Pandora's Box

by Miller, Gracen

  That wouldn’t be happening!

  Symbols covered every surface in the room. Her security deposit sure as hell wouldn’t be refunded when management got a good view of her artwork.

  The blade she’d shoved into his hand radiated a combination of colors; pulsating with life. The vibration tingled in his palm. Unsure what evil it portended, he went into the kitchen and rinsed away her blood under cold running water from the faucet. Immediately, the colors and pulsation ceased.

  Hmmm….the blood must be the catalyst. Did her blood cause the knife’s response, or would any blood do? He hoped to never find out. Wedging the weapon between his belt and jeans, he took the opportunity to more closely examine the penthouse, found nothing to identify the demon, and settled on the couch to wait for Gage to call.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Nix palmed his cell phone when it vibrated. Anxious for Gage to call from dumping the car, he answered on the first buzz.

  “Hey, sexy.”

  “Mads?” He shivered at the sound of her sultry accent. The only woman who could drive sexual fantasies through his skull with the sound of her voice.

  “Yeah. You’re okay, right? Petra got to you in time?”

  “Petra?” Nix frowned. “Do you mean the hot, blonde demon with a snarky attitude?”

  “That’d be her.” The sound of a car door shutting left him wondering where she was.

  “Um…yeah, she got there. We might have killed her.”

  The snap of shoes against pavement. “How do you mean?”

  “I think she may be bleeding out.”

  “Crap!”

  Despite Mads’s obvious worry, her curse forced a laugh from him.

  “How do you know about her?” Nix walked back to where the demon lay unmoving on the floor.

  Petra? Could she be Petralegija? He thought he remembered her using the name when she snuffed out those demons in the bowling alley? At the time, he thought she called on Petralegija’s power, and now he wasn’t so sure.

  “I sent her to help you.” Her voice became a bit muffled, as though she spoke away from the receiver. “Hi, Pablo. How are you this evening?”

  Pablo’s distant reply came through from her end. Where the hell was Mads?

  “Are you in the hotel room with Petra?” Madison’s voice was once again clear.

  “Yeah. I’m waiting on Gage to ditch the car and return.” Afterward, they were getting the hell away from the demon…Petralegija? God, he hoped not. That particular demon was one scary bitch. His first meeting with her had played out as a waking nightmare. She’d killed three Sherlock teenagers and tortured another by the time he and Gage joined the party. They’d tried to save Jessie from Petralegija’s evil grasp, except they’d been too late. “Mads? How are you associated with a demon?”

  “I’ll explain,” she said, and a ding sounded on the end of her line.

  “When?”

  “Now.” A rap sounded. “Hang up and let me in, Nix.”

  Nix swiveled toward the sound and peered at his phone. Even though he strode across the room, he didn’t disconnect the call. He swung the door open and his jaw hit the floor. “Holy fuck!”

  “Hey, handsome.” Mads grinned, plucked the phone from his fingers, and pressed the end button. She pushed the phone into his jeans pocket and asked, “Where’s Petra?”

  Stepping to the side so she could see the mutilated demon, he couldn’t speak because all his brain cells had died and gone to high-falutin’ heaven. He’d never seen her dressed like this before. A red cocktail dress hugged her curves and stopped a couple of inches above her knees. High heels left her half an inch shorter than him.

  Mads brushed past him and went directly to the demon. God have mercy, the back of the dress slung low enough that if she moved just right he might get a glimpse of the top of her ass crack. She definitely wore no bra beneath the delightful garment.

  He’d have new fantasies to frustrate his long, sleepless nights.

  She knelt beside the fallen demon, twisted Petra’s head face-up. “Where’s her blade?” she asked, swiveling to face him in her crouched position.

  Nix plucked the knife from the waistband of his jeans and handed it to Mads, hilt first. She pressed the tip of the dagger to her thumb, and blood as crimson as her dress bloomed. Passing him the blade, she smeared blood across the demon’s lips.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taqmelv tak.”

  “Speak English, Mads, not that demon shit.”

