Deal with the Devil

30. Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Twenty-nine:

Amelia

Amelia and Penny combed out opposite sides of Gael’s hair while Brayden continued his monologue about a video game to keep Gael’s mind off the fact that Amelia and Penny had to pick teeth and bone shards out of her hair. When Gael said she ate her friends, Amelia found it comical at first…like a toddler stumbling into mom and dad’s room after throwing up. Then they found Maevin waiting at the town car with photos and a grim look on his face. Gael didn’t just feed from her friends, she destroyed them. It stopped being funny after Amelia saw Gael cry. Despite the fact they were the friends who ditched her, thus allowing her to get caught by Declan, they were still her friends. Gael went to them in hopes they would help her.

They didn’t.

Penny hummed softly, “All clean.”

“Thank you,” Gael murmured, fidgeting in her clean pajamas.

“Why don’t you and Brayden go to the theater, huh? I’ll ask Denver for some snacks and you two can just decompress, huh?” Penny smiled at the teen sweetly.

“Yeah! I can show you. The graphics are far superior to what I’m even describing, you gotta see it,” Brayden made an explosion motion with his hands.

“Yeah, alright,” Gael wheezed, letting the teen boy rip her from the dining room chair she was in and out of the room with glee.

“He’s such a good kid,” Amelia murmured, collecting the combs and other products they’d used to detangle Gael’s hair. After a long, overdue bath and soaking her hair in detangler, they’d been able to pick out the mats. Immediately, upon Brayden seeing Gael, silently sobbing to herself while the two women worked to return her pretty hair back to life, broke out into a song and dance about his latest game obsession. The perfect distraction.

“I honestly don’t know how I got so lucky, really.” Penny shook her head in disbelief. “He’s nothing like Rick ever was or ever pretended to be. He’s just a genuinely good human and I…I’m just so glad he turned out that way.”

Amelia spared her sister a warm smile. Penny helped pick up all their hair magic tools and walked with her twin toward the guest bathroom from where they’d stolen them.

“You two are gonna be okay.” Amelia nudged her sister with her elbow tenderly.

“Are you saying that because you’re not? Or because you’re worried about me?” Penny chuckled, eyeing her sister suspiciously.

“You know me, sturdy, durable Amelia. Nothing can knock me down. I’m just worried about you and how all of this is affecting you. I know it’s been affecting me but I’m…I don’t know, is it weird I like it?” Amelia shrugged.

“Yes,” Penny barked with a laugh. “It is weird. I get it, but it’s weird.”

“Hey!” Amelia swatted at her sister who giggled as she flounced away from her. Penny disappeared into the house, clearly on a mission to feed and help the teen vampire just like Brayden. Amelia sat on her heels, wanting very much to follow her sister. To sit down on a couch and play card games and eat popcorn and throw things at her nephew.

“Pet?” Knox’s voice ripped her from her thoughts.

But the book… Amelia had never run into a cursed book. A haunted book. A monstrous book of eldritch horror…and now it called to her. “When can we give it back to the Witch of the Woods?”

“Who?” Knox breathed, eyeing her with confusion.

“The one who speaks to you through the mirrors, the crone in the portal window?” She twisted more to face him. She couldn’t very well relax as long as that thing was radiating malicious evil in the house. Oh no, she needed it gone. Tonight.

“Persephone, right…how did you know that title?”

Amelia groaned, “The book told me.”

Knox grimaced, sharing the same pained expression as Amelia. “I’m going to be delighted the second it returns to its home…but it is the key to destroying Declan for good.”

“You don’t think he’ll take an invitation for coffee and cake and murder? Do you?” Amelia squinted at him teasingly. Knox snorted, shaking his head. She sighed, “Worth a shot.”

Knox wheeled her away from the bathroom and toward the upstairs office. Their footsteps echoed against walls and hardwood floors. They discussed on the way home how they needed to work on the book. When Amelia held it, she wasn’t herself. She wasn’t in control. As the doors opened to the office, a low hissing sound returned. The same from the forest. Amelia stood, frozen in the doorway, staring at the writhing briefcase across from her. Perched on a couch, strapped down with magical restraints, the book thrashed from within its tomb. If Amelia had her way, it’d stay that way.

