Dara started to say he wasn’t a fit for the clinic but stopped herself. His credentials, however he’d assembled them, documented a perfect match. “Our personal styles are at odds.”
“And you’d turn down a volunteer for that?” Lilith’s swallow’s-wing eyebrows lifted.
Dara winced. It did sound capricious.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really not comfortable discussing this.”
“Well, we certainly have to respect your instincts.” Lilith glanced at her watch. “Oops, I’m afraid I’m late for another meeting.”
She got to her feet and walked to the door. Dara followed her. As Dara neared the door, the smell of rosquitas became so strong it was almost sickening. Why would that be? The pastries were on the other side of the room.
Every demon has a signature scent.
It hadn’t made her sneeze, but she’d taken her allergy meds that morning, so that didn’t mean anything. And there was that strange glint in Lilith’s eye. Was yet another demon invading Dara’s life? She felt for Matt’s pearl necklace, but it was a currently nothing more than a baggie filled with individual pearls, waiting to go to the jeweler to be restrung.
Instead of Matt’s seed pearls, her hand encountered Nana’s ruby cross. Maybe she should press the ruby against Lilith’s arm and see if it left a mark. The chain was too short to permit that without being obvious. If Lilith wasn’t a demon, such an action would be impossible to explain.
How else could she out her? The only way Dara could think of was the rectangular pupils that manifested when a demon got angry. That had the same drawback as the ruby. If Lilith wasn’t a demon—and she probably wasn’t—Dara needed to maintain a good working relationship with her.
“Perhaps I can some visit the clinic sometime?” Lilith smiled her wide smile.
At the clinic, it would be easy to engineer spilling some grains.
“Of course,” Dara said. “You’re on the board. You’re welcome anytime.”
Lilith smiled even more broadly. “Excellent. I’m looking forward to knowing more about you.”
Dara smiled right back. “I’m looking forward to the same thing.”
Chapter 13
Belial had just finished designing his next snare—one so perfectly geared to Dara’s needs it guaranteed him entry to the clinic—when his cell phone buzzed. He read the text message: C ME ASAP @9R. It ended with an emoji of a glaring devil. Well, bliss. Exactly how he didn’t want to spend his evening.
He’d planned to reward himself with a dinner of fresh vegetables and seafood. Now he’d have to spend it calming Satan instead. If last night’s encounter at the grocery had been a disappointment to Belial, the boss would be having a golden cow.
He drove to I-95 and pressed on the accelerator of the Lamborghini, building up speed until he exceeded 120 miles per hour. He was about to run up the tailpipe of a tanker truck when the portal finally opened and he was in Hell. Under his tires, the road grew rough and the air became foul with the stink of sulfur and rotting flesh.
Home, sweet home.
He tried to speed down the spiral, but blowing debris in Ring Two covered his windshield and forced him to brake or risk going in the ditch. As soon as the car slowed, a she-wolf’s dripping muzzle appeared at his driver’s-side window, her dark eyes leering.
This was what happened in Hell when word got around that you were in danger of failing. One misstep and you became prey rather than predator. Well, news of his failure was premature. He flipped on the wipers and stomped on the gas. The car shot forward.
The further down he drove, the hazier the air grew and the stronger the smell of brimstone. By Ring Eight, his eyes watered and his nose burned. Every breath he drew scorched his lungs. He usually had immunity to the more noxious qualities of Hell. Were these symptoms a not-so-subtle warning that the boss was not pleased with his performance, or were they just a side effect of the human DNA Bad had spliced into Belial’s genes?
Satan’s office was a cavern hewn into the rock wall of Ring Nine. Belial parked the car and went inside. In the reception area, Andras, Satan’s secretary, pecked away at a computer. Belial drummed his fingers on her desk to get her attention. “Where’s the boss?”
Without turning her body away from the computer screen, the big owl rotated her head to look at him. She blinked her huge eyes.
“Lake of Fire,” she squawked.
Well, bliss. The Lake of Fire was the scene of the only deaths that had ever occurred in Hell. A few millennia after Satan opened his establishment, three young demons conspired to break away and set up a rival business. Satan, less trusting than his old employer, uncovered their treason. He’d sentenced them to death, but destroying an immortal proved a difficult task.
It took Hell’s scientists nearly a thousand years to formulate a substance that could permanently destroy demon flesh. For days, the traitors’ screams had echoed all the way to Ring One as the acid slowly consumed them. Sometimes Belial thought he could still smell traces of their burning flesh in the fetid air, even all these centuries later.
He made his way, on foot, to the bottom of Ring Nine. As he drew closer, the stink grew stronger. The lake belched sulfurous yellow clouds that were responsible for most of the stench in Hell. At the lakeside, Satan was ensconced in an Adirondack chair, a picnic lunch on a small table beside him. He filled a single glass with red wine and took a sip, motioning for Belial to sit at his feet.
So that was how it was to be. Belial sank, cross-legged, to the ground.
“She recognized you as a demon,” Satan said.
“We don’t know that.” Belial’s policy was never to admit anything voluntarily. “And even if she did, who’s to say she wouldn’t recognize another demon if you sent one in? She comes of demon-fighting stock.”
