Chapter 3
Netflix and Not-chill
I’m going to stay awake forever.
That’s my cunning plan. A foolproof plan. If I never sleep again, I can’t have sleep paralysis. Problem solved.
I’m curled up on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around me like a burrito. Netflix is playing some action film I’ve already forgotten the name of. There are explosions happening on screen. Someone is yelling. I don’t care about any of it.
My eyes are so heavy. Each blink takes more effort than the last. My head keeps drooping forward and then jerking back up.
I need coffee. Or energy drinks. Or possibly intravenous caffeine.
But I’m too tired to get up and make any of those things. Which is terrible for my goal of staying awake.
This is so hard. The sofa is so comfortable. The blanket is so warm. My body is screaming at me to just close my eyes for a minute. Just one minute.
I shake my head violently and sit up straighter. No. Absolutely not. I am not falling asleep.
On screen, a car flips over and explodes. Very dramatic. I blink slowly.
My head tilts to the side. My eyes drift closed.
Just for a second.
“This film is terrible.”
I yelp and jerk sideways. My elbow catches the arm of the sofa and I tumble off in a tangle of limbs and blanket. I hit the floor with a painful thud. My hip cracks against the hardwood, and pain shoots through my side.
“Ow! Fuck!”
A low chuckle rumbles above me. The sound vibrates through the air, rich and dark and far too real.
I scramble onto my ass and stare up at the sofa. Hex is sitting there. Right next to where I was sitting a moment ago. He looks completely at ease, one arm draped across the back of the sofa, legs crossed. Those glowing red eyes are fixed on me with obvious amusement.
The temperature in the room has dropped. I can see my breath misting in the air. The fairy lights strung above the window flicker and dim.
“You,” I breathe.
“Me,” he agrees.
He looks more solid than last night. More real.
I can make out actual features now instead of just shadows and suggestions.
Sharp cheekbones. A strong jaw. Full lips curved into a smirk.
Hair that falls in thick, dark waves to his shoulders.
He is wearing what looks like a black shirt and dark trousers with knee-high boots, though the edges of him still blur into shadow. Like smoke caught mid-swirl.
And he is unfairly, impossibly attractive.
My heart is hammering against my ribs. My hands are shaking. I’m still on my knees on the floor like an idiot, staring up at him. My mouth has gone completely dry.
“You’re here,” I say stupidly.
“Very observant.” Hex tilts his head. The movement is too fluid. Too graceful. “Are you going to stay down there?”
I scramble to my feet and back up until I hit the wall. The blanket is still tangled around one of my legs. I kick it off. My back presses against the cold plaster, and I wish I could sink through it. Disappear into the wallpaper.
“What do you want?” I demand. My voice comes out higher than I’d like. Breathless and panicked.
Hex’s smirk widens. His gaze tracks slowly, appreciatively, all the way down my body, and then lasciviously all the way back up to my eyes.
“You,” he rumbles in a deep voice that somehow feels like a caress.
Heat floods my face. My stomach does a weird swooping thing. The kind of feeling you get at the top of a rollercoaster, right before the drop. I press my back harder against the wall. As if I can make myself smaller. Less visible.
“That’s not an answer,” I manage. My fingers curl against the wall behind me.
“It’s the only answer that matters.” He grins. His voice is like honey, rich and decadent.
Oh my god. Is he always this intense? This is too much. I can’t handle this. My brain is short-circuiting. All higher functions have ceased. I’m just a mess of adrenaline and confused attraction and bone-deep panic.
“Why?” I squeak.
Hex stands up in one fluid motion. He doesn’t walk towards me. He just sort of appears closer. As if he skipped the distance between us. One moment he is on the sofa. The next he is halfway across the room. Shadows curl around his feet like living things.
I yelp again and flatten myself even further against the wall. There is nowhere to go. My living room suddenly feels far too small.
“We’ve been bound since childhood,” Hex says. His voice is low and smooth. Definitely like honey. Or melted chocolate. Or whatever other cliché thing that sounds good. “When you were young, you were terrified of me. That fear was delicious. It sustained me for years.”
