Michele Hauf: Captivating The Witch

Coming upright before her, he matched her height, which was a surprise, but then he decided she must have been wearing high heels. Excellent. That would make it difficult for her to run when he strangled her.

Ed gripped her by the neck, squeezing as hard as his anger would allow him to squeeze, and—

* * *

The demon kissed her.

When Tamatha had expected him to hit her, to bruise her with his terrible clutch about her neck in retaliation for the binding she’d put on him, he instead...kissed her.

And he was still kissing her.

Her pink leather shoe heels backed up against the brick wall and she wobbled, but he caught her about the waist with a sure and guiding hand, not breaking the incredible, shockingly hot kiss.

This kiss was the furthest thing from retaliation. So she surrendered to the weird moment and even forgot about the rain spell, reveling in the spill of warm summer rain down her neck and cheeks.

This man kissed her as if he knew her. Had tasted her lips before. His mouth was firm and demanding, intent. Nothing about him being a demon repelled her. Everything about him made her want to get closer, dive deeper and seek his insides. To study him for more reason than that he was demon. If she could run her hands over his skin, she would. She must.

She dropped her shoulder bag and pushed her hands over his shoulders and teased the short, dark hair at the back of his neck, gripping it to hold him at her mouth. And then she glided up the back of his scalp and forward. Her forefingers glanced over the adamant growths at his temples she suspected were horns. Interesting. And he answered her greedy coax by dashing his tongue against hers and daring her to meet him as he deepened the kiss. Which she did.

The sulfur she’d originally scented was no longer noticeable. The crisp, cool tang of his aftershave filled her senses with ice and cedar. She would never forget this man’s scent.

What was his name? Sure, she could control him with his name, but she wouldn’t. Maybe. The binding had been an unintended reaction. But what joy that it had worked! Of course, then he had called her a witch with such vitriol she had tasted his hatred for her as if it were acid on her tongue.

If he would stop kissing her she could step back and be wary.

On the other hand, right now, lack of wariness suited her fine.

He muttered an appreciative moan against her mouth, and then as suddenly as he’d kissed her, he pulled away and wiped his lips. “Wha—?” He winced and shook his head. “What the hell? Why did I...? I did not just kiss a witch.”

“Uh, yes, you did. And it was awesome.”

“Not awesome. No! Witches are...vile.” Again he wiped his lips, and Tamatha cringed. He admonished her with a wagging finger before her face. “You made me do that.”

“No, I—”

He snapped his fingers, abruptly cutting her off as if she were a child being scolded by a rude teacher. “If you want to keep breathing, stay away from me, witch.”

And he stalked off, glancing over his shoulder at her once. He slapped his hand against a thigh, tugging a phone out of his pocket, and stomped away.

Tamatha offered a wave. Silly. And stupid. He’d been offended by kissing her? She hadn’t made him do a thing. He’d wanted to kiss her.

Vile?

“Not so pleased about kissing you, either,” she muttered.

But she couldn’t quite bring herself to wipe off his kiss. Instead, she tapped her mouth and decided to stick with the good memory of his demanding and sensual lips against hers.

“I kissed a demon,” she said in wonder. And for as much as he had been repulsed, she could not summon a tendril of disgust. A smile curled her rain-sprinkled lips. “And I liked it.”

* * *

He clicked to answer the ringing cell phone as he stalked away from the repulsive witch. She had tasted—well, not vile, but rather sweet. Though he’d not admit that out loud.

“Thrash! You gotta help. They’re getting closer. I can’t get out of here!”

It was his friend Laurent LaVolliere, a fellow demon whom he considered family, for their grand-relations had once formed the Libre denizen centuries earlier here in the very heart of Paris. Laurent sounded out of breath and frightened. The man was a strife demon; it took a lot to frighten him.

“Tell me where you are, Laurent.”

“The Montparnasse!”

“Where in...the cemetery?”

“Their skin... Ed, it’s falling from their faces. And...stuff is oozing from their mouths. There’s so many of them. I can feel their dark magic. So...powerful. I can’t move!”

The terror in his friend’s voice sent a shiver down his spine. “I’ll be right there. Hold on.”

Ed shoved the phone into his pocket. Yet something compelled him to glance over his shoulder. The witch was nowhere to be seen. Talk about tormenting demons under the full moon.

But he couldn’t bother with a silly witch and that ridiculously hot kiss. Laurent was in trouble.

He spread back his arms and tilted back his head. The sensation of feathered barbs piercing his flesh always hurt like a mother. The price he had to pay for shifting. His molecules rearranged and did their own thing and his form separated into dozens of soot-winged ravens. As one entity the conspiracy of ravens swooped upward and soared in the direction of the cemetery. Beyond a vast city garden, the graveyard marked a dark blot amid the roofed and pavement-tangled city.

When he came to human form with a shiver of his body to gather in his energy and shake off a feather or two, he stood in a dark graveyard packed with tombstones, mausoleums, crumbling stone crosses and moss-frosted angels. Fully clothed, a phenomenon beyond his explanation, he wore no trace of his previous form. He could smell the anomaly immediately and felt its presence as a tightening in his horn nubs. And the witch ward on his forearm burned as it had not previously in the alley.

When his eyes landed on the band of growling creatures—who were wrapped in shredded linens, some of their hair gone and skin indeed falling away from some of their bones—he heard his friend’s scream. And witnessed his destruction.

Laurent let out one agonizing shout at sight of Ed: “Les Douze!” Then his body was torn away at shoulders, hips and head. His remains did not immediately ash as with most demon deaths.

One of the hideous creatures sighted Ed. He reactively sent a stream of energy mined from his vita, his very life force, toward it, which manifested as black smoke, enforced with demonic magic. The force should knock it from its feet and slam it into the nearby tombstone, breaking its body and killing it. The current of black energy coiled about the creature. Instead of succumbing to defeat, the zombielike thing merely swayed as if an annoying breeze had washed over its decrepit structure.

The rest of the creatures spied Ed. The one next to the thing that had taken his energy zap as if a mosquito sting dropped Laurent’s disembodied arm and growled at him. One opened its mouth and the lower jaw unhinged.

“Didn’t think zombies existed,” he hissed.

Zombies were not tops on his list. He never watched the popular television show because they were so unbelievable. The dead did not come back to life. Right?

The group of things—whatever they were—groaned and stalked toward him.

Ed knew when he was overwhelmed, and he was going to count his lacking ability to put the one off its feet to lingering remnants of the sexy witch’s binding spell.

“Find your rest, Laurent!” he shouted, then shifted to a conspiracy and flew out of there and back to his home, where he landed on the rooftop, fell to his knees and caught his palms on the concrete surface.

It was raining harder, and he prayed no lightning snapped the sky. Lightning worked like an electrical jolt to his bones, no matter how distant the occurrence.