Claimed by the Demon Hunter

by Harley James

  She blinked unseeing at the door before turning to face him. “How do you know Latin? And why such…biblical stuff?” She’d seen the crucifix in his study at home, plus the one in his office upstairs, but he didn’t seem overly religious per se. Not even when they’d glossed over the topic of death. As usual with any question that specifically probed about his life, he’d redirected it. This time, however, he didn’t have a teasing smile to go along with his avoidance. “Go on in, Jessie. I know you’ve been waiting.”

  The room was surprisingly large. He must have gutted the entire basement, his contractor adding extra beams somewhere in place of all the walls he must have taken down. What resulted had an Old World flair with recessed partitions in the brick walls. The north side housed oodles of somber books, while the south wall held deep shelving lined with beautifully carved wooden boxes. The furniture in the room had a unique patina that couldn’t be replicated by modern distressing. It was comfortable with a deep sense of age, especially the long, ornately carved table with thick, clawed feet that would probably go for a fortune on auction at Christie’s.

  The east wall, the side from which they’d entered, comprised ultra modern kitchen appliances and an industrial sized refrigerator. The man certainly loved his food. She’d known that since their first night together. Yet the most arresting feature of what could easily be classified as an underground bunker was its enormous fireplace. It was the largest and most extravagant one she’d ever seen, comprising the entire west wall of the room. The ivory granite mantle rose flush with the ceiling, and the width and depth of the fireplace would easily accommodate a bison. Maybe two. And carved upon it, a Bible passage that warned of evil:

  You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 1 Corinthians 10:21

  She chewed on her lip. He was clearly more religious than she’d thought, and they’d had their fair share of moral discussions. Gramma Tilly would be content on that count should there be something more that developed from this unusual agreement between them. Yet so far, he’d said nothing of the future.

  Nothing of the early hours of dawn when she would pack up her things and Scourge and go home.

  Her heart panged, but she pushed her morose thoughts to the darker recesses of her mind as she refocused on her surroundings.

  Overall, the space was appealing and decidedly not a Satanic repository. Its golden light cast a warm glow on the bricks that hugged the old leather-bound tomes on the shelves. She felt cocooned here. And safe. Though that was weird because she generally didn’t like basements, much less a room that didn’t have windows. How did this room pass modern code inspections? How would you escape if there was a fire? She turned to find Nate watching her reaction, his face carefully blank.

  “Not what you were expecting?” he asked.

  “No.” She hadn’t anticipated finding Satanic paraphernalia like Mason suggested, but she hadn’t expected this either. “Why that Bible passage? Why any?”

  “There are only a few absolutes in life. The passage is a necessary reminder for me. I committed many sins in my life.” His voice was low, like he was confessing to a priest. He seemed on the verge of baring something important.

  “Why is this room off limits to everyone?”

  “Because it’s Mirage’s heartbeat.”

  She blinked at him, not understanding. She broke eye contact to re-survey the well-loved furniture, the wide hearth, the wood boxes, the books. She ached to understand him. He was an oceans-deep sort of man. Often wild and mesmerizing on the surface, but complex and surprisingly tranquil underneath it all. He made love like it might be his last, every single time.

  But there was more than sex between them.

  He would settle her on the plush rug in front of his bedroom fireplace to talk. Business, politics, hobbies…it didn’t matter. How could any man his age have acquired such a vast understanding of world government and policy? He spoke about historical events and past human plights as though he’d been there.

  She walked to the hearth and raised her hand to the mantle expecting the stone to be cool since the fire pit was clean of ash residue. Yet, it was almost too hot to touch as she ran her fingers across the biblical inscription. “You had a fire in here recently.” His chin tipped downward in assent before she continued. “Where are the ashes?”

  He glanced at the fireplace, then at the wall of books. “I always deal with them immediately. The ventilation isn’t exceptional here.”

  She nodded, though it didn’t answer her question. She smiled when she opened the refrigerator and a few cabinets and found them as plentifully stocked as the ones at home.

