Forbidden Craving

by Gena Showalter

  “This mortal shell conceals my true nature. Because you and Adrian are the last of your lines, you see beneath it, but the rest of humanity does not.”

  I shrugged as though my already-careening world hadn’t been turned upside down within the past several hours.

  “Or I’m hallucinating again. I missed taking a couple doses of my meds—”

  “Makes no difference, they’re placebos,” Zach informed me.

  I stared at him, my lips parted, but my brain processing too many thoughts to speak.

  “That’s why your adoptive parents always filled your prescriptions for you,” Zach went on, as if each word wasn’t blasting apart what was left of my life. “Your psychologist provided the placebos as part of your therapy, but there is nothing medically wrong with you. Your adoptive parents were going to tell you the truth when you turned twenty-one—”

  “Liar,” I whispered.

  A thick brow arched. “Demons lie. My kind does not. If you require proof, take one of your pills to a pharmacist for analysis.”

  My knees wobbled, but I didn’t sit down. If I did, I might not be able to get back up. Zach might be a mind reader, but he couldn’t have known that my parents always filled my prescriptions because I hadn’t been thinking of that. He also couldn’t know something that I didn’t—if the pills were really placebos instead of actual meds.

  Adrian was right. Despite everything I’d seen, I still hadn’t accepted that it could actually be real. Now Zach was destroying my denial one revelation at a time.

  “Your real mother didn’t leave you because she was running from the police,” Zach went on pitilessly. “She did it to save you, just as your dream revealed—”

  “Stop!” I shouted, my breath now coming in pants. No one knew about that dream. I hadn’t told my parents, Jasmine or the countless therapists I’d been to. How could Zach know, unless he was exactly who—what—he claimed to be?

  “Enough.”

  Adrian’s voice cracked through the chapel, startling me. I hadn’t seen him come back in. I turned toward him, glad for anything that kept me from hearing revelations that were too incredible to be real.

  “Don’t mind Zach,” Adrian said, an edge coloring his tone. “Archons have no tact when it comes to delivering big news.”

  Zach shrugged. “She asked for the truth. I gave it to her.”

  Adrian came nearer, his gaze glittering with anger. “Yeah, well, you want me to play this fate thing through? Then from now on, I tell Ivy what’s what, not you.”

  My mind still felt like it had been thrown into a blender, but at that, I stiffened.

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here.”

  Adrian turned that darkly jeweled gaze my way. “Believe me, Ivy, I know you’re here.”

  The flat way he spoke somehow gave his words more weight, but this time, Adrian no longer looked at me with horror. Instead, he stared at me like I was the most dangerous person he’d ever met, which, all things considered, was ridiculous.

  “You want to save your sister?” he asked evenly. “You’ll need something strong enough to kill demons.”

  This was too much, too fast. “Like holy water? Or crosses?” I asked numbly.

  His look became pointed. “Those are for vampires, and they don’t exist. To take down demons, you need one of three weapons, and the second and third ones will probably kill you.”

  “Okay, so we skip those,” I muttered, part of me wondering if I was really having a conversation about how to kill demons. Placebos or not, right now, I missed my meds.

  “Right,” Adrian said, a glint appearing in his eyes. “Problem is, the first weapon is lost somewhere in one of the demon realms.”

  “Of course it is. Shopping for it on eBay would be too easy.”

  His lips curled, as if he knew my glibness masked a rising sense of disbelief. “You’ve already seen one demon realm. They appear as creepy, dark duplicates of the same place, just like that bed-and-breakfast you described.”

  If that was true, I’d seen others over the years, but they all had the same problem.

  “How do we enter one long enough to save Jasmine? After a few seconds, they seem to disappear.”

  At that, Adrian shot Zach a frustrated look. “If her abilities are so weak that she only sees the other realms for a few seconds, she’s nowhere near ready to do this.”

