Devil's Lover

Chapter 1

Celine Ryder was expecting great things from her new job. Everything she’d read about it made it out to be the exact thing she’d been working for her entire life. Every fight with her mom over the choices she’d made, every misstep, every drop of sweat, blood and tears she’d shed: it had all led her to this morning, waking up and dressing ready for her first day at the BAU, and she was readier than she’d ever been.

At least, that was what she was telling herself.

“Alright, Celine,” she said into the mirror, scowling fiercely at the pale face staring back at her. “Good impressions. Good impressions, good impressions, good impressions.”

Something smacked her leg, needle-like claws skating across her pants and catching the loose fabric. She broke the fixed gaze of her reflection and looked down into the grey-green eyes of her cat, his mouth a wide pink opening on his coal black face.

“Saying things three times doesn’t make them happen, Celine,” Sergio said, twining around her legs with his tail twitching. “I’m hungry. You bought cans again. Feed me.”

She nudged him away with her foot. “You’re magical, you i***t. Open them yourself. I’m busy.” Back into the mirror she looked, closing her eyes. Good impressions, good impressions, good impressions.

Sergio yowled loudly and irritatingly, breaking her concentration. “Other witches don’t treat their familiars like this. Other witches have respect. They don’t starve us.”

“Maybe you should go bother those other witches then,” she snapped, not bothering to open her eyes. If she did and he saw her looking, he’d know that he’d won. And then he’d be smug. There was nothing more annoying than a cat with reason to be smug. “And don’t call me a witch. I’m a mage. Qualified, now.”

The sound of his paws padding away into the kitchen and the following thwop of a can being magically rent apart with extreme kitty prejudice wasn’t quite enough to cover his parting remark: “You can paint a duck white, but that doesn’t make it a swan. You still quack like a duck, little witch. Your new feathers don’t change that.”

Her familiar was an asshole. He’d see. This job was going to be different.

Aaron Hotchner hadn’t been excited to see her. Actually, he’d been the very opposite of excited, which was why she was now standing outside his office feeling awkward and out of place as, inside, he argued with another man in a low, composed voice. She almost wished she couldn’t hear it. Well, she couldn’t. Her asshole of a familiar could, and he was happily reciting it to her. She couldn’t even kick him to get her to stop. He was incorporeal, the faintest idea of a cat by her heels. She hated it when he took this form. It was itchy. She’d had a friend once who’d get itchy and blotchy and sore whenever she breathed in cat dander. Having Sergio as a whisper in her mind felt exactly like how her friend had looked during those attacks, except it was in her brain and her bones and she could hardly scratch those away.

“Oooooh, he called you a witch, witch,” Sergio said, his inner voice making her brain quake. He wasn’t bothering to lower it. A quick glance around the squad room showed a bunch of humans, some therians, and one tall neurotic looking guy who could maybe be some sort of elf. Or possibly just a really twitchy human. No one who’d hear her stupid cat, unless he wanted them to. Her bones crawled. Her legs ached. She wanted to lean back against the wall, but she could feel the protection spells laced deeply into the foundation and it made the skin on her arms fizz as though she’d stuck them into lemonade. Until the building accepted her, she’d probably be better off keeping her distance. Not to mention, she was pretty sure that she was about to lose this job before she’d even gotten a chance to prove that she was perfect for it.

And her f*****g cat still wouldn’t shut up.

“He’s saying you’re here because Elizabeth pulled strings. Now he’s saying it’s too soon after Elle. I wonder who Elle is? Oh, here, he’s saying they don’t need a witch. He’s got you pegged. Reckon he’s even looked at your file?” Sergio went silent for a bit and she could almost feel his tail lashing. He was angry, growing angrier. “Tsh, fancy a human being so quick to dismiss a mage. We could run rings around his little team, no doubt.”

He’d called her a mage. He really was ticked off.

“It’s not nice being underestimated, is it, Sergio?” she said under her breath. Her eyes followed the skinny maybe-elf as he did some sort of weird half-circle around his desk, shaking long, brown hair out of his eyes. She’d worked Interpol. She knew the regulations for hair length in government jobs, no matter the country, and his was seven shades on the side of no f*****g way is that allowed.

Her cat didn’t answer, but his rumbling discontent proved to be almost as annoying as the shadow itchiness he was causing. If he ever made true on his threats to find a more caring witch than her, she was getting a crow next. Or some sort of corvid. No more cats. Something smart and pretty to look at without claws and fish breath and sass.

Maybe-Elf stopped and turned, looking directly into her eyes. She met them without thinking; hazel eyes that looked at her then into her and then, without further provocation, through her. She almost reeled back from that gaze, and the sudden whipcord spark of her magic answering that gaze was only matched by the queerest jolt in her stomach as it attempted to plunge down to her knees.

Holy s**t, he was no elf.

“Celine Ryder?” A cool voice cut through the shocked daze and she turned, the hazel eyes of the skinny man replaced with the cold brown contemplation of the BAU’s Unit Chief and, hopefully, her new boss. Behind him, another man smirked. Shorter, thicker around the middle, but his expression was coolly calculating and somehow much more predatory than that of the Unit Chief’s. He nodded at her, sidled past. Sergio ruffled slightly before settling.

Agent Hotchner held his office door open, his regard trailing from her down to the lower floor of the squad room, before snapping back. “If you intend upon making a future here in this unit, I believe we have things to discuss. I must ask that you either leave your familiar outside of my office or that he present himself. I have delicate spells in place that will object rather strenuously to him attempting to conceal himself.”

