by Michele Hauf
“I have no records of receiving the diamond. No clue who it came from.”
“And your assistant is up and missing?”
She nodded. “Do you think he could be in trouble? The demons could be after him?”
Stryke rapped the steering wheel with his fist. “Whatever it is, I’m inclined to suspect someone out there thinks you have something and they want it.”
“I don’t have anything. The only thing I took from the gallery was Le Diabolique.”
“Right. And if demons are still after you, it makes me guess you would have something they want. Demonic.”
“Do you think...they want to get rid of me?”
He caught the wobble in her tone and clasped her hand and pulled it to his mouth to kiss. “No, I don’t think so. I may be blowing this all out of the water. It’s done. Le Diabolique is safe and sound in the— Er, wherever the Old Lad has it.” Which was in his gut. “And the ones who tried to take it have already had a swing at me and failed. But the missing assistant does bother me.”
“It could be Edamite,” she decided.
Stryke winced to recall what Kir had told him about Edamite being their half brother. The demon had said he would never harm Blyss. Threaten her, sure. Could he trust the demon had been speaking truthfully?
Hell, if Ed had wanted Blyss out of the picture, he would have succeeded with that task by now.
“You should have a talk with your brother about Ed sometime,” Stryke suggested. He navigated the car down the street, heading toward the busy 1st arrondissement, where Blyss lived.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Just think it would be a good idea. Ed is...more on your side than you know.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me?”
He winced again. Bad move. He didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of a forced sibling reunion or rivalry.
“There’s your street,” he said, relieved for an escape. He pulled before Blyss’s building and they strolled through the courtyard. He paused before the door, her suitcases in hand, and sniffed.
“What is it?” she asked as she punched in the digital code.
“Thought I smelled demon. But it’s probably leftovers.”
“Leftovers?” Blyss wrinkled her nose and did an assessment of the door, wall and ground around them. Tor had done an excellent job of cleanup, Stryke noted. Not a spot of demon blood that he could see.
“Can we go in? These suitcases of yours are heavy.”
She cast him a doubtful look before crossing the threshold. So it had been a stupid excuse. He could heft a dozen of these bags and not feel the strain in his muscles. But it wasn’t necessary to give Blyss all the bloody details. He’d taken care of the threat. Story over.
Her heels clicked down the hallway, and he followed the sexy sashay of her hips, clad in a narrow yellow dress that hugged all her sleek curves. The swing of her long hair across her shoulders made his mouth water, and he set down the suitcases and went in for the kiss—
“Ahem.”
Stryke twisted to spy a strange man in a pink suit standing in Blyss’s living room.
Chapter 23
“Lorcan.”
Stryke stepped before Blyss, keeping her from approaching the assistant, who stood by the white couch, hands at his hips, the smile on his face as forced as a thief’s entry.
“What are you doing here?” Stryke asked. “Do you always break into your employer’s home?”
“I came to apologize.” Lorcan paced to the side, putting himself a little closer to Blyss, so Stryke was forced to move slightly aside. “I took Le Diabolique. I was desperate.”
“Oh, Lorcan, but it was a fake.”
“Blyss.” Stryke was not sensing the man had come to beg forgiveness. Something about the tension in the fisted hands at his sides and the faint but distinct red glow in his eyes. “He’s demon.”
“Aren’t you the clever one?” Lorcan suddenly dropped the contrite act. “And her.” He drew in a breath through his nose. “You’re smelling rather wolfish today, Blyss. You finally decide to drop the lie and come clean?”
“What do you know about me, Lorcan?” Blyss asked. Stryke clasped her hand when she stepped up to stand beside him. “Who are you?”
“I’ve been living among the bloody humans for months in wait of the perfect means to finally gain some power in this city. I need control. More power than Edamite Thrash holds over the local denizens. My denizen was this close—” he pinched his fingers together before him “—to releasing Xyloda. And then the Lone Ranger of Werewolves comes riding in with Himself as his sidekick and spoils all my hard work.”
