Chapter 1
“I love this. Just... this. You and me.”
Alex traces his thumb along my jaw, and sunlight streams through the café window—no, not the café. The living room of the apartment we never actually shared, with bookshelves that reach the ceiling and plants that never died under my care. Everything feels wrapped in honey: his smile, the warmth spreading through my chest, even the way my coffee tastes just right for once. Not bitter. Not too sweet. Just right.
“You’re amazing, Stef. Don’t you see that?”
I lean into his touch, letting myself believe it. In this moment that never happened, I don’t pick myself apart, don’t focus on rebellious curls, thick thighs, the jagged scar across my chin from childhood mishaps. His fingers thread through my hair the way he once dreamed of doing, and his gaze holds me as though I’m worth keeping instead of a burden he grew tired of carrying.
“Marry me.”
Two words that rewrite everything. I don’t hesitate, don’t mentally list every reason I’m not enough. For once, I just open my mouth to say—
My phone buzzes against the nightstand, forcing me back to consciousness with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
The dream dissolves. Alex dissolves. The sunlight dies.
I surface in my bedroom, if you can call this disaster zone a bedroom, blinking at water stains on the ceiling that resemble accusatory faces. Empty tissue boxes form a small city on my nightstand. The sheets tangle around my legs as if they’re trying to keep me prisoner, and maybe they should. Maybe this is exactly where I belong.
The phone stops buzzing. Thank God. I can’t handle talking to anyone who might ask how I’m doing, because the answer is badly. Like a plant forgotten on a windowsill, slowly browning around the edges.
Dragging myself upright, I catch my reflection in the black screen of my phone. Even that tiny, distorted version makes me wince. When did I start looking like something that crawled out of a storm drain?
The apartment greets me with its familiar bouquet of depression: stale coffee, unwashed laundry, and the faint sweetness of fruit going bad somewhere I can’t be bothered to find. Takeout containers build small monuments to my inability to function as a normal human being. I step over a pair of jeans I discarded three days ago, or was it four, and shuffle toward the kitchen.
Coffee. That’s the only thing that might make this day bearable.
But the machine stares back at me, empty and judgmental as everything else in my life. I forgot to buy coffee yesterday. Or the day before. Time blurs when you spend most of it horizontal, scrolling through your phone and avoiding mirrors.
Speaking of which.
The idea of cold water on my face finally forces the issue, dragging me toward the bathroom as if that small act might keep me from unraveling completely. I shuffle past the pile of clean laundry I dumped on the couch a week ago, step over yesterday’s underwear, and push open the bathroom door with the resignation of someone facing execution.
The mirror ambushes me before I can look away. The creature staring back makes my stomach drop somewhere near my knees. My hair hangs in limp, oily spirals that long ago surrendered any claim to beauty. My skin looks like it belongs on expired produce, pale and blotchy, with dark circles that could house entire ecosystems. Angry red welts dot my jawline and forehead, stress acne that erupted in tiny volcanoes after Alex left, each one a monument to my inability to cope with anything. Even my freckles seem dimmer, as though ashamed to be seen on this version of me.
Alex used to say I glowed. Now I resemble a fluorescent bulb on its last legs: flickering, unstable, destined for the trash.
My knuckles go white against the sink edge. God, why is looking at myself so torturous?
Can people actually die from heartbreak? The question surfaces unbidden, and for a moment it doesn’t seem ridiculous. My chest aches as if my heart has been carved out with a rusty spoon. Maybe heartbreak really can stop hearts. Maybe that’s why they call it that.
I should wash my face. The thought surfaces briefly, a half-remembered obligation I can’t quite grasp. Scrub away the oil, the grime, maybe put some concealer on these angry red bumps. Try to look human again.
But the idea of lifting my hands, turning on the tap, going through the motions of basic self-care feels impossible. I might as well try climbing Everest in my pajamas.
My reflection holds my attention for another moment as I note every new way I’ve disappointed myself. That’s when another face flickers behind my own features. Amber eyes instead of green. Sharp cheekbones that could slice air. Dark skin that seems to burn with inner fire.
The world tilts. I blink hard, and my reflection steadies in the mirror again, showing me pale, fractured, abandoned by even my own light.
Get it together, Stephanie.
Turning away from the mirror, I shuffle toward the kitchen. Maybe I can find some instant coffee buried in a cabinet somewhere. Maybe I can pretend today won’t be exactly the same as yesterday.
Then, an ice-cold grip clamps around my shoulder.
The grip is iron-strong, fingers digging into my collarbone hard enough to leave bruises. I’m yanked backward with inhuman force, my bare feet skidding across the bathroom tiles. A scream builds in my throat, but terror strangles it before it can escape.
The pull spins me around, and I catch a glimpse of the mirror as I’m dragged toward it. No longer reflecting my bathroom but something else entirely. The glass ripples like black water in a silver frame, and through its surface I see him.
Not a glimpse this time. Not a hallucination.
A demon stares back at me from inside the mirror, golden eyes blazing with savage satisfaction. His mouth curves in a smile that promises things I don’t have names for. Horns rise from his skull like a crown of bone and shadow, and when he tilts his head, the gesture is almost curious, like a cat deciding how to play with a mouse before the kill.
I try to scream, but the mirror’s surface flows toward me, metallic and alive. Cold floods my lungs as I’m pulled through a space that shouldn’t exist, and the last thing I see is my bathroom vanishing into a pinprick of distant light.
Then I’m falling through endless nothing, no up, no down, just silver-cold void and the echo of laughter that might be his or might be my own mind finally snapping.
