BEELZEBUB
Before I
t was fucking cold.
Lucifer had promised us a haven, and we’d gotten a halffrozen tundra where frost covered the grass in the morning. I’d never thought to miss the heat of Helfyre lingering nearby, but would it kill them to have the fireplaces lit in a place this cold and damp?
My black leather wings brushed against the archway as I crossed through one of the narrower hallways, forcing me to tuck them in tight and duck my head down low so I could fit through. Scraping my wings against the stone walls might not have caused any damage, but it sure as fuck would serve a single purpose.
Pissing me the Hell off.
Lucifer was out of His mind giving that much of His blood to His consort, and I’d left them at the boundary of the woods, feeling entirely unsettled, after she’d clearly attempted to escape. I didn’t know how she’d managed to wrap Him around her finger so efficiently; it wasn’t like she was a Red witch and had corrupted Him with the addictive nature of sex.
She was nothing special, just another human. He’d seen countless others who would have been willing to warm His bed and been far less complicated in the end.
I’d seen demons and lost souls fawn over Him in Hell, and I could only imagine the way they went for Him in the plane of the living, especially at a time when they hadn’t known how dangerous He truly was.
I strode through the hallways, heading toward the rooms Lucifer had given to the archangels in the meantime. It was a tiny, secluded hallway just off the Tribunal rooms and the courtyard that was crawling with plants that practically writhed with life. Whatever the witches had done, that part of the world oozed with power in a way that the rest of Hollow’s Grove didn’t.
I’d spent the rest of my day after leaving them tending to the business that Lucifer should have been handling Himself. Keeping the archdemons in line, teaching them not to eat the witches for their lunch.
To keep their hands off until Lucifer worked out how He saw all this going down. Ruling over them had always been His intent, and where our visions for this world differed. He saw them as wayward children, as beings He could bring to heel and live alongside.
I saw them as the reason Lucifer had abandoned us in Hell, and it stood to reason that they should know how that solitude felt for themselves. They didn’t seem to appreciate having Him walk among them for all these centuries, not the way His faithful demons would have been overjoyed to have Him return to us.
To choose us.
Him having a witch for a wife— a complication none of the archdemons had seen coming—wasn’t part of the plan.
I faltered in my steps, hearing the soft sound of an innocent melody ringing through the night as I went about my patrols. All the witches had retreated to bed before dark, as if they feared what the archdemons might do to them if they were caught out of their rooms at night. It was a wholly foolish endeavor. They should have known, as well as anyone could, that evil wasn’t relegated to darkness.
We could kill them just as easily under the shining sun of day. The plants in the courtyard swayed in place in tune with the soft melody. The woman’s voice was husky and low. I glided forward on steady, sure feet, unable to resist the call of that tone. I couldn’t see her, not with the way the plants shielded her from view.
Muffling her song, I realized. Keeping it private in an area that might have otherwise been occupied if not for the witches’ fear of us. The very notion that one of them was brave enough to come out alone when the others weren’t would have been enough to pique my curiosity as it was. But the heartbreaking beauty in that song tugged at the place a heart would have been, had I believed myself to have one.
A smarter male would have turned away for that reason. While I’d never heard the song of a witch before, I knew of the power they held for all who heard them—the way some witches used them to ensnare their victims so they could feed from the lust they crafted.
I moved forward anyway, drawn to that sound in ways I couldn’t otherwise explain, enraptured like a moth to the flame. I approached the stone wall at the side of the courtyard, stepping over it with ease to approach my captor. The roses formed an archway in the center of the garden, almost like a walkway that was created for me, leading me down the path to temptation.
A woman lingered at the end of the tunnel they formed, her back to me. Wavy blond hair fell to just above her shoulders in layers, making it look fluffy and softer than anything I’d ever felt. The sudden need to touch it overcame me, making me take another step as my gaze trailed down over the smooth expanse of her shoulders. Her deep red top dipped low in the back, revealing the curve of her spine. She’d tattooed music notes up the center, the ink billowing out into wisps as it met the defined lines of muscle that ran down either side.
Her plaid skirt was short, and the white thigh-high stockings
hugged her long legs and the smooth definition of them. There wasn’t a lump in sight where the top of the stocking met her thigh. I could already imagine the strength I would find in those legs if I ran my fingers up the length of them, immediately making me want to know more about her vice of choice— the exercise she used to gain such obsessive control over her body.
