by Cece Rose
I shut my eyes, and try to even out my breathing. I don’t want him to know I’m feeling a little nervous. Mostly because I just freaking made out with his friend in his bed. A bed that we’re now sharing together for the night. Fuck. The train of thought is doing nothing to calm my breathing or racing heart.
He creeps back in quietly, shutting the bedroom door again. He flickers off the lamp, plunging the room into total darkness, not that he’ll have any trouble seeing. I feel the bed dip, and hear the sound of him pulling off his shoes and throwing them onto the floor. I chew my lip as I hear him unzip his jeans. The bed moves again as he stands back up, and his jeans hit the floor, with his shirt quickly following. I keep myself deadly still, trying like hell to keep my breathing calm. He slides into the bed, keeping on the far side of it and giving me lots of space.
“I know you’re still awake, Kayla,” he says softly.
“It just takes me a while to fall asleep,” I mumble.
“Sure it does,” he replies quietly, shifting in the bed. I try and look over my shoulder, my eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness. He’s turned away from me. I feel weirdly disappointed as I turn back away from him too, letting my eyes fall closed.
“Good night, Kayla.”
“Night, Darren,” I reply. My breathing and heart rate start to calm once I hear the steady sounds of his own breathing, letting me know that he’s already dozed off. “I’m sorry,” I whisper softly, before sleep pulls me off into its clutches too.
Twenty
Morning Regrets
When I wake up in the morning, I instantly realise what a bad idea sharing a bed was. Mainly because I’m currently lying right on top of him, my arms wrapped around his neck and my legs falling at either side of his waist. Not to mention, he’s definitely feeling good this morning. My head is resting against his chest, and I stay completely still and silent for a moment whilst I make sure he’s definitely still asleep. After quietly listening for probably a little longer than necessary, I’m pretty sure he’s still out cold.
One of his hands has made its way into my hair, and it’s pretty tangled in. The other is resting over my ass, holding me pressed tightly against him. Fuck. There’s no way I’m going to be able to get off of him without waking him up. I lick my lips nervously. How do I go about this? ‘Hey, Darren, wake up. It looks like our bodies tried to get it on while we were asleep.’ Probably wouldn’t go down the best, but I’m finding a severe lack of options here. Maybe I should just gently wake him up, and hope that he’ll untangle us and then we can act like this never happened?
Before I can chicken out, I quietly mumble, “Darren?”
He makes an unintelligible noise, and only seems to pull me tighter against him. My breath hitches, and then I swallow thickly, trying to ignore my body’s natural reaction to being this close to him. I’d always been way too attracted to him. Why did I have to throw myself at him in my sleep?
“Darren?” I ask again, a little louder this time.
“Kayla?” he mumbles, still sounding half asleep. His grip loosens from my hair, but he runs his hand absently up and down my back, sliding right under my top to brush against my bare skin. His other hand doesn’t budge from its hold on my rear, either. His body is giving me all the wrong signals, but I know that this can’t happen. Not anymore.
“Darren, wake up,” I say, even louder this time, I look at his face, watching as he slowly blinks open his eyes.
“What are you doing?” He asks, his hands stilling.
“Nothing,” I answer. I bite my lip, and his eyes follow the movement. Shit. “We got a little tangled in our sleep,” I explain awkwardly.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Kayla,” he says, his hands falling off from me. He leans up, letting my hands pull free easily from behind his neck too. I slide off him, feeling my face flush.
“It’s okay, I’m pretty sure it was my sleeping self that climbed on top of you rather than the other way around. My bad,” I say, not able to meet his eyes.
“Well, my sleep self wasn’t complaining,” he replies honestly, pulling himself up and out of the bed. I can’t stop myself from looking at him, the sun peeking through the edge of the curtains leaves enough light for me to see him properly. Every toned inch of him. Fuck why did I think this was a good idea?
“You okay?” he asks, his voice is low. My eyes dart up to his face, spotting the knowing look on his. He’d seen me checking him out. This morning just gets better and better.
“I’m fine, sorry. Still half asleep,” I lie. He shrugs and heads off towards the ensuite bathroom, shutting the door behind him. I hear the shower kick in a few seconds later.
Without any hesitation, I jump out of the bed, quickly wriggling into my jeans. I take a quick glance at myself in the mirror, before throwing my hair up into a messy bun using the spare hair tie I always keep around my wrist. I wipe away the few makeup smudges on my face with my thumbs, before pulling on my socks from yesterday. Where the hell are my shoes? I scan the floor for them, not spotting them anywhere. I do spot my bag though, which I grab before heading into the living room.
My shoes sit neatly by the door, and my jacket is hanging from a peg to the left of them. I quickly shove my feet in, before casting a nervous glance over my shoulder. I can still hear the shower pounding down. I let out a deep breath, before pulling my leather jacket on.
I unlock the door and let myself out quietly, hoping he’ll be too distracted by his shower to hear me leave. I don’t want to talk anymore about the awkwardness that just occurred, nor do I want to sit in an even more awkward silence with him.
