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  I wasn’t sure. It was pretty strange to think he’d been watching me since I was a kid, and that he was born from my magic. I could see why the witch community frowned on that. That had to be either incestuous or maybe even narcissistic, like falling in love with a piece of your own self.

  Still, Firian was definitely his own person. I was comfortable around him as if I’d known him forever, but he was also extremely mysterious to me. My stomach squirmed.

  “Charlotte.” Montague came strolling by while I was standing on the path, feeling scolded and unsure what to do.

  “Oh…hey.”

  “You look distressed. I expect weekends can be difficult, being so far from your father…” He gave me a rather gallant expression, and I was charmed. Then I realized Alec was standing behind him on the path, keeping his distance.

  He took a deep breath and Montague turned toward him. “You can’t avoid her forever. She’s your roommate.”

  “I didn’t know you were actually avoiding me,” I said.

  “I can’t…harm you. But I definitely want to…” He said the last bit under his breath, but I heard it. I also got the feeling that by ‘harm’, he actually meant ‘send into a stratosphere of carnal delight that we might regret later’.

  I mean, every time I walked away from Alec, I forgot just how hot he was. Then when he re-entered my vision, my brain was practically locked down by the mere sight of his gorgeous mouth. He looked smart with his sophisticated glasses, but also…like some sort of beautiful demon prince with eyes like low flames and arms corded with muscle.

  “Alec,” Montague said, sweeping an arm around my shoulders. “You know you want to gaze upon her beauty. You know it will be the most delicious torture you can imagine. Let’s teach her to roller skate.”

  “Uggh, Monty, you’re killing me…” He rubbed his forehead just above his sexy glasses. “You’re not the one who has been cursed to need sex.”

  “You’re right. I have no idea what it’s like to be cursed to need anything that I will never really have,” Montague said dryly. “If I can handle day-old blood from a pouch, you can handle getting to know your roommate. It’s what Master Blair wanted. You’re half human. Just focus on the half of you that is a nineteen-year-old human boy and therefore, entirely capable of chastity and reserve.” He smirked.

  “This seems like a bad idea to me,” Firian said.

  “I am not surprised you’d say that, Firian,” I said. “But…I’m up for anything that gets my mind off my troubles right now. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alec

  Damn Monty. I knew he was into this girl. He was obvious about it, too. I was trying very hard not to be.

  Two years ago, Montague was just a normal guy, with an uneventful life. Harris and Montague and I all attended the same academy, one of the top schools for students to move on to the most exclusive universities. He was the fun-loving friend who knitted me and Harris together, the guy who owned an over-the-top car and dragged us out to do something wild like going into town to go to the human mall and order fast food.

  I know, the definition of “wild” among warlock high school students was a little strange. Going to the mall was about on par with summoning a low level demon.

  Harris would pretend to hate it, and I would be exploding with my incubus instincts at the sight of all the human girls. I mean, I fucking loved it, deep down. I was never satisfied, but it was something, even though I had to jack off in the bathroom and take an extra “tonic”, the one that was supposed to calm all that down.

  Montague was different now. I’d realized that the day we all reunited in our new dorm. He’d become more serious. We all knew what happened to vampires, in the end. They started remembering things that had happened to their sire. Eventually their memories traced back to their sire’s sire, until they found an end: the oldest living vampire in the line. That vampire is their master, their lord.

  It was hard to tell, because he was acting more like a model warlock and the teachers all seemed to think he was just growing up, but Harris and I knew better. Monty was supposed to be our party friend.

  Something was going on in that head of his. His eyes grew so distant at times that he hardly seemed to hear what I was saying. I was afraid to know.

  I was hoping Charlotte would be good for him. He needed something else to focus on.

  That’s good, I thought. I’m definitely not dating her or anyone else. I don’t have time to get distracted by that shit. And Harris already has his parents lining up prospects for him. So Monty might as well go for it.

