More than a few Stetsons hit the air.
Quinn was careful not to meet the telepath demon’s gaze, but felt the creature’s attention remain fixed on her nonetheless. As Wally came round the bar, she took advantage of meeting him halfway to get closer to the blonde.
“Where have you been hiding, Quinnie?”
She cringed at the nickname, but didn’t bother to correct him. Wally was the type to use it again just to drive her nuts, and she liked him well enough not to tempt herself to hurt the man. Instead she let the nickname roll off her back and lifted her gaze from the alcohol stained wood floor.
The telepath demon stared at her intently. Probably trying to get a read on her. Fat chance.
“The kitchen is closed, but if you’re looking for a few munchies, I’m sure I can find something out back.”
“No thanks,” she said to Wally, but watched the demon from the corner of her eye.
The hostile smiled at the men on either side of it and nodded towards the back, towards the ladies room.
“Hold that thought,” Quinn said, and maneuvered around Wally towards the rear of the bar. A man wearing a Stetson that looked barely an hour old, with equally new cowboy boots—and probably matching chaps at home—stepped in front of her.
“How about letting me buy you a drink?”
Quinn smiled at him sweetly. “Sure, cowboy. How about a nice Piña Colada and I’ll be right back. Have to tinkle.”
He smiled and winked conspiratorially. “You may want to try the men’s room. I’ve heard a couple women bitching about the ladies’ toilets backing up tonight.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Rolling her eyes, she left him behind. She wasn’t sure she’d ever understand the appeal of a cowboy, or maybe she just needed to meet a real one and not a wannabe.
At the end of the hall, Quinn spotted the telepath demon. “Hold up a second.”
The blonde hesitated, tried reading her again. Its perfectly feminine eyes narrowed. “I don’t do women.”
Quinn couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing. The sound of a muffled thump from the storage closet was rather sobering however. She shook her head. “Just once it would be nice to meet one of you guys when you haven’t or weren’t about to hurt someone.”
The demon frowned.
“Let me clarify.” Quinn tugged her sweater aside, showing off Slice, followed by his best friend.
“One Piña Colada for the lady.” Cowboy’s voice echoed up the hall.
Through clenched teeth, Quinn answered. “I’ll be right there.”
The demon took advantage of the extra set of human eyes, no doubt hoping Quinn wasn’t about to make a scene, and darted towards the kitchen.
Too bad the demon didn’t know her very well. Quinn grinned. Damn, but she liked it when they ran. Made it more fun to catch them. Few demons ever put their hands up in surrender, but anything that dragged the fight out for a few minutes made the exertion worth it in the end.
She took off after the demon, was within arm’s reach in the kitchen when the bitch toppled a shelving unit holding pots and pans. Wally wasn’t going to appreciate the mess, but what was one kitchen disaster on the legendary ball buster’s record?
With a mournful snort for missing the look on the bartender’s face when he spotted the kitchen, she tore after the demon. Cool night air hit Quinn’s face as she kicked the last pot out of her way and darted into the back parking lot.
She turned around, scanning the rows of parked cars until she spotted a shadowed figure sprinting towards the edge of small wooded area that separated the bar from a residential neighborhood.
Quinn cut the demon off. The hostile might have been farther ahead than she would have given the demon credit for, but jogging time was over.
The sharp pressure in her head caught Quinn unaware. She blinked through the pain that unfolded in her head, then lashed out with a dagger clenched in her fist.
On the defense, the demon wasn’t able to push through her thoughts so easily, or so violently. She could only guess that given today and coupled with her recent nightmares, it was easier for the creature to shove its way inside Quinn’s head.
“Someone afraid of the dark?” The demon taunted, the hissing undercurrent a dead giveaway to the evil that lurked in the purely manifested human body.
Quinn was really going to enjoy separating the demon essence from its pod person and vanquishing the sucker. She moved low, knocking the Shadow Demon’s legs out from under it. The blonde scrambled to its feet, getting in a solid blow in the process. The amateurish swing still packed considerable punch, snapping Quinn’s face to the right.
Blood leaked at the corner of her mouth. She really hated the taste of blood. An image from her nightmares shot to the forefront.
Dark. Her hands bound…
The psychological sneak attack was followed up with a kick Quinn was too distracted to dodge. The impact knocked her into a red sedan. Pain radiated up her back.
She climbed to her feet and circled the demon, pushing every spare brain cell into keeping the demon out of her head. Unlike the telepathic Destroyers, telepath Shadow Demons were a little more proficient at getting inside her mind. But none before this one had claimed a victory, and tonight was not going to be the start of a new trend.
The demon was mentally ready but still physically at a disadvantage against Quinn’s speed and training. A well-placed punch to the solar plexus and another one that jammed the hostile’s head back exposed its weakest point.
The neck.
Stay hidden, Quinn. Whatever you do, don’t come out.
The memory of her mother’s voice sliced through her heart with a clarity she hadn’t felt since her parent’s death six years ago. And it was enough to freeze her feet to the ground.
The demon grinned at Quinn, and smashed its fist in her face.
