by Michele Hauf
Stryke’s brothers joined him at the curb, and she saw them talking to him, but Stryke’s gaze remained on hers as the cab rolled away.
If they intended on tracking the demons perhaps they would find the diamond.
She’d lost this one. She’d lost...
...everything.
* * *
“I can’t believe that bitch,” Trouble said as the cab drove away. “You’re going to let her get away, Stryke? She was the one who brought those assholes on us!”
“Give it a rest, Trouble,” Kelyn said. The tall, cool faery bumped his fist gently against Trouble’s shoulder. “Stryke never has been lucky at love. The day he finds a good woman...”
Stryke closed his eyes and inside he felt the wince. So he’d had a tough couple of years with women. Blyss had been different. Perfect. A glamour girl so out of his league he’d have to climb a staircase just to touch her feet. And he had known they had an expiration date. He’d even suspected that date was tonight.
Well hell, wasn’t as if he’d actually given the relationship any hope. The last woman he could imagine standing at his side while he led a pack was Blyss Sauveterre.
“She screwed you,” Trouble said as he wandered down the sidewalk. “This way, guys. The demon scent goes north.”
Stryke clenched his fists and turned to follow the half dozen men who intended to track down the demons.
For as perfect as Blyss was, she had cleverly hidden a nasty dark side. How could she have done that to him? To his entire family?
Though really, she hadn’t been the one to bring the diamond into the wedding. He had. Blyss had only thought she might find it in the coat pocket where she’d left it. But he had found it that night and had waited for her to ask about it yesterday. When he’d caught her in his closet he’d known what she was looking for, but still, she hadn’t said a thing.
If she had been using him, would she really have had sex with him that much? They’d done it more than a few times. And this morning he’d woken in her bed. No means for her to search for the diamond then. It was as if she’d actually wanted to have sex with him for no reason other than that she’d been attracted to him.
He wanted to believe that.
Right now, Stryke didn’t know what to believe.
What was important about the diamond? It was black. Yet he’d almost thought to see a glint of red in the center when he’d held it up to the bathroom light. Was it demonic?
Then why was Blyss after it? Had she stolen it from the gallery? Her own gallery? So many questions, and...he shouldn’t be asking them. He’d put her in a cab and sent her off. End of story. He did not need her kind of trouble.
Her soft, sexy, seductive kind of trouble.
“You all right, man?” Blade brushed his shoulder as they strode into a dark alley. His older brother didn’t talk much, but when he did, he meant it.
“Not sure. I think there’s more to this, and part of me thinks Blyss could be in trouble.”
“You should follow your instincts.”
Wise words from the one brother who had experienced more than his share of pain in his short lifetime. “First let’s go kick some demon ass.”
“Try to keep up, brother.” Blade strode onward, a curved blade clenched in his fist.
As far as a demon slaughter, the results of tracking the demon scent led the crew of wolves and vampires to an empty warehouse. The sulfur trail ended abruptly, and someone conjectured a witch’s hex might have facilitated that under-the-radar sneak.
Vail, the vampire leading them, talked to Trouble and Stryke.
“It was probably a wedding crash,” Vail decided.
Trouble eyed Stryke hard. Like, why didn’t he speak up about his nasty girlfriend? It wouldn’t matter if Stryke did reveal Blyss’s involvement; they’d come to a dead end.
“Sorry for the disastrous wedding, guys,” Vail offered.
“Are you kidding?” Trouble pounded a fist through the air. “Dancing, food and ass-kicking? That was awesome!”
“I’ll keep my ears open,” Stryke said to Vail as they headed back. “And my nose to the air. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”
“Cool. I think it was a spectacular end to a great party myself. And Summer is safe, so it’s all good.”
Stryke refused Kelyn’s offer of a ride home. They were on the right bank close to the huge forest that edged the city. He was pretty sure if he walked east he’d wind up on the Champs-Élysées. That fancy street where she liked to shop.
He didn’t want to see her again.