  Not home, his home.

  Her smile faltered, but only for a moment. “It’s lovely. The whole room. Thank you for sharing it with me.” He stood unmoving by the door. She ran a hand across the plush velvet of one of the chairs. “Were these items from your childhood?”

  “No. My family—if you could call them that—had nothing. Most of the time, not even a roof over our heads.”

  Her fingers curled into the chair back. “How did you get where you are from nothing?”

  “We don’t need to talk about this,” he scoffed.

  “You’re putting me off again.”

  “Words, once released, can never be recalled or forgotten.” His voice was subdued.

  “You know I get that.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  His features were outwardly composed, but she sensed the coiled rigidity of his body. He always got this way before he was certain she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Her breathing slowed as determination bloomed in her gut. “I’ve seen you work. I notice how you keep your home, how you expect perfection in every aspect of your life. We’ve lived together for a week, yet I still have no idea who you are or where you come from. Why is that?”

  They stood there for the longest time. She was not giving him a bye on this conversation. If he walked away, that would help define the edges of this thing between them that—for her—had developed into something much more layered than she’d expected.

  His shifting body language was very affecting. She could almost hear him thinking, working out how he wanted to handle this. Handle her. His hand worried his hair, his cheeks ruddy under day-old stubble. She wanted to ease his discomfort, but this had to be his move.

  Finally, his breath rushed out in a harsh sound. “Have you ever known truly numbing cold? The kind that keeps you awake at night, shivering—your fingers, toes, and lips blue? Your teeth clattering together so hard they chip and splinter?” He circled her, his hot breath raising goose bumps on her skin. “What about hunger? Not the rumbly stomach kind of thing, but a gnawing, painful sense of urgency that makes you wonder how a rodent might taste? Anything at all to fill the void. The first week is always the worst. After that, it grows easier when the raw, aching hunger dulls into apathy because your mind is so foggy from lack of sustenance that you don’t even care anymore.”

  Dear God. “There are programs to help families in desperate situations like that.”

  He smiled without humor. “People fall through the cracks even in the most industrialized nations of the world.”

  “But your parents—”

  “The chav who claimed to be my father whored out my mother to pay for his love of horse betting. My mother made us beg for food on the streets. If we managed to pickpocket at the same time, we actually got to eat a portion of what we brought back. Early on, I learned to eat my share in the gutter before returning home.”

  She shook her head. How do you even respond to something like that?

  His eyebrows drew down. “Don’t waste your pity on me, Jessie. I lost my innocence and crushed my virtue long ago. I am not proud of many things I’ve done, but neither do I regret them. Regret is a waste of energy.”

  That last comment was meant for her. She grasped his arm when he turned toward the door. “Didn�
��t your teachers notice? Where was social services?”

  “I didn’t go to school.”

  “That’s illegal!”

  “Not where I came from. People were too busy trying to survive.”

  She could feel a surge of energy wind tightly, charging up her muscles with the need to move. The need to act. Avenge.

  The need to wrap her arms around the lonely, exploited child he’d been.

  She sucked in a breath to calm herself. “Where did you get your education?”

  “Books, though I was illiterate until—” He broke off, staring at the fireplace.

  “Until?”

  His gaze hardened though his smile didn’t fade. “I blackmailed a history professor’s wife not only to teach me to read, but also to grant me access to her husband’s vast library. She complied so her esteemed husband didn’t learn of our affair. I was a scheming lad of fifteen who’d long since graduated magnum cum laude from the University of Life.”

  “That’s statutory rape!”

  “I was using her far more than she used me.” He paused, and she felt his hot stare on her breasts. Did he hear her heartbeat? Her eyes burned and blurred. Her skin hurt.

  She. Hurt. For a boy alone, scared, cold. Unnourished in body, mind, and spirit.

  With no one to love him.

  Her gasp plucked the bubble. “Goddamn them all for their abuse!” Her vision blessedly cleared when the hot tears spilled.

