Page 19 of Inflamed By an Incubus

A chill swept through her, had her step faltering as she struggled against it, trying not to let him shake her further. She couldn’t believe him. Her hand drifted to her side and she pressed her palm to the wound, felt it burn as she saw a flash of the blade piercing her and her life flowing from her.

“I didn’t die,” she murmured, her voice distant to her own ears. “I survived… with Archer.”

The incubus growled, “I’m not sure about your partner. Something is off about him.”

“Are you getting a rise out of this?” She scowled at the corridor ahead of her and several of the hunters walking along it gave her a wide berth. The incubus was just trying to rattle her and she was letting him succeed.

Sure, Archer had been acting a little strange over the last year, but this incubus seemed to be making out he wasn’t human.

And she was done with him.

She mentally zipped her lips and shut him out.

Thankfully, he remained silent for the rest of the walk to the cellblocks.

Although that didn’t stop her from feeling unsettled. The way he stared at her back had her on edge, flushed with heat at times, and deeply aware of him. She glanced back at him as she led him along the corridor between two rows of cells, catching his reflection and hers in the thick glass that formed one wall of each cell and served as the door. He continued to stare at her, his intense gaze warming her right down to her bones, making her heart flutter despite her best efforts to not let him affect her.

As she led him deeper into block D, his gaze drifted away from her from time to time, darting briefly to the white-walled cells and their occupants. The facility was high tech, had everything necessary for containing non-humans, including the ability to gas the occupants of each cell with a drug designed to knock them out and a handy device created by a witch long ago that dampened their abilities. That same tech was woven into his restraints, but apparently it didn’t work against his power to charm females.

Or at least she really hoped it didn’t and that was the reason she felt so flushed around him, her head a little hazy whenever he gazed at her.

Evelyn touched her cheek. It was overheating.

“Are you ill?” His deep voice rolled over her, cranking her temperature up a few more degrees.

“None of your business,” she snapped and dropped her hand to her side.

Evelyn stopped in front of the empty cell and the thick glass panel whooshed into the ceiling.

She scowled at the incubus. “In you go.”

He didn’t move, just glanced at the featureless white room and then back at her, levelling her with a look that said he wasn’t going to make this that easy on her. He opened his mouth to speak but she nodded to the guards and they shoved him forwards, pushing him towards the cell. He stepped over the gully in the floor where the glass would meet it and then stopped in the middle of the cell.

The incubus turned around to face her as the men backed off, joining her in the corridor, and the glass dropped to settle in the gully. The shackles he wore beeped and fell open, dropping to the ground at his bare feet, and then a panel in the ceiling swished open and a humming sound vibrated in the air. The incubus stepped back as the shackles shot up into the opening, pulled there by the magnet.

He peered at the ceiling as the opening closed and then dropped his gaze back to her.

The guards walked away from her and she turned to follow them.

“Evelyn.”

Her gaze whipped to the incubus, her eyes wide as she stared at him, the desperation that had laced her name drawing her back to him.

Green emerged in his irises, like tiny emeralds nestled among the gold and cerulean, and he stepped towards the glass panel that separated them. He pressed his palms to it as his brow furrowed, a hint of worry in his eyes now as he gazed down at her, and his voice was soft as he spoke two words.

“Be careful.”

Evelyn wasn’t sure what to make of that or of him.

She forced herself to leave and ended up heading to her quarters rather than the infirmary to see Archer. She slumped onto her small beige couch in the living area of the open-plan room, her thoughts weighing her down as she ran over everything that had happened in the Fifth Realm and the things the incubus had said.

When she started getting sleepy, she stood and stripped off, shedding her clothes on the way to her bedroom. She sank onto the double mattress face-first and rolled, pulling the covers over her, and curled into a ball. Sleep was quick to take her, the darkness comforting as it enveloped her.

And then flames roared to life all around her.

She squinted and covered her mouth, flinched away from the heat that seared her as she peered through the flickering wall of flames, trying to make out the shape that loomed on the other side of them.

Voices swirled around her and the flames guttered and swept away from her on her left side, and she shrieked as a huge bare-chested demon lunged at her, appearing human for the most part. His horns flared from behind the tops of his pointed ears to curl around to his lobes and grew as he came at her, his leathery wings beating the hot air towards her.

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