by Grey, T. A.
He cursed harshly. Or she guessed that’s what he did because whatever he just said was in Demonish not a language she understood. Pulling her around like a ragdoll, he settled her back against his chest then flattened a hand across her collarbone. Sucking in ragged breaths, she tried to pull away but his hand held her tight.
Then he spoke. “Iridona tradeen k’loshka.” He repeated the strange words and with each passing, her breathing came easier. Her lungs relaxed, air filled her, and her mind calmed.
Exhausted, she relaxed into his arms. Her body felt so weak she didn’t even care that she was using his body as a prop to lean up against. Okay, she cared a bit. After a minute of full normal breathing, she started to lean up. Just what did she say to him? Thanks for saving my life? She didn’t know what social protocol dictated in this kind of situation.
His hand stopped her from getting up. The demon was entirely too strong for his own good.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, her voice ragged from what she hoped was her panic attack.
He didn’t answer. He just held her in this strange position with his arm around her. He was close enough he could choke the life out of her, but he didn’t make any threatening moves, just kept her back to his chest and his hand flat to her collarbone. His thumb swiped once across the bare skin of her neck and something warm pulsed inside her.
“Let me go.” She swallowed over the lump in her throat.
His hand fell away from her, then his body was gone. She teetered backwards before she caught the motion.
“How am I supposed to help you?” she asked.
He gazed out at the land. “Kill my mother, the queen.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“The seer says you have great magical power inside of you. You are the key to killing her.”
Abby’s brow flew up at that. “I haven’t used magic since...well since in the cave, but before that...I mean it’s been years. A really long time. And what seer?” A seer knew about her. Had she met the seer before and just didn’t remember it?
“The Great Seer, one of the last living seers in the nether-realm. He has great wisdom. He told me to find you. He says only you can kill my mother, for the curse upon me won’t let me.”
Finally, he looked back at her. She hadn’t realized she wanted him to until he did. His dark eyes were interesting to look at, especially when they weren’t looking at her like he wanted to rip her head off. “I will help you to train your skills. You will be prepared for the fight.”
A thought hit her like a gunshot. He wanted to train her to use her magic? She didn’t know about this seer or about her being all-powerful or any such nonsense, but she did have some powers. If he helped to train her and make her strong then maybe she’d be strong enough to bind him for much longer or to even knock him out, then she could port home. She’d heard of witches porting, it could be done from such a great distance. It would just take a lot of strength.
“All right, I’ll do it.”
His eyes flared. She’d surprised him.
“Good choice,” he said.
Yeah, except that she was lying.
Chapter Seven
“Try harder!”
Abbigail wiped the sweat from her brow and glowered. “If I tried any harder I might collapse. I am trying.”
Alrik shook his head in frustration and paced in a tight circle. “Obviously not, witch. This isn’t good enough. Close your mind off to everything but your power and feel it inside you. Then push it with your mind out towards me.”
Abby made a gargled noise of frustration. “I’ve been trying to do that this whole time.”
He stalked to her, anger slashing his handsome features into a mask. “Obviously not. Obviously not well enough since you haven’t budged me an inch. Try again.”
“I’m tired and hungry. I need a break.”
His eyes looked up to the sky and he laughed. The sound wasn’t pleasant. “We are not stopping now. I told you, you can eat after you move me with the spell I taught you. Now, try it again.”
Abby wanted to strangle him. They’d been going at this for hours. Magic always took a physical toll on her and right now her body screamed at her to lie down and sleep for a few days. She didn’t know why the spell wasn’t working. Maybe because she’d never tried a spell that would push a person back or maybe because of the spell she used yesterday to bind him had just sapped her abilities for a short time. Hell, she didn’t know but she wished she did. All she knew was that her stomach wouldn’t stop growling, her eyelids kept drifting shut, and her limbs felt heavy as if she’d been holding weights all morning.
Alrik, or, she corrected, King Alrik as he wanted to be called, grabbed a small branch and stood it up against a tree. Crossing back to her, he stepped up behind her and her teeth ground at his proximity. He unsettled her, and boy did she want that feeling to go fast. Apparently, though her mind didn’t trust him one inkling, her body was more than happy to feel him press up against her back. The demon was big in many ways—tall, heavily muscled. He had that whole tall, dark, and handsome thing going for him in a big way. What that little phrase should include is tall, dark, handsome, and insane. The demon was not right in the head. However, she did wonder if it was the curse on him that made him so angry all the time.
Alrik bent low so his voice fell in her ear. His hands grabbed hers and thrust them forward. “Focus on the branch, witch. See the branch falling over, flying back, anything. Just make it move.”
His impatience only fueled her anger. Abby envisioned herself snapping her head backwards and busting his straight nose open, but she couldn’t do that. If she ever wanted to get out of this wretched place and back to her life, she’d need to grow strong. And for that, she needed his help.
She took all that anger, hunger, and exhaustion inside her and focused it on the thin, gnarled tree branch. She pictured her magic thrusting it, sending it flying away from the tree. Her breathing deepened as she narrowed her eyes on it. Nothing happened. She strained, sweat beading her brow and falling down her face in rivulets. The muscles in her arms strained, she squeezed his big hands in hers and willed the stupid branch to move. It didn’t budge. Not even a slight shudder.
