by Mila Young
I seethed, my teeth clenching.
“Now, would you like me to finish making your meal for you?” He reached around my back and grabbed the blade from my grasp.
His chest pressed up against mine, and for those few seconds, I drowned in the silence.
Just us two locked in this dance.
My heart pounding against my ribcage.
I still didn’t understand what exactly he got out of having me here with him, but I doubted he’d openly tell me. Not yet anyway. And if he was going to play a game, then I was the master of them.
“Just so we make it clear,” I said. “We may be married by your contract, but I dislike everything about you and nothing is happening between us.”
He grinned like the words alone were a challenge to him. Just great.
Balance was what I needed. To appear accepting in order to get close and gather information on how to get out of this ridiculous blood contract, and secondly, I had no clue what he would do if I angered him. Mom always told me to do my research before doing any spells. Guess, the theory applied here too.
Out of the blue, he pulled away and walked into the living room as he asked, "Do you talk to yourself often? I’ve heard you do it often."
I turned to find the knife was still on the chopping board behind me, and it took me moments to stop shaking and collect myself.
If Dr. Jerkll and Mr. Hyde wanted to play house mates, then I’d go along until I worked out how to get out of here.
I picked up the knife and finished chopping the chives and moved over to the peppers, cutting them up in smooth, practiced motions.
Rog sat at the table, seeming to wait for my response.
"A journalist like me needs to hear her own words aloud sometimes, since they can be a little difficult to hear on paper."
"A journalist like you," he whispered. "I never expected to find myself bound to a witch that abandoned her heritage."
"You mean tricked into being so-called married. And you shouldn't be that surprised." I turned my attention over to the stove, putting the pan on and lighting the flame up.
I tilted my head, cutting the slices of bacon and sausage up smoothly before adding them to the pan, sensing him watching me.
It was a little too easy to forget what he looked like on the inside with that lean, powerful exterior. Those stunning eyes. Strong jawline dusted with growth. Tall, dark and dangerous, and he left me more than tempted. Despite thousands of years of study, there was still very little known about demons, and even less about blood demons. Which explained why Aunt Moira was so interested in studying him, although if I had to guess, he was probably just as interested in studying me with the way he eyed me.
"You're weird in a whole bunch of ways, Rog." I put a little more emphasis than was needed in his name as I added the peppers to the pan, letting them soak up the oil that was collecting on it.
"What's the first that comes to mind?"
"The fact that you need to trick a woman into signing a contract to make her marry you is the perfect front runner." Once the peppers and meats were sufficiently cooked, I added the eggs, slowly letting them fill up the bottom of the pan, impatiently waiting for his response. I applauded myself internally at how controlled I was in this situation.
"Not as odd as you might think. There was a time where marriage contracts were the norm, and the woman very rarely had any say at all."
"Only for the upper classes," I reminded him, slowly churning the eggs. "But then you would know that. You were there for it." There was something strange about talking about this so casually. Back in New York, I blew our lightbulbs in my place at least every few days from anxiety, and here, barely a flicker of lights during all these events.
He nodded. "And I entered into a similar contract with your aunt. In fact, part of the deal was that I would cook her dinner every day, and pair it with a wine grown from this very land. How would you feel about that?"
I frowned, blinking at him. "Are you trying to sweet talk the fact that you tricked me? Makes me wonder what else of yourself you'll put into it," I wondered, finishing with the omelet as it started to fall apart, just like it always did, and I poured the messy yet delicious remains into a plate, adding salt, pepper and the chives.
Not something to present at a five-star diner, but good enough for me.
"No more tricks, I give you my word. What else could I trick you with anyways?"
"That's the question." I picked up my plate of eggs and a fork. "I'm going to explore the house. Feel free to make me some dinner if you like. And pair it with some wine. O-Negative, if you've got it. I could use me a universal donor."
"I'm not a vampire."
"Yeah, blood demon. Big fucking difference," I called back, heading up the stairs.
There were three bedrooms up there, and from the looks of it, they all had their own bathrooms. Odd for this sort of farmhouse. I remembered growing up in a couple. One didn't even have a bathroom inside, we had to head to the outhouse every time we needed to go.
I scooped food into my mouth, finishing it in record time and I left the plate and fork on a side table in the hallway as I continued exploring.
The room closest to mine was covered in dust and clearly hadn't been used in decades. Even opening the door kicked up a cloud of it. The shutters were closed, but what light came through them revealed a bed from the fifties that was crumbling to pieces, wallpaper torn and hanging, and various pieces of furniture that were difficult to make out with how thick the dust and cobwebs were.
"Need to get me a contractor on this one," I whispered, closing the door quickly, shaking off the chills that the room gave me and heading into the other one.
At a glance, it was clearly Aunt Moira's room. The woman had been a neat freak for as long as I had known her, and there was no mistaking that painstaking attention to detail in this place.
