Tempting the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  “Of course they were. I only saw your mother the one time and she was in tears. My mom wouldn’t let me near her after that. I upset her.” He clasped Jett’s hand. The simple movement worked like a squeeze about his heart. And yet the Other now cringed. Savin could feel it as a tightening in his insides that made him grit his jaw. What was up with her today?

  “If I could change things,” he said, “and make it so you had come back and I remained, I would.”

  “It is what it is, Savin. No sense in wishing to change the past. It’s behind me now. Or I want to put it behind me. I need to move forward in this mortal realm. As a normal human woman.”

  “You are normal and human, but...I suppose it’s going to take some time to adjust to this realm. Do you want to talk about it at all?”

  Dare he ask her the burning question?

  “If I did, it would only keep that horrible experience in my present. Can I put it out of mind, please?”

  “Of course.”

  She dipped her head and Savin smoothed aside the hair from her face. It was soft and smelled sweeter than the shampoo he used. Chicks always smelled good without even trying. He figured it was an innate thing. When she turned to look at him, he thought he saw a glint of red in her pupils and pulled his hand away abruptly.

  Jett’s sudden smirk and soft chuckle softened his weird fear. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Had that been another alert from the Other? He glanced aside. Ah. There. Outside the wrought-iron cemetery fencing a nearby streetlight flashed red. Whew! That was what had produced the strange illusion in her eyes. “You have beautiful brown eyes.”

  “Now you think them beautiful? You used to tell me they were the color of mud.”

  He shrugged. “I was an idiot when I was a kid. Now that I’m a man I’ve developed an appreciation for a woman’s eyes.”

  “Just her eyes?”

  “Eyes. Mouth. Hair. Everything else. It’s all good.” He cast her a long look but ended it with a smile. It was impossible not to feel happy around her. She was back in his life. And they were both grown adults. And the things he was feeling toward Jett right now could be a man’s folly. Or an enticing dive into bliss.

  “Your voice is so deep,” she said. “It’s sexy. You have grown to be quite the man, Savin.” She turned over his hand and spread her fingers across his palm. “Your hand is wide and strong. Powerful. I bet you’d be a force in a fistfight.”

  “I try to avoid physical violence. Against humans, that is. I’ve had to punch a demon or two in my lifetime.”

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  He lifted his chin at that comment. She’d said it with such conviction. The woman had punched a demon or two, as well. And she wasn’t sorry for it, that was for sure.

  Savin frowned. She should never have had to defend herself in such a manner. But thank the gods she’d had the moxie.

  “You’ve seen horrors, Jett. I know that,” he said quickly, needing to get out the words so she knew how he felt. “But they do not have to define you. You can make your future anything you want it to be.” He clasped her hand against his mouth and held it there. “I’ll do everything in my power to help you rise.”

  She turned to press her other hand over the clasp he held at his mouth and leaned in to bow her forehead to his. “I need that. Thank you for understanding.”

  The hush of her breath over his skin scurried desire through Savin’s system. She smelled like cool limestone with a splash of flowers.

  “I’m still thankful it was you who found me that night I made my escape. It was meant to be. The two of us belong together.”

  “I believe that. Things will get better for you. I promise.”

  She nodded and kissed the back of his hand before breaking their clasp. And in that moment, Savin wanted to kiss her to show her how much he was attracted to her, to bleed her warmth into his skin and know her scent viscerally—but something stopped him. A tightening of his muscles that stretched up the back of his neck.

  The Other was not into romance this day.

  To break the spell of discontent that had fallen on his shoulders, he asked, “You hungry?” If he didn’t turn this conversation away from the Other, he’d need to shoot up now, and he didn’t want to do that in front of Jett. “You haven’t eaten much since you’ve arrived.”

  “I haven’t. And I think I am hungry. You know what I could go for? Roasted chestnuts glazed with sugar. Do they still sell those?”

