A/N: Here we are again folks! Chapter four is up and ready for your enjoyment and chapter five is currently being edited...I'm so proud of us, Briee! :) Anyways, the drama is starting to rock and roll, love all the hatred Mark is getting as he rightly should, the jerk! I also wanted to say a special thanks to one reader who has been very generously reviewing since our first story, the lovely and kind suzi1811. I've got more shoutouts coming up with the next chapter, but I just wanted to say a very heartfelt THANK YOU to you specifically. We really appreciate the support we've gotten throughout our stories from all of guys are the reason we keep writing this smut! :D

Aaaaaand enough with the mushy stuff, here's your new chapter!

Disclaimer: We are not Kelley Armstrong, we don't own Darkest Powers and we are completely broke, so clearly we are making no money from this...

I didn't sleep at all that night. Usually, Derek can sense when I'm uneasy but he had fallen into a deeper sleep than normal, his upcoming Change and our lovemaking having exhausted him. His big body was curled around mine, normally something that I took pleasure in, but all I wanted to do was cry or scream or pull out my hair. I wanted to be left alone, for this burden of necromancy to pass from me. But I didn't cry, I didn't scream; I just lay as stiff as a board in Derek's embrace, too scared and too numb to move. I knew that nothing I did was ever going to change my reality. It made me sick, though, to think that Mark had seen any part of our lovemaking. Privacy isn't just tangible, like a closed door, it's also a state of mind. And my state had been invaded, my defenses left to burn.

After an hour had passed without Mark appearing again, my rigid muscles finally started giving into the radiating warmth of Derek. He was a little too warm, signaling that he was due for a Change in the next day or so. Poor guy. He knew how uncomfortable I felt in the woods now and had been trying to hold off a little longer on his Change. Once a place that I associated with Derek, I now shuddered at the sight of them, a tormenting image of Mark dancing in front of my eyes every time.

It didn't help that he wasn't staying in my nightmares.

"Chloe."

"Mm?" I replied questioningly, turning around to face Derek. But he was still sound asleep, the total relaxation of his features making him look so much younger. A shiver crawled down my spine. Shit.

"Chloe." My name again, sounded out slowly, savoured. But the voice wasn't Mark's. "A lovely, if somewhat unusual name."

A super-heated brush of air stirred my hair. Well, whatever this was, it wasn't a ghost.

"Who are you?" I breathed, trying to be quiet. "What are you?"

A low, rich chuckle and another brush of that hot, arid air. "I am called Valefar, little necromancer."

Oh, come on! Can't a girl ask for a normal night after making love to her boyfriend?

This Valefar, this disembodied voice, belonged to a demon. But I hadn't summoned or conjured or done anything to call him to me, had I?

"You are wondering perhaps why I disturb your rest?" His wording was odd, but his voice was so rich, so deep, so calm and controlled that I found myself nodding. "You are great in power, little necromancer, so very powerful that your glow shines above all others. You did not have to call me; I have come because I have heard about you, heard of your power, and I wish to offer you a – how do you people say it these days – a helluva deal."

Suddenly I was back in the Edison Group compound, hearing the demi-demon Diriel whispering in my head, offering me the world in exchange for her freedom.

"I will not release you." My voice was barely audible but I was proud of the firmness of it. Derek made a snuffling noise and rolled over, careful even in sleep not to drag all the covers with him. I waited until he had settled, then repeated myself, just to be clear. "I won't."

A low chuckle spiked my annoyance. "Don't presume to know my desires, child. I am not imprisoned, I do not require you to free me."

"Then what do you want?"

The air around my face became denser and I could almost feel the burning heat of his hand (hoof? Claw?) stroke my cheek. Jerking away was instinctive but I was frustrated with my reaction. Dealing with a demon requires composure with no room for fear.

"Is this about the deal I made with Diriel?"

He made a low humming sound that I took for a laugh. "Ah, Diriel. That's right, she was trapped in that laboratory with you. No, little one, this has nothing to do with her and everything to do with you."

"M-m-me?" Fantastic.

"Yeeeeees," he said, sounding almost eager. "The Birithian Treaty is no longer in effect for you, Chloe."

Huh?

"Huh?" Oops. Didn't mean to say that out loud.

"Oh, you miserable little mortals…The treaty was put into place after a few of my brethren wooed too many ladies a little too young. Apparently your kind object rather strongly to impregnating girls before their eighteenth birthdays."

"But I'm not eighteen. What does this have to do with me?"

