Summoning Heat #2
His mouth curved, all condescension. “You’re wrong. If that symbol is reversed, you’ll get a—”
“I didn’t reverse it by accident,” I cut in, pulse skittering. “I reversed it because I wasn’t trying to call another demon.”
A thin seam of light slid along the chalk, brightening from dull ember to sharp gold-white, crawling the lines like liquid fire.
The air tightened. A low, rhythmic thum—thum—thum began beneath the stone, not heard so much as felt, as if something enormous was waking up and testing the world from the other side.
His gaze snapped back to the final mark I’d laid that was pulsing a bright green unlike the rest of the sigils. His breath hitched. “Oh, fucking shite.”
He jerked backward—two quick steps—clearing space as the air behind me went tight and bright.
Wind rushed through the hall in a wavering gust that smelled like rain on hot stone.
The sigil at my knees throbbed once, hard enough that the force of it tingled up through my bones.
A second beat answered from somewhere behind me, and the second circle I’d scrawled flared to life in a bright, clean burst of light.
A figure coalesced in the center of it.
It was nothing like the demon’s arrival. No creeping shadows. No suffocating pressure. This came as a sudden, decisive brilliance—a clean lance of light that split the gloom and sent long, sharp shadows racing up the stone walls.
“Alright,” a new voice said, rough with authority and edged with dry irritation. “Someone’s got some explainin’ to do. Where am I?”
The light receded just enough for me to see him.
The newcomer stood in the middle of the newly awakened circle, framed by the last fading glow of its lines—a tall, broad-shouldered man in worn leathers and a travel-stained cloak, boots planted solidly on the stone as if he’d simply stepped through a doorway instead of out of thin air.
And holy hell—he was breathtaking.
The sight of him stole the air right out of my lungs. Not just handsome. Not just striking. He had the kind of presence that made the whole room feel suddenly smaller, as if the world had to rearrange itself to make space for him.
Candlelight caught in his hair like burnished gold, warm and bright even in the ruin. It fell in a careless tangle, as though the wind had been worrying it the way a lover’s fingers might. His jaw was hard-cut, shadowed with stubble, and his mouth sat in a line that said he didn’t waste words.
Scarred knuckles. Calloused hands. The quiet, undeniable strength, and the sort of muscle you didn’t build for show, but for surviving whatever tried to break you.
His eyes swept the hall with instant, controlled awareness, and when they finally landed on me, that focus narrowed into something else entirely. Something steady. Anchoring.
“Wait, lass,” he said, the word softened around the edges. “Are you alright?”
Gods, his voice.
If the demon’s tone was dark whiskey and sin, this one was warm honey over gravel—Scottish, low and edged in command.
He moved toward me in a few long strides, cloak whispering around his legs, the subtle shift of fabric loud in the charged silence. Up close, he smelled of sun-warmed pine and smoke, like the outside world itself, and it hit me hard after too many nights trapped inside my own head.
“You look half-scared to death,” he murmured, brows drawing together. “Did you summon me for help?”
Before I could answer, the demon cut in, voice sharp and offended.
“No, you glorified attack dog,” he snapped. “Summoning you was an accident. And not a happy one.”
The newcomer’s eyes hardened. He angled his body slightly, putting himself between me and the demon without seeming to think about it. He did it by stepping to my right side, half-turning so I stayed at his back and the demon stayed in his line of sight.
“And who the bloody hell are you?” he asked, all softness gone.
The demon smiled, slow and smug, lit by the faint red glow still pulsing at his feet. “My name is of no importance to you,” he said lightly. “You, however…” His eyes narrowed, amused. “You’re not a demon, are you?”
“Demigod,” the newcomer replied, gruff and unimpressed. “And judgin’ by the way ye’re dodgin’ introductions, I’d say you are, in fact, a demon.”
Outside, the wind rose, howling through broken windows, rattling loose stone and rusted iron. The fire in the hearth sputtered and spat.
The demigod’s gaze flicked between us, then seemed to linger over my body—all bare thighs, thin straps, and nipples that were painfully hard. All the things I’d been painfully aware of from the moment the demon arrived. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“What exactly were you about to do to her?” His voice cut sharper now. “And why, in the name of the old gods, is she dressed like that?”
The demon rolled his eyes and began to pace, boots tapping lightly against the cold stone as he gestured lazily between the circles.