And he did.
He needed answers. And he would get them.
* * *
Blyss rang him in immediately. Stryke wandered through the courtyard. The scents of yew and flowers seemed too fresh and out of place after the night he’d had. He wondered now how Johnny and Kambriel were handling the destruction of their wedding ceremony. Though he distinctly recalled seeing Johnny hugging Kambriel and kissing her amid the melee, while both had brandished blades dripping with black demon blood. And Vail had agreed it had been a hit.
Vampires. Go figure.
The door to Blyss’s apartment was open. Stryke walked in, closing it behind him. He wandered down the long hallway to the kitchen. It was well after midnight, but moonlight beamed through the skylight in the adjacent living room, casting a pale glow across Blyss’s shoulders. Standing beside the marble counter, with her head bowed, she didn’t face him. She sniffled.
“I didn’t think I would see you again,” she whispered.
“You and me both, sweetie.”
“Désolé,” she said softly and turned to him. “It means I am sorry.”
Stryke rubbed his scalp, winced, then splayed out his hand before him. “I know it’s late, but I think you owe me some answers.”
She nodded. Shivered.
He couldn’t stand there and look at her, fallen and so small. He crossed the floor and wrapped his arms about her, and she stood and pressed her breasts against his chest.
“You mean something to me, Blyss,” he confessed. “And if something bad is going on in your life right now I want to help. And that means you need to come clean about it all. You’ve got to trust me.”
Her fingers clung to his shirt, tugging, tears spilling hotly through the fabric. “Oh, Stryke, it’s become so terrible and big. I can’t do this alone anymore.”
He bowed his head and kissed her temple. “You don’t have to. I’m here.”
“Were you able to track the demons and...?”
He knew she wanted to ask about the diamond. All he wanted to know was what it meant to her. “Dead end. We gave up. No sign of the diamond.”
Blyss’s body went weak against his. She pulled him down with her as she collapsed. He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. There, he sat on the bed and held her, sobbing gently, until they both fell asleep.
Chapter 8
Stryke woke on Blyss’s bed. They’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms still dressed. His shoes were on. And everything he touched, lay on or could see was white. Oops. He carefully extricated his hand from under her shoulder but managed to wake her.
“Sorry,” he said.
She blinked lush lashes and yawned. “Morning?”
“Yeah, I fell asleep with you. Sorry, I should have kicked my shoes off. Just a little smudge on your bedsheets.”
“Doesn’t matter. Oh. I must look a terrible mess. I’m still in my gown.” She sat up and caught her fingers in her tangled hair. “Oh, mon Dieu.”
“You look gorgeous, as always.”
“Please don’t lie to me, Stryke. You don’t owe me any kindnesses.”
He touched her cheek below a faint smudge of black makeup. “Your eye stuff is a little smeared, but it works for me.”
She touched her cheek and looked aside. “I’m so sorry. I promised I would tell you everything last night. I want to. I need to, but...” Her sigh rifled down his spine.
“Why don’t I run out for some pains au chocolat and orange juice? That’ll give you some time to freshen up, and then we can have a chat.”
“Thank you. Take the key lying on my vanity with you. You can let yourself back in. That’ll give me a chance to take a shower.”
He kissed her at the temple, but she flinched. Probably because she suspected she looked a mess. There was nothing about Blyss that could offend him physically. But he was leery about what she would tell him, so he’d not overthink this.
Leaving her in the bedroom, he collected his suit coat and the key. Demon blood stained his white dress shirt, so he buttoned up the coat and strolled outside, through the courtyard and...
What was that scent? Smelled familiar—
Stryke felt an excruciating pain fire at the back of his neck. He immediately knew he’d been clubbed by something more than a fist—and then he blacked out.
* * *
Stryke came to and realized he was stumbling down a long steel-walled hallway toward a glass door. Not voluntarily, either. He struggled, but determined the men on either side of him were both taller, bulkier and stronger. The instinctive urge to shift to werewolf tingled at his bones, but he wasn’t sure where he was and didn’t want to risk wolfing out if there were humans near.
