by Mila Young
Knox slapped a palm over my mouth, and fury drummed through me. Pain throbbed in my guts. I swore someone had a bulldozer in there, churning my organs. But I’d rather a thousand blades stab me at once than face what my master would do to me if I failed.
“Y-You’re too late, lover boy,” I mumbled over his ranting. “Sephy’s gone. You took too long to realize she loved you, you piece of shit.” Love was such a wasted emotion.
My gaze settled on Asher, who twitched. The mist cloaked in shadows and his face shrouded.
“They’ll chew Sephy up in the afterlife, Knox,” I growled. “Gang-raped, ripped apart, and each morning, she’ll wake up like new, only to experience it again and again.” I laughed.
His muscles tensed against my back, the tightness of his arm around my neck suffocating me, and I wheezed for breath, scratching at him.
“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled in my ears.
But right then, Asher’s form burst outward and formed into dozens of ravens flooding the room. Black wings spread overhead, covering the ceiling. Their shrill alarm calls grew deafening, and I smiled. They swooped across the room, beaks wide open.
Excitement bubbled in my chest. The birds dove for Knox’s head, swooping around us, reminded of the theme parks back home where we’d watch new souls run from the room of birds. Best attraction ever.
His grasp loosened. I coughed and splattered.
Now with my head clearer and the brutal sting ebbing, I pooled my power from my chest and threw my palms over my shoulders, tossing dark energy lines into Knox’s neck and face.
He grunted, his pain choking the breath from his lungs.
I leaped out of his grasp and laughed at the vortex of wings beating overhead. Dean winced, and I hurled my energy down my arm just as a fist collided with the back of my head. My vision warped into fuzzy lines. There was a kick to my knees, and I lurched forward from the momentum. I cried out. Terror swallowed me. No one caught me off-guard.
Knox snagged my hair and hauled me backward. “Assmunching bastard.”
I spun, my hands engulfed in a black mist, but he made another strike to my ribs, and I coiled forward, crying. In Sephy’s body, I felt each blow, and I fucking hated the human sensation of agony.
He snatched my chin and holy water splashed me in the face. Fiery bursts of hurt exploded across my flesh. I shuddered and thrashed, arms swinging wildly. The stabbing ache amplified, and my muscles quivered.
I flinched and jerked, no longer seeing straight. The earlier energy in my hands fizzled, and for once, I was helpless, lost.
“Sephy, call to your fire.”
The same twinge in my chest rose again, stronger this time, wriggling inside me.
Squawks pierced my ears. Wings slapped me in the head, and claws scratched my brow as they dove for Knox pressed behind me. His face tucked into my neck.
I batted them away as his voice growled in my ear. “Cleanse yourself.” He jammed a tiny cross on my brow, holding it down with a thumb. The strike was like a belt cracking me across the face, piercing. Black mist swirled at the edges of my mind.
The birds dropped to the floor in a sudden swoop, disintegrating into dust on impact.
Breaths refused to come, sweat drenched me, and I exploded in screams.
“Sephy, please return.”
I snarled, my voice deep and scratchy, unable to form words. The fire in my chest spread like a disease. And no fucking way was I letting her control me.
Knox hauled me around to face him. Iron hands locked around my shoulders, his face inches from mine.
Every inch of me trembled, and I fought for breath, to clear my vision and mind. But Sephy was there, burning my thoughts.
Knox rambled on, yet my focus blurred in and out. Huge undulating waves of blistering fire crashed into me over and over. My body had fallen numb.
“Please. Fight. Call to your fire. Heal yourself. Shit, Sephy, I won’t live in a world without you. I’ll go into Hell after you.”
I wanted to laugh in his face, but that hurt too much, so I spat instead. Fire battled through me, hitting me so hard, I swore a train had ran me over. I cried out, yelling as a bulldozer careened through me. Nails clawed my insides as if I were a pincushion.
My knees buckled.
Knox held me, his arms around my chest. “Sephy, use your fire.”
