The Price of Possession by Dakota Brown (phonics story books txt) 📕

toward my bed for actual sleep,Sabian and the hellhound were there. I was sure Sabian felt fine after that,and I still had no idea what the hellhound was doing for food, but at thatpoint I didn't care. Curled up between a hellhound, an incubus, and a vampire,I fell fast asleep, feeling safer than I ever had in my entire life. Which,admittedly, was a little messed up, but hey, that was par for the course of mylife.

∞ ∞∞

Barking woke me the next morning. I jolted upright,heart racing.

Sabian put a comforting hand on my back. I didn't seeMal and I hoped he was both making breakfast, and taking care of whatever hadset the dog off, though I guessed it was Darius.

I grumbled in annoyance, turned and gave Sabian akiss, which he turned into something with a bit more heat than I had intended.Pleasure tingled along my spine and I shivered.

"Do we have to get up?"

"Yep," Sabian said, sounding far toocheerful for whatever time it was in the morning. "Company and all. Yourhouse, they probably want to see you."

I flopped back onto the bed and Sabian traced hisfingers along my bare stomach. I hadn't bothered with a night shirt aftershowering with Mal last night.

"You're not helping, mate."

"I know." Sabian chuckled and my stomachtightened with need. "But we really do need to get up. At least for awhile."

"Tease." I glared at him.

He simply smiled back.

Sticking out my tongue, I rolled out of bed.

Speaking of teasing... "Is there any way you cantone down the lust thing any more? Being constantly hot after the two of you isone thing, but now my poor ovaries have set their sights on Aaron and I don'teven know the man. Not to mention I have the two of you."

Sabian grinned. "It's not entirely me, Chris. Somethingabout him is calling to you. See how it goes."

"That wasn't an answer."

The incubus grinned. "I've got my powers under asmuch control as I can manage. You will note, you're not attracted to everyone whowalks in your door."

I glared at him. "It has to be your fault."

He shrugged, not denying it, but also not acceptingthe blame.

 I grumbled and headed to the bathroom.

By the time I wandered into the living room, Mal hadgone back to cooking breakfast. Thank the heavens. Even better, he was stillshirtless, though I suspected that would change as soon as he was done cooking.Damn having company, anyway. I hoped I wasn't drooling as I went over and acceptedthe cup of tea he held out when I came into the room. Sabian got coffee and sankdown onto the loveseat.

Darius sat on the couch and the fluffy hellhound wasstanding on the coffee table, staring at the priest. Darius looked confused bythe little creature.

Aaron sat across from Darius in the chair and DeputyMcClellan leaned against the doorframe of the patio door, much like I oftendid.

"Price, when did you get a dog?" Darius inquiredby way of greeting.

"Nice to see you, too, Darius. We're all fine, bythe way. Didn't nearly get burned down in a supernatural house fire oranything." I perched on one of the stools, and resisted the urge to drawattention to the light bruising on my cheek from the fight.

He tore his eyes away from the dog and turned to lookat me.

"Sorry, you're right. But...when did you get a Pomeranian?"

Clearly, he couldn't get over the small dog.

"Hellhound, mate."

"Yes, I know little dogs are basically alldemonic, but why do you have one?"

"No, literal hellhound. No idea why it looks likea purse dog."

"Wait, seriously?" Darius jerked his gazeback to the creature.

Deputy McClellan chuckled. "You're getting quitethe collection of demons, Price."

I shook my head. At least they didn't know about thevampire in the kitchen. "Yeah. It's your fault, Darius."

He blinked a few times before leaning back against thecouch and sighing. "I suppose it is."

He took that accusation a lot harder than I hadintended, but he had been the one to drag me into everything, and it seemed hestill blamed himself for a lot of the bad things that had happened since.

"It's okay. He's house broke." I shrugged. "So,what's up now?"

"We came to talk to Mr. Reed here, and see if hecould shed any light on our situation, or why they might have been after him asa sacrifice," Deputy McClellan explained.

"Unfortunately," Aaron said, his deep voice enrichingthe conversation just by speaking. "I don't really have an answer."

"Chris," Mal said from the kitchen. "Whenyou came to my shop, what led you there?"

I squirmed on the barstool before sighing. "Useda spell to find what I needed at that moment. Hoped it would lead me to anunbinding spell, and it did."

Darius leveled a look at me I knew all too well. "Thismight be the first time that spell hasn't backfired on you," he said,voice dark.

"Yeah, well, got me Mal and Sabian and the spellI needed, so there." I took a sip of my tea to quell the urge to stick mytongue out at him. I could have some decorum in front of the cop.

"And a hellhound, and what else?" Dariuscrossed his arms.

"Eh, I think it was just trying to lead me toMal, to be honest." I winked at the vampire who looked surprised. "Justlucky he also had what I needed to unbind demons."

Aaron was also staring at the hellhound, though hehadn't joined in that part of the conversation. It occurred to me that he hadno idea Sabian was an incubus, either. We probably needed to fill him in beforehe found out the hard way. Wasn't sure what to do about Mal, though. I'd letthe vampire decide. So much for not telling anyone what Sabian was. Seemed wepretty much had told everyone but my employees. They really didn't need to findout.

"My point with the question was this. Perhapsthey did the same thing to find Aaron?" Mal put a stack of plates on thecounter, followed by a stack of pancakes that he put a towel over to help keepthe heat in. Syrup followed. Real syrup. Where had that come from?

"Possible," I replied. "Maybe evenlikely. It's not a hard spell. It's simply fickle."

"I have to