I shook my head, my heart sticking at his promise that he’d never lie to me. Feeling like a liar, a betrayer, myself. Guilt weighed me down. I wanted to forgive him.
“No. You don’t have to tell me anymore.” It was true. He had murdered with hatred rooted deep in his soul, as Thomas had told me. Though I didn’t have a clear picture of exactly what he’d done, I couldn’t ask him anymore, couldn’t force him to relive the pain one moment longer. My heart clenched at the agony marring his face, coloring his expression with profound regret.
A moment later, he seemed to shake off his stormy past, shifting and opening the car door. “Let’s get inside.”
I opened the door and headed toward the alcove leading into his courtyard. He stopped me under the glowing streetlamp, pulling me into a fierce embrace. Face close to mine, he read the empathy I held in my eyes for him, for the pain he’d suffered all these years. Without a word of warning, he descended, his lips sealing to mine, his tongue sliding inside my mouth, devouring me. With a deep moan, I curved into him, my body responding to his touch as if he owned me. He hardened; I softened. His hand fisted in my hair, tugging my head back, arching my neck. He nipped and sucked along my neck, the stubble on his jaw rubbing a rough line over sensitive skin. I shivered, curling my fingers into the leather of his jacket.
“Jude,” I whispered.
I slid one of my hands under his T-shirt, feeling the hard ridges of his abdomen, flexing under my feathery touch. He tightened further as my hand roamed down to his jeans. He groaned. God, I wanted him. His mouth found mine again, his aura of flame back with a vengeance, licking around us, igniting us into a blaze of need.
He lifted me into the shadowed alcove and pinned me to the wall. Pushing his shirt up higher, I let my nails drag across his pectoral to his abdomen. His hands cupped my behind and lifted me onto my toes, his hard shaft pressing to my core. I whimpered. He slanted his mouth over mine, consuming every moan I uttered.
Then he froze. A jolt to my writhing senses, my body quivering for more.
Slowly, he pulled his lips from mine, our breaths coming hard and fast. I could see little, the light from the gas lamp showing his rigid profile. I thought I’d done something wrong, but he turned his head toward the courtyard, listening. The wrought-iron gate, which should’ve been locked, stood ajar. Through the haze of lust, my VS finally registered a warning.
A dark presence moved in the shadowed garden a few feet away.
Chapter Eighteen
Still pressed to the alcove wall, Jude lowered my body—slow and silent. Bending over, he pulled the longest, widest knife I’d ever seen from a concealed sheath in his boot. Not surprising. He gestured for me to stay put without a sound, edging forward.
Jude’s home had been cast in strong protective spells. I wondered if that extended to the courtyard and what it meant if a demonic Flamma was able to break through them. For there definitely was something foul lurking within, but it didn’t resonate on my VS like a demon.
Jude moved with stealth, squeezing through the opening without touching the gate. I crept closer to peer through the bars. Two lanterns lit the courtyard path to the door, leaving the rest in shadows.
The signature was subtle at first, growing stronger by the second. Dank, moldy earth mingled with smoke and ash. A deep snuff like that of a heavy, wild animal came from somewhere in the enclosure.
Jude held his knife ready. The halo of fire that often manifested when he cast out demons outlined his body, lighting the dim garden with an orange glow. The trickling of water in the fountain was the only sound we heard. Jude crept closer to the tall brush along the brick wall enclosure. I stepped just inside, not daring to go any farther.
Another snuff of aggression. Right behind me. I whirled. The beast stepped from the shadows, and my stomach dropped. A creature born of nightmares that stood three feet taller than me.
A black, tusklike horn—shining like bone—protruded from between serpentine yellow eyes. His mouth hung agape, revealing finger-long canines extending from the bottom of its snout. Long muscular arms hung at its side, sharpened black claws tipping its thick hands. Its body—hulking and disturbingly humanlike—made me think of minotaurs from mythology, one-horned rather than two. Except this wasn’t a myth; this was an eight-foot-tall nightmare with razor-sharp teeth staring me dead in the face as if it recognized me.