“F-F-Fuck!” I screeched. An inferno lit me up from the inside. Flames spontaneously spurted across my flesh, engulfing my face and arms, relentlessly spreading to my torso and legs.
Knox jerked back, wincing, cradling his arms, and I collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
Light exploded outward from every inch of my body.
The pain was a blade twisting in my spine, coming at me like bullets of hail. A black wall collided into my mind, and darkness squeezed me into a ball, dragging me toward the pits of Sephy’s mind.
She was right next to me in the recesses of her mind, her fiery energy lighting her face warped with anger. She reached out for me, her flaming hand striking my chest, and I screamed from the inferno. I punched her away but not before she scratched at my cheek, drawing blood. “Bitch.”
“You may have defeated me for now, but I’ll always be here. Right in your head. I’m coming back.”
“Get the fuck out of my body.” Her bolt of power crashed into my gut like a hard punch, and I tumbled into the abyss.
Silence.
Emptiness.
Isolation.
Not a single noise. But at once, an explosion of sounds assaulted me. Yelling, the thumping sound of footfalls.
I opened my eyes and stared all around me. Fuck yes, I was back. Knox was by my side, swatting my flames with his shirt, yet I didn’t feel a thing.
One minute I had been in the darkened forest watching my life through the lenses of someone else, now I lay on my back on the bar floor. Myself again.
I gasped out loud, and my body levitated off the ground of its own accord, drawing me to stand upright. But instead of panic, warmth cloaked me. The flames evaporated from my body. Yet I remained dressed and now glowed like the freaking sun.
My toes hovered inches off the floor, and despite floating for some goddamn reason, it felt as natural as walking. And if this was some new power, hell yeah.
Except my vision slowly cleared and only chaos surrounded me.
Dean was naked and sprawled on the ground with blood coating his mouth and chin. Ryder slumped in a corner, cradling a bottle of alcohol to his chest while Asher crouched in a ball, whimpering.
All I could do was shift through my tangled thoughts. Energy seared through me, crackling over my skin like electricity. Yet I felt Dean’s racing pulse under my skin, Ryder’s breaths were in my ear despite him being across the room, and even Asher’s heartbeat hummed along my flesh. In my heart, I sensed them, connected with them on a level I didn’t understand.
But I couldn’t sense Knox. He stumbled closer and fell to his knees before me. He stared at me with terror in his eyes.
I opened my mouth to speak, but instead a stream of pale blue smoke puffed out like I’d smoked a cigar. Now, an acrid-taste coated my mouth.
Every part of me buzzed with static. On my next breath, my eyes rolled backward, and I crashed down to the ground.
“Sephy.” Dean’s shaky voice flooded me, but I struggled to wade through my murky mind or make sense of my memories. They swirled in my head like a tornado, bouncing against one another. How I’d forced myself onto all the guys. How they’d transformed. Dean was a freakin’ wolf. Then why didn’t Ryder change into his lion? And what the fuck does Asher have inside him?
“Is she back to normal?” Asher asked.
Someone brushed my hair off my brow, and I opened my eyes to find four men staring down at me. I cringed to think of the way I’d behaved. Okay, it hadn’t been me, but crap! What would they think of me now? A monster who demanded sex and made them turn into creatures? Yeah, the thing inside me had taken me over, and that made it easi
er to swallow. All I wanted was to run, hide, and never show my face again. They didn’t deserve this shit. And the guilt was iceberg in my stomach. Because it was my fault.
A powerful Loa demonic spirit was after me, and these poor guys were pawns, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or had it all been pre-planned, as Knox had suggested?
“Well, she ain’t shining like a damn glow worm anymore,” Ryder said.
“Shut up.” I couldn’t help but smile at Ryder because of course he would say that. Hallelujah. That meant things were back to normal. Yeah, right. Nothing was normal in my life.
“She was more like a fiery goddess,” Knox added, his tone serious. “Golden eyes, fire covering her body, and smoke wafting from her mouth.”
