So I was getting ahead of myself. Whatever. We should at least be able to go on a real date, right? And to do that, I had to summon a demon like I’d never summoned before. Open that door all the way and break it off its hinges.
Maybe I should’ve waited to stride purposefully into the kitchen until I’d finished pulling up a fresh pair of boxers, but damn it, I wanted Xan backnow. I tripped over my own feet and slammed into the table, sending the spices and candles flying, my phone spinning off the edge and landing on the floor. It lit up and started flashing, and I peered down at it.
Three texts and a missed call from Kenny.
Yesterday that would’ve meant something to me. Today, I simply didn’t care. I totally ignored the buzz of the phone as another text from Kenny came in, gathering up the spell components and carrying them carefully into the living room. I’d do it as right as I could, and if it didn’t work, I’d make a trip to the store and buy new everything after all.
The living room boasted a scratched-up but genuine hardwood floor, one of the big selling points of the apartment, and I laid everything out there. Some more rummaging in the bathroom cabinet got me a slightly better set of sandalwood-scented candles that I’d forgotten someone had given me for my birthday last year, and that made the whole setup a bit less amateurish—as long as you squinted enough so you couldn’t see the canned goods.
Everything else I left more or less the same, except…it made me blush so hot you could’ve heated the soup on my face, but I made a little addition to the salt and honey bowl. Xan’s reaction, combined with my new understanding of the spell’s purpose, plus a little more thought in general, had given me a big fat fucking clue about what the text meant by “the supplicant’s sweet salt.” Jerking off into the bowl would be unacceptably gross, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to masturbate over a can of smoked oysters, anyway. But thinking about Xan had gotten me half hard, and the tip of my cock was damp with a hint of precome. I slipped my hand inside my boxers and gathered up that bit of moisture, running my fingertip around the rim of the bowl.
There. That would have to do.
Gods, I needed this to workright now. In large part, it was because I kept thinking about Xan, banished back home to his death challenges and thinking I hadn’t cared enough about him to want him to stay.
But also—if it didn’t work, I’d be spending my afternoon trying to come in a bowl while staring down a pulsating oyster. A death challenge might be easier.
I lit the candles, took a deep breath, and recited the spell, picturing Xan’s smile and imagining the heat of his touch.
The last words of the spell faded into nothingness.
And again, absolutely nothing happened. No pulsations of any kind. No tall, gorgeous demons.
I stared down at the crumbled bits of basil, my vision blurring with gathering tears. Gods, the best thing that’d ever come my way, and I’d fucked it up. Of course I had. Maybe Xan was watching me now, trying to pry that door the rest of the way open, uselessly calling my name, as unhappy as I was.
That made it so much fucking worse.
A heavy knock sounded on the door.
I jumped up so fast I nearly fell into the middle of the spell, but I righted myself at the last second and windmilled my way to the door, flinging it open with a smile on my lips and my heart lifting and—there were two men at my door. Both of them heavily muscled, both of them taller than me.
Neither was Xan.
“What the hell, David?” Kenny said, lowering his hand from where he’d lifted it to knock again. He craned his neck. “Do you—are you doing that stupid magic bullshit again? Are you trying to summon a heating pad or something?”
Beside him, Scotty chortled, grinning to show off his unnaturally even teeth. He held up a bundle of fabric wrapped in an electrical cord. “I guess it worked!” he said. “You okay, dude? You’re not wearing pants. Usually people put on pants to open the door.”
“You don’t always put on pants,” Kenny said, looking at Scotty. “Sometimes you wear your briefs. It’s hot. But yeah, David should totally wear pants.”
They both turned back to me—slowly, because they had too much muscle in their necks to be able to rotate their heads without some effort. They looked like someone had Photoshopped one single model into two similar guys for a cheapo gym advertisement: identical haircuts, identical sweatpants and moisture-wicking-tank combos.
I stared at them in disbelief, irritation warring with humiliation. I’d spent a year sucking Kenny’s cock while he went off and flirted with Scotty, and now they showed up on my doorstep to take contemptuous pot-shots at my half-clothed body?
The fucking nerve of it! I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around myself to hide whatever I could.
A faint cracking sound echoed from inside the apartment, like an almost infinitely distant bolt of lightning.
Or maybe even a door shutting firmly, for good this time.
Kenny’s eyes narrowed. “You got someone else here, David?”
Footsteps. There were footsteps behind me, heavy and measured. My heart kicked into overdrive, vibrating down to my bare toes.
I couldn’t turn around. If I turned, and no one was there, I’d die of disappointment, and I’d also look like a fucking idiot. Besides, shock and hope had frozen me in place, paralyzed and with my fingers clenched so hard around the edge of the door I might break them if I tried to move.
A second later, an already-familiar spicy warmth enveloped me, my back heating, my blood pressure lowering.
Even if I hadn’t felt him, I’d have known he was there by the identical expressions of horror, terror, and overwhelming lust on Scotty and Kenny’s faces.