Her skin itched. Her blood ran cold. Her heart skipped a few beats as she stared at the thing of her nightmares.

“We don’t have to do this,” Knox whispered in her ear.

“No, we need it. You said it yourself, it’s the key to killing Declan.” She swallowed over her tongue and tried to find her resolve. Amelia the sturdy, the unkillable, the unbreakable, now trembling in the face of a fucking book. She clenched her fists and stormed across the room.

Inches away from the leather, she was slapped with the memory. Like the book forced her to replay the moment. Struggling, crying, screaming, hunched over a bigger kid in the hall of a hotel. Nose busted with blood seeping down her face. A record scratched and she was in the alley, knuckles throbbing and bone sticking out of her flesh. The driver laughed through it all as she swung. Blow for blow, snot rolling down from her nose, tears streaking through the blood and grime. Swing. Crunch. Swing. Crunch. He never stopped laughing. Record scratch, and she was a little girl again, screaming as she caved in the boy’s face. Swing. Crunch. Swing. Crunch. Red…everything was red as she shrieked into their broken face.

One last record scratch and she was over Kyle, book in her hands. His panicked eyes stared at her in the moment before Zavros blew out his arm. She heard his bone snap. Then she closed the book around his head and felt his skull disintegrate.

“Amelia?” Knox purred in her ear tenderly.

She didn’t realize she was crying till she inhaled sharply and snorted her own tears. It burned as she coughed uncontrollably. “Something’s very wrong about that book!”

“I know, it’s from the Nightmare Realm.” Knox rubbed a hand tenderly at the center of her back. “Come, let’s go, we can—”

“No,” she hissed, storming forward. Her fingers ached with how hard she snapped open the clasps on the suitcase. The book flung itself out of its prison and into her arms. Amelia thrashed, fighting to keep the book at arm’s length. It did not like it. Growling, its teeth wiggled in its infected gums. The fleshy cover was moist and left her gagging as her palms brushed against it. “No! You stop it!”

“Amelia!” Knox was at her side, but she couldn’t see it. All she could see were the flashes of red. Of her deepest angers, the bloodiest memories. Amelia in the ring, brushing her fist across the top of her busted lip. A tiny girl spitting out a baby tooth, then flinging herself back into the fray. Amelia tried not to flinch. It wanted to sink its teeth into her again.

In the woods, she was running. Chasing Kyle, punching ghouls as they sprang from the trees. Long fingers reached for her, but something buffeted them. Something called for her. Please, take me. Save me. Read me.

Amelia shoved the book back into the suitcase, sobbing and trembling as she latched it shut. She stumbled backward, drying her cheeks with the back of her hands. “What is that!”

Knox stood between her and the suitcase. Her mind felt like she’d tossed it in the blender with hallucinogenic drugs and an angry weasel. Round and round she went, unsure what was real and flayed alive by claws buried deep in her. Amelia stared at Knox, eyes wide as dinner plates.

He put up his hands, patting down the air. “Amelia, I need you to calm down.”

“I can’t—Knox, I can’t, not while I’m near it.” She took steady steps backward, arms wrapping around her torso.

“I did tell you we could try this later. I need you too…” he breathed, eyes darkening. Fuck. Amelia could see it…her fear drenched the room. Knox’s face twisted as it had in the forest. It wasn’t her Knox looming over her as she backed out of the room. He won’t hurt you, he can’t hurt you. But that didn’t stop her heart from rapidly beating against her ribs. Knox pinned her by the throat in the blink of an eye.

Funny thing about fear and attraction… it’s a hell of a drug.

The intoxicating fear pumping through her veins, Amelia snatched up the front of his vest. Knox snapped his body against hers, his lips crashing into her. His body was burning hot against hers as she clawed at his fabric.

“That’s better,” he groaned, sucking in the air deeply. “Good pet.”

