by Bonnie Vanak
At his nod, she snapped open her case and withdrew a velvet box. Inside the red velvet bed was a shimmering wide silver armband. A large blue sapphire was in the center amid intricate runes studded with smaller sapphires.
“Please slide this on me, above the elbow.”
She held out her bare right arm.
“This is a slave armband.”
Suspicion flared in his eyes. Keira held her breath. So close, would he balk now? A man of reason, she realized. A man who questioned all because he left nothing to chance.
She shrugged. “Is it? The armband provides me protection while I cleanse your house, and assures you that as long as it remains on me, I’m bonded to you as your contractor.”
And as long as you put it on me, I’m protected from demons. They can’t touch me.
“Then if it protects you, why don’t you wear it all the time?”
Smart. She wasn’t accustomed to dealing with a man who had both valor and a piercing intellect.
Keira pointed to the gleaming sapphire. “Why would I wear it when there are more human thieves who’d harm me to steal the jewels, not knowing the armband’s real value?”
Dale’s full mouth pursed, but his eyes twinkled. “You have an answer for everything. Rehearse much?”
But he gently slid the armband in place. Feeling the warmth of her skin, the metal settled against her arm, not uncomfortable, more reassuring than restricting. She was bound to him. Her wolf could not attack him as long as the band remained in place.
He didn’t remove his hand. Instead, his fingers brushed against her skin. Heat curled inside her body.
For a wild moment, she wondered what he’d be like as a lover. What would it feel like to at last surrender her innocence, give everything to a man as magnificent and powerful as him?
And surrender your heart, give total power over you, a small voice mocked. After twenty-three years of guarding what little you have left?
Dale stroked the skin under her arm along the band, and she bit her lip. Feelings surged, along with a delicious heat that made her toes curl. “This band bonds you to me. So it means you must do anything I tell you.”
Keira fisted her hands to hide their trembling. “Not exactly. I’m no pushover, Lieutenant Commander.”
With forefinger and thumb, he lightly clasped her chin. The spicy scent of his cologne swam in her nostrils. She became lost in the intense grayness of his eyes. Dale’s mouth parted as he lowered his head.
But instead of a kiss, he nuzzled her neck, inhaling deeply. Dread filled her.
Mages couldn’t scent the demon blood inside her. But he was a Primary, and much more powerful than an ordinary Mage.
“What are you, Keira Solomon? Why do I crave you? Every time I draw close, I think of sex,” he whispered.
“They have support groups for that.”
She backed away until her backside connected with the sliding glass doors. The commander advanced, a determined look on his face.
He would have answers, would wring them out of her.
“I thought you said you had to go to work.” She mustered a smile and tapped his watch. “Better get going.”
Please, let him be the kind of guy who’s never late.
“The base can wait for once. This is more important.”
Closer still he came, until his tall body overshadowed hers. He could overcome her with weight and sheer physical strength.
Inside, the demon blood surged, but her claws did not emerge. Because her wolf could no longer hurt him. Good for him, not so wonderful for her if he wanted to overpower her. Could he find out who she was?
Keira cringed and squeezed against the glass doors. He slowly stalked toward her.
“The admiral sensed something about you. I sense something about you. Something in my blood is calling to you. You’re not who you appear to be.”
She wriggled away as he reached for her. “Blood is for vamps. I don’t like vamps. They like to sleep in and they never appreciate my cooking when I make garlic sauce.”
He clasped her chin in one strong hand, his grip gentle, but firm. “I will have answers, Keira. You’d better hope and pray I don’t find out anything I don’t like.”
Tightness constricted her chest, but she gave a small laugh. “Why? You’ll feed me to the wolves?”
A slow smile touched his mouth. “Not quite.”
“Too bad. Because I always liked to play Little Red Riding Hood, only with a big knife and some nunchakus. I don’t fight fair.”
“Neither do I.” He pushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Not when it comes to chasing down something I want very, very badly. I can be quite ruthless. Like a wolf.”
“And here I thought you were a puppy dog, Lieutenant Commander. A seemingly nice guy with too much starch in your collar.” She tried to duck beneath his embrace, but he caught her and pinned her against the door.
“You don’t want to know what I’m capable of, Keira. And you’d better pray you can handle what I deliver, because I guarantee by the time I finish with you, you’ll be in no shape to fight me. I’ll know every cell of you, every inch of you. And there will be no secrets between us.”
He lowered his head toward her. “None. I’ll cull every last one from you. So start now by telling me the truth.”
She bit back a moan as he traced her lower lip with his thumb. Oh, gods, this was a risk Keira knew she’d have to undertake, but she didn’t reckon with the magnetic power of Dale Curtis’s personality.
The force of his will.
Keira felt herself begin to crumble as the commander stroked her bottom lip, his touch gentle and erotic. His piercing gaze seared into her. Please, don’t ask the question, please. I don’t know if I can withhold the truth....
The commander would kill her. She knew it. Keira tensed as he whispered.
“You’re bound to me. The contract states it. Now, tell me the truth. You must. Who the hell are you and why the hell are you really here?”
Chapter 4
“I’m a Luminaire....”
