Fury Unleashed

by N. J. Walters

  The way he was toying with her was a blow to her confidence. She was a good hunter, better than good. Fast and efficient, she always got the job done.

  Until now.

  But she was used to dealing with low-level demons, had never fought anyone of his caliber.

  “The purpose is for me to gauge how good you are in a fight, to assess your strengths and weaknesses before we go out together.” He curled his fingers again in a come-ahead motion.

  Going low, she dropped to the ground and rolled by him, trying to cut his hamstrings. It was a quick and easy way to incapacitate a demon long enough for her slap the cuffs on.

  Maccus simply stepped out of the way as though she was moving in slow motion rather than faster than most humans could even see. She sprang back to her feet.

  Time to rethink her strategy.

  “Why don’t we forget sparring?” She purposely lowered the blade down by her side. “I can think of better things to do.” His nostrils flared, and his gaze fell to her chest. She put her hands on her hips, pulling the material tighter.

  Was it cheating? Absolutely. Did she care? Not one bit.

  Her philosophy was simple—whatever it took to win. If that meant using deception to close the distance between her and an opponent, so be it.

  Any male could be distracted by a pair of breasts and the possibility of sex. It didn’t matter the species.

  “Can you now?”

  At the rough sound of his voice, her nipples tightened. She flexed her fingers around the knife handle to ground herself.

  You’re seducing him.

  The reminder kept her focused, but it wasn’t easy. He moved with lethal grace for such a large man. He prowled closer and stopped to sniff the air. His slow smile had her core pulsing.

  “I can.” She ran her free hand down the front of her shirt, making sure she cupped her breast as she did.

  “You’re aroused.”

  No point in denying it. “So are you,” she pointed out. His erection was prominently outlined in the front of his leather pants.

  He was almost there. Just a little bit more, she silently urged.

  This was it. Could she do it?

  She leaped forward. A battle cry tore from her lips. His hand snapped out, grabbing hers before it even got close to his heart.

  It was her empty one, not the one holding the dagger.

  The lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly. He didn’t smile, but she sensed he was pleased with her.

  “Sneaky, I like that.” He plucked the blade from her other hand and flung it aside. It sped through the air and landed square in the center of one of the symbols he’d painted on the wall. It was no fluke. Not luck, either. And he hadn’t even looked.

  She shrugged. “A girl has to try.”

  “If you’d really tried, you’d be dead.” His blunt reminder sent a shiver down her spine.

  “I’m not stupid.” If there was a way out of this mess, it was through him.

  He ran the tip of his finger down the side of her face, the callused tip a rough caress. “No,” he agreed. “You’re not. It was your sense of loyalty that got you into this mess, not your intelligence.”

  She slapped his hand aside. “I’m still not convinced about Kayley.” To believe her sister, whom she’d loved more than anyone else in the world, had set her up was too deep a betrayal to bear.

  He shrugged. “It’s up to you what you choose to believe. Have you ever bothered to find her, to see what she’s doing, how she’s living?”

  “No.” It had been too painful even to contemplate once she’d finally been sent back to the world to hunt demons. She’d stayed away to keep from drawing the devil’s attention to her sister. But that was only the partial truth. Resentment had eaten at her. She loved her sister, but Kayley got to live free while she was the one who’d paid the price.

  “Do you even know where she is?” He traced his thumb over her bottom lip, making her entire body clench.

  She swallowed heavily and shook her head. “I figured it was better that I didn’t.” For both their sakes.

  “Let’s find out.” Sliding his hand down her arm, he locked his hand around her wrist and led her back to his office.

  “Now. You want to do this now?” She dug in her heels, but her boots simply dragged on the hardwood until she gave up trying.

  “No time like the present. Waiting won’t change anything.”

  “Not for you,” she muttered.

  Excitement and dread warred within her. Seeing Kayley safe and happy would make her sacrifice worth it. But what if he was right? What if she had betrayed her? That could destroy her.

  She grabbed the doorframe to the room, her fingers digging into the frame. Maccus released her and raised a single eyebrow. “I never took you for a coward.”

  “You bastard.” Her pulse pounded in her ears. If she clenched her jaw any tighter, she was in danger of cracking her teeth.

  The words rolled off his extremely broad shoulders like a gentle summer shower off a windowpane, with about as much impact. He strode around the desk and took his seat.

  She forced herself to release her death grip on the door. Swallowing her anger, she took a steadying breath.

  God, they were really doing this. Her stomach churned.

  “That trick with the knife. How did you do it?”

  “What trick?” His fingers were flying over the keyboard. In spite of her trepidation, she was drawn toward him. Her feet shuffled across the carpet to his desk without her permission.

  “Making the weapon poof out of nowhere,” she reminded him. “It’s the tattoos, right? They’re more than just ink.”

  Ignoring her question—he was good at that—he turned the laptop so it faced her. “Here she is.” Kayley’s picture filled the screen.

  Heart pounding, Morrigan reached out but curled her fingers inward before she made contact. Her nails dug into her damp palms. Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, she stared.

