“You think it’s going to rain more?”

“And ruin our awesome Halloween party?” Drew grinned up at Max, blowing a stray lock of dark hair out of his eyes. “The rain gods wouldn’t dare.”

“Ugh, no, don’t talk about the party, I’m gonna feel so guilty!” A breeze rustled the big maple outside and swirled in through the open garage door, sending goosebumps racing up the still-bare portions of Max’s legs. Her eyes landed on the dark storm clouds which had threatened all day and now seemed to be moving on with little more than a bit of drizzle. Still, the air smelled like dust and rain.

“I told you — stop moving!” Her thigh jiggled as Drew slapped it just below her left butt cheek. “You’ll mess up the stockings. I told you I don’t mind setting up by myself. You don’t want to disappoint your regulars, do you?” With a last flourish of the airbrush over the back of her thighs, Drew stood.

“Am I done?” Blue plastic crinkled beneath her bare feet as she turned, craning her head to see what the mirror in the far wall couldn’t show. Badass Black girl at your service, she thought smugly. She’d planned her costume for months, since she wanted to wear it to cons too. Something about selling her comics while dressed as the main character really appealed to her. Of course, normally she’d be a little more dressed, but with Drew getting into body painting it was too good to pass up. Still… except for coiling blue ‘tattoos’ along her wrists and the amazing silver stockings he’d done on her legs, her skin was plain. No bones to be seen. “Drew, you didn’t do the skeleton? Didn’t you paint my —”

“You’re going to have to wait until night to find out.” Drew smirked, pausing Max’s spin with a hand on her shoulder, and reached out to adjust her cropped leather jacket. “Kidding. I splurged on that set of UV paint we saw at the con. There’s supposed to be black lights at the beach. Ready to take on the world, ‘Sophie Hawk?’”

Max shuddered as his knuckles brushed the inside of her breast. The costume was open in front, cleverly stuck to her skin with toupee tape, leaving a sizable expanse of skin for his warm hands to brush over as he adjusted the jacket’s collar. The sensation slid down her center and landed heavily in the pit of her stomach. Ugh. Shut up, she told her body. A year without getting laid is not going to kill me !

If it weren’t Drew she might even consider a friends-with-benefits kind of thing… but they’d been hanging out since middle school. No , Max told herself firmly, too weird . Mustering up a halfhearted grin, Max met Drew’s eyes and blinked, startled, when she discovered he’d been watching her intently.

Drew blushed immediately. “Sorry! Sorry.” He took a jerky step back. “Hah, body painting, right?”

Oh god, he was giving her finger guns . Max rolled her eyes and stepped daintily off the blue tarp, walking into her sandals and snatching up her guitar from its hook on the wall. The drizzling had stopped, thankfully. “I’ll be back around, like… ten, probably?” Without waiting for a response she stepped out of the garage. The faint strains of Monster Mash followed her down the hill, punctuated with happy-children noises from a nearby yard.

Halfway to her regular busking spot at the beach, a cheerful group of teen girls passed Max. One of the girls paused as they crossed paths and laughed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Guys, look! That’s Sophie from the Bonewitch comics! Great costume!”

Max grinned, delighted by the chorus of yeah and those are great and your costume is cool . “Thanks,” she called back. Her steps were even lighter when she turned back toward the now-visible beach. Most of the other usuals were gone, maybe doing Halloween-related things, but her favorite sidewalk drummer Z smiled as she approached her usual spot and pulled her guitar from its case.

“Coming to the party tonight, hot stuff?” she asked him.

“Shit!” He shook his head. “I forgot you were doing that. Nah, I’ve got a guy coming up tonight.”

“You? You have a date? What happened to ‘focusing on myself?’”

“You’re one to talk.” Picking up a gentle background beat to the idle tune Max began to play, Z nodded past her. “Max, he’s actually dressed like Sebastian today. Please ask him out before I do.”

“Um.” Max’s boots were glued to the ground. Her heart seemed to skip a beat and her whole body felt flushed. Crushes were awful .

“Wow, your costume. It’s… wow!” Beach Cutie, who’d stopped by her spot every day for weeks then disappeared for months at a time, stopped to smile at her.

Her heart thumped hard again. He looked exactly like her favorite actor, Theodore Morello — it was an ongoing debate between her and Z, who was convinced Beach Cutie was Morello — and now he was dressed up like Morello’s character from her favorite show, Demon Hunter . For a moment, Max was pretty sure she’d keel over on the spot.

“Yours, too,” she managed. His smile grew and she offered a weak one in response. Flirt , she yelled at herself. Flirt! You know how! Do it!

Her fingers slipped on the strings. All three winced at the sour note.

“Hey man, not dressing up?” Beach Cutie gave Z a friendly nod as he spoke.

“Can’t you tell, man? Tonight I’m playing the role of gay Korean drummer.” Z flourished lightly on his makeshift drumset before pointing a drumstick at himself in a “go ahead, take it all in” gesture.

Beach Cutie laughed. “Fair enough.”

Max sighed. She couldn’t help it. Even his laugh was wonderful, low and rich.