Maybe Rog had been cleaning up after she was gone. There was not a single speck of dust in the room, despite the fact that Moira was something of a pack rat. There were dozens of talismans spread out through the room, and I could feel the protective auras that they were casting.
Like there was something physically prickling my skin, but not quite stopping me from stepping through them.
The window was open, giving me some natural light to work with as I studied the room. The wallpaper was a little faded, with small stars instead of flowers, like they were for mine. Those looked like they had been hand-drawn.
"You always did like to doodle," I whispered, running my fingers over the indentation of a pencil on the wallpaper.
The rest of the room was covered in writings in dead languages. A few of the papers were pinned up, cut from their original books. I could think of at least fifteen students of the occult that would have a heart attack over what my aunt had done to books that were centuries old.
"Not one for preserving old shit, were you, Auntie?" I whispered, moving over to a handful of coins that were laid out in a rainbow pattern.
There were jewels as well, taken from gold and silver jewelry and left in organized piles.
She was studying something, and I could feel the prickling of magic from all over the room, making it impossible to really pinpoint the origin.
"What the fuck were you doing here?" I asked to nobody in particular. The whole feeling of the room was making me sick. I needed some fresh air.
And an early tasting of whatever wine Rog had stored in the cellar.
Chapter 6
Finding a bottle to drink in the winery building on the grounds wasn't really the problem. I had no idea what Moira had been up to while she was in this place, but it had been a productive vineyard at one point. I’d spent most of the day searching the house and finding nothing out of the ordinary, just lots of empty rooms, except that one room upstairs that had potential. I needed to search again later. There had to be something here to help me with the demon contract.
Around me, the cellar was dusty and seemed untouched. A l
arge bar stood behind me with a wall of shelves filled with wine bottles. In front of me lay a round wooden table and four chairs near the windows letting in sunlight. Deeper to my left were rows of wooden wine barrels. By the looks of them scattered about, I would say they held no wine.
"This place looks like shit," I said aloud, hearing footsteps coming from behind me. "That's not me being a terrible person, not seeing the possibilities and all. I have an eye for this sort of thing, and I know that sunsets are supposed to make things look better. All it does here is... emphasize how much dust there is."
"I'd give you a speech about how you're supposed to be paying attention to what this place should be instead of what it is," Rog answered. "But I have a feeling that you're in no mood."
"Look out, it's learning." I turned back to look at him, seeing that he had two plates in his hands, both with appropriate silverware. "That... does smell good."
"Americans are keen on baked potatoes, I've been told." He placed one of the plates on the table next to me, and the other next to the other chair on the house's veranda. "This one has cream cheese, prosciutto and green onions. Lamb chops broiled with vegetables accompany them. It... well, it was Moira's favorite.”
I wanted to give him some more shit about being a terrible creature overall, but that did sound pretty amazing. And I was more than a little hungry. My broken omelet had been tasty enough when I ate it hours ago, but not quite as filling as I'd hoped.
And it smelled pretty damn amazing too. He left the plates on the table between us and headed back into the house, returning with another glass and another bottle.
"Are you trying to get me drunk?" I asked as he pulled the empty bottle from my hands and poured from the second.
"A robust red wine pairs well with lamb and potatoes," he answered, taking his seat.
"Why the hell does a demon care about cooking or making me happy anyways?"
He shrugged, taking a bite from the lamb chops. "Very little else to do in this part of the world until the internet rolled out its warm and generous embrace. Moira was actually quite instrumental in helping me discern it for the most part."
"What about the people that came before?" I asked, taking a tentative bite from the potato first, not wanting to show any sign of just how mouthwatering it was. "This place was here before the First World War, but Moira only came around after the turn of the millennium."
"Their family built this house and this vineyard in... 1862, if I remember. They knew how to make their wine but were lacking in resources. I helped them there, driving them to create some of the finest wine seen in this part of the world in years. Kept quiet, of course, selling only a few hundred bottles a year to select, high-paying customers. They paid me back in various ways, none of which concern you."
"That sounds like one hell of a bargain," I mumbled from around a bite of the lamb and a piece of broth-infused carrot. "What made you break up the band?"
"I did not... break up the band, as you say," he whispered. "The Soviet Union rolled in, making life difficult for them and me. Eventually, they were drawn away, one after the other, meeting their ends and bringing an end to the line, even after the Union rolled away, leaving this place to be taken up for auction by the locals. Your aunt... must have heard of this place from what was written about it from those that knew the previous owners, that knew the sort of deal that was made, and was more interested in me than the vineyard."
"Which explains the state of this place. I mean, I assume that a lot of work goes into running a vineyard." I gestured around myself with the fork in my hand. "It would probably be more work than just one woman and one demon would be able to pick up on. If you want it to get back to work, you'll need to find more people to work on it."
"You aren't wrong," he answered, eyeing the place as well. "Although you may not understand precisely just how much a demon can do while working at this place."
