Ink & Fire: (A Havenwood Falls Novella)

“My niece?” Eloise persists.

“Levi is a tyrant. I don’t get confused often, and when I do, it pisses me off. I don’t know how he’s doing what he is. I’ve seen a lot of demonic possessions over the years. This isn’t a possession.” He shakes his head. “It’s like he’s using her as a sacrificial altar, bleeding victims on her skin. That shouldn’t be possible. He’s slashing his victims. Each time he does it, it slashes her. Then he bleeds them.”

My gaze falls to the table and to the food growing cold. Without looking at either of them, I eat. Stress wins out over the steal-my-appetite gruesome details. I already know I’m not bleeding my own blood. The other information is new to me, but I sense they’re theories he must be throwing back and forth in his head.

“As for her virginity,” he pauses, and I know he’s looking at me. I refuse to look up. “She’s a beautiful woman. Consenting adults. And—”

“You were protecting me,” I finish for him. I should have known, and honestly, I did suspect it after he told me the story of Levi and his penchant for sacrificing virgins.

“Harper—” my aunt begins.

“I’m not surprised.” I’m not. It doesn’t shock me that she knows about what happened the night before. It doesn’t surprise me that Lucas had sex with me as much to protect me as he did out of need and desire. Everything comes back to me—my curse and the things everyone around me has to do to fix it or protect me.

None of it surprises me.

I’ve been living under a microscope my entire life. What would surprise me is living out from under a microscope.

“You’ve got to know a good song for this one,” I tell Eloise. “Come on, hit me with it.”

When I look up, she’s staring at me. Maybe she wants me to be fazed by all of this. Maybe she expects me to be upset. Maybe I should be. Thing is, I may not be doing cartwheels over all of the bad shit happening, but I’m glad I slept with Lucas. It let me connect with someone, and doing that is teaching me to connect with others. Maybe my first wasn’t movie-of-the-week material, but it was an awakening. I can’t regret that.

Slowly, she smiles. “Stranded.”

The lyrics play in my head, and I smile back. “Now, that one feels like me.” I glance at Lucas. “You’re supposed to eat when there’s a holiday. Like, a lot.” He hasn’t touched his food, and I add, “Even if you don’t have to.”

His gaze searches my face, his expression unreadable, and I’m thrown by how deeply he studies me.

A thousand years pass in one stare.

The sound of my aunt’s chair scraping the floor drags me back into the present. “What the hell?” she exclaims. Abruptly, she stumbles away from the table, and then points to the end of it. “What the hell is that?”

There, resting in a seat, is Desi, the weird pet that turns into a badass baseball bat. Lucas did say it would find its way to me.

I sigh. “Just accept that my life is really weird right now.”

Eloise circles the table, giving Desi a wide berth while eyeing the bronze protrusions on the weapon. “There’s weird, and then there’s a club with thorns.”

“Weird,” I repeat.

“Club,” she points out.

“A mace actually,” Lucas inserts. “With spikes.”

Eloise pauses, leans forward, and then narrows her eyes. “A mace? Why does it feel alive?”

Her psychic abilities go much deeper than just spiritual reading. She’s also an empath and extremely sensitive to auras and energy. Trying to lie to her as a teenager was a bitch. Hence, why I never tried more than once.

“It’s sentient,” Lucas replies. “Think a guardian inside of a weapon.”

Stunned, Eloise glances at me.

I shrug. “Apparently, that’s what you get when you channel an archdemon, and then have a one-night stand with a fallen angel.”

Eloise shakes her head. “You are so my kid.”

A sharp laugh escapes me, mainly because I did not expect that response.

“Let’s eat,” I suggest.

We barely make it through the meal when my chair slides backward away from the table, completely on its own. Blood trickles out of my nose, and my hand flies to my face to staunch a gush that never comes.

Eloise cries out.

For once, Lucas doesn’t rush to help. He simply turns his chair, leans his elbows on his knees, and watches me.

I’m trying to breathe, not because I can’t, but because I feel swollen, my body full of something extremely dark and terrifying. Like a doll stuffed with super-charged cotton.

“He can’t do it,” Lucas says.

Breathing through the panic crippling me, I look at him. “Can’t do what?”

“Possess you.” He stares, amazed. “He keeps trying. I can feel it. He’s drawing on your energy, but he’s not entering you.”

“I’d say that sounds like a dirty joke, but,” nausea slams into me, “this really hurts.”

Lucas finally comes to me, kneels, and touches my chin. “You’re not going to throw up.”

Bile rises in my throat, metallic and hot, and I swallow past it. “Those are pretty words—”

“Fight it, Harper.” He drops his hand.

I clutch my stomach and double over. “Fight it,” I repeat. You’re not going to throw up.

Inside my head, I start to scream, loud and shrill. Over and over again. The sound chases back the nausea.

My hands start to shake. Even pressed against my stomach, I can feel the tremors.

I lift them.

Aunt Eloise gasps. “Paper.”

Rushing into her bedroom, she returns with pencils and a notepad. I shake my head, even as my chair slides back toward the table. Once again, all on its own.

“I can’t do this,” I insist.

Lucas joins me. “Yes, you can. Use your gifts. If a lesser demon tries to interfere, I’ve got you. There’s not a damn thing they can do if I’m here.”

Pushing the food aside, Eloise places the notebook and pencils in front of me, the cover flipped open.

“Aunt Eloise,” I beg.

My hands are shaking so violently now, they hurt.

“It’s okay,” she promises, even though I can tell by the waver in her voice, she’s not sure it is.

As soon as I lift my hand, it flies to the pencils. Gripping one of them, my fingers jerk to the notebook, and I feel my eyes rolling up inside of my head.

My world goes dark.

When I come to, Lucas is leaning over the table, furrows marring his forehead.

Beneath my fingers are the words, You can’t protect her, Luke. She’s mine. Power. Time to suffer.

Dropping the pencil, my hands fly to my throat, but there’s no choking sensation like there was in Jeanine Turner’s office. “Luke?” I rasp.

Lucas stares at the message. Small drops of blood are smeared over the ink. “Levi and I have known each other for a very, very long time.” It’s the only explanation he gives for the nickname.

“You can’t protect her? She’s mine?” Eloise massages her forehead. “I don’t understand. This isn’t about Harper, is it?”

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