He turned his lovely smile on her, the corner tipped down in a way that seemed apologetic. “I have a party to get to, but… I really love your costume. The Bonewitch comics are great, I didn’t know you were into them too.”

“She writes them.” Z spoke before Max could get her jaw unlocked. She shot him a glare and wasn’t even sure why.

“No kidding?” Beach Cutie’s eyes lit up. “I’d love to —” The excitement slid off his face in response to a loud buzz from his coat pocket. “That’s probably my brother. I’d love to talk to you about the comics sometime, but I’ve got to run if I’m going to get there on time. Have a great Halloween, guys!”

They stared after him with mutual appreciative sighs.

“You didn’t ask him out,” Max managed eventually. A jostling, laughing crowd emerged from one of the beachside restaurants, and she strummed the intro to her favorite song. After-dinner rush, that’s what she came down here for. Not for Beach Cutie. Keep telling yourself that .

“I’ll give you one more shot, hot stuff,” Z retorted, and then they were too busy entertaining to chat.

* * *

“Ugh. Ugh! What the hell…” Something damp and rough and cold pressed against Max’s thighs. Her mouth, on the other hand, was dry and sticky like day-old scrambled eggs. After a moment, she forced her eyes open and stared blankly at the light canopy of trees silhouetted by the starry sky.

“ …Okay… waking up on a park table is probably not a good sign.”

She didn’t feel as though she’d been hurt. Her guitar case was there on the bench beside her, and a quick check proved her guitar, wallet, and phone — strangely lacking in messages considering that the display read 11:48, long after she should have been home for the party — remained inside it. She just felt… odd.

Spell, something said in the back of her mind, in almost but not quite her own voice. If she really were Sophie, in the world that she spilled from her mind into comic books, it would be a spell. Something biggish but probably not complicated. It felt, somehow, like brute force.

An absentminded pat assured her that her crossbow — prop crossbow, she reminded herself sharply — was still anchored to the utility belt slung over her miniskirt. Only… she patted it again. It should be plastic beneath her fingers, not fine-grained wood and cold, faintly pitted iron.

“…Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck —” The words echoed slightly in the dark before she spotted the source, a familiar figure hurtling toward her up the gently sloping hill.

“ Beach guy ?”

“Help!” Six-foot-plus of dark-haired beach god barreled up the concrete path, waving his arms wildly.

“Oh god.” She scooted back on the table, almost falling in her rush to move. “What is that thing?”

Instincts taking over, Max rolled off the bench and launched herself at a nearby fallen branch. Moss pressed damply against her fingers when she picked it up, and she tightened her grip to counteract the slickness.

Beach Cutie-slash-Sebastian and the stiff mass of black that chased him — sometimes running or rolling over the ground, sometimes heaving itself into the air — veered toward her. She’d never swung a bat in her life and had to grit her teeth against a mix of fear and confusion trying its damnedest to come out as a wail.

One. She closed her eyes, breathing in the damp, green smell of the cool air. Two. Three!

The instincts she didn’t have came to her rescue. He raced past, feet hitting the ground to the same beat as her hammering heart. She swung as hard as she could, and the thing crumpled as the branch made impact with something solid inside the strange mass.

“Thanks.” Breathing hard, he stepped past her and crouched, picking up a small stick and poking gingerly at the — hopefully dead — creature.

Even with the craziness around her, that deep voice made her shiver. “…No problem, I guess. What the hell was that?” It was quiet now, a crumpled, papery pile of black shapes. She nudged it with her boot, half-expecting it to rise screeching off the ground. She almost laughed in relief when it didn’t.

“A demon-haunted decoration.” His stick scraped rapidly-dampening paper from something that gleamed, something she only recognized as a knife when he pulled it free and came to stand next to her, sliding it into the empty sheath at his hip. “Or — I don’t know where I got that. It sounds like something from a script, doesn’t it? Oh — I know you.”

“Yeah, I… from the beach.” She clenched her teeth on the rest; ‘ and I’ve been half in love with you since the first time you smiled at me’ wasn’t really appropriate to the moment. Or ever.

“Right! I can’t believe it took me that long to notice. I love seeing you there, your music is great.”

“Oh, um… thank you.” Thankfully the night was dark enough to hide the deep blush heating her cheeks. “Not that this isn’t a nice conversation, Sebastian—”

“Theo,” he interrupted.

She blinked, momentarily distracted from her goal. Theo? No, it can’t be.

Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice her startled expression. “Sebastian is… well…”

“Right. Sorry. Theo .” It is, holy shit, it’s actually him, do not fangirl, Maxine Hunter. “Anyway… what the hell is going on ?”

“I wish I knew.”