Quinn staggered, but managed to catch the telepath across the belly as she struggled to stay upright. It hissed, cursing her in its ancient language. The look of concentration on the creature’s face warned Quinn another mental blow was coming.
Cries. Pitiful, heart-wrenching cries. Her mother’s.
With a cry fueled by frustration and anger, Quinn slashed out—and overcompensated. The voices in her head drowned out her own senses that warned that the demon had sidestepped to escape the coming blow.
A strike to her back pitched Quinn forward. Her head struck the front fender of another car, and her vision turned grainy. She sensed the next attack and rolled to the side as the demon’s foot struck the fender.
Quinn was back on her feet, but not in enough time to deliver the killing blow.
A clean slice of another’s sword severed the demon’s head from its manifested, bloodless body. Stunned, Quinn watched as the blue flames brought on by an ancient chant vanquished the demon. As the icy flames faded, taking with it all evidence of the demon, Quinn slowly lifted her head and stared straight into Braxton’s eyes.
Chapter Three
“You okay?”Quinn stared at the ground where the demon had fallen. A day’s worth of events that made her feel like she was losing the tenuous grip on her mind snapped inside her. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Saving your ass.”
“I was fine,” she snapped.
“It didn’t look that way to me.”
Any other time Braxton taking out a demon would have felt like he was doing his job. Tonight was different. That demon had been inside her head, twisting the voices to get to her. Had tried to use her dead mother to distract her.
“You were letting it in, weren’t you?” His voice was both chastising and almost envious the hostile was capable of such a feat.
Quinn picked up one of the daggers she’d dropped when her face met the car. As the adrenaline rush dissipated, she became increasingly aware of the throbbing in her jaw and back.
“You took a good one to the face.” He lifted a hand to tip her chin back, but her glare stopped him midway.
<
br /> “I had it.”
“I wasn’t going to wait until the thing got a hold of one of your daggers to be sure about that.”
She couldn’t even drum up enough enthusiasm to continue the argument. Not when her mother’s voice continued to resonate in the back of her mind.
Stay hidden, Quinn. Whatever you do, don’t come out.
“What’s wrong?” He stared hard into her eyes, and she felt him trying to reach.
“I’m fine.” With her mind still so fragile from the last assault, she knew it would be far too easy for him to slip in under the radar if she didn’t get some distance between them.
“So you keep saying.”
“Well maybe if I get it tattooed on my forehead, then people will get the point.”
He stalked after her. “Or maybe if you just tell someone what’s going on with you, it will save us the trouble from worrying.”
“And who’s worried? Rae? Gage and Jordan?” She knew Royce might have shared any concerns he had with Rae without going into details. Since Rae hadn’t commented when she gave Quinn the next assignment after her session, she figured she was in the clear.
“All of us,” Braxton said.
She stopped in her tracks, wondering what the others had been saying about her. “I love how you tossed yourself into the mix. I’m touched, really.” She threw in a sniffle purely because it would piss him off. She had more than enough anger eating a hole through her chest to go around. Most of it directed at herself for letting the damn demon in her head, for letting it make her vulnerable.
Braxton sidestepped her. “Don’t blow this off.”
“There’s nothing for you or anyone else to worry about.”
“And living in denial won’t get you anywhere.”
“And looking for problems in places where there aren’t any won’t get you anywhere.” She shouldered past him.
“Why were you hiding?”
His question brought her to a standstill, and her heart gave a vicious kick to her ribs.
“You were scared,” he added, gently. “Your mother was too.”
“Stay the fuck out of my head, Braxton.” She knew she wasn’t in any state to keep him from poking around in there, and the last thing she needed right now were more reminders of the ghosts the demon stirred up. She had no clue how it managed to make the voices, the words, seem so real.
Quinn strode out of the parking lot, ignoring Wally who called from the front of the bar as she rounded the corner on the main sidewalk.
Braxton kept after her. “Talk to me, damn it.”
“There’s nothing to say. Go home.”
It was impossible to focus on getting herself centered, her mind sealed, with him almost clipping the back of her heels with his equally determined strides. She never needed to force herself to let go of any anger when it came to demon confrontations. Not since she’d been rookie agent. It had never been a problem for her to leave her emotions at the door when it came to demon slaying.
Agents who allowed emotional highs and lows to guide their actions during a fight left themselves open to having those same emotions, especially the negative ones, exploited by the enemy. Demons weren’t easy to kill to begin with, and letting them feed off any strong feelings only gave them more of an edge. A lesson every Destroyer learned early on, one that could make the difference between coming out of any confrontation as the loser or the victor.
It was routine to dump all the emotional baggage before picking up a sword or daggers to get the job done. All except the sheer pleasure she took in vanquishing another predator. That just screwed with their heads. They weren’t all that big on the warm fuzzy emotions, and her genuine smiles during a fight never failed to elicit a fair amount of irritation on the demon’s part.
But tonight, routine wasn’t working. Tonight she couldn’t shake the tension that bit into her skin like shards of ice that twisted deeper with every attempt to clear her thoughts. She needed calmness, focus. Needed to find out what crevice in her brain the telepath demon had dug through to find what it had.
