Inhuman Bound Ch. 01

This is the same universe as my "Dance in the Rain" story, with more in it now. The Inhuman is my take on the supernatural.

I have gone over and over this one, but I'm human. Any typos are obviously the fault of my keyboard.

As always, please vote when you reach the end. Leave a comment if you've got the time and feel so inclined. I do love reading feedback. Thank you for reading in my little neck of the universe!

====================================

The almost-sound of an abrupt pressure change was the only warning I got that Astaroth had arrived. In the office, my radio went staticky and then cut off altogether. I could hear the clop of hooves on the center aisle of the barn and gave an exaggerated groan before propping my shovel against the wall and walking out of the stall.

Astaroth was astride a magnificent silver stallion. The beast stood about seventeen hands and was built like a Friesian without the coloring. Massive shoulders and hindquarters were supported by stong legs and feathered feet, and the black mane and tail made him striking. Even though the stallion was an ancient breed, the almost metallic shine to his coat could still be seen in the Akhal-Teke breed of today. His size and grace was still evident in the Friesian lines. Since he'd likely helped sire both breeds, that wasn't surprising.

"If you fried my radio, I'm calling for renegotiations so our contract includes you replacing them. That's the third one this week, Astaroth," I said.

He just smiled and slid off the horse. "Say my name again and I'll replace it without the agreement."

His voice was dry and raspy, like wind through leaves with the bass rumble of thunder in the background. Not what a lot of people would swoon over, but he'd been coming around for a few months now and I'd gotten used to the sound. Even got to hear him not using it in anger or frustration. Emotions really changed a voice. People had labelled him demon, but he was far older than the simple concept of good and evil. He was punishment incarnate, and he had decided he was going to woo me. His words, not mine.

That led to the agreement we had now. If he was summoned and could break out of the circle without hurting anybody, he could come out to the ranch. In the last few months it had become stupid easy to summon him, but not any easier to hold him. He simply gave in to the first summons, broke the circle, and came out here.

I had done my damnedest to break whatever this little crush was. I didn't do anything cruel or devious, I just made him work. Most of my ranch hands worked during the day, but I worked at night. It was best for me and meant they didn't have to stay late cleaning stalls when I could do it.

Astaroth couldn't be summoned until after sunset, and I put his ass to work when he got out here. Whether that was mucking stalls, stacking hay bales or feed bags, or cleaning stock trailers, if he was going to come out here and bug the shit out of me he was going to pitch in.

That plan had backfired. Apparently, nobody else told him to go fuck himself and he liked the sound of me saying that. Whatever, I got a ranch hand out of it and after this long he wasn't too terribly bad to have around.

"Besides," he said as I walked to the office to check the radio, "I would welcome the chance to renegotiate, Lacey."

The horse snorted and tossed his head as though he agreed, then raised his head and curled his upper lip in a flehmen gesture. I snapped my fingers under his chin. "I know Lila's in estrus. You will not be making any hellsteeds or you won't get to visit and flirt, you hear me?" The stallion just pawed at me and snapped his jaws.

A tap of the button and the radio started playing again and I sighed in relief. Music poured out, far too loud for standing in the office with it but I only had it so I could hear it throughout the barn. I walked back out of the office in time to see his horse disappear outside. I looked at Astaroth, and he rolled his eyes.

"He knows the rules, Lacey. Though his babies are as gorgeous as he is, I don't want him breeding right now. Pretty sure if he blows his load he'll turn nice or something else equally distasteful."

He grabbed a scraper from the tool room, but I stopped him. "There's half a stall left and then I'm done for the night," I motioned for him to put the scraper away. "Grab some bedding, and then I have food up at the house if you're hungry."

I went back to the stall and finished scooping everything into the wheelbarrow. He opened the shavings and kicked them around enough to sort of spread them out, knowing the horse that went in would do most of it on their own. I dumped the wheelbarrow and then left the equipment where it belonged and we walked up to the house.

"What did you cook?" He asked, letting his excitement show. Food in hell didn't taste very good from what he said, so I tried to make something once a week or so that he could eat. He also raided the fridge like a football team.