“You sounded pretty certain a minute ago,” Max muttered, determinedly ignoring the little voice screeching in the back of her mind that sounded too much like the crossbow-wielding demon-hunting character she was dressed as. “Something is wrong, though. Really wrong. It feels…”

“Evil,” he said softly. Theo stared past her into the darker part of the park where older trees blocked the moonlight. “Evil is seeping into the world…”

“Uh.” Suddenly it wasn’t Theo in front of her. Instead, it was someone who sounded exactly like Sebastian in every episode of the stupidly entertaining show she refused to admit she only watched because the actor looked like Beach Cutie. Or — was Beach Cutie, apparently. No, it was Sebastian, like she could feel Sophie in her bones — Max glanced down, noticing the faint glow along her body for the first time. No black lights around but she still glowed faintly. Coming from a shadow, her far darker skin would fade from notice… just like Sophie, she’d look like a walking skeleton. It was so cool . But — right. Theo. “Are you okay?”

“What?” He shook his head, then his whole body. “Yeah, sorry, that was weird. It’s like I’m half Sebastian, and it’s kind of freaking me out.”

“Yeah. I feel like I know things I don’t… and I’m pretty freaked out, too. Look, my house is really close.” Max absentmindedly jammed her makeshift weapon into the ground, pinning the sentient decoration. She reached for her guitar, slinging the case onto her back with practiced ease. “And my roommate knows all kinds of…” She wiggled her fingers vaguely. “Magic stuff.”

He followed her immediately when she stepped back onto the path, rubbing her palms on her skirt as if she could wipe away the layer of nervousness laying stickily atop her newfound confidence. Her fingers brushed the wooden crossbow stock again, a needless reminder of just how strange tonight was shaping up to be.

As they exited the park, he moved to her side. “I thought you wrote the comics, though?” He gestured widely at her outfit.

“Demons,” she argued. “Demons and magitech, do you even read? But Drew really believes in it and since ‘magic is real’ is actually one of the less crazy explanations I can think of, and — oh my god.” She stopped dead, hands clenching on empty air. “We were having a costume party tonight. If someone dressed up as a serial killer or something, shit, shit shit shit!” Max broke into a sprint, Theo hard on her heels.

“No lights.” Max veered left as they reached her house, second from the top of the steep hill. For once she wasn’t out of breath,and her legs didn’t ache despite their run. “There’s supposed to be a party going on, but all the lights are off.”

“Look—” Theo stopped at the edge of the street. Max kept going, stepping onto the damp grass of the postage-stamp-sized front yard before she glanced back at him. “I’m just going to say — and I’m not saying I’m not going in, because I am — but I want to say that that is really ominous and I’ve read scripts for a lot of horror films, and I really don’t want to go in there.”

“…Uh…”

He coughed and made a show of looking back down the hill. “I really don’t like horror, okay? And it’s creepy. No lights, no people? It seems like everybody is affected by whatever’s going on, but—”

“—but that was before ten,” she finished for him. “And there should have been people there by then. Even if everybody went crazy, the lights would be on… hold up, all I’ve ever seen you in is horror films and Demon Hunter . How can you make horror films but not like horror?”

“Are we going inside or what?” He ignored the question and strode past her to rap on the door. No one answered.

“Here,” Max murmured, holding out her keys. In the shadow of the eaves, it really did feel creepy, as if the tall, narrow bushes to either side of the door might come alive and swat them away. Oh, god, she had decorations up all through the house! If they’d come to life like the thing that had chased Theo… It would be carnage inside.

Theo pushed the door open even as the ‘w’ of wait formed on Max’s tongue. She flinched preemptively, clutching her stomach. She might draw blood-soaked comics for a living, but real gore made her retch.

“Huh.” Theo rested his hand on the knife at his right hip. “Looks pretty okay…”

“But — where is everybody?” Max stalked up the brick steps and shoved past Theo, pausing immediately on the threshold as a low moan hit her ears.

“Somebody’s hurt! Drew, is that you?” She jerked forward, ignoring Theo’s shout. She could feel him move behind her, knew he was at her back if there was a threat, and that was all she needed to know —

A scream interrupted the moan, a sharp, wailing no! Light flared around Max’s feet, surging out in a misshapen oval and arcing up to form walls, trapping both her and Theo inside. Pale pink walls glowed like a neon sign and flowed like gentle waves around them.

“If I say I told you —”

“I will knee you in the dick,” she said flatly, not turning around. At least her dark skin meant he probably couldn’t see the fierce flush of shame crawling up her neck. Stupid , Sophie yelled internally. Issue Six. Alex and the vamps. How could you forget . Alex, the personification of a truly terrible ex, had walked blithely into his home despite knowing that half the issue’s bad guys were hunting him. At the time, it had just been an easy way to get rid of the character. Sophie remembered it … but Max had reacted instead of thinking. Again.

“Noted. Have you… have you ever seen anything like this? Maybe it has something to do with the… the…”

Max shook her head. His faltering voice told her that he knew as well as she did the walls of pink light had nothing to do with the strangeness she felt buzzing faintly over her body.

“No. I haven’t seen anything like this, and it feels different…” She wracked her mind, trying to recall if she’d used anything similar in the comics. Sometimes the research blurred together. A summoning circle? Nothing had been summoned, though. And the wall was odd, yielding to her touch without actually giving at all. It made her fingers tingle.

“— Rune trap!”

Max jerked away from the wall at Theo’s exclamation. “A what?”

“A rune trap. Like a pit covered with leaves.”