  Kayley was no longer a smiling teenager with auburn hair and blue eyes. Morrigan’s picture of her was frozen in time, a decade old.

  Tears filled Morrigan’s eyes, but she blinked them back, refusing to let them fall. In her dreams, she sometimes heard Kayley’s heartbreaking pleas for forgiveness as Lucifer dragged Morrigan away.

  Hesitantly, she touched her fingers to the screen. Kayley was smiling in the picture. Her hair was no longer auburn, but fiery red, obviously dyed. It was pulled back in the photo, showing off the multiple piercings in her ears and her stunning facial structure. The baby fat had disappeared. She’d always been beautiful. Now she was stunning.

  Tattoos ran down her neck, disappearing into a tight V-neck shirt. There was a slyness, a calculation in her green gaze that hadn’t been there before. Maybe Morrigan just hadn’t seen it. Or maybe she was allowing Maccus to influence her.

  He turned the laptop and went back to typing. Morrigan walked around the desk, hungry to know more. Now that the connection had been made, she couldn’t help herself.

  “She’s in New York,” he told her. “Coincidence?”

  A wave of exhaustion hit her. So many opposing emotions swept through her, making her lightheaded—hope and fear clashed with happiness and crushing sadness. Anger battled with joy.

  She was so tired of it all—the fighting, the worrying, the soul-sucking loneliness. The hard truth was she would never be free of the contract she’d signed, would die before she could complete it.

  There was no going back. No regaining the life she’d once had, the innocence she’d lost.

  “There’s no such thing.” She was older and wiser now. There were always other forces at work, manipulating the world for their own ends and entertainment.

  “Why is she in the city?” She had no idea what her sister did f
or a living, how she supported herself, what interested her.

  “She has a showing at a local gallery.”

  A sense of pride filled her along with a sense of rightness. Kayley had followed her dream. “She did it. She became an artist. Do they show any of her work?”

  When the new page popped up, she leaned forward in anticipation.

  “This can’t be right.” The paintings on the screen were dark, filled with demons and darkness, torture and pain. What was even more disturbing was her sense that the artist was drawn to it, seeking it, inviting it. “Her work is bright and hopeful, filled with color and light.”

  “The work she showed you was filled with light, but you didn’t really know her, did you? Only the image she projected.”

  Fury bubbled up from the depths of her soul. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep it contained, fearing if she released it, she’d explode and never be able to reassemble the pieces of herself.

  The urge to hit something or someone welled up inside her. Anything to release the pressure building in her chest. But the only outlet was Maccus, and picking a fight with him wouldn’t help.

  Was he right?

  The evidence was in front of her eyes.

  “Maybe Lucifer is influencing her.” Easy enough for him to do, but why would he bother? The agreement stated he’d leave Kayley alone. But there were always ways for the devil to push his agenda.

  “Maybe.” He didn’t agree with her, but she didn’t care. He didn’t know Kayley, didn’t understand the bond between them. If her sister was in trouble, and it seemed she was, Morrigan would do her best to save her again. That’s what family did.

  She pushed him aside and went through several pages on the website, all filled with past work from her sister.

  “Maybe this is Lucifer’s way of having something to hold over me,” she murmured under her breath. How better to get her to attempt to kill Maccus than to threaten her sister.

  Kayley might be in danger right this second because of the way she’d defied him earlier.

  “I want to go. To the gallery showing.” She had to view the art for herself in person, see her sister with her own two eyes.

  “Starts at six. We have time to kill between now and then.” He lowered the lid of the laptop and then hooked his palm behind her neck, drawing her closer.

  “Tell me about the tattoos.” She wanted some show of trust from him, needed some kind of connection beyond the sexual attraction that simmered between them, ready to boil over at a moment’s notice.

  “Is that your price?”

  Even expecting them, his words were a blow to what was left of her heart. The ache in her chest almost swallowed her whole.

  “No matter what I was ordered to do, I’m no whore. I had sex with you because I wanted you.” It was important that he understood that.

  He released her and dragged his fingers through his hair. His jaw tightened, and a muscle beneath his eye twitched. “I figured out how to do it when I was in Hell. Weapons were in short supply, and I couldn’t afford to lose what I had.” He held his hand up, and a five-pointed star appeared. He whipped his hand toward the wall, embedding the blade deep.

  The fact he told her eased some of the overwhelming pain inside her.

  “There was also the problem of getting them back once I was done,” he continued. She didn’t see him make any kind of motion, but the star was back in his hand. He caressed one of the edges before it disappeared.

  “It’s amazing what you can learn when you have to.” The shadows from the corners of the room reached out to him, blocking the light filtering in through the windows. “But you’d understand that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” she agreed. She was all too familiar with what it was like to be thrust into the unknown. Had he been scared when he’d fallen from Heaven? As an angel, he would have had skills she couldn’t even dream of. “So you didn’t have that ability before? The fall, I mean?” She was pushing her luck but couldn’t stop herself. He fascinated her as a man and a warrior.