  I’d be offended if I didn’t agree. My athletic skills were limited to occasionally dancing all night, as if that was any advantage in a demon fight. Still, ready or not, I didn’t have a choice. Jasmine had no one else to come for her.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” I said firmly.

  The hardness in Adrian’s stare made me wonder if I’d regret those words. Then he smiled, wolfish and challenging.

  “All right, Ivy. To answer your question, you get into a demon realm the same way you get in anywhere. Through a door.”

  * * *

  I WANTED TO start looking for the demon-killing weapon at once, but Zach insisted that we sleep. Due to my exhaustion, I didn’t argue until Adrian showed me my “bed.” Being in an underground mausoleum was bad enough, but sleeping in one of the tiny rooms that contained a body?

  “Hell no,” I said.

  Adrian rolled his eyes. “What’s dead can’t hurt you. Living demons can, and they can go anywhere except hallowed ground.”

  “Then I’ll sleep in the church” was my instant response.

  “Tourists visit the church,” he replied inexorably. “They don’t visit the catacombs, so we’re sleeping here.”

  As he spoke, he gestured to another crypt that also had a sleeping bag in it. I looked back at my crypt. A small spider descended from the ceiling and landed right on my sleeping bag.

  “I’ll just sit in the hallway,” I said grimly.

  Adrian sighed. “Zach?”

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around, Zach was behind me. Before I could say anything, he touched my forehead, and like a switch had been flipped, everything went dark.

  When I opened my eyes, I was in Adrian’s car, my head resting against the cool glass of the passenger window. Lights blurred by, and with mild shock, I saw that it was evening.

  “Wh-what happened?” I mumbled, sitting up.

  Adrian didn’t look away from the road, but his mouth twitched. “Zach compelled you to sleep.”

  Memory returned with a vengeance. “In a spider-infested crypt?” I began slapping at my clothes. If I saw anything with eight legs, I was launching myself out of this car.

  A stronger twitch of his mouth. “Nothing beats an Archon sedative.”

  “You think this is funny?” I unlocked my seat belt, took off his coat, and threw it into the backseat. With luck, now I wouldn’t have things crawling all over me.

  That earned me a slanted look. “You want to fight demons, and you’re freaking out over spiders. That’s damn funny.”

  Put like that, he had a point. “Speaking of, uh, them—” would I ever say demons without feeling like I should be in a straitjacket? “—why do we need this special weapon to save my sister? You killed Detective Kroger just fine without it.”

  “Kroger wasn’t a demon, he was a minion. Demons can’t tolerate our realm for long, so they take willing humans, mark them, and send them out to do their dirty work. They have their own signature marks, too. The shadows you saw on Kroger meant he belonged to Demetrius. Marks make minions a lot tougher than humans, but compared to their masters, they’re easy to kill.”

  I hardly knew where to begin with my questions. “Our realm? You mean...this?” I asked, waving at the scenery we drove past.

  “Yeah, this,” he said, the words heavy with emotion. Regret? Resolve? I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

 
“And we can see demon marks and demon realms because we’re the last of King David’s line,” I said, trying to piece the impossible facts together.

  Adrian stiffened, his mouth tightening until white edged his lips. “You are. I’m not.”

  That’s right, Zach had said he was the last of another line. “What are you, then?” I asked softly.

  The look Adrian pinned me with seemed to compress me, until every breath I drew felt like a hard-fought victory.

  “I’m something else,” he bit out.

  I was glad when he glanced back at the road. My heart was thumping as if I’d been jogging. Whatever Adrian was, he didn’t like it, and if a man who wasn’t afraid of demons didn’t like what he was, then I should be scared shitless of him.

  So why did I have a strong urge to smooth away the hardness in his expression? I swear, my reactions to him made no sense. I never went for the tortured bad boy because I had enough issues of my own. On top of that, Adrian had made it clear that, given his choice, he’d be nowhere near me. Whatever strange pull I felt toward him, I had to get rid of it. Fast.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked in a neutral tone.

