Page 24 of A Summoned Husband

All of the women collectively looked at me. This time, the fear was missing. They looked at me like I was something they would quickly do away with. Like I had banished their fears with my words and replaced them with something vicious.

Maybe these humans would be more fun than I initially thought.

“Let’s call a priest,” Olivia offered.

“Why?” Sarika asked.

She lifted her shoulders as though the answer was obvious. “To banish him or whatever Imani was trying to do.”

The pan Sarika held over her head lowered as she turned to her friend. Her words came in a hushed whisper. “Don’t priests only exorcise people with demons in them? What will they do when he’s standing there in the flesh?”

Silence moved over the group.

It was bizarre to have women who had only moments ago been screaming in fear stand around discussing my existence as though I was suddenly no longer a threat. There was no sense to them and I was tired of listening to them plot against me. “Perhaps I can make this all easier for you? Though it has been some time since I’ve come across a Holy Man, which I imagine is who you call a priest, I can assure you they can send me nowhere. I have no shared beliefs with these fanatics so they can do nothing but irritate me and spend my patience. Your trinket,” I gestured to the cross she held in her hands, “is nothing more than something you can hope to use as a blunt object against me, though there is little in this realm that can pierce my skin.”

“Then how do we get rid of you,” Olivia asked. A silly question. Why would I give her the answer?

“You can’t.”

She clasped her hands again and resumed her babbling.

Foolish woman.

“If you didn’t want a demon in your midst, you shouldn’t have toyed with things you didn’t understand.” My annoyance returned as I remembered I was as bound to the woman before me as she was to me. I couldn’t escape this realm. I was trapped here so long as the key lived beneath her skin.

“Fuck,” Imani hissed. “Olivia, you stupid bitch. You made us summon Eden a husband.”

7

EDEN

“This isn’t real.” The laughter that left my lips was the kind that hinted my sanity had abandoned me. It had. I felt completely off my rocker as I managed to wiggle out of the grasp of the demon who claimed to be my husband and walked back into the kitchen.

The girls followed at my back, whispering to one another.

It was Saturday. I still had another full day until I had to return to work. Until my life kick-started again and I would have to look at all of this through the eyes of a woman busy with her routine.

My hands stretched out as I walked over to my kitchen island and wrapped them around a mug — I didn’t care whose it was. I sought out the coffee maker and filled it before I chugged it back.

“I’m not fucking married,” I declared. “I’m happily single Eden. No strings attached Eden. I am not, nor will I ever be, ball and chain Eden.”

Olivia snorted. “Though, if you ever were to marry someone a demon would be a good match.”

I shot her a glare worthy of cutting a man down at the knees. If looks could kill, Olivia would have been thrown right into the grave and that would serve her right. This was all her fault.

She shrivelled under my glare before she cleared her throat and started to tidy my dining table.

I looked at the wood beneath it and groaned. They had discontinued my chairs at IKEA. I would either have to be okay with having a set of five or buy six new chairs. Suddenly I was understanding why people — people who weren’t Imani — bitched about their husbands. Mine had barely existed for a day and already he was causing me grief.

Alicia busied herself sweeping the broken glass and wood from the floor while Sarika came up beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

“I’m not married,” I repeated.

“Do you want an edible?”

“Really, Rika? Now? Do you really think now is the time for Eden to finally say yes to an edible?” Imani chastised.

Lips pursed, Sarika reached into the pocket of her pyjama pants. “Can you think of another time when an edible would be suitable?”