Hold Tight (The Embrace Series)

by Cherie Colyer

  Energy sizzled between Isaac’s fingertips. That story was not one to be told any time soon—and definitely not over dinner with another guy.

  “You need to stop goading Isaac.” I let go of Caden’s arm.

  He leaned in and whispered, “Where’s the fun in that?” With a wink, he left.

  Kaylee came up next to me and watched Caden walk to his car. “After everything that’s happened today, it’s a good thing you don’t have to do a demon’s dirty work too.”

  “He knows exactly what he’s going to have me do. He’s stalling.” I gave a fleeting glance to Isaac, now brooding on the couch. “I’d like to get whatever it is over with before they end up fighting again.”

  One wonderfully uneventful week later, the school gym had been transformed into a winter wonderland for the dance. Bright blue spotlights helped set the mood. White and indigo balloon pillars had been erected next to the deejay’s table, glistening snowflakes hung from the ceiling, and fake snow dusted the floor and bleachers. The dance committee had really outdone themselves, and the packed room proved the students appreciated their efforts.

  “You really do look amazing,” Isaac said for the sixth time. His gaze traveled from the tiny floral bobby pins in my hair, over my crimson silk dress, and down to my black heels. “The red lipstick is a nice touch.”

  “Thanks.” I adjusted his black tie and kissed him. He wore a dark tailored suit and a deep red shirt. “You’re quite dashing yourself.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  An upbeat song ended, and a soft guitar solo drifted out of tall speakers. Several guys on the dance floor wrapped their arms around their dates’ waists, holding them close as they turned in slow circles. Small groups of students who’d gone stag made their way to the bleachers and refreshments.

  Isaac tilted his head to the side. “Shall we dance?”

  “I thought you didn’t know how.” When he flashed a smirk, I asked, “Did you do a little hocus-pocus”—I wiggled my fingers—“on your shoes?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” He held out his arm.

  We joined Josh and Kaylee, Mark and Sarah, and several of our classmates on the dance floor. I had been right about the black dress Kaylee wore: Josh couldn’t keep his hands off her. Right now they were on her hips.

  Isaac held me close, his breath warm against my cheek. His thumb gently rubbed the silk ribbon on the back of my dress as we swayed to a slow song. When it reached the last notes, he slid his hand to the small of my back, spun us once in a circle, and then lowered me gracefully into a dip.

  “I’ll have you know, those moves were without the aid of witchcraft.” He pulled me up, the grin on his face telling me he was pleased with his dancing abilities. “My parents taught me the basics,” he confessed. “I can slow dance, do a simple box step, and am now awesome at the Chicken Dance.”

  “Really?” I giggled, but I was honored that he’d spent the time to learn a few steps just to take me to a school dance. “I want to see you flap your arms and wiggle your butt.”

  “You laugh, but if the deejay plays the song, I’m ready.”

  “Oh! It’s so on!” I took a step toward the deejay. “I’m going to place a request.”

  Isaac grabbed my arm, tugging me close to him and nuzzling my ear with his nose. “Or we could enjoy the slow songs he’s playing.”

  “If you insist,” I said with an exaggerated sigh, but the truth was, I hated the Chicken Dance.

  We kissed as we moved with the other people dancing. His lips lingered on mine just long enough to steal my breath away and raise my pulse.

  “This is nice,” I commented, resting my head on his shoulder.

  Sarah and Mark were to my right, and Josh and Kaylee weren’t far behind Isaac. I had just made a mental note to get a picture taken of the six of us when I felt a light tap on my arm. Caden stood to my left wearing a burgundy dress shirt and black pants under his coat. Isaac and I immediately stopped dancing.

  “I need to borrow you for a little while,” Caden said over the music.

  “Now? Are you serious?” I asked.

  Isaac’s fingers laced through mine, sending a reassuring trickle of power through me that let me know he’d be happy to tell Caden to get lost.

  “Contracts are tricky things,” Caden replied. “I can’t collect early, and if I collect too late, other demons will think I’ve gone weak. They’ll try to take over my territory.”