“You were the one after Le Diabolique?” Blyss said on a gasp.
“It’s gone,” Stryke said firmly. “So you can either take the easy way—leave and never return, or...” He flicked out his claws. “...you can do it the hard way.”
“I mean Blyss no harm,” Lorcan hurried out. “I’ve seen the error of my ways. I want you to take me back, Blyss. I need the job. I’ve ransomed my hopes of defeating Thrash at his own game. What do you say? Let bygones be bygones?”
Blyss glanced up at Stryke. He shook his head. No way the demon was telling the truth. “He sent his henchmen after you. They would have killed you.”
“Oh, no,” Lorcan said. “I don’t think I could have killed Blyss. At least, not until I’d learned where Le Diabolique was.”
Blyss shook her head. “Get out.” She stepped forward, gesturing toward the door down the hallway, and in that moment in which her body was positioned slightly closer to the demon than Stryke’s, Lorcan grabbed her by the arm and wrangled her into a choke hold.
Stryke growled.
“Come one step closer,” Lorcan warned, “and I’ll crush her throat.” He eased his fingers about her slender neck. “I want the diamond! You were the last to see it. Take me to it, and only then will Blyss be safe.”
The bastard didn’t know whom he was dealing with. And he would not allow this fool one more moment of contact with his woman.
“Nope.” Stryke swept a hand aside Blyss’s neck, pushing her away, while at the same time, he brought his other clawed hand down across Lorcan’s chest.
The demon screamed, clasping at his chest. Blyss stumbled against the wall.
“I don’t make bargains with idiots,” Stryke said as the deep cuts in the demon’s chest crackled and formed into black crystals that then moved over the pink suit as if eating the creature alive.
Lorcan’s body crystallized, burning away the suit, and dispersed across the white marble floor.
Stryke shook his hand and his claws retracted. He grinned over the pile of demon ash. And then he noticed Blyss shivering and balled-up by the wall. He dashed to her and took her in his arms.
“Sorry you had to see that.”
“He deserved it. He would have killed me and you.”
“You really believe that?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. You would have protected me, no matter what. He was no match to you. Thank you.”
She buried her head against his neck and clutched him tightly. But she didn’t cry. Instead, Stryke thought he could feel her strength permeate his skin and bones, and he inhaled her natural wolfish scent. This woman was strong and brave, and she was more than a simple glamour girl.
“I love you, Blyss. Nothing in this world will come between me and that love. I promise.”
“You make it sound like forever,” she whispered.
“I want it to be forever.”
She looked up at him, her green eyes blinking back tears. “Really?”
“I love you. No matter what. Wolf or human. I’ll love you.”
“I love you, too. No matter what. But you know what would make me love you even more?”
“Tell me. I’ll make it happen.”
“Help me clean up this demon mess?”
He laughed and she joined in, and in the middle of retrieving the broom and dustpan and trying to avo
id all the black crystals scattered across the marble floor, Stryke’s phone rang.
“Rhys, I’m not sure. I’m in the middle of something with Blyss right now. Huh? Oh, no, not that.” He winked at Blyss.
She swept the demon ash toward the dustpan. “Go. I’ve got this.”
“I shouldn’t leave you.”
“Why? Do you think there’s still demons out there who want to harm me?”
“No, I just...”
“I’ll be fine,” she offered. “Go. Come back to me when you can. I’ll be thinking of you.”
Stryke kissed her long and deep and then glanced to the pile of demon ash. “I should clean that up for you first.”
“No.” She pushed him down the hallway. “You know I’ve been testing my domestic skills lately. This’ll be fun.”
“Seriously?”
“Stryke, you’re needed.”
“And it feels like you’re trying to get rid of me.”
She kissed him again. “Never. I’ll be waiting for you in bed.”
“I’ll hurry back.”
Closing the door behind her lover’s retreat, Blyss let out a huffing exhalation, then charged into the bedroom and landed on the end of the bed, breathing heavily.
