“Hey.” Ethan’s hand lands on my back. “It’s going to be okay.” He pulls me in for a hug, knowing how overwhelmed I feel right now. An incubus is preparing to rip me apart and eat my insides. Something is killing hunters. And I’m public enemy number one.
“Two feet apart.” Nik flits over, using a pencil to push us away from each other. Letting out an annoyed sign, Ethan drops his arm from around me and steps back. “Good evening, milady,” Nik says to Sam. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance.” He extends his hand. “I am Nikolai Petrov, from the Petrov clan, on my mother’s side, that is.”
Sam shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m…I’m Sam.”
“Just Sam?” Nik brings her hands to his lips, kissing the back of it.
“Technically, it’s Samantha.”
Is Sam getting flustered? Nik lets go of her hand and bows. Yep. She is getting flustered. Ethan cocks an eyebrow and inches forward.
“Sam is my sister,” he reminds Nik.
“Ahh, so I’ve heard,” Nik goes on. “What a prolific hunter you are, and I must say, we need more female hunters. I remember back when Estelle le d the first meeting calling other witches to action to put their powers to good use and kill as many demons as they could summon.”
Sam’s cheeks start to flush even more. “It’s a very male-dominated career, if you can even consider it that.”
“Well, I admire you, so very much.” Nik is still holding her hand and slides his finger over her pulse point. “I do hope you plan on staying here with us. I’d love to get to know you better. You might very well be the first female hunter I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with.”
“Dude,” Ethan huffs. “And she doesn’t swing your way.”
“I haven’t suggested anything.” Nik lets go of Sam’s hand and holds up his in a sign of peace. “I’ve merely stated my admiration for trailblazers.”
“Relax,” Sam huffs, glaring at Ethan and then shakes her head, remembering we’re very much fucked right now. “Okay. One thing at a time. The incubus. It’s on your roof.”
“Right.” Ethan nods. “We need to take care of that first.”
“Because if it does end up killing me, it won’t matter if I’m accused of murder,” I grumble under my breath. “Did you see it?” I ask Sam.
“It was a flash of gray, almost like a big bird swooped down but the eyes were red. And it wasn’t a bird.”
“Fuck. It’s here, in our plane.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Ethan tries. “If it’s here we can kill it.”
“It’s not always here?” Sam questions as we move into the library.
“It flits between our plane and the astral plane,” I tell her. “But the more energy it takes, the stronger it becomes until it’s host , I guess you could say, is too weak to fight and the incubus eats its sex organs.”
“Gross.” Sam makes a face of disgust. “And if it’s not here?”
“Then it’s only a matter of time before it comes back and takes more of Anora’s energy and attacks at some point.”
“Okay.” She glances down at my notebook. “How can we get it here? Because if it’s here we can kill it, right?”
“Right,” I answer and wince. “The only way we know for sure to get it here is to offer it the exact type of energy it prefers. Tempt it and it’ll appear. But how we tempt it, well, it involves us…” I trail off, looking at Ethan for help.
“Fucking,” Ethan says bluntly. “Incubi feed on sexual energy. If we have sex, it’ll show up to feed. And now that Sam is here, that plan might work.”
“What’s the plan?” Sam asks, eyes shifting from me to him.
“We have sex and you kill the demon. It’s a surefire way to get it to our plane.” Ethan can’t help but grin while he talks. “But the issue was that we’d both be incapacitated and a little too naked and distracted to kill a demon.”
Sam blinks a few times, gaping at us. “The solution is for you two to go have sex while I deal with your demon issues?”
“When you put it that way it sounds like you’re doing all the work, but really, I’m the one doing the heavy lifting. I mean, it’s up to me to make sure it’s good enough that this demon is going to syphon Anora’s energy,” I want to find a hole, crawl in it, and not come out.
“And you’re okay with this plan?” Sam asks.
“I didn’t have much say in this plan,” I tell her and she doesn’t look surprised. “Not to mention the pressure it puts on me to enjoy sex enough to climax while everyone is waiting for said event so we can trap a demon.”
“Hey, I always deliver.” Ethan elbows me.
“You do,” I admit.