Lost Girl: Hidden Book One
Page 13
I have this tendency to be on the stubborn side. And, you know, to not react well to insults and threats.
I tried to shove him, and he didn’t move.
I bit his lip. Hard. He jumped back and wiped a hand across his mouth, smearing the blood I’d drawn. His eyes still glowed, and, whether he was stuck wearing a mortal skin or not, he was all demon at that moment, as his power and rage coursed over me.
“Are you afraid, little girl?” he asked, licking the blood away.
I glared at him.
“Your fear is so good. You don’t scare often, but when you do, it’s addictive.” I tried to control myself, tamp my fear down. He responded in kind, the light in his eyes lessening, until he looked more like a man, and less like a demon.
Still felt all demon to me, though.
“Play time is over,” I said.
“So soon?” He took a few steps away, visibly making an effort to calm himself. He took a deep breath. I felt his anger draw back a little more. “I’m sorry.” Another deep breath, another step back. “You need to be better. Stronger. Smarter. The enemy is not fucking around anymore. He made that clear with last night’s attempt.”
“You know a lot more about all of this than you’ve been letting on,” I said. “What haven’t you told me?”
I sensed for him, then. The jumble of emotions running through him. Rage, always. More today than usual. Desire. Again, nothing new, but something I didn’t want to think about too much. Guilt.
Lots of it.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
He sat back down on the bed, and I sat next to him. Back to business. He took another breath and raked his hand through his hair. “You were asking about your powers seeming to appear out of nowhere. Meeting me did that. You can blame me if you want. And it’s no coincidence everyone’s finding out about you now,” he said. “I was following you for a while, trying to gauge what you were, before we met that night. I had to hope that I got to you before someone else did. But I think that maybe me following you, maybe me meeting you…I think it made you more visible to the other side.”
“Who?”
“Remember that night with the imps? You wanted to know who they served.”
I nodded. “You didn’t want to answer me.”
“My enemy. Astaroth. His hands are in everything. The Puppeteer found you because he wanted her to.”
“He who pulls the Puppeteer’s strings,” I murmured. “The imps tried to warn me about someone, but they couldn’t say much, because of the enchantment on them.”
He nodded again. “He’s the reason I stayed here. Demons don’t tend to stay put for very long. We don’t put down roots. But he’s decided to stay here for some reason, so here I am. We’ve been fighting it out for over two hundred years. He comes here, and he sees a place ripe for his influence. He sows discord, reaps the benefits. And I do what I can to hold it back. He’s been quiet for a long time, now all of a sudden, he’s making these moves. All this weird shit happening lately? The Puppeteer, the pyro you took out, these fucking werewolves running rampant on the East side? It’s all him.”
“How? He’s just another demon, right? And I’m stronger than him, or the imps wouldn’t have come to me. Let’s take him out.”
He shook his head. “There you go, again. Thinking like that is going to get you killed. You know nothing about him, and you want to smash your way in and try to take him out?” I bit back a retort, and he continued. “You’re stronger than he is. But he has centuries of experience. He has all the big bads out there doing his bidding, somehow. He’s been biding his time, or you’d have been destroyed or taken already. ”
“So, he’s after me now,” I said.
“The Puppeteer was his first attempt. And you thwarted her, twice. He won’t like that. He’s going to come after you harder. I’ve seen him when he wants something. People die. Usually lots of them.”
“What does he want with me?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Think about it, Molls. First, you’re stronger than him. That’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Most demons are not as evolved as I am.” I snorted, and he smiled, just a little. Ended all too quickly. “He sees a threat. Unless he can control you. If he controls you, then he has a weapon. Imagine the strife he could cause with someone like you out there doing his bidding.”
“I’m not anyone’s weapon,” I said, remembering what the imp had said. “I’m not his weapon, and I’m not your weapon.”
Nain’s eyes met mine again. “No, you’re not. You’ve proven to be less-than-obedient. Not a very good weapon.”
“Well, at least you’re not denying it,” I said.
“You know better. You know what I am. I had no problem trying to use you for my own purposes. I’m on the good guys’ side. Doesn’t mean I’m not a bastard.”
“Well, you’re a demon. Demons are major assholes.”
“Pot, kettle,” he muttered. ”He’ll still want to use you. And he won’t even try to reason with you. He’ll use every tool at his disposal, witches, spells, torture, whatever, to make you do his bidding. You won’t have a choice.”
I felt a chill go up my spine, tried to ignore it.
“You know we’ve been fighting a lot. He’s upping his game, throwing more at us. He knows we’re with you. This is how he works. Create chaos, and when everyone’s distracted, he’ll make another move against you.”
We were quiet for a minute. “I left you alone for as long as I could. I knew you needed to do things your way. I know you like doing things alone. But when I see you the way I saw you last night…tapped out, starving….he was this close to having you, and he never should have gotten that close to begin with.” Frustration and guilt rolled off of him.
