Page 62 of A Summoned Husband

Ice cream! The problem was I needed ice cream. Wine was pretty much out of the question. What had always been my go-to was something that would make me worthless against a witch’s fury and a lust demon’s advances. I had to be on my game.

This girl planned on being a final girl. None of this being killed off all dumb and confused shit.

No, ma’am.

My momma didn’t raise no fool… mostly because she didn’t raise me. Okay, my Gran and Abuela didn’t raise no fool. I nodded, finalizing my thoughts as I turned the cart and headed to the back of the store where the frozen food section was.

Things would be clearer over a litre or so of ice cream. Or a few. No need to limit myself now that my world was crashing down. Summer bodies be just as damned as I was.

I stood in the frozen food section, my eyes glued on the glass doors and the rows upon rows of ice cream just beyond it. I told myself that flavours wasn’t somewhere to be messing around, but the truth was, I didn’t see the ice cream. Not really.

I saw him in my mind.

Tall. Looming. A presence that stole my breath and made me feel… things.

Even all red and fiery. With heat coming off him in smoke and the light of brimstone in his eyes he was breathtaking.

A scoff left me as I rolled my eyes.

Really, girl? Breathtaking? I was lost in the sauce.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “Can’t go wrong with chocolate, right?” My eyes hovered over the vanilla ice cream with swirls of caramel and little caramel-filled chocolate cups. “But sometimes a gal needs a little more, right?”

I growled at myself. Why the hell was I pinching pennies right now? This was definitely a fill the cart with whatever I wanted kind of situation. Fridge open, I pushed the cart closer and swiped my arm through the shelf, watching the tubs fall.

I flinched as a thick moth flew from behind the tubs toward my face. Sputtering, I swiped at it, watching its wings slow. With each gentle and captivating flap, the world blurred around me. Goosebumps spread over every inch of my flesh as my breath clouded the air and the overhead lights flickered.

Eyes wide, I spun. The store looked eerily empty. Carts sat abandoned in the aisle and a few of the fridge doors were open making the fridges hum.

“Hello?” Right, Eden. That was what you wanted to do right now. Call out and act all whatless. I slammed the fridge, my eyes dropping to my filled cart.

Now wasn’t the time to think about ice cream.

Abandoning my cart, I took a cautious step back as my shoulders rose and the fear that filled me in my office’s parking garage returned.

There was something there. In the darkness. Waiting.

My heart hammered in my chest as my stomach flipped. I wasn’t the little catholic girl who relied on prayers anymore but I couldn’t help praying and hoping with all that I was that this was the demon and not the witch. That was my life now. Wishing and praying for the lesser of two evils.

The chattering of my teeth was so sudden I tensed. That single moth flew from the end of the aisle toward me. A mist of orange glow behind it, making the flickering light feel eerie.

This had to be all in my head.

“Fuck this,” I turned on my heel and ran.

All the breath whooshed out of me as I was slammed hard. My tongue clamped between my teeth causing a sharp pain to fill my mouth alongside the taste of copper.

Warmth surrounded me and my eyes snapped open.

Everything was… normal.

The lights shone in that fluorescent glow typical for every grocery store I’d ever been in. People leaned over their carts, inspecting the contents, looking over lists, chatting on the phone or scrolling. Anything to avoid talking to anyone up to the same tasks.

I looked around for some sign of the moth before my gaze snapped up and a nervous, incredulous laugh left me. There he was. My demon husband. After all this time, my prayers were answered when I no longer believed they had any strength or power.

“Why did you leave your house?” he asked.

“I…” I didn’t know how to answer him. I was still too caught up in whatever the hell had just happened. “Did you see it?”