  “Hell yes. There’s a vendor not far from here that sells those and other sweets.” He slid off the sarcophagus and offered her his hand. “Let’s go get high on sugar.”

  * * *

  The man was remarkable.

  Jett couldn’t stop from browsing over Savin whenever she had the chance. He led her to a trio of food stands selling various items and they each claimed a treat. Now they walked toward a bench beneath a yellow-leaved tree. Savin was taller than her by two heads and broad as a bodybuilder. So many muscles flexed and pulsed with his movement. Any shirt he wore seemed to struggle to contain all that man. And his deep voice. It crept inside her being and did things to her senses. Things she’d never imagined feeling. She felt a certain way when around Savin.

  She knew what it was that coiled within her. Desire. The wanting and needing to touch the man, to kiss him. To do more than that with him.

  Desire was a new experience for Jett. And it pounced upon her with an aggression that startled her. She wasn’t sure how to handle it. She’d not known desire for another person. Not in Daemonia. Though the desire for things, safety and control had always resided inside her. And certainly she was no virgin who hadn’t a clue what to do with herself regarding a man and sex. She had done things to survive.

  No regrets, her darkness whispered.

  No, of course not.

  But now? Now she was free. And she wanted to explore the exciting feeling that warmed her from ear tips to toes. And everywhere in between. When gazing upon Savin and taking in his masculine build, she felt her breasts become heavy and full. Her stomach swirled. And her pussy—well, she recognized the wanting ache for sex. For the first time in her life. Yet she also knew it sprang from the confidence she’d gained while inhabiting the darkness.

  If she abandoned her dark side, would she also lose such feelings? She wanted the man. Dare she risk answering her sudden desperate desires when she knew the part of her that reacted in such a manner was not the part she wanted to encourage?

  “My lady.” Savin gestured to a bench under a tree just on the other side from a yard where children played. “You’re almost finished!”

  Guilty as charged. Her desire had manifested as a real hunger, apparently. Jett sat on the bench and licked the sticky sugar crystals from her fingers. She’d enjoyed this treat many a time when she was a kid. It was even better now.

  “I think I finally got my appetite back,” she said with a smile from behind another bite. More than one appetite, that was for sure.

  “I guess so. Let me catch up.”

  He dug into the crepe he’d gotten at the stand next to the chestnut seller, while Jett was distracted by the shouts and laughter of the children behind them. So carefree and innocent. Unknowing of the dangers the world could present. Best they not wander too close to any demonic portals or—whoosh! Life would never again be innocent.

  Adopted. Adopted?

  Jett sighed, her shoulders dropping. She had never considered adoption, even though she had often wondered about who her father really was. As a frightened child, she’d dismissed the allusion to her real paternity as a mistake, a cruel trick to get her to submit and accept as the darkness had started to develop within her. Questioning her paternity had initially felt ludicrous, but she’d been so young. And had only wanted to be treated well. So eventually she had accepted that question as a real possibility.

>   “What are you thinking about?” Savin asked.

  She glanced at him, unwilling to spill her secret pain. So she arrowed in on his upper lip, where his mustache was so thick and she knew the tickle of it during a kiss was the most exciting thing.

  She touched his mustache. “You’ve got chocolate there. It’s a lot.” And then, without thought, she leaned in to kiss him. Tasting his mouth, the chocolate, and then dragging her tongue to lick the sweet treat. “Got it,” she said, and sat back, crumpling up the paper her chestnuts had come in.

  “That you did.” He stared at her, his lips parted. She’d startled him? Good. She liked to maintain a certain amount of power, of control over men. Even if this was no longer her domain.

  “If you don’t finish that,” she said, “I will go in for a bite. Just a warning.”

  He smirked, then offered the half-eaten crepe to her. She leaned forward and took a bite, and then another, her lips brushing his finger. The earthy taste of him combined with the sweet treat was the perfect tease to her appetite. She wasn’t so much hungry for food anymore as she was for Savin.

