Her mind spun. How had he done that to her? She exploded in pleasure, and his dominance over her body... The thought nearly made Haven come again. She rolled to her side and concentrated on the cool floor, willing her body to calm, to not dwell on her most recent experience. But she could still smell the demon everywhere. If he could do this to her body with his fingers, what could he do with his cock? Haven shuddered, pleasure rolling over her, winding her body up at the mere thought. Groaning, she lifted herself up and ignored the rush of desire rolling over her for the unnatural creature. How could she have betrayed herself? If DAIS found out, then all hell would break loose.
The thought of DAIS brought her attention around; she still had a bird to capture too. Haven straightened her shorts, caught herself as her knees tried to buckle, and stood again on shaky legs. Just walk it off. Her list of what needed to be done was growing. Get the bird, tell witch of deal, owe demon three kisses, find loopholes, save brother...did it ever end? She concentrated on just moving her stiff, used body and ignoring the burning flame her body had for a demon.
Haven made her way to the sink, retrieved a glass, and gulped down some water. She wiped her mouth savoring the cool liquid. Disgust settled like a rock in the pit of her stomach. She enjoyed the touch of hell spawn. She wanted it, craved it, let it happen. Her lip curled up in a snarl at herself. How could she have been stupid enough to let him that close to her, knowing full well he was sin on a damn stick, just waiting to be licked off? Feeling dirty, Haven dropped the glass in the sink and headed for the shower. She rubbed at her skin, her mind rolling at the thought of the demon touching her, everywhere. Her nails dug into her palms. She needed to scrub his filth away, remove his smell, and seriously reconsider her favorite sweet.
Chapter Seven
After scrubbing her skin pink and talking herself into leaving the house, Haven managed to make it to Adonia's before the dinner rush. The deal between Ba'al and Jeremy didn't seem to leave room for a loophole. All she could do was wait and keep her fingers crossed that Adonia had some way of finding a hole they could exploit. Haven knocked on the door and it swung open by the third knock.
"Come, tell me what you found out." Adonia waved her inside.
Haven blinked, but followed. "I'm not sure we will find a way to break this deal." Haven found a place on the love seat.
Adonia raised a brow sitting across from her. "There is always a way. Finding it is the trick. Demons are tricky bastards too. Who is his deal with?"
"Ba'al"
"The king of fucking Hell!?" Adonia leaned in, raising her voice.
"Unfortunately." What else could she say? Obviously making a deal with Ba'al was worse than any other demon, which didn't bode well for her brother.
"He's the oldest demon. Well, more like demon-maker. He knows his way in and out of deals. Go on, tell me the terms." Adonia sat back crossing her slender arms. She wore a grey fringe style shirt with a flowing black skirt. Her feet were bare, unless one counted her jingling ankle bracelet. If she didn't know any better Haven would have pegged her more for a gypsy than a witch.
"Jeremy went to Ba'al requesting him to pay off his gambling debts and front him some extra cash to 'get on his feet'. In exchange, if Jeremy gambled the money and lost, Jeremy would owe him a year of his life for each loss. Beyond that, I don't know anything else, and my..." Haven looked around the room, searching for the right word. "...contact couldn't give me anything further either." She snorted internally at the idea of Desiderus being a 'contact'. More like the kind of physical contact that sets her world on fire.
"Do you know who he owed debts to?"
"No. But I think he has to have some kind of report or list somewhere to keep track of it all. Probably in his room. Or else how would he know how much to ask Ba'al for?" Haven shifted back on the loveseat, trying to remember if she had seen any papers in his room the night Desiderus took him.
"Here's what we are going to do, Haven. I want you to retrieve those papers—hopefully you can find them—and bring 'em to me. We will go through and contact every owed person he has down. Perhaps Ba'al forgot to pay someone."
"If Ba'al is the king of Hell, would he really forget to pay when he's made a deal?" Haven wasn't so sure he would.
"It doesn't hurt to check. Always double check. Like I said, tricky, it's how they work."