  “Jessie, no.” He pulled her to him, his large hand cradling her head to his chest where his heart pounded as wildly as her own. “Please don’t cry.” Her arms worked around his trunk, her hands sliding underneath his shirt, desperate to cling to his warm skin. Her fingers kneaded his back as though she could imprint on him the care and support and acceptance that he had been denied for so long.

  His arms loosened from around her, his hands rising to frame her face. As his eyes searched hers so intently, she felt a yielding.

  Not hers, but his.

  Her lips parted in shock of awareness. Then his mouth feathered across hers, achingly soft, their breath mingling until she felt drunk on him and the volatile emotions they’d shared. He eased back, wiping what remained of her tears. When he locked gazes with her again, he smiled, and her heart flip-flopped like the slippery blue and orange pumpkinseed sunfish she’d fumbled on his dock a couple of afternoons ago when he’d taken her fishing.

  “You’ll be a fearsome prosecutor one day.”

  Her face tightened from the dried tears as her lips curved. “I guess.”

  “I know. My one-woman army.”

  She sniffed. “Will you tell me more later?” She had one more night to soak him up.

  One.

  Her eyes welled again, dammit, but she couldn’t turn away. She didn’t want to miss a single moment with him.

  He brought her to him again with a deep sigh. “I’ve already shared more than I should have.” His voice rumbled in his chest next her ear. “More than I ever have.”

  He guided her to the door with a hand curled possessively around her hip. Before moving out the doorway, she looked back at the room, taking in the overflowing shelves of books—toward better things I struggle and emerge; the fully stocked kitchenette that promised to hold back hunger—good out of evil; and the excessive fireplace that still radiated warmth—light shines in the darkness.

  Suddenly, she understood the value of this locked room, and how sharing it with her was a massive show of trust. More than anywhere else in the world, this room was Nate’s safe place. Even more so than his residence.

  And she was determined to uncover why.

  Chapter 17

  Standing before his office mirror, Nate smoothed his white tie and slipped into the pinstriped suit jacket Jessie had selected for him. She’d decided he would be a mob boss for Halloween. He told her to change into her costume in the privacy of his office, but she’d declined, saying one thing would lead to another and…

  She would’ve been right.

  But damn, he didn’t want to be away from her for one minute after what they’d shared downstairs in the sanctorum. He’d never taken anyone in that special room where Guardians hid their ancient, holy relics and burned demonic items.

  And where he went to think.

  In the sanctorum, his existence had purpose and meaning. There, redemption felt possible.

  He should’ve been spending more time in there thinking about how to be honest with Jessie about everything. The sooner the better so they could get on with the binding ritual so he could abolish this unsettled feeling. Somehow going back to decapitate the Nephilim he’d buried in Mason’s neighborhood had only ramped up his anxiety.

  His inability to locate Mason for the last twenty-four hours didn’t help either. He’d arranged for Kat to exorcise Jessie’s uncle this afternoon, but since they couldn’t find him—

  His office door flew open so forcefully it cracked against the wall. “Are you out of your bleeding mind?”

  Nate settled a black fedora on his head. “What’s the matter, Spencer? Got the collywobbles about opening night?”

  Katherine followed Spencer into the room. Spencer slammed the door and stormed to the bar without a rejoinder, which communicated to Nate just how exquisitely pissed the tall Brit was.

  “What were you thinking bringing her to the sanctorum? Oh wait, you weren’t,” Katherine’s pursed lips took him back to 1903 when he was thirteen years old and caught swiping a silver chalice in St Monica’s by a young nun in full habit. He remembered the year well because he’d learned the fine art of cunnilingus from her that Christmas Eve.

  Ah yes, organized religion.

  “Jessie approved of the room’s feng shui, Kat. Looks like your lessons from Jinx are sinking in. Aren’t you tickled?” Nate approached the wall to enter the code that slid the paneling back on the mirrored glass. Jessie still wasn’t at her station at the bar.

  “I don’t know what makes you so stupid, but it really works.” Katherine took a second glass of brandy out of Spencer’s hand and drained it.