But if these guys were stronger than him he guessed they were not human. When he inhaled, the distinctive scent of sulfur coiled in his nostrils.
What was up with the demons lately? Since arriving in Paris, they had been pointed out to him by Vail and Rhys. They’d crashed the wedding last night. Blyss was somehow inextricably involved with demons.
And now he was being escorted by a pair of demons to the devil knew where.
A glass door opened automatically as they approached, and the demons shoved him through the doorway to stumble forward across a gleaming black marble floor. It was some kind of office. Two walls were all glass, probably many stories up. Rain sheeted the windows. At the opposite side of the room loomed a black desk with a silver lamp upon it and a sleek silver computer. Behind it sat a man with his back turned to them.
“What the hell?” Stryke asked.
The man behind the desk spun around swiftly and snarled. “You brought me this?”
Stryke tried not to take offense from the remark, but really? The man’s coal hair was slicked back to expose small hematite horns at his temples. And on the knuckles he flexed were also small, gleaming growths that looked like hematite thorns and which Stryke sensed could serve a stinging punch.
“Uh, boss, you said to take him when he leaves the building.”
“I did not say him,” the demon said icily. Below the thorny growths on his fists were dark markings that looked like tattoos, but Stryke suspected they were much more evil in nature. Generally tats on a paranormal were magically enhanced. Bad mojo. “I told you to grab her when she leaves the building. Her!”
“Uh...”
Stryke cast a smirk over his shoulder at the idiot henchman who struggled for an answer to his idiocy.
“Who are you?” Stryke and the man behind the desk asked each other simultaneously.
“I...” The man stood, tugged at his neat black tie and said, “...am Edamite Thrash. Businessman. Collector. Purveyor of Essentials. And you...” The demon’s left nostril nudged up. “...smell like a werewolf.”
“Stryke Saint-Pierre,” he offered, now unwilling to take offense from a demon’s snide assessment of him. “Why the nab? Were you going after Blyss? Are you the one she was supposed to get the diamond for?”
Edamite’s expression softened from tight disapproval to a surprising smile. “Ah. So you are colluding with her?”
“Colluding? I barely know her. Well—” No need to explain how well he knew her. And no matter how conflicted about the socialite he was at the moment, that was no reason to throw her under the bus to save his ass. “What’s going on?”
“Where is Le Diabolique?”
“Is that the name of the black stone? I don’t know. It was lost last night. A gang of your thugs came after it. Crashed a private wedding.”
“My thugs? I do not have thugs, Monsieur Saint-Pierre. They are minions. Tell me exactly who you believe was after the diamond.”
“If you don’t know your own people, I certainly can’t help you there.”
“Make him remember, Inego,” Edamite said curtly.
Stryke took a punch to the middle of his back, directly on his spine. The pain was beyond belief and he couldn’t stand for the sudden loss of muscle control. He dropped to his knees as another thick demon fist swung up into his jaw. Blood trickled down his throat.
He caught the next punch with his palm. The demon sneered at him and narrowed its red gaze—and Stryke forgot about the other henchman, whose claws tore the side of his neck.
He dropped to his palms and spat blood onto the marble floor. These two did not fight fair.
“I don’t know anything,” he managed to say, wincing at the stinging pain seeping from the cuts. His blood dripped onto the black floor. Assholes.
Swinging back his arm, he called up his claws and delivered triple slices across the face of one of the demons. The henchman stumbled backward, hand gripping the black spurts of blood.
“Cease!” Edamite called as the other demon growled and swung toward Stryke.
Stryke didn’t take orders from a demon, so he gripped the henchman’s wrist and snapped it back so quickly the bone broke and splintered out from the flesh. Shoving him off to lick his wounds by the other, Stryke turned toward Edamite.
“You next?” he challenged.
“Blyss,” Edamite insisted. “How are the two of you involved?”
