“He was here,” I said.
He shushed me, making words redundant.
“He was here. He got in. He’s not a full-demon. He’s something else…” Barely coherent words tumbled from my lips.
“I know.”
I closed my eyes, resting my cheek against the warmth of his chest. It felt good to be held by him, to know that nobody could touch me. I was safe in his arms, and I wondered why on earth I’d ever wanted to be free of him. Who was I fooling? I couldn’t live like a normal woman. I had a force of nature inside me, a demon consumed by need with a deliberate lust for chaos. She was me. I couldn’t hide from her and didn’t want to. I wanted her. I wanted to awaken her, to embrace her. My attempt at normality had been the madness, but now I was home, in Akil’s arms once more.
“You did well.” His fingers stroked lazy circles on my shoulder.
“I shouldn’t be here.” I could easily have unleashed that explosive force of power. All it would have taken was my surrender, and innocent people would have died. With that much energy, my demon would have raged against anyone and anything in her way.
“I know.”
“Take me home,” I whispered.
Chapter 4
When I’d first turned my back on the netherworld, nightmares had plagued me. Once I had a taste of what it meant to be human, the full horror of what I’d been forced to endure overflowed inside me, and my subconscious succumbed to the memories. The terrors became so bad that I began to fight sleep, to force myself to stay awake and avoid reliving the things I’d spent a lifetime running from. I tried to drink myself into hiding, but that only made it worse. I dabbled in drugs. Anything and everything to run from the demons, both metaphysical and tangible, that hunted me. Eventually, the nightmares tired of me, then stopped altogether. The demons never found me. I was safe in hiding. I’d found a way out. I would survive.
But when I let Akil back into my life, the nightmares returned.
I woke tangled in pure white sheets. My heart fluttered, my breaths coming in short gasps. I couldn’t fill my lungs. Panic stole my ability to think. Sunlight flooded in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Virgin white drapes rippled in the breeze. But as serene as it all appeared, I saw demons in my peripheral vision. They leered at me, talons reaching outward, obsidian claws digging into my flesh.
I scrambled from the bed, the dream still very real in my mind, and stumbled over the sheets, dragging them with me. I fell and landed firmly on all fours. It was only then, hunched over and trembling, that I realized I was safe. There was nothing in the bedroom, and there never had been. They were in my head. Memories.
I saw the room for what it was: just an innocuous room. Clean. Modern. Nothing to indicate a malevolent presence. Clutching the sheets to me, I managed to stand on unsteady legs and stagger to the window. Boston harbor sparkled in the early morning sunlight. Luxury yachts bobbed in the marina, fifteen or so stories below. I recognized the opulent high-rise buildings as Atlantic Wharf, Boston’s financial district and home to The Atlantic Hotel, Akil’s hotel.
I stepped away from the glass, and the fluttering in my chest intensified. He’d brought me home, right back into the very heart of his world. Of course he had. I’d asked him to.
A bubble of laughter escaped me. Panic laced my veins with adrenalin. I spied clean clothes folded on the end of the bed and quickly dressed. The navy blue dress would have been modest had it not been for its short, figure-hugging cut. I didn’t care what it looked like. I could change when I got home—my home.
I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to work out some of the knots, then plucked my boots from beside the door and stepped barefoot out into a marble-tiled hallway. Moving lightly on my feet, I breezed down the hall, slowing as it opened into a vast lounge. The lounge area was easily four times the size of my entire apartment. A sunken area housed a scattering of cream leather couches. Art adorned the walls, splashes of color among an otherwise stark interior.
I listened, but besides the soft hum of the air conditioning, the apartment was quiet. I was alone. I jogged across the lounge, feeling as exposed as a criminal outside the prison gates, then entered the entrance foyer.
With a sigh of relief, I tugged open the door leading to the elevators and met the bright smile of a woman clutching a file to her chest.
