A Demon Bound (Imp Book 1) (5 page)

“Mine,” that familiar voice deep within me announced in silence. It was a word that carried power, that announced claim. It was my way of marking my territory and enveloping what I would soon Own.

Wyatt went rigid and with a sharp breath pulled back. We began an escalating tug of war deep inside him that would have been funny had it not been so deadly. Want, want,want. I was firmly attached and nothing he could do could shake me off. His tugs started to take on a feel of desperation. I pulled steadily, making slow progress only to be halted as he dug in with all his might.

We were at an impasse. I could take him against his will, but I would need to rip him free of his body. It would be even more bloody and messy, and a clear act of violence to anyone who would be watching. It also would result in my head being lopped off by that angel before I could complete the act.

The sexual stimulation had ended with Wyatt’s insistence on not becoming dead. His unwillingness to proceed and give his whole self over was like a splash of sanity on my desire and I relaxed slightly in my grip. What the fuck was I doing? No Owning. And no Owning Wyatt. How could this have gone so wrong?

“Wait,” I told him in what I hoped was a reassuring voice. “I’m pulling free, but I need to do it slowly so you don’t rebound and go into convulsions or start hemorrhaging”. Okay, maybe that wasn’t so reassuring.

“Don’t pull back hard. Just hold your ground and gently ease back. Don’t panic.”

I’d never done this before. I’d never had an unsuccessful Own, or stopped part way like this and backed out. I was a little worried that I’d screw it up and end with Wyatt dead. I took a calming breath and began disengaging the feathers one at a time, with great care. When they were barely touching, I gently drew them back through Wyatt a few at a time. It was taking forever, but Wyatt held very still. I’m surprised he trusted me, but I guess he really didn’t have any other option. His breath hitched as I pulled my energy back within me and I paused worried he was going to panic and injure himself.

Slowly I continued, pulling the last of my energy out of him and stepped back. It felt almost cold after all the heat our closeness had generated. Wyatt stared at me but I couldn’t read him in the darkness of the parking lot.

“What on earth were you trying to do? What
are
you?” he said, his voice firm now that he wasn’t fighting for his life.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice a pitiful whine. I wasn’t sure what to say. “I lost control. I’m so very sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“What are you?” he repeated, careful not to touch me. “Normal people don’t do whatever it was that you were doing. I’ve always thought there was something weird about you, but you’ve been my friend so long that I just ignored it.”

I squirmed. I really didn’t want to tell him. Either way this was probably the end of any potential sex with Wyatt. This was probably the end of anything with Wyatt.

“Wyatt, you’ve known me for two years,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend. Please forgive me. I promise it will never happen again. Never.”

“Are you some kind of alien? A witch? Are you the devil, like that Jehovah’s Witness guy said this spring? You need to tell me what you are right now or this friendship is definitely over.”

I sighed, closing my eyes. “Your kind would call me a demon. I’m not like you think, though. I don’t run around mildewing the global crop harvest, or trying to enslave the human race. I just want to have a normal life, like everyone else.”

“A . . . A demon?” He sounded rather panicked. “As in Satan demon? You take people’s souls and condemn them to hell? You like to tear people’s limbs off and torture them before you kill them?”

I winced. Yeah. Although it sounded so much worse when he said it.

“No, no, not at all,” I assured him. “I’m just an imp, no more than a cockroach in the scheme of things. I’m still me, Wyatt. The same me that I’ve always been.”

He looked undecided. But undecided was better than hating me, or never wanting to see me again.

“I never wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry. Once I realized what I was doing, and that you didn’t want it, I stopped. You’re okay, I swear. And I will never do it again. I promise.”

“Were you trying to kill me? How is that not hurting me? How in the world would you think I’d want that?” The indecision was teetering in an unfavorable direction.

“I would never kill you, Wyatt,” I told him, my eyes beseeching him to forgive me and go back to the way things were between us. “I just got carried away. It’s been a really weird day. I would never hurt you, never kill you.” I was lying. There was a good chance that I would eventually lose control and hurt him, probably would eventually kill him.