Heading through the rows of cabins, I luckily don’t come across anyone. I guess it’s too early for most people to be up, and I can’t blame them. I hate mornings with a burning passion normally. As I reach the edges of the pack’s boundary, by the top of the road that leads in, I see that my luck has come to an end.
“Shouldn’t you be solving a murder or something?” I call to Detective Huxley, who is sitting on the bonnet of his car. He grins at me, but there are dark shadows under his eyes, and his dark blond hair is tussled.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Miss Harlow, but you seem determined to make it difficult for me,” he calls back, sliding off the car.
“Well, perhaps if you stalked people that might actually be guilty instead of harassing me, you’d be a little closer to solving it,” I snap, my already not great mood deteriorating.
“I’m still sure you’re the answer to solving it. My gut is never wrong,” he responds, as he crosses the road to walk beside me.
“Surely there are other suspects? A vexed lover for an example? He wasn’t exactly a stand-up guy. I’m sure if he had a girlfriend, he’d have easily pissed her off,” I suggest, wanting to see if they’d looked into the lingerie yet or not.
“That’s an avenue we’d already considered. However, from his browser history, and online dating matches….it looks like the only women he’d been on dates with in the last six months had been casual, and they were all human. No vexed witches in sight other than you, Kayla. I wonder why that is?” Detective Huxley asks me. Casual dating? Then who was the pink monstrosity for? I really hope he didn’t try and gift that on the first date.
“No idea. I’m sure there must be another around somewhere though, seeing as I didn’t kill him,” I answer.
“I still have some questions I’d like to ask you,” he says, and I pause, turning on my heel to look him in the eyes.
“You can’t bring me in to ask me them though, can you? That’s why you’re stuck just following me around like a lost puppy. Because there’s nothing else you can do, because you really have no idea what happened to him, do you?” I ask.
“I’d be very careful what you say next, because there are a great deal of things that I could do,” he answers through clenched teeth, with a cold, dark look in his eyes.
“Just leave me alone,” I mutter, turning away, unable to hold his dead stare.
“I can’t do that, Kayla. I already told you,” he calls after me as I begin walking away.
“Every minute you waste on me, is another minute the real killer is out there. If they hurt anyone else, this mistake of pursuing me so crazily while they roam free is all on you,” I call back, not even bothering to turn my head.
A few moments later, I hear his car door slam. He speeds past me, breaking goddess only knows how many traffic rules, as he drives across the pavement as he cuts the corner and continues on speeding out of sight.
Twenty-One
Double Demon Trouble
Flicking through the pages of Grandma’s grimoire, I ignore my phone as it rings for the tenth time in the last half an hour.
“Are you going to answer that infernal device or not?” Solas whines. He’s sitting on my desk next to me, looking over my shoulder at the spells in the book. I’ve been trying to find a spell to put him in another form, after he’d raged at me for hours when I’d got in about the issues he has with being stuck as a cat.
He said he would rather be anything else, but that a humanoid form would be preferable. At first I’d completely disagreed, not willing to give him a chance to be a bigger threat. However, he’d helpfully pointed out that he couldn’t hurt me right now anyway, and it would make it easier for him to look after himself when I’m not around. Considering that I’d come home to my house looking a total wreck from his cat-like destruction, I’d conceded he might have a point.
My kitchen counters and cupboards are covered in scratches from him trying to get to food. I’d left a bowl of water out for him before I went to work, but he’d tipped that over too. He said it was insulting to expect such a powerful being to lap water from a bowl like a dumb animal.
“What about that one?” he asks, holding his paw down over the page to stop me from flicking past it. I realise that I haven’t been paying any attention to the words for the last few minutes and sigh.
“There’s no English translation for this spell,” I say, pointing at the gibberish words. I could read out spell words from a book, but I’d never had the time nor desire to actually learn Latin. A few words I’d grown to recognise, but mostly I just use spells with translations that come from trusted sources. Doing a spell without a translation? That seems like a risky plan, especially risky for someone with my bad luck. “It could be a curse to bring on the apocalypse for all I know,” I add, giving the demon cat a sceptical look.
“You don’t read Latin?” he huffs, looking at me almost scoldingly.
“Yeah, and I never learned French either,” I mutter, going to turn the page. He places his paw on my hand again.
“It’s a spell to transform something back to its normal self,” he insists.
“And I’m going to believe a demon, because?” I ask him.
“Because until three seconds ago, I thought you could read it yourself,” he answers.
“And I’m supposed to believe that wasn’t just a ruse?” I raise an eyebrow at the demon.
“You could always check the translation with someone else.” He lifts his paw off my hand and sits back, as if he’s waiting for me to do exactly that.
“And if it does turn out to be a spell that kills thousands, I don’t exactly want my friends wondering why I have a spell to do that.” I can already imagine Lizzy’s scolding voice now telling me to burn the page.
“Do you recognise any words on the page?” he asks in a pained voice. I look back over, reading it slowly, a few words standing out.
“Mutare means change,” I say, pointing my finger over the word. “I only remember that one because a change is a mutation.”
