The Redeeming

by Jennifer Ashley

  He was out of the truck and walking around to her side before she could comment on this statement. She slid out while he held the door, another gentlemanly gesture.

  “Well, here we are,” she said. “How are you going to get home?”

  “I’ll walk you upstairs first.”

  “It’s a gated complex with a security guard. I’ll be fine.”

  “Someone out there knows an effective way to make sure a demon stays dead,” Tain said firmly. “I’ll walk you upstairs.”

  Samantha wasn’t used to being protected. Logan watched her back daily, but that was different—he wouldn’t stop her from doing her job, and he assumed she’d watch his back at the same time. Samantha had always taken care of herself, and her training for the police force meant she had the physical wherewithal and expertise to do so. Tain hovering on guard at her shoulder as they went up the outside staircase was a new sensation.

  “There are thousands of demon women in this city,” she said. “Are you going to walk them all home too?”

  “I would if I could.”

  Tain waited until Samantha had unlocked the door, then he pushed in ahead of her. Pickles jumped down from the counter and ran at Tain, meowing pathetically.

  “I obviously never feed him or pet him.” Samantha dropped her purse and briefcase on the sofa and shut the door. “He probably hasn’t eaten in at least ten minutes.”

  Tain took the bag of food from its place on the counter and topped off the cat’s bowl, while Pickles pranced around him, tail high.

  “You’ll spoil him rotten.” Samantha clattered her keys to the counter and kicked off her shoes, determined to not show Tain how much he unnerved her. “By the way, I’m home now.”

  Tain straightened up, put the food away, and started to leave, not saying good-bye. At the door, he swung back, his face hard. “The glamour,” he said. “It’s very good.”

  Samantha blinked. Tain the warrior stood at her door, the cat-feeder and healer gone, the dangerous Immortal being back. “Glamour?” she stammered.

  Tain’s eyes darkened as he came to her, making Samantha back into the counter. This close, his impossibly tall body made her feel small, his life-magic brushing her like a crackling net. His face was too handsome, the pentacle tattoo on his cheek almost glowing with his power.

  “The one you keep up to hide your demon self,” he said.

  “I don’t . . .”

  Samantha stopped, not knowing how to answer. Lesser demons chose their physical appearance in childhood, she’d learned, instinctively mimicking whatever parent was closest to them—in Samantha’s case, her mother. Half demons without strong magical skill lost their ability to change from human to demon form as they got older, apparently. Samantha would look human the rest of her life—no morphing into claws and scales like Merrick did.

  Tain brushed his fingers over her chin, his hand fever hot. “It’s very, very good. Difficult to say what you truly look like.”

  “I look like this,” Samantha said nervously. “I don’t use a glam.”

  “It’s what demons do—draw in the unwary by being beautiful, coaxing them to give up their life essences to you.”

  Beautiful. Samantha’s heart beat faster. “I don’t feed off life essences. I prefer cheeseburgers.”

  Tain didn’t laugh. “I have an overwhelming life essence. It must be difficult for you to resist it.”

  “More like an overwhelming ego.” Samantha tried to keep her voice steady, but she was shaking. Tain’s eyes darkened, his fingers biting down.

  “I don’t know what ego means,” he said. “Everything is new to me, including your language. But I know what I’m drawn to.”

  “You think I’m enticing you?”

  “Aren’t you, Samantha?”

  Tain brought to the surface Samantha’s secret fear that she was indeed trying to entice him—that her demon nature reached out to him without her consent, wanting the essence that poured from him, with hungry intensity. Samantha fought demons like Merrick because she didn’t want to become like them, didn’t want to live to feast on others.

  Tain went on, “It would explain why, ever since I first saw you, I’ve been struck by the need to kiss you.”

  He had? “That’s not my fault . . .”

  She trailed off as the blue of his eyes was swallowed by black, and his hot breath touched her lips. A fraction of an inch separated their mouths, and Samantha’s body began to respond as it did when he’d healed her—a rush of heat, the need to melt to him, the stir of intoxicating desire.

