Page 49 of Accidentally Vacationed with an Incubus

I needed to get out.Now.

My mind, body, and soul protested as I threw off the sheets, the loss of warmth sending a shiver down my spine. Every muscle in me screamed to stay, to sink into the temptation of her scent, but I forced myself to tiptoe out of my room. Jen’s soft moans drifted through the hallway, curling around me, clawing at the fragile vise of my resolve.

I froze, my body betraying me, every cell of my being yearning to just take the few steps to her door. To knock, to whisper her name and beg for her to let me in, to let me be the one to wring those breathless moans from her lips.

I clenched the banister in a white-knuckle grip, my entire body trembling with restraint. With the last shred of willpower I had left, I forced my feet to move. But then I heard it. Soft. Breathless.

“Devlin.”

I held my breath, and didn’t exhale until I was outside, until I had put enough distance between me and the house that I could no longer see it through the trees. Only then did I suck in a deep breath, the cold night air doing nothing to cool the burning heat coursing through me.

My head spun, my thoughts a relentless loop of Jen’s soft moans, of her body arching, her fingers moving inside herself... all while thinking of me.

My cock throbbed painfully, the need to relieve myself almost overwhelming. I pressed my back against the nearesttree, sucking in deep, ragged breaths, fighting the urge to do the one thing I knew would only make the situation worse.

The sound of bark splintering shattered the quiet, echoing like gunfire through the forest, but I barely noticed. Not until I looked down and saw that my talons had embedded deep into the trunk, the raw force of my restraint splitting the wood apart beneath my grip.

I needed to get it together. I needed to focus on something else.

Anything else.

I strained my ears, focusing on the soothing sound of the night forest. Tree branches groaned in the wind, their skeletal fingers reaching toward the sky. A cricket chirped rhythmically from somewhere in the underbrush, blissfully unaware of the sharptic-tic-ticof a bat circling overhead. The haunting screech of an owl sliced through the air like a blade. The sound sent a ripple of uneasy silence through the woods, the soft rustling of foraging creatures suddenly ceasing as if they, too, knew something lurked nearby.

A crackling hiss, the distinct shift of foliage shifting as something large moved, echoed through the forest floor.

My ears pricked, every sense snapping to attention. My eyes flew open, narrowing as I scanned the shadows between the trees, searching for the source of the disturbance.

Panic flooded my veins, my every fiber screamingYou need to get back to Jen.

I freed my talons, slowly retracting them from the deep gouges they had carved into the tree. My ears stayed pricked, every muscle coiled, waiting for any sign of the lurking creature in the forest. A thick, unnatural stillness blanketed the air. I stood poised, scanning the shadows, every nerve tensed as I readied myself to sprint back to the cabin.

Then I saw it.

What I had assumed was a fallen tree jutting from the underbrush wasn’t a tree at all. It was a body. A massive, scaled form, its length blending seamlessly into the darkened forest floor. Its scales gleamed, pulled taut over an uneven, bumpy crest that ran along its back, the sides lined with a series of ridges, jagged and precise, tapering down from the raised spine.

The creature let out a low, leathery hiss, its body flinching ever so slightly, a movement so unnervingly slow that it sent a sharp prickle of warning down my spine. I followed the movement, my gaze catching on the tapered end of its tail, where a fan of lethal spikes and tattered, frilled membranes fanned out like a deadly warning.

Basilisk.

I willed my heart to slow, forcing down the instinctive panic clawing its way through me.

Calm down, Devlin. You already know that Mr. Cadmus is a basilisk. And you’re right outside his home. He probably just shifted into his basilisk and went for a nighttime slither through his own territory, perfectly within his rights. He was nice to you the other night. He felt sorry for Jen. It is highly unlikely he is about to try to kill you. And even less likely that he poses a threat to Jen. All you have to do is not react. Don’t startle him. Don’t give him a reason to attack. And then slowly make your way out of his territory, head back to the cabin, check on Jen, and in the morning, you’ll both be laughing over breakfast about your nighttime adventure... if she lets you stay, that is.

I barely had time to register the flash of fangs before I clamped my eyes shut and braced myself for the bite.

But the bite never came.

Eyes still firmly shut, I strained my ears, listening intently to my surroundings. A low, aggravated hiss vibrated through the air, accompanied by the fluttering sound of a sheet caught in the wind.

A moment later, the soft crunch of leaves and the snap of twigs signaled movement—the basilisk was slithering away, its heavy form shifting through the underbrush. Only when I heard the last rustling fade did I finally crack an eye open.

And there, standing between me and where the basilisk had been, was BooDini. Its blisteringly white form hovered in the moonlight, arms outstretched in warning, shielding me. BooDini cast a glance over its shoulder, its cutout eyes furrowed in concern, silently checking me over. Once it determined I was unharmed, it turned and glided toward the underbrush, where the last flicker of the basilisk’s fanned tail was disappearing into the scrub.

With a gentle shooing motion, it waved its little ghostly arms, ushering the creature deeper into the forest before following after it, vanishing into the shadows.

I let out a long, unsteady breath, pushed myself away from the tree, and sprinted back toward the cabin.

Despite my promise not to, the moment the house came into view, I let my senses slip, just enough to catch the soft, dewy scent of chamomile seeping through the walls. The scent of deep, peaceful sleep.

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