  “Sorry.” Rising, she gave him a contrite expression and sucked the remaining blood off her thumb. “I forget what language I’m speaking, sometimes. I said I was helping her.”

  His cell phone jangled. “Gage?” he said, staring at Mads as he placed it to his ear.

  “I’m in the elevator. Where do I go?”

  “Take it to the top floor. We’ll meet you in the foyer.” He flipped his phone closed. “You got some explaining to do, Mads.”

  “Yep.”

  “Gage is on his way up.” He stared at the chick sprawled on the floor, still bleeding. He couldn’t tell if her blood loss slowed or not.

  He strode to the door and opened it just as Gage stepped out of the elevator. “Is she alive?” Gage asked.

  “Best I can tell.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this situation, Nix.” Gage walked across the hall. “I can’t figure out why a demon would go to all this trouble if this isn’t a trap. Her life would be in danger otherwise. Especially now that she saved us and killed fellow demons.”

  “I can think of a very good reason.” Nix stepped out of the doorway and allowed Gage to enter.

  “Wha—Madison!” Coming to a dead halt, Gage stared at her.

  Mads smiled. “Hey, Gage.”

  Nix gawked and went brain dead again. Thinking became next to impossible with her attired like a socialite. He could see Mads dressed like this in her former life. But not the new Mads. For years, she’d left his blood smoldering. Sweet fucking God—this garment made his blood hot enough to melt titanium.

  Undressing her wouldn’t be difficult with what she wore. Hell, shoving her against the wall, flipping the skirt up, and ripping her panties off…. Nix ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Care to do that explaining now, Mads?”

  “You’re all business today, Nix.” She winked and kicked her heels off. Nix wanted to tell her to put the fucking things back on. He kept the words trapped behind gritted teeth. “Petra is Amos’s sister,” Mads said.

  “What?” Gage frowned. “How? She’s too old to be your daughter.”

  A half-amused laugh exited her lungs, a sound Nix’s dick liked way too much. “Oh, she’s not my daughter. Petra is Micah’s daughter. She’s older than all our ages combined. She’s part-angel, part-demon, and no human. My understanding, she’s his first experiment with breeding a superior race.”

  “Petra?” Gage scowled. “That short for Petralegija?”

  “Yeah.” She confirmed their suspicions. Gage shot Nix a disturbed look. “What do you know about her?” Mads asked, making it obvious she read their silent speak.

  “She’s an evil bitch for starters,” Nix said. “The first time we met her, she partied by slicing and dicing teenagers for sport.”

  Mads stared at the fallen demon and shook her head. “I knew she had a colorful past, but—”

  “Colorful, Mads? You call that colorful?”

  “Would you prefer I use the word ‘dreadful’?”

  Nix stared at her, surprised by her sassy lip. “Do you trust this fucking bitch?” She couldn’t seriously be that gullible, could she?

  Mads shrugged, met his eyes, and he wanted to shake some sense into her. “Not really.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from shaking her. “Then why has she become a member of your entourage?”

  “Amos trusts her.”

  “He’s eight!” Nix curled a hand buried in his pocket into a fist. “Eight-year-o
lds trust the wrong people all the time.”

  “Amos is almost nine. And he isn’t the average eight-year-old. The things he knows—”

  “You can’t possibly be this naïve!” Nix yelled, unable to contain his frustration any longer.

  “Thanks for saving our ass, Madison, and sending her to help. We were good and fucked before she arrived.”

  She nodded at Gage. “Amos saw the attack, otherwise we wouldn’t have known.” She turned back to Nix, and an ironic smile touched her lips. “I don’t expect you to understand. It’s complicated, Nix.”

  “I understand, Mads. Oh, I understand alright. You’re fucking buddies—buddies, not ‘fucking buddies’—whatever…with a goddamn demon.”

  “Need I remind you I’m half ‘goddamn demon’? And Amos is three quarters of the scary stuff.”

  “Um…yeah…Mmm…Okay.” Gage rubbed his forehead with the corner of his cell phone. “Zoe’s on the line.” Since Nix had heard no ring, he guessed it was Gage’s subtle way of getting out of a sticky conversation. Neither responded. He and Mads continued to stare at one another, until Gage shrugged and walked out of the room.