There wasn’t a hair out of place on her head, not a speck of dirt or lint anywhere to be found on her clothing.
She was careful and meticulous about her appearance, but something in it felt more forced than natural, the tattoo up her spine the only hint of the real woman who lingered beneath that careful external control.
I took another step, wincing at the sound of a stick cracking beneath my boot. The plants ceased to move as they sensed my presence, the swaying roses and vines of ivy stilling in a way that only made my misstep feel louder in the silence that followed.
The woman spun suddenly, her song stopping as her hair flipped to reveal her pretty, shocked face.
No, pretty wasn’t a strong enough word.
She was an angel, her mahogany eyes wide and her perfect bowed lips parted in shock. Her eyes drifted closed as she took in the sight of me and sighed, and I couldn’t stop the growl that rumbled in my chest.
Didn’t she recognize the predator in her midst?
I stalked forward, pausing only when she stumbled back a step in fear. Her cheekbones were high, cut like glass, and her nose the perfect button at the center of her face. Her uniform revealed a line of cleavage, showing breasts ample enough to fill my hands.
“I didn’t mean for anyone to hear me,” she said, her voice a husky melody tinged with apology. There was a roughness to it that reminded me of passion on a hot summer’s night, that made me think of balmy air and sweat-slicked bodies.
“I heard you, songbird,” I said, taking another step forward. The woman winced as if I’d physically struck her. “You’ll un-
hear me soon enough,” she said, stepping around me. She kept her head down as she tried to pass me by, her entire body scrambling frantically when I reached for her and my fingers brushed her arm.
I retreated from the touch immediately, unable to understand why I cared enough to respect her wish for space. She was a witch, the very creature I had spent centuries of life despising and plotting for the day I could punish them as I’d been punished. They deserved to know every bit of pain that came with being left behind, to have a life without hope in the darkest of all places.
So why did the very idea that she’d already known such pain fill me with rage I thought myself incapable of after all these years?
My brow furrowed, narrowing down on the look of panic on her face. There was no mistaking the caution there. The fear of being touched.
Who?
I didn’t voice the question, shoving my hands into my pants pockets to appease her. She was already so jumpy. She tracked my every movement, her body tense as if waiting for me to attack.
Her feet were shoulder-width apart, braced to fight just as much as to flee. That alone earned my respect, knowing that she would do whatever it took to navigate her way out of danger— that she’d likely vowed to take any would-be attacker down with her.
The muscle tone in her delicate body only confirmed it.
“What’s your name?” I asked, watching as she ran her tongue over her lip to wet it. My entire world narrowed down to the movement, my body tensing with the need to feel that wet heat on my lips. I knew it had to be a consequence of her song, this attraction that was so potent and unnatural it could be nothing less than her magic working its way through my body, attempting to twist me into her willing servant.
“My name doesn’t matter. You’ll forget all about me soon enough,” she said, turning on one of her high heels. She moved like a professional in them despite the dirt beneath her feet, easing
her way over the stone half-wall border that surrounded the flourishing courtyard. Her heels clicked against the stone floors as she fled quickly, but she didn’t run. She didn’t give me the privilege of that fear.
Leaving me staring after the mystery woman, wondering how anyone could ever forget her.
M A RG OT
The weight of my mother’s gaze never left me during the class that had long ago become the bane of my existence. Growing up under the thumb of my aunt, the Erotes Tribunal member, was no easy task, but it meant that I already knew all the theology surrounding our magic and the ways that it worked. While my aunt was the Erotes Tribunal member, she hadn’t had children of her own so she and my mother had taken it upon themselves to work in tandem when it came to my education.
That was knowledge she often used to her advantage, asking me for answers that she knew I had when others wouldn’t. While the Reds as a whole were more sexually liberated than many of the families within the Coven, that didn’t mean that all of them were quite as encouraging as my mother had been.
She’d known even from a young age that I wasn’t like the rest, that my magic had a darker nature than many of the others’. They could control the pull in their songs, having to expend effort and magic in order to allow that magic to seep beneath someone’s skin and claim them from the inside, until their body was only an instrument to be used.
I’d never had a choice, never had the option to reject the magic that so easily pulsed at my fingertips. It was in everything I touched, in everything I did, and in every word I sang.
