A Glow of Stars & Dusk by Eve L. Mitchell

I had indeed found Hamish.Pen had stopped me from touching the bones just as my fingers almost brushed the smooth skull. Instead, he and Der had gathered the remains in a cloth bag, and then Zel and Ros burned the ground while Chaz examined every inch, it seemed, of the surrounding area. Sam stood to the side, overseeing everything, but his eyes kept flicking back to mine, and his hard scrutiny was making me nervous.

After a long walk back to the road, I was not in the least surprised to find Ruairidh stretched out on the back seats, fast asleep.

“Why do you even have a van?” Zel asked me as he glared at Ruairidh’s sleeping form.

“Oh, it was my gran’s,” I said with a fond smile. “Gran couldn’t drive, but she used to make people drive her around the Highlands to do readings. She would do tarot readings and stuff in the van.”

“Explains a lot,” Der said with a thoughtful nod.

“It does?” I asked curiously. I got in the van even as Ros unceremoniously sat on top of Ruairidh. “Seriously?” I snapped peevishly.

Ruairidh jerked awake and struggled to sit up. His protests were smothered with the laughter of the others, and within moments I was grinning at their antics. “You’re pains in the arse, you know that, don’t you,” I snickered as I started the engine. “I think I need a hot bath to get rid of the chill in my bones tonight,” I said to no one in particular as we started the journey back.

“So, did you find anything?” Ruairidh asked as he looked at us all. “Why couldn’t I come?”

“Someone had to stay with the van,” I fed him the same bullshit lie that I had told him when we got here. Sam didn’t care what I had told him, as long as he didn’t follow.

“But did you find anything useful?” Ruairidh asked again.

“We found Hamish’s bones,” I told him, ignoring Sam’s sharp glance.

“Oh.” Ruairidh looked at the others in the car. “Um, that good?”

“Very much so,” Pen murmured as he leaned his head back.

“You need them for a reading?” Ruairidh was digging, and I wasn’t sure how to explain this to him. How do you tell someone they’re in a van with six demons? Ruairidh never doubted my ability to see spirits, but he also never saw,and I feared that this was maybe not the time to test his “seeing is believing” attitude.

Ruairidh looked over the demons speculatively, his stare resting on Sam for too long, and then he met my stare dead on in the rear-view mirror. “Star’s seen dead people for years. She turned it off, but it came screaming back when she left here,” Ruairidh said.

I knew exactly where he was going with this. “They don’t need to know this,” I said with a meaningful glance at him in the rear-view mirror.

“She left?” Sam asked as he turned slightly in his seat and looked over his shoulder to Ruairidh. “Where did you go?” he asked me.

“Not far,” I answered him with a fake smile and clenched teeth.

“St Andrews is pretty far from Slate, Star. Especially when you could have gone to Inverness to study.” Ruairidh shook his head at me in amusement.

“St Andrews?” Pen perked up in the back. “The town?”

“Yes.” Ruairidh darted a quick glance to Sam and dipped his head. “She went there for university.”

“A long way to go for education.” Chaz was looking at me curiously.

“Not really,” I objected slightly. “It’s only three hours away.”

I saw Ruairidh glance at Sam again, and I caught his eye. Ruairidh looked away hurriedly. “It was my fault,” he admitted as he pretended to look at his hands. My eyes narrowed as I watched him.

“And why was that?” Sam asked him, his eyes fixed on me.

“I upset Star, so she wanted to put distance between us.” Ruairidh was still playing coy, and my temper was rising.

“Ruairidh, enough,” I warned him.

“And what did you do?” Sam asked, turning his hard stare to my best friend.

“Well, I kinda slept with her nemesis.” Ruairidh tried to laugh it off, ignoring my disgusted shake of my head.

“The bar wench?” Der asked, his head moving between us both, trying to put the pieces together.

“Did you say wench?” I asked him incredulously.

“Abby?” Ruairidh laughed guiltily. Oh good, he was realising he looked like a dick with this story. “Err. No. Bonnie.”

“Who’s Bonnie?” Zel asked as he looked my way with a gleam in his eye.

“She was kinda a bitch to Star in school. On our last day, she and her friend Steven chucked buckets of red paint over Star and chanted Carrie.” He saw their blank stares. “You know, from the Stephen King book?”

“Fun times,” I grumbled as I felt my cheeks heat.

“You had sex with this vile thing? Did you know she was like that before you slept with her?” Chaz’s eyes were wide.

I pursed my lips together and thought the less they knew, the better. I realised that Ruairidh finally knew it too and was grateful he shut up.