“And we ran right over the top of it. Ugh.” Max sighed, hand dropping to her side. It wasn’t even uncomfortable, that was the worst part. Even with Sophie in the back of her mind, yelling at her to get a move on, she felt calm and refreshed. Energy suffused her, a sort of directionless, happy desire that dissipated her self-recriminating thoughts like sunlight on mist. “So we’re stuck?”

“Maybe…” He pressed his palm flush to the glowing barrier. Watching intently, she saw it give so faintly beneath his skin that she wondered if she saw it at all. “If we knew what the purpose was, we might be able to counteract it, or complete the ritual.”

“…I don’t like the sound of that.”

“No, neither do I. Fuck.” Theo stepped back from the wall, burying his face in his hands. Even in the midst of it all, Max couldn’t help but skim an appreciative glance up his body. That duster did him no small favor. The desire to kiss him struck again, far stronger than in the park.

Max shivered. “Theo?”

“Hmm.”

“A rune trap has a ritual, is what I’m hearing.”

“Yes. It’s made by starting a ritual and leaving the next-to-last step undone, activated by the next person who touches it usually. Most of the rituals are designed to be traps —”

“…Sebastian?” The words didn’t sound like Theo’s, the tone more grave than he’d been a moment ago. Please don’t leave me alone with your character , she thought at him, not quite willing to say it aloud.

“What?” He turned sharply, staring at her. Then his eyes softened and he blushed. “No, no, I’m me! Theo! Don’t worry. I, uh.” He scratched the back of his neck, eyes drifting to the side. “I told you my niece really likes the show, right? I kinda… act out bits as her bedtime story sometimes. I guess some of it stuck.”

“You didn’t tell me that, and we are so going to revisit that adorable fact later, trust me.” It was hard to wrench her attention away from his lips, but Sophie screeched urgently in the back of her mind, recalling her to the problem at hand. “I have a theory! About the ritual.”

“Yeah, me too,” he muttered.

“Pretty sure it’s a sex thing.”

“It’s a — yeah. Uh.” Theo turned away, scratching the back of his neck.

Max bit her lips to keep a smile at bay. Despite the situation, his embarrassment was pretty cute. “And it needs to be completed.”

A long pause met her words. She waited patiently until Theo sighed. “Yes. I think it does.”

“So… can I just say that if that means what I think it means? I’m super okay with that.”

“Well, if you think it means we have to…” He coughed, blush darkening. “To get, ah… intimate …”

“You are so cute, my god. You know how many fangirls you have, right? And you’re blushing about inti—”

“I’m good with it too.” His voice dropped slightly as he cut her off. Max shivered again. “Fucking you, if you want to be specific.”

“Are you still blushing?”

She waited until he turned back to her in exasperation, then launched herself at him so that he was forced to catch her. A moment later, her arms around his neck and his hands warm beneath her thighs, she bit her lip. Is this Sophie, or is it me ?

Did it really matter, when they both wanted the same thing?

She focused on Theo. His blush remained but his eyes were dark. The same eyes in the same face on the same man she’d had a crush on over the last year of playing her music on the beach, who — she was not getting over this anytime soon — was also her favorite actor. It definitely mattered, because he’d said he was up for it and at absolute minimum she was getting a fucking fantastic story out this. And hopefully a fantastic fucking story, too.

“How far you think this needs to go, for that wall to break?”

“I don’t — oh come on —”

Sophie grinned as she rolled her hips — and Max shook her head. No way was she going to let this experience happen without being herself. Max grinned and dipped her head to catch Theo’s mouth in a soft kiss before he could pick up the thread of his thought.

“…Know,” he breathed when she broke away. “But there’s a hard limit unless you have condoms in that jacket.”

“…In my Halloween costume?” Well… Sophie would, but —

The crossbow had turned real. Max reached gingerly into the inner pocket of her jacket. The pocket rested below her crop top, so it had been entirely within the body paint section. And… yep. Her fingers encountered something thin and she pulled out two condoms still attached at the perforation.

“Give me two minutes to get undressed,” Theo said and slid a soft kiss across her mouth as he lowered Max to the ground. She tossed the condoms at him and stripped too, wondering vaguely what would happen if the spell stopped while she was naked. She left the stockings on, liking the way the silver looked against her legs. At least they won’t smear , she thought a little giddily. Whatever was happening, transforming her painted costume into reality definitely had some benefits.

“I’ve had a crush on you for months,” she blurted as he turned back to her, the reality of suddenly coming face-to-face with over six feet of chiseled sex-god apparently overriding her internal editor. The awkward moment grew, suffocating her in the enclosed bubble of space. She stilled, watching his face, with her bra hanging from one elbow.

“I was, um.” Theo smiled sweetly at her, scratching the back of his neck. It was an oddly endearing gesture from a man standing naked ( and gorgeous amended the bit of Sophie still fighting the good fight) in front of her. “I was working up the courage to ask you out, actually. I just…”

“Oh,” she breathed. Hell yes , was that an acceptable answer?

“…Look, before we do — this — I need to tell you something.”

