TSK, TSK, What to Read?: RELEASE DAY BLAST: Demon Spelled by Gracen Miller

WARNING: This novel is intended for mature audiences, ages 18+ years of age and is not for the faint of heart.

Some doors should never be opened...

As the daughter of a witch, Erica knows better than to treat the arcane lightly. But when her best friend convinces her to play a dangerous game, she quickly finds herself out of her depth. Before she can react, she and Tera are whisked into a terrifying demonic realm and chained to an auction block.

...And some doors fate opens for us.

The moment Troz sees the fiery redheaded human, he knows she's exactly what he's been looking for. He purchases her from the slave auction and takes her home as a gift to his husband, Lyx. Her witch blood makes her the perfect mother for their demonic offspring, but her indomitable spirit also provides a refreshing challenge. Despite the slave collar that binds her her will, she resists their advances in every way possible. Both masters must use every ounce of their skill and talents to bend their new concubine to their desires.

Only Erica can decide which path leads to her destiny.

Meanwhile, in the shadows, angels are making a play for Erica's safe return. She is disturbed to learn her long-lost father is an archangel with a twisted agenda. Her masters can offer her salvation from her father's plans, but can she trust them? Should she remain their sex slave forever, or gamble on an uncertain fate without the dark pleasures they've taught her to crave?

“MOM’LL KILL US if she learns what we’re about to do.” Erica wiped sweaty palms on jean-clad thighs. When Sybil got wind of this…she exhaled a worried breath. Hell. To. Pay. Something insignificant like age wouldn’t matter.

An antique Ouija board rested on the bed between her and Tera, her best friend of ten years. Tera was a “vintage archeologist”, a classier distinction to her BFF than antique collector. Semantics in Erica’s opinion with the end results the same. As a successful antique store owner Tera could call herself whatever she wanted.

Her bestie placed the pointer—what Erica’s mom called a planchette—on the center of the board. The letters were etched into the cherry wood. Elaborate and beautiful. A fine piece of workmanship.

Erica ran her fingertips along the wood, which created a weird static against the pads.

A nagging sensation throbbed at the base of her cranium. A lifetime of witchcraft lessons implied she should shut down this adventure. Pronto! But the excitement in her girlfriend’s eyes…yeah, sometimes peer pressure was a bitch even at her age.

“Sybil will never find out.” Tera waggled her fingers at her and made cheesy ghostly noises.

She gave Tera ‘the look’. Saying her mom wouldn’t find out was like pretending Santa didn’t know what you’d been up to all year. Being the local witch, her mom wasn’t just feigning to practice the arts, but was damned good at them.

“Okay, fine.” Tera rolled her blue eyes and notched her chin-length blonde hair behind an ear. Too many times over their ten-year friendship Erica had coveted her friend’s appearance, wishing she possessed the same sultry attributes. Guilt snagged on her envy, but what woman wouldn’t prefer to look like her friend? Drop-dead gorgeous and sexy too…oh, yeah, she wouldn’t mind finding out how the prettier half lived. “By the time Sybil finds out, it’ll be too late.”

Wouldn’t stop her parent from chewing her ear off when she discovered what forces they dabbled with. Didn’t matter that Erica was a grown woman in her twenties either. Trivial things like age meant jack-squat to her nosy-body mother.

“Don’t think Sybil won’t turn us over her knee and blister our asses.” She gave Tera an exaggerated wink.

“I’m twenty-three years old!”

“Yeah. So?”

Tera slapped her leg. “Stop your drama, bitch. Let’s booty-tap the spirit world.”

I hope the spirit world doesn’t booty-tap our asses back. These weren’t forces to idly toy with.

Together they placed their fingers on the pointer.

“Anyone here?” Tera’s voice carried.

“A little louder. I don’t think the neighbors heard you.”

Her friend poked her tongue out and waited, peering about the room as if a spirit would show itself from one of the four corners. Nothing materialized. The planchette remained motionless. Not even a creak in the old home sounded.

“Are we alone?” No movement. “Yo’, Casper! Chat with us. Or are you scared?” Said with Southern slang—skeered.

“Don’t antagonize them.” One thing Sybil had taught Erica was to never piss off spirits. Respect them and they’d respect you.

“You try it, then, Ms. Know-it-all.”

Erica rolled her eyes, but nerves guised as cold gooseflesh puckered her skin. “Anyone with us? We invite you to join…us.”

‘Join’ wasn’t the wisest solicitation. The object of the Ouija was to keep the spirits on their side of the board. Not summon them to crossover, which she just did with her unwise word choice.

Too late now.

The Ouija fogged over, and for a second she thought she caught a glimpse of another dimension. What she saw was unlike anything she’d ever imagined.

