Yolanda nodded and started for the door, but Seraph grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you, Yolanda. You didn’t have to do this, but I appreciate it more than you know.”
The other woman shook her head. “Nah, sis. I had to. We have to look out for each other because if not us, then who?” With that, she left the room.
Releasing a heavy breath, Seraph shook her head. “I’m a fucking mess.”
With a sharp tap on her forearm, Marissa got her attention. “No, ma’am. None of that. You’re strong and will get past this.”
Seraph chuckled humorlessly, keeping the sound low so as not to attract undue attention from the rest of her team. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew why I was avoiding him.”
Marissa stared at her for a moment, and then asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Glancing around the conference room, Seraph checked for any inquiring eyes and found none, but she couldn’t shake her paranoia. Leaning forward, she dropped her shoulders.
“You probably think he’s beating me or something but—”
“Girl, that man could be harassing you about a stapler for all I care.” Marissa leaned closer and dropped her voice until Seraph had to strain her ears to hear her next words. “I know fear when I see it, and the look I saw on your face—in your eyes—when you were at that sink was all the explanation I needed to make a move.”
A muffled buzzing sounded, and Marissa sat back in her seat, reaching into the neckline of her shirt and retrieving a cell phone. She stared at the screen for a second then looked up at Seraph.
“He’s gone.”
Before she could say anything else, Seraph grew overcome with gratitude and wrapped her in a tight hug, whispering, “Thank you,” into her ear. When she pulled back, Marissa gave her a hard stare.
“When he said that he’d see you later…was that the threat it sounded like?”
Seraph cringed. The way those words had rolled off of his tongue and the knowledge of what he meant by it made her loins quiver. “It definitely was, but not like you think. Don’t worry, though. I’m leaving early and he has no idea where I’m going. He won’t be seeing me later at all.”
Marissa pursed her lips. “Okay, but that’s just for tonight. If this guy is seriously a problem then maybe—”
Reaching over, Seraph grabbed Marissa’s hands over her cell phone and squeezed them. “He’s not a serious problem. Not really.” She squinted as she thought about it. “I mean…he is, but not like you think. It’s just—” Breaking off mid-sentence, she shook her head and squared her shoulders, looking Marissa straight in the eye. Rambling would not get her point across.
“Look. I am incredibly grateful that you’re concerned for me, and I could never repay you for how you came through for me back there. I just need to get through tonight without running into him again. That’s my only priority right now. I can’t even think about tomorrow or the next day.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but Marissa sighed and nodded, pulling her hands from Seraph’s and lifting her phone into the air.
“Okay, I hear you, but I’m going to worry all night unless I hear from you, so you need to pull out your phone and program my number. I’d love for you to text or call me tonight and let me know you’re somewhere safe.”
That was an easy concession for Seraph to make. She lifted her phone from the table and navigated to her contacts so that she could input Marissa’s information. Once she had her locked in, she sent off a text and watched as Marissa saved her number into her phone as well. They hugged once more, and then Seraph waved as the other woman exited the conference room and pulled the door closed behind her.
Everything she’d said to Marissa had been true. She needed to get out of that building and across town as soon as possible. Nothing else mattered except that because she couldn’t afford to start her twenty-four hours over again. Her phone buzzed and she glanced down, expecting to see something from Marissa but was instead greeted with a text from Sierra, informing her that she was in the lobby and on her way up to Seraph’s floor.
It was almost time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cursebreaker
The Damon from before had no idea where any of Seraph’s friends lived, so it made sense for her to stay with one of them while trying to avoid him. Since Sierra was the only one privy to the entire ordeal, her home was the best choice. It didn’t hurt that she also had enough knowledge of the…otherwordly things that Seraph had to do to ensure she didn’t accidentally bring something else to life while trying to get rid of the incubus.
