by Zoe Winters
The bottle blonde shook her head furiously and kept pacing, growing more agitated.
“What’s wrong with her?” Luc was standing back, unsure what was going on or if he should intervene.
“Withdrawal,” Karen said. “Most of us are clean, but her pimp kept her so coked out she barely knew her name half the time. I’m surprised your girl didn’t notice last night.”
He hadn’t noticed last night, and he’d had her in his bed. Then again, Luc had been pretty hungry. Looking for symptoms of drug addiction hadn’t been on his to-do list at the moment.
“Olivia,” he said.
Her head jerked up. Her eyes were wild.
“Come here.” He stared deeply into her eyes and put a heavy dose of hypnotic suggestion in his voice. She stood in front of him, putty in his hands, waiting for his next command.
He should have sensed this last night. She was so pliable. She’d been pliable the night before, too. Drug addicts were always easier to control.
He put his hands gently on either side of her face, needing a physical connection to control her mind more strongly.
“What are you doing? Anna said you couldn’t . . . not twice in a row.”
The fear in Karen’s voice was palpable and distracting.
“I’m not feeding. I’m going to help her.”
“How?”
He growled in frustration at the twenty questions routine and Karen took a step back. “I have no intention of harming anyone in this house. Sit down, and let me concentrate.”
She sat in a nearby chair and didn’t say another word, her eyes riveted to him and what he was doing with her friend.
Olivia was shaking against him. “I have to go back . . . I need . . . ”
“Shhh. You don’t need anything. Listen to me, Olivia. You don’t need the drugs. You are not a drug addict. You don’t do cocaine. You will have no pain, no withdrawal symptoms, no bad dreams. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she said a little breathlessly.
When he took his hands off her face, Olivia looked around, seemingly embarrassed and confused as to why she was in the living room. The shaking and restlessness had stopped.
“Is there anything to eat?”
“I’ll make you some pancakes if you go into the kitchen,” Luc said.
She blushed as she seemed to come back to herself and remember their activities the night before, but just nodded.
He smirked. A prostitute blushing. It was adorable.
Karen watched him, slack-jawed. “What did you just do?” she asked when the other girl was out of earshot.
“Gave her a strong suggestion. It’ll keep her from experiencing the symptoms while she’s going through withdrawal. I’ll need to use a new suggestion every day until she’s in the clear.”
Luc sank into a chair. It would have been nice if Anna hadn’t run off terrified of him. She would have witnessed him playing the hero; he could have used the brownie points.
Chapter Eleven
“I’m here to visit Sara Johnson.”
The receptionist looked up. Thick, dark-rimmed glasses perched on a beakish nose. Anna couldn’t decide if the woman was going for chic librarian or school marm. A silver nameplate read, Becky.
Becky’s eyes swept clinically over her. “Are you family?”
“I’m her cousin, Anna.”
She held her breath hoping there wasn’t a roster with a list of relatives. Or if there was one, that by coincidence there was an Anna in the family. She had to see with her own eyes what Luc had done to this girl. Her resolve where he was concerned was already starting to crumble.
“Anna Worthington?” Becky asked, checking a little box beside her name. “I’ll need you to sign your check-in time right here. And then sign out when you leave.” She indicated a line with an X beside it.
Anna signed the paper and logged her time, trying to shake the startled look from her face. Caroline must have called ahead on the chance she’d think to visit.
“Your friend will stay out here,” Becky said curtly, indicating Tam.
Anna nodded and followed the tall woman down the hall to 212. It was a private room with a single window that seemed set apart from the rest of the world. A clean, protective bubble upon which reality couldn’t intrude.
Sara had long, chestnut hair, much like her mother’s. It stood out starkly against the colorless cell. She sat on the floor in a white gown with fuzzy, pink socks on her feet. Sara looked up briefly, a vacant stare on her face, then back down at the little white table she was sitting at, stacking small blocks on top of each other.
