“There is a way. Muse can drain him of power,” Ryder was saying. “Akil can’t summon from the veil like she can. He has to draw his element from the city, and that’s a limited resource. If she drains him, he’ll be vulnerable.”
“But still immortal,” Stefan said.
Ryder shrugged. “Well, yeah. There ain’t no way around that.”
“We can trap him though. I’ve trapped demons before using the glyphs. Once inside, he’s contained. He can’t summon his true self. If there was a way to keep him like that…”
I ran my tongue across dry lips. “What about the drug they put in me?” They both looked a little surprised that I’d spoken. “What would it do to him?”
“PC-thirty-four,” Stefan replied. “The Institute uses it to knock out lesser demons. It represses the demon aspect. To Mammon, Akil’s true form, it’d probably give him a headache.”
“What if I could administer it while he’s in his human form? Would it prevent him from manifesting his true self?”
“It might.” Stefan nodded. “If you then summoned your element, you could render him weak enough to trap him.”
“How do we trap him?” I asked.
Ryder grinned and nudged an elbow into Stefan beside him. “You remember that time we sent Barbatos back to Hell? The look on his pig-ugly face when he realized what was happening… Man, that was priceless.” Ryder chuckled. “Good times.”
Stefan fought not to smile, then gave in and grinned. “Yeah, that was something…” He realized I was waiting for the two of them to get over their male-bonding moment and cleared his throat. “We can either send him back through the veil to the netherworld or trap him here, on this side. Sending a Prince back won’t be easy. They’re too powerful. It would require a blood sacrifice.” Stefan hesitated, seeing my confusion. “A human sacrifice. Someone mortal has to go with him, but it’s a one-way trip.”
Ryder nodded. “That’s a death sentence. Nobody is going to volunteer for that.” We all silently agreed. “So we have to trap him here.”
Shoving some books aside, I set my coffee down on the table. “How long does the drug last?”
“It’s uncertain. At least…” Stefan’s pause held more weight for what he didn’t say. “We know it can last years.” He tried to hide the tremor in his voice while avoiding my gaze. He swallowed and dragged a hand across his chin.
I thought I’d had it bad, but at least I’d always had my demon with me. Through the beatings, the torture, she’d always been there. The Institute had taken that strength from Stefan; his own father had torn out half of Stefan’s soul. No wonder Stefan had control. He’d had it conditioned into him. The pain he’d endured—I’d spent less than a day without my demon and already felt her absence like the loss of a limb. What would the drug do to Akil? Would it even affect him?
“I suppose they’ve never tested it on a Prince before?” I said, halting the approach of an awkward silence.
“No. It may not even work. Lesser demons are weaker here than across the veil. Princes… They’re different. His vessel is little more than a mask. The drug may have no effect at all; in which case, he’s gonna be pretty damn pissed when you try and inject him with it.”
I nodded slowly. Akil would kill me if he figured out what I was planning, but I was as good as dead anyway.
“You’re going to have to get close to him, Muse, without him realizing what you’re doing, otherwise he’ll manifest and then…then he’ll likely kill you without hesitation.” Stefan crouched in front of me, searching my expression. I let him see the resignation on my face. Hiding from the truth was pointless.
“I can get close to him.” I closed my eyes and dipped my chin. Getting close to Akil would be the easy part. I knew exactly how to distract him while keeping him tied to his human vessel. A little black dress and a bottle of red wine should do it. Getting the drug in him would be more difficult.
Stefan’s touch on my cheek roused me, bringing me back to the present. The concern on his face wasn’t particularly encouraging. I smiled, more for his sake than mine. “What happens once I’ve injected him?”
“Hopefully, if it works and he’s trapped, he won’t be able to summon his true self. He’ll be virtually human.”
The idea twisted a knot of regret inside me. It felt wrong. What I was planning, it was worse than death for Akil. To trap him in his human form, unable to return to his home, unable to summon his true manifestation. Killing him would be kinder.