“If you’d maybe told me some of this before….” I said.
He got up and stalked to the windows again. “I thought we had more time,” he said. I felt regret coming from him. It hit me like a punch to the gut.
“Meaning?”
He looked at me. “You need to be strong. You need to train. You need to be fully fed, always. You need to learn to control your powers. I’ve been going easy on you. Not anymore.”
“You have?”
“I’m not kidding, Molly. You think you hate me now. You’ll really hate me by the time this is all over.”
“I don’t hate you,” I said.
“You should. Work on that.” We were quiet a minute. “We need to train more. I can’t stop you from doing what you do. It would be pointless to try. But you need to start being smarter. Stop rampaging into situations, because it’s not just going to be street thugs waiting for you anymore.”
The next week was brutal. The demon didn’t lie.
I went to work, and I went to the loft, and then I went home (sometimes) and crashed. It was like boot camp for monsters, with an extra dash of “I am a complete freaking mess” added to the mix.
Nain upped my training. He and Brennan focused on teaching me how to get out of situations even if my powers failed. How to break a hold even if your captor is much stronger than you. How to disable a man by pinching the right nerve. How to kill with one punch, if I needed to.
And there was sparring between Nain and I. We both needed it. All of the time we were spending together had us at each others throats. From my end, I knew that part of the problem was that every second we spent together added to that funny twist in my stomach, the feeling that I should run as fast and as far away as I could despite how much I wanted to stay.
Two out of the five days, I woke up with his big body wrapped around mine after I’d crashed at the loft after being up all night fighting big bads or training. I wavered between hating him and needing him, wanting to destroy him and hoping he’d kiss me again. Which he didn’t do, and it made me want to scream, because why did I even want him to anyway?
I was a mess.
And when we sparred, it was the only time any of the tension let up, even for a bit. He was stil
l pissed at me for almost being taken (which seemed really unfair, actually), still full of guilt and all kinds of frustration.
We sparred for hours, both of us full of pent-up energy and aggression. He hit me with everything he had, showed me a few tricks I didn’t already know, tried repeatedly forcing his way into my mind. My mental shields held. And he quizzed me.
“Best way to kill a werewolf?” Punch.
“The two things that can actually kill a vampire?” Punch slap.
“Name the four most common spells a witch will use on you. Now.” Wrestle, pin.
We fought, endlessly. And when we weren’t fighting, we were together helping the team contain the chaos erupting in the supernatural community. And we were planning, and he lectured me about control and using my brain instead of letting my fists take charge.
Friday night, we were fighting again. We were both more irritated than usual. It had been a long week, and there was all kinds of weirdness between us. We’d woken up together again that morning. Something I needed to stop making a habit of, but something I kept letting happen anyway. Tension. Need. My own. His. It was seriously messing with my otherwise sunny disposition.
We sparred on the roof, and we were brutal.
“You know, normal people would just have a good screw and get it over with,” Stone said at one point when he came up on the roof to watch us. I blushed, ducked away, avoiding another punch.
A spike of desire, frustration from Nain. “Demons aren’t normal,” he growled.
“Truer words, brother,” Stone said, before eventually wandering back inside.
And we fought some more.
Things got testy a few times. At one point, we both did our demon thing and made the building quake. The rest of the team came up to see what was going on, and Brennan got between us.
“The last thing we need is for you two to kill each other. Knock it off!” he shouted, holding me back and away from Nain.
“Brennan. I want this. Back off,” I said, breathless and trying to get back at Nain.
“And what about him? He doesn’t have a healing ability, Molly,” Brennan said.
I stared at him, laughed. “You’re afraid that I’m going to hurt him? Look at him!”
“Brennan,” Nain said. “Molly needs this. I need this. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Fucking crazy demons,” Brennan muttered, stalking back into the loft. The rest of the team followed. We went back to fighting.
Despite what I’d said to Brennan, I was actually being careful. I knew when I was hurting him. There was a threshold I wouldn’t cross, no matter how much I wanted to. And even though he couldn’t sense emotions like I could, I knew he was doing it, too. I was learning control, from the master. And it was necessary. It wouldn’t be easy for one of us to seriously hurt the other, but it was a possibility, and more possible the longer we fought.
The fact of the matter was, we made each other stronger. He fed off of the pain he caused me, and I fed off of both the pain I caused him and his ever-present anger. What looked like the two of us killing each other felt like a driveway game of hoops to us.
If you ignored the blood and bruises.
He finally called it quits, and we sat, side by side, exhausted and sweaty, on the old-fashioned glider on the shady side of the roof. He was so tense. So frustrated. Just being near him set my teeth on edge.
“Would you put a lid on it?” I said after gulping some water. “I can’t believe you’re still this tense after all that.”
He didn’t answer. If anything, he felt more frustrated.
“What is it? You’re even angrier today than usual,” I said, tugging at the side of his shirt to get him to look at me. And when he did, the intensity in his eyes floored me.
