by Weil, J. L.
He raised his brows. “You saw his true form?”
I nodded. “Unfortunately. It’s an image that’s burned into my mind now.”
He gave me an inquisitive inspection.
“Why do you have that look?” I asked suspiciously.
“I was just thinking…”
I snorted. “Don’t strain yourself.”
“Funny.” His brows furrowed together. “None of this adds up. You being able to see through his glamour. Him being able to keep you from me. And the fact that you have his attention. Why?”
I think part of his distraught was pride. No demon, big or small, was going to get the best of him, but the majority was that he had felt useless, a feeling completely foreign to the badass Chase Winters. “You’re the expert,” I added.
His arms tightened around me and squeezed. “And you are impossible to keep alive.”
A small smile tugged at my lips. “If you could go back to that night knowing just how hard it was to keep me breathing, would you make the same choice?”
“Oh, man that’s a toughie.” He was totally baiting me.
Turning in his arms, I sucker punched him.
He feigned to be afflicted. “Geez, you think you would take mercy on me. I don’t know if I can take any more abuse.”
I rolled my eyes.
His eyes twinkled as he looked down at me. “I would make the same choice a thousand times over. You are worth every fight, every bloodshed, and I will never stop fighting for you.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I love you,” I murmured, burying my face in his shirt.
His breath caught. “I think I love you more.”
When he said stuff like that, it made me want to throw myself in his arms and never let go. Sweet words that made all the bad rubbish in the world seem bearable, just because he told me he loved me.
After a little more cuddling, I went home and crashed. Still fully dressed in dirty jeans and a ripped cardigan, I slept the kind of deep sleep that people get only after facing vast, near death experiences. In my case, seeing Hell on earth—literally. There was a moment, somewhere in that half-lucid state, when I realized that I did not want to be Hell’s bride.
What a thought to have right before you drop off into the world of dreams.
Chapter 13
I awoke with a killer headache, the sunlight streaming through my ice crystal covered window, and a buzzing in my ear. How the heck does one get up for school after a night like the one I had? It had to be worse than any hangover known to man.
Groaning, my entire body protested the slightest movements, even one as simple as touching my aching temples. The only good news was that I knew it wouldn’t last, perks of not being quite human. With squinting eyes, I fumbled my way into the bathroom to pop a couple aspirins. Throwing back the little white pills with a glass of water, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
And cringed.
My hair had the shocked effect. It wasn’t pretty.
“Well hello, sunshine,” Chase said from inside my doorway. “Don’t you look peachy this morning?”
He looked sublime and hot as always, messy hair and all. It just worked for him. Sending him a murderous glare through the mirror, I mumbled, “I hate you.”
“You lie like a rug.”
“Does no one knock anymore?” I muttered. “I could have totally been naked.”
He arched a dark brow. “That was my hope.”
I gave him a dry look.
“Maybe this will help.” He was kissing me before I even realized he had moved. Thank goodness I had already used mouthwash. Leaning into the kiss, I let our tangled emotions, and tongues, consume me. It was better medicine than those two little pills I had taken.
When he ended the kiss, I felt halfway human again. Pure bliss.
“Hmm,” I purred. “I needed that.”
“I thought so.” He had on his signature Chase smirk.
Leaning a hip on the bathroom counter, I tried not to be swept off my feet by his sinful good looks, by the devilish look in his eyes, and by the darkness that surrounded him. Then he smacked me on the butt, and, just like that, the impression vanished.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going to be late for school.”
I groaned, but he was right. “Then, you will have to leave,” I said, pushing him out the door with my palm on his chest.
He pouted, but in a cute way that made me want to pull him back in, lock the door behind us, and make us very, very late for school. Sadly, I didn’t give in to that overwhelming urge. Instead, I ran a brush through my choppy hair and tossed on a pair of jeans and a pullover. Voila, a masterpiece. No doubt Lexi would have been aghast at my thrown together ensemble.
The day went without a hiccup, pretty mundane and uneventful. It was both weird and nice for a change. I only thought about Alastair a few hundred times, but it was to be expected. It was the after school special that reminded me that I lived in a parallel universe, one that involved demons. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that I would be part of a supernatural club.
Once again I found myself smack dab in the middle of a demon powwow. Chase thought it would be a smart decision to let everyone know that there was a higher-demon stalking Spring Valley. Let the family reunion commence.
Everyone was loud.
Everyone was edgy, and rightly so.
Hell was in Spring Valley, and no one knew what he was going to do next. But we could all agree it was going to be a shit storm.
There were a dozen half-eaten pizzas lining the kitchen, scattered soda cans everywhere, not that this group needed the extra caffeine, and a body in all available seats. Of course, any demon-meetings wouldn’t be complete without Sierra mentally stabbing me from the other side of the room. Now that Emma was not trying to slice and dice us, Sierra was back to hating my guts, though I think she had given up on trying to steal my boyfriend.
It was sort of a helpless cause considering…
Sierra tapped her six-inch heeled boot on the coffee table. “So what’s trying to kill your needy girlfriend now?” the hoodrat asked in her snippiest tone.
Lexi nudged her in the side, and Emma snickered.
