Demons: A Hunter's Novel, Book 1

by Felicite Lilly

  The only time I had ever received love unconditionally was with my Demon. Since I had never received love like that, it took me an extra long time to realize what it was. What the ache in my chest meant every time he left the house. What it meant that every time he got hurt on the job I wanted to rip apart whatever had touched him. Rationally, I knew he’d be fine, but I just couldn’t let things like that go. I had lost it once and actually torn a Demon apart because he had hurt what was mine.

  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I saw him right now, my emotions and everything I had bottled up and stuffed down would pour over every nerve ending in my body. I would crumble. Learning to stand again would be a long and trying process. I would need an electric scooter to function in my own life, just to move around the tiny pieces left behind.

  As all of these feelings and thoughts fled through me, my feet tried to carry me farther away from this place. I was running like a bat out of hell. Which, I think, I technically was. I didn’t look back, knowing that would only slow me down. I just hoped beyond hope the strong Demon behind me couldn’t teleport or as the Demons called it clarity bend.

  It was exactly what it sounded like. A Demon that took you on a clarity bend could make you think you were trapped in a corner while standing in an open field. Those Demons could also take you from one place to another with simply a touch of their hand. I liked to call them mind-fuck Demons.

  I darted down an alleyway a few buildings away and hit a wall, a wall of heavy steely muscle. A wall I had been under and on top of enough times to know by touch, by feel, by taste, by smell. I jumped back, making sure to keep my eyes on the ground. I scrambled away quickly. I could see the toes of his shiny, patent leather black shoes.

  Too close, he was too close. Without touching me he had me backed into the corner of the alley, where two brick walls met. I was breathing heavily and I could feel a tightness in my chest. My heart was going to give up and break apart again.

  “Look at me Delaney.” The deep command was so familiar, yet so cold. I almost didn’t recognize it. Almost. I fought the urge to look up into his eyes, but quickly lost. My eyes met his without my permission. When they did I could feel myself coming back to life and dying all over again in the space of a breath. His name slid over my tongue and between my lips like a lover’s caress, and completely out of my control.

  “Azrael.” My Demon. My heart.

  ~II~

  “You can doubt, you can hate, but I know no matter what it takes, I’m coming home, I’m coming home…”

  – Skylar Grey, Coming Home

  Azrael’s eyes were hard and cold, something unfamiliar to me. It was an overtaking feeling that twisted in the same place that had been filled with a familiar darkness for the past six months, giving me pain where there had been nothing.

  He gripped my upper arms. Oh God, please let him stop touching me. Instantly, I’m melting. Instantly, I’m burning. The way he used to make me feel was flooding back and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t do this again, couldn’t walk away again.

  “Good of you to join me, Delaney.” I had forgotten how weak his eyes could make me. He looked even better since I had last seen him. A little more cut where he had been soft before. I guess it was only fair. More torture for me.

  My Demon was sex on a stick and I wanted to lick every piece of him. He had black hair, a light complexion and severe hard-lined features with the lightest green eyes I had ever seen. They were like looking at grass, sunlight shining on it, right after it’s rained. Dark features were common amongst Demons, I had never seen another with eyes like his. They set me on fire and melted me.

  “Az. Lookin’ good. I mean it hasn’t been that long – but you know. Good because you don’t look like crap.” Shit. I had word vomit and I couldn’t stop it. I did it whenever I was nervous. It was a fatal affliction in some instances. I saw his eyes warm slightly as he placed his hand over my mouth to stop the words spewing involuntarily out of it, no doubt.

  “Don’t call me that, Delaney. You no longer have the privilege.”

  I noticed he hadn’t called me by my nickname, Laney, the name he knew I preferred. Everything he did was deliberate. He hadn’t gotten over what happened. Good to know I wasn’t the only one.

  From the first time I had met him, and almost killed him, I had always called him Az. The first time we met he had talked me into giving him a chance. He told me he was an enforcer amongst Demons and there was only one of him every one hundred years or so. I had let him live. We worked as a team of sorts.

  Initially I kept an eye on him because I had questioned my sanity in not killing him, but I soon discovered that if I had, Demons would’ve run amuck. After a few months of him towing the line, we began a tentative friendship. We would call the other when we needed back-up. That quickly turned into meeting every night and working as partners.

  One early morning, after a long night of killing and maiming, he dropped me off at the door of my house, as he normally did. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me that night. It was an intense mixture of pain and pleasure, with a “fuck it” on his lips before he assaulted all my senses with a kiss that changed my world forever.

  But everything was different now and I knew that better than anyone. I had been running from the truth of it for six months. Me calling him Az was a familiarity he didn’t want between us anymore and I couldn’t blame him for that.

  In my six month absence he had climbed the Demon ladder faster than any other before him. I had heard of his unrelenting ruthlessness and madness from the occasional Hunter that crossed my path. I didn’t want to believe it. I guess you could only hide from the truth for so long before it caught up to you.

  “Take me inside before someone sees us.” I whispered.

  “That’s what you’d be afraid of. Your precious Hunters seeing us.”

