by M. J. Scott
"You set it on fire?" Her tone was sharp as a blade.
"No power, remember?" I forced myself to meet her gaze, trying not to let the weight of her eyes make me burrow under the hospital blanket.
"Try again."
"I couldn't have. That would be impossible."
"No, just very stupid. What were you thinking? You have no training."
"I never needed any training." I twisted my hands in the blanket. "I don't have any power."
Cassandra nodded at my arm. "I think you just disproved that theory."
"But how? My mother told me I didn't." My voice sounded whiny, like a teenager protesting detention. "She tested me on my thirteenth birthday. She made me stay up until midnight on the night before my birthday so she could do it as soon as possible. It was a big deal because I'd only been home from the hospital a few days."
"I think we've established your mother wasn't exactly a beacon of truth," Cassandra said. She pursed her lips and stared at me for a moment. "Wait. Did you say hospital?"
I nodded. "Uh-huh, just before my birthday. I remember being worried that I might miss cake at school. I was sick for almost a week. They never worked out what exactly, just a really high fever and vomiting. I was mad when I got home and Sara made me stay up late."
Cassandra's eyes turned thunderous. "I see. I think your mother is lucky she is no longer with us, Maggie."
"What do you mean?"
"That I'm almost certain that she's the one who bound you to the demon. Just before your power showed itself."
The words hung in the air like tiny bombs. Then they zeroed in on me and exploded in my chest. I gasped and doubled over. I'd been trying to deny it but couldn't really, having recognized the truth somehow back in the alley when I'd wondered if she'd lied to me.
Still, the first words that came were "You're wrong."
"I don't think so. I'm sorry, Maggie."
"My mother wouldn't do that." My voice caught, the voice of an eight-year-old who'd just found out that Santa wasn't real. It hurt. The truth often did. And this felt true. Utterly and completely true. And if my mother could do that—could sell me to a demon—then she must never have loved me at all. Not even a little bit.
Which meant she wasn't going to get the satisfaction of making me cry about it now. I stared at the weave of the hospital blankets and let the anger burn away the hurt.
Cassandra sighed. "It makes sense. The illness just before you turned thirteen? It's too convenient."
"What does me being sick have to do with anything?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say it was most likely a reaction to whatever she gave you so you wouldn't remember the ceremony."
"But why?"
"Sara always was frustrated."
My head snapped up. "Nobody sells their child to a demon out of frustration."
"It would be nice if that were true. But for some people, the power is like a drug. They want more. Whatever the cost."
"Sara wasn't like that," I protested, wondering even as I spoke why I was still defending her when she'd completely failed to defend me.
"What I remember was that she was ambitious. She wanted things and didn't care too much about how she got them. There'd been rumblings about her over the years," Cassandra said. "Then she suddenly went off the radar. I guess that's when she got pregnant with you."
"Why bother even keeping me? She could've taken care of it." The bitterness must've shown on my face.
Cassandra pulled a chair over to the bed, taking my good hand as she sat. "This is hard for you."
The gentle warmth of her fingers felt too much like the things I'd never had. "You think? God."
"Once she was gone, she was gone. I never heard about her. We would've kept a much closer eye on her if we’d known she had a child but no one ever told us about you. Including her."
"Did she have to?"
"There's no official register of those with power," Cassandra said. "But most people let us know when they have children, so we know who to watch for if something ever happens."
"I guess if you're planning to make sure your child never show any power, then you wouldn't bother." I bit the inside of my cheek as tears threatened again.
"Even for Sara that sounds kind of far-fetched."
"Does it? You said it yourself. She went off the map when she had me. Left everything and hid out in small towns. Sounds like someone with a plan to me."
"Maybe. But I guess we won't ever know." She tilted her head as she studied me. "What we need to understand now is exactly what she did to you."
"Why? The binding is broken."
"That doesn't seem to be sitting too well with the demon concerned. Imps don't just randomly appear and attack people—"
"Is that what that thing was, an imp?"
"That would be my best guess. Imps have to be called or sent through. Unless you've pissed off any other witches lately, I'm betting on the latter. Which means a demon sent it. Your demon."
"I'm no good to him—it?—dead, surely?" My voice shook a little.
Cassandra patted my leg. "I don't think it would've killed you. It was probably carrying a spell of some sort."
I shuddered. "To do what?"
"My guess would be something to lower your will or get you to consent to the binding again."
Not going to happen. "Would that even work?"
"Consent under magical duress? Maybe. Maybe not. But lowering your will might."
"How?"
"A binding takes consent—at least when a witch casts one it does—but possession doesn't. The demon can overwhelm you psychically if you're not mentally strong. Maybe that's how they got around your consent in the first place. Maybe Sara gave you something to make you sick and that lowered your psychic barriers somehow." She looked a little rueful. "It's actually quite clever when you think about it."
"I don't want to think about it." I swallowed as nausea twisted my stomach. A demon was after me. Had sent that thing to attack me. And I was a witch. Right now I didn't know which was more horrifying.
"You're going to have to. And it seems it wants you back. Probably more now that you've used your power."
"Why?"
