The Highwayman

by Michele Hauf

  “Your shadow form?” The wolf had no problem showing disgust.

  “He has a demon shadow inside him,” Aby explained. “It needs to be let out nightly.”

  “To fight the madness,” Max added, loving the sour reaction on the wolf’s face. But he wasn’t proud he’d let Aby see that part of him. “I’m sorry. It came on too quickly. It would never harm a soul. It merely peers into their dreams.”

  She’d loved it when he’d licked her nipples in her dreams and when he’d slid inside her…

  The blush rosing Aby’s cheeks caught his attention. She looked aside, but the wolf caught her reaction, too.

  “This is too much,” the werewolf said. “Aby, will you use reason?”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened last night, Severo. There are more important things to worry about. I realized something about the demon Max wants to summon.”

  Max caught Severo’s renewed interest. It was sharp, so much so, it might cut if the man breathed on him.

  “What about it?” Severo asked.

  “He thinks to summon a deprivation demon and exorcise the shadow he carries in him.”

  Severo tilted his head, sucked in his cheek loudly. “You’re half demon?”

  “Completely human, save the demon shadow that resides within me. Scared?”

  The wolf held his stance, authoritative and menacing.

  “Max thought to summon the demon alone, but his former partner needs to be present, because he’s got half the shadow in him, too.”

  “A partner?”

  “Yes, partner in crime. We used to rob from the rich and give to ourselves.” Hell, he didn’t need to impress the wolf. “That’s why they call me the Highwayman.”

  “I wonder if we should involve Grim to help us with this?” Aby said.

  Max shook his head. “That witch is not welcome around me. You two might believe he’s fine, but he’s an asshole.”

  “Whether or not the legend is true,” Severo said, “I’ve trusted the man for years. And if you don’t agree to include the witch, then you might as well march right out of here now, slayer.”

  “It doesn’t bother you what he did to the werewolf’s wife?” Max replied.

  “What is this legend you two talk about?” Aby wondered aloud.

  Severo put an arm around her waist. “It’s nothing, sweet. Just fable.”

  “The legend,” Max said, “claims that centuries ago a vampire fell in love with a vampiress and wished to marry her. He had an enemy, a werewolf, who decided he was going to win the vampiress’s heart to piss off the vampire—and did so. In retaliation, the vampire lord hired a witch to bespell the werewolf’s wife. He then locked her in a glass coffin and buried her beneath the streets of Paris. Legend says the spell keeps her alive, yet motionless. She cannot escape, but is always aware. Of course, after centuries, she has gone mad.”

  “As I’ve said, it is legend,” Severo reiterated.

  “It’s not legend.” Max found Aby’s gaze. “I saw the glass coffin. Ian Grim had it specially made.”

  “Be that as it may…” The wolf put himself between Aby and Max. “She’s already told you she doesn’t want to work with you. Take a hint, buddy.”

  “I changed my mind,” Aby said. She stepped around from behind the wolf. “He’s a kind man, Severo. He just wants to be mortal. If I can help him, I want to.”

  “Which means we need to find Deloche,” Max said.

  “We?” Severo put an arm around Aby’s shoulder. “I don’t know who you’re carrying around in your pocket, but we doesn’t pertain to me or Aby.”

  “I need Aby’s help.”

  And if he could fit her in his pocket he would.

  “Not going to happen.” He stepped up to Max. Severo was six inches shorter than Max but he made up for height in fierceness. “She’s not yours to do with as you please.”

  “Nor am I yours.” Aby stomped the floor, and both men turned to look at her. “You two are acting like wild dogs. Yes, Severo, you are. I’m not a female to be fought over within the pack. Step back. And, Max, take your hand off that whip. I will not have you two going at it in front of me.”

  “Then maybe we should take it outside?” Severo offered.

  “Sev, please! Where do you think you’ll find your partner, Max?” Aby asked.

  “Don’t know. I suppose I should start in Paris.”