Anger continued to pulse through her bloodstream like a rising river ready to trigger a flash flood. She hadn’t been able to find pleasure in even slaying the telepath demon. Braxton had denied her that too tonight.
“I don’t need an escort,” she managed when she trusted herself to speak without taking his head off.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s eating at you.”
She didn’t waste another breath to tell him nothing was wrong. The little glimpse in her head a few minutes ago had already told him something was bothering her, even if he didn’t know what it was.
Hell, she didn’t know what it was. The nightmares, the panic in the elevator, the sound of her mother’s fear. The last one didn’t even make any sense. Had the demon merely tapped into something she’d dreamed about to pull her mother’s voice out like that? Could they do that or were they only able to get a hold on current thoughts or past memories? The ache in her face spread up and across her temples as she tried to put the pieces together in her mind.
At the door to her apartment building, Quinn stopped. “I’m not inviting you in if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Then I’ll be camped outside your door until you tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not letting you into the building.”
He shrugged. “Someone will.”
“You’re not supposed to plant any suggestions in an innocent’s mind.” She’d seen him do it when it suited his purpose on assignment, but doing it to slay demons wasn’t the same as this.
“I don’t feel like playing fair tonight.”
“Damn it, Braxton.”
He grinned, but leaned against the wall, looking ready to settle in and wait for some poor sap with zero willpower to let him in.
“Fine.” She shoved her key into the outer door, thinking to throw him for a loop by doing the opposite of what he expected. “If you want to come in and stare at my four walls all night, knock yourself out. I have nothing to talk about and no plans but to fall into bed and sleep until my alarm goes off. But if it makes you feel better to watch me while you sit and stew for hours, by all means come on in.”
She didn’t wait to see if he caught the door behind her. She already suspected he wasn’t going to back down. If he honestly thought she was going to talk about any of this, he was deluding himself. At least she’d be the one getting some sleep before they left for the airport.
She was even tempted to call Jordan just to place a bet on how long Braxton would stick around. Of course she couldn’t recall a time when she’d seen him be this stubborn before, and she certainly wasn’t in the mood to cover new territory with the man—not when her face still ached and she was no doubt sporting a spectacular bruise.
Quinn tossed her keys on the counter, kicking off her shoes as she went. Braxton shut the door to her apartment, but didn’t move past the kitchen as though he hadn’t fully thought his plan through. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and gestured to a second one for him.
He shook his head.
“I’m taking a shower.”
Serious brows crashed together.
“And no you can’t come,” she said, the once teasing comment lost in the heavy edge of sarcasm.
He didn’t seem to notice.
This was only one of a handful of times Braxton had ever set foot in her apartment. She would have rather it have been under better circumstances, like the times she’d wished he’d stop by with nothing on his mind but coaxing her into bed. Every now and then it had crossed her mind to make it perfectly clear how deep her attraction to the man ran. After the last couple months of wondering if coming on too strong when she’d been infected had been such a turn off for him, she was glad she’d never pushed for more.
She sighed, almost preferring to welcome the old desires than to fixate on the recent string of emotional upheaval. Because he suddenly looked a little to
o good perched on the edge of the stool at the breakfast bar, she headed down the hall to the bathroom.
Quinn kept the shower brief, and the sense of déjà vu from that morning loosened a bitter laugh within her. A glance at the clock as she yanked on a pair of sleep pants and T-shirt from her drawer told her it was after one in the morning. They were leaving on a flight at seven.
Running her fingers through her damp hair, she found Braxton shoving the remains of a slice of pizza into his mouth. He’d also helped himself to a bottle of beer.
Quinn pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Isn’t drinking on weeknights against one of your rules?”
He picked it up and took a long chug. She watched his throat work to swallow the liquid, felt a familiar stirring in her belly when he set the beer aside and turned the full intensity of his amber gaze on her.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced. “Couch is lumpy. Or you could always…I dunno…go home.”
He leaned forward on the breakfast bar and propped his chin in his hand. “Or you could…I dunno…spill your guts.”
“Wow. You’re real good at this shoulder-to-cry-on thing.”
Despite the sarcasm that dripped from her words, he smiled. “I’ve been known to have that effect on a few people. People take one look at me and are inspired to impart their deepest secrets.”
Quinn snorted.
He cocked his head, his gaze seeming to touch her everywhere though it never moved from her face. “Besides, I don’t recall you having any problem using my shoulder in the elevator this morning.”
She spun around and stalked back down the hall.
“Wait!”
She heard him come after her and moved out of reach before he grabbed a hold of her. Instead she ended up turning into him sharply to avoid the wall.
The playful confide-in-me expression vanished from his face. “You almost lost it in the elevator this morning. Why?”
“Why do you care? You never answered me this morning. Never explained why the hell you’ve been steering clear of me for weeks. And now you suddenly want to be my friend, and I’m just supposed to open up?”
“Would you open up even if I hadn’t been avoiding you?”
Stripped Away Page 6