“Gah! I can’t do it.” She pulled her hands out of his and stalked away.
“You can’t keep giving up.” He sounded disappointed. A small part of her actually felt guilty about this as if she didn’t want to disappoint him.
She threw her hands up and spun around to face him. He wasn’t the one hungry. He wasn’t the one tired. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat. “I’d say working for hours on this and not seeing a result should win me a break at the very least, dammit.”
His eyes closed and a shuddering breath escaped him. “I’d watch your tone, witch.”
She snorted. “And what’s wrong with my tone?” If she didn’t do one thing wrong, she did another in his mind.
His eyes opened, pierced her. “Your anger fuels me. It’s the nature of the curse.”
Oh, well she didn’t know what to say to that. Her anger fed his anger? Why? To what purpose? To make him a bigger jackass? She wanted to ask, but his eyes flittered away from her and she swore she saw a flash of—uncertainty, vulnerability, or maybe even shame.
That strange look in his eyes made her gentle her voice. “Listen, just let me eat and rest then I’ll try for as long as you want.”
He ground his jaw but made his way to the animal he’d killed earlier. It was a strange looking thing about the size of a rabbit but feathered like a chicken. He called it a fruthorc. From his tall boot, he pulled out a knife and fileted the animal into bite-sized pieces. Once upon a time, the sight of a bloodied animal might have made her disgusted, but she’d seen mutilated bodies. Nothing compared to that. It took something pretty gruesome to roll her stomach anymore.
He stuck the chunks of meat on a slender stick and handed one out to her with a watchful look on his face. “You surprise me again, witch.
This dead animal doesn’t faze you?”
She shrugged and took the stick that looked like a shish kabob. She held it over the little fire he’d built earlier. “After you’ve seen some of what I have, it doesn’t really bother me that much.”
He stared into the fire, rolling his stick slowly so the flames licked each side of the meat. “What do you do if you’re not a practicing witch?”
Her gaze jerked to his. He wanted to know something about her? “I’m a medical examiner trainee for the supernatural department of the police department. The whole division just started a few years ago. I’m still new, in training, but with a little more work I’ll have my certification to work without supervision.” He looked over at her, his brow furrowed and she realized he really was curious. So she went on. “That means when someone is found dead, I’m sent in to inspect the body and try to decide how they died whether it was natural, an accident, or a murder.” She left the part out about how she examines bodies in the lab, cutting them open in some cases. To do that work alone, she still had another certification program to go through. In the meantime, she still worked under the steadfast eye of her supervisor Stan.
“I couldn’t imagine you working with the dead in such a way. You look so fresh and young.”
Ignoring the flutter in her belly at his words, she pulled the now cooked meat out of the fire and started blowing on it to cool it faster. It smelled delicious even without any seasoning. She nibbled a piece and moaned. The meaty flavor tasted like steak. She wolfed down the rest of the meat, careful of any splinters that might have gotten stuck in it.
Belly full, she sighed and laid down on the grassy ground. No sooner than her tired eyes closed, Alrik stepped up beside her. “Time to work.”
She groaned. “Let me sleep for a little while.”
“Work now. This isn’t up for argument.”
Grumbling, she opened her eyes to glare at him. Fine. She slowly stood. “Fine, then tell me what you’re the king of.”
He stiffened, apprehension filling his features. “Why do you care to know?” he asked, suspicion clouding his voice.
“Because I’m bored and you want me to kill someone I don’t even know. The least I deserve to know is a little about my kidnapper, right?” And maybe a bit more about this curse and the queen.
He shook his head and walked back to their designated spell casting area some twenty feet from the stupid branch that refused to fall over.
“You don’t need to know anything about me. Just do what I say, human.”
“My name is Abbigail. If that’s too hard then call me Abby.”
Again, his eyes met hers and she felt his look in a warm flutter down to her belly. The demon had a penetrating stare that never ceased to unnerve her with its intensity.
“I was the king of the shahoulin,” he said at length.
She focused on the branch and put the conversation on the back burner of her mind. She tried to conjure her magic and focus on knocking the branch back as he’d shown her he could do so easily.
“That means you’re a shahoulin demon then, right?”
“Yes.” Again, he seemed hesitant to reveal anything about himself. For some reason, that only made her want to learn more about him.
She was adjusting to the crazy demon because when he stepped up behind her she didn’t stiffen. Her body warmed as it did when she used magic, and she thrust her magic out at the tree branch willing it to move. Nothing happened. She took a deep breath and tried again. She couldn’t let frustration get the better of her. She never worked well that way.
“Why aren’t you king anymore?”
He stood just off to the side behind her so she saw his jaw flex in anger. “Stop asking so many questions, witch.”
She wanted to growl. “Stop calling me witch,” she said slowly. The whole ‘witch’ thing got old—fast.
He crossed his arms across his big chest. “You do not order me, witch.”
