by Brenda Huber
She’d seen, first hand, the shape he’d been in after that demon battle in the alley. She could only assume that was a regular occurrence for him. How could he choose that way of life, how could he sacrifice so much of himself to save the human race, and yet go out of his way to never know those he’d spared. This made no sense to her.
She idly twirled a pen between her fingers, clicked it in, out, in, chewed on the end. Kyanna had always believed everything happened for a reason. Why would fate—or God—drop this demon in her lap, so to speak? He was prickly. Sullen. Domineering. Insensitive and withdrawn. What could she possibly learn from him?
The pen stilled in her hand, and she sought him out. Assessed him as he bent over, peering at a crystal vase.
Am I meant to be the teacher?
All these years, her family had been keeper of the book. Raised to be aware of this other world. Perhaps there had been a reason. Maybe it had all led up to this moment. Maybe this was the reason her family was so different.
Has he been sent to learn from me?
The small bell over the door tinkled. Glancing up, mildly irritated at her thoughts being interrupted, she pasted on a welcoming smile. Kyanna froze. Talk about bad timing. Inwardly groaning, she slid from her chair and hurried to intercept the tall blond.
Catching sight of her, Jack pulled a massive spray of flowers from behind his back and grinned. Surprised, embarrassed, she winced. What was he doing here? She’d made it abundantly, painfully clear that they were through. That there would never be another chance for them. She refused to put him at risk any longer. How hard did he have to make this on himself?
How hard did he have to make it on her?
“I know you said I shouldn’t come back, honey.” He laid the flowers on the counter at her side. “But I just can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Jack—”
“Hear me out now.” He held his hands up. “We could be good together. I know it. Hell, we were good together. I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand why you called it quits, baby.” He stepped closer, reaching out to slip his arm around her waist, his obvious intent to haul her into his arms, and into his kiss. A classic Jack move if ever there was one. “Give us one more chance and—”
“Touch her, and you’ll pray for death.”
Jack stilled. Kyanna swung her head around to stare at Xander. She hadn’t heard him approach. And she’d never heard Xander speak in such chilling, menacing tones. Not even when he’d addressed the demon on her doorstep last night. Gulping, she sidled around the counter, placing herself squarely between the two bristling males.
“Xander, don’t.” She held a hand up behind her to warn him off.
“Who the hell are you?” Jack’s angry gaze drilled into Xander, who in turn appeared completely unaffected.
“It doesn’t matter who he is,” Kyanna quickly inserted before Xander could speak again, no doubt to make some hideous threat. “What matters is that we’re over, Jack. Nothing is going to change that. You need to accept that and move on.”
“It isn’t over.” He glowered at her now and closed the distance between them once more, reached for her wrist. “Tell him to get lost so we can talk—”
Before Jack could reach her, however, a forge-hot band of steel wrapped possessively around her waist. Without warning, Xander hauled her unceremoniously back against his granite frame. Feeling suddenly like the tug rope in a grossly unbalanced game of keep-away, Kyanna stiffened. A second band of steel came around her. The hoarse rasp of Xander’s voice near her ear cut off any explanation she was likely to give.
“She belongs to me now.”
Kyanna’s mouth fell open. A delicious shiver went down her spine at his words. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel the steely strength, the raw tension in his body. And then Xander did something so unexpected. He smoothed his cheek over the hair at her temple before pressing a kiss there. His large hands splayed, one over her ribcage, the other on her hip, and he gave her an unmistakable, affectionate squeeze. Effectively locking her in what would appear to anyone as an intimate lover’s embrace.
Jack glowered at the two of them. The pain of betrayal upon his face shredded her heart. She may not have truly loved him, but she did care about him. Very much. She didn’t want him hurt, not like this. But the bottom line here was that nothing she could say, nothing she could do would make this situation better for either of them. Not without giving him false hope. Jack’s mutinous stare locked on Xander’s face. Something he saw there made his eyes widen, his face pale. His Adam’s apple bobbed and he nodded his head slightly, just once.
“Leave,” Xander grated. “And do not return.”
Jack spun on his heel and all but sprinted from the store. As the door closed behind him, Xander released her.
Whirling around, Kyanna clenched her fists at her sides to keep from smacking him. Her body vibrated with indignation. “What the hell was that all about? ‘She belongs to me,’” she mimicked his deep growl. “Why would you say something like that? Why would you humiliate him? Make him believe that you and I— That we’ve— Now he’s going to—”
Gah, she was so mad she was actually sputtering.
“Stay the hell away from you,” he barked. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Seething, she crossed her arms. “Not like that.”
“What difference does it make? The result is the same.”
“It makes a lot of difference. But you wouldn’t understand that either, would you?” Drawing both hands down the sides of her face, she emitted a low groan of frustration. Then she shook her finger at him. “Just stay out of my business.”
He stepped right up to her, towered over her, his face inches from hers. “You are the one keeping me here. Give me the damned relic, and I’m gone.”
