by Abigail Owen
They will come for me.
She was half demon, and they would see her choices, her actions, tonight as a direct betrayal. They would come for her and anyone near her. She could have this moment with Alasdair, but that was all.
She’d be gone by the morning.
Chapter Eleven
Alasdair walked into the outer room of Delilah’s offices, dressed in his best Armani, his usual control in place, at least outwardly. He wasn’t sure what her assistant, Naiobe, was exactly. Hopefully she couldn’t hear the violent thunder of his heartbeat. Not even the day he’d been voted to the head of the Syndicate had he wrestled with this level of nerves and doubts.
Of course, that day, his taking the role had been a foregone conclusion, at least as far as he was concerned.
The woman who held his heart in her hands—not so much.
That fucking note.
He’d woken up from a mind-blowing night of mutual pleasure secure in the knowledge that he’d found the one and only woman he wanted at his side through life and into death to find the bed beside him cold and empty, her things gone, no trace of her beyond the scent of cherry blossoms on his sheets.
And a politely chilly note on her pillow that shredded his heart like a cheese grater.
He’d decided to give her a week to realize what he already knew. A week. That had been an aspirational joke. Three hours were all he’d managed to wait before coming here to convince her. Of course Delilah and her assistant would be working on this holiday. He did the same himself most years. Maybe not any more, though.
This was Christmas morning, and he was going to get his Christmas miracle.
Another one. The demons had been the first.
Naiobe glanced up, her dark eyes flickering with an emotion he couldn’t pinpoint the second she recognized him. If he hadn’t been looking closely he would’ve missed the small twitch to her button nose and had to compress his lips around a grin. That had been a helpful tell to overhear Delilah comment on the other day. “I’d like to speak with Delilah.”
“She’s not here,” Naiobe lied without even a blink of her big, deep brown eyes.
Using the serious, no-bullshit glower that got most people to move—usually with hustle—Alasdair leaned over to place his hands on her desk, leaning in to her. “We both know that’s not true.”
He’d timed this deliberately to find Delilah in the office. He’d also had help from two unexpected sources—though maybe not so unexpected once he’d gotten over the shock—figuring out his best move.
Naiobe pursed her lips and gave a speaking look to his hands before lifting a pointed gaze to his eyes.
He didn’t move, which earned him only mulishly narrowed eyes. “She’s in a meeting.”
“With her parents. I’m well aware.”
That finally got a real reaction, her shoulders coming back like a soldier at attention. “And how do you know that, may I ask?”
“Because they told me to be here at this time.”
“I see,” she said slowly, and slid a glance to Delilah’s door, then back to him. Then she rose to her feet and placed her hands on her desk, mimicking his posture, going nose to nose. “You hurt her, and you answer to me.”
“I understand.”
She gave a perfunctory smile that did not reach her eyes. “I don’t think you do. To start with, I’m a freed djinn.”
Djinn possessed access to more magic than mages, not having to pull it from themselves, but from the power found in nature. Of course Delilah would have one for an assistant. She’d probably freed Naiobe herself, he had no doubts.
“You believe you understand what that means,” Naiobe said, eying him. “But you don’t. When I was enslaved and given that power, I was already more than human. Ever hear of an adze?”
Holy shit.
As the leader of all his kind, Alasdair made it a point to know all supernatural creatures. Adze were rare. From the depths of his memory he pulled out a general idea. “The legend in the Ghana and Togo region of Africa—fireflies who in human form become vampires?”
“Vampire is such a loose term.” Her smile sent a chill through him, controlled just barely. “We like to eat fresh internal organs. Human, animal…” She gave a negligent shrug as though it didn’t matter which. “I’m a particular fan of—” Her gaze dropped to his crotch.
Alasdair grinned, obviously throwing Naiobe off, based on another nose twitch. “I should have known Delilah wouldn’t have just anyone as an assistant.”
They stared at each other across the desk for a long moment before she gave a reluctant half smile, then sauntered to the door. “I’m not the one you need to worry about.” She paused, her hands on the door handles. “I don’t know what happened, but she’s been… I’ve never seen her like this.”
“She’s not the only one,” he confessed.
“Fix it,” Naiobe ordered. Then opened the door. “Sorry for the interruption, Delilah, but Alasdair Blakesley is here and insisting on speaking with you.”
He walked in to find Delilah standing beside both her parents, no shoes, and an expression caught somewhere between irritation and panic before she buried it under that layer of ice he hated.
“Remiel. Hazah.” He nodded at her parents.
Delilah whipped her head around to stare at her parents. “I’d hate to think you had anything to do with this,” she said through tight lips.
“Apparently, daughter, you learned nothing of the lessons I sent you through.” Hazah stepped up to Delilah and placed a kiss on her forehead and whispered something he couldn’t catch but that sent red flags of color into Delilah’s high cheekbones.
“You have both our blessings,” Remiel said, also giving her a kiss.
