Familiar Beginnings
Demon Magic, Book Two
Alice Winters
Copyright © 2020 by Alice Winters
All rights reserved.
Edited by Courtney Bassett
Proofread by Lori Parks
Cover by Cate Ashwood Designs
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Author’s note
Acknowledgments
Also by Alice Winters
Chapter One
“I think that maybe we might have screwed something up,” I say.
“Maybe? Might have?” Havoc asks as he dangles upside down from the shackles around his ankles. Why they figured putting him upside down was ideal, I’m not sure. They at least hung me from the ceiling by my wrists.
“It was a possibility and you know we have to follow all leads,” I say.
Havoc swings back and forth, arms crossed over his chest, eyes directed on me, until the chain starts rotating and his back is turned to me. He wiggles around until he’s facing me so he can resume glaring. “Remember what I said?”
“Nope.”
“All vampires are dicks.”
“Yes, and I didn’t believe you because you hate Nicco, who is a perfectly fine vampire, so I assumed you were being prejudiced, like normal.”
My arms are starting to hurt from being shackled above my body with my feet left dangling. The shackles have runes embedded in them that keep me from using my magic or I’d have poofed our asses out of here in a burst of smoke, fire, and rubble. Instead, I’m left swinging as I think because Havoc is basically useless since the runes are also keeping Havoc from shifting into his raven form.
We’d thought the vampires had been in contact with Geoff, but it was just a stupid rumor, created by them to try to make themselves look scarier.
“Now hear me out, what if you crawl up my body—” I start.
“And choke you a little for not listening to me?” Havoc asks as he shows me his shiny white fangs. Since he’s a demon, being a little grumpy, easily annoyed, and possessive are some of his character traits. He also loves power, which is how we became bonded. He’s a very handsome man that I’ve known for the past few hundred years. Just recently he finally told me he loved me, which should have been our happy ending. But of course, fate never goes that way. Especially when an ancient dark mage currently wants to eat my heart.
Now, I’m flattered that of all the people in the world, the great dark mage Geoff—risen from the dead—wants to devour my heart, but I kind of like it right where it is. Especially now that I have Havoc by my side.
Literally.
He’s turned around now, his ass in line with my eyes. His two white horns that curl slightly like a ram’s contrast sharply with the rich black of his hair that’s currently sticking out because gravity is pulling it down.
“The upside to this is that I have a very nice view,” I assure him.
He whips his head around to look at me and gives me a grin. “Ooh, you like my ass, dontcha?”
“I mean, it’s you or the dead guy,” I say as I point at the skeleton hanging from the third set of chains.
“His ass is as flat as yours.”
My grin turns immediately to a scowl. “Why do I like you?”
He’s cackling now as he turns to face me again, his blue catlike eyes watching me closely. “Now, what’s this about me climbing you like a tree?” he asks.
“What if you climb up my body and you hold me up so my skin isn’t touching the shackles. Get me? If I try pulling myself up to do it, my hand will be on the chain, so it won’t work.”
“Huh… that could be a semi-smart idea. I’m surprised you thought of it.”
“Surprised? Really?”
“Shocked, honestly,” he says as he swings over, but he misses on the first go. I start swinging too, but now we’re swinging in opposite directions, getting farther apart by the minute. I stop my swings and judge it better before he has a smart-ass comment about that. He wraps his hands around my thighs and that’s when one of his horns slams between my legs.
“Watch my balls!” I cry as I spread my legs, but that just smooshes his face right into my groin.
“I’m watching them real damn close. Why’d you spread your legs, you naughty, naughty boy? I highly doubt right now is the time for that. But I’m so damn good, I bet I could get you to come in an instant.”
“You’re not that good,” I say as I look down into his eyes.
“Tell me I’m that good or I’ll be so brokenhearted that I’ll let go. My hands are slipping! My heart is compressing! I’m fading away!”
I sigh at the drama I have to deal with. “You are so mightily good that my cock becomes erect every time your name graces anyone’s lips,” I say dryly.
“Sometimes I wonder if you were put on this earth to torment me,” he says. “And I’ve been such a good person that I can’t understand why.”
I cock my head, really feeling like this conversation is more important than getting free. “You… You… what? Do you not remember all the times you’ve been mean to me? What about the time you put gryphon piss on the bottom of my shoes and all those horny gryphons tried mating with my feet?”
He’s laughing so hard now that he nearly loses his grip on me. “Barely any of that happened.”
I stare at him.
“Like a fraction. The thing had his ding dong out, but he didn’t try mating you.”
I continue staring at him.
“He might have grazed you with it.”
“Why do I love you?”
“Good question,” he says as he unbuttons my pants and yanks my pants and underwear straight down my thighs before continuing his climb up my body.
