Dances With Demons - A Phoenix Chronicle Novella

by Handeland, Lori

“I’m on the pill.” I had to be. The first few days of my periods were so heavy that without it I could barely drag myself from the house; there was no way I could work. “I won’t get pregnant.”

  I’d once dreamed of having half a dozen kids. Silly in this day and age, but I loved kids, loved being a mom. I still did, though having to be a dad, as well, sucked.

  “You sound sad, a chéadsearc.”

  My gaze met his. He looked sad. Most guys his age would panic at the very mention of pregnancy.

  “I feel foolish. We should have used something, but I’m not... I haven’t. Since Max.”

  “I know,” he murmured. “If you’re worried about disease ye needn’t be. I would never be the cause of any harm.”

  “You’re clean?”

  “I am.”

  “You haven’t slept with anyone since your last blood test?” I clarified.

  His forehead creased. “I’ve never slept with anyone attall.”

  I laughed. “Right. You don’t sleep. Ha.”

  “Megan, I don’t—”

  I lifted a hand. “Enough said.” I did not want to hear details about his lack of sleep with other women. Oddly, it bothered me to think that there’d been other women. Which was stupid. As I’d told him before, this was sex, not love.

  “Did my mother-in-law say anything else?”

  His gaze went distant. “There was something about a cougar. I told her that the legend was about the cat dubh—a panther. She didn’t seem to understand what I meant. Although I have no idea how she knew we were in Doras Dearg. I didn’t tell her.”

  “Cougar,” I repeated, and the light dawned. “She wasn’t talking about the legend. She was talking about me.”

  Bitch. I wasn’t that old.

  “What does a cougar have to do with you?”

  “Do you watch any television, Quinn?”

  “Why would I?”

  I suddenly realized I knew nothing about him after he left Murphy’s. Where did he live? What did he do? Who were his friends?

  “What do you do in your free time?”

  He looked away, lifted one shoulder. “Sleep.”

  “You work and you sleep?” Sounded like me.

  His gaze flicked to mine. “You’re changing the subject.”

  Was I? I hadn’t meant to.

  “Why did your mother-in-law use the word cougar?”

  Maybe I had meant to.

  “A cougar is a name for an older woman who likes younger men.”

  “You aren’t older than me.”

  I laughed. He didn’t. “Quinn, I’m at least five years older than you, maybe more.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “How old are you?”

  “How old are you?”

  I resisted the urge to say, I asked you first, the childishness of which would only prove his point.

  “Twenty-nine,” I said. Though there were days, as well as nights, that I could swear I was aging in dog years—seven for every one—which would make me two hundred and three. That felt about right.

  “I am much older than that.”

  “Prove it.”

  He opened his mouth, shut it again, tilted his head. “How?”

  “Driver’s license?” I held out my hand.

  “I didn’t bring it.”

  “Passport?” He glanced out the door. “You had to have that or they wouldn’t have let you on the plane.”

  “I left it in the car of the friend who brought me here.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Not really.” His gaze returned to mine. “Does age matter?”

  “No.” Age didn’t matter. Lying did. Though I wasn’t sure what, exactly, Quinn was lying about, I did know he was lying.

  I was the mother of three. I could smell a lie as clearly as a recently soiled diaper.

  * * *

  Quinn’s hand burned as sharply as his chest. He should probably breathe—not that lack of breathing would kill him—but he couldn’t let out the air he’d taken in until she stopped staring at him as if he’d lied right to her face.

  He had, but how did she know that?

  The same way she knew when Anna had watched a show on the TV box that she shouldn’t, or Aaron read a comic book instead of a schoolbook, or Benji ate everyone’s candy.

  “About last night,” she began, and the breath he’d held in rushed out.

  That she’d kissed him had been a miracle; that she’d touched him even more. The joining of their bodies had been beyond anything he’d ever dreamed. Who would dream something like that?

  “We can’t do it again.”

  He thought they could. In fact, he thought they could again right now.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like... like... “ She threw up her hands. “Like you’re that damn cat dubh and I’m a mouse.”

  He froze. “Why would you say somethin’ like that?”

  She let out her breath. “You work for me, Quinn. It’s taking unfair advantage if I—”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I mind. My mother-in-law is a bitter, sad woman, but she isn’t the only one who’d think badly of me for—”

  “Who cares what anyone thinks?”

  “I have a business to run. A small business in a local neighborhood.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It might be the twenty-first century, but it isn’t really.”

  He spread his hands. She wasn’t making any sense.

  “We might be living in a more enlightened age, but it still wouldn’t be good for business if it gets out that I’m banging the help.”

  “We’ll be quiet.” At her obvious confusion, he continued. “We won’t bang about at all.”

  One short, sharp laugh escaped before she quelled it. “I have small children.”

  “They aren’t that small,” he muttered.

  “Quinn.”

  He sighed. “I’d marry ye—”

  “Whoa!” She held up a hand. “I don’t even know you.”

  He let his gaze travel from the tip of her curly red head to the toe of her well-worn shoe—not that long of a trip, but an enjoyable one—then lifted his brows.

