“We’re shapeshifters,” Cain said. “I’ll teach you to find the form that will be most pleasing to help you catch prey, and I’ll teach you how to hunt and feed. You’re a demon now. You’ll learn very soon how freeing it is to live without consequences. The old man at the gate did you a favor . . .
***
Anna hated the idea of witches, probably because it was a witch that had created the Luc problem in the first place. She had a hard time understanding how not one witch, but several, were going to fix anything. But seeing Tam in action the previous night had left her no alternative.
“You look like hell,” Tam said.
Four strange women were seated around the kitchen table. The harem was in the living room watching a horror movie marathon and squealing like teenagers.
“Thank you,” Anna said.
Luc, as always, was right there, pressing a glass of juice into her hand and urging her to have some breakfast. “Are you all right after last night?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. Did he know what she’d dreamed about? She felt almost embarrassed at having witnessed such ugly and weak moments, knowing he’d never want her to see him like that.
Then she realized he wasn’t talking about dreams but about Cain and his less-than-disgusting minion. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten.
“I’m fine,” she said.
Luc stood behind her, trailing a hand over her back. She leaned into his touch. How could she want him after all she knew? She didn’t have a comforting abstraction when dealing with his dark past. She had vivid, Technicolor dreams.
Anna didn’t have to guess his thoughts or emotions. She’d soaked them into the deepest parts of her soul while she’d slept. She had so much in her head now that wasn’t her, she felt she was losing herself in the deluge of Luc.
His hand continued to gently stroke up and down her back. She wanted to lash out at him. Hadn’t she asked him yesterday to let her come to him and to stop pushing her? Stop trying to seduce her?
She glared at him over her shoulder but caught the guarded look on his face as he watched the witches. He didn’t seem to know he was touching her. Was it for comfort? For himself? He felt tense, and he reached for her. She felt tense; she reached for him. She didn’t want to think what that meant.
“This is my coven. Not huge, but enough to get the job done. This is Mel, Lisa, Ursula, and Wendi,” Tam said, gesturing at each of them in turn.
The women sitting at the table looked normal enough. Maybe normal was an overstatement. They looked like hippies. Cute, clean hippies who didn’t have an unnatural love of patchouli. Ursula and Mel had short, black hair and looked like they could be sisters.
Wendi had long, strawberry-blonde hair pulled into braids on either side of her face, while Lisa’s was long, free-flowing light brown. They all wore natural fibers, and Anna was sure someone was going to light up a bong and start playing The Beatles any minute.
Anna drank the juice down greedily, her throat gone suddenly dry. The coven was making no secret of ogling Luc. She wanted to shout, Hey! That’s my demon! but thought it would be a little too daytime television. Besides, she couldn’t keep him.
A moment later, a plate was passed to her. Food. Good. Eating would keep her from wanting to claw out the coven’s eyeballs, then having to worry about why she’d felt the need to do it. The harem ogled him all the time, and it didn’t bother her. He wasn’t even ogling back. Was he? She looked up, but his eyes hadn’t strayed from her as she moved to the table with her breakfast.
Tam unfolded a large piece of coffee-stained parchment. “This is our moon phase chart. We’ve figured that tonight would be the best time to do the working.”
Anna stopped chewing. “Why can’t you just do it? The priest didn’t need a special time . . . or the gypsies.”
Wait. Did some of the witches just hiss at her? If the spell worked, she was bringing Father Jeffries back in to do some kind of cleansing. These chicks were freaking her out.
“Gypsies? You had filthy gypsies in this house, and you called on us second?” Lisa asked.
“Um . . . well . . . ” Anna said.
Wendi stood then. “We should go.”
“Wait!” Anna said. “Tam, talk to them.”
Tam sighed. “Look, Anna is my friend. Despite her lack of wonderful judgment here, she needs us to help her get Luc out of the house.”
“Thanks. I love you, too,” Anna said.
“I don’t know why she’d want to get rid of him,” Lisa said. “If he was in my house, I’d never let him go.” She made no secret of looking him slowly up and down as she licked her lips in invitation. “I mean, look at him. What a hottie.”
Anna clenched her fists. She had the urge to swing first and worry about possible curses being cast on her later. “And that’s just the kind of attitude that gets women killed.”
She looked up, suddenly remembering Luc was standing right there. He had a pained expression in his eyes.
“Sorry,” she mouthed, feeling about an inch tall. He nodded, but it didn’t make her feel less guilty for the thoughtless remark. However true it may have once been.
“And besides,” she added, “this isn’t just about what I want. He wants out of the house, too. Right?”
“I do,” he said. But the way he said it made her think he didn’t intend to leave forever once he was free.
Wendi prowled around the demon. “I just want to lick him like a big lollipop.” She ran a hand over his arm, which was a mistake.
Anna lurched out of her chair and flung the witch away. “Enough!” she said. She stood in front of Luc, her arms spread wide, as if she physically needed to protect him.
Wendi hissed. No, Anna hadn’t imagined the hissing. Then the woman hauled back and formed a purple energy ball much like Tam had the night before. These women were completely out of control, like a bunch of middle-aged housewives at a Chippendales.
Tam’s voice rang out. “Ladies, calm yourselves. We are here to reverse the barrier spell, and that is all. Luc belongs to Anna.”
“What?” Anna spluttered. “He does not belong to me.”
Tam arched a brow.
“He doesn’t! He’s not a pet. He’s a person. Um kind of . . . but that’s not the point. My God, are all witches like this?” She’d never seen women behave this way before.
“No,” Tam said dryly, “just my coven. They’re hornier than most. I blame the bonfires and late night nudity.”
Anna didn’t want to know.
“Fine,” Wendi and Lisa said, both folding their arms over their chests in a display of unified disgust.
“What about you two?” Anna asked, glancing at Mel and Ursula.
