Chapter Forty-Five
Allie
Trevor was babysitting me at work tonight, and after a week with no incidents, I was beginning to think he and Dylan were worrying over nothing. Of course, I was more than happy to have them walk me to and from my car, but I thought hanging out at SpellBinders all night might be overdoing the protection. Marcos was also starting to get annoyed with my bodyguards, but he’d calmed down immediately when Trevor agreed to spend more money at the bar. Marcos would do just about anything for money.
Tonight was slow, which wasn’t uncommon on a Wednesday. Thursday through Sunday were our busy nights. I was restocking and oiling the leather in one of the rooms when I heard the ominous click of the door closing. Spinning around, I was faced with a vaguely familiar looking demon. Flashing a sinister grin, his forked tongue darted out to toy with his lip ring. Based on his shiny red skin, his emotions were running high. That’s when I remembered him, and I had to struggle not to show my fear.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, sounding overly cocky.
Arms crossed in front of my chest, I tried to look tough, but that was hard to pull off wearing a blue halter dress and hooker shoes. “Did Marcos promise you my time again?” I asked. “If he did, I’m sorry because I am not for sale.”
“That’s right,” he said, his grin widening to show off his pointy teeth. “You’re the succubus who thinks she’s too good to let me fuck her.” His hand drifted down to the front of his pants, and my eyes involuntarily followed to see him stroking his huge, corkscrew-shaped erection through the fabric. “Like what you see, baby?”
“No,” I responded automatically. “I think I’m going to vomit.” Why I’d chosen to say something that stupid, I had no idea. Pissing this demon off was not a good idea.
“Fucking cock tease!” he roared, lunging toward me.
I managed to sidestep him and was working hard to remember the self-defense spells I’d learned. Unfortunately, it had been too many years, and I hadn’t practiced any of them recently, so none came to mind.
“You’re going to pay for turning me down,” he growled as he stalked toward me again.
He was positioned so I couldn’t get to the door without fighting him, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d be able to overpower a demon who was nearly a foot taller than me and outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds. Looking to my side, I saw the table designed to restrain one’s partner, and decided I would only be able to jump over that if he was distracted. I’d moved into a position where I was sure the security cameras would get the best view of what was happening, in hopes that someone would notice I was in trouble. Of course, that was assuming Marcos hadn’t told security to ignore anything happening in this room. For the first time, I was truly afraid Marcos would let someone rape me because they’d paid him for the privilege.
One defensive spell finally came to mind, and I silently mouthed the words to the spell while pointing my finger at his crotch. My wrist cuffs not only dimmed my succubus powers, they also dimmed my rusty witch powers, but I still saw the blue arch of electricity zap through the air, making contact with the demon’s jeans.
He howled in pain, but it sadly wasn’t enough to take him down. I held the spell as I foolishly tried to leap over the table in four-inch heels. Slipping and nearly falling on the floor broke my concentration and released the demon from the spell.
The demon’s hand fisted in the back of my hair as he slammed me down onto the table. I struggled under his hold and then felt his body press behind me as his hot breath fanned across my face, nearly gagging me with the scent of sulfur. “If you’d cooperated the first time, it could have been fun for you. Now, I’m going to make you bleed.”
I opened my mouth to try another spell, but his hand clamped over it so hard my teeth cut into my lips. “Don’t even think about it, bitch,” he warned. “I’d love to hear you scream and watch your eyes fill with terror, but I’ll have to blindfold and gag you. No one told me you were a witch, too. I wonder if your blood will be even more potent.”
His leathery forked tongue scraped across my neck, and his penis lengthened against my back. I continued to struggle under his hold, refusing to just give in when I had a feeling he was not only planning to hurt me, but possibly kill me. With his hand still pressed tightly over my mouth and the weight of his body pressing down on me, he finally released my hair. “We need to take this party back to my place,” he said, and then I saw the syringe as he waved it in front of my face.
I tried to open my mouth to bite him, but it was useless. Helpless tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared at the door, willing it to open.
“Don’t cry,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll make sure you’re wide awake for play time. I wouldn’t want you to miss the fun.”
The door slammed open, and I was surprised to see Trevor and Marcos rush into the room.
“Get the fuck off her,” Marcos practically growled, much to my surprise. I hadn’t actually expected him to come to my rescue. My hope had been that someone on security would help me, even if Marcos had told them to ignore the happenings in this room.
Trevor mouthed a spell, and the demon slammed into the wall, muttering vile threats of things he wanted to do to me, things that would probably give me nightmares for weeks, as if what had just happened wasn’t enough to do that.
“Are you okay, Allie?” Trevor asked as he helped me up from the table and pulled me close.
I nodded because I couldn’t do much more after the shock of the attack. The demon broke free from Trevor’s binding spell and slammed the back of his hand against the wall so hard that large cracks formed in the plaster.
“You’re going to pay for this, bitch,” the demon growled with black foam frothing at the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t threaten people in my club, asshole,” Marcos hissed, taking a menacing step toward the demon.
“What are you going to do about it?” the demon taunted. “I possess power you can’t even imagine.”
“You also just broke a binding spell in front of my security cameras,” Marcos said, motioning to the camera mounted near the ceiling. “Security has probably already alerted the police of your activities, and I’m sure they’ll want to know what you’ve done to gain that kind of power. Either you’ve hired someone to work some very dark magic for you—death magic would be my guess—or you’ve made a deal with someone very bad. Do you really want to stick around and explain this to the police?”