"Witches are an even more attractive energy source. For one thing, the demon can feed on the magic, not their life force. So a bound witch is a source that doesn't die." She perched on the end of the bed. "It explains why you've survived the binding. Especially if Sara limited it somehow."
"What do you mean?"
"Made sure the demon could only feed on your magic. I'm guessing that's why you've never been able to do anything before now."
"Why would she do that?" I doubted Sara had had any thought for my well-being. There had to be something in it for her if she'd limited my bond.
"Maybe she thought she could guarantee herself access to a demon's assistance for a lifetime."
"Until she died."
"Yes. And the demon was stuck with a binding that meant it could never use your full potential. A tame witch doing its bidding would be a prize. Witches can bind others to the demon. Give it enough energy to feed from and it might even break through. Trust me, we don't want that to happen again."
"Again?"
She shook her head. "A story for another time."
"A demon came through and it was defeated?"
"At a high cost." Sorrow swam in her eyes, and the pain seemed so real that I almost started to cry all over again.
Cassandra blinked and the emotion in her expression changed to resolve. "The important thing is to stop that from happening this time by keeping you safe."
Keeping me from becoming bound again, she meant. I clamped my teeth together until I was sure I wasn't going to retch. "How exactly are you going to do that?"
She looked at me like the answer was obvious. "By teaching you to use your power."
"No." I shook my head violently, chest tightening. "I don't want anything to do with magic.”
"You have to learn to control
it or you're going to end up hurting someone. Or yourself." She looked at my arm. "That could’ve been a lot worse than a mere burn. You could've set yourself on fire."
The pain in my chest came back. Fear spread like icicles through my veins, and I pulled the blanket closer to me, desperate for warmth. "Isn't there another way? Can't you do something to take my powers away?" The demon wouldn't want me if I wasn't a witch, surely?
"Not without sending you insane or catatonic. You have power, and you're going to have to learn to live with it. You need to learn to control it before you can decide how exactly you're going to do that."
"But I don't want to." My inner teenager surfaced again.
She let go of my hand and straightened. "We all have to do things we don't want to."
"How long will it take?"
"Depends on how hard you work and how much talent you have."
"You can't even give me a ballpark figure? If the demon—" I stumbled over the word, fighting a terror-fueled adrenaline rush that had me tasting bile. "If it's going to try again to get me back, don't we have kind of a deadline?"
"We have some time," Cassandra said. "Sending an imp through will have cost it in energy, particularly so soon after losing you. Assuming it doesn't have enough others bound."
That wasn't exactly a cheerful thought. "How can we tell?"
"If it has others? I think we should just assume it does. Some, at least. The more powerful the demon, the more energy it needs. And Sara would’ve wanted to deal with a powerful demon."
"Why?"
"To deal with a demon at all, you need to be desperate. You have to want something very badly. And if Sara wanted more power, then she'd want enough to make the risk worth her while. Do you have any idea if she was in trouble at all back then?"
I shook my head. "No more than usual. Not that I could tell. We did move not long after my birthday." One of our harder moves. She'd dragged me from the heat and sunshine of Florida to the cold, wet mountains of Virginia, landing us in a small hill town that had been my idea of hell.
Those same mountains took her life when her car went off a bend a few months later. After that, Gran had taken me back to California and I'd spent as much time as possible soaking up the sun, feeling like I'd never get warm again.
Cassandra looked down at the gel on my arm. "In a way, it's too bad the binding is broken. We might’ve been able to tell something from the spell."
"You'll have to excuse me if I don't share that sentiment."
"Of course." She smiled. "Still, Sara did protect you in a way. If she hadn't limited the binding, you'd probably be crazy by now. Or dead."
"She probably thought she could get something out of me staying alive," I said. "Leverage maybe. Threaten to cut off the demon's food supply, so to speak."
Cassandra gave me a long look. "I'm not sure that's even possible."
I shrugged, not willing to cut Sara any slack. If there'd been an angle to work, she would've worked it. "Well, like you said, we'll never know, will we?"
"No, so let's focus on the present. You can come to me tomorrow and we'll begin."
"I have to work."
One gray brow arched. "Money is more important than your life?"
"This job is. After all, if the demon got to me through the game the first time, then it could get to others."
She looked concerned. "If it got to you through the game, you should be staying away from games."
"Trust me, I will be. But I need to keep working."
"After work, then. The sooner we start this, the better."
Chapter Thirteen
By the time Boyd—I'd finally found out his name—steered the car through Damon's gates, I was floating toward sleep, lulled into a haze by smooth suspension and painkillers. Cassandra and Meredith had done something to my arm to ease the burn, but I hadn't argued with the doctor's addition of a prescription for some pharmaceutical help.
"C'mon, Sleeping Beauty." Damon helped me out of the car and swung me into his arms despite my protests. I snuggled against his neck, fighting to stay awake.
"I guess we won't be having that talk right now," he muttered as he carried me into the house. I pretended not to hear, just made a sleepy noise. He'd tried to give Cassandra the third degree when she'd let him back into the room, but she'd shut him down. For which I was grateful. I wasn't keen to explain everything to him either. I wasn't sure I could explain it.