“Don’t move,” said Jude behind me, calm and steady.
I still couldn’t breathe. The creature held my gaze and snuffed again, gray smoke puffing around its fanged snout, before purposely stepping around me toward Jude. I’d become accustomed to fighting, or rather running, for my life whenever a demon popped on the scene. But this thing had no interest in me. His target was Jude. This wasn’t a demon either. This must be a fury, the strongest of the three types of demon spawn. Titans were dragon-like, all brawn. And while this creature was certainly formidable in size, its sheer presence pulsed against my VS, warning me he was more dangerous than the behemoth George had fought back at Glastonbury Abbey.
I backed to the brick wall. A jagged growl rolled from the beast as it tucked its head low, snout to chest, aiming the tusk directly at Jude. It charged. Jude ducked, sliced out with his knife and rolled away. The creature yowled. Black blood oozed from a gash on the fury’s thigh right below the tattered tunic it wore.
Jude circled behind the fountain of Eros and Psyche. The passionate lovers entwined in a loving embrace—standing between Jude and the deadly creature. Jude’s halo of fire grew brighter, a sign he was juicing up for a killer blow. The beast swiped out with an angry paw, breaking off the sculpture of Eros and Psyche, knocking it to the pavement into shattered pieces. Snorting more smoke into the air, the beast grew impatient, hulking faster around the fractured fountain. Jude leapt forward, planting one foot on the fountain lip, and launched himself into the air toward the creature, knife swinging. The fury swiped out again with a deadly paw. Before it met its target, Jude sliced toward its neck, sinking in and arcing upward.
“Flamma intus!” Jude yelled, calling on his power. A clap of sound and light.
Crack! The tip of the beast’s horn snapped off. The fury bellowed a low-pitched howl, its massive clawed hand knocking Jude back onto the broken fountain. I heard the air squeeze out of Jude’s lungs as he rolled onto the pavement, his knife falling free with a clatter.
“Jude!”
A guttural growl, more menacing than the first, emanated again from the beast as he loped forward for the kill. Jude was too slow getting up.
“No!”
Without thinking, I leapt forward and grabbed Jude’s arm at the same moment the fury’s claws raked through the air toward Jude’s face. They hit nothing, because a split second later, we were sifting through the Void. Jude’s body nearly pulled free of me. I yanked hard on his arm and grabbed his T-shirt with the other, picturing my apartment and sifting us there. Only my third sift, yet it felt innate to me, a natural compulsion my Vessel Sense responded to automatically.
We fell ungracefully with a thunk next to my bed, Jude sprawled on top of me. A faint light filtered through my sheer blue curtains from the street. I clutched him, one hand fisted in his T-shirt. Predator still, he didn’t bother to move an inch, his heavy weight keeping me pinned beneath him. His darkening gaze made me wish we weren’t so close, horror sinking in with what I’d just revealed in my actions.
“How”—his voice low and fierce—“do you have the power to sift?”
In the past months, I’d seen many sides of Jude. The warrior. The tyrant. The protector. Yet, none of them made my blood run cold like the black-eyed hunter hovering over me now. I’d thought of a million ways to say this whenever the time came, but everything fled from me. Every logical, defendable, reasonable way to explain my new gift escaped me like leaves on the wind. When I finally spoke, I could only manage one word, one name, thick on my tongue.
“Thomas.”
Jude’s expression hardened to stone, his
thoughts unreadable. A corner of his mouth lifted into a cold smile. Bracing both hands on either side of my body, he slowly pushed himself off me and rose. His weight gone felt like abandonment. I scooted myself into a sitting position, my back against the bed, breathing hard from the terror of the fury but more from the fuming man staring out my bedroom window.
I cleared my throat. “I was going to tell you.”
“I’m sure you were.”
Fear scattered my thoughts as I tried to find the words that would break through the icy glacier Jude quickly erected between us. I could almost feel layer upon layer of barriers building with every passing second. Unlike me, he had plenty of words to say.
“I’m going to take a leap here and say that your angel…Thomas…decided to tell you about my past after he gave you the kiss of power.”