Switching her phone to silent mode wasn’t enough because the myriad of vibrations from Damon’s constant phone calls was distracting her, but shutting the device off completely wasn’t an option because she was watching the timer intently, waiting for that twenty-fourth hour to be upon them. At 1:47 a.m., she powered down her phone and left it on the nightstand in Sierra’s guest room before joining her friend in her attic. Devin had built Sierra a mini armoire that she used as an altar. Sierra had insisted that it was the perfect place for the task because the atmosphere surrounding her altar was already conducive for convening with the spirit world.
Seraph simply took her word for it and sat in front of the three-foot structure with her legs folded underneath her. The four items she’d purchased at Zing’s Sweet and Sour were on the altar in front of her, waiting to be utilized.
A ball of purple twine.
Two twigs wrapped together.
A palm-sized gray rock with a piece of vine attached.
A slim box that held two white matches.
Running the steps in her head on a constant loop, Seraph grabbed the matchbox and retrieved one match. She struck it on the side of the rock and held the flame to the tip of the vine. When the vine caught fire, it retracted, curling up until it reached the end, in the center of the rock. That’s when purple smoke began to rise from the rock, and it was Seraph’s cue to start the next step.
She unwrapped the two twigs and grabbed the ball of twine. Holding the twigs perpendicular to each other, she began looping the twine around them while repeating a chant out loud.
Bind this demon, break his hold.
Cast him out, destroy his mold.
Free his host, release his soul.
Clear his mind, make him whole.
Seraph repeated the chant seven times while steadily wrapping the twine around the sticks. She worked slowly, being careful to follow the exact pattern that Mama Sari had demonstrated for her. When she finished the seventh round, she used a pair of scissors Sierra handed her to snip the twine then laid the wrapped sticks on top of the rock, directly in the center of where the smoke was emitting. The smoke grew thicker until she could no longer see the sticks, so she pulled out the second match, struck it, and tossed it into the smoke. The flame grew, burning brightly for seven seconds before snuffing out completely, taking with it the smoke, and leaving an empty rock sitting on top of the altar.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Her Damon
After the ritual, Seraph climbed into bed, but rest didn’t come easy. Seraph tossed and turned for hours, her mind racing with scenario after scenario, her nerves at the outcome plaguing her well into the morning. At five, she cracked open her laptop and shot off an email to her boss, letting Gina know that she elected to work a half-day and would be in the office by noon. Gina emailed her back within two minutes, her reply consisting of a couple of thumbs-up emojis and a short “No problem”. Satisfied that her job wouldn’t miss her, she fell into a fitful sleep.
What felt like minutes later, Sierra burst into her room, jolting her awake. Seraph scanned the room with wide eyes, her heart pounding. Finally, she blinked blearily at Sierra who stood over her exasperated, as if she had been calling Seraph’s name multiple times and was annoyed by the lack of response.
“What’s going on,” she asked groggily.
“Ser, turn on your damn phone! Damon has bee
n rushed to the hospital!”
“Huh?” Pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, Seraph shook her head, certain that she had heard Sierra wrong.
Sierra yanked the cover off of the bed and dropped a pair of jeans and a t-shirt onto Seraph’s legs. “You heard me. Get dressed. Auntie Joyce has been calling me since she can’t get a hold of you.”
Finally understanding what Sierra was trying to say, Seraph jumped out of bed and threw on the clothes. She rushed through brushing her teeth and emptying her bladder then followed Sierra out of the house to climb into the passenger side of her friend’s car.
“What happened?”
“Apparently, he was hit by a bus in front of your office building.”
Seraph twisted in her seat to stare at her friend, mouth gaped open in horror. “What?!”
Sierra nodded, her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Yeah. It was on the news. Someone in the building saw it happen from a fourth-floor window. Said he walked right off of the sidewalk and was immediately struck by a Metro going forty miles per hour. The bus didn’t even have a chance to brake or swerve.”