  A strange bell tolled, and as Savin pulled his cell phone from his pocket, Jett realized she’d like to have one of those. A telephone that had virtually all the information in the world on it with just a few taps of her finger? Hadn’t he said he was going to pick one up for her?

  While he spoke to the caller, she finished off the crepe and offered him a wink as she wrapped her fingers about his to get to the very last bits of it.

  “I can come by soon,” he said, then paused. When Jett looked up, the man was biting the corner of his lower lip, staring at her as she ate from his hand. “Uh... Yes, right. Sorry, I was distracted. See you in a bit, Malcolm.” He tucked the phone away, then crumpled the paper and tossed it in the nearby trash bin. “You full?”

  “Not even,” she said. But it wasn’t food that was going to satisfy her now. “What was the call about?”

  “That was a friend. An exorcist. He’s got a demon in a hex circle that needs to be reckoned. It won’t take me long. But I should run.”

  “You are a very busy reckoner.”

  “Paris is a big city, and I’m the only one in town. I’ll walk you back to my place?”

  “Can I come along to the reckoning?”

  “I, uh...work best without distraction.” He waggled the finger she had licked, then winked at her.

  “I like distracting you.”

  “I’ve noticed. I’ll bring home something more substantial to eat when I’m finished, and wine. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  “You cool with a little romance?”

  “I am. Are you?”

  “I, uh...” He gave it some thought. “Yes, I am. I’m going to make this a fast reckoning. Come on.” He stood and offered her his hand.

  Once back at his place, Savin grabbed one of the intricate brass instruments from his bedroom cabinet that Jett had puzzled over earlier. He called out that he’d hurry back.

  Jett rushed to walk him out the door, then skipped around in front of him. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him. The taste of chocolate lingered and the sudden, wanting clutch of his hand against her hip sent a thrill directly to her core. The man knew how to take a woman in hand.

  “Just so you don’t forget about the romance,” she said.

  “Oh, I won’t.”

  “And you’d mentioned getting me a phone?”

  “Ah, right. Sorry. I was so eager to get the envelope Maman gave me into your hands, I forgot about that. Stores might be closed when I’m finished reckoning.”

  “We can go out tomorrow and shop for one.”

  “We can. See you soon.” He kissed her quickly, then walked out, closing the door behind him. The wards repelled Jett back a few feet, and so swiftly she caught her palms against the wall behind her.

  The man was off to reckon a demon back to the Place of All Demons. And Jett’s thoughts immediately tracked to the adoption papers. If she was adopted—and apparently she had been—then who was her father? Could those cruel taunts as she’d matured in Daemonia have been true? Which would mean...

  If her father was a demon, that would make her half demon. Or whole? With things as they were right now...

  Jett closed her eyes and shook her head. Things had to change. She wanted something good. She wanted Savin. But he’d never have her if he knew her truth.

  Chapter 9

  The exorcist John Malcolm lived in a tiny ground-floor apartment across the street from Notre Dame. The main floor would suit a tall hobbit with an interest in religious clutter. The man was a former Catholic priest. Former being key.

  After shaking Savin’s hand and offering him wine, which Savin accepted, John led him down into the cellar, which was a remnant from the eighteenth century when an artist once used the subterranean rooms for mixing volatile paints and practicing brush techniques. The walls gleamed here and there with gold leaf and streaks of fading cinnabar and egg-yolk tempera. Savin entered and inhaled the limestone and oily scent. And sulfur.

  “Been over a year since I’ve seen you,” John commented as he pulled aside a metal-legged chair that had been positioned before the salt circle on the floor and set it up against the wall. “You’re looking rather clean-shaven, Thorne. Who’s the woman?”

  Savin could but shake his head. Had he seriously been looking so dreadful that a mere shave made people wonder about his sex life?

  John picked up the wooden cross from the floor before the circle and kissed it. The demon standing inside the circle suddenly spun about to face them and hissed, revealing two pinpoint fangs dead center of its upper mandible. Its skeletal black structure stood hunched because its head was twice the size of a human’s head, and the horns curled around its ears twice in glinting red.

