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    The Demon's Choice
    The Demon's Choice
    The Demon's Choice
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    The Demon's Choice

    By K.L. Noone

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Kris Starr’s never been happier. He’s back on tour, making music, and married to the love of his life, adorable half-demon Justin Moore. But an accident at a show leaves Justin injured and unable to use magic ... until his demon family offers him a terrible and tempting choice.

    Justin loves his life, his husband, and rock and roll. But losing his magic leaves him feeling like only half himself, hollow and empty -- until he’s offered the chance to have it all back. The catch? If he agrees, he’ll give up his human half forever ... along with his life with Kris.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJMS Books LLC
    Release dateJul 11, 2020
    ISBN9781646564453
    The Demon's Choice
    Author

    K.L. Noone

    K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press; her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

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      Book preview

      The Demon's Choice - K.L. Noone

      7

      Chapter 1

      Kris Starr had just walked back out on stage, guitar in hand, prepared for an encore, when the balcony collapsed.

      No one’d expected it. The aging London venue—a venerable theater, a small exclusive show, a gift to fans—just couldn’t hold up. Overstrained ribs burst. Ancient supports shattered. History plunged downward, overwhelmed.

      His touring band jolted to their feet. Instruments scattered.

      Kris’s husband, who’d been standing in the wings—they brought Justin out on stage for encores a lot of the time, because Justin really could sing and because audiences always cheered wildly at the love story present in person—ran forward.

      The tour had been fantastic, Kris thought vaguely, still catching up to calamity—this show had been fantastic too—

      Maybe too good, such good luck, no equipment troubles or breakdowns or travel issues at airports at all—all the bad luck’d been saving itself for right this second—

      The balcony groaned. Sagged. Lurched toward the pit and the lower seats and the people.

      Bodies, frantic, tried to move. The redistribution of weight caused deeper ominous groans.

      Lights swung. Red and yellow, blue and white. Shooting stars and spinning designs: Kris Starr had always liked special effects. Part of what’d made Starrlight so great live, decades before.

      Before his solo career, and his hiding-away, and then Justin, his half-demon manager and the man he loved, the man who’d come along on tour because Justin had always been a Kris Starr fan and liked travel and could oversee his job’s publishing editorial duties from anywhere—Justin, who was now out on stage at his side as the whole fucking venue shrieked in distress—

      Justin— Be safe, Kris meant; his husband’s eyes were huge, and Justin’s slim shoulders might be used to rock-concert pits but couldn’t fight off crumbling buildings—

      Security had materialized. A few people in the crowd—obviously telekinetic to some degree—were trying to stave off the ancient theater’s shattering, but all of them had only tiny human glimpses of talent; they weren’t holding anything back from cataclysm—

      The aging bones of the balcony gave way. The theater broke. Supports cascaded, imploded, burst.

      Bodies fell. People. Screaming.

      Justin ran another step forward and flung out both hands.

      Six or seven people—Kris couldn’t think fast enough to count—winked into demon teleportation magic and back out: safely on the ground, at a good distance from the shrieks of the crumpling building. Brimstone briefly scented the air.

      Justin—

      I need to focus— Justin caught three more flailing people. Yanked them out of disaster and over to solid landings. Ow—oh, damn—I’m going to have the world’s worst headache—

      How can I help? Hand on Justin’s arm. The protective detail had run out from the wings. Trying to get the band, the stars of the show, to safety.

      The collapse hadn’t hit the stage. Only that side balcony. And Justin wasn’t going anywhere, which meant Kris wasn’t either—

      Justin saved people. Justin was beautiful, a demon with crackling power at fingertips and incandescent eyes and streaming hair. Kris spared a single second to be entranced by him. Shouts of alarm rose up around them; sound equipment and speakers clattered; bodies in the pit and at the floor level swelled with apprehension, forming mobs, trying to exit or find companions or give assistance.

      Hadn’t any building inspections happened? Any precautions? How’d a whole theater come apart so instantly? Needing one demon to catch so many people, dozens of people—

      It’d been an intimate venue, so not hundreds, but Justin had once needed food and a spot to sit down after rescuing a girl’s lost chubby cat, and was pretty damn far from inexhaustible—

      Kris tightened his grip on Justin’s shoulder, on stage. They stood out in front as another section of balcony, pulled by its neighbor, groaned and wrenched itself downward. Tell me what to do!

      I’ve got most of them— Strain laced Justin’s voice, eyes, pale face. Crimson and ochre rippled through his hair, his gaze; his teeth and horns and cheekbones sharpened. Less human, more demon, more himself: semblances peeled away by power and stress. I can do more—just keep everyone calm—

      The first sweep of people groaned, sat up, checked themselves over: intact and awed. Justin’s summoning gifts whipped falling debris away, flung theater fragments into thin air and subsequent reappearance safely on the ground, and reached out to cradle trapped concert-goers and pull them out of crushing spaces.

      Kris stretched out empathy. Fought to broadcast calm, reassurance, a lack of panic.

      Projection hummed at his fingertips, at the core of his existence, in familiar woven strands of green and brown and melody and London and New York and guitar-strings and fire like comets, blazing a trail into legend. He’d always been good at throwing his passions out into the universe. Right now the universe—and his demon—needed him to believe that everything would be okay.

      So he did. He believed it hard. And he let the soothing fall like a weighted blanket over distressed shouting crowds.

      Sirens sounded. Emergency relief. Assistance. Kris, holding the fear of thousands of shaken fans in one empathic hand, turned to his husband.

      Who breathed, This is the last—there’s no one else trapped— as two more bodies materialized away from the rubble. They can check to be sure but—I think—that’s it—nothing else’ll come down, I moved everything that felt dangerous—

      You’re incredible, Kris told him, stepping closer, reaching a hand out to touch him. A few people, grouped in a knot of rescue at the base of the stage, began applauding. They’d all seen what Justin had done. You’re brilliant, love—I thought you had limits, I didn’t know you could do that much—

      Yes…well… Justin’s face was white, Kris realized abruptly. Fire-hair had grown duller. Eyes more brown than glittery cinnamon. I can’t, actually…

      "You what?"

      "I do have limits," Justin admitted, a ghost of usual teasing; and then put a hand up to touch his face, and looked surprised, swaying.

      Red, Kris thought, though the thought did not take shape for a horrified blank second; but the red was blood and not fire, because Justin’s nose was bleeding, and Justin’s eyes were closing, and Justin’s whole body gave way all at once, collapsing into Kris’s arms—

      No. No. Kris felt the scream like a whip-crack across the night, searing its

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