I lifted myself off the floor to the edge of my bed. Jude walked to the lamp on my bedside table and flicked it on, facing me with steely intent. He wanted to see the truth in my eyes. Or the lies. I stiffened my spine.
“Yes. He did.”
“I’m not quite sure how he was privileged to know of my making, but that’s one thing I intend to find out as well. Better yet, I’d like to meet him myself and ask him.”
My stomach twisted into a knot at the thought. What a disaster that would be. “I, I don’t have a way of reaching him. And he never comes around when I’m with you.”
Jude scoffed. “Not surprising. I have the distinct impression he doesn’t want to meet me face-to-face.” His sardonic lilt cut like a blade. I remained still under his intense scrutiny. “That was quite a kiss of power he gave you, wasn’t it?” he asked with sickening self-assurance.
“But, Jude, I did the same with George, and it was nothing. You were okay with me getting the power I needed to protect myself.”
Jude smiled. An icy shiver pinged up my spine. “Yes. But this was different. Quite different, I’m sure.” I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore and stared down at my hands wringing together in my lap. “Look at me, Genevieve.”
When he commanded me with such force, I couldn’t disobey. I met his dark gaze again.
“How long has Thomas been offering you the power to sift?”
“Well. It was…” I opened my mouth to speak, thinking Thomas had first offered on the plane to New York, but no, it had been from the beginning. The first time I met him, he mentioned the need for me to sift to escape my enemies. “He talked about it since the first time we met.”
“That’s what I thought,” Jude said in an arrogant huff. His hands rested casually on his hips, but the taut, flexed muscles across his chest and shoulders spoke of the tension coiling in his body. “He’s been planning to seduce you from the start.”
“What? No! He—” Wait. Had he? His animosity toward Jude was clear. Was it because Jude had taken the place he wanted for himself?
“Yes. He has. And apparently, he’s done a fine job.”
“No. He hasn’t, he didn’t…seduce me.”
Jude measured my responses—body gestures, facial expressions, everything—using his innate lie-detector skills to perceive any dishonesty. I trembled where I sat.
“The interesting thing is that I’d asked you to be cautious and to not allow yourself to be alone with him until we spoke again.” He angled his head with another assessing glance. “I’m presuming that you were alone with him when this exchange of power occurred.”
I nodded, unable to speak, a lump forming in my throat.
“So you disregarded my request.” We both knew it wasn’t a request. “The kiss of power is a seductive thing, Genevieve.” His voice dipped and rolled, all velvety and lush. He strolled forward, his body moving with sinuous grace, and stopped in front of me. Using one finger, he tipped my chin to look straight up into his eyes. “He did more than kiss you, didn’t he?” Tears pooling, I gave a stiff nod. His words were low and soft, so contradictory to the emotion simmering in his eyes. “Did he fuck you?”
“No!” The tears spilled. My voice broke. “I’d never do that.”
“But he got a good taste. Enough to think you’d abandon me and take him instead. Correct?”
I swatted his hand away, and stormed around him to the window. “Yes!” A sob escaped. I sucked it in and kept quiet, unwilling to lose it entirely.
“I see.” Quiet, cold words.
I spun around. “But Jude, I told him I only wanted you.” The tears came unbidden now, shame flaring heat up my chest and neck. “It was a mistake, a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry.”
I walked toward him, my hand outstretched. He took a step away.
“No.”
Twisting my hands in nervous agitation, I begged him to listen. “Jude, please…”
He strode toward the door. “I’ll make sure your door is bolted and stay on watch outside tonight.” Acting as if nothing had happened, as if my world wasn’t crumbling to dust this very second, he added, “I’m not sure why or how a fury ended up at my home, but we’ll meet with George tomorrow to discuss it.”
“Jude!” He turned at the door, his face a mask of indifference, though his lips compressed into a tight line. “Jude,” I said softer, “I love you.”
I’d never said the words before. Neither had he. We both just…knew. Now he acted as if it didn’t matter. Hell, he acted as if it wasn’t true.