  “This is my life, Az. Don’t fuck it up.” Damn I did it again. In my head I started chanting Az-rael, Az-rael…

  “I thought your life was filled with fucking strangers, not being a Hunter.”

  It hurt so much more than I knew it would. He had seen the men I had used to numb myself from the pain of losing him. It had never crossed my mind that he may have been watching me – I mean, why would he? Why torture himself?

  I had to work on calling him Azrael. We had been on the same side for so long. It was easy to fall back into line with him. Yes, he was a Demon but he had been good when we were together. He was charged with killing any Demon that broke the rules, and in the end, he took out anything that broke the rules on any side. We shared that common ground.

  After I left him he had gone off the deep end just as I had gone off the radar. He had become one of the nastiest of all Demons. And because of that my heart had broken further. I didn’t even know if my heart was still there – pieces of it were, maybe.

  It is said there is a thin line between love and hate. I had a foot on both sides. I wanted to throw my arms around him and break his face at the same time. But as much as I was conflicted, I trusted him above all others. Because when it came to me I knew where he stood. He was on my side. Unless something changed to completely turn him against me. As I would think seeing me with other men would’ve done. Why was I here with him now? Why would he bring me back to him? Why was I still alive? I would’ve lost it.

  His hand dropped to my wrist and I felt the pull of the teleport. A second later, I blinked the tunneled gray from my vision. We were in a window laden office at least 15 stories up. It was a fabulous view of the city. I loved Miami, Florida and so did the supes, especially Demons. Heat and sin everywhere, what’s not to love?

  In the office, there was a large glass desk with a stiff-looking black chair behind it. It spoke of the coldness that had seeped into Az. Six months ago he would have had a dark wood desk with a comfy cushiony chair that looked like it probably needed reupholstering because it was so old, but it would be the most comfortable chair around. I need a place to rest my ass w
here it won’t fall asleep. He’d say.

  This office spoke of coldness and superiority. Things that Az wouldn’t have had six months ago, but now Azrael owned them. Maybe I didn’t know him anymore. Something told me that my Az was still somewhere in Azrael, I just couldn’t see where.

  “The building’s glamoured?” I asked him.

  The crap-hole I had seen was actually a gorgeous high rise that had been hidden by Demon magic so no one could see it. I really was numb. Perhaps too numb, I now realized. I should’ve been able to feel this. I had done a damn thorough job of blocking out the world.

  “Of course. Couldn’t have anyone finding this place.”

  The unspoken or you hurt. He had put me back with “them” and I won’t lie, it stung. The Hunters. The enemy he had fought, in one way or another, for the length of his existence. That’s how he saw me. But he was him and I was me and we were us. Right? I guess the new us was kicking me in the ass and I deserved every bit of it.

  “Fair enough.”

  Azrael’s eyes sparkled for a moment and he turned to look out the window with his back to me to keep me from seeing the sparkle. I wondered what that look had turned into. Did he hate me now, as much as he had loved me then?

  “Why am I here Azrael?” I pulled out his full name to make sure he didn’t miss the fact that I had used it.

  “I’ve kept an eye on you, even if I loathed it at times.” Azrael looked at me over his shoulder. He looked livid and he made sure I didn’t miss it. I hated he had seen me with all the other men. He had always been a control freak to the core. He attempted to control everything that came at us, even though he couldn’t. Something I loved between the sheets but hated everywhere else.

  “The Hunters are, of course, following you still. But the supes are too. Including some of mine.” He couldn’t have surprised me more if he had told me he had a sex change. What. The. Fuck.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know why?” My mind was racing with the possibilities. Why would everyone and their brother be following me? And why follow me and not kill me?

  “After I tortured the Demons who were following you…” He let the statement hang there. He was making it clear he had changed.

  When we had been together, he had been merciful, he killed quickly without pain. Now he was torturing others, surrounding himself with pain. He didn’t need to say anything more to make it clear to me how far apart we were now. Not even miles, but worlds away. “They told me orders were coming from our highest. So I killed them. With your blade, naturally.”

  I had forgotten I left him one of my blades so he would always be safe. I knew he could take care of himself without my blade, but he had taken over every part of me and I guess I was a little afraid he wouldn’t remember me after a while. And I wanted him to. I couldn’t be with him, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still love him. I wondered how often he had used the blade for his torture sessions and if he was the one who had been helping keep me as one of the most valued Hunters. He was still protecting me, even after all I had done. I was sucking more by the minute, and not in a good way.

  “Naturally.”

  What was happening to me? I sat down on the floor with the weight of this new burden on my shoulders. My body just couldn’t take anymore. I felt Az beside me.

  “Laney…”

  I looked up at the worried expression on his face. I was in some serious shit. It was the only reason he would have to bring me back into his life. I had only seen him with this expression a few times – and seeing it worried me now, more than ever.

  He looked conflicted. He slid gracefully to the floor, pulling his legs under him to sit Indian style. Watching him sit, I had flashes of the times he would lay on me after we were done having sex. I reveled in feeling the weight of his body on me. What I wouldn’t do to feel that again.

  When we were together he always made a point of making me feel equal and accepted. I felt equal but I knew he would not accept me, not anymore. I also knew, however, that Az was extending a branch to me. I just hoped it didn’t snap. I didn’t trust myself much these days.

