Signed in Incubus: A Paranormal Monster Romance (Possessive Monsters Book 6)

Chapter 3

Penny

Shit. I fucked up. Big time.

Not only did I accidentally summon an incubus, I’d also bound him to me. Super illegal! If the EA found out, they’d take away my magic, or worse, lock me up until I was an old crone.

Once upon a time, the Secret Enforcement Agency oversaw everything magical on Earth. After the fall of The Wall, which had hidden the supernatural world from ordinary people, the agency dropped the S since magic and monsters weren’t so secret anymore. But its primary objective remained the same.

Binding imps, demons, ifrits, and the like through magical means had been outlawed for about a century and a half. According to my research, that meant it had been abolished at the same time as slavery in the United States, and the secret magical war had been fought concurrently with the one found in every American history book.

Unfortunately, since some immortal creatures had been enslaved for generations—handed down from father to son—the new law had been nearly impossible to enforce. It didn’t help that The Wall had hidden many bound entities in plain sight.

The Wall had hidden magic from would-be magic users as well as from the outside world. Take my family, for example: to the best of my knowledge, neither of my parents knew about the existence of magic before the fall of The Wall, nor had any of my aunts, uncles, or cousins. Because I didn’t have the gift of sight, I was oblivious to even my own talents for years.

And yet magic was hereditary, so I couldn’t be the only witch in the family. Regardless, if I didn’t unbind Prax soon…which I hadn’t meant to do at all…I’d also be my family’s only incarcerated witch. Imagine the fit my parents would pitch then!

I plopped down in front of the coffee table, glad that the screen was still on the page in the witches’ forum where I’d found the spell. I filtered the reviews, looking for negative comments. No one mentioned anything about demons or incubi or any form of accidental magical bindings. Not shocking; if they had, I probably wouldn’t have used the spell.

But maybe this had happened to other witches, and they’d been too afraid to mention it. I wouldn’t dare to post in the forum “Help! I accidentally summoned a demon and bound him to me!” myself. It would probably just have the EA knocking on my door all the sooner, considering not every witch was a nice one. Some were perfectly content to throw you under a bus to get ahead themselves.

That wasn’t to say there weren’t amazing, supportive witches out there. Two of them were my best friends.

My phone rang. What the hell? I thought I’d put that thing on silent. I picked up the phone from its face-down position on the coffee table to see Griselda’s number flashing on the screen.

Speak of the devil. Of course she’d call just as I was thinking of her. Sometimes, I wondered if she could read minds even from a distance. Griselda, or Gigi as her friends called her, owned a coffee shop in town and was one of the few people I knew here in Darlington. She, Lily, and I had shared a dorm room in college and had stayed in touch ever since.

I hadn’t looked at my phone since yesterday, and there were dozens of missed calls and messages left unread. Crap. I picked up the call.

“Penny!” She blew out a sigh of relief. “Finally! I was getting really worried.”

“I’m fine, Gigi. I just got flooded with like a billion calls after what happened, and I had to put my phone on silent before I went crazy.”

“I don’t blame you. Thanks for picking up. How are you doing?”

I knew she was asking about the whole wedding thing, but my brain was still stuck on the sexy incubus that had just left. Hell, I could still smell him. Trees, campfires, and marshmallows. Yummy.

“If you mean Travis, I’m oddly…okay? Is that weird? I mean, I think part of me is relieved this happened when it did. Isn’t it better to know how unreliable he is now rather than after we’re married and have kids?”

I was sure everyone was expecting me to be completely devastated, and sure, that had been the case yesterday, but the more I thought about it, the more it felt like it had happened for a reason. Did I really love Travis himself? Or just the idea of him? Sometimes, it had felt like we were just getting married because that was the next step, and everyone expected it. Maybe that was why I’d cast the love-finder spell in the first place.

“You haven’t signed the marriage certificate yet,” Gigi said. “That’s a win. Plus, didn’t you say you were worried about how he’d react to your online witchcraft business?”

