Page 13 of Inflamed By an Incubus

“Oh, Fenix.” Hella turned to face him, hurried to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She buried her head against his chest, froze and gripped his hips to push him back. She patted him down and her emerald gaze grew worried as she looked up at him. “You’ve lost so much weight. Hang on… I have just the thing. I’ve been saving it for you.”

She rushed away from him again and dug through her carpet bag, doing a marvellous impression of Mary Poppins as she pulled one thing after another out of it, and set them down on the tabletop.

“It’s here somewhere.” She dug deeper, stretching her arm inside the bag, and then pulled something out and twisted towards him with a triumphant look on her face. “It survived!”

She motioned to the only armchair in the room, one that looked as if something had chewed its way into the cracked brown leather.

“I’ll stand, thanks.” He closed the distance between them though, curious about what she was doing as she shrugged it off and went to work.

“I knew you’d be back, so I continued our work.” She didn’t lift her eyes from her hands as she set out a row of different coloured vials and pulled a glass flask out of her bag. She placed that in front of her and uncorked the vials one by one, adding a dash of each to the flask. “I have a whole bunch of leads for you. Several locations of mages I think you should definitely check out. I’ll dig them out of the bag when I’m done with this.”

“That’s the best news I’ve had in a long time.” He watched as she uncorked the vial she had been excited about finding and poured the entire contents into the flask.

She swirled it around and the liquid turned a pale shade of pink.

Hella offered it to him and he stared at it.

“Still seeing the nymph?” He took the flask from her and sniffed it, shivered as heat rolled down his spine. It was potent stuff.

“No.” She turned back to the vials and corked them all, her actions sharp and rough. “He got too clingy.”

And judging by the shift he felt in her mood, the breakup had been rough.

He took in the room again. Old furnishings. Musty air. This place hadn’t been lived in for a long time before Hella had come here to hide, and he had the feeling he knew who she was hiding from now.

“He the reason you’re in some back-alley squat?” Fenix braced himself as she turned on him with a glare, stars sparkling in her green irises, and her mood shifted course again, veering sharply towards anger.

“Change the subject,” she snapped and shoved the vials back into her bag, filling the tense air with the sound of glass clinking. “I am so over him already.”

She muttered something else beneath her breath, but he didn’t catch it.

“If he’s giving you trouble, Hella, you’re welcome to stay with me for a while.” Fenix lowered the flask and held his hand out to her, and all her fight left her, her shoulders sagging.

“Things would have to be dire for me to throw myself into the lion’s den.” She sighed and brushed a hand through her hair, pushing the wavy blue lengths from her face. “I think I have this under control.”

The fact that she didn’t sound confident set him on edge. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Hella sounding unsure about anything. In fact, he couldn’t remember her ever sounding like this.

“You know they’d behave themselves. You know you’re welcome in my house.” He lowered his hand to his side.

She glanced at it and heaved another long sigh. “I know, Fenix. It’s just… things are complicated. Now drink up before it spoils.”

Fenix didn’t want her efforts to go to waste, so he lifted the tonic to his lips and swallowed it down in one go. Heat swept through him the moment the pink liquid hit his tongue and he held back a groan as his eyes slipped shut. His hand drooped, his muscles going lax as intense pleasure rolled through him, energy coursing through every tired cell in his body to rejuvenate them.

“Like it? It’s pure, unfiltered passion. I distilled it myself.” Hella’s light voice wobbled in his ears as he wavered on the spot, swept up in the taste of the tonic and how hazy it made him feel.

How strong.

He didn’t want to think about the fact it was her passion—satisfaction—captured from the air by a spell and distilled into liquid form. It was what he needed and that was all that mattered.

And gods, it was good.

Chased the hunger from his veins and more than took the edge off.

“You need more pills too?” She moved around the small room.

“Uh-huh,” he mumbled, drifting in the haze, savouring it and his returning strength. He could practically feel his body putting on muscle in response to the hit of sustenance, devouring the energy to push him back towards his physical peak.

She took the flask from him and he opened his eyes, tracked her as she moved back to the bench and set it down next to an array of colourful bottles and her pill press. She went back to work, humming to herself as she mixed powders together in a silver dish.

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