Haven considered the witch for a moment. "How do you know so much about all this?"
Adonia smiled. "You don't become a witch without learning a few things along the way. After all, magic is considered a dark art."
The witch had a point. "So do you have a grimoire or something you learn from?"
"Not exactly. I have a spell book, passed down to me from my mother."
Haven shrugged, as if the answer really wasn't that important to her. In the long run, it really shouldn't be, but magic books were fascinating. Haven couldn't perform many of the magical spells in grimoires or the like, but it didn't mean she wasn't interested in what she could learn. Her family book had a great deal in it Haven couldn't begin to comprehend. Jeremy had the magical gene. Haven's was more of an echo from their magic.
Even Aunt Gena had magic, though of a different sort. She mainly specialized in healing, herbs, and the like. This proved to be good in the long run, since Gena ended up needing her own abilities by the end. The image of her caretaker lying in a bed wasting away…her perfect blonde curls withered, falling away from her skin as time moved on... It hadn't mattered how much power or potion was used. In the end, they all knew she would die. Gena had just been biding her time. Seeing Adonia, talking with her, just encouraged all Haven's old memories to come back to her. Adonia had been part of the magics keeping Gena around until Haven turned seventeen and could take over everything. Haven rubbed her face and refocused on the here and now.
Adonia crossed her legs. A silence filled the space between them until Adonia broke it. "Well... perhaps I should go with you. Come on. The faster we get the information the better it will be for Jeremy. He's probably burning in a cage somewhere."
***
Haven rummaged through her brother's room. The candles from the night he disappeared lay still broken and littering the floor. His king size bed had a small nightstand by it with a single drawer, and Haven headed for it first. He didn't have many places to hide his stuff, and knowing her brother, he wouldn't have thought to keep them a bit more secret. When she pulled out the drawer, she was not surprised to see a folder with the letter D written on it and a picture of her parents, him, Haven, and Gena.
Haven's hands shook when she touched the picture. The sun shone in the background and they had been so little. After taking care of Gena in such a horrible state of health, she hadn't realized how healthy and vibrant her caretaker had once been. This was the way she wanted to remember everything: not as it happened, but as it had been. Guilt overwhelmed her at the trouble Gena had gone through. It was all Haven's fault, everything was. The wreck, their deaths, Gena suffering, Jeremy's addiction problems. The burdens were hers. Haven took in a few deep breaths, keeping the tears threatening to spill in check. She rubbed her eyes to regain her composure and tucked the picture back into the drawer.
After she pulled out the folder and opened it, Haven plopped on the bed. Thousands of dollars in debt within the pages. Numbers kept flashing by her eyes as she flipped through page after page of his bookkeeping. There was no way he would have been able to pay all this back on his own. Names in scrawled handwriting she didn't recognize sat beside numbers ranging from hundreds to way more zeros than she cared to see on something owed. Haven's checks from DAIS barely made the bills, plus what they needed in food and groceries. How the hell had he even gotten the money to gamble like this in the first place? It looked like he'd burned through every friend, acquaintance, and bookie in the city and then some. She closed the folder and headed to the kitchen.
"Did you find it?" Adonia asked from the table. She opened the grimoire and Haven reached over and shut it.
Adonia's eyebrow shot up, but it was too late. The bubble-popping sound came in quick and then he was there.
"Little girl brings a witch." The imp sniffed the air. "Much will revolve around her." Haven rolled her eyes at his already cryptic words.
"What the hell is that?"
Before Haven could comment, the imp jumped up on the table causing Adonia to back away from him. "Gib is derelimpiticus."
"Otherwise known as an imp. He supposedly is set to guarding my bloodline and–"
"Gib wants unbound from book." He tapped his hand on the grimoire. He looked at Haven. "You brought her for Gib?"
"No, I brought her for Jeremy, Gib is a bonus." She hoped, at least.
"Wait, what? Why would he think you brought me for him?"