  Tain closed his eyes as his lips touched hers, the lightest featherlike brush. His hand went to the nape of her neck, his large palm warm.

  Samantha tried to draw a breath and found nothing. Nothing but heat, the hot firmness of his lips on hers. He opened his eyes again, the blue of them pulling her into their depths, making her want to tell him everything, even if it killed her. She touched his arm, pulling him closer.

  He slid his tongue between her lips, one tingling stroke. Samantha chased it with her own tongue, her fingers locking behind his neck. The ends of his hair tickled her fingers, and she rubbed the rough silk of it. She felt his powerful life essence waiting below the surface, beckoning her, enticing her as he’d accused her of enticing him.

  “Stay,” Samantha whispered. “Please.” She needed him here, with his wild life magic. She wanted to make love with this amazing man who was strong enough to end the world. She wanted his body on top of hers, his solid arms cradling her. What couldn’t she face with a man like Tain to hold her at the end of the day?

  “No,” Tain kissed her again, harder this time, his teeth scraping. Samantha pulled him closer, wanting to rub herself on him, to feel his hard body against hers, to lick his skin and love the taste. He had so much strength, shaking with it as he held himself back.

  Her fingertips slid toward the tattoo on his cheek, seeking it without realizing. Samantha felt the hot sparks of his life essence, the ink that marked him containing so much power . . .

  Tain jerked his head up and pushed her from him, breaking the contact.

  Samantha tried to take a step back and found the countertop digging into her spine, her breath coming harsh and fast. Tain curved over her, trapping her within his body heat, his mouth a rigid line. “I told you to stay away from me.”

  “You insisted on coming up here.” Samantha’s heart slammed with fear, but her need for him remained high. “And then you kissed me.”

  “And now I’m going.”

  Sudden emptiness ached in her chest, along with anger and sorrow. “Good. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

  Tain only looked at her, his eyes like flint, his face unmoving. Samantha wanted to scream and rage; she wanted to burst into tears of relief. There would never be anything between them, never mind how he made her feel.

  Tain hated demons, was making his whole life about hating demons. The only reason he’d helped Nadia tonight was because he’d felt sorry for her—because he was, deep down inside, a healer. But a demon had destroyed him, and Tain had no room in his messed-up life for a half demon who was eating her heart out over him. Some things weren’t meant to be.

  “Go on, then,” Samantha said, folding her arms across her chest. She could feel her heart pounding, her breasts tight. “I’m not stopping you.”

  Tain gave her one more look, his body over hers, pinning her. He could kill her so easily, could rip out her heart as had been done to Nadia’s poor sister. No one would find Tain if he didn’t want to be found, no one could control and tame him. A demon had tried to tame him for seven hundred years, and Tain hadn’t been contained even then.

  Samantha saw it in his eyes, the need to kill, to rid himself of all that had hurt him. She saw the pain too, the darkness behind the blue, the rage. Tain wanted to kill to ease his pain . . . just as he wanted to heal.

  It was tearing him apart.

  He growled low in his throat, jerked away, snatched
up his coat, and strode to the door. Cool night air breezed into the apartment as he walked out, his duster swirling around him. The door slammed, and he was gone.

  Pickles jumped up on the windowsill with a disconsolate meow, staring out over the dark parking lot.

  “Let him go, Pickles,” Samantha said, tears filling her eyes. “He’s not worth it.” Her words ended on a groan, and she rubbed her hands over her face. “Damn it.”

  Pickles didn’t answer. Samantha moved to close the blind and saw Tain with his distinctive stride moving from the parking lot to the street beyond.

  “Damn,” she said again and let the blind rattle closed.

  Tain returned to the alley where he’d found Nadia, too pent up from his encounter with Samantha to go tamely home. His body throbbed from the kiss, his arousal still rock hard.

  He never should have touched Samantha, never should have implied to her he was in danger of succumbing to her. She might be only half demon, but all demons learned early that they were irresistible, and spent their life honing their talent for luring victims. Samantha had seemed surprised that she possessed the siren’s pull, but her obliviousness didn’t negate the fact that Tain wanted her.