  Her familiar was giving me the side-eye and I realized that as I thought about all this, my eyes were taking in every delicious curve of Charlotte’s body, even through the men’s dress shirt that didn’t reveal too much. It was just enough. I didn’t need much. Just the sight of her ponytail flicking across her back as she turned to look at Monty was enough to get me thinking about what I could do to her.

  “So you’re planning on hanging around forever?” I asked Firian.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly and then faced forward, looking at her.

  If I wasn’t mistaken, he was looking at her the same way I was.

  Monty led the way to the skating rink. Usually we just treated it like a spot to exercise in the winter. I tried to hit the gym most mornings but sometimes it was more fun to speed around a track. It was left unattended with music playing. Since the school was behind gates and everyone knew everyone else, we could just grab skates in our size and do what we wanted. The bowling alley was the same way.

  “Why are there ice skates?” Charlotte asked.

  “In winter if it gets cold enough we ice the lake,” Monty said. “We just keep everything here.”

  “It’s so quiet.”

  “Just us,” Monty said. “But that’s better, isn’t it? I know some of these guys have been jerks to you. Charlotte, what size do you wear?”

  “Eight and a half. In men’s it’s a six and a half, if that exists.”

  “Will seven work?” He held up a pair and knelt to put it on her.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said, flustered.

  “But I want to.” He lifted her leg with one hand, shoving the pants leg up. He made it look accidental but I doubted it was. The sight of her skin was probably making his mouth water.

  Or maybe that was just me. He pulled off her shoe and slipped the skate on, tugging the laces. Firian was watching this too, and it had to be killing him. He couldn’t protest too much over male attention on his witch, but I think he wanted to tear us both to pieces.

  Charlotte seemed to be enjoying the attention. “I wish I had some french fries or nachos or something, but this is cool, having the place to ourselves.”

  “I always wish I had some french fries,” I said. “I get really sick of the gourmet stuff. Monty used to take us to Checkers in his car.”

  “You have a car?”

  “I sold it,” Monty said quickly. “To pay for expenses.”

  He told me that over the phone during the summer, but I wasn’t buying it. “But there are no expenses at Merlin,” I said.

  “Well, not school expenses, but life expenses. Just—stuff.” He looked at Charlotte. “Alec’s family is loaded, just like Harris—“

  “Not quite like Harris,” I grumbled.

  “I’ve seen your house, man,” Monty said.

  “So we’re like the scholarship kids,” Charlotte said. “That explains why you’ll stoop to my level.” Her laugh was light and teasing and made my cock twitch a little. I shut my eyes and imagined the faces of the five oldest U. S. senators to dispel my unwanted thoughts. My dad came up with that trick. He had a good sense of humor about his incubus son, at least.

  “No. It just so happens that I’m not afraid that a woman will corrupt me and ruin my reputation,” Monty said.

  “That’s already happened,” I said. “In Cancun.”

  “Well, then, it can’t happen
twice,” Monty said, narrowing his eyes at me. “Come on, Charlotte. Let’s hit the rink.”

  She put a skate on the surface and then the other. Monty gave one of his feet a faint push and she shrieked, “No! …I mean…um. Ignore that. I’m fine. Let’s just go slow, though.”

  “I’m sorry. I like speed. But I’m here for you this afternoon.”

  Keeping a firm grip on her arm, he supported her while she got a feel for the skates. Meanwhile, I skated in front of them.

  While Charlotte was looking at her feet, I shot him a hard look. I know something’s up.

  Monty frowned. I knew what it meant. He’d been able to hide it from us over the summer, and now that we were together, it was obvious. Whatever happened to him at the Haven, he wasn’t just a normal warlock anymore. He was having memories. I could just tell. My stomach dropped. Before long, his sire would call him close.

  “You sold your car,” I repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “If you did have memories, would you tell me?” I barely whispered, as I remembered that vampires had fantastic hearing.

  “Nothing to tell,” he murmured.

