Page 10 of Satanic Shadow
I can hear footsteps on his end, then a heavy fist against a hard surface, and to my absolute horror, I realize I can hear it happening twice.
“Are you at my door?” He knocks again. “No! Go away!”
He can’t hear me because I’m in his pocket.
In my short nightdress, I hunt for my robe, falling short just as he opens my locked door. “Dane!”
Blank faced and monotoned, he says, “Mortal,” as he struts in, waving his hand to close the door behind him and lock it. His gaze lands on me, and he stops walking. “Please don’t make me bring up my insides.” Dramatically, he covers his eyes with his hand. “Dress—before I intentionally blind myself.”
“I wish you would.” I glare, secretly wishing I had powers to set him on fire. Who the hell wears a crisp white shirt and dress pants at this time in the morning?
At least he hasn’t done his hair. It looks disheveled, as if he’s run his hand through it one too many times. Little curls fall over his forehead, and I want to pull one to watch it ping back into place. They’re kind of cute.
“Please keep your childish thoughts to yourself,” he says, and I feel all the blood draining from my face. “Touch my hair and I will hex you.”
Finally finding my robe, I pull it on and wrap it tight. “Why are you here?”
He parts his fingers to see I’m decent enough for him to look at me. “Much better. I need you to show me how to send a messagethen I’ll never set foot in your…” He grimaces as he glances around my room. “It even smells like humans in here.”
I raise a brow. “And how do you know what humans smell like if I’m the only one you’ve met?”
“Vile. Sour. Like stale sex.” Dane waves off the subject. “Back to the main issue.” He tosses his phone at me—it’s still connected to our call—and clasps his hands behind his back. “Send a message so I can get the hell out of here.”
I end the call and open a new message, send myself one that says,Humans rule,and give him it back. “There. Now leave.”
He stares at the phone. “Can you show me how you did that?” Then he brings the screen to his face and squints at it. “Remove this. I don’t want such messages to be connected to me.”
I sit on my bed. “I’m trying to sleep.”
He frowns in confusion, like my words have no meaning to him.
I screw my eyes shut and cover my face with a groan. “Dane?”
“Mortal?”
I remove my hands. “Get out of my fucking room.”
He sneers. “Watch your tongue.”
I raise a brow. “Or what? Are you going to use your ghost hands on me again?”
Just as I expect, something wraps around my throat, like an ice-cold snake twisting around my neck. I can breathe perfectly fine, but I can feel the faint press of its tongue against my hammering pulse.
“I have a number of powers,” he says, still standing at the opposite side of the room. Then he takes slow steps towards me as the invisible snake tightens around my neck ever so slightly. The hissing tongue slides across my cheek then to my ear. I shiver, tingles traveling down my spine. “But I can tell you like this one. Will I use it when you meet your end?”
Another step, and the snake tugs at me, so I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling. The silhouettes are hiding now. In the corners, in the designs of the bricks—anywhere Dane can’t see. I fist at my bedcovers, trying to control my breathing.
Shakily, I say, “Am I supposed to be afraid?”
I should stop. But he pisses me off to no end and is still in my room, even after I told him to leave. He’s got what he came for, so why is he still here?
Dane walks until he’s in front of me, looking down with a curled lip. My robe has fallen open, and my nightdress is very, very revealing. He allows his gaze to trail down the length of me, and behind him, the shadows come out of hiding. They start to move slowly, silhouettes of a man and woman dancing, a dog barking as it chases a ball.
They must be trying to distract me.
Dane’s eyes turn silver, and his white hair ruffles as random wind whips around my room. “If I ever see you dressed this way again, I will personally drown you in the castle’s lake.”
I drop my gaze to the obvious—large—tenting in his pants. “That must explain why you’re hard.”