  When he’d started looking into the problem of the missing prostitutes, he’d told himself it would be logical to ask for Samantha’s help. She knew the city, and troubles like this were her job. Now Tain realized he’d simply wanted to see her again.

  Samantha had been right; he could have gone to the police and reported his concerns to anyone there. He hadn’t needed to seek her out specifically.

  But he had, and now he was paying for it. Tain had been thinking about Samantha since Seattle and pretending not to, pretending he had no use for a half demon to whom he owed his life. And yet, as soon as he’d arrived in Los Angeles he’d found a way to see her again.

  When Samantha had entered Merrick’s last night, in that skin-tight black dress that made her legs a mile long, Tain had known he’d made a grave mistake. No more pushing the gorgeous woman out of his head—she was there to stay.

  Tain tried to distract himself from these thoughts by looking around the alley, but he found nothing he hadn’t seen before.

  He gave up on finding anything more, flagged down a taxi, and gave the driver Hunter’s address in Malibu. He didn’t have any money with him, but Hunter would be good for the cab fare, and Tain would pay him back the next time Hunter dragged him to an ATM and explained how it worked . . . again.

  Adrian had set up a bank account for Tain and deposited a substantial sum into it, saying Tain deserved it after all he’d been through. Tain had thanked his brother but rarely used the account, partly because the bank’s damned machines regularly ate his card, partly because he’d never in his life had much use for money. Easy enough to get along without it, and Tain didn’t have the need for opulence that Adrian seemed to.

  A black limousine stood in the driveway of the long, low house on the Malibu hill. The limo held the distinct taint of vampire, and Tain’s skin crawled when he passed it. The driver in the limo was certainly vampire and clutched the steering wheel defiantly as Tain stared at him.

  “Tain.” Leda Stowe smiled in delight as she opened the front door and squeezed Tain with a one-armed hug. Her other arm cradled baby Ryan, who was blowing bubbles with his own spit.

  Leda twined her fingers through Tain’s and dragged him inside, handing off Ryan to him. “Look who’s here,” she said brightly to the two men in the living room.

  One was Hunter, next brother in age to Tain. Hunter had tawny hair, intense green eyes, and the Immortals’ build. He was no stranger to tragedy—his first wife and two children had been brutally murdered by a demon long ago. He’d found peace now with Leda, but Tain observed that Hunter watched his wife and new son with a fierce protectiveness.

  The other man in the living room was a vampire. Not just a vampire—an Old One, which meant he was ancient and strong. The vamp had dark hair, bottomless blue eyes, and a death magic aura that made Tain sick to his stomach. He never understood why Hunter let such a being into his house, but his brothers and the vampire Septimus had become friends of sorts. Hunter had taken the life-magic barrier down, obviously, to allow a death-magic creature like Septimus to enter. Otherwise, the vamp never would have made it inside.

  “Ah ha,” Hunter said, looking at Tain. “Mystery solved.”

  Chapter Six

  “What mystery?” Tain hefted the baby in his arm, instinctively keeping his nephew far from the vampire.

  “Septimus here came banging on the door at midnight,” Hunter said. “He wanted to know why I was harassing one of his vamps earlier tonight in a downtown alley, but I haven’t been out all day.”

  Septimus broke in, his voice too smooth for Tain’s liking. “The vampire from my jurisdiction complained he was accosted in an alley by a tall man with an incredible life-magic aura, plus a sword.”

  Hunter grinned. “So Septimus naturally thought of me. But it was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any particular reason why?” Septimus asked Tain.

  “He was bothering a demon girl,” Tain said, his words clipped.

  Septimus arched dark brows. “A demon girl?”

  “Who’d been tortured and nearly killed, and forced to watch her sister brutally murdered. I didn’t think she deserved to be sucked dry by a vampire on top of it.”

  Leda, Hunter, and Septimus stared at him. Ryan made contented noises, enjoying the safety of Tain’s arm.

  “She isn’t sure who did it to her,” Tain went on, with a pointed look at Septimus.