"I have chili in the crockpot, and I was going to see what's on Prime tonight. I don't feel like working on spells or anything, so I hope you weren't wanting anything exciting."

"You're taking a shower first, right? Because you smell like the wrong end of a horse."

"I might have invited you to join me, but then you said that," I made a face at him.

He looked stunned for a minute, then muttered, "Bloody tease."

I went straight to my little room and the smaller bathroom and took a shower. When the tattoos on my arms were once again clear and colorful and not sort of muddy, I considered myself clean and got out. One towel went around my hair and I dried off with another towel. Yoga pants and a tank top went on then I worked some leave-in goop through my hair and I was done. I left my hair down to dry and padded barefoot into the living room with the little kitchen at the back where the crockpot had everything that smelled good in this world inside.

Astaroth had waited for me to finish, as I'd figured he would. He was punishment, not cruelty or rudeness. Even though he'd been in the house dozens of times by now, he would still wait for me to join him before he would eat anything. I looked through the window he was staring out of and saw his horse prancing around the pasture.

"He really is beautiful," I said.

"Careful," he bumped his shoulder against mine. "I might think you're being nice to me."

"I'm always nice to you, Astaroth," I said. "Just because I make you work for stuff doesn't mean I'm not nice."

"Does this mean I'm in the friend box now?"

I took down two bowls and handed him one, along with the ladle from the crock on the counter. He half filled the bowl then handed it to me then half filled the other one and we both moved for the cornbread and cheese and chopped jalapenos. "Maybe. For now, at least. It's a step up from the asshole box you were in when my radio quit."

"I thought I came in far enough away. I'll work on that next time. What are we watching tonight?"

"I have no idea," I said as we took our food to the little sofa in the living room.

My house was seriously tiny. It had one big room that was the living room and kitchen, but not big enough for a dining area of any sort, and it had my bedroom. I'd had to add in the bathroom, and as it was the only one in the house it meant guests got to traipse through my bedroom to use it. There was another full bath out in the barn, and the washing machine was in a shed behind the house. No dryer; I had a clothesline and I used it.

"I've been working on that truth spell for the last few days and needed a break from it."

I hit the remote to turn on the TV and thumbed over to the Amazon Prime app and then down to the freebie movies. Surely something would be on worth watching, and I was in luck. They had the entire John Wick collection free with ads. I could watch some ads for a good action flick.

"Do you need help with it?" He asked.

I gave him a look and he sighed and started eating. "What would this help cost me?"

"Nothing," he said.

I waited. Demons, or ancient beings that had been unjustly classified as demons, did not just do things for free. They wanted a mark, or a favor to be paid at a later date. Except they never came to collect. Until one day, you owed so many favors that they came to cash them all in at once for something you couldn't do, and that's when they took your soul.

It was how my left arm was sleeved with tattoos, and another half sleeve on my right. Both marks on the left were from Astaroth, so we'd renegotiated some terms and come to this agreement. "Honest, Lacey. It would cost nothing. Trying to earn my friend box designation."

I took a bite of chili to give me time to think. A freebie on this spell would help, but that was a slippery slope. Of course it would help, and it would make it easier to give in the next time. "If I can't get it in a week, I might take you up on that."

He just grunted and we ate in silence for a while and watched the movie. When we finished, he took the bowls back to the kitchen and washed them out and then put the leftovers away and washed the crockpot. I didn't move to help him because we'd had that argument already.

He cleaned up when I cooked. It hadn't taken him long to figure out my sharing food with him was a way for me to be nice but still sass him. When he came back to the couch, though, he nudged me over until I lay down and then he wedged himself in behind me. It took some adjusting, but eventually we were comfy if a bit squished.

His fingers moved up and down my arm, and what would have felt like normal touch with anyone else was both kind of creepy and highly erotic with him. Sure, they looked like normal ink if you were into really weird unexplainable stuff, but they were magic. Pieces of him he had left behind that he could come back to claim whenever he felt like it. Until we made this last deal.