“Hi. Good. You’re awake.” She breezed by me, her rushed words chasing one another from her lips. “Akil sent this over for you. He wanted me to drop by, make sure you’re okay.”
My hand lingered on the door handle. Freedom was so close.
“I’m Nica. Akil’s assistant.”
I glanced back, finding her bubbly enthusiasm distracting. She held out her hand. She was human. At least I didn’t get any indication of power coming from her, but I doubted Akil would employ a human assistant.
“It’s okay.” She tucked her short honey-blond hair behind her ear before offering me her hand once more. “I won’t bite.” She certainly looked friendly enough, her enthusiasm just about ready to burst, but I’d been fooled before. You don’t have to be demon to be lying.
I shook her hand. Her grip was firm. “Where’s Akil?”
“Working. He asked that you have a look at this file. I’ll answer any questions you might have.”
Nica appeared to be one of those people who could brighten any situation with her presence alone. The file, her friendly approach, and the fact she was a human personal assistant to a Prince of Hell had me intrigued enough to abandon my escape attempt.
I dropped my boots by the door and followed Nica back into the apartment. She wore cream trousers with sandals, as though it was the height of summer and not the tail-end of October. Her white blouse billowed loosely around her slim physique.
She stepped down into the sunken seating area and waited for me to join her before handing me the file. “His name is Stefan.”
I flicked open the file and immediately came face to face with my would-be assassin. The black and white picture showed him walking away from the camera, his face in profile. If his distinctive leather coat didn’t give him away, the car he had been captured approaching certainly did: the same battered old Charger he’d parked outside my workshop.
“Stefan…” I whispered, perching myself on the edge of a couch and splaying the various photographs, documents, and notes across the coffee table in front of me. Half a dozen images caught him in motion, but few were close enough to allow me to examine the details of his face. Either he was apt at avoiding having his photo taken, or the photographer didn’t want to get too close.
A black and white image of a familiar motif caught my eye: entwined scorpions, the same emblem as on Stefan’s gun. “What is this mark?”
“His identifier.” Nica lowered herself on the couch beside me, brushing the creases from her trousers. “His brand,” she said, gathering from my confused expression that I had no clue what she was referring to. “Given to him at birth.”
I frowned at her curious choice of words. A brand implied ownership. “What do you mean?”
“He’s a hybrid, like you. From what we can gather, he was given that mark when he was handed over to his guardian, probably shortly after birth.” Half-bloods were routinely killed at birth. Those who weren’t were sold among the demons as curiosities. Few survive. I’d never met another.
“I don’t have any marks like that,” I said.
Nica smiled sympathetically. “He was taken in, Muse. Trained. Tutored and reared for one purpose. Somebody cared enough to brand him.”
“Why?” Half-bloods are thought of as worthless monstrosities. Why would someone bother with him?
“He’s a tool, a mercenary. If you look through the file, you’ll see we can place him as a suspect in countless high-profile demon attacks and one successful assassination. It appears he was trained well.”
I picked up the black-and-white photo that had first confirmed Stefan as my Mr. A. Even frozen mid-stride, he carried a confidence t
hat no half-blood had the right to. I’d seen evidence of that smug attitude at both my workshop and my apartment, where he’d made himself at home while I’d slept, blissfully unaware of his presence.
“If he was hired to kill me…” I paused, uncertainty stalling me. “Why didn’t he kill me at the workshop or at my apartment?”
Nica shrugged. “Perhaps he’s playing with you.”
Akil had said the same, but I wasn’t so sure. If Stefan was a mercenary, then surely he would only receive payment on my death? So what had he been waiting for? Sure, at my apartment, I’d given him a taste of what I was capable of, but prior to that, I’d been asleep. Considering how relaxed he was, sprawled on my couch, he could have been there for minutes, hours even. He had plenty of opportunity to kill me and collect on the contract, but he hadn’t. He’d waited.
No, he wasn’t sent to kill me. I was sure of it. He wanted something, and the sword was the key to finding out what.