  I held Isaac’s hand as if he were an anchor. “Caden, I didn’t spend an afternoon doing my hair and makeup to go on demon-duty.”

  “I don’t think twelve more hours is going to hurt your reputation as an evil dick,” Isaac said to him.

  “Says the do-gooder witch,” Caden shot back. He looked at me. “You’ll barely be gone thirty minutes.” When I didn’t move, he added, “The deal was no questions asked.”

  “Well, I didn’t think you’d pick the most inconvenient time to collect,” I grumbled and turned to face Isaac. “I have to go.” Rising to my tiptoes, I kissed him, letting my lips remain on his longer than I normally did when I knew we were being watched. “I promise I’ll hurry.”

  I followed Caden, checking over my shoulder before exiting the gym. Josh and Kaylee had joined Isaac at the edge of the dance floor.

  I’ll be right back, I mouthed.

  Caden led me to the parking lot. I wrapped my arms around my body in an attempt to block the frigid breeze, but it was no use.

  “We’re driving?” I asked. I had expected him to snap his fingers or blink and we’d be transported to wherever it was we were going.

  “It’s not far from here.” He shrugged out of his coat and held it up for me to put on. Too cold to argue, I slipped my arms through the sleeves. It smelled like a bonfire, but this time I didn’t ask why. Now that I knew what he was, I suspected he’d tell me he’d just come from hell.

  He opened the passenger door for me.

  “This trip better not ruin my dress,” I said as I slid into the seat.

  It took me a couple minutes to work up the nerve to ask him what he expected me to do.

  “Nothing that will taint your soul.” He turned right onto the main road.

  We wove through a posh neighborhood and pulled into the driveway of a sprawling, dark brick two-story house. We got out, and I followed Caden through the back gates onto a large stone patio. We peered through a bay window into a gourmet kitchen. A woman in her early thirties sat at the table with two young children. From the looks of it, she was helping the girl with homework while the toddler alternated between coloring on a large sheet of paper and pushing his toy truck around the table. I glanced around. Past the patio furniture were an in-ground pool and a stainless steel outdoor kitchen.

  “What? Did the husband sell his soul to be able to afford this place?”

  “No. The father and daughter were in a bad car accident. The back passenger door took the brunt of the impact.” He looked at me. “The girl was in critical condition. The mother made the deal.”

  My heart lodged in my throat. “Oh no!” I held a hand up. “I am not helping you take that woman away from her family.” I turned on my heels. “You’re on your own.”

  “If you walk away, you’ll void your contract.”

  I kept my eyes locked on the gate. It wasn’t fair that he asked this of me.

  “Your brother will die, and the woman in that house will still pay her debt.” He stood behind me now and continued in a low voice. “She came to me, Madison. She knew the price.”

  Turning to meet his gaze, I said, “You want me to help you take the soul of a woman who made the same deal I tried to make?”

  “And had you been able to make it, I would have come for your soul when your years were up.”

  I glanced back at the house. “How many did she get?”

  “Five.”

  “How old is her little girl?”

  “Nine.” He moved a ringlet of hair from in front of my eyes. “You ca
n think me a monster, but I don’t seek out souls. They come to me, and because of the deal she made, her daughter will grow up to be an adult.”

  I stared at the family, biting my bottom lip. The little girl set her pencil down, a proud grin stamped across her face. The mom smiled back and pointed to the paper. I guessed she was telling her to do the next problem.

  “Need I remind you, you promised your date you wouldn’t be long? Promised,” he said again, stressing the word. “Your brother doesn’t have to die, but that woman’s time is up if you keep our deal or not. Eventually, she will leave the house, and I will be there. If she resists too long, hell will sick the hounds on her. You’re sparing her that torment.”

  “Don’t make it sound like I’m a hero.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my hands over my hips. “What do I have to do?”

  Caden was beside me. I hoped he felt winter’s nip through his dress shirt. “She had a witch cast a spell on the house.”

  Smart woman, but not smart enough.