The words hit me like ice water. Cold and shocking. I stare at him, trying to process what he just said.
“You fed on my fear?”
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible!”
Hex shrugs. The gesture is casual. Unconcerned. “You were a child. Children are afraid of everything. I didn’t hurt you.”
“You traumatised me!”
“Hardly. You grew out of it, didn’t you?”
I want to argue. But he has a point. I did grow out of it. I stopped being scared. I forgot about him entirely. And I turned out fine. Mostly fine. Reasonably functional, at least. I mean, I didn’t require therapy until Hex started popping up uninvited.
Suddenly, Felix’s warning echoes in my head. Shadow beings are tricky. If one of them is interested in you, it’s not going to just go away.
If this isn’t insanity, I need to focus. I need to figure this out.
“So you’ve been feeding on me this whole time?” I ask. My voice is steadier now. The initial shock is wearing off, replaced by my desperate need to understand what the hell is happening.
“No.” Hex looks almost annoyed. A flash of something darker crosses his face. “I grew into adulthood too. I didn’t need you.”
There is something raw in his voice. Something that sounds almost like pain. Or regret. I can’t quite tell.
I swallow hard. My throat feels tight. “And now?”
“Now I want you,” he says with an arrogant toss of his head, one that flings his shadow hair over his shadow shoulders.
The movement would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so graceful. If he wasn’t so devastatingly attractive doing it.
“Lucky me,” I mutter.
Hex’s lips twitch. The smirk returns. “Indeed.”
We stare at each other for a long moment. The film is still playing on the TV. Someone is shouting about a bomb. I barely hear it. All my attention is fixed on the impossible creature standing in my living room.
“So, you want to start feeding on my fear again?” I ask.
It’s a terrible question. I shouldn’t ask. I probably shouldn’t talk to him at all. Isn’t that what they say? Talking to spirits is acknowledging them, it’s an invitation. At least, that’s what those YouTube ghost hunting people all say.
“No. I do not want your fear.” Hex takes another step closer. He is barely a foot away now. I can feel the chill radiating from him. It raises goosebumps along my arms and makes me shiver. “You’re not a child anymore, Adam. You’re an adult.”
The way he says my name makes my stomach flip again. Like he is tasting it. Savouring it.
“So?” I say weakly.
“So I need to feed on adult things now.”
He tilts his head and regards me intensely.
More intensely than I have ever been regarded.
Like he can see straight through me. Past my skin and bones and into whatever lies beneath.
The salacious suggestion in his voice is unmistakable.
Heat floods my face again. My mouth goes dry. My pulse is thundering in my ears.
“Adult things,” I repeat stupidly.
My brain has stopped working entirely. I’m just standing here, backed against a wall, repeating his words like a slightly deranged parrot.
“Yes.” Hex’s gaze rakes over me slowly. Deliberately. His eyes linger on my throat. My chest. My hips. “Desire. Pleasure. Passion.”
Oh my god. Oh my god.
My face is on fire. My entire body feels too hot despite the cold radiating from him. I’m blushing so hard I might actually combust. This cannot be happening. This is not real life.
“Go feed on someone else!” I blurt out.
The words come out desperate. Panicked. Please, please go bother literally anyone else in the world.
Hex appears even closer. One shadowy arm materialises by my head, resting on the wall right beside me. He leans in. Close enough that I can see the way his edges blur and shift. Close enough that the chill from his presence makes me shiver violently.
“There is no one else. Only you.”
“Wh… What?”
That’s… a lot. Very romantic, or very cheesy. Depending on how you look at it. With a line like that, he could be my soul mate, or a sleaze ball at a bar.
My heart is doing acrobatics in my chest. I don’t know whether to swoon or run screaming.
“I can only feed on you. Because of our bond. Because of the imprint.” He shrugs casually. As if this is perfectly normal information. As if he hasn’t just turned my entire understanding of reality upside down.
I blink. My brain struggles to process this information. Struggles and fails spectacularly.
“Imprint?” I say slowly. The word feels strange in my mouth. “You’ve imprinted on me? Like a baby duck?”
The effect is immediate and spectacular.
