“Maybe you should have him ride in your lap,” she said, and he actually shot her a hopeful look. Much to her annoyance. “You’re not letting him ride in your lap, Jack. The only person who’s going to be lap riding anytime soon isme.”
And that got him.
He started the truck while gawping at her, half shocked, half so obviously thrilled she couldn’t regret saying it. Whatever was going on between them was good, and it was horny, and maybe it couldn’t lead anywhere but that was fine. It was fine. It didn’t have to be anything other than what it was:
A witch and a demon, being sex buddies.
Perfectly normal.
For a book written by Charlaine Harris.
A fact that made her chuckle all the way to Cassie’s ramshackle home. She started over the dirt track they’d parked on the other side of, and the wild grass that made up Cassie’s garden, still amused about it.
But when she looked behind her, Jack wasn’t there. He was still in the truck, glaring out through the windshield, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly it had turned his knuckles white. She had to dart back and go over to his window, and ask him what on earth was going on.
And he wouldn’t look at her when he answered.
“If I go in there she’s gonna clock me immediately.”
“And by that you mean she’ll know you’re a demon.”
He shot her a withering look. “Nooooo, I was talking about guessing I’m a fully paid-up member of the Pat Benatar Fan Club,” he said. Then let that sarcasm sink in before he jabbed his handsaggressively at the air over the steering wheel. “OfcourseI’m talking about that. She’s a witch, she’ll see it right off.”
“But you’re in human form.”
“It won’t completely matter.”
“It matters to me. All I can see is your hairy, totally ordinary face.”
“Really? You sure? Nothing else starting to flash its warning lights at you?”
“I don’t even know what I could be looking f—” she started to say, as she examined the face he tilted first one way, then the next. Everything seemed normal looking, until suddenly there it was, there it was, there it was. A big, weird feeling, like a cold hand grabbing her by the nape of her neck—and so roughly and intensely that it cut her sentence short.
She came close to stepping away from the car.
Or maybe grabbing that pen she couldn’t remember putting in her pocket, but knew was there instinctively now.My talisman, my tool, the thing that helps me channel my magic, my knack, she thought, and had to force it down. After all, this was just Jack. It was Jack. A demon, yes, but not one that would ever hurt her. And she wanted him to know that she knew that.
Though of course he clocked her reaction anyway.
“Getting it now, huh. Feels like something just hit your funny bone. If your funny bone was in your spine and the something that hit was a hammer made of ghosts,” he said, so matter-of-fact she could almost imagine it didn’t bother him. Except for the cigarette he started peeling out of its packet before he finished the rest of his words. “Give it a while, you’ll start getting the double.”
And he lit it on the last word.
No match, she noticed. Though of course she’d almost noticed that before. On the porch, she remembered—only this time it was clear as a bell. He just clicked his fingers and they sparked andthere it was. The glow of the tip, a plume of smoke, blown away from her. And then the way the smoke coiled around him, answering the question she had wanted to immediately ask.
A double was something that surrounded him.
A shadowy shape, so suddenly visible she had no idea how she hadn’t seen it before. However, it wasn’t scary in the way he seemed to be suggesting. It didn’t make her want to hex him or something like that. Instead, she found herself reaching out to it. Just to see what it felt like. Or to watch what it did when she touched it.
And the answer was—it drifted away in a slow wave.
Then after a moment, it drifted back.
As if it didn’t like being disturbed, until it realized what it was being disturbed by. Once it knew it was her, it coiled one tendril out and around her finger. Cold, but also somehow comforting. Like a ring she used to wear all the time, recently found buried in ice. She held her hand up and admired it like that, so engrossed it jolted her when he suddenly spoke.
“I can feel that, you know.”
“Oh. Oh sorry. Sorry, I’ll stop.”
