Maybe she would have felt better. Maybe the damn ferret bat wouldn’t be there. Maybe she would have felt a spark if she’d tried to keep herself open to this relationship.
He pulled away when she didn’t answer, his expression falling.
“Sorry. I’m just a very straightforward person, but a lot of people say that can be overbearing.”
“No!” she exclaimed, waving her hands.Just because I feel nothing now, doesn’t mean it can’t form if I do this properly next time.“I-I’m having a great time. I’m just not used to this and haven’t worked out the nervous jitters yet.”
The waiter finally arrived with their food, giving her a chance to catch her breath. Just as he went to set her deep dish down, a black creature with glowing red tendrils coming from its horns jumped onto the table.
It screeched, wiggling backwards and knocking over the table water, their drinks, and an empty wine glass. It shattered, not from the impact of falling, but due to her magic. The waiter yelled, stumbled back into the table behind him, and dropped her orange curry onto the ground.
Oliver threw his hands up in surprise, only to push away from the table with his chair legs scraping against the polished elegant tiles.
Skylar gasped and tried to do damage control as she lunged her hands forward, grabbed it, and threw it in a random direction. It flipped through the air, landed on another table where a woman screamed, and leapt off with its wings spread to soften its fall. It sprinted towards her.
“Oh shit. Oh shit!” She shoved to her feet and knew the only thing she could do was run – it was after her, and it shouldn’t be seen by humans! “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
She grabbed her clutch from the table and pushed her chair back to make room, incidentally knocking it into the person seated behind her.
Oliver stood up.
“Skylar!” he yelled when she went to flee.
She winced and turned to him with her hands out, one clutching her bag. “I swear I’ll send you the cash for dinner and text you later.”
When the creature was at her feet, she picked it up and hauled both their butts out of the restaurant before anyone else could see it. The infernal pest flopped around like the limpest football while she ran down the street, hailing a taxi when she saw the light of an unoccupied one behind her as she peeked over her shoulder to check if Oliver had followed.
The cab stopped in the middle of the busy street, despite the cars behind it blaring their horns, and she dived into the quiet backseat. She gave the driver her address as he shot off, and she clutched the nightmare fuel wriggling in her arms tightly. She didn’t even let it go when it bit her so hard blood welled, afraid it’d make the driver crash as they turned off the main street and made the five-minute drive to her house.
Her heart raced the entire time, the most it’d moved all night.
The moment she closed her front door, she dropped the infuriating creature to the ground with a thud. It landed on its feet like a cat.
“What in the absolutefuck?!” Skylar screamed at it, making it screech and hiss at her. “You can’t just do that! There were humans there! You wereseen!”
When it ran away from her, she chased it through her house.
“Get out of my house! Go back to whatever hellverse you came from and leave me alone!”
It ran to her bedroom and ducked underneath her bed, and she got on her knees to grab it. It squealed and bolted back out. By the time she got to her feet, she had no idea where it went, but it definitely wasn’t gone.
Anger flooded her veins, and she unzipped her heels, kicked them off, and then stormed through her house. She went to her kitchen, grabbed a tea towel, and dampened it under the sink tap. The door to her alchemy workspace slammed against the wall when she threw it open, and she entered it with determination.
She knelt next to the summoning circle, leaned over it, and went to rub it away.
She flinched back with a scream when a thud came from it at the same time as it glowed bright red.
“No!” she shouted at it, athim.
Mr Tentacles bashed again, and again, and Skylar let out a screech.
“You can’t do this to me! Our contract was an equal trade – you can’t force me to keep summoning you!”
The magic circle pulsed repeatedly, almost angrily, as the thuds grew more resonant, like he was hitting it harder.
“Feed off someone else!”
Skylar threw her hand back in preparation, readying herself for one big swipe that would darken the room and stop the bashing. She faltered.