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  The wolf beat the countertop with a fist. “Absolutely not! You need to give this some consideration, Aby. And if the Highwayman has any respect at all for you he will allow it.”

  “The wolf’s right,” Max contended. “Think about it for a day. I need time to track Deloche anyway, see if I can pick up his trail.”

  “You can use my computer.” She gestured up the stairs.

  “Thanks.” Max shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the back of the sofa. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  The wolf’s gaze stabbed through Max’s heart.

  He smirked after his back was to the twosome. Let the dog whine. He wasn’t about to step down now that he understood Aby was not Severo’s.

  She was his. Or she would be. As soon as he could tell her she was his salvation.

  Chapter 13

  A s Max tromped up the stairs to power up the computer in the little loft room overlooking the living room, Aby tugged Severo toward the door and out into the foyer. He leaned over her, pushing her against the wall, putting himself in the dominant position, which was normal for him.

  She didn’t mind. She loved Severo. Yet his anger sometimes frightened her.

  “What does he mean to you?” Severo asked. “I can see something in your eyes when you look at him. You’ve known him for but a few days, Aby.” He gripped her wrist. “Does this mean nothing to you? I did not make you suffer the pain of a tattoo for no reason.”

  “He’s not the enemy right now.”

  “Right now? But after he gets what he wants from you? Aby, please don’t be foolish.”

  This was the first time a rival for Severo’s affections had stepped forward. And this rival could give her things she’d never ask of her friend.

  “I like him. He’s nice and respectful.” Truthful to a fault, but at least he wasn’t trying to hide anything from her. Max told it like it was, even if it wasn’t very pretty. “And he’s sexy.”

  The werewolf reared back, his eyes flitting from hers. “You crush me with such words.”

  “You knew this is what would eventually happen after I moved out from your place. I’m spreading my wings, Sev. Meeting new people.”

  “A new person who wants to use you for his own devious means. Aby, I don’t trust the man. And why not do this the usual way, with Jeremy?”

  “Jeremy isn’t necessary. Max knows the summoning ritual.”

  “But he’ll have to make love to you.”

  “It’s not making love, it’s having sex. There’s a big difference.”

  “You think to know so much?”

  Aby looked aside from Severo’s piercing insinuation. Had he purposefully secluded her to keep her innocent of such things as relationships and kisses and falling in love? Why? That was not kindness but cruelty, and Severo had never been spiteful toward her. That she’d known, anyway. Had he sicced the demons on Max? She could have been collateral damage.

  And, yes, Max would have to have sex with her. She looked forward to it. But how to tell that to a man who had been a mentor and friend for over a decade?

  “Maybe this is a test between the two of us,” she said. “To see if we can live apart. I don’t want to make you angry, Sev, but I do want to be successful on my own. You’ve done so much for me. Taken care of me. Seen to my safety. My finances. Loved me.”

  “I will always love you. That’s why it makes me angry to see you falling for the first handsome face that shows you the tiniest bit of attention. Do you see what he did in there? He stepped before you, as if to protect you from me. Me. He is claimi
ng you, Aby. I don’t like that.”

  Claiming her? Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it stirred giddy warmth in her belly.

  Had he done it last night when he’d looked into her dreams? What had he seen?

  “Severo, do you…” They’d discussed this once before. Or rather, talked around it. “Do you consider me yours?”

  He faced the stairway, his broad back to her. He never did look at her when he was uncomfortable. The wolf was a loner. He’d left his pack after taking Aby in, relinquishing his principal status to another werewolf. He’d secluded himself from the world, as most wolves did. Yet, those other wolves had the pack for companionship.

  Severo had no one now that she had moved out.

  “Aby,” he said softly. The side of his face visible, he gazed at the floor. “You know how I feel about you.”

  “Am I yours?” she insisted.

  “No. Regrettably.” He glanced over a shoulder.