“Everything. We’re running out of time.”
“I know Astaroth seems to be throwing more at us, but…”
“He is. I’ve seen this with him before. He’s trying to find our weak points, figure out how we work.”
“It’s not just Astaroth, though,” I said quietly.
He just looked at me. “You know what it is,” he finally answered.
“We’re spending too much time together.”
“Yeah.” We were both quiet for a minute. “So why is it that I can’t make myself stay away from you?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. It was something I’d asked myself about a thousand times over the past week. No matter how much shit he dealt, no matter how surly he was, no matter how much he pissed me off, the one place I wanted to be was near him.
One more thing I didn’t want to think about too closely.
We were silent, rocking back and forth on the glider, letting the cool early evening breeze dry our sweat and cool our bodies.
“You need to know more about Astaroth,” he said.
“Tell me.” I was grateful for the change of subject.
And he did. About witch covens throughout the city, about werewolf packs, forsaken shapeshifters (those who turned their backs on the nobility of their race for their own gains). About lone vampires throughout the city, the Puppeteer and her people. How he thought they might fit into Astaroth’s organization. How hard it was to pinpoint anything, because Astaroth was very good at keeping a lid on things. How frustrating it was, because the best he and Ada had were guesses about who was really important in the organization, and who wasn’t. How irritating it was that it all lead back to Astaroth, and they had yet to hear even a whisper about where he was.
By the time he stopped talking, my head was spinning.
“So much more out there than I realized,” I said. He nodded.
“Do you see now, why I’m telling you you have to be smarter? They’re working together. One person, even if she’s you, can’t beat that.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” I muttered.
“It has nothing to do with faith. If I didn’t believe in you, you wouldn’t be here. No one, no matter how well trained they were, could stand against them alone. It’s just too much. And you don’t have to do it alone. You have me.”
The words made my stomach twist.
You have me.
We sat in silence for a while. His thigh was pressed against mine, and I could feel each muscle flex against my skin as he rocked the glider back and forth. His arm laid across the back of the seat, behind me. He twisted a lock of my hair around his finger, something he did almost out of habit. The tension we’d managed to break by fighting was only building again the longer we sat together.
My mind was going to places it shouldn’t go.
I moved over a little. “I’m full,” I murmured.
“All work and no play, Molls,” he said, voice low. How was it possible for someone to set your body on fire with nothing more than a few words?
I blushed. “Stop.”
He was quiet for a second. Frustration spiked. “Tell me you don’t feel it, too. Tell me you’re not almost out of your mind lately. Tell me you’re not the least bit curious to find out how damn good it could be between us.”
“It would not be a good idea,” I said automatically. “If nothing else, it will end badly.”
“Probably. We’re demons. All I know is I can’t stop thinking about you. I try, but it’s pointless. You’re addictive.”
I felt my face flush hotter. “My demon. Not me. Remember?”
“Bullshit.”
“Your words,” I reminded him.
“I lied.”
“We’re getting off the subject. We need to focus,” I said.
“You’re just using me for my rage,” he said, meeting my eyes. Humor there. Holy shit the effect just his eyes had on me.
Down, girl.
I tried to shake it off, cool him down. “And as my own personal punching bag.”
“Yeah, but that only turns me on more. You’re hot when you’re in a demonic rage.”
My stomach somersaulted. I shook my head. “You’re in a mood again. Rein it in, devil boy.”
♦ ♦ ♦
A couple of hours later, long after the sun had set, I disentangled myself from Nain and headed down to my car. I wasn’t ready for what was obviously on his mind. On my mind. Not just yet.
The demon could kiss.
Good Hades.
I had that feeling again that I could fly if I only set my mind to it. I was full of power, I was strong, I was giddy. Everything in the part of my brain that was still sane was screaming at me that this was stupid, that it would only end badly, because, duh, demons, and I wouldn’t come back from it unbroken.
I ignored that part of my brain, for once in my life.
So I was grinning when I stepped out of Nain’s building and into the parking lot. Stone and Brennan had brought my car over from my house earlier in the week, so I’d have it if I needed it. Veronica had forgiven me, grudgingly, for ducking out on her. When I got to my car, Brennan was standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the driver’s side door.
“Brennan,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “Something you need?”
“How did training go?” he asked, and the venom in his voice surprised me.
“You saw,” I said.
He just looked at me. Angry, disappointed. Jealous?
“Bren…” I began.
“Just don’t,” he said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
“You and I are friends. There was never even the possibility for more,” I said, as gently as I could.
“You could have told me that before,” he said.
“I didn’t realize it was necessary. I didn’t know–”
“You can read emotions and you didn’t know? You’re pretty shitty at it, then.”
“I read it as flirting. I knew you were attracted to me. I didn’t expect this.”
“So, what? That’s it?”
I just stared at him. “How did I miss this?” I asked, myself more than him.