Demon's Touch: A Reverse Harem Tale (Mountain Magic Book 2)

by Dakota Brown

  He grinned at me. "I'm going to go supervise."

  "I'll be quick." I finally remembered it was a school day and glanced at the clock. It was early, but if we didn't leave soon, Doc and I were both going to miss class.

  The others apparently came to that same realization, because they were already eating, and Doc headed for the bedroom as soon as I was in the kitchen.

  Whatever Nikolai had set on fire, he had still managed bacon, eggs, and toast just fine. Maybe bacon grease?

  "Thanks for cooking," I said.

  Ed and Allan mumbled agreement.

  "You're welcome," he answered, smiling and looking pleased.

  We hurried through breakfast, and Nikolai elected to stay behind and sleep. Apparently, he had been up all night.

  Once we were ready, we piled into Doc's truck. I sat in back with Allan and leaned against him. Doc drove a little faster than normal, and we pulled into the parking lot with about fifteen minutes to spare before we both had to be at his class.

  I hugged Allan and Ed, wished I could hug Doc, and walked next to him as we headed to our classroom.

  Ash caught up to us at some point, looking no worse for getting nailed with Nikolai's magic yesterday.

  He glared at us. However, he walked on my other side the whole way to class as if we were friends. His situation sucked. I really hoped I didn't find myself in it soon.

  "They may have figured out Alex is an idiot," he muttered before shoving past us into the classroom and sinking down into his normal seat.

  Doc and I shared a worried glance. Doc put his hand on Ash's shoulder and squeezed gently as he walked to the front of the room. The anguish on the demon's face gutted me.

  Paying attention to Doc's stories of the American west proved nearly impossible for the first time that semester as worry ate away at me. My stomach roiled, and I regretted breakfast. If someone competent were in charge of Ash, we might be in real trouble.

  Doc and I shared a heated look before I left for my next class. Hopefully, no one besides Ash noticed. He had, for once, waited for me and was studying me as I walked toward him.

  "What?" I asked gently when I was close.

  Shrugging, he fell in next to me, and we headed for the stairs.

  I didn't try to talk to him again, and he didn't follow when I split off for my next class.

  Alex didn't make an appearance that day, for which I was grateful, and by the end of the day, I was exhausted. Allan and Ed both found me and walked me to my dorm before they headed back up to their cabin. Allan passed on a hug and a kiss from Doc as well, and I headed to my room, anxious to talk to Victoria.

  I considered taking the elevator but made myself take the stairs, even though I was tired. My feet dragged as I went down the hallway and scanned my fob on my door.

  I pushed the door open and trudged inside, dropping my bag by the door before looking up and freezing.

  Victoria stared, eyes wide, a hand clamped over her mouth, and a gun pointed to her head.

  I froze, not sure what to do. I was sure there was a spell I could use, if only I knew it. I wished Nikolai were here. My chest clenched, and fear made my hands shake. We had been prepared for magical attacks, but not this. Apparently, Nikolai hadn't been the only one with the thought that firearms might be more persuasive than magical spells.

  The man that held the gun to Victoria's head was one of the Andersons' men. I had seen him before, but I didn't know his name.

  "Just put your hands in front of you," he ordered, voice low.

  I did as instructed, keeping eye contact with Victoria, trying to apologize without speaking.

  "Now turn around, and keep your hands where I can see them."

  I slowly turned, keeping my hands out to the side, breath short, heart racing, trying not to panic, trying to think. I didn't know anything useful. The shield spell might not be enough with the gun right against Victoria's head, and that was all I could do.

  Victoria gasped, and I looked over my shoulder in time to see her crumple to the ground.

  Before I could react, the Andersons' man had the gun pressed against my back. "Don't try anything. I doubt you can stop a bullet."

  "What did you do to her?" I cried out.

  "No longer your concern." He grabbed one of my arms and twisted my hand up behind me before casting something akin to Nikolai's invisibility spell and marching us out of the dorm room.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, and I whimpered. I didn't even know if my roommate was still alive.