He couldn't hurt anyone that didn't try to actually hurt him first, and he could come here and try to court me. But I had to let him actually try. In return, he wouldn't give me a mark unless it was something big and we would negotiate that as needed. I had just not asked him for anything and put him to work on the ranch instead. It was only a short reprieve, and I knew that.

"We need to talk, Lacey." In order to be comfortable like this on the couch, my head was cradled on his arm and his face was buried in the hair at the back of my head. He insisted he could see. I was pretty sure he couldn't and didn't care because there wasn't a whole lot of snuggling going on in hell.

"Is this going to be The Talk, like I'm breaking up with you and we need to go back to you chasing my soul? Or just talk like we've been doing lately. Because I can never tell with you."

"Like we've been doing," he said. "You haven't asked for anything other than manual labor. Actually, you're pretty demanding about that."

I shrugged, "I was trying to chase you off. Joke's on me, you're good at this."

"I don't mind working." He stopped playing with the marks and brushed my hair aside before going back to my arm, making me shiver. "What do you hope to get out of this?"

"I don't know," I moved, but couldn't really turn onto my back without falling on my ass. So I just leaned against him a little more. "I think I just like that I'm not chipping away at my soul anymore. And honestly? After that first week or so of this deal, you're not bad company."

"I'm taking that as a compliment, but it's not what I meant." He was quiet for a minute and I thought he was going to stay that way, but then, "What if there was a way to remove all of this? Even the marks I do not own? Take your soul completely back as your own? You say you like the status quo, but even after months you still stiffen when I touch you."

"Yeah, that's because this," I touched his hand on my arm, "somehow manages to turn me on and off all at the same time. I can't describe it, but I like it and kinda don't."

"You're avoiding the questions."

"A little. I want them gone. I'd say you have no idea how much, but you probably do. If nothing else you have to know what it's like to owe someone and know you can never repay the debt. I got one of them for some pretty stupid shit that I regret summoning you for. The one that's not yours? The only reason I summoned Caim was because I thought it would somehow slow the process. But if the offer was to remove them and I somehow keep my soul? That sounds a little too good to be true."

The arm under my head flexed as he started to play with my hair, and the other hand went around my waist over my ribs so he wouldn't squish me. "There's a way to do it."

I didn't say anything, just stared at the TV and thought. Most of these marks had been for gaining information that had helped me build my grimoire. I hadn't relied on him for everything. I called him, got the information I needed, and then worked my ass off experimenting with my spells and taking notes to develop new spells based on one single ingredients list. Meant for everybody whether they had five of the ingredients, or all thirty on the list.

I'd told myself I was doing it in the name of science and magic, but I wasn't. I was doing it to build my own grimoire and try to get some of my work published and maybe sell a few charms and potions.

It's easy to blame the demons, but in the end the only person responsible for my soul was me, and mine was in tatters. I could flaunt my tattoos. The humans didn't know what they were and the inhuman wouldn't risk pointing it out lest they out themselves.

"How?" I finally asked. He'd known I would ask, but I heard no gloating tone when he answered.

"There is a spell that would bind us together," his voice was so soft I almost didn't hear him. "I've known about it for a very long time, but it's a close bond between the summoner and the summoned. I knew if I told you sooner, you would flat out refuse me. So I got close to you. At first I thought I'd never offer it, but turns out you're not completely unlikeable. It sounds too good to be true because you hear the part where it erases all the marks, lets me stay here even in sunlight, and that does sound outlandish. The catch is it is a complete bond, fates tied together, destinies entwined. All the fairytale bullshit, but it's real. It's not about love or any of that. Two enemies could do it if they could manage to survive. But the bond is easier to handle on both sides if both at least kind of like each other and get along."

He was older than dirt. Punishment didn't only exist because humans did. So when he said he'd known about the spell a long time it probably meant the asshole had written it himself. "What do you mean by manage to survive? What kind of spell is this?"

"Sex. Enemies could do it if they don't kill each other first." The long pauses and the playing with my hair were starting to make me drowsy. "The energy for the spell is raw, unformed, and each bond is vastly different from all others. But it cuts both ways. If you're injured, I'll feel it. The spell is broken if one or both parties dies, but the death of one does not always mean the death of the other. Depends on the death blow and whether it's something the other could survive on their own. And no, this is not just an excuse to get in your pants."