What a friendly bunch.
Chase looked around the room, meeting everyone in the eye, including his uncle Devin. “Honestly, I’m not sure what he wants, but we all need to be on guard.” Then he dropped the bomb. “I was summoned last night.”
A unified gasp spread across the room, followed by mutters of…
“Christ.”
“Oh God.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
The usual responses of disbelief combined with fear, and the room filled with tension.
“A higher-demon?” Lexi inquired just to make sure. “And you’re just now telling me?”
He ran a hand through his dark, ruffled hair. “It’s been a long 24 hours, Lex.”
“Was it him?” Craig asked, from his sprawled out position on the sofa. He took up over half of the space with his beefy body, dwarfing the couch. There was frightening intrigue to his tone that made me think he wouldn’t mind meeting a higher-demon.
Chase nodded, stretching out his long legs on the loveseat beside me.
Devin couldn’t sit still. He paced the room with a scowl on his lips and deep lines of worry on his unshaven face. He sort of had that sexy rugged appeal, if you were into that, like my mom I guess. Stroking his scratchy chin, he asked, “You are sure?”
“Positive,” Chase answered without question. “I was powerless to resist his call. Angel witnessed the entire thing. It was him—Alastair.”
Devin sucked in a breath, and then I remembered that Alastair was responsible for his sister’s death, Chase’s mother. There was a moment of awkward silence. Then the politics started.
That’s when I checked out.
I stared into space, entertaining a vividly steamy scenario in which Chase had me pinned up against the wall, doing wild and wicke
d things with his tongue. I think I had seen it once on a cover of one of those dirty romances Mom was always reading.
You think after staring a demon in the face, the last thing I would be thinking about was having sex with Chase, but like the dreams that kept coming, I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Angel.”
I heard my name, and my ears perked up, tuning back into the conversation—though when I did, I regretted it.
Sierra was on a rant roll. “You are telling me that Angel…” she said my name like it left a bad taste in her mouth, “…broke his enchantment.” She wore a cold, distasteful expression.
Sometime during the recap of what had happened, Chase had put his arm on the back of the couch, encompassing me in his warmth. “Yeah. He had some kind of wall, blocking me from getting to her—and him.” You could hear his frustration and anger.
“How did she do it?” Sierra questioned, always the skeptic.
“I have no earthly idea. Angel?” he prompted.
I wiggled uncomfortably on the couch, all eyes on me. I hated being the center of attention. “Umm. I don’t know really. He cut off my link to Chase, isolating me. I felt nothing, so…” This was the embarrassing part. I could already feel my cheeks beginning to turn pink. Chase rubbed the back of my neck, and I took a deep breath. “I realized that I didn’t want him to take that from me, what I felt. So, I closed my eyes and solely concentrated on those feelings. That was it.”
Sierra was the first one to speak. Go figure. “You’re shitting me, right?”
I shook my head. “I wish.”
“Then what happened?” Hayden asked from his perch next to Lexi on the arm of the chaise. He was usually the quiet one of the bunch.
I shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“She blacked out,” Chase filled in at the raised brows.
“Great, just great,” Sierra started spazzing. “This is what we have to go on. An altered human who doesn’t know squat about what she can or can’t do. Meanwhile, there is a higher-demon in town, determined on making all our lives miserable.”
“Sierra,” Travis growled her name in warning.
Her red hair whipped in the air as she scowled at Travis.
“Regardless of how it happened, Angel was somehow responsible for both of them getting out of there alive,” Travis reminded her.
“Well, isn’t that just dandy? Who died and made you king?” she said, flipping her bitch switch up a few notches.
Travis jerked in his seat, but Emma’s hand squeezed his knee, stopping him from jumping up. I wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but the glint of yellow in his eyes was a good indicator it was something hotheaded.
Sierra had her claws out, ready to pounce.
My smile turned sour, pinning Sierra. “You’re just jealous.”
She touched a hand to her heart. “Me? Jealous of you? Bless your delusional heart.” There was sarcasm lacing her sickeningly sweet tone.
I wanted to choke her with it.
That was it. I started to fly off the couch with the intention of…I wasn’t sure, but it involved bodily harm to Sierra. Chase’s hand shot out and tugged me back down beside him. “Hey there, she-devil,” he said with a hidden grin teasing his lips.
“I think we all need to take a minute,” Devin advised. He stood at the center of the room with his hands shoved into his pockets. “Take five, then we can try to figure out what we are going to do. Sierra, you better call your parents.”
I was going to need more than five minutes to cool down. The need to knock Sierra off her holier-than-thou pedestal was pounding inside me. Chase laced our fingers and led us to the porch. I stepped outside, grateful for the space and fresh, crisp air. Closing my eyes, I let the twilight breeze bathe over my heated skin. “Why is it, whenever we all get together, we spend most of the time at each other’s throats?” I asked, sitting on the top porch step.
He stood behind me, his eyes scoping out the yard. “It keeps things interesting.”
I glanced up, mesmerized by the twinkling stars that broke through the bluish-purple, murky night. “I should be scared, shouldn’t I?”
“Probably, but I am guessing you are getting used to living on the edge.”