  “Gold Hill, Oregon,” he replied, his voice equally emotionless.

  All the way across the country? “What’s in Oregon that makes it so special?”

  His grunt sounded grimly amused. “A door to multiple demon realms.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I LEARNED A few things over the next twenty hours. Not about demons or the mysterious weapon—Adrian refused to talk about those—but about him. Like, for example, his pathological hatred of mirrors.

  Every time we stopped to refuel, Adrian would smash the mirror in the ladies’ room before he let me inside to pee. I was convinced he’d be arrested, but I soon found out another fact: no one but me could see what Adrian really looked like.

  “He’s five-eight, skinny, with black hair,” the gas station attendant snapped into his phone, his Spanish accent thickening as he yelled, “Pendajo!” at Adrian for destroying his bathroom mirror. “And he’s driving...a mi Dios!”

  That last part was screamed when Adrian moved with his incredible speed, yanking away the shotgun the attendant had pulled out. Then he broke it over his knee and handed the two pieces back with a growled, “Have a nice day.”

  “Diablo,” the attendant moaned, sinking behind his counter.

  I didn’t think Adrian was a devil, but I still didn’t know what he was. The fastest way to get the silent treatment from him was to ask again what “line” he was from. He did explain that Archon glamour masked his appearance, so he wouldn’t be recognized by minions. Now I knew why Detective Kroger’s first punch had hit Adrian in the shoulder. He thought he’d been striking a much shorter opponent. That was also why Adrian had demanded that I describe him soon after we met.

  “You could see through demon glamour,” he’d explained, throwing me one of those hooded looks. “Minions can do that, too, but only humans from one of our lines can see through Archon glamour, so I needed to find out what you were.”

  “What if I’d failed to describe you accurately?” I’d asked.

  A shrug. “Then you’d have been a minion, and I’d have killed you.”

  Between that admission, the compulsive mirror smashing and his impenetrable secretiveness, I was well on my way to getting over my attraction. Adrian wasn’t just damaged goods, he was deranged goods, and coming from someone with a history of psychosis, that was saying something. By the time we pulled into a motel at the halfway point of Kearney, Nebraska, I would’ve been happy never to see him again.

  I called shotgun on the bathroom as soon as we entered the hotel room. Adrian obliged after smashing the mirror—he had to have ten thousand years of bad luck by now—then finally, I was able to take a shower. Thank God the motel had complimentary bottles of shampoo and conditioner because I wasn’t about to ask Adrian for any. For all I knew, the bulky duffel bag he’d brought in was filled with severed minion heads.

  After I showered, I washed my clothes, making a mental note to insist that we shop before hitting the road tomorrow. With everything I owned now hanging to dry, I donned Adrian’s coat over my towel before leaving the bathroom.

  He stood in front of the motel door, flicking something from a glass vial onto it. He did the same with the window, all while muttering in that strange, harshly lyrical language.

  He probably wouldn’t tell me, but I asked anyway. “What are you doing?”

  “Setting supernatural locks,” he replied, with a jaded glance at me. “This motel isn’t on hallowed ground, so we have to demon-proof this room. I don’t think we were followed, but I’d rather you weren’t murdered in your sleep.”

  I swallowed. I’d rather that not happen, too. “So, that stuff you’re sprinkling around is like demon-mace?”

  His mouth twitched, making me wonder if he fought back a smile. “Close. Know how a priest blesses water and then it’s considered holy? This is the Archon version of blessed oil, which briefly renders any place it touches as hallowed.”

  “How brief is ‘briefly’?” I wondered.

  A shrug. “Long enough for us to sleep.”

  “If it hallows out any place, then why did we spend last night in a spider-infested crypt?” I asked at once.

  Now I was sure he was fighting back a smile. “You looked like you slept there just fine to me.” At my instant glower, he added, “I can only get this stuff from Zach, and he’s stingy with handing it out. This is the last I’ve got, so after tonight, we’ll need to sleep on real hallowed ground until he decides to show up and give me more.”