Erica knocked Tera’s hands off the wooden pointer, snatched up the spirit mouthpiece and snapped it in half as easily as she would plastic. “No more of that!”

That she was capable of breaking the voice of the souls was alarming. The wooden pointer should’ve been more rugged. Whatever they’d connected with obviously didn’t want them to socialize with others and had helped assist her destruction. They needed to get to Sybil and fast.

Slack-jawed her BFF gaped as she held up the two broken pieces. “What’s gotten into you? I can’t sell it broken.”

“We summoned trouble.”

“No ghost appeared. The pointer definitely didn’t move. No creepy noises and nope, I’m pretty sure the lights didn’t flicker.”

Erica glared at her friend. “Can the sarcasm.” In real life she’d never seen lights flicker. Spirits were too refined for theatrics better left in the movies. “I got a peek at the realm we opened.” She shuddered. Scary failed to paint an accurate description.

“Now who’s being dramatic?” Her naïve bestie dropped the planchette on the board. “This shit’s fake, and you owe me a replacement.”

“I’m calling Sybil.” Erica scrambled off the bed and snatched her cell off the dresser.

“She’ll kill us, Erica.” Tera pushed the two pieces of the pointer around on the board as Erica speed dialed.

“What happened to ‘this shit’s fake’?” Sybil was the least of their concerns. The spirit realm they’d contacted hadn’t looked pleasant. “Whatever we set free—”

“Me.” A deep, foreign-sounding, male voice emerged from the dark corner.

Erica spun around and almost tripped over the rug. As the intruder emerged from the darkness, Tera screamed and scuttled backward across the bed before slamming into the headboard.

Red-skinned, with a set of gray horns protruding from his forehead, his straight green hair hung to his chin. Eyes shimmered like prisms in sunlight. “Imagine my surprise when a witch invited me to play.”

“I’m not a witch,” Erica said automatically.

“And I’m not a demon.” In a move so fast and fluid she didn’t have time to react, he seized the cell from her grasp and snapped a black bracelet on her wrist. The moment the locks engaged on the band, hieroglyphs burned on the surface like lava. “Hello, Mom,” he said into the receiver of her cell, snatching her focus off the armlet. “She’s already mine. I officially registered her as a sex slave.”

Sex slave? Registered? No fucking way!

Erica clawed at the band on her wrist. The contraption didn’t budge, not even to slip further on her arm. And the more she studied it, the less it looked like a bracelet, but more like a tattoo. Except the lava hieroglyphs continued to smolder-like magma. The slight burn on her skin testified to the validity of the lava-like appearance.

The demon held the phone away from his ear, grimacing at the volume of her mother’s voice.

Erica made a go for the door.

“Knees,” he said in his thick accent, and she obeyed instantly, hitting the floor hard, her knees protesting with pain that jarred up her spine.

Shit! So not good.

“Sybil…shut up.”

Erica’s eyes widened at his tone. No one talked to her mother like that. And how’d he know her name?

“It’s Horace, you know how this works.”

Erica wished someone would tell her.

He shook his finger—correction talon—at Tera, and her friend froze, abandoning her inching across the bed. “By nightfall tomorrow she’ll be sold and bedded. If it takes that long, which is unlikely.”

Bile slammed to the back of her throat, and she forced it down with a gulp. She wouldn’t panic. Not yet.

“You want to free her from enslavement, bid the highest number of souls.” A long moment of silence as the demon stared at her and grinned at whatever her mother said. “‘Tis a pity you don’t barter in souls, Sybil.” He didn’t look disappointed, but rather pleased. “I would’ve enjoyed working out a deal with you.” The gleam in his eyes confirmed his statement. “Her friend is going with me. I’ll sell them as a set…or I have a few demons who are into human sex-pain play.”

Tera clenched her hands over her ears and sobbed as she rocked back and forth, hitting the headboard with each backward sway. The demon tossed the cell to the floor, his gaze sealed on Erica.

“L-leave Tera, and I’ll go with you willingly.” Foolish to sacrifice herself, but as unprepared as she was to enter a demonic realm, Tera was woefully ill-equipped for all things demon.

“Declined.” His dark pea-colored lips pulled into a satisfied smirk. “You’re going willingly either way.”

He retrieved the Ouija board and threw it against the wall. The witchboard stuck as if nailed to the spot. A moment afterward another demon stepped out of a portal. This one royal blue, with no horns, and average brown hair. The new demon tossed Tera over his shoulder, but her friend had already shut down mentally, babbling about lucid dreams, unwise choices, and stupid board games.

