Beauty and the Demon (Hell Bent #5)

Chapter 1

THE SECRET INGREDIENT

SUYIN DROPPED THE CURTAIN AND STEPPED AWAY FROM the window, her pulse racing. The park across the street from her apartment was poorly lit, but there was still enough light to see the shadowy figure of a man lurking by the bushes. She was pretty sure she had a stalker.

This wasn’t the first time she’d seen him there. Her apartment was on the second floor of a street lined with three-story buildings. There had to be fifty different flats on her side of the block, yet every time she looked around that curtain, she felt eyes on her.

At home wasn’t the only time she felt the skin-crawling sensation of being watched either. Whenever she left the house, she swore she was being followed, whether it was on busy sidewalks or empty side alleys.

It was making her paranoid as hell.

Still standing beside the window, she reached over and flicked the light off, plunging the room into darkness. Then, she crouched and lifted the bottom edge of the curtain, slowly peeking over the windowsill until she could see outside once more.

The figure was there, standing beside the tall lilac bushes. It was too dark to see anything except that the person was lean and broad shouldered. Probably male, but then, that was hardly a surprise. Most perpetrators of creepy activities were male.

She peered harder into the darkness, trying to discern any details of the man’s face. Instead, her nape prickled, and her heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t see his eyes, yet somehow, she was certain he was staring right at her.

She ducked behind the windowsill and slumped against the wall onto the floor, breathing hard. Then, she shook herself.

Fuck him. She wasn’t scared of any man.

She was a powerful blood-born witch who’d trained her entire life to protect herself from things far more terrifying than some creep in the park. And she had more than a trick or two up her sleeve.

She climbed to her feet and flicked the light back on, standing in front of the window behind the closed curtain, knowing her silhouette would be visible from the street below. Then she raised both middle fingers and held them out so he’d see if he was watching.

Then she set about checking her wards.

She wasn’t scared of some creep, but she’d had premonitions lately that were making her paranoia worse. And a few months ago, a real-life fucking demon had broken into her coven’s gathering place, threatened one of her members, and stolen a grimoire from her.

She already knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she wasn’t hiding behind half a dozen of the most powerful wards she knew how to cast, and life was too short to spend in an exhausted haze.

She’d tried it before. Wasn’t worth it.

Chalk in hand, she went over all the lines, making sure nothing had smudged. Then she lit the candles and spoke the appropriate incantations, the sacred syllables to match the symbols in the sigils.

When she finished, she stepped back and surveyed her work, equal parts proud and exasperated. The ridiculousness of needing six anti-demon wards just to fall asleep was not lost on her, but she didn’t fucking care.

Not when she dreamed of Hell every night.

As for her stalker, he could be kept out with the deadbolt on the front door—or the baseball bat tucked between her mattress and headboard. If he actually tried to enter her house, she would kindly show him the error of his ways by bashing his skull in.

Feeling more relaxed, she went through her nightly routine and then tied her long black hair into a messy bun and threw on her pajamas—a vintage Night of the Living Dead T-shirt in XXL. She didn’t wear shorts or underwear. It was healthy to let the lady parts breathe.

After checking her locks and wards one last time, she touched the baseball bat to make sure it was in its proper place and then turned the night-light off, plunging her apartment into darkness.

She jerked awake exactly five hours later.

Her eyes popped open, and she stared at the ceiling, chest moving with rapid breaths. Rolling over, she switched on the lamp and opened her nightstand drawer. She pulled out her notebook and flipped to her last entry.

It was the same again. I’m chasing a feather down city alleys. The tip of the feather is writing something as it blows, like a quill, but I can’t decipher it, and I can’t remember any of the symbols once I’m awake.

Then I hit a wall—I think? That part isn’t clear. But when I look up, I’m staring into eyes so bloodshot, the whites are fully red. And I keep getting the image of a scorpion. When the scorpion strikes, the dream changes.

I’m near the bottom of a huge pit, a wide circular chasm. I’m standing on a ledge, and below me is an enormous pit of fire. Above, the sky is red. There’s a tunnel behind me with a glowing-red seal at the end. I walk toward it, and I see a stone door. I try to open it, but the stone is too heavy.