The other two merely nodded that they were on board. Anna was betting those two were mute. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic surrounded by so many women who wanted to jump on Luc like he was a carnival ride.
Her eyes drifted to his bare chest as she tried not to think about riding him herself. “You can come back tonight. I’ve got to get some fresh air, and there’s no way I’m leaving any of you alone with him."
“My heart flutters with how much you care,” Luc said. His hand was on her back again doing that wonderful light rubbing with the pads of his fingertips.
She didn’t have the energy to snark back. And if she did, he might stop touching her. Which would be bad. Finally, realizing the coven was looking at her with amused expressions, she stepped out of his reach.
“I’m going into town. I need shoes.”
Before Anna could make any headway, Luc grabbed her arm. “No. You aren’t going out.”
“Uh, yeah I am. Let go of me.”
“I said no. Cain and Jackson could be out there, and he may have brought others. I cannot risk that the bond won’t hold up.” He met her eyes, his gaze turning softer. “I can’t risk you getting hurt out there.”
If they’d been alone in the house, there was a real possibility she would have thrown caution to the wind and gone upstairs with him. But with so many eyes on her, she chose arguing, instead.
“What? So I’m under house arrest now? I don’t think so.”
Tam moved between them to diffuse the situation. “It’s all right. I had Ursula and Mel do a spell this morning to see how much demonic activity we had going on in town. We needed to make sure no other energies would interfere with our magic. They’ve left. Luc is the only incubus in town at the moment.”
His grip loosened, but he didn’t release her. “They could return. They could have simply hopped dimensions for a few hours.”
“What if she doesn’t go alone?” Tam asked.
“I don’t need bodyguards, especially these bodyguards.”
“Think of it this way,” Tam said diplomatically. “If they’re out with you, they aren’t here groping your man.”
“Okay, girls,” Anna said, “we’re going shoe shopping now. Chop. Chop.”
Anna wanted to scream. Tam had stayed behind, leaving her alone with the coven of horniness. Wendi popped her gum as they walked past the courthouse. If that bubble came out of the witch’s mouth one more time, Anna was going to smack her in the face. Of course, there would be retaliation. She kind of doubted the mark on her hand protected her from pissed-off witches. It seemed to be species-specific magic.
Since she’d known Tam, Anna hadn’t really thought there was real magic, not energy ball throwing magic. The kind you could see. This was the gee whiz golly wow stuff of Hollywood.
She shuddered. Demons and gods and magic. What else is real? Werewolves? Vampires? Fairies? She had the urge to loop arms with the witches and start skipping down the street singing, Demons and gods and magic, oh my .
“You’re awfully quiet,” Mel said.
“Says the mute girl.”
“Quiet is my normal state. It helps keep my mind even. You notice I didn’t jump your boy back there like those two.” She pointed at Wendi and Lisa who looped arms and stuck their tongues out in response.
Mel’s quiet is my normal state mantra seemed to be conditional on being in the presence of a sex demon because now that she’d started talking she wasn’t shutting up.
“So,” she said, her tone casual, “you going to mate with him?”
Mate? What was this? Animal Kingdom? Yes, I would like to mate now. Where is your cave located?
When Anna just stared at her, Mel said, “You know, the ritual. I used to think it was a myth. Guess not.” She shrugged as if the details on mating with an incubus were common knowledge anyone with a local library card and an afternoon of free time could easily acquire. “He’s already marked you as his. You really don’t have a choice. It’s going to happen.”
“I have a choice,” Anna said. She’d been refusing him just fine. She was brimming with free will.
Wendi and Lisa had skipped on ahead and were inside Sally’s looking at the candle display.
Ursula moved to her other side. “No, you don’t. There’s no way a regular human can resist an incubus, especially not when she’s been marked like you have. It’s just a matter of time, girlfriend. You’re inside his head. You feel for him even though you know you shouldn’t. Even though you know all the bad shit he’s done.”
What Anna felt was herself seizing up in a panic.
“Oh come on !” Mel said. “You act like this is some horrible torment. I mean you have eyes, right? I wouldn’t be kicking that out of bed for eternity.”
“I . . . ” Anna opened and closed her mouth a couple of times like a fish, then settled on keeping it closed. They were just trying to scare her.
“Just sleep with him and be done with it, at least,” Ursula said. “The sexual tension humming over you two is insane. Wendi and Lisa probably should have shielded better, but they wouldn’t have been so slutty if it hadn’t been for the tension. You could always undo the bond and hop dimensions later.”
Before Anna could reply, Cece approached them. At the same moment, Wendi and Lisa stepped out of the shop, their arms still looped together, each holding a brown paper bag.
“I got some candles we can use in the spell tonight,” Wendi said.
Real subtle.
“Spell?” Cece said.
“I’m going to buy shoes,” Anna blurted, sounding like a mental patient. She knew she came off like a demented crackpot but hoped Cecelia was as easy to distract as Bitsy and Mimi.
“I got some lovely sandals last week. They’re having a fifty-percent-off sale, you know,” Cece said.
No, Anna hadn’t known. She’d been too busy dealing with the newly-discovered supernatural world to be bothered with such pedestrian things as shoe sales. Something she was about to remedy.
“You never did tell me when a good time would be to come by and get a tour of that lovely house you just bought,” Cece said.
Anna searched frantically for something, anything, to get her off the house tour idea. She loved the woman, but Cece just would not let go.
The hardware store next door had a white sign painted with black letters that read, Paint. Buy one can, get one free.
“Paint!” Anna shrieked.
“Paint?” Cecelia asked, clearly baffled by all the strange subject changes.
“Paint fumes,” Anna said. She looked around self-consciously, wondering how many denizens of Golatha Falls had just witnessed her spastic outburst. “We have them,” she finished with more composure.