“Is there another way?”
Stefan glanced at Ryder, who gave him his usual non-committal shrug. “Had he been anything else but Mammon we could have warned him off, but he won’t respond kindly to threats.”
“Can’t you just tell him about this place, tell him what they can do? He might walk away.” It sounded as hopeless as it was. I was clutching at straws. Akil wasn’t going to walk away. That wasn’t his style. He wanted it all. If he knew about the Institute, he’d tear it wide open. Threats wouldn’t deter him.
Stefan didn’t even bother answering my half-hearted question. He stood and sucked in a deep breath before weaving both hands through his hair, hissing sharply as his shoulder twinged. “We had originally hoped to reason with him, to stack his crimes against him, and persuade him to go home.” He sat on the edge of a chair, leaning forward to rub his hands together before facing me. “That was before he killed Sam. Before I realized how far gone he is.”
I couldn’t help wondering if I was somehow responsible for Akil’s unhinged behavior. I hadn’t known any of this would happen when I’d left him. It had been a simple case of just leaving. I’d told him I never wanted to see him again and turned my back on him. He hadn’t called, didn’t show up outside my apartment, so I’d thought it was over. Easy.
Ryder dropped into his chair. Hooking a leg over the arm, he slouched at an angle, crossing his arms. “It’s not just you, Muse. Nica’s caught in the middle of it too.”
“Nica?” Seeing Stefan slice a glance at Ryder, I immediately knew he’d said something wrong. “What is it?” Stefan struggled to meet my eyes, muscle jumping in his jaw.
“Nica was the one who put us onto Akil in the first place,” Stefan said. “She set everything up from the inside. Akil voiced his… displeasure with you. She knew he was preparing some sort of retaliation, so she planted the idea of hiring an assassin and then steered Akil in my direction. She’s been playing him from the inside and feeding us the information.”
She was a braver woman than me, that was for sure, and not even half-demon. “She works for the Institute?”
“Yes and no.”
Ryder let out an exasperated sigh. “Just tell her.” When Stefan still didn’t elaborate, Ryder said, “Nica is Adam’s daughter. There. That didn’t hurt. Jeez.”
“She’s your sister?” I asked Stefan, voice pitched with surprise.
“Half-sister.” He cast a dismayed glare at Ryder who shrugged.
“Why didn’t you tell me? How… Wha–Why didn’t she?” All this time, she’d been working against Akil. Sourcing the ‘file’ on Stefan, chatting with me at the party. She’d been right beside me, and I didn’t have a clue. “At your workshop, you removed the battery on her phone… You didn’t trust her.”
“You didn’t trust her.” Stefan leaned back, becoming increasingly restless. “I removed the battery because I didn’t want Akil tracking her cell. I didn’t know you’d invited him in to your life, leading him right to us. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that her safety is paramount. Her life is at risk.”
“No shit.” What kind of father lets their daughter go undercover as the PA to a Prince of Hell? Adam had a lot to answer for. “She’s there now…”
Ryder arched an eyebrow. “Yup, and Adam won’t pull her out. Says her intel is too valuable.”
“I hate that man.” I fingered the bruise on my cheek where he’d struck me. I was beginning to realize what kind of man Adam was, the kind who would indeed use and extor
t anything and anyone to get what he wanted, even his own children. At least the creatures that were trying to hurt me were demon; they couldn’t help themselves. Adam was meant to be human. I’d seen demons behave more humanely.
“Nica’s involvement shouldn’t matter,” Stefan said. “If Muse can carry out the plan, she’ll be safe soon enough.”
“Okay.” If Nica was there, in the middle of all of this then I could certainly find it in myself to back her up. “Then let’s do this.” But first I needed my demon back.
Chapter 22
Stefan held up a small cylindrical device, no larger than a spool of thread. “It’s a jet injector. Fifteen times smaller than the mass market varieties. No needles. A quick jab to the skin and it’ll administer the drug into Akil’s system via a near sub-sonic blast. Within a few seconds, he should feel the effects.”