  A stingy angel. Now I’d heard of everything. Guess I’d better enjoy the real bed tonight. Who knew what I’d be cuddling up next to tomorrow. Speaking of that, I needed to handle some things before I went off the grid any longer.

  “You have a phone I can use? I need to call my roommate, Delia. Tell her I’ll be gone for...a while.”

  Adrian’s expression changed from suppressed amusement to stern refusal. “Not a chance. No calls, texts or emails.”

  Who did he think he was, my new father? “Let me rephrase—I’m calling my roommate, either with your phone or with someone else’s.”

  I couldn’t just disappear on Delia. I, of all people, knew how awful it was to wonder if someone you cared about was alive or dead, and she wasn’t just my roommate. After Jasmine, Delia was my best friend.

  “You call her or anyone else you know, you’re making them a target,” Adrian replied coolly. “Not many people escape a demonic kidnapping attempt. The ones that do are usually helped by me, so that makes the demons extra mad. By now, minions have combed through every aspect of your life, and they’re waiting for you to connect to someone so they can use that person against you.”

  Nothing changed in the room, but it suddenly felt smaller, as if the walls were edging toward each other.

  “What’s the point? They already have my sister,” I said, anger and despair sharpening my tone.

  Adrian leveled that gemstone stare at me. “Right, so don’t give them anyone else.”

  I sat down on what I guessed was my bed, since Adrian’s duffel bag was on the other. The zipper was open, revealing nothing more sinister than clothes and toiletries. And here I’d been so sure about the severed minion heads. I did give the toothbrush a longing look. This motel didn’t have those as freebies, and my breath could probably slay a dragon.

  “Help yourself,” Adrian stated, nodding at the bag. “Zach packed supplies for both of us.”

  He didn’t need to tell me twice. I went to his bed and began to rummage through the bag. Thanks to his large build, it wasn’t hard to distinguish what was meant for Adrian and what was intended for me. The only surprise was that Zach had guessed my size, even on the intimate ite
ms.

  “What kind of angel notices cup size?” I muttered under my breath as I added a bra to my pile.

  Adrian’s bark of laughter let me know that I’d said it too loud. “Zach is nothing if not detail-oriented.”

  “You sound like you’ve known him a long time,” I observed.

  His face closed off in a now familiar way. I could let it go, like I had most of the drive here, but I was getting tired of his frequent bouts of silent treatment.

  “I get that you don’t want to be here and you really don’t want to talk about whatever it is that you are, but if we’re going to be fighting demons together, I should at least know more about you.”

  Adrian walked toward me, a hard little smile twisting his features. Then he bent down until his face was level with mine. His eyes looked even more vivid in the overhead light, and he was so close, I could see that his lashes were dark brown instead of black.

  “Here’s the most important thing you need to know. I hate demons more than you do, so you can trust that I’ll help you kill them. But, Ivy—” harsh laughter brushed my skin in its own caress “—whatever you do, don’t trust me with anything else.”

  The last time we’d been this close, he’d had me pinned to his car. He wasn’t touching me now, but somehow, his gaze made the moment equally intense. The scary part was, I liked it. Without thinking, I moistened my lips.

  His gaze dropped there, and I sucked in a breath at the hunger that flashed across his face. So finding out about my supposed lineage hadn’t killed his attraction to me! With that knowledge, things lower down began to tighten. Adrian was maddening, confusing, dangerous...and what would I do if he tried to kiss me?

  Suddenly, I saw a blur of motion and then he was gone, the door vibrating from his exit.

  * * *

  I AWOKE TO the wonderful smell of hot, greasy food, and the even more tantalizing aroma of coffee. When I opened my eyes, a bag of McDonald’s was on my nightstand. I hadn’t heard Adrian leave to get it, but then again, I hadn’t heard him come back last night, either. He must have since his bed was mussed, and from the sounds of it, he was now in the shower.