Page 1 of I Summoned A Demon For A Date?!
Chapter One
CHAPTER 1: ROSIE
Istared at the circle of salt in confusion before looking at the spellbook in my hand. I'd set it up correctly. The lines were perfect and a portable scale weighed the materials I brought out this morning from where it hid in the back of the pantry.
If everything was correct, then why didn't the summoning spell work?
I scratched the back of my left arm, forgetting that I had chalk all over my hand. I'd been at this for over two hours and my eyes were straining. I decided to take a break after not seeing a solution after another twenty minutes of flipping through the book with no answer in sight.
"That bookseller pulled one over on me," I grumbled and went into the kitchen to grab a soda. "Summon a demon, my ass." I sighed. It was illegal to summon them, but it's not like that stopped people.
My own fault really, for being taken advantage of. I was just desperate. Rent was due next week, I had a totalof five dollars and three cents left to my name, and I still had yet to get a call back on any of the interviews I'd done over the past month. If something didn't happen soon, I'd be living in my car.
There was no way I would call my family for help. Not after the last time.
I sat on the couch to try to relax a little but my cell phone rang. I winced, the ringtone letting me know it was my step-sister. Just what I needed. I debated on ignoring the call yet I knew it was inevitable that she'd keep calling until I answered.
"Hi, Stephany. What's up?"
"Hello, Rosie. You didn't respond to my text yesterday, so I thought I would give you a call."
Her sickly sweet voice made me want to punch something. It always had.
"Do you need a ride to my engagement party? You have to come! Mother was just talking to Denis and mentioned we hadn't seen you in ages." We'd been stepsisters for over twenty years but had never gotten along. She always had to be the center of attention, and honestly, I never had an issue with it, but she wanted to make sure I knew I was always second best.
"Yes, Stephany." If my eyes could roll further into the back of my head, I'd probably see my brain. "I'll be there." I didn't know how I'd afford the gas, but I would get there to avoid the further judgment that would occur otherwise.
"Perfect! Should I put down a plus one?" The bitch paused. "Oh, wait!" The smugness wrapped around me like a coiling snake. "That's right, how could I be so insensitive? You and Greg broke up months ago. You poor thing. Being single at the biggest party of the year will be rough." The glee in her tone did not match her words.
What a bitch.
I don't know what came over me next, but I ended up regretting it almost immediately.
"I'm seeing someone new, actually. Put down a plus one for me. See you soon, dear sister." The screen should have cracked with how hard I pressed the end call button.
Fuck.
Now I had to find a date for a week-long engagement party.
I went back to the summoning circle with determination.
"How in the nine hells did you manage to summon me?!" The outraged demon inside the circle glared at me with promises of dismemberment and death in his eyes. They were an impossible shade of amber-gold and I found myself staring longer than was probably wise when faced with an enraged supernatural being. "This should be impossible." He attempted to step out of the summoning circle and cursed up a storm when the magic zapped his expensive-looking shoes, Italian leather if I had to guess because demons shopped at high-end boutiques apparently.
The demon looked like he'd stepped out of Vogue magazine instead of the bowels of hell, all tailored suit and perfectly styled dark hair that made my secondhand clothes feel even shabbier in comparison. He also wanted my head. Not that I could blame him, considering I'd yanked him here without so much as a please and thank you.
It?
I didn't know much about demons beyond what I'd frantically googled in the last twenty-four hours, and somehow 'proper pronouns for addressing hellspawn' hadn't made it into my rushed research.
"That's a great question?" I looked down at the spellbook, holding it upside down to see if I missed anything. "I can't believe it worked."
It worked! Holy shit.
"You didn't even think it would? Why bother? Gods, humans are annoying." The demon scoffed and rubbed his temples with a hand with some sharp-looking talons before turning to look at me murderously. "Why did you summon me? Let's get this over with."
"Oh.Um. Right. Next steps." I wasn't usually this unprepared for things, but my life was in the shithole lately. "What's the next step? Do you know?"
If the demon's eyes could get any bigger, I think they'd pop out of his sculpted face and roll across my dingy apartment floor. Now that I had a second to look at him properly, and I was going with 'him' since everything from his stance to the way he carried himself screamed masculine energy, I had to admit he was a good-looking specimen.