  “Have you never really thought the thing on the floor might have an agenda?” he asked.

  She popped him on the cheek, not hard, just enough to get his attention. “That thing on the floor shares part of my makeup, and I’m coming dangerously close to being insulted, Nix.”

  “If I thought you were a thing, Mads, I wouldn’t think you were smokin’ hot in this dress!”

  She smiled, slow, a glint in her eyes he’d identify as sensual on any other woman. Mads had never given him such a provocative gander.

  “Aww…Nix.” She rubbed the cheek she’d popped. “That’s…kinda sweet.”

  “Truth.” He shrugged, not touching her. If he started, he’d lose every ounce of his resolve not to drag her to the bedroom down the hall and fuck her silly.

  “I feel naughty wearing it.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not wearing a bra,” she said in a scandalized whisper.

  Nix chuckled. “Wickedly outrageous, Mads.” He tried to force a shocked tone into his voice, and knew he failed miserably.

  Silence drifted between them as she stared at him with a contemplative sparkle in her eyes. “Or panties.”

  Nix choked. She laughed and patted his cheek. “You’re so easy.”

  Could it be possible his southern belle flirted with him? “I think your demon stepdaughter has been teaching you evil mind games.”

  Mads’s expression turned serious again as she studied the demon lying on the floor. “She knows I’d kill her if she hurt anyone.” She returned her focus to him. “Amos controls her as easily as a puppeteer. It’s scary how tight she’s wrapped around his finger. I don’t pretend to understand their relationship, but I’ll use anything I can to get a leg up against my opponent. Micah has had millennia to prepare. He knows the ins and outs of demonic warfare. I’ve had three years to learn all I can, and who knows if I’ll get more. Tomorrow I could wake up staring into his face and have to fight for Amos’s and my souls.”

  “You know I’d be at your side to fight with you, if you’d let me.”

  A sad smile. “I wish you could help. This is something we have to do ourselves.”

  “What about your crystal genie?”

  “He’s not mine, Nix.” She sighed, a purely frustrated sound. “He’s got his own bone to pick with Micah. He’s the one who trapped him in his crystal cell. Zen could kill us and stop whatever outcome Micah plans.”

  If that happened, Nix would have to go after Zen. He sure hoped the outcome never happened.

  “He can’t fight the battle for us either.”

  “I feel like you’re all alone in the world, Mads.”

  She ruffled her fingers through his hair and down the side of his face. Nix attempted to talk his cock into some semblance of softness and lost the fucking battle. Shifting his hips, he tried to ease the pressure of his jeans. Again, he lost the battle.

  “I was lonely when I had a husband at home.” Her gorgeous baby blues, rimmed in a darker sapphire shade, met his, her expression intense. “Micah never completed me.”

  Nix would love to try completing her…whatever the fuck that meant. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, smoldering and hungry. Nix swallowed hard.

  She shook her head as if shaking out of whatever lusty trance she’d been in. Her hand dropped, and she stepped out of his personal space. “Anyway,” she cleared her throat, and wouldn’t meet his stare. “Loneliness isn’t the worst that could happen to me.”

  “Mads—”

  “You and Gage should go. Petra will wake soon, and we’ll get out of here,” she said, rushing over anything he might have said. “Make sure you put this on your body somewhere….” She took a pen to the palm of his hand and sketched out a rough design.

  “What’s this?”

  Mads peeked at him through her lashes. “If I tell you, it’ll freak you out.”

  Nix tugged his hand out of his jeans, plunged his fingers into her hair and pulled her head back. Their stares locked. “No secrets between us, Mads.”

  “Secrets never hurt anyone, Nix.”

  “I’m guessing Micah and your mother’s secret never hurt you or Amos?”

  She inhaled sharply. Yeah, he hit below the belt.

  “I promise not to hate you,” he said. Nothing could make him hate her.

  “What I drew on your hand….” She licked her lips. “It’s my sigil.”