  As soon as we were outside, hot magic burned into my back and I crumpled, my vision going black before I could cry out.

  Chapter 20

  Sofia

  I didn't recognize the room I woke in, but the gray quarried stone walls and flat slate ceiling said dungeon to me. Or at least, non-flammable, and therefore, possibly a good place to practice spells. Bare electric blubs lit the space. Also easily replaced should something happen to destroy them.

  Trying to lift my arms produced predictable results. I was tied down, lying on something cold and hard that might have been stone, or a really hard wood. My heart raced, and I whimpered.

  Cloth rustling and the scrape of a shoe on stone caught my attention, and I turned my face toward the sound. Ash walked over to me from a wooden bench sitting along one wall.

  His brow furrowed, and his mouth turned down as he stood next to me. The table I was tied to was about hip height on him.

  "I'm sorry, Sofia." He ran a warm hand across my forehead.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, and he wiped them away. If I thought that my guys knew I had been taken, I wouldn't be as worried. This time, the Andersons had taken out Victoria. No one would know I was missing until the morning or later, since I didn't have a class with Doc today.

  "You can't do anything?"

  He shook his head. "Unfortunately, you'll understand why soon."

  My breathing came faster, and I tugged at the ropes holding me. This couldn't really be happening.

  Ash didn't say anything else, just put a hand on my shoulder while I tugged at the ropes holding me.

  Wood scraped across stone, and I looked over, half expecting to see Alex coming in a door. Instead, four people walked in. Three men and a woman. I had never seen the woman before. She had silver gray hair and avarice gleaming in her slate blue eyes. She wore a long black dress and moved with stately precision as she came to stand by my head. The woman gestured to Ash and, though he tightened his jaw, he moved to my feet.

  I wanted to scream, tried, but no sound came out.

  "No need to make any sound," she said, voice cool. She touched my shoulders, and my body relaxed, though I tried to fight my bonds again.

  I screamed in my mind instead, trying to struggle, trying to get my body to respond to me.

  Either she saw some of the panic I felt in my eyes, or she knew what I was going through, because she smirked at me. "You'll get used to it. Well, the demon will anyway. You'll be gone. After tonight, you won't have a care in the world."

  I had to do something. But what?

  The three men, one I thought I recognized from one of my fights with the Andersons, and two I wasn't sure if I'd seen before, took places around me. One stood by Ash, and the others by my sides.

  Heart racing, mind screaming in fear, I tried to fight, tried to do something. I made a desperate grab for my magic, and for a moment it fluttered in my grasp despite my panic. I formed the shield spell Nikolai had taught me, but before I could manage, the woman put her hand on my chest. Heat and pain seared through me, and I screamed in my mind, though my body didn't move.

  "Enough of that," she hissed.

  I tried again before the pain even receded, but this time, I felt nothing, no magical response, no ability to move my body, nothing. No, not nothing. Buried deep, beneath whatever the woman had done to me, I found my connection to my guys. The bond I had forged just a short time ago. I could access that.

  Still able to see and hear what was going
on around me, I saw the mages and Ash join hands. Their magic flowed, silver, amber, green, magenta, light blue, into a circle surrounding me, the colors melding. The woman chanted, though I didn't recognize the language.

  The magic penetrated me, and I couldn't stop it. It shoved at me, pushing me away, pushing me deeper, trying to shove me out of my body.

  Still struggling, though I knew I wasn't going to be able to fight them, I resisted. Pain built until it burned through me as if molten metal had replaced my body, and still I fought. They pushed me, but instead of being pushed out of my body, I sank further down into the pack bond.

  I could sense when the guys realized something was wrong. It was like I sat there with them in the cabin, screaming though they didn't hear me. All four of them bolted upright and shared a horrified look. Ed grabbed for his phone. Doc raced for his truck. The others followed.

  For a time, I lost the sense of them, trying to fight the mages. My guys were coming. Maybe they would be here in time.