“So he’s half-demon.” I nodded firmly. It felt right. I’d known he had power, had felt it the moment he’d walked into my workshop, but his half-human nature had confused me. “What demon sired him?”
Nica scratched at her cheek, briefly dropping her gaze to the scattered images. “His father was human. His mother is Yukki-Onna, also known as the Snow Spirit.”
“Snow? As in an ice element?” No wonder he and I didn’t get along. While I was born of fire, my power fuelled by flame, his stemmed from the exact opposite. He and I were poles apart, elementally destined to repel one another.
“From the feelers Akil put out,” Nica said, “she continues to have a relationship with her son. It’s all rumor, of course. Officially, she denies he even exists.”
I had to smile. If my father, Asmodeus, acknowledged my existence I’d soon be wiped from the face of the earth like a bug from a windshield. But then my father was one of the Seven Princes of Hell, so he had a certain reputation to adhere to. Lucky for me, he chose to deny my existence, and nobody dared question him. It was a shame my brother couldn’t follow in our father’s footsteps and ignore me.
“Akil believes my brother sent Stefan to kill me…” I hadn’t seen my brother for a long time, but the specter of his intent to kill me followed me everywhere. A full-blood demon, born of a pure bloodline, he considered my existence an abhorrent freak of nature. My life offended him.
“In all honesty, it could be any number of demons. No offense, Muse, but you’re not exactly popular among your kind.” She offered me a half smile.
Because I dared to be different; the obtuse little half-blood who had somehow managed to slaughter her owner. Yeah, that was me, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Nica was right. My brother Val could have sent Stefan after me, but so could any number of pissed off demons who would have taken offense at my ingratitude at being owned. How dare I snub them? Had I just insulted them, things might not have been so bad, but to kill my previous owner, yeah… There was no coming back from that one. I had a target on my back, and there was no escaping it.
It did make me wonder why Akil had protected me and continued to do so.
“You’ll be safe here,” Nica offered, reading my pensive expression as one of concern.
“Yeah, about that… I can’t stay here. I can’t just leave everything I had.” I tossed Stefan’s picture back onto the pile of documents. “I have a boyfriend. Well, did have. We sort of…we broke up. Anyway, I can’t just leave.”
She stood with a sigh. “That’s between you and Akil.”
“And a cat. Jonesy. I have to make arrangements for him. Bills need paying. The police want to talk to me about the workshop. I can’t just walk out one night and never go back.”
Nica looked down at me, and I swear I saw pity on her face. “All I know is, once you’re in, there is no out.” Her bright smile was back, and the pity I thought I’d seen might as well have been imagined. “It was nice to meet you. I was expecting a bitter and twisted woman on the verge of insanity. You seem pleasantly coherent to me.”
I laughed, not entirely sure whether she was joking or not. “Thanks, I think.”
“Take care, and if you have any more questions, just give me a call. My number’s on the front of the file.”
“I have a question.”
“Oh.”
“What are you? You’re not demon. You referred to demons as my kind, so what are you? I’m just curious, is all.”
She chuckled. “Well, I’m just a personal assistant.” By the way she spoke, the slight tip of her head, a glint of mischief in her eyes, she made it perfectly clear she was not just a personal assistant.
After she’d left, I browsed through the file on Stefan, absorbing and digesting every piece of information I could find. At least when we next met, and I was under no illusion—there would be a next time—I’d know who I was dealing with.
Chapter 5
Jonesy’s throaty purr resonated around my small kitchen. I envied my cat’s simple existence as I tickled him behind his ears. He chomped merrily through his bowl of kibble, oblivious to my turmoil. I’d made arrangements for my landlord to temporarily take him on, but I really didn’t want to leave him. I’d taken on the responsibility of having a pet, and it felt like failure to hand him over to someone else; a little like I’d been, shoved from one owner to another. It didn’t sit well with me. While discussing temporary ownership of my cat, I let my landlord know the electrics in my apartment appeared to be on the blink (not mentioning it might have something to do with the energy spike from a half-blood demon) and paid him two months’ rent in advance, while giving him notice of my intention to vacate.