Her spine shifted. Her skin crawled. She moaned at the tendrils of pain that crossed her skin.
“Shit,” she hissed, and then her body began to shift.
* * *
Stryke had used Rhys’s name when holding the phone conversation before Blyss, but that had been a ruse. He had been thinking quick on his feet and hadn’t thought it necessary, or wise, to reveal to her who was really on the other end of the line.
Now he shook Edamite Thrash’s hand and the demon nodded he follow him down the aqueduct toward the rusted door they had visited previously.
Yeah, he’d shaken the guy’s hand. Much as he’d never admit it out loud, Stryke was okay with Thrash. He wasn’t okay with how he’d threatened Blyss, but he did believe he would have never gone through with those threats. And the demon had only been trying to keep Xyloda from being released upon this mortal realm.
Something all right about that goal.
Ed stepped through the open doorway, bending as he led Stryke down a tunnel that was all of limestone. Despite the river outside, Stryke swallowed harder the deeper he walked, for the dry air seeped into his lungs.
He was hit by an intense sulfur scent as the tunnel opened into a vast cave. Ed spread out his arms before the empty room. “Wanted you to know that matters have been dealt with.”
“I don’t understand.” He traced his gaze along the walls and up and around the curved ceiling and finally across the floor— Ah. “That looks like a hell of a lot of demon ash.”
“I, and my team, slaughtered Lorcan’s denizen.”
“Nice. How’d you know it was Lorcan?”
“One of his lackeys came to me this morning. I thought you’d appreciate me taking care of the riffraff.”
“I do. Wish you would have called earlier, though. Lorcan was waiting for us in Blyss’s apartment.”
“Merde.”
“He’s ash.”
Ed smirked and met Stryke’s fist bump. “I like you, Saint-Pierre.”
“Yeah, well...” Stryke sighed.
“You don’t have to say it. I have my own way of doing things. But know I would never harm Blyss or her family. Er, my family.”
“I get that. But Blyss still owes you money.”
“I’ll be fine. Are you going to take care of her? She needs you.”
“Not sure Paris needs me, and she doesn’t need Minnesota.”
“If it’s love you should go for it. Not often that comes into a man’s life.”
“I’ll take that into consideration. Thanks, man. I need to get back to Blyss. Left her to clean up Lorcan’s ash.”
“Blyss does housework?”
“Wonders never cease, eh?”
* * *
The doorbell rang and Blyss sat up on the couch. The soft white wool blanket she’d wrapped herself in slipped from her shoulders. She eyed the turned-over coffee table and hastily righted it, setting the books back on top. Cruising through the kitchen, she picked up a tattered magazine and tossed it in the trash.
She glanced about. She’d picked up most of the mess earlier and had swept up Lorcan’s remains. After she’d come back from the shift to wolf. The new mess had been from her wolf.
She hadn’t been able to control the insistent need to shift. The wolf had come upon her so suddenly it was all she could do to keep from screaming at the pain and alerting her neighbors. Thank the goddess the wolf had been contained within her apartment and hadn’t tried to get out through a window. She’d been able to come back to human form only fifteen minutes ago and had collapsed on the couch in tears.
Now she checked her face in the refrigerator door glass. She hadn’t time to put on makeup earlier—no streaked mascara or smeared lipstick. Her hair needed combing, and other than being naked beneath the blanket, she looked...
“Like hell. He’ll never believe me. But I can’t tell him. Not yet.”
Because she had to be sure. She didn’t want to get his hopes up. Or hers.
Stryke rang the doorbell as she swung the door open and leaned out to kiss him. She pulled him inside by his shirtfront, still kissing him and hoping to distract him from asking the obvious questions.
“Mmm, you are happy to see me.”
“I am.” She tugged him down the hallway.
Stryke slid onto the stool before the counter. “You’re wearing a blanket? What do you have on under there?”
“Nothing.” She tugged the blanket a little closer. Not feeling the sexy vibes at the moment. “I showered and then lay down for a bit. I, uh, think the weekend tired me out. I was going to get dressed and then you rang.”
