Page 77 of Accidentally Vacationed with an Incubus

Something wasn’t adding up.

“It healed really quickly,” Jen murmured, completely unaware of my internal war. Her fingers trailed lower, following the planes of my chest before grazing the thick scar that stretched from my hip, curling down my thigh and around the back of my leg. “How long did it take for this one to heal?”

I barely heard her.

Because all I could think about was why a witch—who clearly had no idea what a mating bite even meant—had given me one.

“A few minutes to close over, but a couple of days to fully heal,” I finally said.

Jen’s brows lifted. “I knew incubus demons healed quickly, but this—” Her fingers traced the scar again. “—looks serious. How did you do it?”

I exhaled, my lips quirking into a wry smile. “It happened the first day my friends and I were let loose from the Shadow Realm to explore the mortal world on our own. I was about ten years old and, well... I didn’t exactly have a solid grasp on how traffic lights worked. I got run over three times that day.”

Jen’s hand froze against my skin. “Three times?”

I shrugged. “The first two were just cars. I walked away from those without a scratch. But this one...” I ran a slow finger down the back of her hand, guiding it over the length of my scar. “This was courtesy of a truck carrying about fifty tons of logs.”

Jen’s entire body went rigid. The color drained from her face, her breath stalling as her fingers trembled against my skin.

I immediately lifted my hand, cupping her cheek, trying to soothe whatever storm had suddenly overtaken her. “Don’t worry,” I murmured, brushing my thumb across her skin. “Incubus demons are practically indestructible. My friend Lochran once got caught in a storm, struck by lightning mid-flight, and plummeted Hades knows how many thousands of feet to the ground. It took him a little longer to heal, but he walked away with nothing but a crooked shadow wing and a scar on his temple.”

Jen didn’t react.

Her breathing was shallow, her wide eyes distant. Her bottom lip quivered, as if she were piecing something together.

“Jen?” I whispered, my voice careful. “Are you okay?”

At last, she looked at me. Her hazel eyes were raw, glassy with something that made my stomach twist.

In a voice barely more than a breath, she asked, “Could a car crash kill an incubus?”

I had just told her I’d been run over by a truck. That my friend had plummeted thousands of feet to the ground after being struck by lightning and walked away from it. Of course a car crash wouldn’t kill an incubus—

The realization struck like a lightning bolt to my chest.

Everything clicked.

Jen’s father wasn’t a warlock like I’d assumed. He was an incubus demon. She was part of the Briar Coven witches.

And she had bitten me because she was my mate.

But I had no time to dwell on the fact that I’d accidentally stumbled across my fated mate, that I had spent the last few days falling hopelessly, irreversibly in love with her.

Because Jen had just realized something else entirely.

She couldn’t have murdered her parents.

I’d already thought it was strange when I assumed both of her parents were witches, why neither of them had been able to summon a single spell to protect themselves during the crash. But now I knew the truth. Her father had been an incubus. Which meant he should have walked away from that crash without a scratch.

My throat tightened. Words failed me, and I could only shake my head.

Jen’s eyes were wide, the whites tinged with red as tears welled, threatening to spill. And then, in a voice that shattered me to my very core, my mate whispered, “Can you read the police files?”

***

I returned to her room some minutes later, a cup of chamomile tea in one hand, the police file in the other. Jen had dressed, her tattered black hoodie swallowing her frame as she sat curled at the foot of the bed, arms wrapped around her knees. She faced away from the door, as if even glimpsing the files might shatter her completely.

I stepped forward, wordlessly offering her the tea. She took it with trembling fingers, pressing the warm ceramic to her face, inhaling deeply, as if she could will the scent to steady her.

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