I could barely breathe, let alone deal with a transformation I didn’t understand. “Is this a convention where everyone stares at the knocked-out woman and guesses what kind of freak she is?” I pushed myself to a sitting position, noticing my dress had ridden to my waist and my tiny lace underwear was on full display. “Hell.”
Knox and Dean each took my arms and lifted me. I pushed my dress down over my hips. Damn, how short was this thing? “One of you could have at least yanked down my skirt.”
“Honey, you were showing me a lot more than that earlier.” Ryder drew me into his arms, holding me. “But you scared me half to death. Don’t be the evil bitch again, please.”
I embraced him and let his warmth flood me, my throat dried. I’d clearly scared him and the others. They looked at me, but I wasn’t a goddamn specimen. Would anything ever be normal again?
When I broke away from Ryder, Dean collected my hand and guided me to a table. Around us, the bar remained dimly lit and the front door stayed shut. The bartender Dean had attacked lay unconscious across the bar counter, her neck bandaged.
“Is she okay?” I asked, remembering her screams of terror. How I couldn’t do a single thing to help her.
“I hope she’ll be okay. I have no idea what a demonic wolf bite would do to a person.” Dean huffed and lowered his attention. He now wore a black T-shirt a size too small as it rode up his abs and tight black pants. Any other situation and I would have spent my time gawking, teasing him, as he must have borrowed clothes from a locker at the bar. But as more memories returned, I struggled to find anything funny.
“I don’t understand what the hell happened.” Dean ran a shaky hand through his hair. “One minute you arrived acting strange, and the next, something took me over and I changed into a…” His breath hitched, and the despair in his voice had me cringing.
Ryder patted his shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not fucking okay,” he snapped, and his nose scrunched. “I transformed into a wolf and attacked a girl. And I’m not a shifter. God, will that mean if anyone finds out, I’ll get kicked out of the force? Will that thing take me over again? What if I can’t stop myself from butchering people?” His words raced.
“You think I enjoyed exploding into freaking ravens?” Asher added. “My mind was split between a dozen of places. But I don’t remember the spirit’s thoughts, and I couldn’t tap into its mind. If I had, we could have known who they were and how to fight them or something?”
“Yep,” Ryder added as he sat next to me. “Same here.”
The others sat around the tiny table, broad-shouldered large men, crowded close together.
I glanced at Knox, who hadn’t taken his eyes off me.
“I was in a dark forest. Images flashed through my mind that showed what was happening, but I couldn’t tap into the spirit’s head to hear its thoughts while I was held under.”
Dean’s hooded eyes lowered. Was he processing the shit that had gone down?
“When Asher’s sister bit us,” I continued, “we became possessed. A demon had entered each of us.” It was the only explanation of why the men acted so strangely and transformed. I kicked myself for not seeing the clues earlier and guessing it was a possession, instead of believing it us simply being marked.
The room fell silent, so I explained my discussion with Roseline about our marks, and what I’d experienced with the demon at Ryder’s place.
“Screw this,” Dean exclaimed, his shoulders squared. “Now, we’re fucking possessed. So what are we supposed to do? Get Knox to exorcise all of us?”
“Not if he’s claimed as well?” Asher suggested, and everyone turned to Knox.
“I didn’t react to the holy water. So I guess I’m clean.” He spoke with no emotion. We were all on death’s door, and I had no clue how long it would be before it came for us again, or how to protect us.
Slouched, I sat there, still unsure how to process everything, but I remembered Knox’s words as he fought the spirit to save me. I had so many things to tell him, like how sorry I was for kissing him, how his encouragement helped me fight back.
But that wasn’t what came out. “You didn’t get claimed because you’re blessed by the church.”
Knox nodded, yet shadows danced under his eyes. Was he dying to reach across the table and draw me closer? The agony in his gaze had my stomach clenching.
I glanced down at my hands, and my fingernails had blood packed underneath them on one hand. Then I remembered scratching the spirit and drawing blood. Now, part of its memory lay open in my head, and I gasped out loud.
“I remember something from the monster inside me,” I called out and wriggled my stained fingernails at the guys. But they creased their noses and shook their heads in confusion.