Then Remiel took Hazah’s hand in his—a gesture Delilah’s gaze shot to, and she couldn’t quite disguise the vulnerability that flashed across her features—and they disappeared. No sound. No wind.
“Must be handy to teleport indoors,” Alasdair murmured.
The face she turned to him was perfectly composed, not an emotion in sight behind the glacier she’d erected. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my parents’ form of travel.”
“No.”
“So, what can I do for you?” She started to move behind her desk.
“Marry me.”
Delilah froze, her back to him, then slowly turned, even icier, which meant he’d gotten to her. “You know I can’t. I told you in the—”
He pulled the piece of paper out of his breast pocket and held it up. “In your note?”
She glanced at it, then back to his face, and drew her shoulders into stiffly perfect posture. “After what I did to my own kind… There will be retribution, against me in particular.”
Sucking in through his nose, he stepped closer to her. “The night I killed my father…”
Her eyes widened slightly, a shadow of confusion shadowing the dark depths. But she didn’t stop him, so he kept going.
“I had the demon wrapped up in bands of electricity. The thing was screaming. Howling with it, and suddenly his eyes turned blue, like mine, the blackness going away, and he was my father again.”
She licked her lips. “The demon pretending to be him? To trick you?”
Alasdair shook his head. “My father managed to break through, only for a moment. He said—”
The words choked off deep in his throat. He’d never told anyone this. Not even his sister. Breathe in. Breathe out.
“He said he was proud of me. That he loved me.”
Delilah stepped nearer. Only a tiny bit, but that obviously unconscious gesture gave him some small hope.
“Then he told me how to kill the demon. Knowing it would take him, too.”
Pain—for him?—rippled over her delicate features. Breathtaking features. Demon and angel. No wonde
r she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
But that wasn’t what held him captive.
Her heart—he’d seen it over and over in his investigation into her, and now in their Christmas Carol. She took on the hard luck cases, the bleeding heart cases, the lost and pathetic, the downtrodden, the hopeless. Delilah might be half demon, but her soul was all angel.
She glanced away, breaking the connection, and when she returned her gaze to him, the frost had turned the windows of her eyes hard and cold. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, killing my father molded me, but differently than what every single person around me assumed. They worried I would want revenge, or turn bitter, angry. That I’d use my own powers for the wrong reasons.”
“But you didn’t,” she said.
“Partly because of what he did that day. His reaching out to me in the way he did… I saw that love, maybe especially in death, would always be stronger. So everything I do for my people, every step I’ve taken, I’ve refused for it to be in anger or vengeance.”
The corner of her mouth tilted up, even as she pursed her lips. “A good man,” she murmured.
“Don’t you see? That’s you, too.”
Her eyes widened slightly. Was she hearing him? Could she see this truth as clearly as he could?
He stepped closer, daring frostbite to reach out and frame her face with his hands. “You set up a business helping others. Whatever went into your makeup, who you are is still up to you. And only you.”
She closed her eyes, shutting him out, and shook her head. “But don’t you see? That’s why I can’t. The danger I’d put you in…” She swallowed and opened her eyes, all her emotions shining there for him to see. Regret. Sorrow. Pain.
Alasdair smiled softly. “Haven’t you learned this lesson yet? We are always better together.” They wouldn’t have won this round otherwise. “And then there’s the love thing.”
“Love thing.” She scoffed and sent him a long, cold stare. One he could see now that she was forcing. A crack in the ice she’d built around her heart. “I don’t love you,” she said.
A bullet to the heart would’ve been less painful. But he pushed through, knowing she’d just lied. “I heard you, goddess.”
“You heard? Heard what?”
He nodded, grim now. Everything hung on this moment. “You said, ‘I’m not running, Alasdair Blakesley. I love you too much.’” He paused, for once in his life, scared to ask the tough question. “Do you still?”
Delilah sucked in a sharp breath, then her hands shot to her cheeks. “You heard that? But…you were a demon!” She spun away from him. “You were possessed. You weren’t…you.”
Chunks were falling off the glacier now.
He finally dared to touch her, stepping closer to take her by the shoulders and turn her to face him. “Those were the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”
Hands still on her cheeks, her eyes welled with tears. “No. I’ll take that memory from you and you can live your life without me. Safely. It’s the only—”
“Don’t you fucking dare. You’re the best thing in my life. Do not steal that from me. Don’t disrespect me by taking the choice away. Because I would choose you every time.”
Finally, the glacier thawed all the way, the sight incredible, as her face crumpled and she fell in to him, head against his chest. “Why are you making me admit this?”
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, inhaling her subtle scent. The cherry blossoms had disappeared from his sheets after the first day away from her. “Because I’m so in love with you, not facing this and not finding an answer isn’t an option.”
She stilled in his arms, not even breathing.
“It would rip me apart. I couldn’t stay away to give you time to think before rushing over here.”