Max’s heart sank.

“So… Theo… it’s short for Theodore. Morello.”

And rose again.

“You really are —”

“Yeah, I’m the actor, I know the show sucks, please don’t judge me. It’s actually a really fun role, though, and my niece likes it so I offered to wear it to her party…”

She laughed. His brow furrowed adorably.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are. You’re funny. Did you really think I didn’t recognize you? What part of ‘I’ve only seen you in horror films and Demon Hunter ’ did you miss? I adore the show.” Something occurred to her then. “Er, um, though please don’t think I’m like some sort of crazed fangirl, I’m really not trying to notch my bedpost here.”

His smile was returning, albeit slowly. “I, uh… it’s been a weird night. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Gotta say, though… I wouldn’t mind being a notch on your bedpost.”

“I don’t put notches on bedposts… this is a ridiculous conversation. Come here.” Max crooked a finger at him.

“You’re right. Less talking.”

“And more sex.” She really didn’t care if that was Sophie or herself talking, as she wound her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers. Theo grinned into the kiss, turning it into a scattered clash of lips and teeth, but Max couldn’t make herself mind. She was grinning too, giddy despite the strangeness of the night. It felt right to smile with his hands settling on her ribcage just below her breasts, thumbs caressing the undersides. It felt right to let her head fall back and laugh when he pulled just far enough away to drop slowly to his knees, pressing a line of kisses down her stomach.

Max let her hands fall to his hair, digging into the lush black mass as his lips reached the apex of her thighs and his kisses grew more firm.

“You don’t have to —”

“Shush, you.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had gone down on her, but her last boyfriend hadn’t been interested, no small part of why they’d only lasted a few months.

Resting a hand on her hip, Theo leaned in, licking once right across her clit.

Max gasped and tugged on his hair. “Again.”

He took his time meeting her demand, spreading her wide open with his thumbs, slowly dragging his tongue up her slit. Every time he neared her clit, she shivered, but that tongue and that pleasure danced just out of reach. It ached in the best possible way.

Still, there was so much more, she could taste it heavy on her tongue, the need coiling tight in her belly. Max tugged on his hair again with a needy whimper, rocking her hips against his face. “ Again ,” she hissed, demanding only to keep herself from begging. A girl had to have some pride.

Thank everything she’d ever found holy, he obeyed. He lapped at her and slid one hand just far enough to touch her most intimate place. The first gentle brush of his finger over her clit left her knees shaking. The second had them giving entirely, Max helpless to stop herself as she slumped back against the wall of magic. Theo chuckled against her. A moment later his other hand left her hip as well, skimming down her leg until he cupped the back of her calf and pulled her leg over his shoulder. The shift spread her open wide for him. Max looked down, met Theo’s eyes, and whimpered again at the hungry look in them.

Never breaking the gaze, Theo circled her clit with his lips and sucked.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, please yes please !” Fuck pride. She was captured by the mere press of his lips and gentle sucks that grew stronger by the moment. Electricity shot through her, arced through every nerve, her fingertips, she’d swear she felt it in her hair . And she still wasn’t coming, but it was so close and she wasn’t sure it mattered when she felt like this —

Floating in sensation, Max lost track of Theo’s hand until two fingers slipped inside of her. The slick desire that practically dripped from her made it easy for him to pump them in and out to the rhythm he’d already established. And still, still, he was looking at her. She felt pinned by those eyes. Hungry eyes, wanting eyes. He wanted her.

Theo crooked his fingers and Max shattered. She might have screamed. Only his grip kept her from tumbling to the floor as her legs gave again. She’d never had an orgasm like this. It blew through her body, clenching her muscles, and slammed into her brain like a whir of color. Sharp, bright, and aching, and god, he was still licking at her, she was going to come again —

She was still trembling from her second orgasm when Theo lifted her leg off his shoulder and rose, hand trailing up the back of her thigh to cup her ass.

“Max,” he said, voice strangled. She opened eyes she didn’t remember closing and couldn’t restrain a soft smile at the near-frantic expression on his face. “Max, I need to — can I —”

“I’d like you to fuck me now, Theo,” she whispered.

He groaned. “God, yes . Thank you.” Theo stepped away and snatched a condom off the floor, fumbling to rip open the package and roll it in place. Max instinctively wrapped her legs around Theo’s waist as he hoisted her up. His dick pressed against her slit, and her entire focus narrowed sharply to that sensation as Theo lowered her carefully onto him, his forehead resting against her collarbone. He wasn’t the biggest she’d ever had. No, he was perfectly sized for her instead, just long enough to bump that spot inside her as he slid in, just thick enough to stretch her open with that glorious ache. Max couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her as she clenched involuntarily.

“Fuck.” Theo paused, shifted his grip. His forearms flexed against her outer thighs. “I can’t do this standing up, Max, I’m sorry. Can I — do you mind?”

Clamping down on a laugh that might bounce her off of him entirely, she couldn’t stop the tight-lipped smile that broke through. “God, no,” she managed once the temptation to giggle receded. “Put me down, Mr. Morello! I’m not breaking Sebastian’s back, the fangirls would come after me with pitchforks.”