She built for a few seconds until they fell over, then she gave a cry of dismay before starting the repetitive action again.
Becky shook her head. “I’m afraid she isn’t going to be much of a talker. Her lucid moments are rare. She’s probably had less than ten since she’s been with us. She should be okay for a short visit. Just don’t expect much.” The woman closed the door quietly on her way out.
Not knowing what else to do, Anna sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap. “I bought your house a couple of weeks ago, and I know what’s in it.”
Silence.
What had she been hoping to find or learn? This girl was clearly beyond communication. All it took was one look to learn all she needed to know about Luc. She stood to leave, feeling foolish for coming.
Sara turned sharply, her eyes meeting Anna’s, the blank stare suddenly gone. There was a person in there, and she was awake.
Anna stared at the girl for a moment. “You’re not crazy are you?” She blushed at her rudeness. The girl had caught her so off guard she hadn’t been able to think of a more polite way to phrase it.
Sara shook her head, but remained at the table with her blocks. “Not for a long time. I guess you came to find out what happened?”
Anna glanced about, wishing there was anything for her eyes to settle on, something to distract her from the suddenly uncomfortable moment she’d found herself in. Whatever had happened to Sara wasn’t really her business.
“It’s okay,” Sara said. “I don’t mind sharing. I have the lucid moments sometimes just so I can have conversation. It’s mind-numbingly boring pretending to be a lunatic all the time.” She continued stacking the blocks and letting them fall, either to stay in practice, or for fear someone might come in the room.
“I know it’s personal, but if you don’t mind sharing, I’d be grateful to hear it.” Anna sat back down while Sara took a deep breath and started her story.
“I was crazy at first. Then one day I just woke up, I guess. They took me to a doctor here in the hospital and ran a bunch of tests and asked me all these questions I couldn’t answer. Then they talked about how many sessions I might need before I could go home.
“That scared me. I managed to find out I’d been in whatever state I’d been in for a few months, and Luc hadn’t come after me. I was safe here, so I just started acting crazy and spaced out. Whatever I did, it worked because they stopped talking about releasing me. I’ve been pretending since then.” The blocks clattered on the table again.
Anna started to open her mouth to speak, but Sara wasn’t finished.
“Sometimes I talk to the catatonics when no one else is around, so I know I haven’t forgotten how to speak.” She got up from the table and plopped down on the floor, her long legs stretching out in front of her. “My dad used to touch me.”
Anna’s face must have shown shock because Sara laughed a little. “Yeah, not the story you were looking for, huh? I’m not looking for sympathy. It’s important. We moved into the house, and my dad didn’t seem as interested. I don’t know what he’d gotten involved with to distract him, but I was glad for it. Then I started to feel this presence in my room. Eventually, Luc introduced himself. That’s his name, right?”
Anna nodded, not sure if she wanted to hear more but unable to ask her to stop.
“Good. I would hate if everything had been a lie.
We talked. About me mostly. He listened a lot. Then we started sleeping together. A couple of times a week after my parents went to bed, he would come to me. He told me what he was. I didn’t know anything really about incubi until I looked them up on the Internet in the school library.
“I found out they often killed their victims, not that I’d felt like a victim up until that point with Luc. I tried to tell myself, maybe he wasn’t all bad. I liked him. He made me feel good, like maybe he could erase the stuff my dad had done, you know? Then one night when we were together I looked up, and he didn’t look like Luc anymore. He looked like every stereotype of a demon you could think of. Sometimes I still have nightmares.”
She paused and sat silently for a few minutes as if doing this much talking at once was too much for her. Anna stayed quiet, afraid if she interrupted she’d break the spell.
“I knew I was about to die. I guess with everything that had happened it was all just too much. I must have just snapped or something. The next thing I remember, I was here and had doctors telling me I’d been out of it.” She shrugged.