  “That’s not what I meant. We can’t continue this...” She waved a hand toward the still rumpled bed visible through the open door into the bedroom.

  “I understand. Back there you have children, the business, your friends and... his.”

  “Back there,” she echoed, and her gaze went to the bed, stayed there a while. She licked her lips, and he wanted to do the same, even before they curved and her blue eyes met his. “In Milwaukee this ends. But here... “

  “Here?” he repeated, both hoping she was saying what he thought and fearing it.

  “Here I don’t have anything else to do.” Her smile broke free. “But you.”

  She took the few steps that separated them, bumping her breasts against his chest. His hands clenched. The burn throbbed. He throbbed.

  “All right?”

  He knew what she was asking. He also knew what he must say. He might be able to explain away a single night in her bed as an accident, bad judgment, a mistake. But a dozen? Even half that?

  Liz Phoenix would kill him.

  He opened his mouth to refuse but the words that came out were, “All right.”

  Chapter 8

  I couldn’t believe I’d suggested what I had. Sex for the sake of sex, no strings, the relationship would end when we returned to Milwaukee.

  I wasn’t fool enough to believe that we could “bang” away for two weeks, then pretend we never had. Either he’d quit when we returned, or soon after. If he didn’t, we’d be in for awkward exchanges. We might get past that eventually, then again we might not. And what if he found another woman—he would, just look at him—would I be able to be happy for him and move on? I hadn’t been able to move on from Max. Then again, Quinn Fitzpatrick wasn’t the love of my life, and w
alking away wasn’t the same as dying.

  Suddenly Quinn was right there, so close his breath brushed my hair. “You’re thinking too much.”

  I looked up, and he kissed me. I forgot what I’d been thinking, saying, feeling. I forgot everything but this, but him.

  Poor, pathetic, sex starved, older woman.

  “Shh,” I murmured into his mouth.

  “Didn’t say anything, love.”

  “Shh,” I repeated and reached for his hand.

  He winced and I realized I’d taken the hand I’d cut. “Sorry.”

  I lifted it to my mouth. Kissed the part that wasn’t wrapped, tickled the base of one finger with my tongue. Next thing I knew he’d snatched my free hand with his and dragged me where I’d wanted to go in the first place.

  His bed.

  I pulled off his shirt, pressed an open mouthed kiss to his chest. He tasted so good I tried a nipple, the jut of his collarbone, then his hip.

  The top button of his jeans gaped open. Convenient. I ran my tongue beneath the waistband, caught the tip of his—

  He cursed and lifted me away with a fingertip to my chin. “I’ll be no good to you if you keep that up.”

  “You’ll be fine if you keep that up.” I wiggled my brows. He laughed, then seem surprised by it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Love is a serious business.”

  My happy feeling died. Love was a serious business. But this wasn’t love. Couldn’t be. I would never love a man again. Losing another would kill me.

  “Quinn, I—”

  “Shh,” he mocked. “I know.” He lifted his gaze, staring out the window in the direction of the garden. “’Tis all right.”

  His happy had died too, in more ways than one. I put myself to work restoring both, cupping my palm to his fading erection and lifting, kneading, squeezing just a bit.

  Happy returned.

  “You’re always wearing too many clothes.” He began to remove them.

  I was tempted to dive beneath the covers before he could see the stretch marks on my ass, the pouch of three births below my navel. He didn’t give me a chance. He put his lips to every mark, cupped my stomach with one large hand, and when I shifted away, set both hands on my hips and pressed his mouth to the soft, cushy skin.

  He kissed and nibbled and laved until I was writhing. Who knew the belly was an erogenous zone? No woman with a belly like mine. Then his breath cascaded over my mound, stirring the curls, making me arch, and his tongue flicked just once.

  My legs gave way and he caught me, lifted me, laid me on the bed. It wasn’t until later that I wondered how I’d missed knocking him unconscious with a knee. How he’d managed to move so fast and with such grace. Considering.

  He slipped into me with equal speed and grace. I teetered on the edge, tightening around him.

  “Not just yet, a thaisce,” he murmured, and stilled.

  My fingers clenched, my nails biting into his back. His breath hissed in. “Sorry.” I released him, and he set his forehead to mine.

  “Ach, no. Just... do it again.”

  I drew my nails down his sides to his buttocks, scraped them along the skin and gooseflesh rippled. He began to move—first slowly, then when I continued the onslaught of my hands—nails, fingertips, nails again—faster. He gasped; I begged; we cried out as one.

  When the tremors had fled and we lay side-by-side, I threw an arm over his stomach—not round or pouched but flat and rippling. I considered tracing the muscles with my mouth but the idea of lifting my head from his shoulder was too much.

  “What does a thaisce mean?”

  He’d used several Gaelic words since we’d come here but right now the latest one was all I could recall.

  “Treasure,” he murmured, voice slurred by sleep.

  Treasure. I liked it.

  I considered asking about the others, but from the way his body had relaxed against mine, and his breathing had evened out, he was gone to dreamland, or close enough.

  I thought that was the second best idea he’d had all week and followed.