The entry ended there. Suyin had been keeping this notebook since last winter, when she’d started having the nightmares.

Today, there was nothing new to add—she’d dreamed the exact same thing for the last couple weeks—so she closed the notebook and stowed it back in the drawer.

The clock on her nightstand told her it was quarter to five.

The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour, but there was no way she was falling asleep again.

She grabbed her phone, turned off her seven-o’clock alarm, and scrolled through her notifications. Yeah, she knew better than to check her phone first thing in the morning—alpha brain state and all that—but she wasn’t in the mood for self-care today.

She’d been dreading this day for a while. Three hundred and sixty-five days, in fact.

There were several emails from yesterday that she’d put off answering. Coven members asking for help with whatever they were working on, mostly. She ignored them for now, planning to answer while at work.

As coven leader, she was not only a teacher to other members, but a mentor of sorts.

Witchcraft relied heavily upon intuition, and it was often necessary to confront one’s inner demons as part of the learning process.

Many coven members came to Suyin with personal problems. It wasn’t a responsibility she’d ever particularly wanted, but she valued the sense of purpose it brought her.

She had enough unanswered questions about her own life, and she’d spent most of it on her own, looking after herself, with a head full of secrets. It was nice to be able to provide answers to someone else and be a source of stability to her coven.

She climbed out of bed and went to the kitchen to make coffee.

Decaf, because caffeine worked a little too well on her, and the last thing she needed today was a burst of manic activity followed by a crash into inescapable lethargy.

Her phone buzzed just as she took the first sip, and she frowned when she saw it was a text from Iris.

Happy birthday, witch bitch! Congrats on being old. I miss you. When are we hanging out?

Six months ago, Suyin had thought of Iris as her closest friend. Maybe the closest friend she’d ever had. Now she wasn’t sure what they were.

Things had shifted majorly, and Suyin wasn’t entirely sure why. Iris’s new boyfriend, Meph, had a lot to do with it, but she didn’t think that was the only reason.

There’s a show this Friday at Les Katacombes that I want to catch, Suyin replied. Wanna come?

She ignored the birthday part. She hadn’t made it a secret that she hated birthdays—though she’d never explained why—and Iris was usually content to allow her to pretend not to have one.

This time, however, she supposed it was an excuse for Iris to reach out when they hadn’t spoken in almost two weeks.

Iris’s response popped up seconds later. I’m in. But it’s 5 a.m. Why are you awake?

Just got up, Suyin replied. I like mornings. Can’t say the same for you. What’s your excuse?

I haven’t gone to sleep yet. Iris sent the awkward-smile-and-sweat-droplet emoji. We threw a housewarming party for Meph’s brother and tried to get him drunk enough to pass out. He outlasted all of us though. Jerk.

Didn’t you throw him like, five housewarming parties already?

… No comment.

Suyin rolled her eyes. Go to sleep.

Text me the deets for the show, Iris replied. Looking forward to it.

After finishing her coffee, Suyin went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Dabbing it dry, she leaned into the mirror and peered at her reflection.

She turned to each side, studying the skin of her face. She lifted her brows, causing her forehead to crease, and then relaxed them again, watching it smooth out. With two fingers, she stretched the corners of her mouth and then between her brows.

Nothing. Not a wrinkle to be found.

Of course there wasn’t. And if she kept checking every day like this, she’d never notice them if they did appear.

But they weren’t going to.

She was finally coming to terms with that, even if it scared the shit out of her. Even if staring at her face in the mirror, untouched by a single sign of aging, made her stomach feel like a hollow pit.

It was the opposite of every other person’s experience, she knew. Most people grimaced at the sight of age spots and wrinkles. Suyin cringed at the lack of them.

But Suyin wasn’t normal. And she had no idea why.

She was reaching a pivotal turning point in her life, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

In another ten years or so, her lack of aging would start drawing attention.

Soon after, her IDs and passports wouldn’t be any good anymore.

Eventually, she’d have to go off-grid. Would she have to fake her death and find some sketchy black-market documents?