Chapter Twelve
Two o’clock had never come so slowly. After Xander’s blunt demand to hand over the relic, Kyanna had frozen him out with stony silence, retreating to her bookwork in simmering fury. Xander had stomped off to her study and slammed the door behind him. There he had remained. For three hours. Immersed in silence. To make matters worse, it had been a slow day at the store. Aside from Jack, only two other people had ventured inside. Of those two, only one had actually made a purchase, leaving her to stew over the confrontation with Jack, as well as the conclusions she’d drawn prior.
Teacher to a demon? She snorted. How could she have been so egotistical? So narcissistic?
What could I possibly teach him?
Kyanna closed the store down and dragged her feet all the way to the office. A brief internal debate ensued in which her knuckles hovered at the door. With a disgusted grunt that sounded a little too much like something Xander might make—crap, he’s starting to rub off on me—Kyanna squared her shoulders and opened the door without knocking. It was her office, why should she be the one knocking?
Expecting to find him snoring on the sofa, she blinked in surprise. Xander was in the middle of the room, on the floor, on his knees. His head was bent. His eyes were closed. His lips moved silently and his hands were loosely clasped in his lap.
He’s praying. Brought up short, she stared. Has he been here like this, praying the whole time?
Oddly touched, she cleared her throat. “I’m going upstairs now.”
His slate gray eyes opened, and he slowly turned to look at her. His expression was as closed off as she’d ever seen it. So distant. A hollow ache unfurled deep in her chest. An ache far more unsettling than the one she’d experienced when Jack had looked at her as if she’d stabbed him in the back.
“Come up if you like.” Without further comment, she turned and made her way upstairs, leaving the doors open behind her. That was the only concession she was willing to make. She was still sore at him over the way he’d behaved with Jack.
Barbaric, high-handed
jerk.
And yet the sight of him kneeling in prayer had moved her, despite her anger.
Kyanna nibbled her thumbnail as she crossed the apartment, went to the fridge, and opened the door. In a way, he had been right. She was the one holding him here. Against his will. She’d brought him down to the store. She’d inadvertently made him privy to her conversation—disaster that it had been—with Jack.
That Xander had reacted the way he had certainly hadn’t soothed the situation. He’d humiliated Jack. On purpose. So that was a mark against him. But considering Xander’s social skills, or lack thereof, she was lucky he’d chosen humiliation over some other tact. Like, say, evisceration. Or frying.
Damn it, she was just as much to blame for what had happened as he was. And she hated being wrong.
What’s more, he could have come charging out of the office at any time, could have made one of her customers a prisoner, used them to force her hand. But he hadn’t.
Actions speak louder than words.
Bottom line? Despite his poor social skills, he’d continued to behave nobly. Time and time again.
Dropping her forehead against the freezer door, she groaned. Xander had done nothing to support any of the accusations in the book. Nothing to merit the extreme caution levied against him.
Oh sure. She was certain that at one point or other, probably for millennia untold, he’d been a scourge upon the Earth. Even he hadn’t denied it. But he’d also stated that he’d changed, was working toward redeeming himself. She’d seen it with her own eyes, though she could hardly lend credence to it. And, to the best of her knowledge, he hadn’t lied to her.
Granted his methods might be a little…misguided at times. But he was trying.
So who was the real villain here?
In short order, she organized on the counter an array of fresh fruit and the makings for sandwiches. Feeling off balance, she prepped a sandwich for herself, hesitated, and then made one for her unwilling—undeserving?—houseguest. She’d just begun to run water over the grapes when the heavy thunk of his boots echoed up the steps. Hypersensitive to the tension in the room, she kept her focus on her work as she added the grapes to the strawberries, sliced bananas, and chunks of fresh pineapple that already filled two bowls.
A chair at the table scraped back as she was cleaning the counter off. Without looking at him, she gently placed the sandwich plate and the bowl of fruit before him. Silent, she carried her own to the table, set them down. She returned to the fridge one last time and poured herself a glass of iced tea. And all the while, she mentally castigated herself for procrastinating. As she returned the tea jar to the fridge, she spied the last can of Pepsi.
Kyanna’s pursed lips slid to the side.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you.” She put the can on the table at his elbow. Kyanna paused, drew a deep breath, and took the chair across from him. Still, she couldn’t look him in the eye. “It was a difficult situation all the way around.”
“Your boyfriend has been dealt with.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Her gaze snapped to his. She could literally feel her temper beginning to simmer anew. Kyanna gritted her teeth and ruthlessly tamped it down. “Boyfriend. He isn’t a child.” She took a sip of tea, more to have something to do with her hands than because she was thirsty. “And he isn’t my boyfriend.”
“Not anymore,” came the snide remark.
“It’s over. Just let it go, all right?”
Xander grunted as he picked up his sandwich. Took a healthy bite. Washed it down with a big gulp of soda. Lifting a dubious brow, he used his fork to poke at the fruit. “Why would you choose to be with someone like that anyway?”
Kyanna nearly choked on a half-chewed chunk of pineapple. Eyes watering, she hastily took a drink. Clearing her throat, she reminded herself to have patience. “Like what?”