“What are you doing?” I cry as cold air touches my ass and balls, but there’s not a lick I can do with my hands strapped above my head.
Havoc is dying, he’s laughing so hard. “I just wanted to see your penis. Sue me. I would think you’d be flattered that your lover wants to see it and isn’t disgusted by it.”
“Yeah, maybe if we were in bed but not in an evil vampire den!” I wiggle a little, but it makes my pants slide down farther, so I quickly still myself. Havoc wraps his arms around my shoulders so we’re eye to eye.
“Hey, babe. Looking pretty sexy, but isn’t your penis getting a little cold?” he says.
“I’m finding a new demon.”
“None will ever be as amazing as me.”
“That’s where I fear you’re wrong,” I grumble, but then he gives me a little sweet kiss that makes me smile and my brain turn to mush. That’s also when the door opens and the vampires look at us in confusion.
“What the fuck is going on here?” the oldest growls.
While most vampires are kind and use synthetic or animal blood, there are a small handful who are complete dicks and get off on feeding from and murdering innocent humans—not that either Havoc or I are innocent, but we don’t go around killing humans for a bit of fun.
And these fuckers need to understand who they’re dealing with.
“I was trying to choke myself on his cock so I didn
’t have to see your ugly face again,” Havoc says. He hooks my chain in the crook of his arm so he can keep from falling down as he reaches my hands and pulls me up with his superior strength. The moment he raises me, I push my arms together so he can hold the hard metal shackles away from my skin. He doesn’t completely get it away from both arms, but my power is strong enough that what he does give me allows me to instantly break the bind.
The runes crack, the shackles fall from my wrists, and Havoc lets me drop to the ground. The moment I touch, I step forward to throw magic at these assholes. But I’ve promptly forgotten about my pants being around my ankles. I fall forward, smashing down face-first into the ground.
The vampires cackle and laugh before rushing toward me. I call the name of fire and it rushes out with just a thought, grabbing onto the evil vampires and turning them all to ash.
The room is deadly silent as I roll onto my back and pull my pants up before looking over at Havoc hanging upside down. He starts to whistle like he has no idea why I’m on the ground.
“Havoc?”
“My love! You have defeated the evil ones!”
“Havoc?”
“You’re so amazing!”
“Havoc?”
“You’re gorgeous too! Beautiful brown hair that looks like it came from the angels!”
“You’re not going to make me forget that you nearly got me killed by depantsing me.”
He whistles a merry little tune until I wave my hand and the shackles on his legs break. Of course, I was hoping he’d at least hit the ground, but instead, he flips onto his feet with amazing reflexes. Amazingly annoying reflexes.
He dusts himself off and walks over to me, arms wide open like I’m going to jump into them.
“Back your ass off.”
“I was going to carry you over the vampire dust!” he says as he points at the ashes.
“Oh… then I suppose,” I say, and he picks me up and carries me to the other side of the door. “Well, this was a massive dead end.”
“I don’t know. I had fun.” He sounds like he’s telling the truth, too.
“Your definition of fun is vastly different than mine,” I say as he goes to set me down. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Setting you… on the ground?”
“It’s raining outside, and my feet don’t want to get wet.”
“Yes, your majesty,” he says as he walks through the evil vampires’ lair to the front door and looks out at the downpour. Then he flips me over his shoulder and ducks his head under my body like I’m some human umbrella as he runs to the car.
“You are going on my shit list!” I yell as I’m flopped all around as he comes skidding to a halt at the car.
“You only said you didn’t want your feet wet!” He yanks the door open and tosses me inside before running around to the other side and getting in. “Whoo! Man, I almost got wet,” he says as he looks over at me.
Lanni leans forward from the back seat and smiles at us. “Good thing you used Miles as an umbrella,” she says.
Havoc and I just about crawl out of our skin. I nearly explode the car with my magic right then and there. Havoc leaps so high his horns ram into the fabric on the ceiling of the car, ripping it.
“What the hell?” I ask.
Lanni looks to her right, her left, and then behind her in clear confusion. “Am I… missing something? Ooh! Is it another invisible beastie?”
“No, we were in shock about you.”
She seems genuinely surprised about this revelation. “Oh! Yeah, I’ve been here quite a while. I hopped in when I saw those vampires drag you guys inside!”
“And… did you call for help or come to help us?” I ask in disbelief.
“Nope! I mean… really, why would I think you two couldn’t handle some dark vampires? But then it started taking a while, and I was getting bored and hungry, so I called Uber Eats and had them bring me a sandwich from that cute little place down the road. It was delicious!”
“And you never thought to help us?” I ask.