Anna felt the need to put Sara’s mind at ease. “He’s trapped in the house. It’s a curse. He can’t get out.” She was beginning to think Luc being trapped was a good thing. Maybe she should move into her father’s estate and keep the house on Cranberry Lane empty. Assuming she could withstand the burning from the scar at that distance. Knowing what went bump in the night, she was too scared to get the mark removed.
Sara’s eyes shot up to hers. “No. I didn’t know. He never said anything like that. I thought he just came to visit me sometimes.”
“If I have anything to do with it, he’ll be trapped forever. You should try to get out of here. Start your life. If you need some help financially, just call me.”
Sara looked uncomfortable. “Oh, no. I couldn’t take your money.”
“You may have saved my life. You can’t put a price tag on that. I need to ask one more thing. Did he ever try to bind you to him in any way? Like with a blood ritual?” Anna held out her hand, revealing the scar.
Sara shook her head, her eyes widening. “No. He never did anything like that.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Get out of that house.”
***
Anna spent the night at Tam’s again, refusing to answer questions about what had happened at the sanitarium. She was coming down the stairs from her shower when she heard her friend speaking in hushed tones on the phone.
“I thought you’d want to know where she was . . . Yeah, she’s fine. She wouldn’t tell me what happened . . . Okay . . . Okay . . . Yes . . . Okay . . . Well, I just didn’t want you to worry . . . Yes, Goodnight.”
“Hey,” Anna said, still wringing water from her hair.
Tam jumped, a guilty expression painting her face. “Hey! You ready to watch the movie?”
Anna crossed her arms over her chest. “Who were you on the phone with?”
“Anna . . . “
The look on Tam’s face confirmed her suspicions. Luc. “I think I’m suddenly out of the mood for a girl’s night. I’m going to bed.”
“Anna, wait!”
She marched up the stairs without waiting for Tam’s explanation and slammed the bathroom door behind her. The noise of the hair dryer on full blast drowned out her friend’s voice on the other side.
What had Luc done? Put Tam under some kind of thrall? Turned her into his spider-eating zombie? Great amount of willpower she had. Apparently love and true friendship could overcome any obstacle but an incubus. When her hair was dry, she stepped into the bedroom, unsurprised to find Tam sitting on the edge of the guest bed.
“I thought he’d be worried. He cares about you and deserved to know where you were.”
“No he doesn’t deserve anything. He’s a demon. He’s evil. If you’d heard Sara’s story, you’d know that, and you wouldn’t be going behind my back betraying me.”
“Well you wouldn’t tell me what happened!”
Anna furiously pulled the brush through her hair. “Because it’s private. I’m not going to betray her confidence. Believe me when I tell you, Luc is a bad guy. I don’t need you going Renfield on me and reporting back to your master.”
“Oh my God. You’ve completely gone over the edge. Yes, I felt loopy around him at first, and I don’t doubt he was doing some kind of mind thing . . . but I felt it. This is not that.
“You might want to ignore the witch thing,” she continued, her voice rising, “but I am a witch, and I don’t get the same vibe off him that I do off other demons. I’m sorry about the way you feel, but I’m not sorry I didn’t let the poor man worry all night.”
“Are you finished?” Anna asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I’m going to sleep.”
. . . Anna felt Luc’s anger as a man moved toward one of the upstairs bedrooms of her house. The stranger fell hard on the floor and looked around, startled. Luc had gone invisible as he looked down at the waste of flesh lying, trembling, in the middle of the hallway.
“Harold, honey, come to bed.”
Caroline Johnson poked her head out of a bedroom, wearing a diaphanous white nightgown. Luc felt a pang of hunger shoot through him and licked his lips, tempted to take a ride on the asshole’s woman.
Harold grumbled, but got up and went toward the other bedroom. He looked back once more in Luc’s direction, his eyes searching the hall for evidence of the thing that had blocked his path. Luc growled under his breath just loud enough for the man to hear and quicken his retreat.