"Someone has, according to Gib, bound him to my family's grimoire and he can't use much of his magic because of it. Gib says he can't guard me right. Evidently this same person was the reason my parents had their car wreck, and also why I can't do magic." Haven rolled her eyes. "But I did promise him I would try and find a way to unbind him. Perhaps while you're here?"
Adonia looked back at Gib. "Give me your hand, imp." Gib gave her his hand. Blue sparks danced in the air when he touched her. "Yup, he was bound all right. Which means he's probably telling the truth about all of it."
Haven stared at the two of them.
"Unbind Gib. Trust me. I can find who did this once powers regenerate."
"I can do it, pretty easy actually. The binding is mostly harmless. It seems whoever put it on..." Adonia grabbed the imp's wing and pulled it out giving the creature a good look. "…wasn't expecting anyone to notice it. Simple little spell. Here." Adonia grabbed Haven's hand. "Touch his wing."
"Um, I'm not too–" Adonia pulled and then her hand nearly crashed into the wing. She grabbed it. The velvet texture made her fingertips rub together on it.
Adonia tapped where the imp and Haven touched three times and said, "Unravel."
There was a white spark and then something zapped her hand like an electric current. She flung it back to her chest. "What the hell was that?"
"There. The imp is now bound to you." Adonia smiled, proud of herself, no doubt.
"Uh, to me? Wait, I don't need him bound to me."
"No, but he does. He's pure magic Haven. An essence creature. I couldn't believe it at first but when I checked him with my witch sight, there is no doubt. He's under fae. He can't exist without being bound to someone or something."
"Gib thanks the witch." He turned to Haven. "I can't stay at the moment, my little Haven, but I will return within a month, fully charged. While I may be bound to you and your bloodline, I still need the fae world to recharge all those years of binding. Please forgive Gib's absence." The bubble-popping sound returned and Gib popped out of the room.
Haven turned to Adonia. "I can't freaking do all this!" Her mind was flying in so many directions. The imp was important somehow, but she couldn't pursue it. Desiderus all but owned her, and Jeremy...God Jeremy, please let him be safe.
"Take a deep breath. Everything will work out. Calm down, come on..."
Haven took a deep breath, letting go of her frustration. She needed to refocus on her brother and just let everything else go for now. "I found a folder with plenty of numbers, though I'm not sure how we will find a loophole from it, truthfully."
Adonia reached for the folder. She flattened it open on the table and took a quick glance through the papers. "Bring me some of his hair."
"What?"
"His hair, Haven, I need something to help me focus. He has a brush or something right?"
"Sure, but this isn't going to turn into some strange fascination of like, you smelling his hair or something, is it? Because really, I'm not interested in watching you obsess over my brother... again."
Adonia looked up, narrowing her eyes on Haven. "Get me the hair."
Haven rolled her eyes and complied. She dashed into the bathroom and brought her brother's thick bristled brush back out to Adonia. "I didn't know how much you needed and figured you could use more if you didn't need it all, so here's the entire brush." It seemed Jeremy never cleaned out his brush so the bristles had a large amount of his dark hair wrapped around them.
"Perfect."
"What are you going to do?" Haven sat across from the witch. Night had completely covered the outside world, but inside the lights kept a constant yellowish glow to the kitchen, shining off the clean surfaces.
"I'm going to try and focus energy to pin point certain times in his life, memories if you will. If I can force my spell to only seek something that could bend or crack the deal he made with Ba'al, then we might have a chance to help Jeremy. How could he have been stupid enough to deal with the king of Hell?" Adonia shook her head, pulling strands of Jeremy's hair from the brush.
"Honestly, I have no idea. I should have seen it." Haven looked down at her fingers, picking at her nails.
"Don't be too harsh on yourself, Ave. You did the best you could."
Haven looked over at the woman who used to be her friend. So much trust had been broken between them and yet here they both were, working together to help her brother, who tried to help himself and only found more trouble. "I know it's not literally my fault, but I still feel responsible for him. He's all of my family. I could have been there more, or maybe I should have been harder on him."