“You slept with her after she humiliated your best friend,” Sam said in the quiet of the van. I could feel his heavy stare, and I absolutely refused to make eye contact with him.

“Well,” Ruairidh said and then opted for humour. “She gave me a blowie. I mean, it’s hard to think straight in that situation, you know?”

Oh Rue, you complete arsehole.

“I mean, you knowthat, don’t you?” Ruairidh said as he leaned forward and nudged Sam’s shoulder. The speed with which Sam’s hand wrapped around Ruairidh’s wrist made my mouth drop.

“No, I don’t know.” His grin was full of danger. “By keeping my dick out of women who would try to cause a friend harm, physically and emotionally, I find is what helps me think straight.”

“Sam, stop.” My voice was hushed in the van. “Please. It was a long time ago.”

“And you still defend him,” he spat out in contempt. “He is not worth your loyalty.”

“Enough.” I kept my voice steady. I looked over into those perfect forest green eyes and tried a smile. “It’s not a problem.”

Sam held the look for longer than was probably necessary given I was actually driving a vehicle. He gave a curt nod and looked out the window into the darkening sky. I surprised us both when I reached over and took his hand. Wordlessly, he laced his fingers through mine, and we drove in silence.

“What happened in St Andrews?” Ros asked after a while when we were almost back at Slate.

“My gran died,” I answered. “Her spirit came to me in the old cathedral.”

“Just hers?” Pen asked shrewdly.

“No,” I huffed in remembrance. “It was a busy day.”

“The first break,” Pen murmured to the others.

“Significant too,” Chaz said as he nodded thoughtfully. “The loss would warrant a forceful break.”

“The cathedral is a ruin now,” Zel told Sam. “Although it is still consecrated ground.”

“You think that’s the place?” Sam asked, and Zel, as well as Pen, nodded. “You may be right,” Sam mused.

“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “Tomorrow we go to St Andrews?”

“How did you know?” Ros teased with a grin.

“Clairvoyant, remember?” Thankfully, my less than witty sarcasm broke the tension in the van as they laughed at my poor joke. Ruairidh was sitting in silence, but since he had decided to describe one of my worst experiences followed by a day of loss, I opted not to make him feel better. Let him stew a little bit longer.

The general consensus was that they would return to the pub. I wasn’t sure if they were prone to Abby’s beer or gleaning information from the locals, but not having six demons in my cottage tonight meant I could get that nice long bubble bath.

They called goodbye as they piled out of the van, and I sat and looked at Sam. “Um?”

“Witch?” Sam’s eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Demon,” I answered with an eye roll.

Sam leaned forward, his hand slipping behind my neck as he pulled me closer, his lips close to mine. “Tell me to go into the bar,” he said against my lips.

“Or?”

“Or you take me to your bed, and I fuck you all night long.” His tongue licked my bottom lip in a soft caress, and I pushed forward slightly to catch his kiss, but he moved back slightly. “Your choice,” he said as he watched me with narrowed eyes.

“All night?” I whispered as I reached out and pulled him closer.

“You won’t sleep,” he promised as his other hand curled around my waist.

“I don’t know if that’s a promise or a threat,” I sighed as I unclipped my seat belt and very easily, and slightly alarmed at my lack of care, I manoeuvred over the centre console and fit myself into Sam’s lap. My hands travelled over his chest and curled up into his hair as I looked down at him in the dimly lit van. “Tell me, demon, what do you think I should do?” My words were muted against his lips before I captured them with my own. He let me kiss him for a moment, maybe more, before his hand was slipping to my jaw, angling my head the way he wanted, as he kissed me passionately. My hand slipped past his collar and down his back, trailing over the taught muscles of his back.

I felt a rush of cold air before his warm hand was sliding up my back. He’d unzipped my jacket and worked his hand under my jumper. Sam’s hands dropped to my hips, and he ground me down on him. I felt his hardened length as it rubbed against the apex of my thighs. I remembered his size vividly from the previous night, and I felt apprehensive at the thought of it anywhere near my nether regions. But when he did it again, the friction was so good, I lost my inhibitions about size and moved my hips slowly over him.

“I need to fuck you, witch,” Sam groaned as his nose skimmed my jaw before his lips were on my neck, causing me to pant.

I was seconds from agreeing when a loud bang made me jump. Opening my eyes, I saw Ruairidh standing in front of the pub. His look of condemnation felt like it burned me as he turned to go back inside. I pushed myself away from Sam’s hold and clumsily climbed back to the driver’s side.