Once we were married, we’d have to do taxes together, and he’d find out I had a side hustle selling spell tutorials online. Travis knew I had magic, but I’d let him believe I just had minimal garden variety talent. Party trick stuff, like what my family thought I had. Ugh. If it had been up to me, my family wouldn’t have found out about my magic at all.

“I guess I thought we’d figure it out when the time came.”

“Girlfriend! You were about to marry this man, and he doesn’t know about a huge thing that makes you you? Why didn’t you tell him?”

“I didn’t want him asking me to do things for him. This one time, he told me his friend had hired a magical cleaning service and that he thought it was ridiculous for them to charge the same or more as non-magical maids. I asked him why, and he said…and I quote…‘because magic is free.’”

Griselda made a barfing sound on the other end of the line, which made me giggle.

“Right? I knew explaining to him that magic was not, in fact, free wouldn’t work. When he asked if I could cast cleaning spells so we could save on future maid services, I told him no. I did offer to temporarily change the color of his belt so it ‘didn’t clash with his shoes.’ He wasn’t amused.”

“Wow. I think your magic knew all along he wasn’t the one.”

“Maybe. But about my magic…” Whoo hoo, here was a perfectly smooth segue into my incubus issue. “I might have accidentally sum—” Nope. I chickened out. “There’s been some…um…new developments, and I need to talk to you. In person.”

“Okay. Since you don’t have a new husband after all, let’s make tomorrow a girls’ night. We’ll go out on the town—you, me, and Lily. You can come over, and we’ll chitchat while we pre-drink, just like the old days.”

Oh boy, pre-drinking? “Wow, I haven’t gone out-out for ages. Charity events don’t count in my books, and those are the only ones my family sends me to. I think the last time I went out for fun was with you two! When we went to Vegas. Remember? And that was before The Wall fell.”

“I remember. We were celebrating your last days of freedom before you moved back to Boston with your family.”

At the time, I’d thought they were exaggerating about my “last days of freedom”.

After all, I was an adult now, not a teenager; surely my family wouldn’t treat me the same way. I’d been wrong.

“So now that you’re not marrying Mr. Free Maid Service, does that mean you’re moving back to Boston? Please say no!”

“Honestly, I was kind of looking forward to starting a new life here in Darlington. I mean, it will suck to bump into Travis every so often, and he works here, but you and Lily are here too, so it balances out. It’ll probably start problems with my parents, though.”

“Honey, you’re an adult. You’ve been an adult for over a decade. It’s time you made your own decisions.”

“I know, I know. It’s stupid, but they still have this stranglehold on my life. The house I just moved into? They bought that: it was supposed to be a wedding gift for me and Travis. We were supposed to go the day after the wedding to get all the paperwork signed to transfer it into our names. So technically, it’s still theirs. The job I currently have? My dad’s friend owns the company. I’m pretty sure they only got me the job so they could keep tabs on me. And remember that time in college they put a hold on all my credit cards and tried to pay the school to kick me out of the dorms because my cousin Deanna told them I was part of a gang?”

“Oh my god, do I ever. Deanna is even worse than your parents. She thought we were a gang because Lily was going through her leather pants phase, and I dressed all in black and wore thick eyeliner. I’m so sorry, Penny. I love you, but your whole family is batshit crazy.”

“Amen to that. Sometimes, I think my parents care more about appearing perfect for Dad’s job as a senator than they do about me. I’m sure if I decide to stay here, they will do everything they can to force me to go back to Boston. I”ll be homeless, jobless, and my bank account will be frozen in about a week. But I’m not saying no to staying. I’m very tempted. I’m in a better position now, and I think I can swing it. I’ll have to crunch some numbers and make sure.”

“Well, whatever you choose, you know we’ll have your back.”

“Thanks, Gigi.”

The beep of another call coming in interrupted us. I sighed. “Shit, it’s my parents. I should take this. If I don’t,they’re liable to show up at my door. I think they’re still in town.”

“’Kay. Be strong. Love you.”

“Love you too, bitch. See you tomorrow.”

We made air kisses through the phone like always. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, summoned all the strength I had, and picked up the next call.