  “Would you tell her?” I whispered.

  He gave me the finger before skating off.

  “Damnit,” I hissed, as I got up enough speed to let my skates roll down the long side of the rink. “Shit.” We were going to lose him. That was—

  That was just a fact. Hardly anyone had the power to stand up to a vampire, and no one who did was going to fight for a guy like Monty.

  Maybe Charlotte would keep him tethered here for just a little longer.

  He seemed happy with her. For now.

  But then, suppose she fell for him? What would happen to her when he was gone?

  “Like that,” he said, showing her how to brake.

  She messed it up and ended up almost crashing into the wall before he caught her again. “Or I could just stand here and do this, that would probably be less dangerous,” she said, doing a goofy little ass shake and chicken-wing-flap to ‘Brick House’. Rumor was that locked away somewhere in the bowels of the roller rink, its workings hidden like the Wizard of Oz, was a very old iPod that belonged to Master Blair which had been playing a playlist called “Get Down Tonight” for the past ten years, day and night.

  I stared. Maybe I liked the playlist after all if it made Charlotte wiggle like that.

  She was so…

  Cute, I insisted to myself, as much dirtier words flitted across my mind.

  I wasn’t sure if I could handle her being Monty’s girlfriend. It wasn’t fair to her. And none of this was fair to me, was it? I was under the impression that I was going to an all-male university, the safest place for an incubus to be. Master Blair put a girl in my room. Test? Test, my ass, that wasn’t what I signed up for.

  We had to put a stop to this.

  I skated over to Charlotte and Monty.

  “You know, this place is making me crave nachos,” Charlotte said. “Which is weird, because I’ve never actually ordered nachos before.”

  “Hey, Charlotte? We need to tell you something,” I said.

  Monty turned on me. He used to be pretty easygoing, but now his eyes were not just pissed off. They were…a little scary. My powers weren’t that strong, due to the fact that I wasn’t sleeping with anyone. “Yes. We need to tell you that we can easily go back to Lancelot and make some nachos,” he said, in the most sinister tone anyone had ever said the word ‘nachos’. I was sure of that.

  This wasn’t a great time for the lights to shut off, replaced by a giant tear of sinister bluish light that slashed across the roller rink like the fabric of hell was being ripped open.

  “Yeah—let’s do that!” Charlotte tried to run for her life, clearly forgetting she was wearing roller skates, and wiped out face first.

  I looked at Monty. He was looking at the light. He was ready for—something.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Charlotte

  I picked my face up off the rink and turned in time to see a twisted dark creature lunging out of the gate and toward me.

  It could best be described as Extremely Terrifying.

  I didn’t register much more than that. Huge shadowy dirty fanged growling lunging thing…versus me.

  Considering my feet were trapped in roller skates that I didn’t know how to use, my options were limited.

  Firian turned into a fox and planted himself between me and the wolf. He bared his cute lil’ teeth. I mean, next to this creature, Firian was nothing. This went about as well as expected. The demon was about one second from slamming into Firian when Montague jumped on him and grabbed the demon’s neck. When he touched it, the demon seemed to solidify a little more. It was sort of halfway between beast, human, and liquid shadow. The air around it had a distinct chill.

  “You…I smelled you…the other day…,” Montague said.

  Alec lifted his hands and generated a little square of sizzling blue lightning. “Get off him, Monty, I don’t want to electrocute you.”

  “No, Alec, you stay back, I’ve…got this,” Montague said, still trying to wrestle the wolf creature to the ground. “Who are you? How’d you get past the school—erggh!” The wolf suddenly reared up onto his hind legs, throwing Montague off, and then it whirled, its eyes glowing red, and ice shot out of its mouth. Montague was frozen where he fell.

  “What the hell is this?” Firian sounded nervous, which I guessed was a bad sign since his reason for existing was to aid and protect me.

