Chapter 20
Lynx
Ifear I may be warming up to Sable.
She doesn’t irritate me the way she used to. I actually quite enjoy when she’s around, or when I can smell her, feel her, hear her.
Which is my exact reason for staying far away from her. Even when we were talking to those officers, I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was a distraction. A fucking pain in my ass—one I refuse to be near.
I pull up my sleeves, roll the cuffs just above my elbows, and pace the bedroom I’ve been sleeping in—its walls are even laughing at the mess I’m in. Not only am I dying to feel Sable’s pussy around my cock again, but I also want to just… see her.
Fuck.
What the fuck is happening to me? The sooner I figure out a way out of here, the better.
The grimoire stares at me from the bedside table.
I haven’t opened it in a few hours. Every time I do, I expect to see something different.
But it’s the same words and drawings and fucking symbols I don’t understand.
Sable was able to summon me, and then Tony, so why can’t she just break this curse and get me out of her hair?
My fingers shake, tingling from the memory of her skin beneath them, the way I held her hips as I drove into her.
My cock twitches.
My jaw hardens.
And then my fist crashes into the wall.
With heavy breaths, I start pacing again, running my hands through my disheveled hair. “Fuck,” I mutter. “Fucking fuck.”
Do I regret what happened between us? No.
Do I hate myself for it? Yes.
Would I do it again?
Teeth grinding, I shake my head and blow out a huff. Today just isn’t the day for me to spiral—I’ve scrubbed myself in the shower and I can still feel her cum on my cock and taste her skin on my tongue.
Goddamn it.
I storm out the room, searching for her. We need to set boundaries or I’m going to lose my mind—she stays on one side of the manor, and I stay on the other. She can do whatever she wants in her ghostly form, and I’ll work on a plan to get out of here.
When I find her in the main sitting room, she’s on the ripped couch, feet tucked up under her, reading a book.
My pulse slows.
I stop at the threshold of the room—all the anger I had and the spiel I was going to throw at her about boundaries goes out the window as she looks up at me.
“You look tired.”
I frown. “Do you get off on being a bitch all the time?”
“Yes.” She scowls at me. “But only with you.”
And that turns me the fuck on.
We both stare at each other. I blink, and so does she.
“Were you coming here to annoy me, or do you actually need something?” she drawls.
“What year is it?”
Her head tilts as she closes the book she was reading. “What?”
“The year,” I repeat. “Or at least which century are we in?”
“It’s the twenty-first century?”
I baulk. “I’m being serious. Don’t fuck around with me. What year is it?”
“It’s 2025, Lynx.”
I go silent. Everything in the room vanishes from existence because what the fuck does she mean it’s 2025?
Then that means Dylan…
“For a demon, you’ve gone pale,” she says, and I can only just see her through my blurred vision, rising from the couch, dropping the book onto the coffee table. “Are you okay?”
I find the closest seat and lower myself onto it, growing dizzy, seconds from vomiting.
She places a phone in my hand. “Here. You can google whatever you want,” she says.
Sable settles down beside me, crossing her legs and watching me intently. Her stare makes my blood warm, and it pisses me off that I keep reacting to her this way. I don’t get nervous around people. That was beaten out of me a long time ago, so why the fuck do I feel anxious when she’s near?
I’ve fucked her. I should be over this by now. Why am I still reacting to her? Why do I want to hear her moaning my name again, or giving me fucking attitude while I’m so deep inside her?
Her whimpers have burned into my psyche, her fingers imprinted on my skin from how tightly she gripped my back.
“Well?” she pushes when I just stare at her.
My brows pinch as I look down at the piece of technology. “What does google mean?”
She chuckles and shakes her head, making me frown even deeper. Is she fucking laughing at me?
“Okay, so, serious question, demon. What age are you?”
“I was born in 18—”
“Oh God, I’ve fucked an old man.”
She goes to stand, but I catch her arm. “When were you born?”
“2003.”
My eyes widen. “You’re a fucking child.”
“I’m twenty-two. You’re old enough to be my great-great grandfather.”