Silence stretched on between us. I smelled the dumpster nearby, listened to the bugs singing. I wished Wyatt would say something, or hit me, or knock my head against my car. Anything. I couldn’t even leave since he was blocking the door of my car. This fiasco ranked right up on par with the angel showing up tonight. I’d never see Wyatt again after this. No relaxing conversations by the pool. No sex. No Owning. I was a stupid fucking idiot and I just wanted to go home.

Wyatt stared at me in silence for what seemed like eternity, and then he stepped aside and opened my car door for me. I felt like my guts were going to drop out of me when he did that. It seemed so dismissive, so final. I slid by him and bent to crawl into the seat.

“Get some sleep, Sam,” he said in a calm, tired voice.

I drove right home. And I didn’t really care if the angel showed up and killed me in my sleep or not.

Chapter 4

I
had a restless night and was just starting to get back to sleep when my cell phone rang.

“Ugh,” I grunted into it, not able to focus on the screen enough to see who was calling me at such an ungodly hour on a Saturday.

“Get your lazy rear out of bed and get down here. I’ve already tacked up your horse.” Then a click.

I stared at the phone fully awake and perplexed. Wyatt. And he sounded downright cheerful. Was this how humans dealt with conflict that involved someone nearly killing you? How they dealt with finding out their neighbor and best friend was a demon? True, he wasn’t in my bedroom dragging my naked ass out of bed, but he was still intending to keep our riding date. With a spark of hope, I leapt out of bed and pulled on jods and a polo shirt. I grabbed my field boots by the door and ran barefoot out to the stables. Wyatt tossed my helmet at me as I dashed in.

Piper, my big bay gelding, stood ready with his English saddle and bridle. Piper was a Thoroughbred Shire cross. He was tall and solid with a placid, unshakable disposition. Horses don’t like demons, and they especially don’t like me. It had taken me years to get Piper to let me put a saddle on him, let alone ride him. I loved riding, though, and the time it took to gain the horse’s trust was time well spent in my book.

Wyatt had saddled up Vegas for himself, a chestnut Quarter Horse gelding with an impressive pedigree. He was smaller than Piper, and less muscular, but full of heart with a silly sense of humor. Wyatt must have suspected I bought Vegas for him when I brought the horse home last year. I don’t ride Western, and have never been into Quarter Horses. I spent a fortune on this horse hoping Wyatt couldn’t resist and would ride with me. It had worked. Since Vegas arrived we tended to go out a few times a week when weather allowed.

I eyed Wyatt as he finished with Vegas. He looked the same as usual. Well rested, freshly showered (unlike me), cheerful. Had last night not happened at all? If I’d realized my neighbor was some strange powerful being who wanted to fuck me and kill me at the same time, I don’t think I would be out riding horses with her the next day. Well, maybe I would, but I’m not a human.

I hopped around the aisle of the barn in an undignified manner, putting on my boots as Wyatt tightened Vegas’ girth. We hadn’t spoken a word and I wasn’t sure how to break the ice while managing to carefully avoid mentioning the last six hours. I strapped on my helmet, then smiled and tossed Wyatt one off the rack.

“Catch.”

He caught it and scowled playfully.

“You must be joking. Since when have you ever seen me fall? Cowboy hat, maybe; riding helmet, no.”

I have this argument with Wyatt every time we ride. I’d done the whole “my stable my rules” and “my horse my rules” thing. He argued, but always gave in. And it’s true he never fell. The guy rode like he was crazy–glued to the saddle.

“Accidents happen, Wyatt. And I can’t put your brains back in your head”.

Wyatt looked at me speculatively.

“Can’t you? You seem to be able to heal yourself. To what extent can you do it with others?”

“I don’t technically have the ability to heal,” I explained. “I can fix myself, but I usually screw it up when I try to fix someone else. Besides, I’m not good with brains. They’re really tricky.”

Wyatt thought a moment. “Okay, why are brains so hard? As opposed to, say, a liver or an amputated limb?”

“The actual physical formation of the brain isn’t an issue; it’s all the neural pathways.” I loved explaining this sort of thing, and it was kind of nice to have this conversation with Wyatt.