Such a small thing could deliver such a debilitating drug. I absently rubbed at the back of my hand where I’d been jabbed the day before. We were in Stefan’s apartment, where I’d waited for him to return with the antidote for me. Every second I’d waited seemed like a lifetime. How on earth Stefan had endured months—years—without his demon, I couldn’t even imagine.
He placed the injector on the desk next to its twin, which was marked with a plus symbol. That was my antidote. He reached for it, but didn’t pick it up. Instead, he curled his fingers into his palm and looked back at me. “You’re as close to normal now as you’re ever going to be.” I must have frowned because he leaned back against the desk with the injectors sitting neatly beside him. “If you ever wondered what it would be like to be human, you’re feeling it now.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that, without my demon, I was essentially normal. I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed. Of course I had wondered what it would be like to be human. I’d tried to imitate a normal life and might even have succeeded had I kept running, but I was never going to actually feel normal.
Tucking my hair behind an ear, I lifted my gaze to Stefan. He might have gotten away with the neutral expression if his eyes hadn’t betrayed an intensity that belied his calm exterior. He had dressed impeccably for him. His black shirt with ultra-fine vertical white lines emphasized the brilliance of his eyes while his jeans bunched in all the right places. And there I was, dressed in an unflattering Institute jump suit.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. Maybe if I didn’t have half the netherworld trying to kill me, I could flirt with the idea of repressing my demon—maybe. But it wouldn’t feel right. It wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t hide from what I was; the events of the past week had taught me that. Besides, the thing inside me, my demon, she deserved more.
Without a word, Stefan shoved off the desk and strode into the bathroom. The door swung behind him. A few seconds later, I heard the hiss of the shower. He leaned around the doorframe and beckoned me inside. My gaze lingered on the injector.
The bathroom gleamed with stainless steel fittings while a waterfall shower bellowed steam behind glass doors. Its relentless hiss was the only noise I could hear. I opened my mouth to ask why we were in the bathroom, but Stefan pressed a finger to my lips. He leaned in closely and said, “The noise from the shower will prevent them from hearing everything.”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I’d had enough of this place.
“You don’t have to go back to being a half-blood,” he said.
Opening my eyes, I saw what almost looked like hope on his face and smiled. “I want to.”
“Don’t take the antidote. Walk out of here, and make a life for yourself somewhere else, in another city. Get out of this, Muse. You can.”
“Even if I could, he’d find me.” It was an impossible dream. Without my demon, Akil might struggle to locate me, but it would happen eventually. He had resources beyond mine, means by which he could find me anywhere. I could change my name, flee halfway around the world, and he’d still find me. Then there was Val. If my brother discovered I was essentially human, he’d gut me the second he found me.
“Isn’t it worth trying?” He looked almost pained. I wondered if this was his dream.
My smile twitched. “What you don’t seem to understand is that I want the demon, Stefan.” I licked my lips and leaned a hip against the counter. “In the five years I hid, there was one thing I missed more than anything else.”
From the way he tore his gaze away, I could tell that he knew what I was about to say.
“You can’t tell me you don’t enjoy the chaos.” Suddenly, I was grateful for the hiss of the shower smothering our conversation. This was not a discussion we’d want the Institute to hear. “Five years, I kept it hidden inside. I played at being normal, but it was never going to last because I want the destruction. It’s a part of me…” His lips turned up with a fragment of a smile, but he was fighting it. “When you walked into my workshop, you were the first demon I’d been close to in years. I knew you weren’t human. I felt the power coiled in you and I… I wanted it.”
His fingers danced across the granite countertop.
“And you can’t tell me it was the demon because it wasn’t. It’s me. The lust for chaos is a part of me. I can’t shut half of me out and live like that. My demon is half of what makes me whole.”