I knew I'd have to face the music in the morning, but for now, I was going to pretend that wasn't true.
By the time Damon slid me into cool cotton sheets, I'd slipped even further into the haze. The pillow was like a cloud under my cheek. A cloud that wanted to pull me under. But before I gave in to that pull, there was something I needed to know.
"Did you hear from Ajax?" I managed to ask without slurring more than a tiny bit.
"Not yet." He pulled the covers over me, and I knew I should be worried about Nat, but it was just too easy to let myself slide all the way into oblivion.
When I swam back to consciousness, Damon was a solid warm curl at my back, his arm carefully tucked around me so it supported my burned one. Not that he needed to. It didn't hurt.
Really didn't hurt. Which was . . . unexpected.
I wriggled my fingers and flexed my wrist experimentally, dislodging flakes of gelskin.
The flesh below what remained of the gel was pinker than normal, but nothing like the angry red of last night. Whatever Cassandra had done, it had worked. Which I would’ve been happier about if I wasn't all too aware of the fact that what she'd done had involved magic. Still, I was grateful it didn't hurt and flexed it again, wriggling my fingers carefully.
Damon shifted on the pillow beside me, and I froze. I didn't want to wake him. Not yet. As long as he slept, we didn't have to have the talk.
I really, really didn't want to have the talk.
Damon's arm tightened, pulling me back into him. As my butt hit his hips, it became clear that part of him was wide awake too.
I sighed happily, pressing against him. Drowsy morning sex might be just as good as more sleep. And required no talking.
"Is it morning?" Damon said in a sleep-slurred rumble that shot straight to my groin.
"Go back to sleep." I kept my voice low. As tempting as it was to jump him, sleep seemed the safer option.
He flexed his hips, his breath warm down my neck, waking every nerve it hit.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Good." I tried to keep the rapidly blooming lust out of my voice. "Seriously, go back to sleep. It's early."
"You smell good." Breath stirred against my neck again, making the muscles quiver.
"Eau de hospital will do it every time."
His arm tensed, and I cursed my choice of words. Reminding him of the hospital wasn't exactly a good strategy if I was trying to avoid the talk.
"You're really feeling okay?"
I raised my arm, displaying the fading remnants of the burn. "Cassandra does good work."
More gelskin crumbled and drifted onto the covers as he ran his thumb up my forearm. "So I see."
He sounded more awake. I braced myself for the inevitable.
"Are you—"
"Can we not do this? Not just yet?" I wasn't ready. And if he wasn't going to sleep, then I needed a distraction. Sex seemed the obvious choice. I twisted in his arms, draped a leg over his hip.
"Maggie . . ." His pupils flared dark as I pressed closer.
"Not yet." I tugged his head down and pressed my mouth to his, hard. Then I pulled back. "Last night I kept thinking that I might never get to do that again."
He studied me for a moment, a mix of wariness and warmth in his eyes. "I thought you wanted time."
"I changed my mind."
"What if I still need some?"
I wrapped my hand around his cock. "This suggests otherwise."
He sucked in a breath as my hand stroked. "You can't put this off forever."
"I kn
ow." Up. Down. Soft over hard.
His eyes glazed. "Now who's beguiling who?"
I smiled. "Is it working?"
"Turn over," he said softly.
I rolled. Lips brushed my hair softly. Then he lifted it and I quivered again when his breath whispered over my nape. I wanted him to take me away. Wanted just to be. Not to think or worry.
"You don't smell like a hospital."
"No? Must be whatever fabric softener your housekeeper is using, then."
"No, it's just you." His voice was soft. So soft. It made me want to let my defenses down. To let him through. But I couldn't. Then he pressed his lips to my skin.
My breath hitched, heat seeping through me. Heat was good. Heat meant no thinking, a place to hide from everything that waited for me outside this room.
"You're sure you're feeling okay?" Another kiss. Right at the curve between neck and shoulder where I seemed to have a nerve that connected straight to every girl part I owned.
I sighed. "I'm good. But you could make me feel better."
"Really?"
This time his tongue traced the spot, and I couldn't stop my shiver of pleasure. "Yes. Please."
I tried to turn in his arms, but he tightened his grip and scraped his teeth against my neck.
"No, stay like that."
His free hand slipped upward from my waist, found a breast, and started tracing a pattern around my nipple that made me crazy.
"Just lie still."
I couldn't disobey. Couldn't think of a reason why I'd want to as he set to work with lips and fingers, playing my body like a master even though the options were somewhat limited by our positions.
I felt him behind me, hard and ready, his breath coming a little faster, a little deeper with each sigh or moan he coaxed from me.
By the time his fingers slipped between my legs, I was ready to melt. Or maybe explode. He stroked me softly and I started to soar.
"Not just yet. Slowly." His hand slowed down to an agonizingly pleasurable rhythm, and my world shrank to focus on his fingers and the sensations pulsing through me with each touch.
But it wasn't enough. I wanted him closer. As close as we could get.
"I want you," I said softly. "Please, Damon."