When Harold disappeared behind the bedroom door, Luc slipped into the room he’d been guarding.
“Dad?” the girl asked.
“No.” Luc sat in the chair next to the bed. He’d been doing this for awhile, usually going through the wall to watch her. He couldn’t stand her not knowing she was safe from that bastard. But she was starting to sense his presence, and he didn’t want her to be afraid of him, too. He switched the lamp on and materialized.
She tilted her head to the side, no fear evident on her features. “Are you an angel?”
He chuckled. “I’ve told that lie before, but something tells me you’re too old and too smart to fall for it.” He brushed her hair out of her face, wanting so badly to taste her. No. Cain brought dinner. This wasn’t dinner. She was under his protection.
The scene kept changing, almost too fast for Anna to track. Each scene showed Harold trying to get to his daughter and Luc stopping him. Both men were like determined terriers pissing over territory. Slowly, Sara became too much of a temptation for the demon.
The scene shifted again. Luc kissed the side of Sara’s throat as they made love. He took gentle tugs of her energy, feeding, being careful not to take too much. This one mattered to him.
He’d told himself over and over she was too young, but she was the age of consent, and hadn’t he fucked much younger back when times were different? Her soft sighs and whimpers were driving him over the edge. Waiting for it to be safe to feed from her again was becoming more maddening each time, but he’d do whatever he had to, to keep her safe.
His heightened sense of hearing picked up the dull, flat throb of footsteps coming down the hall. The bastard just would not give up. Well, neither would Luc. The door opened and the light flicked on.
The incubus whirled in anger, a searing heat flowing through him as his true form came forward, sending Harold fleeing down the hallway in hysterics. Luc turned, unable to pull his demonic visage back. Sara looked into his eyes, a mask of terror frozen on her face. And then he couldn’t reach her.
Anna was ripped away to another, more recent scene. Luc’s rage boiled as the change rippled over his skin. He used every ounce of control to remain invisible.
Anna’s cries had pulled him out of his self-indulgent stupor. He’d made it to the landing when he saw her being dragged by her ankle down into the living room. She couldn’t have known safety was upstairs, but for a moment he imagined she’d been running to hi
m for his protection.
Protection he sure as fuck planned to deliver on, whether she was aware of its existence or not. A growl slipped from his throat as he tore down the stairs and ripped the motherfucker off her.
He wanted to verbally threaten him, needed to, wanted to ask him what right he had to come into his house and terrorize her. But he couldn’t think straight enough for language. All he could manage was a litany of snarls and growls as he sliced the man up.
Luc had the presence of mind to stop before he killed him. He couldn’t leave a body for her to have to dispose of or explain away. He had to leave the fucker breathing. For now.
The scene shifted again. Luc sat at the kitchen table, the rage still simmering, the heat still prickling along his skin. He was still too angry to change back. Luc hated scaring her, but he couldn’t let her see him. He watched as she huddled in the corner with the candlestick in her hand.
Chapter Twelve
By the following morning, Anna and Tam had come to an uneasy truce. When they walked into the house on Cranberry Lane, Anna blinked, sure she was hallucinating.
The kitchen island held a large buffet spread. Croissant sandwiches, pancakes, eggs, fruit, English muffins, biscuits, and gravy. Suddenly she was very hungry. All Tam had at her house, besides popcorn, was coffee.
The harem sat around the table chattering and eating. Anna felt left out in her own home. It wasn’t like it was easy to strike up conversation with the women who were sleeping with her man.
Strike that. Not her man. Never her man. Not a man, period. Demon. He was Luc, and he wasn’t quite the level of evil she’d thought he was, but he couldn’t be hers. They could be friends, that was all. Yes, he was hot, and they had banter or whatever. But it ended there. The alternatives of sharing him or losing her soul weren’t options she was prepared to entertain. Ever.
“You ladies look hungry.” Luc untied his apron and laid it across the counter. “The girls slept in, and I thought brunch would be nice.”