The demon glared at me like he was imagining killing me very slowly, and that was if I was lucky. There was a lot of hate in his beady black eyes. “This isn’t over,” he said before storming out of the room.
“You’re just going to let him walk away after what he did?” Trevor demanded.
I wanted to yell at Marcos, too, but I just didn’t have it in me at the moment.
“He won’t get far,” Marcos said with an indifferent shrug. “Security will do their best to stop him when he walks out of the club, and the police are already on their way.”
“And if they don’t catch him?” Trevor pushed.
“Knock it off, Trevor,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “If he broke your binding spell, there was nothing Marcos could have done to keep him here.”
Marcos’ eyes widened with surprise, probably not expecting me to defend him. That made two of us who were surprised, because I hadn’t expected Marcos to come to my rescue.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the night off with pay, Al,” Marcos suggested, shocking me even more.
“What?” I asked, because I must have misheard him. Slow night or not, Marcos wasn’t the type to let anyone go home early, and he sure as hell wasn’t the type to offer to pay them.
Marcos gave me an impatient look. “You heard me,” he snapped. “Don’t make me repeat my kind offer. Giving away money hurts me.”
I nodded and almost laughed. “Thanks, Marcos,” I said somewhat awkwardly, because I really wasn’t use
d to thanking him for anything, mostly because Marcos didn’t do nice things for people.
“Come on, Allie,” Trevor said, guiding me out of the room with an arm around my shoulders. “I’ll call Dylan to let him know what happened while you gather up your things.”
“Do we really have to tell him?” I asked, because I already knew Dylan was going to lose it when he found out, and I wasn’t sure I could handle him getting even more overprotective. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I’d been stalked by a killer one night, now I’d almost been attacked by a demon at work.
“Yes, we have to tell him,” Trevor said with a sigh. “Dylan needs to know what’s going on to keep you safe.”
We made our way to the locker room so I could gather up my belongings. Trevor waited just inside the door and made his call to Dylan. Doing my best to tune out Trevor’s conversation, I fumbled with the combination on my locker. It took several tries to get it open, and I have no idea how long it took my brain to function enough to gather up all my belongings.
When I turned, I found Trevor watching me with genuine concern.
“This was just some crazy customer,” I said. “I had a run-in with him the night I was followed. Maybe he’s the one who was following me, and it has nothing to do with the murders.”
“That demon could be the killer,” Trevor said, and I felt a shiver of fear run through my body. That was something I hadn’t considered, even when I’d been sure he was going to kill me.
“You think he might be the killer?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“It’s possible,” Trevor said gently. “Based on what I saw tonight, he wouldn’t have any reservations about committing murder. That type of demon can be vicious.”
“I just wish Dylan didn’t know about this,” I muttered. “I’ll bet he lost it when you told him what almost happened tonight.”
“Is that the real reason you didn’t want me to tell him?” Trevor asked, and I could tell he didn’t believe that was it.
I shook my head. “This may sound crazy, but Dylan knowing makes it seem more real. I’m barely holding it together, and I’m afraid of breaking down with him.”
Trevor stopped and turned me to face him with a hand on my shoulder. “I know you’re scared of what’s going on right now.”
I snorted. “Duh. Who wouldn’t be afraid when someone might be trying to kill them?”
“I didn’t mean that,” he said. “You’re afraid of Dylan hurting you.”
“Duh, for that, too,” I said.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Of course, I trust you. You’re one of my closest friends, Trevor.” I gave him a wobbly smile.
“Dylan’s going to do his best to avoid hurting you in any way,” he assured me. “If I didn’t believe that, I’d be warning you to stay away from him.”
Trevor was right, but there was this part of me that couldn’t let go of my fear. “I know. Dylan’s a good man, but I’m not convinced I’ll ever be enough for him. I’m not a full witch, and I’m not even very powerful. I’ll always be more succubus than witch.”
“You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit,” he said with a frown. “You passed your witch tests the first time, and there are plenty of witches who take it multiple times before passing. From what I heard, you also did great in school.”
I snorted. “The witch tests were mostly about remembering stuff in books. I don’t even remember the last time I used a spell for anything, other than the weak self-defense spell I tried tonight. Look how much good that did me.”
“Sure, you’re rusty, but that’s only because you haven’t been using your witch abilities,” Trevor insisted. “Besides, I don’t think Dylan cares if you can cast a spell or not. Your magic complements his. That first night, I was too busy worrying about how you hooking up with him would affect me, or I would have noticed the moment you met.”
I wanted to argue, but mostly, I wanted to believe what he said because I was really starting to hope I could have a future with Dylan. I was starting to believe in insane things like being happy with one warlock for the rest of my life, and that terrified me.
We’d been standing in an alcove just inside the front of the club having this conversation, ignoring the buzz of voices around us, but the buzzing of Trevor’s phone grabbed his full attention, and he scanned the message quickly before slipping an arm around my shoulders.
“Your ride’s here,” Trevor said as he led me out to the familiar car.
“You asked Dylan to pick me up?” I was torn between annoyance, anxiety, and relief.
“He was in the city already and insisted on coming to get you,” Trevor explained.