  * * *

  Quinn stood in the main room of the cottage. The room was dark, as was the night beyond the windows.

  He smelled the sea, caught the distant glimmer of the moon. The door must have blown open—he never should have broken it—because the wind blew through the room, stirring his hair, making him edgy.

  Something was coming.

  No. Something was here.

  The darkness became light in the shape of a woman, and he understood.

  “Mistress,” Quinn murmured, and knelt.

  “I told you not to do that.” Liz Phoenix planted her booted feet inches from his own.

  Quinn straightened. “Why are you here?”

  The leader of the light was taller than he remembered. Or maybe it was just because he felt smaller. He’d betrayed her trust, ignored her orders. He’d laid his filthy paws on her very best friend. Quinn doubted a woman who had been charged with thwarting the Apocalypse was going to be swayed by the excuse, “I couldn’t help it.”

  Her blue eyes swept the cottage. “Is Megan all right?”

  When she turned her head, her short dark hair, which she’d allowed to grow from very short to just plain short, not for vanity but to cover her new tattoo, shifted.

  A phoenix took flight from the top of her spine. If she touched it, she would become one. Then she’d no doubt burn him to ashes. That wouldn’t kill him but it would hurt like hell. More importantly, his rising from the ashes, just like the being that had caused them, would reveal to Megan Murphy the truth.

  Quinn Fitzpatrick wasn’t human. No matter how much he might long to be.

  Liz’s gaze flicked back, narrowed. “Quinn.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Got no time. Megan?”

  “She’s safe.”

  “I didn’t come all this way when I’m in demons up to my ass so that I could leave without seeing for myself.”

  Why had she? The last he’d spoken to her shit had happened, and she’d had no time for him or Megan. Which meant it was very deep shit indeed.

  Her gaze lit on the bedroom door, closed, and as it was the only door in the place, it didn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out where Megan was.

  She strode in that direction, and Quinn bit his lip to keep from telling her not to. One did not tell the leader of the light not to do anything. Unless one wanted to become ashes.

  Quinn didn’t. Not yet.

  Besides, he wore all his clothes. Just because Megan didn’t would prove nothing. If he was lucky, Liz would see her friend was breathing and leave. He’d worry about explaining himself later.

  Liz opened the door, and everything stilled. Quinn’s hair stirred again, but this time it tingled, as did every hair on his body. The very air seemed sucked from his lungs, the room, the earth. A snarl rippled around the room.

  Quinn rushed forward. There was no reason for Liz to be so furious unless—

  His gaze landed on the bed and he blinked. He was both there—all tangled up in her—and here. How could that be?

  “You are a dead man,” Liz said.

  “I know. Just don’t kill me until she’s safe.” He met her eyes, which blazed like blue neon in the night. “No one will protect her like I can.”

  “That’s protecting?” She nodded at the bed where he and Megan slept on.

  “No one is closer to her than I at this moment.”

  “Max,” Megan murmured.

  He stilled as agony flared.

  He could be at her side from now until forever, he could make love to her until she slept in his arms over and over again. But she would always love another.

  Liz looked quickly away, but not before pity flashed in her eyes. He deserved it.

  Quinn beckoned, and Liz followed him through the living room and out the still broken back door and into the moon- shrouded garden.

  “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

  “What do you think?” />
  “You’re a dream walker.”

  “I’m everything,” she muttered.

  Quinn didn’t know much about his mistress. He’d heard she was a sexual empath; she absorbed the supernatural abilities of others through sex. Not the easiest way to save the world, one Quinn didn’t envy, which was probably why he was a minion and not the boss.

  Liz Phoenix had become leader of the light upon the murder of the previous leader, her adopted mother Ruthie Kane. She’d been thrown into the fight against evil, against doomsday, without time to prepare. Bad things had happened, but she was still fighting. Eventually she would win.

  She had to.

  While he hadn’t known she had the power to dream walk—the ability to stroll through the dreams of the one with the answer to her most desperate question—he did know what it took to do so. One had to hover between life and death.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “What happened?”

  She waved away her mortal wound or terminal illness as if swatting a gnat. “I’m too far away for you to help, and what happened doesn’t matter.”

  “Liz,” he began.

  “At last. It only took my imminent demise to get you to call me by my name.”

  “How imminent?”

  “Damn imminent, or I wouldn’t be in your head.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  Her lips curved. “I didn’t know I needed anything.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  In Quinn’s dream. Which meant he was the one with the answer she needed badly enough to dream walk. But what was the question?

  “Megan.” Her head turned toward the cottage. “I was worried.”

  “Your most desperate question was for her welfare?”

  She shrugged. “Go figure. But really, Quinn, if I’m not saving the world for her, who am I saving it for?”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone isn’t real.” She clenched her hands. “I don’t know everyone. Hell, I don’t like anyone.”

  Humanity was a large, teaming mass of faces without names, strangers who were mostly assholes. There was a reason the demons had been able to blend in for so long. A lot of humans behaved just as badly, even with a soul. So sometimes it was best to focus on the saving of the ones who mattered the most personally. He had.

  “Does she know?” Liz murmured. “What you are?”