Retracting his claws, Stryke growled deeply as he stood at full height and stretched back his shoulders imposingly. “I met her a few days ago. The diamond was a surprise.”
“So you’re telling me Mademoiselle Sauveterre doesn’t have the stone?”
Stryke shook his head. Though he knew little about this situation, the feeling that he needed to protect Blyss was strong. Had to be why she had been so frantic about obtaining the diamond. And he could only be thankful they had nabbed him by mistake.
“Are you threatening her?” He punched a fist into his palm. Thrash may look imposing but he wasn’t half as built as he was, and Stryke was always willing to jump into the fray.
Laughing, Edamite gestured subtly with a forefinger.
Stryke was suddenly lifted by both minions and pummeled in the face, chest and gut. The punches came so rapidly, he couldn’t return with defensive punches. It was all he could do to keep his wits about him.
“Hold him!” Edamite charged.
The horned demon leaned over Stryke and blew a gust of black smoke into his face. Sulfur entered his senses and clutched his brain, causing him to black out.
* * *
He came to outside. Sitting against a brick wall. In an alley, he guessed, for both directions to either side led down a narrow path and out to streets where cars passed by. The tarmac was wet and his pants leg and dress shirt were also wet.
Unsure what had gone down, Stryke suddenly had the thought that he’d left Blyss waiting for orange juice and pastries. How long had he been gone? Where had they taken him? He didn’t know the city. And he’d blacked out twice, so he had no clue to his whereabouts.
And he hurt. Everywhere. “Damned demons.”
He pushed up to a stand and spat blood to the side. Rubbing his neck, he felt the scabs from the talon cuts. Yeah, this was going to take a good day to heal and feel up to par. But at least he’d gotten in some good punches himself.
Edamite Thrash. Businessman and collector? Purveyor of Essentials? What the heck did that nonsensical bullshit mean?
Didn’t matter. “If he’s threatening Blyss, he’ll have to go through me to even breathe her air.”
Stryke winced as he wandered down the alley. Right. The demon had gone through him and look who was bleeding now.
He should
have wolfed out while in the marble office. Could have taken out those demons, no problem. But he still didn’t have all the pieces to a strange and aggravating puzzle.
Blyss could provide some of those pieces.
Turning onto a main street, he caught his reflection in a storefront window. His face was mottled with bruises and his lips swollen. No black eyes, though. Score! Not. And blood drops dotted the front of his white shirt, some red, but more than most black.
“I need a shower.”
He tried to button up the suit coat but only one button remained. Wandering down the street, he tucked his head. Thankful his cell phone was still in a pocket, Stryke brought up the GPS app and within a few minutes pinpointed his location. A couple miles walk to Blyss’s place. He’d stop at a McDonald’s on the way and eat breakfast, then pick up the pastries and orange juice for her. It was already past noon.
He always kept his word. Even if it was a little late.
Chapter 9
Three hours after he’d left, Stryke arrived at Blyss’s front door. She’d had more than enough time to shower, put on some makeup, get up her courage to reveal the big secret—and then lose that courage when she’d decided after hour two that he wasn’t planning to return. That he’d given up on her. That he never wanted to see her again.
Smart choices.
So when her handsome werewolf lover stood in the doorway holding a bakery bag, a carton of orange juice and smiled through a pair of bruised lips, tears spilled down Blyss’s cheek. She hugged him, crushing the bag against his chest, and held on longer and tighter than she probably should have. But it didn’t matter. He was here. He hadn’t given up on her. And she needed someone on her side right now.
“I didn’t think you’d come back.” She sniffed away tears.
“Took a long detour.”
“I can see that.” She stepped back and studied his bruised face and then noted the bloodstains on his shirt. There were more than from last night. “What kind of a detour?”
He handed her the bag and orange juice. “It’s an interesting story. I think it’ll mesh with what you have to tell me. Or I suspect so. What’s with the tears? You didn’t miss me that much, did you, glamour girl?”
