The Hellhound Clause

He was sent to kill the thing I let in. He decided to keep me instead.

The people in my building are going out like lights. They still walk, work, and pay rent. They're just being emptied of whatever made them them.

I know why. I'm the notary who stamped the contract that let it in.

Then the Underwriters send a hunter through my door. Seven feet of hellhound. Ashen hide, too many teeth, and a tail that is, as far as I can tell, literal smoke.

Bishop cannot kill the thing while my seal is bound to it without killing me too. I can break the contract, but doing it safely means showing him exactly what I did-and losing my license, my shop, everything.

So I lie.

The problem is Bishop hunts by scent. He can smell my fear, my guilt, and the much less useful reaction I have whenever he gets too close.

Which is more often than is dignified.

He should terrify me. He does. Right up until he goes still and all those teeth become somebody else's problem.

Then the hellhound investigating me moves onto my couch to keep me alive.

With forty people running out of time and a soul-eating parasite under my building, I should not be thinking this much about the monster sleeping in my apartment.

And I'm running out of things to blame on fear.

A hellhound chooses once.

I should mind that more than I do.

The Hellhound Clause is book one of The Underwriters, a series of interconnected standalone spicy demon romances.

Tropes: monster romance · forced proximity · touch-her-and-die · primal chase · size difference · he-smells-everything

A complete, guaranteed HEA. Content warnings inside.