It was the reason I refused all invitations to join the choir that
occupied most of the Reds’ free time, the reason I often kept to myself in the library instead of spending time with my peers. They didn’t understand the weight of that magic and what it meant for me.
They didn’t understand how it had come to be my curse.
“Are you even listening, Margot?” my mother asked, forsaking the general understanding that even when teaching their own offspring, they are meant to keep a certain level of distance from their progeny.
Here, I wasn’t supposed to be Fritha Erotes’s eldest daughter, daughter of the next heir to the Erotes Tribunal seat, as my aunt who currently occupied that seat had no children of her own. Here, I was supposed to be a cool, collected Miss Erotes, like so many of the others who occupied the class alongside me— cousins and second cousins and family members who descended from the same line but had merged far enough back that it became impossible to keep track.
The Peabody legacies sat on the other side of the classroom, the divide between the two more evident than ever.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving a meek nod of my head as I looked down at the book in front of me. A quick glance to my cousin Belva beside me confirmed that I was six pages behind, lost to my own thoughts. Even before I’d noticed my mother staring at me, it had been a certain red- eyed archdemon who occupied my mind.
Seeing him in the courtyard the night before had kept me awake all night, and I knew half my mother’s anger was probably for what she saw as my lackluster appearance in the wake of that. The first rule of Reds was that appearance was everything, and one couldn’t use magic to replace a good night’s sleep and a few extra moments of care in the morning.
“Then explain to me the exact functioning of the cone of power and the ways that we use that for the ultimate power
manifestation,” she said, making my cheeks flush with heat as all eyes turned to me.
Goddess, sometimes I wished I had a normal relationship with my mother where discussing these things was uncomfortable for all involved and not just me.
“When utilizing the cone of power, a witch stores all the magic that she has accumulated during sex, from both her and her partner’s desire, within her body until the point of climax is reached. At that point, she uses her body as a conduit and sends it into the universe, making her intentions clear as she does and using it to fuel the spell so that her desired outcome can come to pass,” I said, the words almost verbatim from the textbook in front of me.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t even turned to the proper page, not when those words had been drilled into my brain from the time I turned eighteen and my mother expressed her disappointment that I wasn’t showing signs of interest in any of the extracurricular activities my peers had already begun to engage in.
My mother nodded, turning away from me and continuing on about her lesson that I’d already heard countless times. I heaved a sigh of relief the moment her attention was elsewhere, my thoughts immediately returning to the danger waiting for me.
I didn’t know how long it would take for the archdemon to show his face in my life, but I knew the song would demand it of him. He wouldn’t be able to stay away, and that was the consequence of my taking a moment to sing.
I’d been too afraid to venture out to the outskirts of the school, to run along the edge of the woods until I was far enough from listening ears that I could sing freely. I’d thought the witches had all gone to bed and that maybe I would be safe in that abandoned courtyard so late at night.
Instead, I’d managed to entrap one of the greatest dangers to my well-being. I didn’t even know which archdemon he was, having never paid as much attention to my schooling when it came to
criticism began. She took her eyes from me as soon as she said the words, picking up a pen from her desk and grading papers while I stood there beneath her judgment. The door hadn’t even swung closed yet, meaning that the nosy students who waited just beyond it could hear my ridicule, but my mother didn’t care. “Your image is a direct reflection on this family. What have I told you about stepping outside of your room without taking care to make sure you represent us properly?”
The sad reality was that I’d done everything I could to make myself meet her standards. I’d woken up before the sun rose even though I’d only just managed to fall asleep, showered and styled my hair, done my skincare with the ointments the Reds were so proud of producing to keep aging at bay.
But nothing could erase the circles from beneath my eyes.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said, even knowing it wouldn’t be enough of an excuse in her mind.
“Are you having nightmares again?” she asked, referencing the days when I’d go to her the morning after Itan visited me, telling her about what he’d done.
She’d brushed them off as nightmares, figments of my overactive imagination that were only natural considering the pure volume of magic at my fingertips.
“No,” I said, changing the subject quickly. I didn’t want another reminder of the reality that my own mother didn’t believe me, that she’d sooner believe I had hallucinated my abuse than suspect one of the Tribunal members of being capable of such a crime. “I was afraid. Something happened last night. I made a mistake and—”
Her mahogany gaze that was so like mine met mine suddenly, her pen dropping to the paper as she glared. “What did you do now?” she asked, the words said from between clenched teeth. Her fingers tapped on the surface of the desk impatiently, waiting for me to give the words that she was so certain would be a disappointment to her.