“It’s not that, beautiful,” he murmured between kisses as he lifted her off. “I can hold you up all day long. You just felt so damn good I thought my knees would give.” Another needy whine escaped her, and he chased it, slipping his tongue into her mouth.

The magic of the ritual tugged at her every want, multiplying it like a reflection that bounced from one to the other endlessly. It turned I want you to fuck me into I need that specific penis inside of me forever, starting now . It would be scary if she could concentrate on it instead of Theo’s lips.

Those lips continued to meet hers even as her feet met the ground. A fiercer kiss than the first two, Theo’s hands came up to cup her face as he sucked her bottom lip between his teeth. An undignified noise left Max on her next breath.

Take a note, Sophie , she thought giddily. We’ll need to test outside the ritual to find out if this is Theo or sex magic .

She couldn’t take it. Max tore herself away, panting. “You and me, mister, right now.” She dropped cross-legged to the floor and leaned back, unfolding her legs and letting them spread. She’d never been this brazen in her life , but the heated look he dragged down her body, the lick of his lips as his gaze landed on her wet core, washed any shame or embarrassment away. “Please ?”

Theo was on her in an instant, dropping to his knees between her legs and kissing her. His hands seemed to be everywhere for a moment, as if he couldn’t touch her enough, before settling on her breasts. His thumbs idly stroked her nipples, a stark contrast to the way he ravaged her mouth. She reached between her legs, one hand finding her clit as the other closed around him and stroked gently. They broke the kiss, panting. Max tilted her hips and guided him in.

For a moment it was just… sex. It felt good, sure, but that aching need pulled back just a breath. At least it had, until she shifted and their eyes met.

There it was. The need surged back and her orgasm along with it. She clenched helplessly as a gasp tore from her throat, pleasure pulsing out of her core, radiating into each limb, a shuddering desperate desire that fed off itself.

“ Max,” he groaned, rocking gently. “I don’t think this is going to last long. I feel… ah!”

Oh, I like that, she thought lazily. She clenched again, and a strangled whimper escaped him.

“Theo…” Clench. Groan. His hips jerked. “One, you just made me come crazy hard. Two, I'm pretty sure I could get off in about ten seconds. Please, just fuck me.”

It seemed that blatant confirmation was what he'd needed. Theo slid a hand into her curls for purchase and started moving in earnest. Any remaining capacity for thought fled Max as he pulled nearly out and drove home again and again.

“Yes, yes, yes, please!” Words spilled from her mouth without intent. She would beg if she had to, she just needed more, more, more.

“Max , Christ.” Theo's voice had dropped a register, practically a snarl. His fingers tightened in her hair. “So fucking good, Max, you feel that? Feel how tight you are around me, gorgeous.”

“How,” she gasped. “Are you. Talking.”

A low chuckle in her ear. “I'm an actor. I'm good at dealing with distractions. You're testing my limits, though.” He pulled his fingers from her hair and shifted his weight to that arm, mouth meeting hers in a slow wet kiss completely at odds with the way his hips were driving against her. Each pull of of his cock against her walls spilled another whimper out of her mouth. Pleasure rose but refused to crest.

“Close,” he gasped, breaking the kiss. “Max, I can't hold off much longer.” His lips pressed against her neck as she arched, rolling her hips, seeking.

“Almost,” she breathed. “Just — almost —”

“Touch yourself.”

The hand between them, utterly forgotten, moved almost of its own volition. Max let out a groan at the added sensation as she circled her clit with two fingers, far too rough. It wouldn't feel good later, but right now speed mattered far more to her than finesse. So close, if she could only —

Theo's rhythm stuttered. He moaned into her neck. He moaned her name. That , apparently, was what her orgasm had been waiting for. As his hips jerked against hers, pleasure spilled from her center. No explosion this, but a gentle wave that grew and grew as it crashed into itself. Her muscles locked and then relaxed. Her fingers twitched. If she hadn't been so utterly lost in sensation, she'd be sobbing with the quiet intensity of it.

Awareness returned when Theo rolled them over, slipping out as he softened.

“I’m dying,” Max whined into Theo’s shoulder, and grumbled when he laughed. “I can’t feel my legs.”

“Good,” he responded. “I’ve never come that hard in my life.”

“Me neither.”

“Maybe it was —”

“The ritual,” they finished together. The entire reason why they’d had sex. She’d actually forgotten.

“The walls are still up, though,” Theo went on.

“What?” Max sat upright. Her body begged for five more minutes curled against Theo but this was more important. “Shit, you’re right. It’s… is it thinner, though?” The walls had been glowing when they came up, almost too bright to look at for more than a moment, but now she could see the faint outline of the living room beyond.

“Yeah, it’s a lot thinner. Maybe we can cut it.”

They dressed quickly and in silence, except for his chuckle when Max bounced on her toes, sneaking a kiss to the corner of his mouth. She shrugged when he held up the tied-off condom. “Just drop it, we can clean up later.”

The atmosphere turned serious as Theo rolled up his sleeves and drew one of the long daggers at his belt.