I aimlessly kicked snow off the steps. “Do you seriously think that we are going to be able to prevent him from getting what he wants?”
He his expression hardened. “I’ll find a way to keep you safe.”
I looked into his eyes. “You’re beginning to sound like a broken record.”
There was a demon galloping around Spring Valley, skin jumping. I didn’t know whom to trust anymore. He could potentially be anyone at any time, but his eyes would always give him away. There was no allure, no trick he could weave. When it came to the guy I loved, I had to believe that we would always see the truth.
Thanks to our demon mark and the love that glued us together.
The intricate mark not only tied me to Chase, but also to his creator, and, therefore, looped me to them both. Talk about an awkward threesome. The repercussions of being connected to Chase’s maker had never really crossed my mind, not until Alastair had become far too real.
Special. Alastair thought I was unique, a possession he wanted, yet I never felt anything less in my life. What did he know that we didn’t? So I could charm those who couldn’t be manipulated by demon compulsion? That didn’t really seem all that impressive.
“What makes me so special to him?” I mumbled more to myself, not really expecting an answer.
Chase never failed to surprise me. “There are four billion stars in the universe and I can see every one of them in your eyes. You’re special to me.”
I forgot my name. I forgot Alastair. I forgot to breathe.
Chapter 14
I should have known that the calm was about to be rippled. A week went by. Then two. Before I knew it, the holidays had come and gone. Chase being the good boyfriend that he was had given me a sparkly gift. One that matched the bracelet I never took off. It was a simple silver chain with a dangling charm to match the bracelet.
Travis had also given me a Christmas gift, a new video game. What a guy. He knew me well. And my best friend Lexi…well, she was Lexi. I really shouldn’t have expected anything less. When I unwrapped her pretty white and red package and saw the pink leopard thong, the one from Victoria’s Secret, I choked and turned ten different shades of red. Then I quickly wrapped it back up before anyone saw it.
Lexi giggled. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Merry Christmas, bestie.”
I had mumbled some inaudible form of thanks, all the while thinking where I was going to hide it.
And what did I get the boyfriend that had everything?
I had contemplated giving him me wrapped in a big red ribbon, but quickly scratched that idea. My ovaries weren’t that big. So I ended up buying him iTunes music and a light-up hoodie. I thought it was funny and would look great with his eyes.
His gift was better, but he was better at being a boyfriend than I was at being a girlfriend.
We were on winter break, which meant I got to play all those great video games I had gotten, to Chase’s utter dismay. I guess it was not exactly how he pictured spending his two-week break, but hey, I wasn’t bitching. There had been no demon activity. No one had tried to choke me to death. And I was knee-deep into Battlefield 4. What more could a girl ask for?
“I am seriously thinking about smashing that Xbox,” Chase grumbled on the couch.
Travis chuckled.
I ignored Chase for like the tenth time today.
Emma was picking at her nails with a pocketknife.
The four of us were hanging out today. Well, Travis and I played video games while Emma and Chase complained.
Lexi hadn’t stuck around, muttering something about how being the fifth wheel sucked. I was a little bit hurt that she hadn’t stayed. I missed her. Mental note to self, see if Lexi could schedule me in her busy timetable for some girl time.
For the first week after Alastair had made his imposing appearance, we all had been walking on eggshells. With each week that went by without any threats or sudden hellish appearances, we began to resume our lives as normal. All but Chase.
He was always the oddball of the group.
It nagged at him day and night, not knowing when Alastair would show his foul face again. Not knowing what it was that he wanted with me. Patience was a virtue that neither Chase nor I possessed, so we could easily drive each other crazy bouncing emotions back and forth onto one another.
Even with his less than stellar qualities, he could also be incredibly sweet when it suited him. Like walking me home because it was dark.
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear, which I was sure was a ploy to distract me.
It worked. I nudged him with my hip. “I swear all that half-demon talk is bullshit.”
He grinned, pleased with himself, and boxed me into a corner on his porch. “Don’t be fooled, Angel Eyes. I’m the devil in disguise.”
I attempted to keep a straight face and not snicker. “You’re such a doofus.”
He started to play with the stray tendrils of hair at the back of my neck. “Yeah, but you love me.”
Suppressing a shiver, I muttered, “Sometimes I wonder why.” But that didn’t stop me from turning my head to the side and giving him better access to that sensitive spot.
He moved in close, his breath at my neck. “Do you need me to show you—?”
I didn’t mean to scream, but suddenly I was. Loud. Long. And shrieking.
There, lying smack dab in the middle of our yards, was a body. Ghostly pale and lifeless. A pool of sticky red liquid surrounded it, staining the pure white snow. It was a scene straight from a slasher film. Right down to the girl’s awkward position. The porch light cast soft rays over the yard, and it was just enough light to make out her form, but her face was unrecognizable from where I stood. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I could stomach a clearer image. I got the eerie suspicion that whoever had done this had wanted us to find her, and I was deathly afraid I knew who it was.
My scream echoed through the nightfall, carrying over the snow-covered fields. Chase buried my head in his chest, silencing my cries. My whole body shivered against his.