Horace—what an average name for a scary-ass demon!—offered Erica his hand. When she hesitated, he nodded at the bracelet. “It won’t allow you to refuse my commands.”

Determined to brazen her way through her predicament she rose to her feet. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening to her. Please, please, please let this be a nightmare.

“You’re mistaken if you believe I’ll allow anyone to turn me into a demon sex slave.” Too bad her voice shook and her knees wobbled, threatening to put her flat on her ass.

With a chuckle, the demon caught her against him and swung her into his arms. “You’re mistaken if you believe you have a choice.”

Arrogant bastard!

She closed her eyes as they went through the portal to a hell of her own making. A few seconds later she found her back against a cool, stone wall. Cold temps weren’t what she expected in a demonic realm.

Horace peered at Erica as he braced her hands against the wall above her head. His impersonal touch was unsettling, especially when his eyes said an entirely different thing. Alarmed by his interest, she became more resolved to defy him.

“Get your hands off me.” Getting the demand past the sudden lump in her throat proved difficult, and her voice came out hoarse.

“Behave.” Through her jeans he cupped her crotch. She gasped at his highhanded manner, but before she could mandate he remove his hand from her body, he backed away. “I’m not sure if I should be disappointed or pleased you’re a virgin.” He cocked his head, his green hair parting over his shoulder. “You’ll bring me too many souls as a virgin to possess you myself.”

Her eyes grew round at his statement. He could assess her virginity by a simple touch? Relief flooded her. At least she wouldn’t be forced to endure sex with this douchebag. In short time her mother would rescue her, and Erica would ridicule the demon for underestimating Sybil’s superior sorcery.

She parted her lips to enlighten him on the benefits of returning her to her parent straightway, but he cut her off by holding up his hand. “Whatever you have to say is inconsequential.”

“My mother will make you regret this. And I’ll laugh in your face when she does.”

“She has no power here.” Horace ran a claw along her chin. “I’ll be the only one laughing when you’re sold and my bank account is fat.”

Pride locked her jaw and kept her from displaying her fear in the face of a predator. No point in arguing with an imbecile. He’d discover the validity of her words soon enough.

“Pity you’re chaste. To have had both the mother and daughter would’ve been a feather in my hat.”

“You lie! Sybil would never screw someone as filthy as you.”

“One more word out of you, and I’ll put that mouth and tongue to better use.” He palmed his crotch, and she bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a retort. The conceited asshole smirked. “Thought so.” He fondled himself through his pants.

Shocked by his baseness she gaped at him.

He leaned nearer and sniffed her neck. “And if I’m not mistaken, that angel Sybil ran around with for a while is your father.” His facts were incorrect. She was not a witch or an angel. “Want to know the only good thing about angel offspring…the nephilim?”

Something about the gleam in his eyes suggested she wouldn’t like whatever he divulged, so she held her tongue and offered him a hostile glare as a response.

Horace slammed his hand on her neck, and she gasped as he squeezed. “I asked you a question.”

“Yeah,” she choked out.

He relaxed his grip. “They’re blood is toxic to almost all demons.”

“You have someone you want to murder?” She couldn’t imagine any other reason why he shared this information.

A lopsided smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but the artifice failed to reach his eyes. “I have a few calls to make. You should be sold by nightfall.”

Erica trembled at the idea of someone buying her like a common house pet. She had no idea where Tera had been taken or even if she remained unharmed. Instincts had warned her not to engage the Ouija board. She should’ve listened. No point in crying over the past. Survival was priority…but if Sybil’s rescue bombed, would Erica endure the claiming of a demon? Would she want to? Were they even built like human men? And what if she was toxic to the demon that bought her? What were the ramifications for a human who unintentionally felled one of them? She had a sneaky suspicion the outcome wouldn’t benefit her.

She choked on tears, biting the inside of her mouth until she tasted blood and the need to cry passed. Waterworks were a weakness she couldn’t afford.

Gracen is a hopeless daydreamer masquerading as a “normal” person in southern society. When not writing, she’s a full-time basketball/lacrosse/guitar mom for her two sons and a devoted wife to her real-life hero-husband of over twenty years. She has an unusual relationship with her muse, Dom, but credits all her creative success to his brilliant mind. She’s addicted to writing, paranormal romance novels and movies, Alabama football, and coffee...addictions are not necessarily in order of priority. She’s convinced coffee is nectar from the gods and when blending coffee and writing together it generates the perfect creative merger. Many of her creative worlds are spawned from coffee highs and Dom’s aggressive demands. Gracen writes is multiple genres—paranormal romance, paranormal erotic romance, and contemporary romance. To learn more about Gracen or to leave her a comment, visit her website at www.gracen-miller.com.