Just like me.
“I sang in the courtyard last night. I needed the release with everything going on and the way that everything feels now that Lucifer is here,” I said, referencing the way magic seemed to pulse off of everyone. I didn’t know if it was just the increase in tension making people wish for more enjoyable releases or the presence of Him in general, but I felt like magic seeped into my bones no matter where I was or what I did. I’d needed to release some of it the only way I was willing.
“You could have just taken a partner to your bed like the rest of us,” my mother said, sighing her disappointment. “You know that Keane would be more than willing to accommodate you in that way before your handfasting.” The reminder of the betrothed the Covenant had chosen for me at a young age was like being dropped into an ice bath.
It wasn’t even that Keane was unattractive or cruel or any of the things that should have made me dread our union. He was one of the kindest men I’d encountered in the Coven, a Peabody witch who had sacrificed his magic when the Covenant offered to match him with me. The other girls had all fawned over him, telling me how lucky I was to have secured such a match.
For all purposes, I should have been thrilled with it. I should have been able to feel the affection for him that he so obviously held for me, following me around like a lovesick puppy for years until he finally began to keep his distance because of my discomfort.
But I didn’t feel it. I had long since begun to suspect that I couldn’t feel anything more than a general knowledge that someone was attractive. Something so important was just missing within me, making me incapable of feelings of desire and love and all the warmth that I could have potentially gained from the nature of my magic.
“Well, I didn’t,” I snapped, immediately regretting the tone when my mother’s gaze hardened into the one that threatened
punishment for my attitude. In our world, it didn’t matter that I was twenty years old and a grown-ass woman, she would always be my elder as a future Tribunal member and matriarch of our line.
“Who heard you?” she asked, preparing to do damage control if I’d accidentally spelled someone within the Coven. While it wasn’t illegal, it was frowned upon to use our magic against those in higher positions of authority than us.
I swallowed. “One of the archdemons . . .” I said, letting the words trail off as her head tilted to the side in thought.
Her face was carefully blank as she studied me, all traces of anger gone from her features. “Do you know which one?” she asked, and I shook my head.
I didn’t know his name. Didn’t know which of the creatures I’d bound to myself. “The winged one with the Enochian tattoos on his chest. Red eyes,” I said, offering the simplest explanation I could. I didn’t think my mother would have noted the way his deep brown hair was the same length as mine, pulled back into a bun at the back of his head. I didn’t think she would have noted the strength in his square jaw, the way the harsh lines of his features were brutal and beautiful all at once, his eyebrows two angry slashes that had softened for me.
“Beelzebub,” she said, picking up her pen and using it to draw Enochian symbols on her notepad. They were the same ones I’d seen on the archdemon’s chest the night before, and I nodded when I recognized them. “Did he seem affected by your song?” She lowered her pen slowly, as if she didn’t dare to move too quickly.
I thought back to the night before, wondering if I’d misread the situation. If I had merely assumed that he was under my spell when he wasn’t affected, but the memory of him calling me songbird was a whisper in my mind, the sound of his deep, guttural voice like a caress on my skin.
I shivered in response to the sound of it, remembering the way it had felt in that moment. I’d never felt such a thing in my life,
never heard a voice so deep and harsh but somehow gentle before. The way he’d reached for me when I tried to leave, seeming at war with himself for a moment, before he respected my wishes.
He’d let me leave.
“I think so,” I said, answering her question as best as I could. I couldn’t make myself share the nickname with her, feeling as if that was something better kept between he and I for the time being. It felt intimate, like something he hadn’t given freely but that I’d stolen from him with the magic in my voice.
A name I hadn’t earned, that didn’t need to be claimed.
My mother’s face spread into a broad grin the likes of which I’d never seen, making her face transform into the beauty I knew she was capable of when she was surrounded by people she liked.
I just wasn’t among them.
“Oh, Margot, that’s wonderful!” she said, standing and stepping around the side of her desk. She came to me, cupping my face in gentle, soft hands so tenderly that everything within me clenched. I wanted to retreat from the unnatural touch, from the glee and pride in her face.
