by LJ Swallow
Ewan and Xander are in the same spot, but Arlo's no longer with them. Ewan pushes hair from his face as he looks at me.
"Are you okay?"
"No." Damn. I can avoid answering direct questions if I concentrate, but at times like these, I’m caught off-guard.
Ewan moves closer, creating a block between me and those around. "What's wrong?"
"This place is full of weirdos. Two guys touched me up on the way back here."
He pulls himself to full height and glances around. "Who? Where?"
"God knows, the place is packed, they've probably moved on elsewhere by now. Hit on some other lucky girl."
"That's it. You don't go anywhere else in here on your own."
I smile at his concern. "I'm okay. I don't need protecting, I can look after myself."
Xander glances over from where he's drinking and resting against the bar. "What's going on?"
"Some dudes groped Vee."
"I'm fine," I say as Xander's brow tugs down too.
He gives a curt nod to Ewan. "Stop looking at Vee as if she's an ordinary human chick fending off guys. I'm pretty sure Vee can look after herself."
"It's not the human guys who worry me. She isn't used to dealing with demons yet."
Xander drains his bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of a hand. "Okay. Fine. I don't care what Arlo says, I swear there're demons in here tonight. We can practice your new powers on them. Right, Vee?"
I nod, wishing my confidence in using my unknown powers matched Xander’s. With the movement, a wooziness comes over me, my vision blurring for a second, and I blink it away before either guy notices my slight sway.
I should've eaten before drinking.
The sensation washes again, and I grip the edge of the bar.
Thankfully Ewan's and Xander’s attention is elsewhere, and neither see. I pull in a breath. The heat and claustrophobia in here doesn't help the intoxication.
"How long are we staying?" I ask.
"Xander wants to hang around even if we don't find any demons," says Ewan and inclines his head.
A girl serving behind the bar leans on the counter, breasts swelling against her tight blue vest top as she bends forward to talk to him. Xander's interest is plain as he winds a finger around her long blonde hair and gives a smile guaranteed to charm any girl.
Ewan shoves him in the shoulder. "Oi, Romeo! We haven't finished yet. Didn’t you just say we needed to look around?"
Xander whispers something to the girl who nods and looks at him from under her lashes. He joins us. "We'll scout around the rest of the place, and if Arlo’s right and there’s no demons here, you can head home. Then I’ll hang here for a while in case the situation changes."
"Oh yeah? So we'll see you in the morning, huh?" Ewan pulls his mouth into a knowing smile.
"Maybe." Xander indicates the girl with his head. "That’s up to her. Come on, we have a better view of everyone if we head upstairs to the balcony. Another?" He gestures at the empty bottles.
Ewan shakes his head. "We’re driving, remember?"
"I won't be. Not until tomorrow." He winks. "Vee? Drink?"
I shake my head. A mistake as the surroundings remain shaky once I stop. I stare at Ewan as he speaks to Xander. Holy crap, the man's hot. He's removed his jacket, and taut biceps emerge from the T-shirt sleeves. There's a raw power to Ewan he could play up if he wanted, and his lack of arrogance is more attractive to me than Xander's attitude. The barrier that this brooding guy hides behind makes him oh so much sexier.
That and his killer body.
I imagine how he’d touch me. Ewan wouldn’t be gentle; he’d know what he wants and would overwhelm me. I moisten my lips as he turns, and a sudden, intense sexual need flows through as he meets my eyes.
I swear I'm an ounce of self-control from pushing myself against him, grabbing his hair, and kissing the hell out of him. Right here. Right now.
I blink. What is wrong with me?
Ewan looks away quickly, and I do too. How obvious was my intent?
"Come on. Upstairs." Oblivious, Xander takes a beer he ordered from the bar and ploughs into the dancers. Ewan follows and reaches behind to take my hand.
His touch explodes fireworks beneath my skin, stronger than any reaction to the other three guys. I stumble after him, body lit up as if someone spent the last ten minutes focusing on my arousal.