  “Demon sigil?” All the Kings possessed a sigil; he guessed it only fair play for a Queen of Hell to have one, too.

  She nodded. “It’ll protect you, Nix. Just not from Micah or the other Kings.”

  They stared at one another a long while. He shifted his hand out of her hair and ran his thumb along her jaw. “You’re playing with fire, Mads.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Nix.”

  Chapter Forty

  One year, eight months later

  Graham, Texas

  “Amos beat you at pinball again?” Madison asked as Zen pulled the chair out across from her and sat. Petra and Amos were going at it now, and she knew Petra would give her son a run for the status of pinball champion.

  Zen nodded. “As always, he showed no mercy.”

  “Just as you show him no mercy in chess.”

  He gave her a droll stare and glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t like to lose.”

  She laughed. “Neither does Amos.”

  Warm hands startled her as they pressed over her eyes. The stranger muttered against her ear, “This is my lucky day, a gorgeous woman sitting in my bar.”

  Madison despised strangers touching her. She reached up, wrapped her fingers around the male wrist and twisted, bringing him crashing to his knees behind her with a loud oomph. Rolling out of her chair, she stood and faced her victim.

  “Nix?” He knelt in front of her grimacing. Behind him stood a chuckling James, with smiles from Georgie, Gage, and Zoe. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Mads….” Nix groaned. “Could you please release me?”

  Madison gawked at him, realizing she kept him pinned on his knees in front of her, her fingers digging into a pressure point. “Oh! Sorry, Nix.” She let him go. “Don’t sneak up on me,” she cautioned as he rose to his feet and enveloped her in a bear hug.

  “Every time I see you, you make me thankful you’re on our side.” He rubbed her back as he embraced her. She thought he smelled her hair, and decided she must be wrong because sniffing her would be too weird.

  “What are you guys doing here?” She hugged each Birmingham member—including Zoe, who was a Birmingham in her mind.

  “A little birdie told us it was your birthday,” Nix said.

  “Which birdie?” She sent quick glances at Zen and Amos—knowing Petra wouldn’t dream of calling them. Amos joined the fray, giving Nix a high-five and elbowing Gage. He suffered through a hug from Zoe, blu
shing at the attention. Zen remained seated, watching the byplay. Petra sidled up to Zen and pulled a seat out next to him.

  “Zen told us,” Georgie said.

  Surprised, she stared at the immortal. “I didn’t know you knew how to work a cell phone.”

  “I don’t.” He shrugged. “Amos helped. I knew you needed some downtime. All you do is work.”

  “We thought we’d surprise you,” Zoe added.

  “Celebrate your…twentieth birthday?” James winked.

  Madison laughed. “Thirty, James. And I’m proud of all thirty years.”

  Her twenties hadn’t been great to her. She hoped the thirties would be better.

  “Old woman,” Nix teased, pulling her against his side and wrapping an arm around her waist. “Not old enough to be my cougar though.”

  Four years younger than her, maturity had come quickly to Nix with the hard knocks that Sherlocking brought.

  “Just remember to respect your elders, Nix.” She poked him in the ribs.

  With his usual flair for drama, he mouthed “Ow.”

  “I get the first birthday dance,” James said.

  “Deal!” She grabbed James’s hand and pulled him to the dance floor.

  James turned out to be a smooth dancer, old school, just the way Micah always liked to dance. He spun her out and twirled her back into his body.

  “Where’d you learn how to dance, honey?” James guided her on a wide path across the dance floor. They were the only ones dancing, and could take up the whole floor.

  “Micah taught me. It’s the way he liked to dance.”

  “Ah…the smarmy ex-husband of yours.”

  “Smarmy?” She laughed. “James, I think he’s a little worse than smarmy.”

  ***

  Nix watched Mads dance with Gage, a fluid, graceful dancer any way she went about it. Old fashioned with his uncle and raunchy with Gage. Raunchy enough—he wouldn’t be comfortable grinding extremities the way they were. Zoe seemed unfazed by their dirty dancing, Nix failed to embrace the emotion.

  And she claimed not to like sex? What a conundrum, when she executed those sensual dance moves.