“You don’t have to get dressed. I like you au naturel.”
“You like me any way but all dressed up and— Stryke, you used French. You’re learning, mon amour. So what’s up? Everything go well with Rhys?”
“Yep. Another job done all tidy and swept under the rug. And speaking of sweeping... You need me to sweep up a demon for you?” He glanced over his shoulder into the living room.
“No, I got that. Though I’ve still some cleaning to do. Don’t look at the mess.”
She cringed at sight of the lamp hanging off the chair arm.
“But how did it get so—?”
Blyss tugged Stryke toward the bedroom. “Come and help me pick out some clothes and shoes.”
“Shoes? I have no talent for shoes, glamour girl.”
“Sure you do. Just sit there.” She pushed him onto the bed. “And I’ll model for you.” She headed into the shoe closet, glad to have diverted him from the mess out in the living room. The man was keen on picking up the details and sensing when all was not right.
He’d have to go back that way sooner or later. How many pairs of shoes could she model before he figured something was up?
Once inside the closet she felt the strange tug across her shoulder muscles. Hell, the feeling wasn’t strange; it was too familiar.
“Not again.” She clasped the lip of the closest shelf and breathed shallowly as she concentrated on the sudden twinges to her muscles. Sure sign of an imminent shift. And focusing on the sweet pair of candy-red Viviers wasn’t helping to distract one bit.
“I suddenly have the desire for some champagne!” she called out.
“Uh...” Stryke said from the bedroom. “Okay. I’ll get some from the fridge.”
“All out! You’ll need to run to the wineshop down the street.”
“Seriously?”
Tensing her gut and clinging desperately to the door frame, Blyss forced on a smile and brushed back the hair from her face. She strode to the closet doorway, blanket clutched before her chest. “If you bring the champagne, I’ll find it very difficult to get dressed so quickly.”
His eyebrow lifted. That sexy know-
it-all smirk curled.
Even as she felt her spine twitch, she ran her tongue teasingly along her lower lip. “I want to celebrate us,” she managed to say. “All night.”
“The woman has a plan.” Stryke stood and approached her.
She put up a palm. “No kisses until you bring the champagne. I’ll be waiting.” She tugged off the blanket and tossed it at him. “No touching until you get back.”
Her fingernails dug into the door frame on the closet side. He couldn’t see her fighting the shift.
“Deal.” Stryke tilted a wink at her and strolled out of the bedroom.
Chapter 24
Champagne in hand, Stryke picked up his pace down the cobbled street. It had taken an inordinate amount of time in the wineshop. A two-for-one sale had brought out the French in hordes. And his inability to speak the language had probably made him miss his chance at the register more than a few times. And then there was the spry old woman who had pushed past him with an armload of vino.
Ah well, he’d survived that debacle. And now a gorgeous, and naked, woman waited his return. A woman he had promised to love no matter what. He couldn’t wait to snuggle up to Blyss beneath the sheets and drink the champagne from her lips.
Rounding a corner, he was roughly shouldered by a teenager running by. “Hey!” But Stryke didn’t pursue because a scream alerted him. “What’s going on?” he asked a passing tourist who screamed and clutched his child’s hand.
“A monster!” the man said in frantic gasps. “It’s a big wolf!”
Heart dropping like a stone, Stryke picked up his pace. A big wolf? Monster? It couldn’t be. Not in this city crushed from building to building with people. Suddenly he saw the wolf run across the street and down a narrow alleyway.
Not a wolf, but a werewolf.
A handful of teenage boys followed, curiosity killing their sense of safety.
“Shit.” It couldn’t be. Could it? “Blyss?”
He’d not seen her in werewolf form. And she had taken the elixir, right?
“Please let her have taken the elixir.”
He hastened into a run and rounded the corner, racing up behind the young men. Shoving them out of his way, he pushed hard enough to knock them over, but not break bones. “Stay the hell away!”