“Such a…” Xander paused, as if searching for the appropriate word, and then settled for, “Wuss.” He tossed a shoulder, his expression markedly bored.
Yet he’d asked the question.
She was slowly beginning to pick up on his little tells. Like the way the corners of his eyes crinkled, just the tiniest bit when he was curious about something. Or the way his lower lip flattened, as if he were chewing on the inside of it, whenever he found something humorous but was behaving all “me-big-bad-demon-too-mean-to-smile”.
“Jack is not a wuss.”
Xander stared at her. Deadpan.
How could he argue without saying a blasted word?
“Jack is compassionate. Caring and intelligent and…why am I bothering to defend him?”
“Indeed.” Xander forked up a strawberry.
Setting her fork aside, she regarded him with a frown. “Why do you equate compassion with weakness?”
“Compassion has nothing to do with it. The male obviously wants you for his mate. And yet he put up no fight for you. He did not challenge me when I laid claim to you. He ran from the fight with his tail between his legs. He is a coward. He is unworthy of you.”
Kyanna leaned back in her chair, nonplussed. Had that been a backhanded compliment? Or just one more jab at Jack?
“Maybe he was respecting my wishes. Respecting the fact that the relationship truly is over.”
“Wuss,” Xander growled around a mouth full of ham and provolone.
Straining for patience, Kyanna folded her hands in her lap. Okay, so maybe it was more like fisting them, but at least she wasn’t yelling.
Woohoo. Points for her.
“Why do you keep saying that? He was respecting my wishes.”
After taking another long draw of soda, he cleared his throat. Was that a fleeting grimace of pain? And something finally occurred to her. The longer he spoke, the more strained his voice became. She should have picked up on that before. He also hadn’t answered her before when she’d asked why his voice was like that. Did his throat actually physically hurt him?
“It obviously wasn’t over for him. Yet he let you dictate to him, let you decide the relationship was over.”
“That’s the way things are done here in my world,” she replied, exasperated. “It’s the civilized thing to do when one partner decides a relationship is no longer viable.”
“Civilized.” He sneered. “More like convenient. Temporary relationships.” Pushing his empty plate away as if the conversation had caused him to lose his appetite, he regarded her in a way that made her want to squirm. Want to get up and pace. Anything to alleviate the tightness in her chest. “God meant for relationships to be permanent. Enduring. In my world, males pursue what they want. And once they won their mates affection, they work to keep it. They protect what belongs to them, they’d fight to the death for it. They don’t meekly let their females walk away if she grows weary or bored. He finds a way to keep her happy. He works harder to keep her interested.”
“So you’re saying, in your world, if you pursued a female and claimed her, that you would hold on to her? Would refuse to let her go, regardless of her wishes?”
He gave a terse nod, his gaze fever bright. “She would have no cause to want to leave.”
“In your opinion.”
His response was a very male grunt.
“Do demons even have mates?”
“Yes.” He eyed her suspiciously. “Some do.”
“And do they share your views?”
“Any demon, no matter the species, would sooner die than be parted from his female.”
How utterly archaic!
And yet, oddly enough, something about his opinion excited her. She’d been raised in a single parent household; her own father having disappeared before she’d been old enough to have formed any lasting impressions of him. Whenever she’d asked about him, her mom had always gotten this sad, far-away look and changed the subject. Over the years, Sheila Hughes had ha
d a cursory date here or there. Shadowy figures with no name, no face in Kyanna’s memory. But she’d never, ever brought anyone home to meet Kyanna.
Maybe, subconsciously, Kyanna had modeled her own life after her mother’s. Shallow dating. Temporary, just as Xander had accused. Convenient.
Never long lasting.
Maybe she wasn’t any better than Xander. Socially stunted. Crossing her arms, she frowned at her plate. That wasn’t right. She had lots of—
Acquaintances.
She had lots of acquaintances. Even a few close acquaintances. But none who truly knew all there was to know about her. If it weren’t for a very select few, Kyanna would have relatively no real, meaningful relationships in her life at all now.
She studied him. And she made up her mind. If her eyes were to be opened to the sad state of her existence, well, then, so were his. It was high time he met some of the humans he put his life on the line every day to save. Time he learned that every soul he rescued had a face and a name. A personality and life. That the good he did had long reaching consequences. And she was just the one to show him. Perhaps this was what she’d always been meant to do, to show Xander—a demon—the personal side of humanity. But to do that, she must take him out into the community. A long ingrained part of her revolted at the idea. Taking a demon into an innocent population.
But this was no ordinary demon. This was Xander.
How best to proceed, when he obviously went well out of his way to avoid interacting with humans?
Clearing the table, she silently mulled this latest predicament over. Xander had left the room and was, even now, wandering her apartment. Prowling it like the caged predator he was. When she finished with the kitchen, without saying anything, she picked her purse up from the counter, took her car keys down from the peg.
In a flash, he stood before her, blocking the apartment’s doorway. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I have errands.”