  “Beelzig demon,” Savin said, recognizing the skanky thing with ease. They were insectile in true form, though this one looked half in and out of the sheen. Their principal reason for existence was to get inside humans and slowly drive them mad with a burning need to eat dirt. The demon fed on the worms and bacteria in the soil. A human, if not exorcised, would eventually die from eating more than his body weight of dirt in one sitting. “How’d it happen onto you?”

  “I took it out of a teenager this morning. The boy is in Hôtel-Dieu right now with possible brain damage. He’d been eating mud contaminated with toxins from a nearby field that had been sprayed with pesticides.”

  John set the cross on the chair and joined Savin’s side, where they stood facing the despicable demon contained in the warded circle. “So does that mean there isn’t a woman or you’re just not talking?”

  “I thought I came here to do a job.”

  The demon inclined its head as if listening carefully.

  “You did,” Malcolm offered. “But you know my vows of chastity can be a burden. I need salacious details to brighten my day after seeing what this bastard did to that boy.”

  The man did not have to honor such vows, no longer being a priest, but for some reason Malcolm did. No judgment on Savin’s part. But he couldn’t imagine agreeing to not have sex. Ever.

  “She’s beautiful,” Savin offered. “Long dark hair and sensual eyes.”

  John nodded. “Tits big?”

  Savin’s smile was easy. “Just the right size.”

  The demon hissed and jutted out its tongue at the two. “I will lick them for you, reckoner.”

  “Silence.” John made the sign of the cross before him and the demon cringed.

  But the beelzig didn’t take its wicked regard from Savin. And he allowed it. Let the thing sniff him out, feel his presence. And know it had not long for this realm.

  Savin shrugged off his coat and tossed it behind him, then rolled up his sleeves. This visit was business as usual.

 
“I can taste her on you,” the demon said on a slithery tone. “In the air. On your skin. The earth she has trodden with bared skin is...” Of a sudden the demon stiffened and its eyes went wide as red beacons. “You must bow down before her!”

  “Enough.” Savin didn’t need sex advice from a hideous demon.

  Stepping forward, he began the reckoner’s chant. It was something he’d devised himself, along with Malcolm’s guidance. It had come from a deep and innate knowing. He hated it. But such was his life following his trip to Daemonia. It didn’t pay to bemoan a situation he could never change.

  He lifted his forearms and connected the sigils tattooed there, while keeping his palms facing outward from his face. And as the demon writhed and struggled and insisted he show his woman obedience, Savin focused on getting the ugly bastard out of this realm.

  The chant to call out to Daemonia to receive one of its own was repetitious and a mix of Latin and Daemonic. Savin bounced on his heels, finding a visceral rhythm intensifying his focus. He needed to feel this weird magic in his very bones. The sigils on his arms glowed—and sometimes they sparked to flame. He was never harmed, beyond the mental toll of having to constantly deal with these bastards.

  Could he find normal along with Jett? Was such a quest worth his consideration?

  Halting his wandering focus, Savin shouted out the next few words to cement his vocal tones into the air and bring back his center to the task at hand. At his feet, the salt circle began to jitter and dance around the squirming demon. And while the beelzig yowled, the salt took to flame, as did the sigils on Savin’s arms. He winced. This pain was worth it.

  Ten seconds later, the beelzig let out a wicked yip and its form was literally sucked out of the circle, leaving behind but a scatter of ashy residue. Savin swept out his arms to each side, which extinguished the flames. He tilted back his head, closing his eyes, and whispered a blessing.

  John Malcolm sprinkled the salt and the floor with holy water, echoed Savin’s blessing and nodded to the reckoner for a task well done.

  Savin rolled down his sleeves and grabbed the remainder of the wine and tilted it down. It was too sweet for his taste, but the ex-priest wasn’t big on the good stuff.