“Anything else?”
“Reversio is return, right?”
“So change and return, can you not see a pattern here,” he huffs. “It says in order to change and return to your original state, have someone cast the following upon you.”
“The rest of the words could mean death and destruction for all I know.”
“There are a few words that translate into death, none of them are on that page.” He sighs. “I give you my oath that the spell is purely one for reversal into your natural form.” He says it like the words pain him, and they probably do. As witches are compelled to fulfil and be true in their oaths, so are demons. The forfeit of lying is costly.
“Fine, we’ll try it. But with my magic acting as it is, I make no guarantees that it’ll work.” He instantly perks up at my words, sitting up straighter. “It’s just an incantation right, I don’t need a focusing object?”
“I act as the focusing object, just direct your magic at me,” he instructs.
Licking my lips nervously, I read over the spell a few times, making sure I’ve got it right. A mispronunciation could make this go very wrong.
“Are you ready?” I ask nervously.
“I was ready ten minutes ago,” he huffs.
“I hope this turns you into a mouse,” I mutter, holding up my hands in his direction. “Mutata retrorsum. Ad inceptum tuum verum sui,” I say, focusing my energy to him.
He screeches in a sound that sounds both human and animal-like, stumbling off the desk and onto the floor. I step back in horror as I watch his body contort and change. He grows in size, but the black fur doesn’t fade. Instead it just smooths out, looking sleek and smooth rather than fluffy. His muscles grow, but they don’t change from a feline form. The change completes, and instead of looking at a house cat, I’m faced with a freaking panther.
“How did you manage to mess that up?” he demands, pacing across my room. “Now I’m just an oversized cat!” he snaps.
“You’re the one that told me to do the spell, so I did. Chill out. You’re not just an oversized cat anyway.” I cough awkwardly, pointing at my mirror. He stalks over to it and looks at his new form curiously. “You look like a panther,” I add, when he remains silent.
A loud clang comes from downstairs, and I look down curiously. “I’m going to check that out. Try and stay out of sight,” I mutter as I stalk out of the room. As I’m walking down the stairs, I hear more bangs and smashing coming from the living room. I pick up the pace and run down, charging into the room.
Standing with my coffee table in his hands is a man. A man with completely black, soulless eyes. There’s another demon in my house. Shit.
“Solas!” I shout, just as I dive out of the way of my coffee table, which the demon sends hurtling at me. The demon crosses the room faster than I can blink, let alone try to recover from my dive, picking me up by my neck. He holds me against the wall as his large hand chokes me, slowly cutting the life out of me. I try to wriggle free, but it’s no use. I struggle to breathe, kicking at him with my legs to try and get him to drop me.
A blast of energy knocks into both of us, sending us crashing across the room. I take in deep gasping breaths, thankful for every tiny bit of air that makes its way into my lungs. Eventually I look up, surprised to see who just saved me.
Solas is standing back in his normal form, with his black eyes, tattooed skin, and apparently he’s also completely fucking naked. I look away, a little horrified. That’s one for the bucket list, see a demon naked and live to tell the tale. The other demon has white hair, but the same black eyes and is staring intently at Solas.
“Where have you been?” he asks, his voice seeming to struggle with the words, as if English isn’t a language he’s used to speaking.
“Busy. You will leave now, and not return here. I’m in the process of completing a bargain, and you almost ruined that for me,” Solas replies to the other demon.
The other demons eyes shoot to me curiously, before he looks back at Solas.
“If you don’t bring me what I asked for, I will return in one week,” he says, before vanishing from sight with a slight pop.
“What the hell was that about?” I ask Solas, trying to keep my eyes on his face. Curiosity is a bitch though, and my eyes flicker down for a second. He grunts like he’s in pain, the sound dragging my attention
back up. He suddenly collapses onto all fours, the change taking over him, as fur spurts out of his skin, and his body shrinks back down into the feline form. He lies on the floor for a minute, panting heavily.
“If you die before our debt is squared off, my debt passes onto your closest relative, but it will never be fulfilled,” he answers.
“What do you mean? It can never be fulfilled?” I ask curiously.
“I mean, that I will forever be stuck in servitude,” he answers. “It also appears I am able to release myself from this ridiculous form only when it’s in your service,” he mutters, sounding completely pissed off by the prospect.
“So you have to keep me alive?” I question, wanting to clarify.
“Yes,” he grunts, before pulling himself up and crawling to the sofa. He just about pulls himself up, curling up into a ball. Changing forms is tiring. Changing forms three times uncontrollably in the last ten minutes? I’m guessing that it’s exhausting. “Just until I repay you, then I can come back and slaughter you without any worries of eternal servitude,” he adds, sounding extra cheerful when he speaks about killing me.
“Your friend said he’d come back….what are we going to do when he does?” I ask nervously.
“We are not going to do anything. You’ll just have to hope that I’ve repaid the debt and I’m gone by then, because as long as I’m stuck here, I can’t bring him the item he paid for, and he’s going to be very, very pissed off,” he says quietly, his voice lulling a little.