Page 124 of As Above, So Below

“It feels like you’re trailing a finger down the back of my neck, little demon. It’s quite distracting.”His voice curls around my neck and up the back of my skull like fog.

Remembering to breathe, I suck in a deep breath.

No. No.

This is not good.

No, this is bad.

“Ves?” Cora’s voice forces me to glance at her over my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Swallowing against the tightness in my chest and throat, I straighten myself and reach into the sink, crushing the brush in my grip. The wood handle begins to fracture and splinter with the force.

Gods honest truth? If what I’m hearing is what I think it is, I’ve never been in more danger in my life.

Meeting Cora’s worry-filled eyes, I scoff a laugh. “I’m alright. Just clumsy.”

The single biggest lie of my existence.

She gives me a look that tells me she doesn’t quite believe me, but to my surprise, she doesn’t press further. With a small nod, she returns to peeling.

“How in the hells did you open a channel?”I shoot the thought at him heatedly, scrubbing at the carrots harder than I likely should.

“I’ve done nothing. I’ve been able to feel you since waking this morning. I’m flattered you think about me as often as you do.”His voice turns teasing, and it doesn’t take much for me to visualize his scarred brow arching.

Since this morning?

Light strike me where I stand.

Embarrassment sets my face on fire.

A channel between us should not exist.

I didn’t open one. I couldn’t have. Worse yet, the only way to close it is by fulfilling the contract or releasing him from it. My breath turns ragged as I toss another carrot ready for rinsing.

Perhaps this is why Netharis never allowed his children to offer contracts—a compulsory channel being opened would be a window into his House—a structural weakness a well plottingdemon could manipulate. It would be a means for demons to slip in and use his children against him.

Everything I know about demonic channels has been gleaned from books. I don’t have firsthand experience, and I never asked Kassil or Druka for further explanation. I didn’t need to, opening a demonic channel wasn’t something I ever intended to do.

Now, I wish I would have asked more questions.

Being able to hear Ryc at any given time will be an annoyance at most, something easily avoided with the use of a mental ward. But for Ryc… his experience of this isn’t going to be as easily ignored.

Even if he establishes a mental ward, he’ll know. He’llfeelanytime I think of him, which ashamedly, is rather often, even before all of this. He’ll feel my emotions—fear, joy, anger, lust…

Oh, fucking light take me.

The thought of Ryc feeling my lust causes my jaw to tighten and my cheeks to burn. Offering him a contract had been one thing, but an open channel is a direct line to me regardless of the distance between us.

I’m not sure how existing in the same realm will affect this. Typically, a demon and their bonded never physically cross paths. Demons cannot exist here and mortals cannot exist in the hells. And in normal situations, an open channel will call for the mortal to seek closeness to their demon.

A design meant to draw yet another soul to the hells.

This is a gods damned catastrophe.

How in the nine hells am I going to navigate this?

“I can’t have this between us.”