Hell, I want somebody to spend the next ten minutes focused on my body.
I want Ewan.
What is this? I drop Ewan’s hand, worried about my next reaction to the effect he has, and continue to follow. The crowd swells between us, moving in unison to the music, side to side, and jostling. I focus on following Ewan's head visible above the people, but when a guy as tall as Ewan steps in front of me, I lose sight of him.
Shit.
The disorientation hits again. Hands pull me into the throng, and the room spins as faces fade in and out of view. I stumble around, confused by the world lurching from side to side. I need to find Ewan and Xander.
I push in the direction of the stairs, craning my neck to try to spot their tall figures on the balcony.
"Vee."
Somebody grabs my hand again, and I’m about to snatch my fingers away when I look into Ewan's face.
"I thought I’d lost you!" I shout over the music.
Ewan inclines his head toward the stairs and pulls me after him. We don’t reach them; instead he veers to the right and pulls me into the shadows at the edge of the dance floor.
"Everything okay?" I ask.
Ewan places a hand in the small of my back and pulls me to him. Hard lips hit mine, knocking my breath away in surprise. He pulls me closer still, fingers splaying across my back as he cradles my head with his other hand. My desire takes over as I return his kiss, lacing my fingers into his hair and holding his face to mine. I was right. There’s nothing gentle about Ewan’s passion as he parts my mouth with his tongue, and deepens the kiss.
This is different to kissing Heath, as none of Ewan’s memories appear in my mind, and the link remains purely physical. I’m engulfed by need, but not by a need to connect. Am I disappointed I wanted to feel more with Ewan? That maybe Heath's right and something different exists between me and each guy? Right now, hell no because any man who can trigger the building explosion inside with just a kiss is the one I want.
People either side jostle us, but I barely notice, oblivious to anything but Ewan. I wrench my mouth away, desperate for air.
Ewan looks up, towards the balcony where Xander headed. "Not here," he calls in my ear.
Arm around my waist, Ewan guides me back in the direction where I stood at the bar with the two guys earlier. Insanity follows me along a narrow hallway and into a small room towards the building's rear, containing a blue fabric sofa and a table strewn with empty glasses and fast food wrappers. I catch sight of a staff roster on the wall before my view's obliterated by Ewan as he seizes my face and kisses me again.
The heat between us, the intoxicating scent from his skin, and the strength in the shoulders I grip onto consume me, as the urgency continues. A dizziness matching earlier by the bar washes over me. My body fills with exhaustion, the new kiss pulling me towards unconsciousness. This contradiction makes no sense, but my body and brain shut down as I disconnect from reality. Legs buckling, I fall backwards onto the sofa. I fight to keep my eyes open as Ewan stands over me, lust filling his hooded eyes, but the dizzy dark consumes.
8
EWAN
I stand on the balcony overlooking the dance floor, snapping my head between watching people on the stairs and scouring the crowd for Vee.
"Where the hell is she?" I growl at Xander.
"Hey, don't get pissy with me. You were the one who lost her."
Lost her. "Fuck you."
"Whoa, calm down. She'll be fine."
"How do you know that? She said some guy came onto her. What if —"
"Come on, this place may be filled w
ith freaks, but the place is too busy for a girl to be dragged screaming through the club. Especially not her. Vee might not have control over her powers, but something that threatens her will trigger them."
I want to believe his words, but something doesn't feel right here. The way she looked at me before we headed away from the bar and over here blew me away. She seriously looked as if she were about to tear my clothes off. Our relationship hit awkward since the "big reveal" fuck up, and there's no way either of us are near to acting on the tension between us.
"I'm going to look for Vee. What if those we're trying to find have found her first?" I rub a palm across my mouth. "We’re not immune to every trick a demon can pull, especially any that influences our human side."
Xander's not listening. He grips my arm and points into the sea of sweaty black below.
"Do you see what I see?" he asks.