I’d done something horrible, and that was the thing that made my mother happy.
“It is?” I asked, swallowing back the venom in my words. Arguing with her that it was monstrous would do me no good, not with the way she stared at me like I’d given her hope.
“You’ve ensnared Lucifer’s second-in-command. If you and Willow can work together, then this could give us an edge. You’ll have Beelzebub wrapped around your finger in no time if you keep singing for him now that you have him on the hook. I’ll be sure to let the other Reds know that the song works, and maybe we can pull the others under our control as well,” she said, trailing off as she left me to return to the papers she needed to grade, the moment passed.
“But that’s horrible,” I said, thinking of how dangerous the situation was. If Beelzebub became too addicted to my magic,
if I brought him further under my spell, it was only a matter of time before he wanted to act on that spell. “You’re talking about intentionally taking away their free will. I didn’t mean to do this, but if they seek the archdemons out . . .”
“Oh, Margot, don’t be so dramatic,” she said finally, waving her hand to dismiss me. I’d served my purpose, and now she was done with me. “They’re archdemons. They don’t have feelings.”
I nodded as I grabbed my book bag off my desk, retreating from the room as quickly as I could. My mother might have claimed it didn’t matter because they lacked feelings, but I knew well enough to know that even someone broken and devoid of warmth would feel the violation that this was.
I certainly had.
M A RG OT
Ihurried to the right, curving my way up the staircase without so much as glancing at the students who had gathered near the doorway as I passed. I took the stairs more quickly than any of the others, my book bag bouncing where it hung by my hip. I pushed myself to skip steps as my legs spread to accommodate the longer stride, hugging the wall to keep anyone from seeing up my skirt near the railing.
The need to push, to make my muscles strain with the speed that I sprinted up those steps was so overwhelming that I couldn’t have hid it if I’d wanted to. Making my body hurt was the only way to make myself feel what I knew should have hurt, the reminder of my childhood and the lack of approval from my mother not really striking me in the way they once had.
The numbness was a plague upon my soul, haunting me so much that I wondered what was wrong with me and how I could fix it so often that I’d lost track.
But I couldn’t, and the only thing I could do was work my body until I felt like I might give in. The woods and the grounds weren’t safe, hadn’t been even before the archdemons had come, but now they were even less so and I’d have to risk my life in order to take the chance and find my outlet.
I wasn’t at that point yet, so I raced the four flights of stairs up to the library at the top, my lungs heaving by the time I reached
it. I paused outside the door, gathering my breath and trying to compose myself for a brief moment. Sweat slicked down my spine, tickling over the place where I knew my tattoo marked me. My mother had been furious the first day I showed up to class with it covered in the sheen of a healing ointment, the ink fresh and skin still a little swollen.
Reds did not participate in body modification of any kind as a rule. Personal expression like that was seen as a diminishing aspect of our objective attractiveness, making it so that our prospective partners would either love it or hate it. Most witches could not create something from nothing, and that meant that remaining attractive to as many people as possible was an advantage in the eyes of our elders.
My mother hated my shorter hair for the same reason, because it was an act I’d done in a direct rebellion of her wishes. I refused to allow it to grow past my shoulders because of how much I knew she hated it. The piercings I hid beneath my top that I’d foolishly done myself were another silent protest against the rules placed upon us by a too-strict Coven that wanted to erase any and all traces of our individuality. It didn’t matter to me that no one else would see them if I had my way.
I hadn’t done them for anyone but myself.
I sighed, turning to face the library door and stopping suddenly when he appeared in front of it and blocked my path.
Beelzebub.
I staggered back a step, desperately seeking the distance between us that he hadn’t afforded me. This close, he seemed even larger than he had the night before. I was far from short at five seven and he had to be a foot taller than me anyway. His shoulders were broad, the rippling muscles tense where his arms were crossed over his chest. His wings settled down at his sides as he raised his chin, settling into his place in front of me.
I had to assume he’d flown to the platform that led to the library. The space was narrow and left me with the staircase at
my back looming too close. One quick shove and I’d fall, ridding him of the curse I’d placed upon him by allowing him to hear my song.
For a moment, I wondered if he’d do it. For a moment, I hoped he would.
