The Price of Exorcism by Dakota Brown (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📗

Ezra. I wasn't even sure I could handlehim. At least not in a fight. I'd certainly entertained the idea of handlinghim in other ways while he'd been possessing me. Though Ezra had blamed Sabian'sinfluence, he'd had similar thoughts. I knew what he looked like because we'dspoken 'face to face' in some sort of mental space the demon had been able topull me into.

Ezra tilted his head and I realized I'd been standingthere staring for a really awkward amount of time so, chest tight with someunidentifiable feeling, I forced myself into motion.

"Hey, mate," I said when I got to the tablethey'd stashed him at. The overwhelming desire to touch Ezra made me clench myhands at my sides. He slid out of the booth and stood before gesturing for meto sit. Such manners.

Not having any reason to refuse, I took the seat andhe slid back into his.

"Hello, Price. How are you?"

"Uh, still lacking an incubus. You?"

Ezra's expression darkened a bit, brows furrowing. "Iam also lacking a certain incubus, and I'm not particularly happy about it."

I glanced around but we were seated in an empty partof the restaurant. I fished the rock we'd summoned the night before out of mypocket and held it out.

Ezra cupped my hand and tilted it so he could see thewords on the flat part of the rock.

I sucked in my breath, something like electricitytingled through me at his touch. If I hadn't seen Ezra shutter his eyes for amoment and take a surprised breath, I would have accused him of doing somethingon purpose. As it was, I couldn't get myself to pull my hand away. Touching hiswarm skin was suddenly a visceral need that seemed to pull strings all the wayto my core.

"What the fuck," I whispered.

"It says help," Ezra replied and jerked hishand away from mine, as if it was one of the more difficult things he'd done ina while. "Where did you get this?"

I shoved the crystal back in my pocket with a curse. "Wetried to summon Sabian last night. We got this instead."

Ezra's eyebrows rose. "I'm amazed you managed toget even that much. Well done. Especially for, what I'm assuming, was yourfirst try at summoning a demon?"

I glanced around again, nervous, but we were stillalone.

"Yeah, first time. Didn't work." I grittedmy teeth.

"I can't even retrieve Sabian through a summoningand it shouldn't be an issue for me."

"What happened?"

Ezra glanced over my shoulder. Stacy, one of myservers was coming over slowly, as if to give us time to warn her off. She cameover the rest of the way quickly when I made eye contact.

"Chris, we weren't sure if you needed food oranything," she asked hesitantly.

I glanced at Ezra. Did demon princes eat pizza?

He tilted his head as if considering. "I'd loveto try some of your famous pizza, Price," he finally replied.

"Yeah, thanks, Stacy. Just, uh, put in my normaland I'm also going to need a large extra cheese, all the meat, to go here in abit." I could not remember what demonic sounding name they'd changed themeat lovers pizza to when they had rebranded last month after I'd exorcised ademon in front of most of my staff.

"Sure thing, boss. To drink?"

After a glance at Ezra, who shrugged, I replied, "gingerbeer for both of us."

"We'll have that right up."

"Thank you, Stacy."

"Yes, thank you very much," Ezra added, hisvoice warm.

Stacy blushed and darted away.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, voicelow.

"I need your help with something, and you needmine to get Sabian back. I'm offering a trade."

That was not what I had expected.

"What do you need my help with?"

"I'd prefer to talk about all of this in a lesspublic setting."

"Yeah, probably best. They know too much as itis," I replied. "How'd you get in?"

"Those wards are very clever. Your Mal is quitetalented. However, he opened them for me to get in when I was in possession ofyou. I can get in anywhere you could at the time."

"Oh. Right." Well, that was obvious, and Ishould have thought of it right away, but still, fuck. At least he was arelatively friendly demon prince. And the itch to touch him was back.

I threaded my fingers together and tried not tofidget.

Ezra looked nearly as uncomfortable as I felt, browfurrowed, shoulders hunched slightly. Finally, he muttered something annoyedsounding under his breath and shoved his leg against mine so our lower legstouched under the table. Hopefully, that was hidden from view. There was clothbetween us, but nothing else.

The almost painful need to touch him eased instantly.

"Well." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Iguess at least it's not just me, but what the fuck is that?"

"Side effect, I'm guessing. This is a first forme, Chris."

"Don't usually have pizza with people you'vepossessed?" I grinned at him.

"Well, no. That is certainly a first, as well,but possession was never really my thing, anyway. It's happened a time or two,but I'm more of the bargaining for souls type. Well, I was."

"How did you get back up here?" I wasn'tsure if I wanted to know, but it was going to bug me until I found out.

"I'm currently rather in favor and was granted adifferent way out of hell than a summons. Conveniently. Of course, that favorcomes with some responsibilities."

"That what you need my help with?" Not goingto lie, I was glad to know someone hadn't died to get him back up here. It mademe feel a little better about my aching desire to drag Ezra back to my officeand jump him.

He nodded, hopefully not catching that surfacethought. If he did, he didn't react.

"How are things going for you?"

I recognized a subject change when heard one, so Ifilled him in on the relatively uninteresting events of the last month. It wasjust as well, because Stacy brought our pizza while I was talking and therestaurant filled up a bit more so people were getting seated closer to us. The80's music wasn't turned up so loud that nearby tables couldn't overhear us. Weusually only cranked the music in the evening or for special events. And eventhen, we'd done some acoustic work in the place