“I know what you are. Who are you?”
His aura pulsed bright red, spiked with black. Sexual energy, as well as negative forces. Keira shoved lightly at his chest, breaking the physical contact.
“I’m your new housekeeper, a woman who needs a job, okay? I’ve been roving from town to town.”
“Why?”
The man was relentless. “I like helping people. I search for individuals that need enlightenment and then help them heal. Ask your neighbor if you need a reference.”
“I did. Odd how you showed up just when she needed you.” He lightly clasped her wrist. Sexual current sizzled between them.
Keira closed her eyes and breathed deeply, channeling every bit of white light she could to fight the temptation to lift her face to his and kiss him. “I heard her crying. Psychic cries, not real cries. I’m a healer and it compelled me.”
“Right.”
“There’s enough darkness and negative energy in this world. What’s wrong with trying to eradicate it and make people feel better?”
“Maybe there’s no hope for them.” He dropped her hand.
Keira watched a shadow drape across his expression, then his face smoothed out. Dale Curtis was hiding deep pain, pain she knew well, because she’d caused it.
Suddenly he went still. Keira’s heart dropped to her stomach as she caught the small, scampering sounds.
“Damn mice,” he said. “One reason why my housekeeper quit.”
“That’s not a mouse,” she said and bolted down the hallway, hooked a right and ran into a locked door. Keira jiggled the knob. “Open this,” she told him as he pulled up short behind her.
A fierce scowl tightened his face. “That’s private.”
“If you want to get rid of your pests, open it. Now.”
He looked shocked, as if no one ever talked to him that way.
Dale clicked a series of buttons o
n a brass plate and opened the door. She burst inside, barely noting that it was an office, with stacks of papers piled on the desk. Her sense of smell overtook everything. Those little, nasty creatures, smelling like a bad combination of bad breath and rotting cabbage...
“My report to the admiral...”
Ignoring Dale’s mutterings as he sifted through papers on his desk, she dived to the floor by the credenza. Keira groped beneath the furniture and felt slicing pain scrape her hand. She peered down. The imp had affixed razor blades to the credenza’s bottom, effectively making a protective nest for itself.
Two red, beady eyes glared at her. It started to lash out with its tiny claws and then backed away, obeying the hidden compulsion in the slave armband. Keira stretched out her fingers and summoned the power deep inside.
The creature squealed as it slid into her hand. She wriggled from under the credenza, clutching it tight.
“Jar,” she gasped.
Dale stared at the creature as it wriggled in her hand. Blood seeped down her clenched fist. “What the hell...”
“Jar, hello, could use a little help here, get a jar, something to hold it. Please hurry.”
He seized a heavy metal pencil holder from the desk, dumped out the contents.
Keira squatted down. “Be quick, they’re really, really fast... I’ll let go and you trap him. On three... One, two, three!”
As she released the creature, Dale slammed the pencil holder down. Damn, the man was fast.
He picked up a scrap of paper and tossed it down with a disgusted sound. “My report to the admiral... It’s chewed to pieces.”
“Uh, of course. They adore paper. Almost as tasty as flour.” Keira examined her injured hand with a rueful sigh. “If he’d have gotten to your computer, your hard drive would be royally screwed.”
To her surprise, he gave a small, wry smile. “Never did like anything royally screwed, especially my hard drive. I prefer the commoner’s touch.”
It took her a minute to realize the joke. And then to her enormous chagrin, she blushed. He gave his rusty, deep laugh again. And then he looked at her injured hand and stopped laughing. Dale took her hand very gently and examined it. His touch was absolutely gentle. Fishing out a clean, white square from his pocket, he wrapped it around her bleeding palm.
“Remind me to be careful dusting under there. It fastened razor blades to the credenza’s bottom to keep anyone from going after him.”
Dale focused his attention on bandaging her hand. “Even without a contract, you’d have to stay now. Can’t have you leaving here wounded.”
“It’s not much. It’ll heal.”
“I always take care of my own.” He looked slightly dangerous as he stared at the floor. The pencil holder trembled, but the creature was effectively trapped.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“Imp.” Keira wrapped her hand tighter to slow the bleeding. Blood was bad, attracted bad things, and this house already had enough darkness. She couldn’t risk drawing out more.
“A demon,” he said slowly.
“A very minor one. Imps are drawn to negativity and darkness. They feed on it.”
That and residual demon energy left on a victim, she thought.
Dale frowned. “That thing invaded my home because I’ve been in a bad mood?”
“Not exactly. You’ve been expelling dark energy. Something must have happened to you to suck out your white light.”
He shot her an incredulous look.
“Imps tend to make a person bad-tempered and irritable. They make a bad situation worse. They’re hard to kill because they’re so fast. They can outrun almost anything.”
He raised a dark brow. The commander opened a desk drawer and withdrew a pistol. Keira’s jaw dropped as he chambered a round and pointed the gun at the pencil jar and fired. Shards of plastic exploded, along with a nasty splatter of gray demon blood. The stench stung her nostrils.
“Not a 9 mm,” he said with satisfaction.
Sweat trickled down her spine. “Um, you’re not very forgiving, are you?”