“Oh, my God!” Bringing her hands to her mouth, she swung her gaze to the windshield, staring blankly at the pavement as she thought about the ritual she had completed not even twelve hours ago.
“Do you—” she paused when Sierra’s eyes quickly flickered over to her before returning to the road. “Do you think this has something to do with the binding?”
Sierra pursed her lips. “Absolutely.”
Although Seraph was expecting that answer, it didn’t make the heavy feeling in her chest go away. She was at a loss for words and they rode the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived at the hospital, they ran into the relatively empty emergency room where Seraph instantly spotted her mother and her Uncle Louis standing at the reception desk.
“Mama!”
Joyce spun around at the sound of her name and burst into tears when she saw Seraph. Seraph ran toward her and wrapped her in a tight hug.
“It’s Damon,” Joyce sputtered through her tears, her voice muffled by Seraph’s shoulder.
Seeing her mother in tears sparked her own, and Seraph began crying as well. A heavy hand fell to her shoulder and she turned as her father’s brother pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him tightly. “Is he okay? Tell me that he’s okay.”
Her uncle released a shuddering breath and stood back. “We don’t know yet. I’m up here looking for answers right now.” He gestured at the desk and the nurse who sat behind it with a sympathetic moue.
Joyce touched her arm. “They told us that he died at the scene.”
Seraph gasped, her hands flying to her face, a fresh round of tears spilling from her eyes. That heavy feeling in her chest settled even deeper and her breaths became short.
This was her fault.
“But the paramedics resuscitated him,” Joyce continued. “He was life-flighted over here, and now we’re waiting to hear from the doctors.” Her words were like a summons because as soon as she finished speaking, there was a high-pitched buzz followed by a door swinging open on their right.
A man wearing blue scrubs walked out. Both Louis and Joyce rushed toward him with Seraph and Sierra following closely behind. The older pair began shooting off rapid-fire questions, barely giving the man a chance to speak. He was apparently used to it because he stayed calm and expertly maneuvered into the conversation, providing answers that made Seraph’s head spin and gut clench.
Severe swelling in the brain. Coma.
Seraph instantly recalled the words Mama Sari had spoken after explaining the ritual to her.
“Prepare yourself, friend. The host must die for the incubus to be cast out.”
She’d heard the words, loud and clear, had processed them, and understood what they meant. But standing in the waiting area of the emergency room was a shock to her senses. Shaking her head in disbelief, she walked away from her family and slumped into a chair. “This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Sierra immediately countered, having followed her over to the sitting area. “I’m not going to let you beat yourself up about this. Yes, you performed a ritual to bind and cast out the incubus, but you had to do that to protect yourself. All of this,” she waved her hand around the waiting room of the hospital, “is the fault of whoever gave that thing entry to Damon’s body. I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but it’s more than likely Damon’s fault.”
Eyes narrowed, Seraph looked at her friend in disbelief. “What?!”
“Girl, listen. We’ve been telling you that Damon liked your ass, and then suddenly, he is possessed by a demon that wants to fuck you night and day? That is some kind of coincidence.”
Seraph sat in silence, her mind once again going a mile a minute. She couldn’t deny that there was something to what Sierra was saying. Even Mama Sari had been confused by Damon focusing only on her. Had he let this happen on purpose?
Getting an answer that day wasn’t in the cards, and she soon found out that Damon had been put in a medically induced coma while his body temperature was dropped in an effort to reduce the swelling in his brain. The doctors said he could have visitors, but Seraph refused to go in. She told her mother and uncle to take all the time they needed because they had a stronger relationship with him, but the truth was that she was scared.
She was completely terrified that she would walk in that room and the man in the bed would be the one she thought she’d gotten rid of. What if she had gone through all of this just for none of it to work? What then?
Her refusal to see Damon was an afterthought as his mother finally arrived from Dallas, along with her husband and their young children. Seraph was forgotten as her uncle and mother spent the time bringing the new arrivals up to date with Damon’s condition. She took that as her opportunity to slip out unnoticed, riding with Sierra back to her house where she gathered her things and drove herself home to her apartment.
