Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Skylar wished their food would hurry up so she could fiddle with something other than the seams of her cloth napkin.
Her gaze slipped around the very, very busy restaurant. The table seated next to them had arrived before them and still hadn’t received their food either.
It was unsurprising, since this establishment was popular, especially on weekends.
The music was calm, soothing, and she couldn’t pick what it was – only that it was instrumental.
Chatter surrounded them from other patrons, as did laughter and the clinking of cutlery upon plates and bowls.
The aromas had settled now that she’d been breathing them in for a long while – still mouthwatering, but they weren’t enough to keep her stomach from twisting.
“Hey, I know this is really forward, but I’m having a great time already.
” Oliver reached across the table to place his hand over hers, light enough to give her the freedom to pull away if she wanted.
“I kind of felt lucky when your profile popped up. You’re very pretty, and you seem to have a really nice personality.
I kept hearing how awful online dating was, so I never expected things to go this well straight away. ”
Skylar froze. She didn’t know what to say.
Sure, the date was going well, and she wasn’t bored, but... her heart just wasn’t in it. She wished it was, truly, and maybe if she could give it her proper attention, her stomach might have shyly flipped at his words.
His hand was warm; it was reassuring. His smile and face were appealing, his body delicious, and he was trying to be open, mature with their conversation, and not once had he made her feel wary.
I should have just gotten rid of the summoning circle.
Maybe she would have felt better. Maybe the damn ferret bat wouldn’t be there. Maybe she would have felt a spark if she’d tried to keep herself open to this relationship.
He pulled away when she didn’t answer, his expression falling.
“Sorry. I’m just a very straightforward person, but a lot of people say that can be overbearing.”
“No!” she exclaimed, waving her hands. Just because I feel nothing now, doesn’t mean it can’t form if I do this properly next time. “I-I’m having a great time. I’m just not used to this and haven’t worked out the nervous jitters yet.”
The waiter finally arrived with their food, giving her a chance to catch her breath. Just as he went to set her deep dish down, a black creature with glowing red tendrils coming from its horns jumped onto the table.
It screeched, wiggling backwards and knocking over the table water, their drinks, and an empty wine glass. It shattered, not from the impact of falling, but due to her magic. The waiter yelled, stumbled back into the table behind him, and dropped her orange curry onto the ground.
Oliver threw his hands up in surprise, only to push away from the table with his chair legs scraping against the polished elegant tiles.
Skylar gasped and tried to do damage control as she lunged her hands forward, grabbed it, and threw it in a random direction. It flipped through the air, landed on another table where a woman screamed, and leapt off with its wings spread to soften its fall. It sprinted towards her.
“Oh shit. Oh shit!” She shoved to her feet and knew the only thing she could do was run – it was after her, and it shouldn’t be seen by humans! “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
She grabbed her clutch from the table and pushed her chair back to make room, incidentally knocking it into the person seated behind her.
Oliver stood up.
“Skylar!” he yelled when she went to flee.
She winced and turned to him with her hands out, one clutching her bag. “I swear I’ll send you the cash for dinner and text you later.”
When the creature was at her feet, she picked it up and hauled both their butts out of the restaurant before anyone else could see it.
The infernal pest flopped around like the limpest football while she ran down the street, hailing a taxi when she saw the light of an unoccupied one behind her as she peeked over her shoulder to check if Oliver had followed.
The cab stopped in the middle of the busy street, despite the cars behind it blaring their horns, and she dived into the quiet backseat.
She gave the driver her address as he shot off, and she clutched the nightmare fuel wriggling in her arms tightly.
She didn’t even let it go when it bit her so hard blood welled, afraid it’d make the driver crash as they turned off the main street and made the five-minute drive to her house.
Her heart raced the entire time, the most it’d moved all night.
The moment she closed her front door, she dropped the infuriating creature to the ground with a thud. It landed on its feet like a cat.
“What in the absolute fuck?!” Skylar screamed at it, making it screech and hiss at her. “You can’t just do that! There were humans there! You were seen!”
When it ran away from her, she chased it through her house.
“Get out of my house! Go back to whatever hellverse you came from and leave me alone!”
It ran to her bedroom and ducked underneath her bed, and she got on her knees to grab it. It squealed and bolted back out. By the time she got to her feet, she had no idea where it went, but it definitely wasn’t gone.
Anger flooded her veins, and she unzipped her heels, kicked them off, and then stormed through her house.
She went to her kitchen, grabbed a tea towel, and dampened it under the sink tap.
The door to her alchemy workspace slammed against the wall when she threw it open, and she entered it with determination.
She knelt next to the summoning circle, leaned over it, and went to rub it away.
She flinched back with a scream when a thud came from it at the same time as it glowed bright red.
“No!” she shouted at it, at him.
Mr Tentacles bashed again, and again, and Skylar let out a screech.
“You can’t do this to me! Our contract was an equal trade – you can’t force me to keep summoning you!”
The magic circle pulsed repeatedly, almost angrily, as the thuds grew more resonant, like he was hitting it harder.
“Feed off someone else!”
Skylar threw her hand back in preparation, readying herself for one big swipe that would darken the room and stop the bashing. She faltered.
As water dripped down her arm, she mentally wrestled with herself. If she did remove the circle, it would be permanent. That would be it. She’d never see him again unless she wrote down his name in a notebook, but that would mean he’d linger in the back of her mind forever.
Her heart tightened in an inexplicably painful way.
You know what? I want to yell at him. She wanted to get her rage out, because all this was unfair.
She deserved the semblance of a normal life, even if she had to go through different relationships until she found the one.
She threw the rag to the side, clicked her fingers to make the candles spark to life, and shoved her hands down as she began to chant. Her lightly dripping wounds from the creature biting her should be enough of a blood sacrifice.
I’m going to make him regret doing this to me.
She’d also give back his weird noodle rat with wings too.
The summoning circle glowed to life, and she hadn’t even finished the second repeat of the chant before a hand reached through and slammed the ground outside the circle.
Claws scraped against the wooden floorboards as they fought for purchase.
A second hand came up, and she could see him pulling himself through – quicker than ever before.
Her blood ran cold when a face, an actual face – with a nose, lips, pointed ears, and all – emerged. And it was snarling, baring sharp white fangs below bright, electric-blue eyes glowing in the muted light, glaring dangerously in her direction.
The same colour blue swayed from a gust of power on top of his head, his hair short around black horns tipped with glowing blue ends. His skin was a such a light blue it was easy to mistake it for human, and it gave his lips a slight purple tinge to their pinkness.
Even though she hadn’t finished the chant, it didn’t seem to matter.
He grunted when the portal tried to suck him back through, as she hadn’t completed the spell, and his strong biceps flexed in strain as he fought.
He shoved his completely human legs up into a crouch above it with his legs in the air, only to slam his feet on the hard ground when it turned solid.
A long tail, split at the end like a two-pronged fork, flicked to the side.
A face that was ungodly beautiful greeted her, chiselled like a handsome marble statue, with straight blue eyebrows, an aquiline nose, and full lips. Her jaw dropped in disbelief.
It was him. Even if it didn’t look like him, she knew his glow, knew his presence.
“You have been very naughty, little witch,” he sneered... out loud. With actual words. And his voice was rough, rogue, and wicked, with an accent that sounded entirely inhuman.
She’d been intending to yell at him, but the air in the room suddenly choked her with waves of hostility. The tiny hairs on her arms lifted as goosebumps prickled across her flesh.
One word blasted through her mind.
Run.