  “Sorry,” I said flippantly, “I didn’t squeeze my pocket-sized book on wards into this dress.”

  He handed me a slip of paper. “I need you to cancel the protection keeping me out and to get rid of the devil’s shoestring above the patio doors and in those pots. It’s the plant with the wide leaves.” He pointed to the large terracotta planters flanking the entrance.

  “It’s dead.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It still keeps out evil, and as charming as I know you find me, I’m a demon and therefore in the evil category.”

  I bit back my sarcastic comment.

  “Need I remind you again what happens if you break our deal?”

  I shook my head and swiped at a tear that rolled down my cheek. “You’re not going to stroll in there in front of her kids, are you?”

  “No. I’ll drive you back to the dance, which—” he glanced at the time on his cell phone “—if you hurry, will be within thirty minutes, and then I’ll come back. She’ll tuck the little ones in bed. Her family will think she passed in her sleep.”

  I glanced at the paper. “This sucks.”

  “What were you expecting I’d need your help with?”

  “I don’t know.” I had been trying not to think about it. “You have a crappy job.”

  He shrugged. “Hell has worse.”

  I watched the mother with her children a moment longer. My heart broke knowing the boy and girl would be growing up with only a dad and that this family would never know just how far the woman had gone to give her daughter a second chance.

  “You still suck,” I said.

  With the exception of the Latin words that Caden had to pronounce first, the counterspell was simple enough. Casting it put the bitter taste of copper in my mouth, but I couldn’t find any positive emotions to help me fuel my powers. With the protection ward removed, the devil’s shoestring was the last obstacle standing between Caden and the woman.

  I held a trembling hand out, hating myself at that moment and sorry I had learned how to summon things. Had I still been working on mastering the spell, the mom inside the house would have had at least one more day with her children. I glanced at Caden. He gave a nod.

  With a heavy heart, I said, “Devil’s shoestring.”

  When the cold, dried plant touched my skin, I torched it in blue flames.

  I couldn’t stand to look at the woman a moment longer. “Can we go now?” I turned away from the family inside the house.

  We drove in silence back to school.

  Before stepping out of his car, I said, “Make sure the father is there before you…you know. The kids are too young to be home alone.” I handed him back his coat.

  “I will.”

  I jogged up the walk, the soft click click click of my heels lost in the noise coming from the gym as soon as I opened the doors. Isaac spotted me first and hurried over. Kaylee and Josh joined us and huddled close.

  Isaac took my hands in his and looked me up and down. “What did you have to do?”

  “Remove the protection on a building,” I replied. I couldn’t bring myself to say I’d helped take a mother away from her family.

  Isaac studied me a moment. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, I’m his personal locksmith.”

  “That’s not bad, right?” Josh asked.

  I shrugged.

  Kaylee rubbed my arm. “Want to talk about it?”

  Sarah rushed over, saving me from having to answer. A few blond locks had escaped her elegant ponytail. Her cheeks were flushed from dancing.

  “Why are you guys hiding in a corner, frowning like this is a funeral?” she shouted over the pop song blaring through the gym.

  “We were just taking a break,” Kaylee replied.

  “Well, break’s over.” Sarah grabbed my and Kaylee’s wrists. “Mark refuses to dance to anything with a beat, so I need you guys.”

  I glanced at Isaac, who raised his shoulders as if to say, What do you want me to do?

  Sarah dragged Kaylee and me through the crowded floor to where a group of our friends danced. We were jostled by people shimmying to the music. The song was too fast to slow dance and too slow to fast dance. I slid my feet a few inches left then right and swung my arms, but I couldn’t find my rhythm. I tried smiling, hoping the simple gesture would lift my spirits.

  “I’m going sit this next one out,” I yelled so Sarah and Kaylee could hear me.

  “Me too,” Kaylee said loudly.

  Sarah frowned but shouted okay.

  I headed toward the bleachers where Isaac and Josh were talking, but Kaylee stopped me. “Ladies’ room.”

  I nodded.