Anger flared inside her and she focused it on that branch. The branch shuddered then toppled over to the ground. She let out a squeal and commenced her jumping up and down victory dance. She turned to him, a big smile on her face, and held up her hand for a high-five.
He looked to her hand with a puzzled express then slapped it away. “Don’t try to cast magic on me again, witch, or you’ll regret it severely.”
Her hands curled into hard fists at her side. “You are such an ass. I wanted a high-five. I wasn’t trying to cast any damn magic on you.” He didn’t look swayed in the least. She held out a hand to the toppled branch. “Uh, hello, I just used my magic and made that branch fall over. I call that a good job”
He didn’t say anything, but went back to the tree branch. “Then do it again,” he said propping the branch back up against the tree.
The demon had to be the most insufferable man she’d ever met. What she wouldn’t give to slap him good and hard across the face just once. She started to focus on the branch again, then paused.
“No, you answer one of my questions and then I’ll do it. I’m not going to get nothing outta this deal.” She didn’t state that fact that she wanted to grow her magical powers so she could port home. Some things a girl had to keep to herself.
He growled—an actual growl that sounded too bestial to come from a person’s mouth. “You are the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met. If we were in my kingdom I’d have you sent to the dungeons.”
“Oooh,” she taunted in a high-pitched voice.
His dark eyes narrowed on her. “Be cautious, witch. My patience is at an end.”
“Yeah, well, so is mine. What will it hurt to give me some information? It’s not like—” she stopped herself short. Shit, she’d nearly said “it’s not like you’re not planning to kill me anyway.”
“It’s not like what?” he asked.
She shook her head and focused on the branch again. Anything to distract him. It took longer this time, sweat fell from her brow, but she knocked the branch over. It landed softly on the grass
“Good,” he said righting the branch, “but not good enough. You should be able to make it fly through the air at great speed and power.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Then focus harder. You aren’t doing it right.”
That’s it; she either strangled him or exploded. She chose the latter. “Whatever! I’m done with this. You knock the fucking branch over.”
She turned on her heel and marched for the beach. She needed a damn bath and the thought of that only pissed her off more. She had no soap, no shampoo, not even a dang toothbrush. Oh and no change of clothes either. Yeah, this was going to be a great little vacation.
“Abbigail,” he called in a warning voice.
She laughed and didn’t stop or turn around. “Oh, now he uses my name. No, I don’t think so, demon. I’m done for the day. You hear me, d-o-n-e, done.”
God, she’d never been quick to anger. She’d always been a slow boiler but boy did her temper roar at a boil right now. She swore if he so much as laid a hand on her to try to drag her back up to that stupid tree branch she’d scratch his eyes out. Heavy footsteps followed her but she ground her jaw and pretended to ignore it. She broke through the trees and came upon the dark blue lake near their little cove in the water. The water lapped softly at the sandy edge.
“You are not done working, Abbigail.” He sounded pained to say her name as if he couldn’t say it without yelling it. “Get back up there or I swear I’ll--”
Oooh!
She spun around and let all the frustration and anger that had been building throughout the long day fly from her mouth. “Or you’ll what? Magically force me to cast a damn spell? Sorry, but I don’t think even you can do something so ridiculous. I think I did good today. I started not even able to make the stupid little branch move a hair. Now I’ve made it fall over twice, and you know what? I’m wiped. Totally freaking wiped. I’m hot and sweaty, my skin feels stic
ky, and all I want to do is wipe the dirt and grime off me. And nothing you can do, I mean nothing, will stop me from doing just that, you got me?”
To prove her point she grabbed the hem of her shirt and whipped it over her head. It had to be the emotions riding her that made her wad the shirt into a ball and throw it at him. It didn’t come near hitting him but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes were locked on her chest. She had a moment of panic before anger overtook that too.
She propped her hands on her hips. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so cocky if she didn’t have a bra on, but right now she felt like she could command an army. “Are you gonna stand there and watch me bathe too?”
Something changed in the air. Energy crackled. His eyes turned hungry. That’s the only way she could describe it. His gaze darkened, eyes smoldered and devoured her body as if seeing her as anything other than “the witch” for the first time. He had the look of a man that wanted to eat her up. She could almost feel his gaze caressing her breasts. Her breasts pulled tight at the predatory look—the look of assessing a female.
Her breath caught. “Alrik?” she said hesitantly. Something about his stiff stance, the way his eyes glowed brighter, made him look as if he was fighting some inner war with himself.
His eyes flicked up to hers. His voice sounded thick, heavy, and slow. “Yes.”
Breathing became difficult, as if all the oxygen around them had disappeared. “Yes what?”
He blinked. “Yes, I’ll watch.”
She swallowed over the knot in her throat. Oh.
Abbigail had never purposely taunted a man for any reason. Even with her previous boyfriends and other short-lived flings during college, she’d never teased a man on purpose. She’d never had any reason to. Yet, she wanted to with him. Partly because he pissed her off, she wanted to unsettle him and watch him suffer. Another part, a much bigger part that she didn’t quite understand, wanted to see if she affected him, and to see if her body could sway the tall dark demon whom she couldn’t help but find physically appealing. A feminine charge spiked through her blood making her flushed, her movements slow.