When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon (Accidentally Yours #2)

1. Vesper

Vesper

If anyone had told me ten years ago I’d be half-naked in the woods, chanting to old gods, I’d have shoved a cross up their ass.

I was in seminary back then. Funny how life strips the lace off your collar.

The humid June air clings to my skin. The night air feels expectant and full of promise. Especially with the harvest moon rippling ribbons of golden light through the leafy canopy. My favorite kind of night.

It smells of damp cedar, crushed pine needles, and the aggressive Persian jasmine I’ve planted near the house to mask the stench of my ex’s lingering stagnation. Every time I catch a whiff of that floral sweetness, it’s a reminder of how I’m the one who decides what this land smells like now.

Not Rick. Not the church. Just me.

I stand in the thick shadows of the Pacific Northwest forest, the kind of deep green which feels like something is watching you back. My toes sink into the cold moss and the soft as velvet, damp earth

Behind me, the electric fence hums low, the only thing separating my small sanctuary from the wild reality of the Cascades.

Or maybe it’s separating the world from me.

Regardless, it allows me to come out here buck naked if I want, ready to howl at the moon like it’s an old lover who still knows exactly where to touch.

Self-care is important after all.

Inside the house, the baby monitor clipped to the waistband of my slip remains silent.

Bethie is finally down for the night, breath even as she dreams of bright colors and soft things, hopefully far away from the courtroom drama and the “visitation rights” emails I’ve been archiving like digital poison.

I pull a small, leather-bound volume from the moss at my feet. It’s an old book, one my mentor left to me at my shop, Vesper’s Vessels. The pages don’t just smell like old paper; they smell like ozone and burnt hair. It should unnerve me. But it doesn’t.

I’ve laid out the obsidian at the cardinal points, the smoke from the mugwort wand curling around my ankles like a ghost.

The old spell inside the pages practically begged me to recite it. Even the most infinitesimal chance to evict Rick from my life forever is worth any poison ivy or paranoia over glowing-eyed critters.

I clear my throat, my voice small but steady against the vast silence of the woods. This isn’t the Latin they taught us for the liturgy. This is older. Raunchier. Daring. Not that I expect this one to work. The other fifty-seven certainly didn’t. But if it means getting Rick out of the picture…

“Thief of peace and thief of time, leave this space and leave this clime.” I shove the words into the air. “By the salt and by the stone, take the weight that isn’t mine to own. Root the rot and purge the core, open wide the ancient door.”

The salt circle at my feet begins to sizzle.

I freeze. For one stupid second, all I can do is stare. Fifty-seven dead spells, and this is the one that decides to answer?

A faint pop snaps through the circle, like sparks from a bonfire. My pulse lurches. “Oh, shit.”

The popping escalates into a frantic, angry hiss. And then, as if the universe decided I wasn’t dramatic enough, a spark leaps from the obsidian and catches the hem of my vintage slip. “Son of a—”

I hit the moss, doing the ‘stop, drop, and roll’ method through the damp dirt and the wet moss until the sludge covers my skin and the cold earth soaks the silk.

Finally, the pathetic orange flame dies.

I stand up, fuming. I’m covered in mud, the wet slip is clinging to my curves like a second skin, and I’m pretty sure I’ve ruined a three-hundred-dollar vintage piece.

I don’t cover myself. I don’t cross my arms in shame. I’m dirty, wet, and pissed off, and if the forest wants a show, it’s getting one for free.

The electric fence behind me erupts. Every hair on my body stands on end as a blinding surge of blue light arcs across the wires, like a guitar string snapped by a hand—if the hand belonged to a giant.

A sound like tearing parchment—a cosmic rip—echoes through the trees, and a body slams into the dirt inside my circle with the force of a fallen meteor.

A scream lodges in my throat. My breath leaves in tatters.

The man—if you can call him that—is face down in the dirt and moss, his large, graceless limbs sprawled.

But he isn’t dead. He’s heaving, his bronze skin shimmering in the moonlight.

Even through the mud on my eyelashes, I can see he’s less like a person and more like a work of art that’s been put through a meat grinder.

Two heads taller than me, he is bare-chested, muscles rippling under a sheen of sweat and a dark, viscous fluid that smells like sulfur and expensive leather. It pools into the moss, turning the green to a bruised black.

And then there are the horns. Real horns. Elegant, matte-black curves, ancient enough to have outlived the dinosaurs.

What in the unholy hotness?