"Well, yeah." I took a sip from the wine, enjoying the taste of it as it cut into the richness of the rest of the meal. "Wait, how much work can a demon do? Like, I assume that you can move faster than the average person if you want to, lift more, but even then, I don't think that you would be able to do all of the work on your own. And with Moira just... not pulling her weight."
"She had other issues occupying her time, true," he agreed, finishing what was on his plate and leaning back in his seat, watching the sun set over the mountains through the large windows. "And workers are hard to find in this little part of the world, the few deciding to come here have become regulars."
"Most people want to make a living in the big cities, right?"
Rog eyed me carefully, like he was waiting for something. When he realized that it wasn't coming, he simply shook his head. "There are other reasons why this place has... stagnated. But I do believe that there is something here to fight for. A beauty regarding, well…"
"Yeah, yeah, the potential and all that crap." I paused to refill my glass before awkwardly moving my seat closer to him. The wine tasted delicious and it went down very easily. "Tell me about this place in its heyday. What about it inspires such... devotion from you?"
He nodded, leaning back in his seat and eyeing the sad state of the land outside. "Consider a time when there were dozens working out among the vines, caring for them, watering them, collecting the fruit and taking it out to the winery to be fermented. Decades of care and consideration for how everything is done to make the very stuff that you're tasting now. Nothing is made on a conveyor belt, and there are people there pouring blood, sweat and tears into every step of the process."
"In this case, literal blood," I noted. I still wanted to snark the hell out of him, but there was something about the way that he was lost in the moment that made me want to see this place as it had been. Though part of me wondered if him deciding to stay here and care for such a place came down to something else. Something I didn’t quite understand yet. Why else would a demon care for a vinery, right? What was I missing?
"Only rarely," he admitted with a small smile. "And at the end of the day, you sit down to enjoy a bottle of wine—the likes of which only the richest in the region can afford—and know that you earned it. It's a special feeling, one that I am sure that you are quite familiar with."
I tilted my head. "I mean... I never sat down with a bottle of wine, but I do know the feeling of making myself a pitcher of margaritas at the end of a long day and feeling like I earned every single drop. A hangover usually follows the next day, but still."
He laughed. "I hear that would be the case with a bottle of wine as well."
"Sure, for the lightweights." I leaned in closer, putting my elbows on the table and supporting my head with my hands. "So what you're saying is that what you love about this place is just the amount of work that you put into it?" He had to be lying to me.
He nodded. "Something like that, although in my case, it would be over a hundred and fifty years of work, which makes me... understandably nostalgic for the way things used to be."
It was a good point, although I wasn't really in a place to reply or truly understand why he was so devoted to this place. Was it a ruse where he lured tourists before devouring their souls and it made for a good place to conceal bodies for sure.
Close as I was to him, the scent that seemed to exude from him—a sweet, heated sort of mix—was starting to get distracting. I could probably move away, out of its range, but I didn't want to. For some reason, there was a part of it that was drawing me in, making my mouth water and my head spin.
I hadn't drunk that much, at least not compared to my usual attacks on my own liver. Maybe enough to lower my inhibitions a bit, but not so that my actions were beyond my own control.
This was just a bad decision waiting to happen.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked.
A second was all I needed to realize that I was in fact staring at the demon. Maybe it was his mouth. Maybe it was that in the shadows of the barn-like building, the physi
cal appearance that he put on was fading just enough for me to see what was hidden inside.
I reached out, running my hand over his forearm, pressing just enough to feel the power hidden underneath, feeling it sparking up through my fingers, making my head even lighter. It was hard to say what was causing the reaction, and it definitely warranted further study.
"Do you like what you feel?" Rog narrowed his eyes but didn't move away as I stood up and moved closer to him, letting my fingers trace higher up his arm, inside his sleeve, feeling the heat radiating from his skin. The sensation was unlike anything else. He radiated so much power that skittered over my skin. I was captivated.
"Probably making a huge mistake," I whispered, leaning in closer and taking in the scent with a slow, deep breath. It was hard not to close my eyes and bask in the feeling that was all Rog. Maybe it was the wine going straight to my head.
I almost didn't realize that our lips were touching until I felt that same odd surge of sensation rushing across my skin, impossible to ignore. His lips were fire, and I leaned into him, losing myself so easily. At the back of my mind, I kept telling myself to pull back, that I promised not to fall, but I couldn’t remember why I thought that in those moments.
"Feels rather good for a mistake," he answered as I finally broke away from the kiss, still running my fingers over the light bristle on his chin.
"If you say that this is your first time, I'm going to laugh," I breathed, leaning in closer and letting my cheek press lightly against his. The faint buzzing intensified the more skin to skin contact we had. Wow. I’d never felt anything like this before, and it drove my pulse to want more. It left my body humming on a different level of adrenaline… almost bordering on pleasure… almost like I was getting drunk on his touch alone. "Which would be nice, but a huge mood killer."
"Not my first time," he answered, and I could feel his hands reaching out to touch me. The feeling of his fingers over my clothes was muted, not the same sensation. "Certainly not my first time with a human."