Hex’s expression shifts from seductive to offended in an instant. He backs away from me as if I’ve physically shoved him. His shoulders stiffen. His eyes narrow to dangerous slits. The temperature drops even further and frost forms on the window behind him.
“I am a prince of the Shadow Realm,” he says icily. Each word is clipped. Precise. Dripping with outrage. “I have legions at my command. I have power you cannot comprehend. I am not a duckling!”
A snort-laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous. This impossibly attractive shadow creature is standing in my living room, looking genuinely insulted because I compared him to a baby duck.
His indignation is so pure. So offended. It makes him seem less like an otherworldly being and more like a person. A very dramatic, very huffy person.
Hex glares at me. The red glow of his eyes intensifies. “This is not amusing.”
“It’s a little amusing,” I wheeze. I’m trying to hold back another laugh and failing miserably. My shoulders are shaking.
His glare intensifies. If looks could kill, I’d be a smoking pile of ash on the floor. “I shall return tomorrow when you have stopped being ridiculous.”
And just like that, he is gone. The shadows dissipate like smoke in the wind. The chill in the air fades. The fairy lights flicker back to full brightness. I’m alone in my living room with the terrible action film still playing on the television.
I stare at the empty spot where Hex was standing. My heart is still racing. My breath is still coming in short gasps.
Well. That’s one way to get rid of an apparition. Mock them.
Maybe I should let the YouTube ghost hunters know? It’s probably very valuable information.
I let out a long breath and collapse back onto the sofa. My legs feel weak. Shaky. Like I’ve just run a marathon. My heart is still racing. My hands are still shaking. But the fear has been replaced by something else.
Concern.
That whole encounter felt too real. Hex felt too real. The way he moved. The way he spoke. The offended look on his face when I called him a duckling. The cold that lingered for a heartbeat after he left. The way the lights flickered.
The fact I feel very, very extremely awake and not at all like I’m dreaming.
You can’t hallucinate something that detailed. Can you? You can’t hallucinate temperature changes and electrical interference.
I press my hands against my face and groan. This is insane. All of it.
But Felix said shadow beings are real. He said bonds are real. And Hex just said the same thing.
Which means I’m not going crazy.
Which means I really am bonded to a shadow prince who needs to feed on my desire.
Which is probably worse than going crazy.
I grab my phone and pull up Felix’s contact. My thumb hovers over the call button. But it’s almost three a.m. He is probably asleep. Or doing weird witch things. Either way, calling him now seems rude.
I’ll talk to him tomorrow. At work. I’ll tell him everything, and he can help me figure out what to do.
Assuming there is anything I can do.
I glance at the spot where Hex disappeared. He said he would return tomorrow. Which means I have less than twenty-four hours to come up with a plan.
A plan for what, exactly? I have no idea.
I sigh and turn off the television. The sudden silence is deafening. The flat feels too empty. Too quiet. The absence of him is almost as noticeable as his presence was.
I drag myself to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror. I don’t want to see the dark circles under my eyes or the panicked expression on my face. Or worse, the flush that is probably still staining my cheeks.
Back in the bedroom, I stare at my bed with deep suspicion. The ring is still sitting on the nightstand. Mocking me. Just like I mocked the creature that gave it to me.
I could sleep on the sofa. That might be safer.
But then again, Hex found me on the sofa just fine. So maybe it doesn’t matter where I sleep.
I climb into bed and pull the covers up to my chin. Just like I used to when I was seven years old. Hiding from the monster.
Except the monster isn’t so scary anymore. He is just offended and huffy and apparently survives on a diet of human emotions.
And he is also devastatingly attractive and capable of making me blush with a single look.
Which is a whole different kind of terrifying.
I close my eyes and wait for sleep to claim me.
My mind races. Replaying the conversation. The way Hex looked at me. The heat in his voice when he said desire, pleasure, passion. The cold press of the wall against my back. The feeling of being utterly trapped and somehow not minding as much as I should.
I bury my face in my pillow and groan.
Tomorrow. I’ll deal with all of this tomorrow.
It takes a long time for sleep to come. And when it finally does, I dream of glowing red eyes and shadows that smell like winter and have voices like honey.