pumps.”
“Sure thing. If you do decide you need anything to eat or drink, just holler.” She sauntered away, happily oblivious to the threat of evisceration she’d just received.
Selina turned to leave. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“No. Please, stay,” Eden said. “Darrak’s changed. Just like you.”
She froze. “He’s nothing like me.”
“Having to possess humans all of these years has infused him with humanity.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Is that what you think has happened?”
“It is,” Darrak confirmed.
She raised an eyebrow. “I thought I sensed something oddly human about you. For a moment I thought it was simply residue from your recent and ill-advised horizontal romp with this girl.”
“What makes you think we were horizontal?” Darrak’s lips twitched.
She glared at him. “Do not make light of this.”
Darrak’s grin widened at her outrage. “Don’t be jealous. It’s not becoming to a woman of your age.”
“Jealous is the last thing I am right now.”
“Look, Selina. Here it is. You summoned me years ago. You sucked all the energy out of me you could possibly get and left me an empty husk. Then you tried to destroy me completely.”
“You were going to kill me. Do you deny that, demon?”
His smile vanished. “Not for a moment. I don’t take kindly to being summoned and forced to do things against my will.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Forced? You didn’t seem to mind my attentions at the time. In fact, you welcomed my body like the horny little ex-incubus you are.”
Eden considered getting up to grab one of those blueberry scones Nancy mentioned. Anywhere to escape this extra-uncomfortable part of the conversation.
Darrak’s blue eyes narrowed. “That was a long time ago,
“If you hadn’t tried to kill me I wouldn’t have had to destroy you.”
“You should have released me when you had the chance.”
“But I didn’t. And here we are reliving the good old times in a place that serves pastries and cappuccino. Now what?”
“Now you break my curse. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. We can both have a future here.”
She eyed him for a moment. “Have you convinced this foolish woman that you’re in love with her?”
He flicked a momentary glance at Eden, who was now anxiously watching their conversation like it was a supernatural-infused tennis game. “She has nothing to do with what happened between us.”
“You honestly think that?” Selina sighed. “Eden, be very careful with him. I thought he loved me, too, once. But he didn’t.”
“Can we please try to stay on subject here?” Eden said tightly, disturbed equally by the talk about love and destruction.
His jaw was tight. “If you don’t break my curse, I will eventually drain the life completely out of Eden and she will die.”
“Well aware of that. But why I should care?”
“Because if you’re the nice self-help-book-writing witch you say you are, then you should care if someone lives or dies.”
“I never said I was nice.” Selina touched her pendant. “I said I didn’t want to lose my soul completely to the darkness. And I would hate for someone else to have the same struggles I’ve had all these years. I would have warned you last night, Eden. But now it’s too late, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?” Eden asked.
Her eyes widened. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” She didn’t like the look on the witch’s face. Especially since it was directed at her.
Selina turned to Darrak. “Can’t you even sense it? Are you that much of a fool?”
Darrak frowned at her, confusion crossing his expression. He looked at Eden and searched her face until a glimmer of clarity came into his widening eyes. “It’s not possible.”
“I sensed it the moment I got here,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Damn you, Selina.” His jaw clenched. “This is all your fault, isn’t it?”
The witch crossed her arms. “You only have yourself to blame.”
Darrak’s expression looked like it might shatter. “I knew something bad would come of it because of what I am… but… I didn’t know what. Eden… I’m so sorry.”
Eden felt so confused by whatever they were saying, it was like she’d walked into a foreign movie halfway through. “Can somebody please explain what the hell you’re talking about?”
Selina finally sat down next to her. She took Eden’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “Last night when you spoke with me, I told you that I’d summoned the demon and done a spell so that he would give me enough power to become a black witch.”
“I remember.”
“That spell was never broken.”
“And what does that mean?”
“With this spell, a woman must willingly have sex with a demon in order to gain that power — the same dark magic I try not to use so I don’t destroy my soul completely. I summoned the demon specifically so I could have sex with him and become a black witch.”
Every word burrowed into Eden’s brain. Everything Selina said started to connect and make sense — and then it hit her like a thunderbolt of clarity.
Eden had willingly had sex with Darrak.
“So this means…” she began.
“You’re now a black witch as well.” Selina smiled without humor. “Welcome to the family.”
There was silence at the table. The coffee bar around them continued to buzz with activity. The warm smell of baked goods still pleasantly hung in the air. The cash register dinged as someone made a purchase.
And Eden’s entire existence took a graceful swan dive into a swimming pool full of crap.
“So, demon,” Selina continued, “if you’ve really changed as much as you’re trying to make me believe, it goes without saying that unless you decide you want to corrupt more of this poor woman’s soul, you can never touch her sexually again. Hope that won’t be a problem for you.”
“Break the spell, Selina,” Darrak said darkly.
“What about your curse?”
“One thing at a time.”
The amber glow she’d all but forgotten about when she and Darrak had been together physically…
It was the magic settling over her, entering her, changing her. Making her into something different.
Eden was a black witch because she’d had sex with Darrak.
If Hell had created an STD, this would definitely be it.
“What do I do now?” she asked, stunned.
“Can you feel it?” Selina asked, searching her face. “The magic inside you now?”
Eden shook her head. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Concentrate.”
She did. And she sensed a bit of that electricity she’d felt earlier. A warm flush of power permeating her skin. “I think I can feel it. And it feels kind of… good?”
Darrak swore, gripped the edge of the table, and looked ready to tear it apart with his bare hands. “It’s not good. Nothing about this is good.”
Selina looked at him skeptically. “You mean you had no idea this might happen?”
“I–I didn’t know
“But you thought something bad would happen, right? And yet you did it anyhow.” Selina shook her head. “
Eden looked blankly at the both of them.