  Septimus shook his head. “None of my vampires are responsible.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  Septimus’s mouth flattened to a grim line. “When vampires get out of line, I’m usually the first to hear about it. I’ve heard nothing.”

  Tain knew the reason Los Angeles was relatively quiet these days regarding vampire and demon battles was that Septimus controlled the entire vampire population—with his power as an Old One, he dominated all other vampire lords and their underlings. He’d also taken advantage of the chaos the year before to start power bases in other cities. He’d made a deal with Adrian to keep the Los Angeles vampires contained—in return, Septimus was allowed to continue his long and sin-dark life, and Adrian left him alone.

  “Maybe no one’s told you yet,” Tain suggested.

  “Demons do fight amongst themselves, you know,” Septimus said. “Clans battle for domination.”

  Hunter broke in. “But those are simple, straightforward fights. The demons either gather weapons and do battle, or they sneer at each other at formal luncheons.”

  “Demons have an honor, of sorts,” Septimus agreed. “I’ve not heard of them torturing and killing women of rival clans, at least not these days.”

  “Civilized demons?” Leda broke in. “Samantha is civilized, and her father’s not bad, but . . .”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century,” Septimus said with a cold smile. “Demons have discovered the comforts of the modern city—why dwell in a death realm when you can live in a mansion in Beverly Hills?”

  Tain was finished with the discussion. “Just make sure it’s not the vampires,” he said to Septimus. “Hunter, there’s a cab outside waiting to be paid.”

  Hunter shot Tain an exasperated look. “You lost the ATM card again, didn’t you?”

  Tain shrugged and turned away, finished with the conversation “It’s somewhere.”

  Hunter heaved a sigh, rose from where he’d lounged on the couch, and stalked past Tain to the front door. “I’m gonna have to explain it all over again, aren’t I? In words with one syllable.”

  “Time was, an Immortal didn’t pay for anything,” Tain said, handing Ryan back to Leda and following his brother. “People were happy to give us a drink or a ride for nothing.”

  “Yeah, well, this is Los Angeles, and nothing’s free. The world forgot about us
while you were away.”

  The chink of darkness that ever lurked in Tain’s mind rose up that moment with a terrifying suddenness and swallowed him whole. One second he was walking behind Hunter toward the bright cab, the next, his mind spun him into suffocating blackness.

  Hot pain, endless pain, then the burn of healing, made horrifying because he knew that his reward for healing himself would be more pain. He’d been trapped, powerless, terrified, and at the same time wanting the pain as punishment for what he’d become.

  Kehksut had taken everything from him. Tain should have been with his brothers all those years—fighting, drinking, chasing women, having stupid one-upmanship rivalries. He should have been with his family who loved him, no matter what. Kehksut had peeled everything warm and loving from him until Tain couldn’t even now lie back and bask in the joy that filled Leda and Hunter’s home.

  “Tain? You all right?”

  He found Hunter’s green eyes in front of him, a worried frown on his brother’s face. They were standing in the driveway, the cab pulling away, taillights flashing in the night.

  Tain dragged in a breath. “I’m fine.” He heard himself distantly, as though he watched the scene from afar. “Why didn’t you tell the cab to wait for me? I only came up here to ask you about demon hunters.”

  “Leda said to send it away, because you’re staying for dinner. Didn’t you hear her?”

  Tain knew time had passed while he stood in his stupor—it always did, but he never knew how much. “No.”

  Hunter’s frown deepened with the frustration of a strong man who hated to admit he couldn’t fix everything. “It still gets to you, doesn’t it?”

  “It always will. I accepted that a long time ago.”

  “I don’t accept it, damn it,” Hunter growled. “I didn’t bust my ass pulling you out of that demon’s power to lose you again.”

  Tain spread his arms, hearing the love in his brother’s gruff tone. “But you did pull me out. I’m here, free. My brain will catch up after a while.”

  Hunter lowered his voice, glancing inside at Leda who was smiling at a glowering Septimus. “When we formed the circle to rescue you, when we joined, I felt some of what had happened to you. I took it inside myself. So did our brothers. I saw what you’d gone through.”