  Blinding pain worse than anything I had yet experienced threatened to jolt me out of my body, and I clung desperately to the thread of connection with my guys.

  They had reached my dorm. Nikolai pounded on the door.

  Doc gripped the handle and twisted. I could hear it snap as the door opened.

  Victoria lay on the ground, and Nikolai went to her side while the guys checked the room for me.

  The mage pushed some magic into Victoria, and she groaned. She lived!

  Fire lanced through me, and I screamed. All of the guys jerked, looking at each other. I could taste the sour flavor of their panic. They didn't know what to do.

  I got the sense that Nikolai ordered Allan and Ed to take Victoria back to the cabin.

  They didn't want to go. Nikolai explained something.

  My connection with them faded as I was again shoved away. I scrabbled at the threads of energy that connected us, knowing somehow that it was the only thing keeping me from being destroyed.

  I struggled against the mages trying to force me from my body. I was slipping. Alone again. The threads tying me to my body frayed. Pain shattered through me as the threads snapped one by one, slowly releasing me from my physical form. I had hoped they would reach me in time. It looked like I was lost.

  My grip on the pack bond failed, I slid, blackness about to claim me.

  Wilderness wrapped around me. The crisp mountain breeze turned into a raging torrent and pulled me away from the brink. The pine littered forest tickled my paws as I ran, scented the air, stalked deer…

  Ed, and then moments later, Allan, wrapped their energies around me, gripping me tight, holding me close, filling me with their love and need for me.

  I clung to them.

  Their presence anchored me to myself and then let me reach for Doc and Nikolai again.

  They were still trying to get to me on time.

  The three of us watched, experiencing things as Doc and Nikolai did. Doc slammed on the brakes, almost losing control of his truck and barely remembering to put it in park and turn it off, before they jumped out. The only reason it even crossed his mind was that they would need it to get away.

  My attention shifted to Nikolai. He was desperately angry. Terrified of losing me. They all were.

  The Andersons had placed guards around their large manor house.

  Nikolai didn't even hesitate. He hit them hard. I could see the shape of the spells he cast since I was riding along and knew I'd be able to cast them if I ever escaped.

  The results were devastatingly fast. The guards never even had a chance to defend themselves, as Nikolai's spell lanced through their shields and sank into their bodies, stopping their hearts.

  "Modern shields," I heard him think in disgust.

  The resistance inside the house was more organized, and still they fell to Doc and Nikolai's fury. A few of the guards pulled guns.

  Doc raced forward, a blur to Nikolai's senses, and the men with guns fell, blood spraying as Doc used his long knife efficiently, no motions wasted. One got off a shot that Doc didn't even bother to dodge.

  We all felt the burn as the bullet ripped through him, but also the immediate relief as his body began healing the wound.

  They pushed deeper into the house, and I lost track of them as fury invaded my mind.

  I cried out again. Ed and Allan held me tight, trying to shelter me from the foreign rage burning through me.

  "How dare you!"

  The being shrieked. It couldn't direct its rage outward for some reason that wasn't immediately clear to any of us. As soon as it sensed my presence, it turned on me.

  If I had been alone, I wouldn't have survived. As it was, the three of us barely stood against the onslaught of foreign energy.

  "It's not their fault!" Nikolai joined us, supporting us.

  The presence hissed. "Whose fault is it?"

  We all sensed Nikolai's guilt, as if he were responsible, and the being turned on him. Before it could retaliate, Nikolai dragged us all into his perception. We watched as Doc sank his blade into the chest of one of the mages.

  Another cast a spell at Doc, but Nikolai blocked it. He couldn't do much beyond basic defense while he concentrated on us, but Ash was already out of the fight, and Doc had the others handled.

  The woman with the white hair was gone. I could sense from Nikolai's memories she had escaped when they had barged in.

  "Theirs."

  "There is not room for all of us in here!" The being screamed and shoved at us.