I peer through the dim. Lost in the crowd’s midst, two women surround a guy, one kissing him and the other behind, sliding her hands down the front of his jeans.
"Yeah. A guy getting very lucky," I reply.
"No, dumbass. They're holding him up. Look at his arms loose by his side."
I peer closer. He’s right. "Shit. Demons?"
"Yeah, succubi. I bet there's a gang of them around."
"But they're attacking him in front of everybody!"
Xander shakes his head and places his bottle on the nearby table. "Like that matters. Half the people dancing are practically screwing each other."
I rake a hand through my hair, momentarily forgetting about Vee as I know the man’s life’s in danger. "When did they arrive?"
"Unless we come face to face, it's hard to spot them."
"Should've brought Joss," I mutter.
"No. We both know he’s best suited to scouting out demons’ nests and we need to work separately to cover all angles."
"Yeah, and we need to stop them!" I jab a finger in the direction of the two girls. "Then we need serious words with Arlo about this."
"Maybe he doesn't know."
"Sure." I snort.
We take the steps two at a time as we charge down them. Two succubi sharing the same guy means there’s a real possibility they'll kill him. The demons must be young, because public attacks like this are a dumb idea. On top of that, sharing him increases the chance they'll drain the guy’s energy too quickly. He'll die in public. In the club.
Yeah, they’re either young or dumb, or both.
If the attack happened outside, this would be easier for us: a quick dispatch with a knife. But here, we'd draw attention however subtly we can kill following years of practice. I nod at Xander who approaches the girl kissing the guy and drags her backwards. Black hair falls down the succubus’s back as she tips her head to look at Xander, eyes lazy with pleasure, and touches his face.
Xander spins her around so her back's against his chest. She doesn't struggle, instead continuing to move to the music, arms behind her, running hands along Xander’s legs as she rubs herself against him.
One advantage we have is not all demons know what the Horsemen look like, or can detect who we are. Of course, those higher up their food chain, the ones attempting to interfere with our work, would spot us from across a room. They follow our moves, send lower caste demons after us, but these girls are different. Renegade. Young. Focused on their own lives while waiting for the day their demon superiors bring the world to its knees.
Have they any idea who we are?
The girl holding the guy drops her hold from around his waist and terror crosses her face. I guess that answers my question. I catch the guy as he slumps into my arms, his tall figure heavy with semi-consciousness.
"It’s the fucking Horsemen!" she yells at her friend. The succubus darts into the crowd leaving the other girl firmly in Xander's grip. With the guy in my arms I’m unable to follow.
Another girl dancing alongside us gives a curious look. I pull a face at her and smile in an attempt to communicate I'm helping a drunk friend. Simultaneously, the girl in Xander's arms stops dancing and attempts to pull away, digging nails into his grip on her waist.
We drag the demon and victim into a quieter corner before anybody else notices what’s happening. Ironically, we look like two guys assaulting a girl, and that can cause more problems than the one we’re about to fix. Fortunately, club security know who we are and never bother with us.
"Is he alive?" asks Xander above the music.
The man shifts against me and mumbles, answering Xander's question.
The girl whimpers as Xander takes hold of her shoulders and shakes. "How many of you are here?"
She gives up on her escape attempt, the high from her victim’s energy soothing the fear she should have. She waves a hand around. "Me, her, a couple of guys from our family."
"Incubi too? Are you fucking insane? Anybody who crosses into this place to feed risks death if we’re around," shouts Xander over the music.
"He invited us!" She indicates the guy now sitting on the floor. "He's a friend."
"A friend you're sucking the life out of?" I snap.
"Well, he thinks we're friends, since we happen to look like the two chicks he's spent months lusting after." Her beautiful face curves into a smile. "We didn't need to use magic to turn this one on."
Fear trickles down my spine like ice. They've glamoured themselves to look like people he knows? These scum often disguise themselves with magic, and use the same power to switch off everything in a victim's brain apart from sexual arousal. One touch and the victim's infected the way I'll happily infect this thing with my own brand of magic.