Her stomach churned but it was knee buckling fear, it was desire. Heavy in the air, the need made it hard to breathe as she kissed him desperately. Her hands trembled as she tugged on his tie frantically. Their lips crashed, over and over, chaotically clashing. Teeth clinking, tongues brushing, biting and much worse, their kiss darkened to a nasty, needy thing. Amelia heard her underwear tear before she felt the sting of the fabric. His fingers brushed against her hurt flesh as the fabric fell off her. Tail sneaking up her inner thigh before it slipped between her tender lips.

Record scratch . She was in the forest, running from Knox and his goons with Penny at her side.

“No! No, don’t you dare let it take you. Come back to me, pet.” A slap of his whippy tail to her cunt brought her back forcefully. Amelia was there, present, snarling in his kiss as the tip of his tail dove back inside. “Give me your desire, don’t let it take your mind.”

It was a tug of war between Knox’s husky words and the eldritch pressure in her skull. He would kiss, bite, groan, and keep her grounded in reality. Then a pulse of eldritch horror would wash over her, and she was clawing her way out of a mosh pit that kept shoving her head above the surface. Or she was being dragged by the arms off a body. Bliss rolled over her.

Knox wrenched her from the room, pinning her to the hallway floor. The door to the office slammed shut behind them and she was able to breathe again. Well, not for long. As Knox immediately buried his cock in her. Amelia clawed up his back, dragging him as close as she could.

“Did…did I…?” She blinked away the haze of magic and madness and mayhem and realized…she was drenched.

“You did so well, pet,” he groaned against her throat. His hips shuddered as he released.

“Did what so well? Get my brain fucked out or brain fucked with by a book?” she huffed, panting for air.

Knox laughed breathlessly, making her toes curl and stomach clench. He pushed up on his hand, hovering over her. His floppy black hair, no longer its usual slicked back style, fell around his face as he smiled down at her. “Both, my sweet bookworm.”

Amelia couldn’t help the smile back at him as she studied his face. Her Knox loomed over her, his purple cheeks dimpled and creased from his grin. It looked good on him.

“Sir, there you—oh, hello, Ms. Armstrong.”

Amelia flopped her head to the side to find Denver frozen halfway down the hall. Then she snapped her attention back to her fiend. “Are you done mentally scarring your staff?”

“That’s what I pay for therapy for, pet.” He lowered his arms to kiss her forehead before slipping from between her legs. Denver’s hooves clacked against the floor as he clearly rushed to look away. Amelia sat up, staring at the door. The book she was supposed to be able to withhold was taunting her from the office.

If she couldn’t learn to control it, she would never be able to use it to bite Declan.

“I’m not going to be able to conquer the book, Knox.”

“Of course you can, you were close to doing it now and you controlled it with Kyle.” He cocked his head to the side, offering her a hand. She slid to her feet, finding Knox put back together again. “You did so to kill Kyle.”

“The book wanted to kill Kyle .” She eyed him, unsure how to describe the feeling. When the book came to her in the woods, it wanted to eat Kyle. It wanted her to capture his head in between the pages and squish his skull like it was her jaw it was between. It made her feel like she could sink her teeth into him.

However, that, just then…that wasn’t a mutual desire. That was her trying her hardest to force the book to do what she wanted, and it laughing in her face. It wanted to show her how easy she was to manipulate. Even while her fiend was five inches deep with his tail and his teeth around her jugular, it was still able to steal her mind.

What if it didn’t want to kill Declan.

“Then, we’ll convince it to kill Declan,” Knox murmured against her temple. She didn’t even realize he’d pressed his lips against her skin till he ripped her attention from the door.

Ah, yes, convince the eldritch tome of madness to kill the man who freed it from the library…that’ll work.

Amelia couldn’t explain why she knew the book would fight her on it. She didn’t know how she knew it didn’t like Declan but it also didn’t want to kill Declan like it did Kyle.

Amelia slipped away from Knox, heading for the room. “I need a shower and to scrub my skin off.”

“I’ll be to bed shortly,” he promised, leaving her with a sweet touch to her shoulder. Amelia touched her fingers to the warm spot on her flesh as she disappeared into the bedroom, then into the bath. Purposely ignoring the eyes staring back at her in the mirror some things you just can’t deal with just yet. Her eldritch awakening was something for the morning after a good night’s sleep. If only the book would let her.