  Nikolai held fast. "This is not your body. You can't have it. We want to release you. We just have to figure out how."

  "I will release myself." The being tried to do something. The lance of pain that speared all of us forced the guys out of my mind and me into blackness.

  Chapter 21

  Doc

  Nikolai staggered just as Doc gutted the last mage. He spun, watching as Nikolai sagged against the table Sofia lay on.

  "Did we lose her?"

  "No." The mage muttered something in Russian before shaking his head. "I don't believe so," he finally replied. "But we were too late to prevent the demon from being forced to possess her. We will still lose her, if we can't unbind it. Honestly, I am not sure how she's still there at all. I know something of these things. Usually the host mind is gone by now."

  "You don't know how to reverse it do you?"

  Nikolai shook his head sadly. "I have always found it is much easier to simply ask for assistance and offer payment. I never saw the point in binding a powerful creature. I have never worked with demons, though." He pointed at the wide golden cuffs now on Sofia's wrists. They were similar to the ones binding Ash.

  "We need to get out of here."

  "Carry Sofia. We're not out of the fight yet."

  Doc cut away her bonds and picked her up. She hung limp in his arms, lifeless except for her labored breathing and erratic heartrate.

  He followed Nikolai, trying not to think about losing Sofia, as they left the basement and hurried up the stairs to the main part of the house.

  "I will create a distraction," Nikolai said, pausing at the top of the stairs. "Then maybe we can get out without more fighting. It would be safer."

  He glanced up and down the hallway and nodded. They were alone, but probably not for long. They had killed a lot of people on the way in, but the Andersons probably still had a few in reserve.

  Nikolai held his hands together and muttered in Russian for a moment, before spreading his hands wide. A wisp of energy rose into the air. A long minute later, an explosion ripped in another part of the house.

  Both of them winced as the concussion pressed against them.

  "Let's go," Nikolai ordered.

  Either they hadn't been willing to lose more of their people, or the diversion worked, because they made it outside and back to Doc' truck with no resistance.

  Doc put Sofia in the back seat, and Nikolai climbed in with her. He started the truck and headed back to the c
abin. He was careful to observe the speed limit, hoping no one would notice them. As good as the explosion was for a diversion, unless the Andersons had some sort of shield up, others would have noticed it and reported in.

  It was nearing dawn when they finally reached the cabin. He never did see any signs of emergency vehicles, so maybe the Andersons did have some shielding up.

  Doc carried Sofia inside, with Nikolai staring anxiously at her the entire time.

  "Put her on the floor."

  Allan, Ed, and Victoria were all unconscious. She was on the couch. Ed and Allan lay on the floor as if they had collapsed.

  "What happened to them?" Doc could hear them breathing, but the thought of losing them too clenched his heart.

  "Probably when the demon tried to escape. I was prepared, had shields. Ed and Allan would not have had any protection."

  Nikolai put his hand on Allan's chest and then Ed's. "They will wake shortly." He checked on Victoria. "This is only a sleeping spell. She will also be fine shortly." Then he sank down next to Sofia.

  "What do we do?"

  He sank down on the floor next to Nikolai. The mage put his arm around his shoulders and leaned against him for a moment.

  "I don't know. First step, we see if the demon will cooperate. It will make all of this much easier."

  Not expecting comfort from someone else, but grateful to have it, Doc put his arm around Nikolai's waist and leaned against the mage, trying to fight off soul crushing weariness. He had finally found someone, and he hadn't been able to do enough to protect her. He guessed by the anguished expression on Nikolai's face, the mage felt similar.

  Victoria sucked in a breath and bolted upright.

  Both Nikolai and Doc turned.

  She stared at them for a moment, wide-eyed, before she looked around the cabin. Her eyes landed on Ed and Allan where they lay stretched out on the floor, and finally they landed on Sofia.

  "Is she going to be okay?"

  Nikolai shrugged and turned his attention back to Sofia. Doc could hear his breath hitch, and knew he was holding back quite a bit at the moment.