“No.”
“I’d hate to be on your bad side.”
“You would.” His expression darkened. “Good thing you’re not a demon.”
Keira swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sounds like you’ve run up against them. It’s the source of your dark energy.”
“I’m only interested in one.” A hard smile touched his mouth, making him look dangerous. “No matter how long I must wait. I will find her and make her pay for what she did to me.”
The coffee soured in her stomach as she remembered how skillfully he’d wielded the pistol. Keira didn’t relish him discovering her true identity. Holding back her nausea, she pointed to the mess on the floor. “If you’ll show me where I’m sleeping and then where your cleaning supplies are, I’ll get started on my first assignment.”
He gently clasped her injured hand. “After I clean your wounds. Those are some nasty cuts.”
“I can do it.”
“I told you, I always take care of my own.”
She was almost afraid to ask. “And those you consider your enemies? You take care of them, as well?”
Dale gave a slow smile. “The same way I did to the imp.”
Keira didn’t look at the splattered remains on the floor as they left his study.
* * *
After Dale left, Keira brought the saddlebags containing her possessions inside and set them on the floor. Then she sat on the bed of her new room, stroking the ecru duvet.
A real bed, with feather pillows instead of a thin blanket on the cold concrete floor. A brass reading lamp with a comfortable chair by a window that overlooked the wide backyard instead of a windowless basement. Her own bathroom, not a foul bucket in the corner.
Freedom, for the first time in years, not fearing that at any moment the demons would yank her back to captivity and imprison her once more.
Oh, how she longed to sit in the chair, crack open one of the books on his shelves and read. But she had a job to do.
Keira unpacked her kit and set about cleansing the house the way a regular housekeeper would not.
First, his office. Two wide computer screens took up most of a desk. Papers that had been neatly stacked and organized were scattered about the surface.
A map of the world was mounted to one wall, with several colored pushpins inserted into various countries.
She cleansed the remains of the dead imp and burned them in the stone hearth fireplace. Blood called to blood, and even imp blood attracted dark forces.
Keira then took a small box, opened it and arranged the crystals around Dale’s office in a pattern. Then she closed her eyes and began the sacred chant. The crystals began to vibrate and hum, the music of elemental energy creating a harmonic vibration.
White light suffused the room, ribbons of light beaming out from each of the four crystals. Soothing and melodious, the light singing its own song of purity, drawing out the negative forces.
A dark cloud arose from the corner near Dale’s computer. Ribbons of white light attacked the cloud, overcoming it, and the darkness evaporated. Keira watched, her chest tight. She lowered her hands. Why could she cleanse rooms and people and not herself?
Because of the demon blood inside me, she reminded herself. Until the Centurions were permanently vanquished to the netherworld, part of her would always remain in darkness. Lately it got more difficult to regain her inner light. Each time the demons returned her to captivity, her inner light shrank. Eventually it would go out all together, leaving her in the abyss.
Each time the Centurions allowed her freedom, Keira used the time to refresh herself with positive energy, using elements from the earth and her crystals. White light held the demons’ darkness at bay for a little while, until the Centurions forced her wolf to torture a new victim.
Refreshed, she set about cleansing the other rooms, until reaching Dale’s bedroom.
Keira hesitated at the
door. She drew in a deep breath and stepped into the room, feeling the despondency and grief. The master bedroom had an attached bath. Large, with a glassed-in shower and a Roman tub big enough to fit four, it was sleek tile and slick chrome.
The darkness of horrible pain slammed into her temples.
Holding a hand to her head, she opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. Lined in a neat row were several prescription-pill bottles. All of them recently issued, most for pain, some for sleeping.
The bottles held a layer of dust.
Dale Curtis had not touched a single pill. Instead, he’d suffered.
Keira cleansed both rooms, feeling the light chase away the thick layers of suffering. With a much lighter spirit, she started on her housekeeping duties.
She worked steadily, leaving the basement for last. It still needed cleansing with her crystals, as well. Dread curled in her stomach as she finally gathered her courage and climbed down the stairs, clutching her most powerful crystal. Sweat dripped down her temples and she wiped it away with the back of her hand, the dust rag gripped in her fist.
You can do this, you can do this....
The basement ran the length of the house and was enormous, divided into two sections. The smaller section was unfinished, with a utility room, wood workbench and neatly arranged tools, the furnace and storage cubicles.
This section was separated by a wall with a solid door. She opened the door and went into the larger section. It was a comfortable living room covered with beige carpeting, a small, tiled kitchen with shining stainless-steel appliances, a dining table and chairs and a sectional sofa set before a flat-screen television mounted above a fireplace. Next to the stairs were eight bunk beds. She opened a door and found a bathroom with a tiled shower.
A shiver snaked down her spine as she gazed around the room. Another door was near the bunk beds. She opened it and found a small, windowless room with a narrow bed. No light switch. Nothing to chase away the darkness...
A sly, rollicking laugh echoed in her mind. You will never escape us....
Whimpering, Keira slammed the door and leaned against it, the crystal in her left fist squeezed tight. She raced up the stairs.
Maybe she’d tackle that room tomorrow.