Delilah lifted her head, searching his gaze. “It’s too soon,” she whispered.
“I started falling in love with you long before our adventure. I just didn’t admit it until your mother’s ploy gave us a fast-forward button.”
She shook her head. “Why?”
He couldn’t contain a snort, wanting to kiss her before she came up with more reasons to keep them apart.
“For a thousand different reasons. You talk back to me, and question me, and are a general pain in my ass.”
Her lips twitched. “That doesn’t sound like love.”
“Your entire life is about helping others who need help. You were willing to give your life for my people.”
“I can still help you without—”
He put a finger to her lips. “You are my mirror. Power and position and influence hiding a core of emotions we don’t show to anyone.” He paused and smiled. “Except you. I show who I am to you, and I have no damn idea why. It’s quite frustrating.”
She went to speak, and he stopped her with a soft kiss.
“It’s frustrating because you see me. The real me. Down to my soul. And thank the gods I see you, too. Every beautiful inch of you.” He took a deep breath. “We are both stone-cold on our own—powerful, in control, and effective. Even with this blood binding thing, we could go our own ways and I suspect we’d be just fine. Except I don’t want to be just fine with a part of myself always and forever with you. Especially if I’m right and your demon/angel blood just made me immortal.”
That had been a revelatory moment.
He put his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. “Together we are nothing short of spectacular, and I don’t want to miss another single second of us.”
He held her tight and waited and prayed to every god and demigod and spirit and anything else he could think of. Gradually, almost as though she was letting go of her worries one at a time, the tension leaked from her body. With each small give, she leaned in to him, and he offered up thanks.
Finally, gods finally, she lifted her head, then went up on tiptoe to wind her arms around his neck and plant a soft kiss on his lips.
“I do love you, though gods know how in the seven hells that happened.” She grinned, rare dimples flashing and pure delight lightening her features.
Alasdair grinned back. “And?” he prompted.
“I’ll marry you. Bind myself to you any way you’ll let me.” The frost was completely gone from her dark eyes now, only heat and happiness reflecting at him.
“Thank heavens,” he murmured, and claimed her lips in a kiss that quickly got out of hand.
Only he couldn’t let it. Not until after. Forcing himself, he lifted his head, loving the flushed, tumbled, loved look of her. “Merry Christmas.”
Delilah’s smile was the most beautiful gift he’d ever received. “A truly merry Christmas,” she murmured. “And gods bless us, everyone.”
Alasdair grinned at the Dickens reference. “I’ll never think of that story the same way again.”
She smiled back.
“We’d better go,” he said.
“Go?” She frowned. “Where?”
“Your parents are waiting with my minister of ceremonies.”
Her eyes went wide. “We’re doing this now?”
He cocked his head. “No way am I giving you time to rethink this.” Then he held his breath.
After a long stare, she gave a delighted chuckle that shot straight through his heart before traveling to other parts of him.
“In that case,” she said. “I’d better get my shoes.”
Epilogue
Delilah jerked upright in bed, the sheets slipping softly down her body and her bare nipples puckering in the chill of the air.
It took her a moment to realize where she was as she came out of her own vision. But as clarity returned, she breathed in pure contentment. She was home.
A low grumble was all the warning she had before a warm arm banded her waist and pulled her back down into
waiting arms, skin against skin. Alasdair tucked his head into the curve of her neck, feathering a kiss across her pulse.
“Another Seeing?” he asked in a sleep-rumpled voice.
She sighed, relaxing into him. “Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Interesting.”
That caught his attention, and he blinked open, blue eyes suddenly alert. “What?”
She sighed, thinking through the images she’d just dreamed. “I’m pretty sure a cupid is about to accidentally shoot himself in the foot, giving himself amnesia, and falling for a siren at the same time.”
Alasdair grinned. “Isn’t a siren’s job to lure foolish men to their death with her beauty?”
Delilah sighed again. “Yes. This one is going to be complicated.”
That drew a chuckle from him. “My meddling wife. You just can’t help yourself.”
“I make people happy,” she protested.
“And I love that about you.” In a sudden move, Alasdair rolled her beneath him, settling between her legs, already hard and hot against her. “You definitely make me happy.”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide her own blissfully happy smile. “Stupid happy.” That’s what his sister, Hestia, had called them the other day.
“You make me happy, too. Even if you are a control freak.”
With wicked intent and a deliberate wiggle, Delilah whispered a series of words that set both their bodies buzzing with sensation.
Alasdair growled, pretending to be irritated with her upping the pace of their lovemaking, sending them almost frantic with that single spell. But his grin told her he loved it. Mostly because they were about to orgasm, over and over, for the next hour. Together.
Sometimes, it paid to have a little devil in you.
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Acknowledgments
Even in the middle of a pandemic, my writing is a personal blessing. What a time to need an escape! Writing and publishing a book doesn’t happen without the support and help from a host of incredible people.
