Note: Sequel to Don’t Mind Me… I’m Very Flammable But can stand alone.
When Emma had gone to bed that night, the last thing she expected was to wake up and find herself tied to a chair — blindfolded and semi-naked.
“Lucus!”
“No need to shout, Witch,” the slow clip of his feet moved around her, circling her like a shark in the water, at night. “I can hear you.”
Emma jerked at the ropes chafing her wrists. The same itchy ropes circled her ankles and her middle, thoroughly restraining her.
“What. The. Hell. Lucus!” she snarled through tightly clenched teeth.
“You know, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—”
“I knew I smelt an unusual amount of burnt rubber lately!” she shot back.
He ignored her. “—and I think I finally understand why you do it.”
The chair groaned and creaked with her determined tugging. But those suckers weren’t coming undone for nobody, and with her hands bound, she couldn’t magic herself free. Damn him!
“You know I’m going to kill you when I’m free, don’t you?” She said it as sweetly as she could muster through gritted teeth.
The floorboard on her right squeaked under his feet. Emma was vaguely aware of him circling her chair and stopping somewhere in front of her. Her state of semi-undress had a river of lava sweeping up her chest, over her neck to flood her face. Her nails cut into the underside of the armrests.
He. Was. So. DEAD!
“Aren’t you going to ask what?” Hot peppermint whispered over her lips, electing a yelp of surprise from her when she realized just how close he’d gotten. Amusement laced his next set of words, “Don’t you want to know what I’ve been thinking?”
She bared her teeth. “I don’t think I can drop my IQ to understand the goings-on of your mind!”
Something touched the curve of her jaw and traced a hot path to her chin. Shivers threatened to roll down her spine; she steeled herself against them.
“I think,” he continued, now tracing the bottom curve of her lip, “I finally figured you out.”
Unconsciously, her lips began to part. Her lashes swept closed behind the blindfold. Then she caught herself, mentally slapping the stupid away and snapping at the object with her teeth.
He yelped, yanking his finger out before she could bite it off. “Dammit, Witch!”
Her lips curved into a slow, catty smirk, delighted by his indignation snarl. “What were you saying about having figured me out?”
She heard him mutter a curse. His feet shuffled away and panic claimed her.
“Hey! Come back here!” she jerked at the ropes. “Untie me!”
“Not until you answer a question for me.” His voice was distant, like he was shouting across a fair distance. She wondered, not for the first time, where they were when it rolled off far walls and distant ceiling.
They were indoors, that much she was sure of. It was hot, not muggy like a sauna, but stale, sour with sweat, dust and heat-cooked mouse droppings. And everything echoed as if they were the only things in the room.
“Where am I?” she demanded instead.
The shuffle of his feet drew closer, closer, and then his minty breath was caressing her face again. “Somewhere where you are completely at my mercy and,” his fingers glided down the curve of her cheek to the column of her neck, “where no one will hear you scream.”
Her breath caught audibly. Hot laces of fire skated down her spine. Something in the pit of her stomach jumped, and she cursed herself that it wasn’t fear.
“Let me go!” she hissed, furious at him, but enraged with her own weakness even more.
He smoothed a finger over her mouth, making the traitorous things part. “Your words are such a contradiction to your body.”
“I’ll bite you again, and this time, I’ll keep a trophy!”
His chuckle infuriated her. “At this point, I’m actually willing to take that risk.” But his finger was removed and she heard him take a step back.
She exhaled in relief. “You couldn’t magic my clothes as well, you pervert?”
The floorboards creaked as he moved away. “Funny how, usually, that’s my line.”
Her fingers tightened around the armrest. “So, this is payback?”
“Yes and no,” he was circling her chair again. “I brought you here as a sort of… retaliation at first, but that isn’t the only reason.” Long, warm fingers curled her bare shoulders from behind as he leaned over to whisper into her ear, “Would you like to know the other reason?”
“Let me go!” The demand wasn’t nearly as forceful as she would have liked. If anything, it rushed out in a breathy whisper that burned her cheeks with embarrassment.
“Answer my question first.” He was still murmuring in her ear, each word taking shape against the curve of her jaw with every deliberate brush of his lips.
She swallowed hard and slicked her lips. “What?”
“Why,” his fingers glided over the curve of her shoulders, electing a series of tremors down her back, “do you summon me?”
Biting back the treacherous sound threatening to spill off her tongue, Emma whispered, “What?”
“You know what.”
She started to shake her head.
“Every day, you summon me up from hell, sometimes naked, which I know is deliberate on your part, just to toy with me, and then you send me back. Why?”