He groans, pushing himself up on shaking arms. When he finally gets his head up, his eyes snap open. They’re pure, molten gold, burning with a mix of primal fury and absolute, agonizing confusion. Hot enough, they would wet my panties—if I were wearing any.

He doesn’t look at the trees. He looks at me.

His gaze travels all over me, settling on my well-endowed tits, on where the nipples have turned into bullets begging for his gun. His tongue traces his bottom lip, and his pupils dilate until they’re almost swallowing the gold.

“You look good enough to steal away to hell, sweetling,” he rasps. His voice is a wreck—like gravel crushed by heavy velvet.

I cross my arms over my chest, blow a muddy curl of my dark hair from my cheek, and scoff, “You’ve clearly taken a wrong turn, so I suggest you skedaddle back to the bowels of hell or wherever you came from, Mr. Bronze Na’vi.”

He slowly flicks his tail back and forth, slicing through a patch of my ferns. He grins, and it’s a devilish, predatory sight. “I’d rather stay. The scenery here…it has improved significantly.”

I reach down and snatch a large, jagged piece of smoky quartz from the dirt.

I hold it out like a weapon, the crystal humming with a faint, dark energy I can feel in my teeth.

“Give me a reason, horny horns. I spent four years of Catholic high school and three years in seminary learning how to deal with your kind, but I’m a pagan now.

So, I’m more about balance. And right now, you’re a massive weight on my property line.

Move closer, and I’ll send you back in pieces. ”

The demon actually flinches. He stares in shock at the crystal. He pulls back, his tail lashing the moss in agitation. “Very well, pretty beastie. I’ll have to settle for… watching you for a while. That crystal…it has a bite I do not care to test. My name is Valefar.”

I blow relief through my nose and square my shoulders, unhindered by how it thrusts out my D-cups, which didn’t drop in size after fourteen months of breastfeeding.

“Well, you’ve certainly made my night interesting,” I mention, looking back towards the rambler home. “But my patience for supernatural visitors is exactly zero. Goodbye, Valefar.”

I turn and break into a run.

I make it about ten yards, the wet moss squelching between my toes, and then a scream splits the night. Blood-curdling. Spine-chilling. It howls through my nerve endings—half animal, half agony. A sound of pure, unadulterated pain.

I stop. I turn around.

Valefar is on his knees in the center of the circle. His head is thrown back, his bronze throat exposed as he lets out another gut-wrenching cry. He isn’t moving toward me. He looks like he’s being electrocuted from the inside out, digging his claws into the earth.

I’m fine. Mostly. A faint pressure catches beneath my sternum—not pain exactly, but a warning that something inside me, on the other end of the spell, is being stretched too far.

I slowly walk back toward him. The howls begin to fade. By the time I’m five feet away, he’s down to heavy, ragged breathing, his body shaking, muscles in his back jumping. He’s drenched in sweat, fear in his expression. I didn’t think demons could feel fear.

He looks up at me, gasping. “What-what have you done? What is this…tether?”

I stand over him, the smoky quartz still tight in my hand.

The energy of the Cascades seems to course through me with solemnness.

It’s not guilt I feel. It’s power. And fierce protection.

Maybe even…possession. Whatever the case, I’m not a monster.

I can’t just…ugh! The frustration rears up in me, but it’s too weak to combat the assurance: he’s not going back to hell tonight.

“Welp.” I shake my head with a loud breath. “I was trying to banish a thief. But it looks like I just became the warden. My name is Vesper. Vesper Larson.”

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will test some anti-summoning spells, find a way to send him back where he belongs. But for now…he’s found a sanctuary, whether I like it or not.

He stares at me, tilting his head. “You are an odd creature, Vesper Larson.”

“What a nice compliment.” I set my hand on my hip. “Since you’re staying the night, we’re going to need to come up with some house rules.”

I’m not just going to stick him outside with a chain in the doghouse. Especially since I don’t have a doghouse. Or a dog. He wouldn’t fit anyway.

He gets to his feet, still a little shaky, but he easily keeps pace with me with his massive gait.

I trudge along, avoiding the urge to eye-fuck him. Just before we go inside, I turn to him and stab out a finger. “Just keep your hands off my towels. They’re Egyptian cotton.”

His brows lift. “I would never risk angering the old gods by robing myself in their garb.”

Rules. And crystals. And salt. And protection spells outside Bethie’s door.

A new and complicated chapter of my life is beginning. And if he’s a decent house guest, if he behaves like a good harbinger from hell, and if I can’t figure out how to exorcise the big guy, I might just let him stay a little longer.