“I got you guys sandwiches too!” She pops them in front of us, and I instantly forgive the idiot. Lanni is an interesting being. She can take over the bodies of the recently deceased and live in them like they’re her own body. She doesn’t bring the body back to life, seeing as the person who once used it has since moved on, but while she’s in the body, it’ll continue to age and be affected by ailments. And when the body becomes too old, she moves on to another.
Right now, she’s in the body of a woman with frizzy blonde hair and a huge smile. Freckles are dotted over her button nose. But just because I refer to her as “she” doesn’t mean she’s actually a female. To my understanding, she’s genderless and takes on the pronoun of the body she inhabits, though she isn’t picky about which gender of body she takes. She says it makes her feel closer to them and the body is more accustomed to their own gender, instead of a new one.
“I’ll forgive you this once,” I say as I take the sandwich. When I open it up and see that it’s my favorite sandwich from a place down the road, I immediately forgive her even more. It’s still warm and tastes delicious enough I can even forget that she watched them drag us inside and did nothing.
“Did you find anything?” Lanni asks.
“Miles flashed them his penis and then they burst into ash.”
“Ah… makes sense,” she says with a nod.
I glare at Havoc. “It doesn’t make sense.”
He grins at me from behind his chicken cordon bleu.
“So what now?” Havoc asks.
“I don’t know, I’m running out of leads. I’m not sure we’ll ever find the mage who helped bring Geoff back to life. I just really thought that if we found them, we could torture Geoff’s location out of them,” I say. “But this was just another dead end.”
Havoc nods approvingly. “You know I always enjoy a good torturing. But we’ve already looked into every legal mage within hundreds of miles and none are strong enough, so that leaves the illegal ones, and who knows where all of them are.”
“What if it’s not a mage?” Lanni asks.
“What else would be strong enough?” I ask as I start the car.
She thinks about it for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know… maybe you’re right. I mean… the spell calls for a mage, right?”
“Yes. They would have been using the book of Teller, who was a dark mage. So we’re probably looking for someone who is very familiar with black magic,” I say, but the only dark mage I’ve ever come across was Geoff. He taught me some black magic, but I was able to save myself before I let it consume me or let myself be drawn in by its power. I can use some black magic, but only spells that I know I won’t be pulled into. Black magic is a powerful thing, but if you’re not mentally strong enough, it’ll pull you into its power, which is how many dark mages lose their lives.
Havoc stills my hand, and for a moment, I wonder if something’s wrong. Then he directs my sandwich to his mouth and takes a bite. “That’s pretty good. Try mine.”
“I think we have bigger things to worry about,” I say before taking a bite. “Ooh, that’s good too.”
Havoc leans back in his seat. “Let’s head home. I’ll talk to some demons and see if they’ve heard anything about a dark mage.”
“Lanni, are you riding with us?” I ask.
She seems to have been waiting for this because she claps her hands together. “Yes! I’ll ride back with you. I didn’t bring a car here.”
“How’d you get here?”
I hear her seat belt snap into place. “This man drove me! He was very nice and told me I looked like his dead wife.”
“You got into a strange vehicle with a creepy stranger who told you that you looked like his dead wife?” I ask in concern. How has she not died yet?
“I did! Don’t worry. I can’t die… I think.”
“Why do you attract such strange people?” Havoc asks as I begin to drive.
&nb
sp; “I… I don’t know,” I admit.
Chapter Two
I wake up when I hear a loud bang and leap out of bed. Havoc is already at the door, sword drawn, ass naked. He lunges through it and off he goes.
Kind of thinking he can handle it, I contemplate getting back into bed. I mean, really, the barriers around the building I live in are still intact, which means that no one has entered the second floor that doesn’t have permission.
But I grudgingly get up and pull sweats on before wandering off to see what made the noise. I find Havoc standing in the doorway of the living room, face showing apparent shock.
“What happened?” I ask, realizing that something horrible must have occurred for him to look like that. I rush forward and slip past him, hand raised, just in time to see Badrick, the massive forest spirit who is currently living in the spare bedroom, turn around.
“There are humans locked inside this box! I cannot get them out!” he says as he stomps a paw down right on my brand-new flat screen TV.
“Stop!” I shout, and he turns his wolflike head toward me.
“But the humans must be helped. They were screaming!”
We happened to save the forest spirit when someone was trying to use him to get his power. He’s a large, horse-sized beast in the shape of a white wolf. He has red scales that run down his neck to his stomach, and he’s currently trying to “dig” humans out of my TV.
“Dammit, Badrick! It’s a TV!”
“Oh!” he exclaims, finally getting it. “I will save you humans from the TV!” He pounces on the screen, breaking what was left of it.
I rub at my head, not even sure why I tried. “Get off the TV.” This is why I can’t have nice things. “They are not in the TV. They are prerecorded in some studio from who knows where and projected onto it for entertainment purposes.”
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