Alrik bent low so his voice fell in her ear. His hands grabbed hers and thrust them forward. “Focus on the branch, witch. See the branch falling over, flying back, anything. Just make it move.”
His impatience only fueled her anger. Abby envisioned herself snapping her head backwards and busting his straight nose open, but she couldn’t do that. If she ever wanted to get out of this wretched place and back to her life, she’d need to grow strong. And for that, she needed his help.
She took all that anger, hunger, and exhaustion inside her and focused it on the thin, gnarled tree branch. She pictured her magic thrusting it, sending it flying away from the tree. Her breathing deepened as she narrowed her eyes on it. Nothing happened. She strained, sweat beading her brow and falling down her face in rivulets. The muscles in her arms strained, she squeezed his big hands in hers and willed the stupid branch to move. It didn’t budge. Not even a slight shudder.
“Gah! I can’t do it.” She pulled her hands out of his and stalked away.
“You can’t keep giving up.” He sounded disappointed. A small part of her actually felt guilty about this as if she didn’t want to disappoint him.
She threw her hands up and spun around to face him. He wasn’t the one hungry. He wasn’t the one tired. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat. “I’d say working for hours on this and not seeing a result should win me a break at the very least, dammit.”
His eyes closed and a shuddering breath escaped him. “I’d watch your tone, witch.”
She snorted. “And what’s wrong with my tone?” If she didn’t do one thing wrong, she did another in his mind.
His eyes opened, pierced her. “Your anger fuels me. It’s the nature of the curse.”
Oh, well she didn’t know what to say to that. Her anger fed his anger? Why? To what purpose? To make him a bigger jackass? She wanted to ask, but his eyes flittered away from her and she swore she saw a flash of—uncertainty, vulnerability, or maybe even shame.
That strange look in his eyes made her gentle her voice. “Listen, just let me eat and rest then I’ll try for as long as you want.”
He ground his jaw but made his way to the animal he’d killed earlier. It was a strange looking thing about the size of a rabbit but feathered like a chicken. He called it a fruthorc. From his tall boot, he pulled out a knife and fileted the animal into bite-sized pieces. Once upon a time, the sight of a bloodied animal might have made her disgusted, but she’d seen mutilated bodies. Nothing compared to that. It took something pretty gruesome to roll her stomach anymore.
He stuck the chunks of meat on a slender stick and handed one out to her with a watchful look on his face. “You surprise me again, witch. This dead animal doesn’t faze you?”
She shrugged and took the stick that looked like a shish kabob. She held it over the little fire he’d built earlier. “After you’ve seen some of what I have, it doesn’t really bother me that much.”
He stared into the fire, rolling his stick slowly so the flames licked each side of the meat. “What do you do if you’re not a practicing witch?”
Her gaze jerked to his. He wanted to know something about her? “I’m a medical examiner trainee for the supernatural department of the police department. The whole division just started a few years ago. I’m still new, in training, but with a little more work I’ll have my certification to work without supervision.” He looked over at her, his brow furrowed and she realized he really was curious. So she went on. “That means when someone is found dead, I’m sent in to inspect the body and try to decide how they died whether it was natural, an accident, or a murder.” She left the part out about how she examines bodies in the lab, cutting them open in some cases. To do that work alone, she still had another certification program to go through. In the meantime, she still worked under the steadfast eye of her supervisor Stan.
“I couldn’t imagine you working with the dead in such a way. You look so fresh and young.”
Ignoring the flutter in her belly at his words, she pulled the now cooked meat out of the fire and started blowing on it to cool it faster. It smelled delicious even without any seasoning. She nibbled a piece and moaned. The meaty flavor tasted like steak. She wolfed down the rest of the meat, careful of any splinters that might have gotten stuck in it.
Belly full, she sighed and laid down on the grassy ground. No sooner than her tired eyes closed, Alrik stepped up beside her. “Time to work.”
She groaned. “Let me sleep for a little while.”
“Work now. This isn’t up for argument.”
Grumbling, she opened her eyes to glare at him. Fine. She slowly stood. “Fine, then tell me what you’re the king of.”
He stiffened, apprehension filling his features. “Why do you care to know?” he asked, suspicion clouding his voice.
“Because I’m bored and you want me to kill someone I don’t even know. The least I deserve to know is a little about my kidnapper, right?” And maybe a bit more about this curse and the queen.
He shook his head and walked back to their designated spell casting area some twenty feet from the stupid branch that refused to fall over.
“You don’t need to know anything about me. Just do what I say, human.”
“My name is Abbigail. If that’s too hard then call me Abby.”
Again, his eyes met hers and she felt his look in a warm flutter down to her belly. The demon had a penetrating stare that never ceased to unnerve her with its intensity.
“I was the king of the shahoulin,” he said at length.
She focused on the branch and put the conversation on the back burner of her mind. She tried to conjure her magic and focus on knocking the branch back as he’d shown her he could do so easily.
“That means you’re a shahoulin demon then, right?”
“Yes.” Again, he seemed hesitant to reveal anything about himself. For some reason, that only made her want to learn more about him.
She was adjusting to the crazy demon because when he stepped up behind her she didn’t stiffen. Her body warmed as it did when she used magic, and she thrust her magic out at the tree branch willing it to move. Nothing happened. She took a deep breath and tried again. She couldn’t let frustration get the better of her. She never worked well that way.
“Why aren’t you king anymore?”
He stood just off to the side behind her so she saw his jaw flex in anger. “Stop asking so many questions, witch.”
She wanted to growl. “Stop calling me witch,” she said slowly. The whole ‘witch’ thing got old—fast.
He crossed his arms across his big chest. “You do not order me, witch.”
Anger flared inside her and she focused it on that branch. The branch shuddered then toppled over to the ground. She let out a squeal and commenced her jumping up and down victory dance. She turned to him, a big smile on her face, and held up her hand for a high-five.
He looked to her hand with a puzzled express then slapped it away. “Don’t try to cast magic on me again, witch, or you’ll regret it severely.”
Her hands curled into hard fists at her side. “You are such an ass. I wanted a high-five. I wasn’t trying to cast any damn magic on you.” He didn’t look swayed in the least. She held out a hand to the toppled branch. “Uh, hello, I just used my magic and made that branch fall over. I call that a good job”