  Kaylee didn’t go to the restrooms near the gym, though. Instead she led us to the benches outside the coaches’ office.

  She sat. “Okay, spill. And don’t you dare say it’s nothing, because you haven’t been the same since you got back.”

  Desperately needing to tell someone, I lowered myself onto the cold wooden seat next to her and told her what I’d done. She was quiet for what seemed like forever.

  “Hell would have collected her soul with or without you, and if you removing the ward spared her having hell hounds rip her apart—” Kaylee shuddered “—then, in a way, you did help her.”

  My shoulders slumped forward. “Tell that to her family.”

  “Madison, you couldn’t have saved her even if you wanted to. You know that, right?”

  “I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t save Natalie.”

  She rested a hand on my leg. “But you did save Chase, and you made it so Reed can’t steal anyone else away from their loved ones.”

  “Caden saved Chase,” I said, fidgeting with my rings. “And Reed wouldn’t have been here in the first place if I’d listened to Isaac.”

  “If I remember correctly, Isaac didn’t come right out and say just how dangerous the Fae can be.”

  I twitched a shoulder.

  Kaylee sighed. “Nothing I say is going to make you feel better, is it?” She glanced over her shoulder toward the doors to the parking lot and then back at me. “Want to get out of here? We’ll pick up some chocolate peanut butter ice cream and make it a girls’ night. Eat junk food and watch bad movies until we forget our problems.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys I recognized as Josh’s. “I’ll drive.”

  Her offer was tempting, but I couldn’t let Kaylee cut her evening short because of me, and I couldn’t ditch Isaac like that. Nor could I steal Josh’s car for a second time.

  “That wouldn’t be fair to you or the guys.” I took the keys from her and dropped them back into her purse, determined to perk up for her sake. “For the rest of the night, I’m going to focus on positive things like Reed being gone, me surviving Caden’s task—which will hopefully mean he’ll leave me alone for a while—and us having dates waiting to sweep us off our feet.”

  Kaylee narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure? Under the circumstances, Josh and Isaac will understand.”

/>   Since I wasn’t ready to tell them everything I’d just told Kaylee, I was positive they wouldn’t take being ditched at a dance all that well—particularly since they’d come only because Kaylee and I had wanted to go.

  “Kaylee, let’s keep this between us.” I bit my bottom lip and hoped she wouldn’t ask why.

  “Sure.”

  I heaved out a breath as if expelling all my negative emotions. I’d already put my friends through a lot. Now the least I could do was not ruin their Saturday night too.

  “From this moment forward, I’m going to forget about Caden and everything bad that has happened in the past few weeks and focus on the future.” At least until tomorrow. I forced the corners of my mouth to turn upward.

  “Yeah, we’re going to have to work on that smile.” Kaylee paused thoughtfully. “Can you say Chicken Dance?” A devilish smirk etched across her face as she stood. “I bet the deejay has the song.”

  “You wouldn’t!” I jumped up to follow her.

  “Isaac’s not the only person I’d like to see flap their arms.” She stopped long enough to demonstrate.

  I hurried to keep up with her quick stride. “You heard us earlier?”

  “Oh yeah, and I was sorry he stopped you from requesting it.”

  Figured she’d remember my aversion to making a fool of myself.

  We found the guys right where we’d left them, and I grabbed Isaac’s hand. “Hurry because Kaylee’s threatening to request the Chicken Dance if we don’t start to enjoy ourselves.”

  My talk with Kaylee did help lift some of the burden of what I’d done from my shoulders. One of my favorite songs came on too. I raised my arms over my head and let the music fill me, relaxing my tense nerves. Isaac shuffled his feet, sighing in what sounded like relief when the deejay announced the next song would be a slow one and the last song of the night.

  When my smile faltered, Kaylee tucked her hands in her armpits, flapped her elbows, and said, “I bet with a bewilderment spell I could get the deejay to play one more song.”

  I couldn’t help but burst into laughter when she moved her head back and forth in a pecking motion. Thankfully, I escaped the gym without having to imitate poultry.