Matt,
who’s still giggling. “If you pass out, no one’s dragging your sorry ass back
home.”
“We’ll just call Lila to come get you,”
Josh says with a wicked grin. The threat has the desired sobering effect. Matt
blanches and shrinks back into his seat.
“God, no. Last time she chewed me out, I
couldn’t stand to look at myself for days. That woman has a way of tearing you
down and putting you back together again with nothing but her disapproval and
the brute force of your own shame.”
He shudders. George and Josh exchange
sly looks, and both lean forward in anticipation. It’s only a few seconds
before Matt’s disturbed expression melts into something gentle, and he smirks
down at the table. “God, I love her.”
Alex rolls his eyes. George reaches for
another shot with one hand, high fiving Josh with the other. “Every time!”
There are several guarantees every time
he goes out drinking with his buddies. At some point, he and Josh will get into
a drinking competition (“I’m Irish, Soto, you don’t stand a chance,” Josh
always says, before being soundly outdrunk by George). Whatever food they order
will be thrown around. Two people will get into an argument about something
stupid. And Matt will wax poetic about the love of his life, Lila Cooper.
George presses an empty glass to his
lips and grins into it. He might be a year older, but some things never change.
Even if they’re all getting older now, and it seems like very few things want
to stay the way they have always been.
It makes sense, of course. They’re not
college students anymore. Alex isn’t top of his class; instead, he’s slaving
away behind a desk at a publishing agency. Josh has stopped dreaming of being a
journalist and is actually trying to get there. Matt’s doing his damnedest to
carve out a life for himself, whether it be clawing his way up at his firm or
proposing to his longtime girlfriend. It seems as if everybody’s life is on a
rapid collision course with new and better things—the only one staying right
where he’s always been is George.
The worst part is, he’s not sure he
wants it any other way. Maybe things are better if they don’t change at all.
Change is risky—you don’t know what it could bring. After all, he’s happy
enough where he is now, right?
Sure he is. His life is great. He
doesn’t have anything to complain about, except for his miserable boss.
Everything else is fine. It’s goddamn great.
Happy birthday to me, he thinks, before
raising his arm to order another round of shots.
Screw Sawyer and his paperwork. Screw
his crummy job. Screw being twenty-six and single, his closest friends being
his old college buddies, and his useless cat.
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