“When I took control of my body, I passed the spirit in my head and scratched it, and with it came a small patch of its memory.”
“What did you find out?” Asher asked, his eyes widening.
I concentrated on the moment, and the words filled me. “Whatever is coming for me wants to claim my ability. And that means getting rid of my soul so it can live inside my body.” I shivered.
“And then it can attack the living,” Ryder piped in. “But if you can scratch it and draw blood, does that mean you can kill it in your mind?”
The men broke into a murmur, and I couldn’t deny the possibility “Hell, it might be.”
And just knowing we had a potential way to dig deeper into what the fuck was happening with me, had me excited. Maybe it wasn’t all dead-ends and gloom.
“So, what happens now?” Asher asked. “Are we going to turn feral like my sister and go around biting people until we find a solution?”
All eyes fastened on me, and I swallowed the mountain in my throat. “I don’t know.” My words were barely a whisper. “But I think we’re connected. The demonic spirit inside me had demanded you all show your true forms, and then you all changed. But we need to get this mess sorted before we have another episode. To work out what is going on. To begin with, I propose a revelation incantation to help identify the exact spirits we’re dealing with. It might help us find a way to defeat them.”
No one responded at first.
In the distance outside the bar, police sirens rang out. Everyone stared toward the door, and I hugged myself.
“If we’re in this together, then we’ll work as a team,” Dean said. “First, I’ll deal with the authorities. They would have received reports of disturbances at the bar.”
Asher cleared his throat. “I’ll go with you, Dean and speak to the cops as this is my bar.” He glanced back at his bartender, unconscious, and sighed.
“I’ll take her to the hospital,” Gunn suggested. “Anyone got a car I can borrow?”
“Take mine. I’m parked out the back,” Knox said, digging into his pocket and tossed the keys to Ryder. “Go with him.”
“Let’s meet here afterward?” Asher suggested. “The bar isn’t opening tonight.”
Everyone was on their feet, and rushed about as a well-oiled machine, everyone knowing their part, except me and Knox. We remained at the table exchanging glances but not a word. A week ago, my life hummed nicely. I had control, I’d gained a new client, and I’d finally
gotten my shit together after Dana’s death. Now, I’d gone back a thousand steps and anxiety knotted my stomach and the strength left my body.
When everyone left and shut the door behind them, I turned to Knox, who hadn’t moved or said a word.
I twisted my fingers over one another in my lap. How had I made my entire body light up? Whatever I’d done, it had driven the spirit away. I clicked my fingers, and a flame flicked to life on my fingertips. I froze at first, because in the past, I’d had to concentrate to generate fire; now, it came with barely a thought.
“This is new.” I stared over at Knox, who studied me, the bridge of his nose pinched.
“What are you thinking?” I lowered my hand, the fire extinguishing. “How fucked up I am? That all those kids who called me freak back in the foster homes were correct?” My heart lay in shattered pieces.
He got up and scooted next to me. “I’m fucking terrified because I was convinced I’d lost you.”
Something twanged in my chest, and my eyes pricked at his words. “Your voice helped me out of the darkness. But I remember what you said. That you’d go to Hell for me.” I shifted to face him directly, our knees touching. “Promise me you’ll never—”
He raised a hand to my mouth, but I pushed him away, anger surging forward.
“Hear me out. There’s something different about me. A piece of shit Lao demon is coming for my soul, and I want none of you in the crossfire.” Roseline’s words played on my mind, about how the hosts would become sacrifices, so I made it my priority to save them. Get them out of the line of fire. And save Asher’s sister. Nothing else mattered. Not my life. Not my future.
Knox slid out of his seat and kneeled in front of me, guiding himself between my legs and embraced me. His head leaned against my chest. My heart splintered. Knox had always showed me the kind of affection that had me gasping for my next breath, but I couldn’t have him. I wouldn’t if it meant he’d lose the priesthood because of her. And I hated that he was in my arms, yet he might as well be across the world from my reach.