Satan grunted. “Finally got around to reading the dossier, did you?”
Belial had finally gotten Bad to send him an updated version with working links. The tech demon “couldn’t imagine” how the oversight had happened.
“She didn’t recognize Lilith,” Satan said.
Belial tensed. “Where did she meet Lilith?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Satan sorted through the picnic basket until he found a morsel of raw lamb and tossed it in his mouth. “Lilith is the new community liaison at Bermuda General Hospital.”
She’d managed to worm her way into his assignment. Damn the bitch. The last thing Belial needed was the kind of complications Lilith would introduce into this already fraught mission.
“What was she able to discover?” He kept his tone mild. Satan mustn’t know how annoyed he was.
“The clinic has financial woes.”
“Stop the presses.” The fact that Belial had caused those financial woes didn’t seem to have won him any points.
The boss regarded him through narrowed eyes. “At least Lilith was able to make a positive connection.”
Time for some damage control.
“I realize this first leg is taking longer than we expected.” Belial chose the pronoun “we” deliberately, drawing the boss into the fray. “Dara Strong is more resistant to demon wiles than the average human. That is no doubt due to her heritage, which is probably why the Enemy chose her.”
The truth was that she’d cut him off before he could use his wiles. What a strange, prickly woman she was. To look at, she was rounded and feminine—any man’s dream of a gentle, nurturing soul. In reality, she was more like a wasp, with a sting for any man foolish enough to get too close to her tail. The excuse worked, though. Satan didn’t respond, but his talons relaxed a tiny bit on the stem of his wineglass.
“These first forays are intended to let me get her measure,” Belial said. “To determine the most effective way to seduce her to our side.”
“And have you figured that out?”
“Of course. She may be a Perdue, but she’s still a woman. She’s a lot more attracted to me than you realize. Go back and look at the game fi
lms. Watch her respiration, the way her pupils dilate, the flare of her nostrils.”
“Her nostrils did more than flare—she sneezed all over you,” Satan said.
“She didn’t sneeze at the gas station. Nor at the grocery last night. Allergies or no allergies, my scent did its job on her. Once I’m able to spend more time with her, she will no more be able to resist than any mortal in the past. I’ll have her on her back, ready to do anything for me, long before the wager expires.”
“Since she won’t allow you in the clinic, how do you propose to spend more time with her?”
“I’ll leverage the operative you have stationed at her house.”
Satan grunted. “It’s about time one of those beasts earned its keep. When?”
Belial would have liked to allow a little more time to elapse since his last meeting with Dara before he approached her again. It was clear, though, from the puff of smoke issuing from Satan’s left horn and the ominous presence of the lake, that he didn’t have that luxury.
“Tonight,” he said.
Chapter 14
“Milton,” Dara shout-whispered from the front doorway of her condo. It was after eleven o’clock and she didn’t want to wake the neighbors. Where was that stupid cat, anyway? Matt had brought him home as a bedraggled tortoiseshell kitten when they were first married. She’d kept him more out of respect for Matt’s memory than any real bond.
Off in the distance, a motorcycle roared. The sound brought back her brush with the demon at the gas station, before she’d had any idea who or what he was. She shivered.
“Milton,” she called again, more urgently. She’d lock him out for the night, but the one time she did that, he returned the next morning with his ear torn. It felt like she’d betrayed Matt’s trust.
She looked down at the t-shirt and running shorts she wore as pajamas. The last thing she wanted to do was go outdoors braless and barefoot to search for the cat.
“Milton!” she called again.
As though she’d summoned it, the black Ducati rounded the corner and glided to a stop in front of her door. Dr. Demon pulled his helmet off. She gritted her teeth, painfully conscious of her bare legs and lack of bra.
“Did you lose something?” he asked.
She considered stepping inside and slamming the door, but that felt like cowardice. At any rate, what did she have to fear? With Nana’s ruby pendant hung around her neck, she was safe. “My cat.”
She bellowed Milton’s name.
Dr. Demon swung his leg over the saddle. Pendant or no pendant, her mouth went dry. He was dressed in black again. His jeans were so tight he could have modeled for an anatomy class.
“Perhaps I can help you find him,” he said.
“I don’t need your help.” She caught a whiff of petrichor and vanilla and wished she’d put on VapoRub.
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” The way he crooned the words made her imagine his melodious voice in her ear as they made love. She pressed her hand against her shirt, feeling the shape of Nana’s pendant underneath. The image backed off, but she suspected that was less the ruby than the image of Nana’s face, pinched in disapproval at her thoughts.
There was a rustle in the bushes beside the front door, and Milton appeared. The cat looked from her to Dr. Demon. He jumped lightly into the demon’s arms.
She fought down a stab of annoyance. “He always did prefer men.”
“You have very poor taste,” the demon told the cat, rubbing its lumpy head. Milton emitted a rumbling purr. “Here you are, graced with the loveliest owner a cat could wish for, but you cuddle up to a brawny, hairy man instead.”
That actually didn’t seem like such poor judgment. As Kelsey had pointed out just that afternoon, Dr. Lyle was a very fine specimen of a brawny, hairy man. Or he would be, if he actually were a man.