She dampened her lips again. “I was bored.”
His fingers cut into her upper arms. “Liar.”
“I’m not—!” Her lie was silenced by the stroke of his lips over her cheek.
“Do you know what I think?” he didn’t wait for her to answer. The fingers on his right hand skimmed up her arm, guiding a trail of goose bumps in their wake before curling like a collar around her throat. Her head was tipped back. She wondered if he could feel the hammering of her pulse under his palm. “I think,” his lips traced the length of her nose to her mouth, “it’s because,” they hovered over hers, dusting… so close, “you love me.”
Air wedged in Emma’s throat. Every tendon in her body stiffened. She stared into the darkness pressing over her eyes, her heart in her throat. Her forehead cracked into his jaw when she jerked upright, succumbing to the terror.
“Let me go!” she gasped over his cry of pain and stream of curses. “Let me go now! Now, Lucus!”
The ropes dropped away instantly and she was instantly on her feet, sweeping the blindfold off and turning on him.
He wore a black t-shirt over black cargo pants. His sandy-brown hair fell in wisps around his flushed face. A droplet of blood oozed from the corner of his lip where she must have struck him with her head. He looked ridiculously gorgeous, which only fueled her fury.
She drew back her blindfold-wielding arm. “You have some nerve, Demon!” the silk material struck him in the chest harmlessly and fluttered to the ground. “How dare you push your… demonic urges on me and—”
“What?” he closed the space between them, stopping short of stepping on her toes. His heat swelled and pushed against her, burning her. “Tell the truth?”
“That isn’t the truth!” she hissed, stabbing him in the chest with a finger. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it—”
“I’m not the one lying and you know it,” he tipped his head back ever so slightly, peering down through thick lashes and the length of his nose at her. “You might want this. Otherwise, I might not be able to control my… demonic urges.”
He raised a hand, now fisted around a shimmering waterfall of black silk. Emma snatched the robe from him and threw it on, relieved to finally have a shred of control over the situation. She pulled the folds together over her boy-shorts and tank top, never taking her eyes off him.
“Send me back,” she said nipping her chin up a notch.
He folded his arms. “I never took you for a runner, Witch.”
“I’m not running,” she said more for her own benefit than his. “I just don’t want to be trapped with a Demon harboring insane delusions.”
His arms unfolded, falling at his sides without a sound. His face became somber. “I’m not the one with delusions, Emma.”
It was perhaps the only time he’d ever said her name. Not diddler or Witch, but her real name. She was mystified, and a little lightheaded from the sound of it on his lips.
She slicked her lips, averting her eyes from the bottomless pools of hazel watching her. “Send me home.”
She felt rather than saw him pull away from her and fought against the tightening in her chest.
He exhaled. “Fine.”
It was as if she blinked and he was gone. The warehouse melted, the steel walls turning soft beige and the cavernous space becoming cluttered with her belongings. She shuddered as the cool October chill swept in through her open window and sucked the heat from her body. Her arms folded over her queasy abdomen, the only support keeping her together.
Damn it.
Damn it!
She kicked at a fallen teddy bear. The plush animal struck a poster on her wall and tumbled somewhere behind her bed.
This was his fault. Who asked him to go meddling into things that was better left alone? Even if it were true, he should have looked the other way. A Demon and a Witch… if her parents ever found out, they would take away her magic and banish him. Summoning Demons was the work of Sorcerers and Necromancers, not Witches. Witches were supposed to keep the balance. They were the light. Falling in love with a Demon… a child of the dark…
“Hecate, forgive me!”
Breathing hard and blinded by tears, Emma scrambled to her closet and threw back the shuttered doors. She dropped to her knees and rummaged behind piles of clothes, books and other forgotten things for the shoebox she kept hidden there. Inside lay the key between her world and his. She could end it all with just a flick of a match. She could burn the bridge and never see him again. She could be rid of him. Forever. All she had to do was destroy the key.
Gingerly, she drew out the box, tossed off the lid and stared down at the velvet pouch. The thing was so small, barely big enough to fill her palm, yet it held the power to unlocking worlds. She hadn’t known that when she’d found the spell in her grandmother’s books. She’d been young and stupid and curious. Truthfully, she hadn’t even thought it would work and then Lucus had stepped through the portals and…
Maybe it was time it ended… for good. It had gone too far.
Without taking her eyes off the pouch, she reached for the Zippo she kept next to the candles on her nightstand, and with a flick of her damp, shaky fingers, brought the flame to life.
It was better this way. It had to be.