Page 9 of My Demon Teacher

“Sure are.” He smiles and ushers me to the back of the room toward his friends. “We’re just about to start, actually.”

I people-watch as we make our way, ignoring the pounding of my heart.

This is it. Whatever they use to invoke, they’re about to show me. Yet the closer we get, I can’t help but wonder why I care?

What difference will it make if they can invoke? It doesn’t affect me. It doesn’t take anything from my power.

Maybe coming here was a mistake.

“Ready, boys?” Ryan asks, and I narrow my eyes.

How have I ended up in the middle of a circle surrounded by them? Is this a fucking circle jerk?

“Ready,” says another, and I feel a sharp pain on my left arm.

I look to my left and find a dark-haired guy, one of Ryan’s lackeys, holding a bloodied knife in his hand.

Did…did he just cut me?

CHAPTER FOUR

“RYAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Someone mumbles around me.

Another slash sends me to my knees, hissing.

What are they doing to me? What is this?

Blood trickles down both my arms. The rusty smell hits my nostrils, and I feel woozy.

“Let’s see if it’s true,” Ryan says as another guy steps forward, and the mumbling intensifies. I don’t know what they’re saying. I can’t understand a fucking word, but it sounds… It sounds a lot like a chant. Like an incantation.

Heat blasts through my body and my eyes roll back as a hollow darkness stretches its limbs inside me.

Hello, Master.

The voice in my head is more like images my brain translates into words, but they send an energy through me. An energy that is welcome and comforting and so, so tasty.

I open and close my fists. They have no idea what they’ve started. No idea what I can do to them with all this power surging through me.

A pressure pushes through my shoulder blades and tailbone. The pain flattens me on the floor, and I scream as it explodes.

Wings, dark and slithery, expand behind me. A tail worms its way out, tucking under my crotch and between my legs.

“Oh shit! It’s true!” someone says.

Ryan’s lackeys get closer, tightening the circle around me, and their chanting gets louder and even creepier.

I sit up and show them my teeth, but they don’t seem phased by it or my eery appearance.

A pain pierces through my chest, and I collapse back down, screaming.

What is going on? What are they doing to me? What are they saying?

I look up, search their faces, try to read their lips, their expressions, but all I see, all I find, is darkness.

“Stop. What are?—”