The ground slams into me like a brutal fist I never saw coming.
I land hard on my side, sand and grit grinding into my cheek, my palms, the exposed skin of my arms. Pain radiates through my ribs where I struck the earth, and for a moment I can’t breathe, can’t think, can only lie there gasping like a fish torn from water.
Red sand. Everywhere I look, red sand that could be crushed garnets under a blood-colored sky. The air tastes of smoke and cinnamon, with an underlying note of sulfur that makes my stomach churn. But there’s something else beneath the heat, something almost sweet, like honey drizzled over burnt offerings.
And standing next to me, no longer confined to reflective surfaces, is the most magnificent man I’ve ever seen.
He’s tall, tall enough that I have to tip my head back to meet his gaze even while sprawled on the ground. His skin is the rich brown of expensive coffee, and every inch of him radiates the kind of confidence that should be illegal. Dark hair falls in waves to his shoulders, shot through with copper highlights, catching light that doesn’t exist. The horns aren’t decorative, they’re part of him, rising from his skull in elegant curves that make him more magnetic, not less.
His chest is completely bare, revealing muscles that could be marble made flesh by a sculptor with serious devotional issues. Silver and gold gleam against his skin: heavy chains draped across his collarbones, rings crowding every finger, bangles stacking up his forearms and chiming softly when he moves. Gemstones catch the hellish light from pendants and earrings: rubies, emeralds, stones that might be black diamonds. A crimson scarf winds around his throat like spilled blood, and leather pants hang low on his hips, revealing the sharp V of muscle that disappears beneath the waistband.
When he grins, I catch the glint of fangs, sharp white points that should be terrifying but somehow just add to his charm. Everything about him screams dangerous and forbidden and mine, which is probably the most disturbing thought I’ve had all day.
And that’s saying something, considering I just got yanked through a mirror by a horned stranger.
“Welcome to Hell, gorgeous.” He spreads his arms wide, jewelry singing with the movement, grinning as though he’s just delivered the world’s best pickup line. “You can call me Tyler, your personal tour guide to eternal damnation.”
I stare at him. Then at the crumbling architecture around us: broken columns reaching toward that bloody sky, shattered stone archways leading nowhere, marble stairs that end in empty air. Then back at him, because honestly, the view is better.
“No.”
His eyebrows climb toward those impressive horns. “No?”
“Just... no. This isn’t happening. I’m having a breakdown in my bathroom, and any second now I’ll wake up on the floor with a concussion and a really good story for my therapist.”
Tyler shifts closer, close enough that I catch his scent: clove and black pepper with an edge of cinnamon that makes my mouth water despite everything. The heat radiating from his skin feels like standing too close to a bonfire, dangerous and inviting in equal measure.
“Hate to break it to you, love, but you’re very much awake.” His voice carries traces of an accent I can’t place, something that makes ordinary words sound like seduction. “And very much in Hell.”
“There is no Hell!” I scramble to my feet, probably too quickly, because the world tilts sideways for a moment. “I’m not dead, this isn’t the afterlife, and you’re definitely not a demon.”
“Why not?” He looks genuinely curious, head tilted like he’s studying a particularly interesting specimen.
“Because demons are supposed to be terrifying! All fire and brimstone and... I don’t know, claws the size of butcher knives. Not...” I gesture helplessly at his face. “Not that.”
“That?”
“You know what I mean.”
His grin turns absolutely wicked. “Do I?”
The words slip out before I can stop them. “You’re pretty. Demons aren’t supposed to be pretty.”
“Pretty.” He tastes the word with obvious pleasure, rolling it around on his tongue like expensive wine. “I’ll take it. Though I prefer ‘devastatingly handsome’ or ‘ruggedly magnificent.’”
“Oh my God.”
“He’s not really involved in this particular situation.”
I press my palms against my temples, trying to squeeze some sense into my brain. The gesture does nothing except remind me that I’m still wearing yesterday’s pajamas: a faded tank top and pants that have seen better decades, complete with cartoon cats that seemed cute when I bought them but now feel mortifyingly childish. Meanwhile, he looks like he stepped off the cover of Dangerous Men Monthly.
“Okay. Okay, let’s say this is real. Let’s say I’m actually in Hell—”
“You are.”
“—talking to an actual demon—”
“Guilty as charged.”
“—then I want a different guide.”
His expression freezes mid-smirk. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I want someone else. Someone more...” I wave my hand vaguely. “Professional. Less smug. With better customer service skills.”
Tyler’s eyes narrow to dangerous slits, and for a moment I see something feral coiled beneath the surface. “Customer service?”
“Yes. You’re rude, you’re arrogant, and you manhandled me through a mirror without consent. In any decent establishment, that would get you fired.”
“This isn’t the Hilton, love.”
“Even Hell should have standards.”
He stares at me for a long moment, then throws his head back and laughs, a sound rough as gravel and twice as appealing. The sound does things to my insides that absolutely shouldn’t feel as good as they do, a warm pull low in my belly that I try desperately to ignore.
“Oh, you’re stunning. Absolutely stunning.”
“I’m not stunning. That’s kind of the whole problem.”
“Trust me, darling, you got exactly the demon you deserve. And I don’t do replacements.”
I cross my arms over my chest, hyper-aware of how the gesture pushes my breasts up and how his gaze flickers downward for just a moment before returning to my face. The attention sends an unwelcome thrill through me, which only makes me more irritated.
“Fine. Then I’m going back.”
