“Miss?” one of the pledges said, finally bringing me back to the situation at hand. He was gangly for an alpha, which told me that he had presented recently, but he had a boyishly cute face and a head of dark brown curls.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “Where are all of the things we ordered? Can someone go grab them?”

“Yes, ma’am!” a couple of the pledges barked before disappearing in their baby-costume getups to grab all of the boxes of decorations.

I sighed inwardly. This would be a long night if I had to keep staring at grown men in diapers. So, instead of focusing on the group of pledges, I pulled the book of symbols out of my bag and got to work.

“Eden, we’re all going to go do the booze and food run,” Cleo said from the doorway to one of the upstairs rooms.

I was on my knees sketching out the symbol that was in the back of the book on the floor. This would be what Ray was calling the cauldron room. They would bring people in here to creep them out with some silly made-up cult story.

“Ok,” I said distractedly as I smoothed my fingers over the chalk to blend it. It took me a minute to realize that Cleo was still standing in the doorway. “What’s up?” I asked, sitting back on my heels.

Cleo nibbled on her lower lip. “Kyle’s date is here.”

She knew that I had a crush on Kyle, but she still didn’t know what I had seen the night of the party.

“...okay?” I didn’t know what else to say and my fingers were itching to continue working on the symbol. All of the other ones that I had drawn on the various walls in the house had been fast and I hadn’t paid much attention to them. This one, however, I wanted to get right. The desire to make it perfect was riding me hard and Cleo’s interruption was almost irritating.

“It doesn’t make you uncomfortable?” Cleo asked, stepping into the room.

I shook my head. “Not really.” Somewhere in the last two hours of decorating I had stopped caring about Kyle. I was so focused on making everything perfect for the party that I had barely acknowledged his presence.

Cleo gave me a funny look before stepping closer to look down at what I was drawing.

“Creepy,” she commented as she examined the symbol.

“Really? I think it’s kinda pretty,” I said as I smoothed a finger down one of the vines that encircled the symbol.

Cleo just shook her head and put a hand on my arm. “Everyone’s going to be out of the house for an hour or so as we get the rest of the party stuff together. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”

I nodded. “Yeah, of course. It’ll be nice to have a few minutes to myself without the pledges asking me if I need something every five minutes.”

Cleo laughed at that. “They have to take the vans to the school to pick up people. Poor guys aren’t going to be allowed to drink a drop of alcohol tonight since they are playing chauffeur in those God awful diapers.”

Justin called Cleo’s name from downstairs. “I’ll keep my cell on. If the house gets too creepy, just call and I’ll come save you, okay?”

“Okay, Cle,” I replied with a chuckle and listened as her footsteps faded down the hall, my attention already returning to the symbol on the floor.

I just needed to add some more detail to the ram’s head in the center and it would be complete, so I let myself become fully engrossed in my art as the sound of voices faded until the house around me was completely silent.

I was just adding the final details to the ram’s eyes, hovering my entire body over the circle, when a familiar cramp twisted my insides.

“What in the...” I muttered to myself with a gasp as another painful twist made me cry out. These were heat cramps, which made absolutely no sense since I had just had my heat in September. Which meant my next one wasn’t due until January.

It had to be a heat spike. I got them sometimes when I pushed myself too much. Normally, though, heat spikes only came with slightly feverish skin and less painful cramps.

I stayed on all fours as the cramps wracked my body and tried to breathe through them. Then, I was mortified to find that slick was leaking around my lacy white underwear and trickling down my thigh. This was definitely not a heat spike, but a full blown heat.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I chanted as I felt my core clench with the desire to be filled.

Going into heat in a house that was about to be filled to the brim full of people was the worst thing that could happen to me. I needed to leave somehow, but it would be an almost hour walk back into town.

I was so preoccupied with trying to figure out my escape plan, that I didn’t notice the glow coming from beneath me until it was almost blinding. The previously white chalk was now beginning to light up like a Christmas tree. Not only that, it was also almost hot under my hands and knees like the symbol was physically heating up the wood.

The sound of popping made me jump away from the circle with a yelp as a bright light flashed in the room followed by a light green mist that filled the room.

“Well,” a deep, curling voice said from within the mist. “I had all but lost hope that you would actually be able to summon me.”

The voice made my insides clench furiously, as if they knew that whatever was in the mist was not only attractive, but alpha.

I squinted as the room steadily cleared of the mist and the edge of a shadow started to form. It was huge, hulking even, and I could clearly make out a pair of shadowy horns as whoever, or whatever, stepped forward.

“Who”—I began, my voice failing me as another round of cramps coursed through my body in a painful ripple—“are you?” I managed to finish through gritted teeth.

“I am known by many names. Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Father of Lies, the Day-Star, Abaddon, Adramalech, Mictian, and Lucifer Morningstar to name a few.” The mist finally cleared, and I could hardly believe what my eyes were showing me. A man stood before me in a black three piece suit, which was probably the most normal thing about him. He was huge, probably over seven feet tall, and his features were perfectly chiseled. What surprised me the most, however, was the presence of two shiny horns that curled out of both sides of his head and a pointed tail swishing excitedly behind him. That, and the fact that his skin was such a dark green color that it was almost black. The man—demon? Devil? Wasn't done speaking yet. “But you, my angel? You may call me Luc.”

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CHAPTER 8

I was in the middle of our weekly meeting, staring blankly at Max while he talked about margins of sorting and how I could be more efficient. Hell was already efficient enough in my opinion, but leave it to Max to find issue with something and try to make it smoother by putting a procedure in place. Last time it had been how my demons tortured our forever souls. Azazel was still pissed about the paperwork that he had to fill out after every session with one of his souls, but I had to admit that the new system made sure that no soul was being left behind from the torture that they had earned. Hell was equal opportunity, after all.

Max was just pointing out that we needed a rubric system for our souls in purgatory when I felt something tug at me.

Sitting up straight in my chair, I rubbed my chest with confusion. No one else at the table seemed to notice my shift in mood, they were all too busy staring at their computers or at the walls. Abraxas, the demon closest to me, was busy cleaning blood out from underneath his finger nails with a wicked looking knife.

I felt another tug. It was like someone was reaching into my chest and trying to lead me from the room. Tug, tug, tug. It became more insistent as the minutes went on.