Adonia gave her a tight smile. "There is always a could have, would have, or should have when people you care about are involved." The witch focused her attention back to the hair. She carefully placed the pulled strands on the top sheet of paper, right over Jeremy's hand written notes. Adonia closed her eyes and strange words fell from her lips, words Haven couldn't even begin to recognize. Latin maybe, or it could be gibberish of some kind. Witch gibberish, she decided.
AC/DC blared from her phone on the counter. Crap...her boss. Adonia's words halted and her eyes shot open, giving Haven a look that said make it go away. Haven hustled over to the counter, knocking her chair back. "Hello?"
"Glad to know you're still alive. What about the caladrius? Do you have it?"
"Well, not exactly. I, uh...ran into a few snags along the way. Call it family troubles, Rich."
"Haven. We pay you to retrieve unnaturals. Have you retrieved it?"
"No sir."
"Do you want to get paid any time soon?"
"Yes sir."
"Then get me that bird." Rich hung up.
Haven slipped her phone in her back pocket. Adonia had her head cocked to the side, staring at her.
"What was that about?"
"I have to go track this caladrius bird. It's a work thing."
"Wait, a caladrius? Seriously?" Adonia's eyes widened.
"Ya. It's an unnatural. I work for DAIS. I'm the snare tracking the damn thing, only a demon keeps getting in my way, so to speak."
"Do you know how rare a creature that is and what it can do?"
Haven cocked a hip against the counter, knowing she was about to find out. "Not really, and I don't care. It's my job."
"Haven, it's a healer."
As if that was supposed to mean something to her. "Okay, and?"
"There is no other creature like it. In the magical world it's sought after, not quite as big as a holy grail, but pretty close. Does the demon have it?"
Haven perked at this new information. "I don't think he has it, but I wasn't able to watch exactly where it went last time it got away from me." She wasn't about to discuss her challenging the demon with Adonia.
"Well if you don't have it, someone else probably does. No wonder your employer wants it. It's a powerful thing to have on one's side."
"DAIS isn't like that. They don't use magic as means to gain. They might study it though." Haven picked her chair up and pushed it in under the table.
"Naïve girl. Just be careful. There are many who would love to get their hands on that creature."
"Yes, mother." Haven flipped her hair back.
&n
bsp; Adonia didn't respond. Instead she shot her a glare and then closed her eyes again to begin the spill of words, like a chant. The strands of Jeremy's hair started to take on a white glow, melting into the papers until there was no hair visibly left. The air above the papers blurred, like one would see on a hot day, the heat rising from the asphalt of a street or car window. Only it rose in images. People, possibly, though Haven couldn't quite make them out. When Adonia's eyes popped open and shone stark white, Haven jumped back from the table, taking it as her queue to leave. She had a healing bird to find before it landed in the wrong hands. If it hadn't already.
Chapter Eight
Desiderus had been silently stalking the female all day. He couldn't go back to the three women who had been oh-so-willing to please him, and the bird really didn't interest him right now. He could catch it at any time. Haven crawled under his skin and he wasn't completely sure he liked her being there. The image of her coming for him, trapped against his body, instantly gave him a hard-on every time he thought about it. He'd licked her sweet juices from his fingers when he left her falling to her knees. She was an exquisite pet.
He had followed her to the witch. Waited impatiently, sneaking peeks in the windows, trying to make out their conversation with hardly any luck. If it weren't for the magics holding him back from entering as an invisible force, he would have been inside. He'd ridden silently with them back to Haven's home, but they revealed nothing on the ride.
As he watched Haven stomp from the house with a look of shock along her beautiful features, he continued his 'research'. A much better word for what he was doing, following her around. She had some reason to want all the information about Jeremy's deal from him and he'd bet the devil himself that she and the witch were looking for loopholes. It amused him greatly she would even try. As if Ba'al would leave such a thing in a deal.
Impure Bargains (Impure series Book 1) Page 6