I lied and told him I’d secured a metalworking contract half way across the country. He said he was sorry to see me go, and I believed him. In the three years I’d been there, I hadn’t once been late with the rent. I didn’t hold rowdy late night parties and barely had any visitors at all. The model tenant.
That would all change if I’d stayed.
The few items I considered important fit into a shoebox. Photographs, mostly. A note from Sam that he’d left at the workshop one evening, asking if I took commissions. He’d been recommended by a friend and had seen my work online. I didn’t sell swords from a website. I was pretty sure that would raise some eyebrows, but I did craft metal pieces for private clients. Gates, candlesticks, art. It paid the bills, and I was damn good at it.
I’d realized I could read metal during my time as another demon’s plaything. A curious skill, to say the least. I couldn’t explain it, not really. Some might call it psychic, but how could metal retain a memory? It doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the people who might briefly have come into contact with a metal item. Perhaps the metal creates a bridge between the past and present, and being an elemental demon, I could cross that bridge. Whatever it was, the demons who controlled my chains very quickly learned about my skill. At first, I’d thought it might mean they would afford me some respect, but all it did was give them another means by which to hurt me.
Reading the metal requires a sacrifice of blood, specifically my own blood. To get any kind of image at all, I must bleed, and it just so happens that all demons ever want to read are weapons. Swords, daggers, axes. Demons aren’t known for their subtly. Make me bleed, make me read. It had been Damien’s mantra. Come see the curious half-blood who can read your past; bring your own sword.
I shivered just thinking about him, preferring instead to file those memories away in the ‘Do-Not-Enter’ part of my mind. Damien, my ex-owner, was dead, my past and the woman I had been, long dead with him. If it hadn’t been for Akil, I might have still been there, sobbing on the end of those chains, my demon soul spent and my body abused.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
I yelped in surprise at Akil’s voice. He stood in my apartment doorway, leaning against the doorframe and had never looked as wickedly divine as he did in that moment. He wore a perfectly tailored tuxedo, jacket unbutton
ed over a fluid white shirt. His crooked smile topped off the sophisticated demeanor, so he simply exuded confidence. He held a bottle of red wine in one hand. A cocktail dress still inside its clear wrapping was draped over his other arm.
He sauntered over to me and deliberately stood a little too close, leaning past me to place the bottle of wine on the countertop. As he straightened, he made no attempt to move out of my personal space.
He smelled like cinnamon and cloves, like a fireplace on a cold winter’s day, and it was all I could do to gape up at him. His hazel eyes appeared almost black as he looked down into my wide-eyed stare. As he breathed, I felt the energy radiating from him and had to fight not to reach out and place my hands on his chest. I could soak up that power, draw it into me, but once I did that, I wouldn’t be able to escape the lure of his control.
I took a few light steps backward, extricating myself from his clear intent to distract me. “I er—I can’t stay with you, Akil. I just can’t.” Along that path, bad things slumbered. If I gave in to him, let him control everything again, it would be like walking toward a black hole, knowing it would swallow me whole but unable to break free. I couldn’t give up my control. It was everything to me.
“You can’t stay here.”
“I know that.” I gestured at the shoebox as though that explained everything. I sounded irritated, but in fact was more annoyed at my traitorous body and the stirring of desire that did odd things to me. For a start, I couldn’t breathe properly.
I marched across the room and flung open the same window Stefan had escaped from the day before. Outside, the sun had dipped behind the high-rises, the warmth of the day seeping from the air as the dark of night loomed.
Akil stood beside me, leaning against the wall by the window and snaking his arms crossed. “Your little show of power melted the streetlights.” He was enjoying this, could probably read right through my stubborn attempt at denying I felt anything. “It made the news. A power-surge. I‘ve never seen a power-surge melt the post. Have you?”
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 146