“Even if it gets you killed?” His sudden gaze pierced right through me, sending what felt like a trickle of ice water down my spine.
“That’s not going to happen.” I faced him, sensing the weight of unspoken words. I’d thought him to be as clear as the winter sky: the confident demon-slayer, all bravado and no substance. But I’d been wrong. Beneath the swagger, the smug smile, and complacent attitude pooled a dark reservoir of emotion; its ice-covered surface had begun to crack. I’d been naïve to think I knew him at all.
He abruptly pushed away from the counter, intent on leaving. Without thinking, I caught his hand, pulling him up short. He looked back at me with such a weighty sadness that I sensed that he knew something I didn’t. He stepped against me, hands tilting my face up, his lips on mine. Repressed hunger broke through my defenses, and I fell completely into that kiss. I hooked my arms around his neck and locked him in an embrace neither of us could escape. My own hunger might have surprised me if I’d cared to think about it, but the overwhelming need to have him close left no room for doubts.
As he pulled back, I felt him tremble. His short, ragged breaths fluttered against my cheek. His hands rode over my hips, then sought the zipper at the front of my jump suit, sliding it open so he could slip his hands inside and ease it off my shoulders. Where his light touch brushed against my shoulders, the heat of desire flushed my skin. I had expected his touch to be cold, but it wasn’t.
He drew back with liquid ice in his eyes as he watched me tug my arms free of the suit. I peered through my half-closed lashes at him, a wicked grin on my face. He responded with a throaty growl that pooled wanton heat inside me. He hitched me up onto the counter and trailed the most frustratingly light kisses across the rise of my breasts. Leaning back, I let him tease those snowflake kisses further down. I gasped as his lips tickled the curve of my waist.
When his mouth found mine again, I hooked my legs around him, refusing to let him go. Fumbling with his shirt buttons, I popped them open one by one, feeling him smile against my mouth. I sunk my hands inside his shirt and heard him snatch a gasp as I grazed the wound on his shoulder.
“Oh, sorry…!” I pulled my hands back, but he grabbed them.
“Don’t stop,” he breathed, shrugging the shirt from his shoulders and dropping it to the floor.
Despite the angry red wound on his left side, the light played across his chest in such a way that I wanted to touch—to taste—every inch of that divine masculine body so much so that I briefly froze, biting my lip, breaths coming fast and untamed. I held the tide of desire in my hands and could still pull it back. Doubts nibbled around the edges of my runaway thoughts. My needs, hungers, desires, all conspired to push me toward the precipic
e of surrender; if I fell for Stefan, I’d fall hard.
He gathered my face in his hands, drawing me up, so all I could see were those dazzling eyes. His lips brushed mine, but he pulled back when I tried to turn those teasing kisses into something hungry and all-consuming. He teased, luring me close with promises upon his lips, and then easing back when I answered. I groaned low in my throat, he’d be the death of me if he kept this up. When I couldn’t stand the game any longer; when he’d tugged on the strings of desire until my thoughts had blurred and my body burned, he sunk his hands down my back and pulled me against him. I hooked my legs around his waist, molding myself against every inch of him, breath and body ebbing and flowing. He hitched me up, lifting me off the countertop, and carried me into the shower, still partially dressed. Hot jets of water pummeled us. I laughed and watched the warmest, most genuine smile lighten his lips.
He swept a hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face, lending his features an intensity I’d not appreciated before. The streaming water quickly drenched him. Rivulets ran down his face, across the shadow of stubble darkening his chin. He leaned me back against the cool tiles and slipped his hands inside the jumpsuit to ease it over my hips. The garment dropped. I kicked it away; consumed by the need to let my hands wander. A curious stir of power tickled my touch as I slid my hands up his chest. I could feel his element rippling around him; an aura of energy he kept restrained. The heat from the water likely helped with his control. I considered whether I should take the antidote and let my demon out of the bag but wasn’t entirely sure I could control her. I could barely control myself.
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 161
