Page 37 of Demons and Debts
How long was I in there?
The clock by the nightstand says eight-thirty. It’s been hours.
Theo’s talking and I haven't been listening to a word he's been saying. I look at him slowly blinking away the grogginess.
‘Did you hear me?’ he asks.
He looks annoyed.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’
‘Where were you? I've been looking for you. You can't just disappear like that when the security system is down.’
‘Well, I didn’t know it was down.’ I glance back down at my hands. ‘I was just in the bathroom.’
‘For six hours?’ He doesn’t believe me.
‘I fell asleep in the tub,’ I lie and his eyes narrow.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Get dressed. Vic wants to see you.’
I nod and he leaves the room. I sink down on the bed when I’m alone again. All I want to do is curl up and go to sleep. I feel exhausted.
I go over what happened again with a clearer head. Did I give Sie the wrong impression somehow? I look down at myself. I was dressed like a contracted girl.
Is this my fault? Maybe he thought I was one of them. But, no, he asked me if I was contracted. I told him I wasn’t.
An angry part of me pipes up.No matter what he thought, it didn't give him the right to pull you into his room, touch you up, and threaten you!
But I touched him too. His skin when he changed was so … impossible not to reach out and caress. I'm like that with things I like the look of … I get bitten by animals a lot.
I dry myself off slowly, remembering the things he said to me about keeping me here. I shudder. Is that what they're planning to do to me? Use their power on me? Turn me into one of their possessions? Make me sign a contract for three years?
Would it be so bad? I think about that seriously. How would it work considering that my experience of sex can be summed up in one shitty night with some random guy I didn’t know because I neverwantanyone? At least … I never did previously.
Before I walked into that bar, I'd kind of come to the conclusion that all that stuff wasn't for me; that the only significant romance I was ever going to have in my life was with my vibrator. After all, I'll never be disappointed with it unless I forget to charge the damn thing.
Feeling a little better, I get dressed again, putting on the clothes I had on before. I find a comb in a drawer, which I use to detangle my hair. I put it up in a wet bun on top of my head.
My hands are still shuddering, and I shake them out, trying to get rid of the extra stress.
When the door opens again, Theo’s back in the doorway.
‘Come on,’ he says like he’s taking me to my death.
What does Vic want with me? Maybe he’s decided to give me my orc stone back and let me leave town.
‘I know where his study is. I can get there by myself,’ I mutter.
He shrugs. ‘Vic told me to bring you, so that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘You do everything he tells you?’ I can’t help but goad.
He snorts but doesn’t rise to my bait.
I shuffle along behind him slowly, glancing at Sie’s closed door with trepidation as I skirt around it. Thankfully, it doesn't open again, and we go down the windy staircase.
Theo takes me directly into the study that I peeked into earlier, but now Vic is sitting in there behind the desk. His gaze finds me briefly and then his attention is back on his laptop, his fingers tapping away on the keys. He's got glasses on, and an errant thought runs through my head. I didn't know incubi ever needed glasses. Maybe they don’t in their demon forms.