“Do you want me to set him inside for you?” he asked.
“No.” She didn’t want him invading her home the way he seemed to have invaded her life.
“I’m afraid if I set him down, he’ll take off again. He seems to be ready to make a break for it, for some reason.”
Dara locked eyes with the cat. “Put him down. If he wants to run, he can just run to a new home.”
The demon bent and set the cat on the ground with the same grace he always displayed. Milton stalked into the house.
Dr. Demon looked amused. “I see you have him well trained.”
“If he were well trained, I wouldn’t be on the doorstep in the middle of the night, calling for him.”
“Perhaps your expectations are too high.” His eyes seemed to glow in the semidarkness. They did a slow survey of her body, leaving a trail of heat everywhere they passed. Her traitorous nipples pebbled inside her t-shirt. Fantasies filled her mind of what it would be like to have his hands touch everywhere his eyes had.
“My expectations are well within reason,” she said, but her voice sounded a little breathless.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to invite me in for a drink?” he asked. “I did retrieve your cat, after all.”
“I don’t drink.” She heard the prim note in her voice with irritation. Did she have to be everything he already thought she was? She might as well paint a target on her back.
He pulled a flask from a leather compartment on his handlebars and held it out to her. “Are you sure?”
For a moment, she felt a tendril of temptation. Then she shook her head. “No, thank you.”
He took a step nearer, and the fragrance of petrichor wound itself around her. She backed away and bumped into the closed door. How had it gotten closed?
“Have you ever even tasted alcohol?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Then you know one drink won’t corrupt you.” He advanced closer. Her eyes focused on his lips. A drink wouldn’t corrupt her, but another kiss might.
“No, thank you,” she whispered again. Why wasn’t she feeling for the doorknob? Why wasn’t she backing her way to safety? Because she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his lips, which moved toward hers as inexorably as a grass fire. He stopped a scant few inches away. She could feel the heat coming off his body.
“Shall I kiss you?” he asked.
For a moment, she was confused. Was he asking for consent? Or was he asking himself if kissing her would yield a reward worth the effort? His scent and his heat and those perfectly sculpted lips enticed her toward him. Say no, she ordered herself. This man is a danger. He’s out to harm you, to destroy your clinic, to steal your soul.
“Yes,” she said.
His lips touched hers and the world seemed to whirl around them. His hands cupped her jaw and his mouth massaged hers, encouraging her to open to him. Tantalizing touches on her lips from his tongue seconded the invitation. Although it felt as though every organ in her torso had liquefied, some shred of common sense kept her lips stubbornly closed. He kissed along her cheekbone, his mouth seeming to melt flesh from bone.
His hand moved behind her head, trapping it in place.
“Kiss me,” he murmured against her ear. His warm, damp breath brought out gooseflesh all the way to her ankles. “Forget about your clinic for a moment and kiss me the way a woman kisses a man.”
But he wasn’t a man. He was a demon. With that, the spell was broken. She pushed him away and pointed at the Ducati. “Go.”
He tried to draw her into his arms again. “That’s not what you want.”
He was right, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her shorts. “Go or I call nine-one-one.”
He raised his hands as though she were being unreasonable, and backed away.
“If you approach me again,” she said, “I will file for a restraining order.”
He threw his leg across the saddle. “You have no grounds. Every caress I’ve given, you’ve responded in kind. You asked for my kiss.”
Her face and neck flamed, but she kept her gaze stea
dy. “I have friends at the courthouse. I can make it happen.”
He was too far away for her to see his pupils in the darkness, but she was sure they turned rectangular.
As soon as the Ducati roared off into the darkness, she headed straight for the shower. She scrubbed every inch of her body under a spray of cold water, shivering at her close call. Even with Nana’s pendant, she’d put up practically no resistance. If he hadn’t reminded her that he was a demon, not a man, she wasn’t sure what would have happened.
Was Nana right? Was the demon after her? Or was seducing her merely a route into the clinic, where he could create all sorts of havoc? There was no way to know.
She got out of the shower, but she didn’t even need to towel off. The cold water had already evaporated from her skin.
On the dark stretch of road that lay between Alexandria and beach, Belial crouched over the Ducati, taking it through its gears until it roared to maximum speed. The wind slipped inside the back of his t-shirt, and for a dizzying moment, it felt as though he were flying.
There was no question in his mind that he’d touched something in Dara’s core, something that had been in abeyance since the death of her husband. At the thought of her beneath him, his loins burned. Sex with her would be a moment of rapture in an eternity of damnation.
Her rounded body was on his mind far more than it should be. He needed to bed her, so that he could slot her back into the category where she belonged—prey.
He pushed on the clutch, taking the bike down through its gears as he slowed to a more reasonable speed. He was doing a mere five miles over the limit when red and blue lights strobed from the darkness. As though for emphasis, a siren yelped.
Well, bliss. He hit the clutch again, halting the bike along the roadside. A white cruiser pulled up in front of him and the fat policeman from the service station got out. He swaggered up to the bike, his gut lapping over his belt.
The Demon Always Wins: Touched by a Demon, Book 1 Page 8