The cold melted from his façade, revealing for a moment the man who owned my heart and made me want to beat myself senseless for the unforgiveable betrayal I’d committed against him.
“Words, Genevieve.” He smiled with such sadness, my heart cracked. “They mean nothing next to your actions. It is what we do that defines who we are and where our devotion truly lies.”
Then I was alone. And I’d never felt more so in my entire godforsaken life.
Chapter Nineteen
I unwrapped my black belt, shifted out of my gi and tossed it into the locker, slamming the door shut with a resounding clang. Sitting on the bench, I flatted my boot against the wall of lockers, tying the laces with violent speed.
“Would you like to discuss it?”
I jumped. Just Erik. He leaned against the frame, arms crossed casually, penetrating me with his brotherly stare.
“No,” I replied tightly. I resumed tying the laces up the knee-high boot. “I’m fine.”
“No. You’re not fine.”
I huffed out an angry breath and popped my other boot up against the locker to lace.
“I am. Just got a lot on my mind.”
“I’ve known you for ten years, Genevieve. You’re more than a little upset about something.”
I let the other boot fall and popped up, cinching my ponytail tighter, and hooked my backpack over one shoulder. I stepped toward the door, but he didn’t move.
“My ride will be here any minute. I need to go.”
“What is going on with you?” he asked, demeanor placid and calm as always, making me want to spit nails for some reason.
“Nothing! Why would you think there’s anything going on?” Heat crawled up my neck.
He eyed me carefully, reminding me of someone else who saw too much, the one who had my stomach in knots and my heart in pieces.
“Hmm. Well, seeing as I’ve been covering your classes for weeks, I never see you with your best friend Mindy, who used to be glued to your hip, and your grades are plummeting, I’d say there’s definitely something going on.”
True, he had been covering for me longer than my father knew, long before my lovely holiday to New York. And by lovely, I mean an utter nightmare. And while Mindy’s obsession with Dave did make her more scarce, it helped me out since I spent most every day training or demon hunting. And my grades…
“Wait. How would you know about my grades?”
“Your advisor from the English department called the number listed on your Loyola account. I happened to be at your dad’s and picked up the phone. Since you’d seen her this past summer and mapped out your transcript with inte
ntions to graduate in the spring, she wanted to remind you that it was imperative you completed your courses with passing grades in order to graduate.”
“How the hell did she know I was failing?”
“A Professor Bennett, apparently.”
“That ass.” I scowled, pissed that the odious, egotistical Professor Bennett would interfere. He’d been giving me hell since the moment I stepped into his 17th Century Lit class, especially when I’d challenged him on the existence of angels and demons. “Bet he just loved passing that information along.”
“So you are failing your classes.”
“No.” I huffed out an exasperated sigh. “Just English, but I’ll pull it out with the final exam. No worries.” At least, I hoped so. “Why did my advisor divulge any of that information to you?”
“Because I pretended to be your dad.”
Pulling Erik into a hug, I said, “I love you, you know that?” I swiveled his tall, lean frame to the side and pushed past him.
“Genevieve, come on. I’m worried. Is it some boy that has you all out of whack?”
Some boy. Ha! No, a dark and deadly demon-hunting man.
I stopped and pivoted to face him. The sincere concern in his brown eyes made me pause. I owed him some kind of explanation because he was covering my ass so often, and because he truly did care about me. I reached out and gave his arm a friendly squeeze.
“There is someone, but it’s not entirely him that has my life a little…muddled right now.” Not entirely, but mostly.
The other reason had to do with the Great War approaching, between demon and angel hosts. Somehow, it made everything else insignificant. Dreams I once had faded into nothing with this new reality wiping away everything I might have been. I’d never become a writer for a magazine or a high school English teacher. Mindy and I wouldn’t throw wedding showers and baby showers for each other or live next door and walk our kids to the park together. The life I’d envisioned was gone, vanished that night on my twentieth birthday in the dark alley behind a Goth club. But more than anything, I knew nothing mattered more than the man I loved, the one who probably hated me now. I’d find out soon enough.
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