Iza

With the lights dimmed, I sat in front of a ouija board with Mikayla. Jada walked in through the bedroom door and plopped down on her stomach, a bowl of popcorn in her hands. “We summon any shit yet?”

Mikayla had crystals scattered across my floor and sage burning from my nightstand, the smoke making my eyes teary. While sitting in a meditation position, she opened one eye. “It takes a long time. Patience.”

Jada popped some popcorn into her mouth. “Ya know, I’m going to say it again. Demons might be real, but this magic that you’re doing is definitely not.” She snorted and kicked her legs back and forth. “Don’t you think, Iza?”

I pressed my lips together as Mikayla cut her glare to me. “Of course not.”

Once Mikayla looked away, I glanced toward Jada and snickered.

“Laugh all you want,” Mikayla said, breathing in the sage. “You’re getting fucked tonight.”

“Oh no,” Jada giggled. “Definitely don’t summon a guy with bulging muscles and a hu–”

“Shh!” Mikayla interrupted. “It’s happening.”

We waited and waited and waited. And nothing.

“I don’t think–”

Thunder boomed overhead, and then the lights flickered. Warmth pooled in my stomach at the thought of Acaros showing up. We might’ve been summoning sex demons to make him jealous, but he’d show up, right?

“Alright!” Mikayla leapt up from her seat and grabbed Jada’s hand. “Now come!”

Jada stumbled to her feet and grabbed the bowl, popcorn falling out of it all the way to the bedroom room. “Where are we going?!” Jada said, mouth full of buttery popcorn. “I thought we were summoning sexy–”

“You gotta be in your bed for them to come.”

“Oh my lord,” Jada said from the hallway, and I could just hear the eyeroll in her voice.

Mikayla returned a moment later and slammed the door. “Have fun!”

I arched my brow and pushed up to my feet, immediately putting out the sage because it was going to put me in a goddamn coughing fit. Mikayla really had to put on a whole production, didn’t she? Sage. Crystals. And a damn ouija board.

After opening my window so the smoke would clear out of the room, I picked up the crystals that I kept stepping on with my bare feet and the popcorn. A cold breeze drifted into the room, and I shivered.

All I imagined was Acaros slipping through the open window, seizing my hips from behind, and having his way with me the way he did last night, and the night before, and the night before that.

But when I turned around, nobody was there. Only the curtains blowing into the room.

Maybe it didn’t work this time.

So, I peeled off today’s clothes and slipped into bed. Another crash of thunder rolled through the room, followed by lightning. And if I learned anything in science, lightning usually came first, didn’t it?

Lightning flashed again, and suddenly a figure appeared in front of the window, the moonlight eclipsed by his body. “Iza,” he said, voice floating through the air, deep but… different than Acaros’s.

He stepped out of the light.

My eyes widened as I stared at Professor Laufer in front of me.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, pulling the blankets to my chin.

“You’ve summoned me.”

“I–I… we… fuck.”

A low chuckle escaped his mouth, and he stalked toward me until he reached the baseboard of my bed. He placed his hands on it, his veins prominent under the dim moonlight. “We won’t be doing that tonight, Iza.”

My mouth dropped open. “B-But you’re… are you really a sex demon?”

“An incubus?” he asked. “Yes.”

“Oh, god,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “I fucked up.”

“By summoning demons after you’ve already been claimed by one? Yes, you have.”

“You know?” I whispered.

“About Acaros? Yes. And he’s fucking crazy about you.”

My chest tightened, and guilt rushed through my body at the thought of betraying a man I barely knew. We had met only a couple days ago, and I was so so jealous of whoever that girl was over his house this morning. For all I knew, it could’ve been his sister!

I sat up taller in my bed and drew my knees to my chest. “He is?”

“He’s been looking for you all night. There are demons after you. Following you because of your relationship with him.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

After scurrying out of the bed, I tugged on a pair of pants and ran a hand through my hair a couple times to make it less of a mess. “Where is he?” I asked, grabbing my purse on my nightstand.

Before I could make it to the door, he grabbed my arm. “You’re not going to find him.”

“But–”

“If he knew that I was over here and let you leave in the middle of the night, neither of us would like the consequences.” Professor Laufer released my arm and nudged me toward the bed. “He will find you tomorrow, but you need to rest, because when he finds out that other demons have been summoned here tonight, you’re going to get it.”

My eyes widened. “I-I’m going to get it?”

A smirk crossed his face. “Yes.”

With that, he turned on his heel, walked out of the bedroom, and shut my door behind him. I stared at the closed door through wide eyes and set down my purse on my nightstand, then spotted the light in Jada’s room turn on through my window.

Suddenly, her shadow pressed up against the curtains, then a man–a demon–much, much larger than Professor Laufer's human form stepped behind her and seized her hips. I pulled my curtains shut to give them privacy and fell back on the bed, heart pounding.

Oh, God… I fucked up.