“Feel the strength in your body, but also look for the areas that can relax in the pose. Breathe. Let go in your stomach and…”
Areas of relaxation? Yeah, right. Her hamstrings felt like they were being stripped off her bones; she had so much blood in her head, her eyes were bulging; and her arms were trembling as they attempted to keep holding her in this insane, unnatural position.
Her earlobes were at ease.
Actually, only the left one was.
Downward dog? Shit, she should remember this when she had to work someone over in Hell. She’d rather have somebody come at her with a knife.
“And release into child’s pose.”
Thank f**k.
As Devina collapsed onto the mat and fell forward over her bent legs, she hated everything about the hot-yoga experience. The sweat. The cramping. The cloying stink—was that incense really necessary? Come on, this wasn’t a Catholic church.
“And now we will have our relaxation. Please lie on your back and find a comfortable position for your arms. You may do arms out or down by your sides, or even over your head. Whatever you prefer.”
At the moment, she would prefer her hands around that woman’s throat, squeezing until the teacher turned cardiac-arrest blue.
“Breathe. Close your eyes. Focus on relaxing your toes … your feet … your…”
Screw you, lady.
In a show of rebellion, Devina kept her peepers open for the sole reason that she was tired of being bossed around by that pipe cleaner-like chick.
As that annoying, pseudo-soothing voice droned on, the vocabulary working its way up the body, Devina just hung out and waited for the BS to be over. Whatever. She could have left, but she was a perverse motherfucker and kind of enjoyed getting all riled up by a silly human she could kill on a whim.
Then again, she had something pleasant to turn her attention to.
She had spent the night in Jim Heron’s arms.
Salt ’N’ Pepa old-school said it right: Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty good man …
Now, it had sucked that she’d had to clothe herself in the skin of someone else—most particularly that stupid virgin—but the fact was, Devina was so used to being other people, it hadn’t been any real barrier to the bliss. Besides, the idea that she had thwarted Jim’s never-again had more than sustained her.
She’d wanted sex, of course—that wouldn’t have rung true, however.
Not on their first night together.
The way she looked at it? It was an acting challenge. She’d had to reach deep and try to behave as that Barten thing would, all the while subtly, and inexorably, starting to seduce him. Big fun, and it had really put a spark in things—she could totally see why relationship experts touted role-play as a way to spice up a couple’s love life.
This was just what the pair of them needed.
Plus, it gave her something to focus on as she was forced to follow the rules in the game—okay, well, mostly color within the lines of the war: She’d had to scare that artist last night in the parking garage—it was important to keep the woman headed in the direction she’d voluntarily gone in at the end of the evening.
Just a nudge. Nothing obvious.
And hey, demons were allowed to be in public places. It wasn’t her fault that the woman freaked out and called the cops from a locked elevator, then bolted for home … and ended up in the arms of a very hot lover.
Okay, okay, fine, she’d also caused Jim’s little “accident” in his truck.
Black cats were sometimes not really cats.
But come on, that had been personal, not anything to do with the larger fight between good and evil. She’d just been so bitched that he was all focused on and lovey-dovey supportive with the virgin that she hadn’t been able to help herself—
The yoga instructor popped into her visual field, that clueless, perma-happy, I’m-regular-’cuz-I-eat-organic expression making Devina want to force-feed her Hershey bars until she died from hyperglycemia. “Relax your eyelids. Find your inner peace. Breathe…”
Devina closed her eyes just so she didn’t do something that required a Shop-Vac to clean up—
Another interruption abruptly cut into her “relaxation” time—but it was not her phone going off or a tap on the shoulder or more cocksucking advice on the inhale/exhale thing.
Frowning, she sat up, and broke the horizontal covenant; the summoning was just such a surprise. Fortunately, the teacher picked that moment to call game-over, telling people to settle on their butts with their legs crossed, and do some sort of palm-togethering thing.
Devina waited through that bullshit, because she wanted to keep the male who had called out to her guessing for a little bit: A smart woman knew that men liked the chase, and that was the same whether they were human … or angel.
Finally the class broke up, people getting to their feet and chatting among themselves—probably about the buzz that came from mainlining smoothies made from cow flops and carrot juice.
Quelle delish.
Devina cut through them with the efficiency of a New Yorker on a sidewalk, dodging around as she made for the wall of cubbies by the door of the studio. Everyone else had Merrells or sandals. She popped her Louboutins back on her bare feet and got the hell out of there.
When she slid into her Mercedes, she shut the door and was momentarily derailed by the lack of hood ornament. Even though the thing had been sacrificed for the best possible reason, her OCD blew up its absence into a national emergency.
“You called the dealership,” she told herself. “You put the order in. Tuesday. You just have to make it to Tuesday…”
She felt like she’d lost a leg—and only half of her knew that wasn’t the case.
Then again, running at only fifty percent psychotic was an improvement. Before she’d started going to her therapist? She’d have either thrown the car out on the street, or she’d have gone to Caldwell Mercedes and forced them at gunpoint to remove someone else’s thingy and put it on her own f**king hood.
See. Progress.
Starting up her engine, she hit the gas to get out of the lot before the exit was blocked either by beaters held together with Free Tibet bumper stickers or Priuses with clean-energy logos all over them. As she headed across town, the summoning signal remained strong, and that was good. It meant she’d have enough time for a proper cleanup.
Just another delay, letting him stew in his juices.
When she got to her HQ, she went down to the lower floor and breathed out a sigh of relief to find everything in its place again. Ditching the yoga pants and skin-tight sports top into the trash, she headed for her bathroom—and once again felt trapped between her desire for marble and a Jacuzzi and multiple showerheads … and the reality that she didn’t trust anyone to work down here among her things.