Fuck. What about the guys who groped Vee?
No, I'm being paranoid. Any guy could've touched Vee; she's an attractive girl and plenty would grab the opportunity to put their hands on her.
Surely Vee would notice if they were supernatural.
But would she? This incubus’s appearance is as human as the girl dancing nearby. We can't always detect demons, and we’ve had years of practice.
Shit.
I flashback to Vee rubbing her arm. Did they mark her and infuse magic into her body? The ice chills my blood further. I really fucking need to find her.
I drop the guy who slumps against the wall, head lolling to one side. "You sort this. I need to find Vee."
I don’t wait for Xander’s inevitable protest.
The paranoia intensifies as I plunge back into the dancing bodies, searching for any sign of Vee. I shove at those blocking my path, staring down any guys who take offence and challenge me. I know my way around this club, spent evening after evening involved in searches like this, but for demons not the girl who means the world to all of us. I kick open doors to rooms as I pass along the hallway leading to the rear of the building.
Nothing.
The last room I come to is locked. Not caring or waiting, I step back and slam my foot into the black door as hard as I can. The lock splinters and door flies open.
The scene greeting me triggers a rage I've never experienced before. The individual standing with his back to me a few feet away is about to experience my rage too, and it won't be pretty.
Vee's lying on the sofa unconscious, head hanging off the edge and hair falling towards the floor. A guy stands over her and he twists his head around at the noise caused by my kicking down the door. His brown eyes widen in surprise, but he’s not as fucking surprised as I am. I stare back at the man who matches my height, build, face.... my mirror image.
What the fuck?
The space around him shimmers, and the guy’s body and face change to reveal someone completely different. As he transforms, his messy brown curls switch for blond hair, and he becomes slimmer. A glamour. I was fucking right—this guy’s an incubus who’s preying on Vee.
I flick my eyes to Vee. Her clothes are intact, but what the hell would’ve happened if I hadn’t arrived?
"You fucking demon bastard!" I yell, and in seconds he's on the floor, beneath me w
ith my knees on his chest.
Tonight he can be the victim pinned down and killed.
"Get the fuck off me!" he snarls, but realisation who I am dawns across his face now we’re closer. "Shit."
"Oh yeah, shit." I pull back a fist and bone crunches as I smack him in the face. "Do you know who that is you're about to rape and kill?" I snarl.
"Rape? She's consenting and fucking desperate to screw you," he sneers.
My hand’s back, ready to strike again, but I pause at his words.
"You know how we operate, Horseman. You saw me. I glamoured myself. I lifted the image of a guy from her mind—one she wants to fuck." He pauses then silently mouths the word "you" before breaking into a grin.
No way. Blood smears his face and my knuckles as my fist collides with his broken face again. "She’s not fucking consenting to you!”
The man rubs his stained lips together. "With a bit of magic persuasion, they're always up for a good time. Man, you should give her a go. Amazing tits, shame I never got my hands on them."
I grab his shirt, lift him forward, and slam his head on the floor with a sickening thud. He blinks back at me and laughs. Pulling him close again, his face almost touches mine.
"If Vee thinks you're me, and you're not, that's assault. How far have you gone with her? If you’ve hurt Vee I will kill you so slowly and painfully you’ll wish you were in Hell," I spit out.
The demon chokes on the blood gathering in his mouth. "Not far enough, thanks to you. Just a kiss or two. She lost consciousness before we could get down to the good stuff."
A lot in my life pisses me off. I've witnessed some evil shit by demons before but never to somebody close to me. This? Livid doesn't even begin to describe the rage consuming each and every cell in my body.
I grip the incubus’s neck with both hands and he gasps. Veins in his neck blacken, and the blackness moves upwards and across his disfigured face. The disease and decay I infuse with my fingers continues its deadly journey through his body, and his eyes redden as the blood vessels burst.
"The girl you're assaulting? She's our Fifth. If she'd known who you were you'd be fucking dead already."
