Page 4 of Dancing With Demons

And I had a lot to fucking say!

“How could you?” I screamed, snapping her attention back to me. “You killed my sister for a fucking nursery rhyme! You—”

Bang! Bang!

“Charlie?” Tristan shouted through the wood. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

“Ugh. Are you certain she’s even in there?” asked a lazy and distinctive voice.

“’Course, I’m fucking sure! I can smell her scent.” Someone roughly yanked and rattled the doorknob. “Fuck! Why won’t this open!”

Something moved out of the corner of my eye.

I turned my head... and landed on Dora just as she sat up.

“D-Dora?”

Head down, my sister stared at the knife in her chest.

“Dora!” I shrieked—laughing a loud, jubilant sound as joy and relief blew away my grief and rage. “You’re alive! I can’t believe it, you’re okay. Sis, can you hear me?” I asked, fighting anew in my binds. “Just hold on, okay. I’m going to get you help so— Wait! Don’t!”

Grasping the knife hilt, she yanked it from her body and tossed it aside.

My speech died in my throat.

“Charlie?! Charlie, what’s wrong? Why did you scream?” Tristan called. “Dammit, Belphe! Stop fucking standing there and get her out!”

Their words reached me from far away. Lucifer and Mother’s heated argument didn’t touch me at all. All I could see was the knife’s blade... covered in black blood.

Dora raised her head.

The last thing I saw before Ronin’s magic winked me out of the room... was Dora’s ruby-red eyes.

Chapter One

Itwiddled about the dining room, setting up the decorations, laying out the dinnerware, and arranging the birthday dinner.

What luck it was that Dora’s graduation was scheduled for the same day as her birthday. Now we had double the reason to celebrate, and my boss had double the reason to float some extra shifts my way.

Thunder boomed, swinging my attention to the bay window. Outside, dark, ominous clouds loomed overhead—promising to wash this special day under a river of rain.

I clicked my tongue. “Shame it’s going to rain today, but at least we’re celebrating indoors.”

“Tch, darling, wake up.”

I was calm as I turned to face the head of the table.

“It’s not the rain that’s going to turn this day sour.”

I gazed into Lucifer’s mirthless smile, and then down on the cake resting in the middle of the table—waiting to end up on a frog demon’s head, and not in our bellies.

“Oh,” I murmured—calm as I could only be in a dream. “This is that night.”

The loathsome, smirking son of a bitch rolled his eyes at me. “Why is it the thoughts of you mortals are always so tedious? As we speak, your sleeping body is being protected by men more powerful and handsome than you’ve ever seen, and instead of walking into a sweaty, romping threesome, you’re here pointlessly dreaming of the past, and raking over all the ways you could’ve changed the outcome?”

“Is this why you’ve come?” I moved down the table and began fixing the balloons to Dora’s chair. “To remind me that I’m not safe from you anywhere? Not even in my dreams?”

“No, darling. That’s not why I’m here.”