“So if everything is real… this is supposed to be a demonblade, able to cut anything.” He pressed the wavy serrated blade to the wall. It gave slightly beneath the pressure, like skin. Max shivered. “And…it’s not. I’m actually pressing pretty hard here.”

He was, his forearm bulging. Max licked her lips. No. Not the time, and you just had sex. Down, hormones . She rolled her shoulders back and finished buckling her crossbow to its place at her hip before drawing a bolt from her jacket. “Anything solid. Season three finale, you — I mean Sebastian couldn’t cut through the rope of fire keeping him tied in Hell, remember? It was a huge plot point. But these…” She wiggled the bolt at him. “Anti-magic. Sophie had them commissioned —”

“After the coven was possessed in Issue Eight.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “You… actually do read it?”

“I told you, I did.” Irritation flashed across his face, gone almost instantly. He sheathed the demonblade. “You’re right, though. Magic makes more sense here.”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and set the point of the bolt against the wall. “Let’s hope this works…”

She leaned.

The bolt sank in a little before it met with resistance. Max shifted her weight and shoved. Her fingers slid along the shaft, burning a little with the friction, and then the wall simply gave. The bolt slid easily through, suddenly unimpeded as the pink flickered and then swirled around them, dissipating like smoke. Max stumbled forward and would have tumbled to her knees, but Theo darted forward and caught her, jerking her back flush against him.

“Oh my god.” She winced at the volume of his voice in her ear, the horrified tone unmistakable. “Max, is that your roommate?”

She followed his gaze. A figure was sprawled on the couch, groaning softly. It didn’t look like Drew, exactly, but the light was dim… she pulled out of Theo’s arms and flicked on the light switch. And gasped.

It was Drew.

Drew like she’d never seen him before. The spell… she looked at her arms, the glow of the skeleton still there. Her bones had ached when she’d woken up, but that was all… had that been Sophie’s curse sinking in? Could this awful spell actually change someone physically? Looking at Drew, the answer had to be yes.

Her roommate’s dark hair was matted to his forehead and cheeks with sweat, his skin paler than usual beneath a fading summer tan. He was naked, and his what-is-sportsball, reluctant occasional gym-goer bit of flab had been replaced by a cut six-pack that was slightly askew. That would have been bad enough, but as her eyes drifted lower Max understood why Theo had jerked away as the light flipped on, making faint noises of protest. If she had one, she’d have winced too. Lying against his thigh was a strangely shaped, oversized penis that sat in not quite the right place. Both the six-pack and the genitals had blazing stretch marks, not surprising given how fast the change must have happened.

“This was his costume? Abs and a giant dick?” Her voice was soft, and Drew’s eyes fluttered open, then winced shut against the light. “ This was his costume, and there was a sex ritual inside the front door,” she went on flatly.

“I thought you guys were having a party,” Theo murmured.

Tearing her gaze away from the horrifying figure of her roommate, Max took in the blank walls and empty living room. Her lungs refused to draw enough air, stomach lurching as her mind scrambled to piece it together. ‘I don’t mind setting up by myself.’ You lying, piece of shit fucking scumbag —

“There is a large part of me that would really like to kick this guy’s ass,” Theo muttered without turning around.

“Yeah,” Max whispered. Fuck! She lived with this guy. He was her friend — she’d thought. He must have done the spell too. He’d meant for that trap to catch someone. To catch her . “Honestly? I can’t really think about that fact that my — my friend apparently wanted to — to magic me into fucking him.”

She winced at the way her voice cracked. Later, Max. Fix this first, then you can freak out . “We need to find the other spell, the one that’s doing this, and we need to stop it.”

Shuffling to her left, then Theo’s warmth was beside her again. “I’d like to hug you, but…”

“Not right now.” Her eyes narrowed at the strange shadow Drew was casting. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but the more she focused… “I think I can find the other spell. Bring him.”

Theo made a noise of distaste but stepped forward immediately, slinging Drew over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Max examined the shadow more closely. It was barely there, but it was a thread, and it led somewhere. She followed it.

She followed it all the way up the narrow stairs to the attic, Drew’s ‘darkroom’ he’d made her promise never to go into. She’d agreed, because art was important, because she hated people walking in on her practicing guitar or seeing her stories unfinished. It was hard not to feel like an idiot about that right now.

Max shoved that thought aside and the attic door open. The thread grew stronger as it reached the center of the room, where it twined with a thousand similar threads in a misshapen arc. A rough chalk circle on the floor followed the arc and continued. Shapes spiraled out in four places. In the center was a small cauldron with a picture above it, recognizably Drew’s art. It was strange, though, seeming to shift as she looked at it. Maybe it was the flicker from the candles around it, red and orange and black.

Theo dropped Drew to the floor without much care and stepped up beside Max. “This is a mess. Where’s the salt?”

“Salt?”

“One of the set designers knows a ton about this kind of stuff. I talk with her at the food tables sometimes. I think she needs to vent to someone about the crappy magic on the show. He should have had salt, I think, and… uh, like a knife, maybe? I forget.”