“Spare me the righteous act, demigod,” he drawled. “If you’d take half a moment to look around, you’d notice that I didn’t summon myself here. And neither did you.”
I sat frozen between them—a demon whose every glance promised to unmake me, to strip me down to nothing but raw want, and a demigod whose first instinct had been to place himself between me and that ruin.
I balanced on the knife’s edge between being utterly undone and fiercely protected, left wondering how my hunger for more had carried me here.
I was still on my knees, still in the same place—but the space itself had changed. The demon stood a few steps ahead of me, all threat and temptation, while the newcomer remained close at my side, solid and steady, like a shield drawn without a word.
“The girl was dressed this way before I arrived,” he drawled. “And you, our very unwelcome guest, have just interrupted what was sure to be…” His gaze dragged over me, slow and unapologetic, lingering on my bare thighs, the cling of silk, the rise of my chest. “…quite an interesting evening.”
His mouth curved, all teeth and promise, as the demigod squared his shoulders opposite him.
The urge to yank the hem of my slip down nearly overpowered the urge to keep breathing—as if three more inches of fabric could undo the fact that I was kneeling half-dressed in between a demon and a demigod.
Before either of them could say anything else, the demigod stepped into my space and lowered himself smoothly to one knee in front of me, bringing us eye to eye.
His hand came up, slow enough that I could have pulled away if I wanted to.
Warm fingers settled against the side of my neck, calloused touch gentle where it had no reason to be.
He didn’t grip; he just held, his thumb brushing the hollow of my throat before tilting my chin up, coaxing my gaze to his.
The world narrowed to the rough heat of his palm, the steady weight of his touch, the way his eyes searched my face. Up close, I could see the gold strung through the dark of his irises, tiny shards that caught the candlelight and made it hard to remember what air was.
“D’ye understand what ye’ve done, angel?” he asked, voice low, the word angel wrapping around my frayed nerves like a promise and a warning all at once.
“All this,” he said, voice dipping into something deeper, older, “for a moment of attention?”
I let the words sit there—let them sting, let them sink in. Then I lifted my hand, laid it over his, and slowly guided his palm down from my throat until it rested at the top of my chest, right where the neckline of my slip began.
“I know exactly what I’ve done… and what I want.” I murmured.
My fingers curled lightly around his wrist, holding him there, pressing his palm over the quick, insistent beat of my heart.
I felt the subtle flex of muscle under my touch, the stutter of his breath and the way his thumb pressed just a little harder, his eyes darkening as my pulse thudded against his skin—no longer wild with fear, but humming with want.
“I could’ve stopped at one circle,” I went on, my voice dropping, the truth dragging slow over my tongue. “One night of letting the darkest parts of me off the leash until I forgot my own name. And I wanted that—the ruin, the sharp edges, every forbidden thing he’d pull out of me.”
My gaze slid past the demigod’s shoulder to where the demon watched us, eyes bright and hungry, then came back to the demigod kneeling in front of me. “He’s every wicked thought I’ve ever tried to swallow,” I breathed. “He’d take those desires and drag me down into them.”
I guided his hand lower until his palm rested over the rounded tops of my breasts, right where my heart hammered against his skin beneath the thin silk.
“But you,” I whispered, “you’re different.”
His pupils widened, molten color darkening as his fingers spread a little, thumb catching under the edge of my slip. I felt the breath he drew—rougher this time—as if he’d just realized how much of me I was offering him. I could feel how much strength he was holding back.
“I knew, when I drew that second circle, that I didn’t want only the dark.
I didn’t truly want to disappear into it.
” My voice dropped, the words dragging slow over my tongue.
“I wanted something… someone… who could step into the worst of what I craved and stay. Who could look at all of it and still choose me.”
Under my hands, he shifted.
“Please,” the demon scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Listen to her talk like she’s got any idea what she’s called down on herself. She probably botched a sigil and tripped over a demigod by sheer dumb luck. Our reckless little mortal doesn’t have the faintest clue what she’s really asked for.”
Anger flared hot enough to cut through my embarrassment. I drew breath to snap back, but the demigod spoke first.
“Careful, demon,” he said, his voice low and edged with threat. “You will not speak of her that way. Show her the respect she’s owed, or I’ll drag you back to the nether from whence you crawled.”