-Fifteen Minutes Earlier, in the Ever After
Algaliarept bolted upright, eyes wide and startled. "The hell…?"
Rachel paused in her spelling to look up. "What was that?" She'd felt it too, sort of an odd…whoosh…in the line she was working with. It'd had a distinctly…naughty quality to it. She swallowed and tucked a curl behind her ears, trying not to squirm. Yeah. Naughty.
Algaliarept was staring thoughtfully around the room. "Huh," he said, blinking. "Haven't felt that in a few thousand years." He glanced at Rachel, who was beginning to blush and trying to hide it, and grinned. "Nice, isn't it? Someone's having a good time…"
"Shut up, Al." Rachel tried to focus on her spellwork again, promptly adding the wrong ingredient and blowing up the crucible. "Crap!"
She started as Algaliarept leaned in and just barely grazed her vampire scar with a white-gloved finger. "I could show you how to do it too, make the lines sing-"
She shivered, let herself enjoy the sensation for juuuuust a moment, then slugged him. "I said shut up, Al." She resisted the urge to fan herself and started cleaning up her mess. This was going to be a really long night.
For her, anyway. Algaliarept just straightened smugly, and Rachel didn't see the wave of Ever After that shimmered over him, leaving him calm, unruffled, and cool and fresh as a daisy. He'd found himself using that one quite a lot lately.
Yes, demons really do have a curse for everything.
