Summoning Heat
Thunder rattled the abandoned castle to its foundations, shaking dust from the rafters as my candle flame shivered in protest. The wind worried at every crack in the stone, dragging a low, restless moan through the hall like something long dead and unwilling to lie quiet.
I knelt on the cold stone, chalk dust ghosting my fingertips. The sigil before me pulsed faintly where I’d traced the final lines. The grimoire lay open at my side, its spine pointed toward my left knee so I could glance down without shifting. Ink-heavy pages crowded with symbols started to blur together an hour ago. A half-starved fire crackled in the ruined hearth behind me, its warmth never quite reaching the bare length of my thighs.
The main circle sat in front of me, centered in the hall. I’d left myself a narrow “safe gap” between its edge and my knees. Behind me, closer to the hearth, a second circle waited.
The slip I’d talked myself into wearing was little more than a whisper. Black silk clinging to skin, the low neckline held up by thin straps that dug lightly into my shoulders. The hem rode high enough that the chill licked at the curve of my hips.
Now, in a real castle with a real summoning circle and my very real, very indecent outfit plastered to every line of my body, the whole plan felt… considerably less brilliant.
I exhaled, flicked the match against the casing, and lit the final candle on the edge of the circle.
The air changed.
The fine hairs on my arms lifted, my skin prickling with the sense that something vast and unseen had just turned its attention toward me. The candles around the circle stretched their flames tall and thin, bending toward the sigil like they were being pulled, then snapped back all at once, guttering low.
The chalk lines at my knees flared a sickly, pulsing red: one harsh beat, then another. Energy bled up from the stone and, with it, smoke began to rise. At first it was only thin, lazy tendrils curling along the edges of the circle. Then thicker plumes rolled and coiled over themselves, swallowing the center in a dense, churning haze.
I squinted, but it was useless. Whatever I’d called through—whatever was taking shape inside that circle—was hidden behind a wall of shifting shadow and smoke. All I caught were brief hints of movement: a silhouette, the suggestion of shoulders, the impression of height. There, and then gone as another wave of darkness billowed up and erased it.
And then a voice hit me like a physical force.
“I HAVE ARRIVED!”
The words slammed into the stone and rolled back over me, a reverberation so deep it felt more like pressure than sound. It wasn’t remotely human. And yet threaded through it was a subtle lilt—a dark Irish cadence that slid low along my spine. It was the kind of voice you felt before you fully heard it, textured and unapologetically rough.
“TREMBLE, MORTAL,” the voice boomed, somehow even louder, “FOR YOU HAVE SUMMONED THE MIGHTIEST OF DEMONS TO YOUR—wait.”
The echo cut off as if someone had yanked a cord. The oppressive weight in the air eased by a fraction.
The smoke stayed trapped inside the ring for a beat longer. Then the being stepped over the chalk line and stopped just outside the circle’s edge.
“An… abandoned castle?” the voice said, but normal this time. Less apocalyptic thunder, more exasperated man.
I forced myself to breathe as he came into view, tall and dark, clad in black that caught the candlelight like oil. His eyes scanned the ruined hall, then locked on me and stayed.
“You’ve summoned me for what?” he asked, head tilting as he took a step forward. “Power? Knowledge? Revenge?”
My throat tightened. I’d rehearsed lines and practiced bravado, but words vanished like mist the second his attention locked fully onto me.
He began to circle the edge of the main ring, unhurried, predatory in the most patient way. A charged closeness rolled off him in slow waves, brushing my bare shoulders and catching on the thin straps of my slip.
“Well?” he prompted, voice dropping. “You didn’t drag me across realms for nothing. What is it you want, little summoner?”
I swallowed, hard. “I…” The words stuck.
His footsteps stopped just behind me, a dark weight at my back, close enough that the hairs at the nape of my neck lifted.
I hadn’t come to the castle chasing prophecy or power. I’d come because my own body felt as if a locked door and every mortal lover I’d ever had kept jamming the wrong key into it, swearing the problem was me.
Years of half-finished pleasure, of faked sounds and polite smiles, had sanded me down to something small and ashamed. Eventually, I’d started to believe them—that maybe Iwasbroken, too difficult, too much in all the wrong ways.
Then I found the book.
A single page, tucked near the back, promising that those who dared the ritual would be granted a night of ‘undiluted desire’ with a being who could see straight through flesh to the root of their want. No judgment. No awkward fumbling. No lies. Just…truth.
So no, I hadn’t come seeking the typical. I was here because I was tired of feeling like a problem that needed fixing. If anyone could finally show me what my body was capable of, it wouldn’t be another soft-spoken disappointment. It would be something ancient, merciless, and incapable of pretending.