He sighed gustily. I felt the wave of heated air blast past my face as I pushed myself to a sitting position. I didn't have the slightest clue of where to look, but I felt more in control of the conversation when I wasn't lying down. I made sure to drag the covers up to my neck.

"The treaty was put into place to protect the innocent virgins of bygone eras. Modern times have drastically reduced the effectiveness of the treaty, thanks to section ten, subsection forty-six, paragraph three, line two."

Rolling my eyes, I gestured impatiently for him to continue.

"If a girl has passed her sixteenth birthday and has engaged in consensual sexual activity, she is no longer protected by the boundaries of the treaty."

"Wait, wait." Anger sparked in my stomach, burning through the fear in a sudden blaze. "Are you seriously here to explain to me that you want to knock me up with your spawn?"

"Precisely." He sounded delighted that I had caught on so quickly. I on the other hand, was repulsed.

"But I don't want your satanic semen anywhere near me," I snapped, forgetting to be quiet. "I chose Derek, and that's just the end of that."

Derek sat up abruptly next to me, looking around the room with his usual cautious glare. I could see his profile when I looked over at him.

"Sorry," I said, taking his hand. Man, he was really warm. Maybe we needed to take a drive to the woods tonight. "Just a particularly annoying brand of ghost."

His head seemed to jerk oddly as he turned towards me, and I cried out, pushing away from him when his usually reflective green eyes shone orange in the light of the moon.

"No! Derek!" Silly of me to call his name, the demon was in control of my boyfriend's body, and I knew it. It still didn't stop me from foolishly thinking I could get him back just by calling his name.

"Shh," Valefar murmured, and I shivered hard at his liquid voice coming from Derek's familiar lips. Hot hands wrapped around my upper arms, keeping me from fleeing.

Fight! my mind screamed, kick, bite, scratch! Get away! But I couldn't do it, couldn't hurt Derek, even though I knew he was buried deep under the demon's will right now. So I forced my body to stop trembling and met the demon's eyes with the most furious look I could muster.

"Just think, little necromancer. It doesn't have to be a stranger. I could come to you like this, in the form of a body you already know and love."

As he spoke, he drew me closer. Just before he would have kissed me, I sealed my hand across his mouth to delay him.

"Anything you want," I said, "anything but that." He paused, considering. I rushed on, tripping over my words. "You have the most powerful necromancer here with you," I explained. "Anything you want, you'll have it. But not this, and you have to let Derek go."

Orange eyes studied me for one heartbeat, two, three, four. Please I prayed. This supernatural rabbit hole that I had fallen into seemed to have every race imaginable, and I personally knew there was an afterlife, so I clung to my belief in angels. Please, I whispered again, my desperate plea loud in my head.

"Anything," Valefar murmured contemplatively.

Sensing his mind working, I pushed my point. He might ask me to give him zombies, to kill someone. My stomach twisted, but there was no way I was submitting to a demonic impregnation, and never if the demon was using Derek's body. "Anything."

Derek's body collapsed back onto the pillows, and he immediately shot right back up, pulling me behind him, pinned between his body and my headboard.

"What the hell was that?" he growled, casting around the room for the threat. I touched his back tentatively. He was warm, always hotter than a regular person, but no longer burning up.

"Thank you," I whispered, letting my forehead rest against him.

"What was that? Chloe? … Answer me!"

"Nothing, Derek, you must have had a bad dream."

After examining every corner of the room, he hopped out of bed and checked the door. Turning around, he pinned me with one of those Derek glares that used to work on me. "Chloe…" came out as a low, warning growl.

"It's nothing, Derek. Really." I was proud of myself for not stuttering.

Reluctantly, he loped back over to my bed and settled in, but his eyes stayed open as he stared me down, trying to get me to crack and say something.

I looked away, finally turning over when I couldn't take the suspicion in his green gaze any longer. I just couldn't bring myself to tell him what had happened. He'd be frantic with worry, but there wasn't a damn thing his incredible strength or genius brain could do to against a demon and I knew that that realization would just stress him out more. He didn't need that, not before our Stonehaven weekend. I made a mental note to talk to Jaime about demons while we were there.

Finally, exhausted, my body dragged me down into sleep. But just before I drifted off, I heard Valefar's voice in my ear.

"I'll be back soon, little necromancer. You've made a deal with a demon."

"Wait," I whispered protestingly, half-asleep. "I didn't make my request."

His laughter followed me into my dreams. "Too late, Chloe."