Jaw clenched and red eyes blazing, his gentleness from the night before was gone. His hair was still pulled back into that bun at the back of his head, and I wondered if he ever let it fall free around his face. His golden Enochian tattoos glowed, pulsing with light as he took a step toward me, and my heart raced in anticipation of my coming death.
“What do you want?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at the staircase behind me.
He didn’t respond, studying me intently. He looked at me as if I were a puzzle, reading the lines of tension in my body and whatever he could see in the expression on my face.
I didn’t know if it was fear or exhilaration that made my heart race, waiting for him to make the decision we both knew danced behind the evil in that gaze. It would take one quick movement and he’d be able to free himself, and I let my body relax as I waited for it.
He tilted his head to the side, studying me as if I’d surprised him.
“Why do you not sing?” he asked, reaching forward so suddenly I thought he might push me. Instead, he grasped me by the strap on my book bag, tugging me forward sharply, and I toppled into him. My hands planted on his chest, the heat of his skin sinking into me as his mouth parted.
Every song. Every touch.
I jolted back as his mouth dropped open in shock, stepping around him to lean my back into the wall beside the library door. It left him with no choice but to swap with me, putting the stairs at his back. He was still too close, leaning his arm against the wall above my head, but he kept his distance enough not to touch me.
That in itself felt like a kindness, given what I knew of the effects of my touch. It felt restrained, where so many lost their selfcontrol entirely under such close proximity to my magic.
“Why did you not sing?” he asked again, his eyes narrowing impatiently.
“Not really feeling the music right now,” I said, giving him a bitter half smile. It felt more like Willow than me, a sarcastic response that I hadn’t known I had in me. If the archdemon were going to kill me he would have already, and something in that emboldened me.
“I could have killed you, and you just stood there and waited for me to,” he said, dropping his arm from the wall. I flinched, waiting for the touch I felt so certain would come, but he only glared down at me.
Waiting for my answer, I realized. Seeing too much, I knew.
“You didn’t,” I said, shrugging and feigning a casual ease that I did not feel.
He growled, the sound low and vibrating within his chest. It was barely audible, but I heard it. I felt it as if he were touching me, the sound sinking into me. “I should have,” he warned, earning a nervous swallow from me. “Would you have stopped me, little siren? Would you have defended yourself if I had tried to snap your pretty neck?”
The bitter smile faded off my face, leaving me slowly as I held that red-eyed stare and tried to find the well of make-believe where all my pretty lies came from. I tried to find the energy to pretend I cared what happened to me beyond never allowing someone to take from my body again.
I spoke the single word quietly, giving him a vulnerability that I hadn’t afforded anyone else. I didn’t know what possessed me to choose him as the one to receive it; perhaps it was the distinct knowledge that I didn’t need to care what he thought of me.
He was an archdemon. He was the enemy.
Let him think me weak.
“No,” I said, raising my chin to hold his stare as his glare faded into shock. I let my answer sink in, let him see the truth of it in the emptiness of my eyes for the briefest of moments.
And then I donned my mask once again, forcing a pretty smile to my face before I turned and tugged the door open, retreating into the relative safety of the library.
I made a beeline for the table I always claimed at the back of the library, hanging my book bag on the back of my chair and dropping into it with a sigh. His steps were loud as he approached me, uncaring of the people studying around him as he closed the distance. I hated that he’d followed me, hoped that I’d shocked him into leaving me alone for a little while at least.
He stood on the other side of my table, glaring down at me as I turned my eyes up to meet his. “How long will this fucking spell last?” he asked, yanking the chair out and dropping into it. His wings fluttered behind him, trying to find a comfortable way to rest, and he grunted his frustration when it seemed an impossible task.
“They look inconvenient,” I said, watching him struggle. He glared, seeming uninterested in making small talk with me. “How long?” he asked again, forcing a sigh from me.
“That depends on whether you stay away from me or not. Touch will worsen the pull, so you should avoid touching me at all costs,” I said, taking my book out of my book bag. “If you stay away, maybe a couple of weeks at most and then you’ll be free.”
“Convenient for you that I should avoid touching you given how you recoil in fear when I try, songbird,” he said, an arrogant smirk tilting his lips up at the corner.
He thought I was lying, and there was a challenge in those words that I so wanted not to rise to meet.
My pride got the best of me. “I’m not afraid of you,” I snapped, dropping my book on the table without a care for the way the thud echoed through the occupied library. I was all too aware of