“You should join your friends,” I said hoarsely, avoiding his harsh glare.

“You should choose what you want,” Sam bit out before he got out of the van. “Trust me, it’s not him,” he added before he slammed the door behind him.

I drove home with my feelings in turmoil. I didn’t even like the demon. No, I did like the demon. Kind of. He was sexy. To be fair, Zel was sexy, he just killed your libido because he was an obvious psychopath. They were all sexy. Sam was just…more. My groan was low and tortured in the van. So much more. He was so much more. He made my heart race, but then so did Zel and possibly Der. Only that was possibly fear.

Sam made my heart race with excitement, he made my tummy flip with butterflies when he gave me that long sexy smirk. His kisses left me breathless, his touch made me erupt in pleasure. I had absolutely no idea why I was driving away from him.

Ruairidh.

Ugh, he didn’t even fucking want me. He had never wanted me, why was I turning down a perfectly good demon…wait, what? A perfectly good demon? I bit my lip. Was that my problem? Because Sam was a demon? I didn’t even know what kind of demons there were. Could you Google demons? I snort laughed at my own stupidity in the van as I parked at my cottage.

Hound stood in front of the house like a vigilant watchdog.

“Hey, Hound,” I greeted as I rubbed his head as I passed him. “You look surly. Miss me?” The hellhound looked at me with what I could only describe as scorn. “You know the looks you give me, Hound, are almost human.”

Hound walked away from me in disgust.

“I need a bath,” I told my empty house. “I need a bath and no thinking.” Armed with a plan, I ran the bath while I stripped out of my muddy clothes. I was going to need a clothing allowance if we continued on like this, I joked inwardly as I pulled on my fluffy bathrobe. In the kitchen, I made a roast beef and cucumber sandwich, which I ate while I waited for the bath to cool a little. I liked scorching hot baths, no cold water was added, but I was conscious of how cold my body was, and I didn’t want to make myself sick because I didn’t allow my body to warm to room temperature first.

Food finished, I locked the bathroom door and sank into the depths of my bath. I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes. That was it, perfection, better than a man or a demon. Okay, so that’s a lie, but it was still a good bath.

They had been right, my powers had been bound. As I lay in the soothing bathwater, I contemplated what powers I had. I could see the dead, and personally speaking, I thought that made me pretty powerful already. I had premonitions of things that were going to happen, but that wasn’t often and vague at best. Gran had seen auras, but I never understood the colours she described or the meanings. I was guessing I wasn’t going to have that ability. When I did my readings at home now, I used a crystal ball and stones as props. I had never seen anything in a crystal ball except my upside-down reflection. The stones, although I knew people read them well, were simply stones to me.

Mum had crystals in the house, she was always telling me about the healing power of rose quartz or giving me chunks of amethyst to hold and take home. The only thing I liked about amethyst was the colour. I had a jade bowl that she had given me a few years ago for purity. I hadn’t been too clear on what I was keeping pure; if it was my virtue, that ship sailed.

“I’m the worst witch ever,” I muttered in the quiet of the bathroom. “I seriously know nothing about witchcraft.”

Was it preposterous to consider a Google search? I got out of my bath and went in search of my laptop. Forty minutes later, I had no idea what I had just read. Gran was Wiccan? I looked at the depictions of the horned god and the goddess and frowned. My gran was a tad off on the normal scale, but she still believed in God. The God. The one upstairs. According to this site, Wicca was a form of paganism, and there was no mention of baby Jesus. I read on as it went on to describe how Wicca was associated with witchcraft, so to be a Wiccan you had to be a witch? No. That wasn’t what they were saying. You could be a witch and believe in Wicca, or you could just be a horned-god-worshiping pagan.

I shut the laptop. That was far too confusing, and I was fairly certain that if my gran had ever burnt sage it was because she had cooked smoked haddock the night before. I snorted at my own scepticism and mentally apologised to all the sage burners in the world.

It was official. I sucked at being a witch. I looked at Hound. He was laid out over the floor, taking up every inch of space. So I wasn’t that bad a witch, I could see hellhounds after all.

Tiredly, I made myself a cup of lemon and ginger tea and then headed to bed. I was tired. I had an emotional day, and I still had Sam to deal with. I felt a pang of regret as I climbed into bed that I was sleeping alone. He would be much more fun than reading about quartz, herbs and paganism. As I finished my tea, I wondered idly if paganism was an alert on internet security sites. Smiling at my own active imagination, I switched the light off. It was possible I would know all the answers to my problems tomorrow.