  Drawn to his weary stance, Aby hugged him, tucking her head against his arm. “I love you. I will never stop. You will find your mate someday.”

  Severo pressed his forehead to hers. His sigh warmed her cheek. She smoothed her hands over his long hair and spread it over his shoulder, then clasped her hands around behind his neck.

  “Let me do this,” she said. “Let me go on this adventure with Max, please?”

  “An adventure? You’re chasing demons, Aby.”

  “Not really. We’re looking for Max’s partner. Then, we’ll summon a demon under controlled circumstances. It’ll be safe, as you’ve always taught me. You know I’m smart around demons. Please, Sev, I’ve never been out of the state.”

  “Then drive across state lines to Wisconsin if that’s what’s pulling at you. But Paris? That’s a long flight with a man I consider your enemy.”

  “I don’t consider him that.”

  He sighed. “Has he kissed you?”

  Now she pushed him away. But he moved in on her, suffocating her need for distance.

  “He has,” he said decisively.

  “I don’t think you need to know all the details of my personal life. Sev, we’re not like that, you and I.”

  “Because the issue of you dating has never come up until now.”

  “You’re acting more like a parent than a friend.”

  He had been prepared to make her his life mate. She had once been ready for that, too. But briefly. She couldn’t love him romantically when she’d grown up living side by side with him as a friend and family member. Heck, when she was in cat shape, she pranced around with his wolf.

  “Please.” She met Severo’s eyes. She’d always felt safe here, comforted. Now she sensed the distance, a falling away that might never again be bridged. “Trust me?”

  “I do trust you—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence. You don’t have to trust Max. I promise I’ll call. I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

  He stroked her cheek. Always, his emotions showed in his eyes. “I could have taken you there.”

  “We’ll go together some day.”

  “Every day you exist here, in your own home, making your own new world and friends, you step farther away from me.”

  “You’ll always be here, Sev.” She pulled his hand to place over her heart. He touched her tentatively, not allowing his fingers to conform beneath her breast. “Promise.”

  The door opened, and Aby pulled down Severo’s hand, though she sensed his resistance. The wolf thrust his shoulders square and lifted his chin.

  “I’ve found a witch who does psychic imprints and mapping for people,” Max said. “She’ll see me right away.”

  “You want me to come along?” Aby asked him.

  She followed Max’s gaze from her to Severo.

  “If you like.”

  “Give me two minutes.”

  After Aby had disappeared into the bathroom, the wolf gripped Max by the coat collar and shoved him hard against the door frame. Max expected the move, and allowed it. The wards jittered in his nerves, warning, but not powerful enough to put him back after Aby’s invitation.

  “I don’t like you, slayer.”

  “Haven’t developed much love for you either, wolf.”

  “I have your scent in my nose. You know what that means? I can find you anywhere, any time.”

  “Good to know. Is that how it is with Aby? She’s in you? You’re not about to let her break free on her own, much as she desires to? Where’s the leash, man? She’s nothing more than a pet to you.”

  Slammed hard again, Max winced as the door frame collided with his spine. Still, he smiled through it.

  “You think you know so much? You know nothing.” The werewolf seethed. “Harm one hair on her head and I’ll rip out your intestines and use them to strangle you.”

  “Sounds like a day at the park.” Max changed his demeanor to a more respectful, softer tone. “I mean Aby no harm.”

  “When did you have such a radical change of heart about familiars?”

  When he’d dream walked into Aby’s thoughts and she had rescued him from centuries of frustration.

  “Listen, wolf, I get that she means the world to you. And believe me, I’ll protect her with my life, if it should come to that.”

  “If it comes to that, you’ve already failed.”

  “You’re right.”

  The failures from his past flashed in his mind. There had been two women. One, he’d loved dearly. Both, he’d failed.

  “How many familiars have you killed?” the wolf asked.

  Max bowed his head. Yes, how many? He didn’t keep a tally. Nor did he look in their eyes before severing their heads from their bodies. “Enough.”