“And it’s making this happen. What if we just… use the bolt on it?”

“You want to shoot it?” Theo shrugged. “Seems as reasonable as anything.”

“No, no.” Max shook her head, hair bouncing. “Sophie is… I think we have to destroy the picture. The bolt is round, though, it won’t cut… and I don’t think your weapons will work here.” But something caught in her mind, staring at the chalk on the floor. Circles were for protection, weren’t they? She tightened her grip on the bolt and crouched.

“No,” came croaked from behind them.

Max stiffened but ignored it. Drew could rot in hell. Or, she thought, stifling an inappropriate giggle, right now he probably could go fuck himself. She dragged the head of it through the white line, and something invisible seemed to sputter angrily. Theo stepped past her.

“Well, I’m still alive. Let’s get rid of this thing.”

“Wait.” Max tucked the bolt back into its place and rose. “I feel like we should do this together.”

“But what if —”

“If anything bad happens, it’s going to happen to both of us.” Her tone brooked no argument.

“...fine. Count of three?”

Theo nodded and reached out as Max did. “One.”

The shadows flared strangely and skimmed over their fingers as they each grabbed an edge of the drawing. Her fingers tingled. With her other hand Max grabbed a candle, one of the black ones, and held it near the center of the drawing. “Two.”

“ No!”

“ Three! ”

She tipped the candle. Shadows rippled and flared. Blackness surged from the corners of Max’s vision.

* * *

“Ow. Ugh. What the hell.”

Max squinted against the sunlight flooding in through the living room window. Her whole body ached, her bones especially.

Bones.

Scrambling halfway out from under the heavy blue blanket draped across her and most of the couch, she checked her arms and legs. Her paint was smeared beyond repair — not that it mattered — but the bones were gone. So was the crossbow. And the air smelled like onions. “Was that real?”

“Yes.”

She squeaked as she jerked away from the voice behind her, clutching the blanket back to herself and peering over the back of the couch.

Theo leaned against the counter, lazily dragging a wooden spoon around a pan. “Or at least, I remember it too. If you remember magic and your roommate being a bag of dicks, that is. He’s locked in the attic, by the way.”

“…I don’t know whether I’m relieved or concerned that last night wasn’t a fever dream.” It was hard to drag herself from the comforting warmth of the blankets without the impetus of surprise, but Max managed it, trudging to the kitchen. She felt sticky and gross, and Theo probably did too. And exhausted, if the circles under his eyes were anything to go by. Feeling daring, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed his jaw when she reached him. “You woke up first?”

“I had less… transformation, I guess… to go through. I didn’t pass out at all.” He allowed her to steal the stirring spoon, draping that arm over her shoulder instead. “I carried you down here and blocked all the doors in case people went crazy. I’m surprised we didn’t get more craziness, actually.”

“It’s a quiet neighborhood. Everybody was probably asleep when he did it. Um, speaking of which, is he…”

“Awake? Not as of half an hour ago. Back to normal? ...mostly, I think.”

“And what's mostly when it's at home?”

Theo shuddered, turning his face into her hair. “His, ah… his stomach looks like shit. And his… jewels… are gone.”

The spoon slowed, then stopped. Max stared blankly at the onions for a moment. “Get me a bowl for these? Cabinet just left of the fridge, bottom shelf.”

“So, no comment?” A shallow blue and white bowl with a handle, one of her favorites, came into view a moment after he pulled away.

“Obviously he did something to cause it. Threefold return and all that, right?” She shrugged. “I did some research for the coven issue. That stood out to me. You get what you give.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded. For a while, they worked in a quiet broken only by Max’s brief directions.

By the time breakfast was finished and eaten — eggs over medium, onions and potatoes, and the last of the milk — she felt worlds better. Something of Sophie's confidence must have lingered, because Max barely second-guessed herself before offering Theo an arch smile. “So… I know I feel like someone scraped me out of a sewer, and I bet you do too. All I'm going to say is I've got a pretty good sized shower.”

Theo’s fork paused in the process of dragging his potatoes idly through yolk. “...Do you, now?”

She shivered. There was that voice from last night, almost a growl. “And,” she went on, a little breathier, “I could really use someone to scrub my back.”

“Hmm.” He shoved his plate aside, rising slowly. “I'm an excellent scrubber.” Max barely registered his movement before his arms were around her waist, lifting her high. She laughed.

“Second door down the hall, hot stuff.” His hair clung to the fingers she carded through it. I've got an experiment to run.

Maybe he'd go down on her again in the sh ower. She could return the favor this time.

Maybe he'd stay for lunch and help her figure out what to do with her scumbag of a roommate.

Maybe, if I'm lucky…

He fumbled for the doorknob while pressing slow, lingering kisses to her neck.

...Maybe he'll stay forever.

* * *

A born-and-raised California girl, V. T. Charbonneau is rocking that West Coast life along with two cats, three dogs, and a husband. She writes steamy fiction with hot guys, smart girls, and a touch of romance. Check out her website, look her up at Amazon.com , or find her on Facebook , Tumblr , or Twitter !