A DARKER MAGIC EXCERPT
She had been beautiful, Niall thought. Round, violet eyes;
long, black hair; and tiny but shapely figure. Her breasts had
set his body aflame, and she’d known how to use them, no matter
her limited experience. Or maybe she hadn’t been innocent. Maybe
she’d been born that way, able to wrap a man around her fingers
and rip his heart from his chest while he thanked her for it.
Had he wanted to be honest with himself, he would admit that
he still desired her. The years he spent in daily torment, in
the fiery hell of the demon world, had not lessened his craving
for her. But this was not the time for honesty. This was the
time for revenge.
He had saved the waitress for last, just because he wanted to
play with her awhile. Seeing her tremble with fear made up for
what he endured, but just a fraction beyond not at all. Niall
grinned. “You know what I intend, don’t you?”
“Why should I? I don’t know you.” That is a Faerie for you,
Niall thought. Defiant, arrogant. They all think they are better
than any other magical creature. He saw it differently. A demon
was superior in every way.
Closing the space between them, he leaned in to whisper in
her ear. “You know me. Niall, a demon.”
Her eyes widened. “No, Niall of Emerald Isle is a Faerie.
Unless there’s another?”
“Just one.” At this, he allowed the fire to show in his eyes,
a handy trick he’d learned early on in his new home. The
waitress took a step backward, but he reached out to pull her
close again. “Demon,” he affirmed.
He leaned back against the bar, hooking both elbows on it as
he glanced around the empty space. Earlier, he had commanded the
bartender to leave and the waitress to remain, alone. The man
had affected a wink and a smirk, as if he suspected Niall of
wanting to be alone with his girl. But deep inside, the man had
to know. He’d seen that clownish cowboy leave quickly with Niall
hot on his heels. Had this not been the community that housed
the dregs among the humans, the police would have been called.
As it was, it was the perfect place to enjoy a little sweet
revenge.
His attention returned to the waitress. “Tell me what you
think I will do to you,” he commanded. It was always more fun to
use their imagination against them.
She wouldn’t play. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, just get on
with it. If you’re going to try to kill me, I’m warning you.
I’ve been in the human world for two hundred years, but I’m sure
I can scrounge up a spell or two to hold my own.”
Niall laughed. “Really? You don’t look older than one hundred
twenty.” He straightened. “Try something. Let’s see what
happens.”
Her eyes narrowed, and without much more warning than that,
he found a globe of green and purple lightning thrown at his
chest. Before she could blink, he was on the other side of the
room, watching her swing her head back and forth. When she
realized he was behind her, she faced him, readying a spell. He
recognized the words falling from her lips. A weak one used by
green Faeries fresh out of grade school. Apparently, she had
been here too long.
Consumed with his play at teasing the Faerie, Niall barely
registered the creak of the front door opening. He knew the laws
of the Faeries. No human must be allowed to confirm that there
was such a thing as true magic or magical creatures. But Niall
was beyond obeying. For show, he slid a chair across the room
without laying a hand on it and pushed it under the waitress, so
that she fell back into it.
“How did you?” she demanded. “But we can’t . . . We have to .
. . ”
He brought down a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
“Haven’t I been telling you all night? I’m not a Faerie. I’m a
demon.”
A squeal of delight escaped someone’s mouth behind him, and a
second later the flash of a camera went off. Forgetting the
girl, Niall turned to the intruder. A reporter! A tall, willowy
woman, young and inexperienced he’d bet, slightly frizzy hair
yanked to the side in a single ponytail, with innocence peering
out of sky-blue eyes. Niall groaned.
“What do you want?” He started toward her. She didn’t have
the sense to be afraid. “You realize I will break your camera?”
She grinned and held out a hand. “Are you really a demon?
That’s incredible. And you said something about Faeries, too? I
have heard of you, going around attacking random people. No one
can keep up with you. No one believes you even exist. But I do,
and now I have your picture.” She paused only a second to
breathe. “It would be a shame to ruin it, since you’re not
making it a secret about who you are.”
Niall would have demanded she shut up or would have at least
wrapped his fingers around her throat to squeeze her into
silence, but a bolt of lightning hit him square in the back. The
pain was great, stopping him in his tracks. When it came again,
he had a flashback to fire all around him, singeing his flesh,
and a voice nearby telling him he didn’t have to burn.
He shook away the vision in time to see the front door open
again. A man stepped inside. “What the hell is this,” Niall
grumbled, “a party?”
The man held up his hands in apology. “Sorry, dude. The
name’s Peter. Peter Sumner.” He, too, put out a hand to Niall,
which was pointedly ignored.