  Alec attacked with his lightning magic. The demon shrugged that off like it was nothing and laughed at Alec. It spoke in an otherworldly voice that almost sounded like male and female voices layered, both of them low and musical. “A celibate incubus… Not likely to scratch the likes of me.”

  “I think it’s a pretty strong demon,” Alec panted. “Why? What do you want with us? We’re just students.”

  “Some of you are not ‘just’…students…” The demon turned toward me and lunged. It all happened so fast. Clearly I had two choices. I could shout ‘Flyiiing roller skate kick!’ or…I could burn everything down again.

  Maybe once I got better on skates, I could try the first, but I ended up going with the fire option.

  The demon burst into flames, head to toe. It screamed in this horrible way like an anguished creature and vanished back into the dark portal, which closed behind it. I slumped onto the hard, cold rink, breathing hard.

  “I’m sorry. Did I get you guys?”

  Alec checked his clothes and hair. “Just a little on the sleeve.” He offered me a hand. ”Let’s get you up, you dangerous girl.” He hauled me to my feet, but then whipped his hand back. Right. We couldn’t touch for long. Meanwhile, Montague was just shaking off the spell that froze him, slowly getting to his feet and rubbing a stiff neck.

  “I should’ve just torn his throat out,” Montague said.

  “No,” Alec said warningly. “You said you smelled it the other day?”

  “Yeah. It was in the woods. I felt as if it was watching Charlotte. But that time, it was behind the gate.”

  “There are wards on this school,” Alec said. “A demon shouldn’t be able to get in unless they were summoned.”

  I was feeling kind of done with the whole thing. I carefully hobbled off the rink back to the bench to get my regular shoes on. I tore off the laces. Pretty sure I was never going skating again.

  Firian sat down beside me and handed me a paper carton with nachos in it. “Here,” he said. “It’s time for Elemental Warlock Char to enjoy the Direwolf’s item drop.”

  “Where did those come from?”

  “Etherium. They’re not real. They won’t fill you up, I mean. They taste good, though.” He popped one in his mouth.

  I ate one, and shoved on my shoes. “So they taste good and they can’t possibly give me heartburn? You could have told me that before.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to eat too much Ethereal food,” he said. “Believe me.
It’s not quite fae food, but it’ll still mess you up.”

  Alec and Montague were speaking in low, tense voices.

  “Hey.” I stood up. “You said you had something to tell me before that happened.”

  “Yes.” Alec rolled toward me and lifted a foot to take off one skate while balancing on the other foot. I definitely noticed that he had excellent balance, his arm reaching back easily to take off the skate. With a moment, he had them both in his hand and walked over to me in socks. Montague was right behind him, still in skates, which made me snicker because he looked really serious. But there is only so far you can go with looking serious on an old pair of roller skates.

  “Alec,” he said.

  “She needs to know.”

  “You are not going to mess this up for me. I’m fine.”

  “What is it?”

  “Monty—“

  Montague grabbed Alec by his collar and lifted him up. “You’re jealous and you’re ruining this for me. I said I’m fine. I invited you today because we’re friends. But you don’t want a girlfriend, so back off. It’s my business to talk to people about what happened to me when I want to talk about it.” He threw Alec back a little.

  “She’s already alone here,” Alec said. “I’m not going to let you hurt her. But you’re also one of my best friends. So if you want to talk about anything—”

  “Hey, guys. Time out.” I waved my arms. “I think the demon made you a little crazy. We’re just hanging out and having fun. You don’t need to fight over me—although that is…kind of…enjoyable to watch.”

  “Montague is different since he was turned,” Alec said. He took a step closer to me. I put down the nachos as he stood, his broad-shouldered frame haloed by the strings of tiny lights that were laced back and forth on the ceiling. “That’s…all.”

  “I’m not different,” Montague said. He huffed and walked over to block Alec from my view a little. “Charlotte…” He knelt on one knee before me, his dark hair falling over his brow. “All it is…”

  He was struggling with something. “Yes? Montague, it’s okay. You can tell me.”