Page 58 of I Accidentally Summoned a Demon Boyfriend

“Shortly after I first felt your presence,” he answered. “I knew you were human and there was no path of us being together, not that I was hoping for one. Maybe I could have gone on with my life as usual and tried to commit myself to her, but it wouldn’t have worked. There’s this thing about demons and becoming one with each other. It’s not just signing some forms and having a ceremony. When we become one, it is a literal action. Our souls intertwine on a level that I don’t believe humans are capable of understanding.”

“And you walked away from her?” Suddenly, I felt cold, like the window had opened and allowed the winter breeze inside. Olian had a broken heart. That’s why she wanted to kill me. What was that saying about a woman scorned? She wouldn’t give up.

“Two days before our ceremony was supposed to happen.” He sighed. “She would have known everything as soon as the process was over. She would have known that my soul belonged to someone else, not her. No matter the process, she would have always felt that void. Knowing her, she would have gone after you. I thought I was protecting you by ending it.

“And here I am anyway.” I leaned my head back on the headboard. “Well, no wonder the bitch is trying to kill me.”

“Yeah, I know. I should have cut it off as soon as the witch told me what she saw in my future, but I couldn’t. Like I said, I didn’t want to believe it was true,” he admitted. “Besides, I’d worked hard to get where I was, and I still had a long way to go. I didn’t want to give that up over some supposed vision of a soulmate I didn’t know.”

“Wait.” The chill I felt before stopped as my sluggish brain caught up with Metice’s story. There was something far more important there that I’d overlooked. “You said the witch told you I was like the people you were taking to hell. What does that mean?”

“I wasn’t sure what it meant until I felt you. I did some digging on the energy signature. Every magical bloodline has a unique one. I’d never encountered yours before, and I couldn’t find out much without seeking you out. All I knew was somewhere in your bloodline, there were powerful beings who had magical abilities, people who could do things that defied the logic of your world. I’m not even sure they were originally from Earth, but again, I don’t know exactly who or what they were. I tried researching, but I came up with nothing.” He paused, scrutinizing me with a furrowed brow. “But with your skills teleporting across worlds and apparently concentrating energy through your hands strong enough to knock over Olian, I’m thinking at the very least that you have some form of psychic powers.”

“Okay, let’s just gloss over the fact that you alluded that I may be a descendent of aliens.” I waved my hands in front of my face, as if clearing a whiteboard with too much scribbled data. There was no way I was about to unpack all that. “Is there a way to figure this out now? I mean, is there a blood test, something you can do to tell me what I am?”

“Yes, there are ways.” He nodded. “There are always ways to finding the truth, but maybe not ways you’d like.”

“Right. Okay.” I held my hand up while I gathered myself. I wanted to curse, scream, and fight him, but my ass was already sore, so I used my words instead. “Metice, I’m still trying to understand why you wouldn’t have told me all of this before now. Okay, maybe leave out the crazy ex-girlfriend, because that’s really your personal shit, but all these details about me? My bloodline, my potentially alien lineage, my apparent power? How could you know something like that and not tell me? I know you said you didn’t want it to be true, but come on. That’s a lame excuse and a copout.”

“I wish I could say that I had a better reason, but I didn’t. I wanted you to be able to go back to your regular life, without all this.” He looked me in the eyes and held my attention. “You have to believe me.”

“Why?” I didn’t believe him. He didn’t want to leave me alone or send me back to an uninterrupted human life. My ass would still be perfectly intact if that were true.

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why did you want me to go back to my regular life?” I clarified. “Which, by the way, I don’t believe, since you came here to interfere with my regular life, reintroducing all the shit you claim you wanted to keep me away from. The only reason Olian found me is because she had her minions track you. She told me that while she was here.”

“Because I know what my world does to humans. I’ve seen it time and time again. Being connected to the dark energy of the Bane destroys the human soul. I was born there, Rayna. I am the energy of my world, just like you’re the energy of yours. With you being tied to me, a demon, a being of the dark, it could really be bad for you, Rayna.”

“Well, doesn’t that just hit the ‘man making decisions for a woman without taking her opinion into account at all’ nail on the head?” I threw another pillow at him, which he caught and held. “Did you think saying that would make me feel better about all this?”

“It wasn’t my intention to discount your opinion.” His jaw tightened.

“But that’s what you did.” I pointed at him. “And don’t look at me like you’re frustrated. You’re not the one who’s been lied to. I’m the one whose life is constantly being turned upside down by this. I should know what I’m up against.”

“You’re right.” He stood. “I’m sorry, Rayna.”

“And I guess I should take your apology and forgive you?”

“No, make me work for your forgiveness. I’ve broken your trust. That’s a big deal,” he said with a straight face, and I had to keep my jaw from dropping. That wasn’t what I expected him to say. “Let me earn your trust back, please. Let me help you.”

“Help me?” I kept my tight-lipped expression. “How exactly do you think you can help me now? Can you reverse time? Can you change the mind of the demoness who wants my head?”

“I cannot do either of those things, but I can help your body.” He pointed to my butt, pressed against the pillow behind me. “That will take a long time for your human body to heal. Something tells me we’re going to need you in better condition, and soon. Stay here. I’ll return soon with something to heal your wounds.”

“Yeah, right okay.” I waved him off. “Do what you gotta do.”

The tension set in, and a moment later, he was gone, and I was hobbling my ass from my bed to my car. Yes, I should have stayed put. Yes, this was a cliché move for me to do, but everything about our meeting had been like a playbook drafted from one of the many fantasy novels that lined my pewter painted shelves. So, if I wanted the shit to play out the right way, I had to play my role, right? Well, that’s what I told myself anyway, and that’s what I did. I took my thirty-almost-seven-year-old brain and overrode it with the mindset of a seventeen-year-old with no bills or business credit hanging over her head. We do what we must for the plot!

It took me ten minutes to get my pants on, and another thirty to get my hair in a bun and my hoodie over my head, and that was all I could manage. It didn’t matter; I wasn’t going anywhere where my looks would matter.

Much later than it should have been, I stood leaning against the doorframe, waving at the camera above Keri’s door.

“Rayna?” The door swung open, and the scent of warm cinnamon flooded my senses. “What are you doing here?”

“Can’t a girl just drop by her bestie’s house to see what’s up?” I tried to keep the sound of pain from my voice, but even standing there had every fiber of my body screaming out.

“Maybe, but since I haven’t heard from you in weeks, the last thing I would expect is an in-person visit.” Keri, however, did not keep the hurt from her voice. After my return and her overbearing visits for the first month, things went back to normal. She went back to work and her boyfriend bubble, and I turned my focus to trying to save my career and finding a viable man to date to distract myself from the demon I really wanted.

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