  The shadows grew deeper, and the room temperature plummeted. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, but it didn’t help. The frigid air sought her out, sliding beneath her clothes to her bare skin.

  He came toward her, bringing the darkness with him, and cupped her face between his big hands. The heat she associated with him was no longer there. This was the creature that had fought his way out of Hell.

  “I had a flaming sword. All angels do.” He rubbed his thumbs over her cheekbones. His touch almost burned, not with heat but with ice. “It disappeared when I entered Hell. But I used what I learned and adapted.”

  All the light in the room was sucked into the dark vortex surrounding him. She would have been terrified if she’d been alone. Being with him gave her a false sense of courage.

  Demons, she could fight. Lucifer, she could resist. But this man touched the very core of her, luring her into his darkness.

  “Maccus?” She had no idea what she was asking. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The air in the room stirred. He cursed and lowered his head. When their lips met, the icy coating on them melted in a surge of warmth.

  Sensing the worst of the storm had passed, she leaned into him but kept her hands by her sides, not willing to risk riling the darkness again.

  His tongue slid over hers, pushing passion in its wake. Her life was precarious at best, but this… This was worth fighting for. Maybe it was nothing more than sex to him, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t truly believe that. He’d given her a piece of himself that he hadn’t had to give.

  Did he sense the odd connection between them as she did, the power of it expanding with each kiss?

  She buried her fingers in his hair, unable to stop kissing him. The ice was too reminiscent of her time in Hell. She’d do anything to push those memories aside and keep them at bay.

  He trailed hot kisses along her jaw and down her neck. She had no idea when he’d lifted her, but she was in his arms and he was carrying her down the hall to his bedroom. It was here that they left the fallen angel and bounty hunter outside the door and became nothing more than a male and a female.

  They quickly divested each other of their clothes. When they were both naked, he rolled her beneath him, but she wasn’t having it. Not this time.

  She gave his shoulders a hard shove. Whether she’d surprised him or whether he allowed her, she didn’t care, but he went over onto his back with her straddling him.

  He was such a massive man. Powerful, too. There was something about Maccus that drew her. He was like a wild animal abused for so long that he mistrusted the hand of kindness. He was primal and untamed, intelligent and calculating. Physically, he was unmatched.

  But in the darkest depths of his eyes, she saw something more—a yearning for some kind of connection.

  Or maybe it was only she who wished for such a thing.

  No matter. Events would unfold quickly once they left his apartment again. There would be no more time for them to share an intimate moment, which was why she was going to take advantage of every single second, store up the memories, and hold them in her heart.

  He squeezed her hips with his large, powerful hands. “What are you going to do?” The deep rumble of his voice sank into her pores, bringing with it a sexual heat that warmed her entire being.

  She stared right into his dark eyes. “I’m going to love you.”

  Chapter Ten

  His heart skipped a beat. She meant making love instead of calling it what it was—sex. It was nothing more than a turn of phrase.

  And why would he even care? He didn’t want her love. That particular emotion was nothing more than a shackle used to bind.

  Look what it had done to Morrigan. Her love for her sister had led her to her current predicament.

  He’d watched her expressions carefull
y while they’d talked. She’d already convinced herself that Kayley was innocent, under the influence of Lucifer.

  Her loyalty had been bought and paid for in blood. Morrigan would turn on him if it meant saving her sister.

  He’d do well to remember that.

  Still, he was drawn to her, like the proverbial moth to a flame. She was a formidable bounty hunter for Hell but had somehow managed to keep her heart pure.

  His life was forged from the pain and hardships he’d endured. There was no place for weakness. He couldn’t save Morrigan.

  At that moment, he hated himself. He was familiar with the dark emotions—disappointment, frustration, anger, disillusionment. It was the positive ones such as kindness, hope, and love that eluded him. Once, he’d understood duty, obligation, and responsibility.

  Now he answered only to himself.

  And right now, he wanted Morrigan.

  Her fingers lightly kneaded his chest, stroking over the weapons inked there. The muscles in his chest rippled beneath her touch. Her hum of pleasure had his balls pulling up tight and his cock throbbing.

  He’d had women in his long life—angels, demons, and other paranormal creatures. None of them came close to Morrigan. Those encounters had been nothing more than fulfilling basic sexual needs for both sides.

  He wanted so much more from Morrigan.

  His fingers flexed around her hips when she started to scoot back. “Stay.”

  She brushed her lips over his. Her mouth was warm and inviting. He delved inside, stroking her tongue. She tasted warm and sweet. It amazed him that she never held anything back, giving him her honest passion.

  Her pussy was hot and damp when he dragged her over his shaft. “You’re wet for me.”

  In answer, she ground herself against him, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she pleasured them both.

  “Fuck, yes.” She was a goddess, her body long and lean, muscles rippling in her arms and legs as she moved over him. Her breasts were firm and full and tipped with tight pink nipples. Myriad scars, faded to a faint white, covered her entire body. They were an abomination, a reminder of her time in Hell, but also a testament to her strength.