  “You remember when we used to stake out places and you’d insist on local food?” He said, putting air quotes around the word local.

  To Az, local meant the same city. To me, it meant whatever was on the street you were walking down.

  “It was some of the worst food I’ve ever experienced. But some of the most memorable times.”

  I could tell from the distance in his voice he was reliving the many times we had eaten the horrible food on the street, in cars, wherever we were, but always together. They were some of the best times of my life. And I was loathe to remember them.

  “I would imagine several bouts of food poisoning, even for a Demon, would be memorable.”

  I could never stand serious very well. I wanted to lighten the mood he was moving toward. I laughed in spite of my overwhelming fear. I always told Az it was the “best food I’ve ever eaten” even if I was too sick to leave the bathroom later on. He laughed too.

  The second I heard his laugh my walls crumbled and my numbness was replaced with a spreading warmth and a slash of pain. There was something about him that spoke to my deepest darkest places and it was blatantly apparent how much I had missed that.

  I reached out, forgetting the distance between us and touched the edge of his jaw. The second my skin came into contact with his, he flinched away from me as though I had stuck a hot poker to him, not my hand. Maybe I was his emotional cancer.

  He moved his face back into my hand a moment later. And it felt like coming home. He looked into my eyes searching for something he probably wouldn’t find. I couldn’t stop the next words that flew from my lips and didn’t know if they would help heal anything or if I’d be opening up old wounds for him. My wounds had never closed.

  “I’m sorry Az. I’m – I’m sorry.”

  It’s all I could get out because I was choking on my tears. My love had been broken and I had buried all of those feelings, but now they were rushing back like a wave on Normandy Beach, beating and drowning me. I had a feeling I was about to lose a lot more than just my heart.

  If supes were following me for some unknown reason, something big was about to happen. Talk about opening flood gates. I cried harder. Everything was just too much. My emotional state was like a gas fire – burning out of control. Azrael, Az, I didn’t want him to be hurt by whatever was going on with me. I wanted him to be safe. At least as safe as a Higher Demon could be. I stood abruptly, Az right along with me.

  “Laney, you can’t protect me. I’ve made my bed, I will happily lay in it.”

  I wondered if he was a mind reader now. I didn’t miss the heat in his eyes or the double meaning in his words. My body heated as if he had just touched my core. But I could only imagine the horror that would rain down if his boss found out about us or anything he had done for me.

  “Az, this isn’t just about you.” I tried to play it off. But it had always been about him, always would be.

  “Right. The Hunters. Don’t you want to know what’s going on?!”

  I did. Of course I did.

  “I’ll give you my number and I’ll etch your sign. Don’t send your goons again.”

  His sign was a symbol I could put up on my walls that would breakdown the barrier and protecting symbols that every Hunter kept on their homes and only a Hunter could etch it into a Hunter’s wall. It would allow Az to enter, anytime. It was my branch to him.

  “My symbol’s changed.”

  Of course I knew that, he had moved up in the ranks. He drew it for me with his blood on a blank piece of white paper. It was the only way a Demon could draw their symbol for an outsider to know what it was. He handed it to me and I felt as though my whole world was burning around me.

  Demons’ symbols are meant to be of darkness and pain. Az’s symbol before was a twisted circle around a blade. Now his symbol was a circle cut in half wit
h the same blade lying between the two halves and the halves of the circle were filled with his blood, so dark it looked black. The circle spoke of continuity and safety. Before it had been twisted, it was still whole and not completely broken. Az’s circle had been severed. No longer whole. No longer what it used to be. No longer what he used to be.

  “Has it ever.”

  Unless I was misreading it – which I knew I wasn’t – he now sat at the right hand of Mastema, also known as the Devil. Mastema was the original fallen Angel but had twisted into something dark and raw. Just as my Az had.

  “You did a number on me Laney. Just put my symbol up. Do this for me.”

  Az knew with that little plea, I would give in immediately. All it took was do this for me and I was his. I felt an overwhelming need to do what I could for him when I could do it. And this I could definitely do.

  “Okay.”

  I grabbed a notepad that had his name embossed on it with a glittering white ink that looked like it was moving – apparently working so close with Mastema had its perks – and wrote down my phone number. I handed it to him.

  I wondered how good of an idea this was anymore. If he was this high up, how could he not know what was going on? If he had tortured the lower Demons, and they said it was coming from a higher up, which would have to be Mastema, wouldn’t he have shared it with Az? I was up shit’s creek without a paddle and there was a waterfall up ahead.

  I tore the piece of paper off the notepad but hesitated handing over the small slip with my number on it. He grabbed my hand with the paper in it, and ran small circles with his thumb over my knuckles. I tried to pull my hand away before I started to read anything into it. Az held my hand in place along with the piece of paper.

  "Embossed letterhead, with your name on it. Nice perk." I said. Azrael looked at me confused.

  "You can see my name on there?" He asked gesturing to the paper still being held between our hands.

  "Uh, yeah? Weird ink though." I said, as he continued to study me. "What's wrong?"