Ah. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one underestimating people today.

She squared her shoulders and nodded briskly, stepping easily into the shoes of Elizabeth Ryder’s well-presented and confident daughter, rather than the slightly ill-worn and awkward shoes of Celine Ryder. Her mother’s daughter could do this. She could nail this interview. Sergio appeared around her neck as a sudden warm weight and dug his claws into her shoulder possessively. He appeared determined to begin a staring contest with the stern looking Unit Chief, one that Celine wasn’t entirely sure he could win.

As she walked into the office she chanced a glance back over her shoulder. The man from before was gone, the space next to his desk empty.

But her skin still prickled as though his eyes still lingered.

Hotchner had handed her off to a perky blonde woman who was, this time, definitely an elf.

“Jennifer Jareau,” she introduced herself, holding out a perfectly manicured hand and beaming at Celine as though her one delight of the day was meeting her. Celine didn’t want to like her, but she did, almost immediately. “My friends call me JJ. You’re Celine Ryder?”

“Hi,” Celine said, taking the offered hand and almost jumping out of her skin at the icy cold touch of it. An alpine elf. Interesting. “That’s me. Runic mage, third circle.”

JJ’s smile flickered and then she laughed, the practised laugh of the bureaucratic. Celine had learned that laugh before she was forming full sentences. “You’re young to be a qualified mage. I’m sorry, I assumed you were a witch. I should know better by now than to judge.”

Celine paused at that final cryptic remark. “Is that a common problem around here?”

This time, JJ’s laugh was real, no trace of the polished sound she’d made before. “Oh man, wait until I introduce you to Reid. He was casting first circle by the time he was thirteen.”

Celine’s brain tried to process that statement, stumbled, and promptly gave up and left her floundering.

“What,” Sergio said flatly, his whiskers stiffening. “She’s kidding, right?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Celine repeated, hoping she wasn’t gaping like a fish.

JJ shook her head, her eyes still laughing. “Don’t worry, you’ll love him. He’s a kitten.”

“She’s awful to cats,” Sergio stated glumly to JJ as the two women began to walk towards the conference room where the team was beginning to gather. JJ glanced down at him as though she’d heard him, unconsciously picking up on the cat’s words. He tried to look small and starved, the most neglected creature in the world. “Don’t let her near him, she’ll buy him canned food and then make him open it himself.”

She was so done with cat familiars.

The team—her team, as she had to keep reminding herself, all seemed oddly welcoming right off the bat. JJ had practically woven her a friendship bracelet within minutes of meeting her and, although Hotchner was as standoffish as they come, Derek Morgan was a pleasant surprise. He stood when she entered the room and introduced himself to her and then, without missing a beat, introduced himself to Sergio as well. The cat nodded his head in recognition, keeping his cool, but Celine could feel his delight. He was an attention w***e.

He was her attention w***e though and, as handy as the hidden runes on her arms and hands were at a whole range of things, they were no match for his nose at sniffing out people's natures.

“Human,” he’d said promptly upon spotting Hotchner earlier that day. “Delightful,” was all he’d say about JJ, and Celine rolled her eyes at him. She’d pegged that one on her own, anyway. Morgan received a purr and a curt, “Shifter. Smells mostly canine, but we all have our flaws.” Gideon, as the smirking man from before was called, had introduced himself in an absent sort of way as though his mind was elsewhere and then looked down at the cat with none of that vacancy in his gaze. Sergio had fallen silent and said nothing about him, even when prompted. That was one mystery she was being left to sort out on her own.

The high expectations she’d held for this job seemed to be holding so far. Hotchner had relented in his stiffness towards her, although there was still marked suspicion in his bearing. She couldn’t tell if it was aimed at her or if some previous events had left him wary. Either that or he didn’t trust her because she was a woman. Or a mage, but she doubted he’d have gotten as far in his career as he had without being able to work with mages, especially in the BAU. Everyone who even glanced in the direction of the sixth floor knew about The David Rossi. Even Sergio had read the man’s books. Celine hadn’t. Although. if there was anything about Gideon or Hotchner in there, she probably should.

But, if Celine had learned anything in her life, it was that when things seemed to be going smoothly, there was always something rough hurtling her way. This day was no exception.

There was a rustle of fabric and a hurried, uneven gait and a man appeared in the doorway; all wild hair bordering on chaotic and long, ungraceful limbs. “Sorry I’m late,” said the man in a throaty voice, breathing heavily. “I was in Archives and I got distracted and then the coffee machine broke down and I had to go down to fifth, and you know every time I go to fifth I have to take the long way or Rivers asks me to help her with her computers and I don’t know anything about computers and they just seem to break more when I go near them…”

“Spence,” JJ said, grinning.

Celine turned, half a smile already forming at the babbling monologue from the new arrival, and found herself face to face with the maybe-not-an-elf from before. Still definitely not an elf. Sergio turned as well, and for the first time, got a good look at the man.

And promptly puffed up to twice his size, let out a loud, throbbing yowl that made Celine’s teeth ache, and vanished with a pop.

“Oh,” said Casper Reid, shaking that wild hair out of his eyes and looking sheepish and impossibly innocent. Also, gorgeous. Perilously pretty, in fact and Celine hadn’t spent her formative years studying magic without knowing that pretty was almost always synonymous with predatory. JJ was pretty, but it went without saying that elves were dangerous. Doyle was pretty, and look how that ended.

Celine didn’t do pretty.

The rune on Celine’s arm burned, the old one that coiled around her left upper bicep, the one she’d gotten because of and in case of Doyle,

Demon.