  “Did you show her the relic?” Spencer’s shirt collar was unbuttoned and his tie hung loosely down the front of his shirt. Had he walked in here like that? The man never walked around unmade.

  Nate frowned at him. “Do you really have to ask?”

  Katherine raised an are you sure you want me to answer that eyebrow which would normally amuse him.

  Not today. “The relic is safe. I didn’t actually take Jessie behind the bookcase. I merely wanted to share my appreciation for the space with her.”

  “No humans are allowed in any of our spiritually warded rooms. Not even those who know about us and what we do. That has been a Guardian rule for centuries, Nate. It was bad enough when Sonja saw the demon paraphernalia. If Dorian hadn’t replaced her memories with something innocuous, who knows what kind of mess we’d be cleaning up right now.”

  “You’re overreacting. I knew Dorian would take care of it.”

  “You’re missing the point, Nate. If humans discover these rooms house the relics, it wouldn’t be long before demons find out. And if they get to the relics, you know where they’ll take them.”

  To Hell.

  Where they’d stockpile the holy items until they generated enough power to break Lucifer out of his cage. The prison into which the Archangel Michael had cast him when Lucifer had originally rebelled in Heaven. How many relics would it take to unlock his prison? Ten, five, two? It’d be nice to know.

  However many it took, when Lucifer was set free, the Apocalypse would officially begin. Heaven’s Archangel Army would fly down from the friendly skies to battle Lucifer, his archdemons, and their incalculable legions. At that point, millions—billions?—of humans would be screwed as supernatural beings engaged in a world-wide smack down.

  So yeah, keeping the relics safe was pretty high on a Guardian’s to do list.

  This job blows.

  Nate took off his hat, plunked down into a chai
r, and sighed heavily. “Jessie healed my death scar.”

  Spencer raised his eyebrows, toasted Nate silently with his glass, then swallowed his brandy. “Congratulations, ole’ chap, you’re ruined.”

  Katherine closed her eyes and shook her head. Nate glared at her perfectly straight nose. “What the bloody hell is your problem, Kat?”

  She opened her eyes and glared back. “Human soul mates die, Nate. We may be living in our own versions of Purgatory, but a human lifespan is a drop in the bucket compared to our long, miserable existence. Experiencing an attachment like that and then losing it…”

  Katherine and Spencer exchanged a meaningful look, and Nate knew they were thinking about how heartbreaking it was for their leader Alexios to be bonded to a human.

  At least Alexios’s soul mate was reincarnated through the ages.

  He couldn’t even imagine a world without Jessie in it. He rubbed his chest where his heart thwacked against his rib cage. He felt close to the edge of something dark and dangerous. “Thank you for your shockingly optimistic outlook, Kat, but I don’t care what either of you think. I’m not going to deny my time with Jessie. Even if it is one measly human lifespan. Now get out, and don’t let the door hit your asses on the way out.”

  Spencer raised an eyebrow. “Your tantrum is breathtakingly unattractive, Nathaniel.”

  Nate lurched out of his chair and slammed Spencer into the wall, choking him with his own tie. Spencer recovered quickly, shoving Nate so hard he stumbled backward, pulling Spencer down with him. They rolled around, grappling and knocking into furniture until Spencer got the upper hand, pinning Nate with a forearm against his windpipe. Nate saw Katherine’s form move as his vision grayed. His fingers curled and clawed at the arm that was blocking his airway. He swung wildly, his fist exploding in pain as his punch landed with a crack.

  His lungs expanded on a ragged intake of air as Spencer crumpled from the blow. Nate blinked, able to see the room once more…Until he was catapulted to his feet and slammed into the glass wall. He braced for Spencer’s incoming fist when a wall of icy water blasted through the air, forcing him and his combatant to their knees. The water’s onslaught sent him into a frenzy. He threw his arms up to shield his face, but he nearly drowned as he called upon the potted plant next to the bar to sprout riotously to form a vine and leaf wall protecting both him and Spencer.