Cora Delaney brings a lasagna to a stranger's door—a widower her incubus visited on a summons weeks ago, and never mentioned. Peter buried his wife forty-one years into a marriage that started as an argument about a hedge, and he has something to teach a woman six weeks into loving a nine-hundred-year-old man who will never age: the arithmetic of forever-with-an-ending never works, and you do it anyway. A quiet story about mortality, the deal everyone takes, and choosing it on purpose.
Ash is a nine-hundred-year-old incubus, summoned twice a week by people who want something. That leaves a hundred and sixty-six hours—and lately he wants just one thing: to be expected instead of wanted. So he applies for a job at Costco. No papers, no legal existence since Henry the Second, just a résumé reading "Available immediately." A warm, funny, aching short about a creature of appetite who'd trade eternity for a torn red vest.
Roland Pike has sold this town every balloon arch, gender reveal and gold "4" candle it ever wanted, and been invited to exactly none of the parties. Then a woman walks in with a shopping list written on a court filing.
Six weeks ago, Cora accidentally summoned an incubus with a candle her sister mailed her. Now she has to break some news to that sister: the candle worked — and Margot mass-produced two hundred and thirty-nine more of them, and sold them at a craft fair. Somewhere out there, 239 strangers own a demon-summoning candle and don't know it. A standalone entry in The Wanting Series — dry, warm, and unreasonably funny paranormal romance with real heat under the comedy. 18+.
I lit a candle and got an incubus. Now I'm taking him to my sister's engagement party, where he'll need a human name, a cover story, and enough restraint to stand in a room full of people in love without feeding. My ex is also invited. That turns out to be his problem, not mine.
Six weeks after she accidentally summoned an incubus, Cora's problem isn't the demon — it's that he's discovered Costco. A warehouse-sized romantic comedy about love, bulk croissants, and the logistics of dating something that used to be a legend.
Cora inherited exactly one thing from her mother: a flat voice that delivers devastating news without a flicker. So when Ellen turns up with one of the scattered candles on her mantel, Cora knows lying to her is hopeless — and that her mother has already clocked that her daughters are hiding something. She races across town braced for catastrophe, only to walk into Ellen's kitchen and find her mother and a nine-hundred-year-old incubus sharing the good teacups.
He feeds on wanting. She takes him to Costco. Five weeks after Cora accidentally summoned a nine-hundred-year-old incubus with a candle, he wants one thing: a warehouse membership card with his name on it. What he doesn't expect is what a store full of people wanting things does to a creature who's spent nine centuries being wanted for darker reasons—or that a free sample from a woman named Deloris might undo him completely.
Cora has three rules for surviving a bad breakup, and she's already broken two of them. The third involves the ridiculous candle her sister mailed her — the one that comes with a demon attached. He feeds on desire and has done it for centuries. What he's never once been is wanted back.