“And who is this?” Niall indicated the silly woman at his
side. “Your girlfriend? Sister?”
Both looked embarrassed, he guessed for different reasons.
When he heard words begin again from the Faerie behind him,
Niall turned and opened a portal with barely a command. This one
was like a wind tunnel, sucking in whatever was near. In this
case, it was chairs, tables, and the waitress.
She held onto the bar, screaming for help. The female
reporter ran to her, but Niall lifted her with his dark magic
and tossed her easily back across the room. She would have
landed hard against a wall or crashed through a window, but Pete
jumped to block her from being harmed. Her camera didn’t fare as
well. Satisfied, Niall watched it smash on the floor. And just
in case it wasn’t completely destroyed, he strolled over and
stomped it a few times.
“No, stop it! Please,” the woman cried out.
Niall gave it another few stomps before turning back to the
portal. The waitress had just lost her hold on the bar and then
slid easily in through the portal. He waved a hand, and the
opening closed.
“Had I not just seen that with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t
have believed it,” Peter gasped. “I—oh, wow. You killed her.”
The door opened again. Niall growled. “For fuck’s sake!”
But there in front of him was the woman he saw in his mind
every time he closed his eyes. Those same violet eyes, that same
pert nose, and those sweet lips he’d drank from regularly. The
whore who had caused all of his pain.
“Mina,” he whispered.
She smiled as if there was nothing wrong on any world in her
little universe. “Hello, Niall.”
He opened a new portal. “You’re just in time, beautiful. Come
and visit my world.”
With a tinkling laugh escaping those pink lips, Mina shook
her head. “I don’t think I will.”
Niall was prepared to push her in, to finally be rid of her
in hopes that she would never again invade his dreams or his
waking thoughts. Whatever hold she had, whatever spell she had
concocted to keep him from getting completely free of her would
be destroyed as soon as she was safely away on one of his
created worlds. Yet, as soon as he lifted his hand to make it
happen, to pull her to him one last time before pushing her in,
his gaze shifted to the left. Through the window, he noticed a
man standing there out on the street, staring back at him.
Something wrapped around his throat, somehow forcing his
mouth open. His eyes bugged, and he couldn’t see what this
unusual power could be. But it was draining him. Energy left his
body at a phenomenal rate so that he fell down to his knees. His
head was spinning. His vision blurred. He lost sight of the man
outside the window. On some level, he knew his portal was
closing without his consent, having been weakened. Above him, he
was aware that the two humans and Mina had come closer, but he
couldn’t move or call out. He could only succumb to the
invisible hand holding him still while his power ebbed away.
* * * *
Coming to consciousness seemed like an uphill battle for
Niall. Every muscle in his body ached, and his head was
pounding. His throat dry, he swallowed convulsively, striving
for even a drop of moisture. A soft hand brushed the hair from
his forehead. With effort, he reached up to grasp it, but missed
as his fine motor skills hadn’t returned yet. He ended up poking
a finger in his eye.
“Poor Niall.”
Mina. Niall struggled to open his eyes. Around his thick
tongue, he uttered a spell that would infuse his body with
strength and heal his muscles. Now, his eyes flew open, and he
grasped Mina around her swanlike neck.
“Where’s your friend?” he demanded.
The eyes that made his stomach do flip-flops widened. “What
friend?” she said between gasps.
He squeezed slightly, and then loosened his grip some when he
saw pain in her expression. He didn’t want to feel anything for
her. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Mina.” Sliding
from the bed, he dragged her with him, pulling her body against
his as he examined their surroundings.
They were in a motel room, small, with a double bed, a
dresser, one nightstand, and a door leading to what he assumed
was the bathroom. Niall shuffled Mina ahead of him to check the
shower to be sure her friend was not there. The room was empty
except them. When he was satisfied, he whipped her around to
face him. A mistake. Her breasts were shoved against his chest,
her outfit cut low so that he had a good view of that creamy
cleavage he had never shaken from his memory. The proximity
weakened him.
“Don’t play games.” Niall dragged his gaze from her breasts
to her face. “I saw the guy standing out on the sidewalk when
you came into that bar. Was he the muscle you brought with you?
What was that magic he used on me? I’ve never experienced it
before.”
Mina continued to look at him like he’d lost his senses, but
he was also aware that she was just as turned-on as he was. Or
was it all an act? There had been many days when she’d trembled
in his hold, had moaned when he caressed her. All of it had been
designed to convince him to do something he didn’t want to do...
.