“You have no idea the number of neural connections in the human brain. Plus, they change from moment to moment. You’re literally not the same person you were a few seconds ago, each experience changes the connections in slight ways. I could do a decent job, only to have you missing half your life experiences or a significant change in your personality. One little missed connection has huge consequences.”

Wyatt looked at the helmet with new respect.

“If you were a flatworm, I’d say ’go for it’. I’d be pretty confident I could fix your neural network and you’d still be fairly close to the flatworm you were before the accident. Since you’re a human, I can pretty much guarantee I’d fuck it up big time.”

I was very serious. Wyatt seemed to realize that and put on the helmet without further argument.

We rode for hours without a word, just like we always do. Fast. Through woods, and over coops into adjoining fields and the public trails that snaked all through this section of Maryland. Normally we’d meet the occasional mountain biker or four wheeler, but today it was just us and nature.

I’m a terrible rider. Couple that with the fact that horses don’t like me or my kind much, and it means I spend a lot of my time in the dirt, on my ass, staring up at the horse. I only fell off once that morning, losing my balance over a coop. Piper stopped as soon as I hit the ground and looked at me reprovingly.

“Sorry, boy,” I told him, then looked around for a log, fence, rock, something to get me up high enough to climb back into the saddle. Piper was a big boy. After trying a few things unsuccessfully, I clambered up the coop, but couldn’t get Piper close enough. Wyatt rolled his eyes at me and finally hopped off to throw me back into the saddle.

As we cooled down the horses on a walk back toward my barn, Wyatt looked over at me cautiously.

“So, do you demons possess people? Like in
The Exorcist
?” he asked.

I shuddered. Possessing involves putting yourself in a human body with the human still in there. It is stupid and dangerous. You have maybe ten percent of your power, and it announces your presence like a bullhorn. Demons who regularly do possessions don’t last a fortnight.

“No. Only the very lowest demons do that. Not me.” Well, not since that time a few centuries back when a priest yanked me out and stuck me in a pig body instead. Pigs don’t appreciate that sort of thing.

We hopped off of our horses in the stable yard and walked in together. Wyatt still looked rather nervous. I could see the fear in him, even though he struggled to hide it. I wished I could show him that I was still the same person he grilled steaks with Thursday night. The same girl he pitched into the pool headfirst last week. I hated that he looked scared of me.

Tossing his saddle pad in the corner, Wyatt took his saddle into the tack room while I brushed Piper. I hoped he could move past this. I hoped we could at the very least still be friends. No doubt I’d see a for–sale sign in front of his house within the week.

“Sam? You need to come in here,” Wyatt called.

I walked into the tack room carrying my saddle and saw Wyatt standing over Boomer. My hound was sprawled on the floor, his brindle fur covered with bites, cuts and blood. He thumped his tail and panted as he saw me. I bent down and examined his wounds carefully. This couldn’t have been the angel. If it were, Boomer would have been dead and disintegrated. I couldn’t imagine what could have attacked him. No dog would have gotten a tooth on him, let alone tore him up this bad. A fox wouldn’t have taken him on. There were coyotes around, but even cornered and fighting for their life they wouldn’t have caused this kind of damage. The Allegheny Mountains used to be home to Eastern Panthers, but they were no more. A few had been sighted down south, but not up here. A bear maybe? A black bear defending her cubs may have done this. There did seem to be more claw marks than bites, which would indicate a bear. Boomer wasn’t one to back down from a fight either, stupid dog.

“Uhhh Sam? You’re, uhhh, leaking,” Wyatt said observing me cautiously.

I looked down and realized that I had let some of my raw energy creep up to the surface where it was glowing across my skin like a sheen of sweaty light. An opalescent drop fell to the floor and sizzled like acid. I discretely neutralized it. I never leak. It was a point of pride with me. How embarrassing. Just one more slip I couldn’t afford to make with an angel so close.

“Sorry. I was trying to think what could have done this. Boomer is smart, and much stronger than he looks.”

“I’d speculate big cat,” Wyatt said, bending down to look closer. “Or grizzly, but not in this part of the country. We really need to get him into the emergency vet.”

“No, he’ll be Okay,” I assured him. “It’s not that bad.”

Wyatt looked at me in disbelief.

“Let me at least carry him into the house and do first aid from the vet kit.”