Page 39 of A Summoned Husband

Her chest was likely puffed with a kept sigh as she battled against demanding me to do what she wanted. Abuela was like that. A firm hand that always pushed me in the right direction. It was hard for her not to now that I was grown.

“Okay,” she finally agreed.

“Okay?”

“Yes. Okay. That will be nice.”

My finger hesitated over the button, not ready to end the call. “I’ll call you again soon, okay?”

“Make sure you do.” There was a slight warning in her tone, though it had softened.

“I will.”

“Love you, my sweet girl.”

“Love you too, Abuela.”

I hung up.

The drive home was one of those drives where I wasn’t fully present. I was sitting in traffic, thinking about my Abuela and the way my heart felt so full with her moving around the house as a child, even when I practically felt like an orphan, then I was home. The sound of gravel rumbled under my tires and my mind clicked back to the present. A wave of anxiety moved through me as I turned off the car and wondered how the hell I got home before I leaned my brow on the wheel.

“Home sweet home,” I murmured before I reluctantly climbed out of the car.

My house suddenly looked ominous. The one that had taken me months to design. The one I made sure had every aspect of everything I loved about architecture in it. With its clean dark lines that added a touch of modernity to it so it didn’t feel like an old cabin in the woods, the tall windows, the dark wood that made it feel like it belonged there instead of on a busy city street. The porch that went all the way around with the swing that was perfect for reading.

I stared at it as I leaned back against the front of my Jeep.

This was my dream house but suddenly the woods around it looked threatening.

Had the sky always been so dark out here? Did the large windows always reflect so much of the wood, now shrouded in shadow?

A hard swallow bobbed my throat as I shoved off the car and made my way inside. Inside seemed infinitely safer than out in the openness, even with all the trees closing my house in.

Each step was rushed. I took the four steps up to the porch two at a time before I quickly unlocked the door and slammed it behind me. My breath was quick. Jilted. I frowned as I touched a hand to my chest wondering why I felt like I had just ran a marathon instead of walking only a few meters from the car to the house. My heart hammered as I set my bag down by the door and leaned back against it, kicking off my shoes.

My eyes wandered down the hall toward the living room at the back of the house. The very room where we summoned a demon. I locked the door before I shoved off.

It was too quiet.

Every light switch I passed was turned on as I walked by. I illuminated all the dark corners, suddenly afraid of what might be lurking there. Afraid of not being alone in the dark. The rug at my feet, as I walked down the hall, was a comfort as each step came slower and slower and with effort. As though my feet didn’t want to carry me any closer.

My hand wrapped around the doorframe and I pulled myself into the room. My eyes scanned the open space. I wanted the living room to be at the back of the house so I could have the whole back wall be open windows. I wanted to see out into the trees and feel like my house was part of the woods. Like somehow it was all mine. All the space I could possibly want. I looked from the fireplace and mantle with the gallery wall of photos of my girls and my grandmothers above. The little sitting area in front of it and the whiskey-coloured rug. A glass door out to the porch in the middle of the windows. Flush, but I knew it was there. On the other side of the large living room that made up the whole back of the house was the sitting area. With the L-shaped sofa in the same cream as the carpet by the fireplace, the matching chair in the corner by the wall of bookshelves where Sarika had posted up for most of the night, and the matching chair by the large driftwood coffee table in front of the couch. High ceilings went all the way up to the roof with exposed dark framing.

Everything looked normal.

I wasn’t sure if that brought me comfort or not.

My eyes glassed over as my throat tightened.

I detested moments like these. Moments when the vulnerability slipped in and the door I had been battling to keep closed when I was around people suddenly flung open. I felt my nostrils quiver as my lips pressed thin.

As immature as it was, my single thought was ‘I don’t want to be married to a demon’. I didn’t want to be scared in my own home, unknowing if whatever stalked me was something I could fight.

The fear gave way to anger as I quickly spun on my heel and stalked out of the living room to the kitchen behind it. I strutted into the kitchen and ripped open the fridge, my eyes glued to the bottle of wine in the door.

Alcohol could numb the fear a bit, but I wasn’t sure if that was the right call. I wasn’t sure if that numbness would be something that would take me off my game. I should be alert. Ready.

Right?