  “Do their deaths really make a difference in the amount of demons running rampant in this realm?”

  “I believe they do. Ninety percent of demons here in this realm have been bridged by familiars.”

  “Aby isn’t safe with you.”

  “She will be.”

  Severo sighed and stepped outside the doorway. And Max understood perhaps Aby was the wolf’s failure.

  Ian Grim sensed the wolf’s presence and looked up from his laboratory table. There were no weapons at hand. He didn’t need one, but it was always best—

  His shoulder hit the steel lab table a nanosecond before his nose crunched under a fist. Against the table, Ian snorted the ground ginger root he’d been preparing for a spell. It burned his bleeding nostrils.

  “What in hell?” Severo growled. He held Ian firm with a hand to the back of his neck. “I asked you to sic the demons on the Highwayman, not Aby!”

  “I did!”

  “They went after her.”

  Shoved down the table, Ian’s face cleared a heavy mortar and two glass vials with a crash. His body followed, slumping on the floor in a sprawl. His face burned with pain, exacerbated by the ginger powder.

  The wolf shoved a boot against his chest.

  “You’re off the job, Grim. I don’t know why I trusted you’d have the skills for this in the first place. And you won’t be using Aby to bridge demons any longer. She’s off-limits to you. You understand?”

  Ian nodded. Bastard. It wasn’t as though he could control the demons once set loose on the target. If Severo had wanted to keep the familiar safe he should have insured she was not in a position of harm.

  So, the Highwayman and the familiar were hanging out together?

  Ian bet that rubbed the werewolf the wrong way. Heh. His work was done here.

  The wolf stomped out of his lab.

  Ian touched his nose. “We’re not finished yet, wolf. Someday you’ll regret treating me this way.”

  The witch barely breathed.

  Max leaned forward, across the round table spread with a purple star-dotted scarf to inspect the woman’s bowed face. She was pushing a hundred, surely. He’d never seen so many wrinkles on a person. It made him nostalgic for his mortality.

  Beside him, Aby sat on the other of the two wobbly
stools provided. They’d been escorted in without fanfare and told to remain quiet while the witch prepared to connect with the spirits.

  He hadn’t told her about the dream walk. Not yet. He wanted the time to be right. It was too personal not to tender carefully to her.

  Max took Aby’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Then he realized what he’d done. He didn’t want to drop her hand right away and make her think he didn’t want to touch her, so he held it in his own.

  Aby looked at him and absolutely beamed.

  Bowing his head to hide a shy smile, Max returned his gaze to the concentrating witch.

  “You shouldn’t repress your desires,” the witch said, her eyes still closed.

  “And you should concentrate on the business at hand,” he retaliated.

  A glance to Aby found her smiling. He needed to get this done with before the witch had them married. “His name is Rainier Deloche,” he said to usher her along.

  “Yes, and he was your partner in the eighteenth century. I didn’t forget a thing you told me, young man. I’m not dead yet.” She assumed a quiet state, drawing in a breath through her nose. The gold loops at her ears tugged at the lobes. “I can’t sense him around you, which I might be able to do if he were a spirit.”

  “So he’s still alive?” Aby questioned.

  “Possibly. I’m not getting a read on this man at all.” The witch opened her eyes directly on Max. “You’re too clean.”

  He’d spent centuries killing and tracking dark denizens. A demon shadow resided within him. How could he possibly be clean?

  “It’s because he doesn’t eat or sleep,” Aby offered. “His scent is pure.”

  The witch nodded, accepting that explanation. Max had never heard that said of him before. He was the furthest thing from pure.

  “You can’t get a read on me, but what of Rainier?”

  “Not feeling it today. Sorry, Highwayman.” The witch flickered her gaze at Aby. “She, on the other hand, provides interesting diversion.”

  “Is it the demons?” Max prompted.

  “She’s a familiar,” the witch berated, “one would expect demons. But there is a darker force close to her.”