This is horrifying. I could’ve gone on with my day not knowing I’m hundreds of years older than this girl. I mean, I fucked her. My dick was inside her, and she was born in…
“You look ill,” Sable points out.
“I am disgusted with myself,” I reply. “Why are you laughing?”
She covers her mouth. “It’s just… funny. You’re, like, around two hundred years older than me.”
I decide not to tell her that I was in Hell for much longer than just two centuries.
“Wait. So… What aftershave do you use? Did you have aftershave in Hell?”
She’s trying to annoy me.
“Sable,” I warn, losing my patience. “Stop fucking laughing.”
She bends forward and holds her midsection, shaking. “I can’t.”
Huffing, I lean my head back and wait for her little moment to subside. It lasts a few minutes before I glance at her. She has tears in her eyes, and she looks pretty.
Fucking hell. Even when she cries with laughter about my age, I find her attractive.
“I ask again, what in the ever-loving fuck does google mean?”
Sable wipes her eyes and watches me as I sigh in annoyance and get to my feet.
“Okay, okay. Sit back down, Grandpa. Let me teach you how to use this phone.”
The small black box sits in the palm of my hand. It has a glass front, with what the humans claimed to be cameras on the other side.
I study it. It’s new and weird, and I feel old. Curiosity gets the better of me at times—like when I needed to know what Sable’s pussy would feel like tightening around my cock when she came or how she’d sound when she moaned, beautifully loud.
The screen lights up. There’s a picture of a dog and a blonde girl smiling with it crushed against her face.
Sable leans over me, and I bristle at her proximity and how badly I want her entire body against me. “She’s cute.”
I hum, feeling her hair on my arm, needing to run my fingers through it or at least grasp a handful and—
“Now click on this,” she says, pointing to a G on one of the things she calls an icon. “Oh, she automatically deletes her search history. Scandalous.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all. Now, type in your name.”
Lincoln Taylor, I type out, and she giggles again.
“Are you laughing at my name?”
“I just see you as Lynx. You have a very basic surname.” She’s quiet for a bit while I watch her, then she tips her head. “Are you a Scottish entrepreneur?”
I look down at the screen to see a graying man in glasses with no hair. “No.”
“Are you”—she flicks her finger on the screen so the words move—“a sixty-year-old mechanic from Washington?”
“I’m dead too. If that helps,” I say.
There’s silence, and I want to slap myself for ruining the mood.
But then Sable gives me a slight smile. “Me too. Thanks to you.”
More silence. I clear my throat, blink a few times, then she sighs. “Do you even regret killing me?”
My head snaps up. “Of course I do. You shouldn’t be trapped here with me. If I didn’t snap your neck, then we probably wouldn’t be stuck together.”
Her shoulder lifts slightly. “I just… you’ve never said it, so I just assumed you had no regrets and liked that you ended my life.”
I’ve never been great at curbing my impulses, and after being tortured for centuries, I reacted out of pure learned behavior. “Do you want an apology?”
“Do you want to give me one?”
“It wouldn’t make much difference. You’re dead because of me. There’s nothing more unforgivable, and I’m not made to feel remorse anymore. I feel bad, yes, and I regret it, but I don’t have it in me to apologize for something like that. It would be words falling on deaf ears.”
“I’d accept an apology,” she says quietly.
I flatten my lips. Sometimes this specter feels like mist but hits like a blade. It would just be words. Words I can’t do anything about.
Plus, this, whatever is going on, is temporary. Because she’s dead. I’m a demon. We belong in two different worlds. This curse will break eventually.
I stand, straightening my spine. “Don’t hold your breath.”
Sable frowns. “What just happened?”
I don’t respond. Instead, I leave her sitting there full of confusion, my own stupidity eating away at me because why did I think having a civil, normal conversation with her would be a good idea? I can’t get close. I can’t allow myself to feel whatever’s clawing at my fucking chest right now.
The door slams as soon as I get into my room, and that’s when I allow myself to close my eyes and drop my head into my hands.