Damon was in a coma for three days following the accident, and on the third day, Joyce declared herself sick of Seraph’s excuses and personally picked her up from her apartment and drove her to the hospital.
“I know you’re scared to see him like that, but you can’t abandon him, baby. He needs to hear from you.”
With her arms wrapped tightly around her waist, Seraph willed the headache she felt forming to give up the ghost and back down. She’d had to hear too often about Damon’s needs over the past three months and even though it was in a different capacity, she couldn’t help the way her body reacted to it. Damon, or the demon, had trained her well and she hated it.
When they reached the hospital, they signed in at the nurse’s station, pressed their visitor stickers to their chests, and Joyce led Seraph to the room that Damon had been moved to. They stepped inside the room just as a nurse was completing a check on his vitals. He greeted them with a warm smile and encouraged them to talk to Damon and hold his hand. Before he left, he showed them how to call them at the desk if anything happened then stepped out of the room, pulling the door closed softly behind him.
Seraph stood near the door, staring at the wall, completely disregarding the occupied bed taking up the majority of the space in the small room. Joyce pulled one of the plush armchairs over to the head of the bed on the side with no machines, and then she grabbed Seraph by the arm and pushed her into it.
“Talk to him,” she instructed.
Staring at her mother helplessly, Seraph asked, “What do you want me to say?”
“Anything!” Joyce threw her hands up in exasperation. “Talk to him as if nothing happened. Talk to him about whatever you two would talk about before. Be normal. He needs that right now. He needs to know that we are here for him.”
Seraph sat there silently for a moment. Again, with Damon’s needs. “Damon and I didn’t really talk.” Her face heated as soon as she’d said the words, thoughts of the things they did instead of talking runn
ing through her mind. But…wasn’t that why they were all here in the first place?
Smirking, Joyce propped a hand on her hip. “Mmhmm. I bet. Then why don’t you talk to him about what y’all were doing in my pantry at the barbecue last month?”
Mouth hanging open in shock, Seraph watched her mother tilt her head toward the bed then walked out of the room. She’d known it was a possibility that someone had heard them, but finding out that her mother had known this whole time was mortifying. It also explained why she continued to suggest that Seraph and Damon get together; she probably thought they already were.
Bending over, she balanced her elbows on her knees and pressed her face into her hands, listening to the hum and beep of the machines that worked to monitor the man who lay still beside her. Faintly, she could hear him breathing, and it occurred to her that she’d never experienced him sleeping beside her. He always left immediately after he deemed them finished. It was just one more factoid in the long list of fucked-up shit she’d endured from him.
She sat there, wrapped up in her thoughts until finally, her curiosity got the best of her, and she took a peek at him.
And immediately, she regretted it. Her eyes filled with tears as she took in his appearance. His face was swollen and mottled with purple and black bruises. His arms were covered in cuts and scratches. There was a cast covering his right foot that stopped in the middle of his calf, and a long gash covered in sutures across his forehead that would more than likely become an undeniable scar. It would be an ever-present representation of how he had once possessed her while simultaneously being possessed.
Suddenly, she was filled with rage.
“I hate you for this,” she whispered in a gritty, anguished voice. “You did this. You terrorized me for months and yet, I’m being pushed to be here for you. It’s not fair. You took and took and took from me—without ever asking if it was what I wanted—but I’m supposed to care that you got yourself hurt? You’re the dumbass who stepped into a busy street, probably on the way to find me and fuck me senseless—” Her voice cracked and she stood from the seat, pacing the room for a moment before returning to the chair and slipping her hand underneath his. She curled her fingers up to thread them through his limp ones, clutching his hand in hers. She was angry, yes, but this was still Damon—maybe even her Damon.
An Illicit Seduction: a Dark Erotic Experience Page 9