"I know sex spells exist," I grumbled.

"This isn't that kind of spell. The binding spell is the sex itself. The only thing that matters is the incantation I say."

I hit the remote to turn the TV off and thought about that. Sex as a spell had its appeal. The energy was always good, even from bad sex. It could power a lot of things that needed pure, raw energy. But I'd never heard of something that used the act of sex as the spell itself. I started to ask something when he groaned and disappeared from behind me. I rolled off the couch and went to bed.

Luckily my room had just enough space for a queen size mattress I'd put up on a simple platform made from some two by twelves and carriage bolts. I'd lost the closet in favor of having a bathroom in the house, so I'd hung shelves around two walls for clothes. It wasn't fancy, but it forced me to keep it neat rather than shoving my shit in a drawer and hoping the wrinkles fell out.

I opened the window and left the door open, turned on the fan and hoped there would be a breeze tonight. Then I stripped to my panties and slid under the cotton sheet. No silk or satin here, cotton breathes and wicks sweat. The house didn't have a snowball's chance in hell to holding up to having central air put in, and I hadn't had the time to seal this room enough for a window unit. So I slept in less and kept the fans on high.

===

I felt the bed move and grumbled when I cracked an eye to see the clock telling me it was five in the morning. "Thirty minutes and my alarm would have gone off..."

"Thirty minutes and it will be dawn."

"You can't be here if you hurt someone, Astaroth," I mumbled.

"It took a while to break their circle, but they couldn't compel me and I didn't kill them for their impertinence." I pulled the sheet up and rolled over to face him. "They have some promise, but they are still stupid."

"Marks count as hurting people." I might as well get up and dressed since I was awake, and I needed the bathroom. "Turn around." He did as I told him and I rolled off the bed, grabbing the tank top from last night off the floor and stepping into the bathroom. Once I was finished I opened the door because he was right. It was close to dawn. "What's the catch to the bond? All the freedom stuff sounds real pretty, but there has to be a catch."

"You won't like it." He leaned against the door and watched me go through my morning routine. His eyes were smoldering, but I could never tell if it was because he was looking at me or pissed at the people who had summoned him. From what he'd told me, even going willingly was still an uncomfortable thing. Being summoned by someone as powerful as he said I was could be downright excruciating if he tried to resist. He'd resisted enough that I think he just liked the pain. "The incantation is the important part. It determines the power balance of the bond."

"He who comes first?" I asked around my toothbrush, not caring if he actually understood what I said.

"The aim would be as close together as possible, so the bond is as balanced as possible. I wouldn't even consider it for a selfish summoner, or a completely selfless one."

I finished with my teeth and grabbed my hair brush, pulling my hair over my shoulder. It was getting too long. Then I changed the subject, "I might not be here if you get summoned tonight."

"Running away?"

"Auctions are today," I flipped my hair over the other shoulder. "You're welcome to come up to the house and eat the leftovers. You know how to use the TV. But the deal still stands, nobody gets hurt to get you here."

"Not going to tell me to clean the stalls?"

"I won't complain if you do, but we did the heavy stall cleaning yesterday for a reason. They'll just need scooping the next couple days. Now get out so I can get dressed."

He caught my waist as I tried to pass through the door, "Wait until dawn."

I looked up at him and the discomfort on his face. Being pulled back like this hurt, but not as much as being banished back. "Okay."

He sighed and some tension left his shoulders as he wrapped his arms around me and set his face against the top of my head. "I'm glad you made this deal, Lacey," he whispered, then he tensed and disappeared and I knew the sun had broken the horizon.

After that I scrambled into jeans and a bra, with a different tank top and a long-sleeve button-down shirt. Ankle socks and then my boots and I was out of the house in time to see Jerry hitching trailers to three different trucks and his twin, Tommy, bringing the three year olds out to the arena. Yes, their parents had named them Tom and Jerry. Yes, I gave them shit for it when possible. But not today. We had work to do.