by Nadine Mutas
Understanding dawned on Alek. “And Juneau doesn’t agree with that notion.”
“That’s a mild way of putting it.” Merle grimaced. “She’s grown more and more radical in her stance. She keeps rallying support for her views, and never fails to remind every witch she talks to that accepting even one demon among them is a slippery slope, and sure to be the beginning of the end.”
Alek met Merle’s eyes. “So this is a political issue.”
Merle nodded. “It’s not really about Lily. Juneau wants to make a point. And she has no problem with collateral damage.” She looked at her best friend. “There are others who oppose Juneau and her charges against you, but not enough to sway the vote or start an open conflict with Juneau.”
Lily clenched her jaw and nodded. “You haven’t asked me yet if I really did attack Selene.” She glanced at Merle for a second, then away again.
“Because it’s secondary,” Merle said softly. “Whatever happened, I’ve got your back. Like you had mine when Maeve was kidnapped and I went against the Elders.”
Lily stared down at her knees. “It’s true. I jumped on her. She was going to kill Alek.”
Both Merle and Rhun looked at him then, an assessing curiosity in their eyes.
“So,” Rhun said, tilting his head at Alek, “we know your name, and that the two of you are chummy, but I seem to have missed the tale of how you met.”
Lily filled them in, explaining what they knew so far about how Lily had been turned—which wasn’t much—and the ways Alek had helped her, making him sound like a fucking hero. Which let him inwardly preen like a foolish peacock, while he kept up the facade of unfazed, cool male, nodding slowly here and there. Lily smoothly left out the details of becoming intimate, not that Merle and Rhun hadn’t already read between the lines and filled in those blanks.
But at the mention of Alek’s association with Arawn, an almost visible wave of animosity rolled out from both Merle and her demon husband. Merle sat up straighter, eying him with wariness, while Rhun shifted closer to his mate.
Alek held up his hands, palms out. “Chill. I don’t mean harm to either of you, and right now I don’t represent anyone but myself.”
“But that can change,” Merle said, her tone cooler than before. “Your allegiance is to Arawn. Forgive me if I am a bit bristly about the fact you’re working for the guy who plans to enslave my baby sister.”
“Not to mention,” Rhun added with a softness at odds with the threatening darkness in his eyes, “that this same guy is currently using up Merle’s power for trivial shit, all the while laughing at her, as if she’s his own personal jester.”
Alek clenched his jaw, fighting down the surge of annoyance at being associated with Arawn’s jerktastic behavior. “Fair enough. Just so you know, I have no love to spare for Arawn either, and I’ll be more than happy to leave his service in a month’s time.”
That bit of information seemed to calm some of the anger flowing his way from Merle and Rhun. Still giving him a little side-eye, Merle dug in her purse and handed something to Lily.
“Your cell phone,” she said. “I thought you might want to have this.”
“Thanks.” Lily cradled the device in her hands, her face shadowing. “So you’ve seen Baz? How…is he?”
“Worried about you.” She grasped one of Lily’s hands. “Your mom, too. They’ve been going crazy, not knowing what’s going on with you. After you ran away last night, Hazel cast a locator spell to find you, but it failed…”
Lily gasped. When Alek frowned at her reaction, she explained softly, “Usually, the only time a spell like that doesn’t work is if the person you’re looking for is dead.” She closed her eyes for a moment, her face carved with anguish. “My family thought I had died.”
“Not just your family.” Merle’s voice was low, humming with the sorrow she must have felt. “Until the Elder meeting and Juneau’s account of your attack on Selene, none of us knew you were still alive. And then the only thing we knew was that you’d gone rogue and had been snatched away by some demon.” At the last word, she glanced at Alek. “That’s why I attacked you earlier. I thought you’d kidnapped Lily.”
And in light of her experience with demons abducting her loved ones, her reaction was more than understandable. “No hard feelings,” he told her.
Merle nodded once, then faced Lily again. “I know you feel guilty for what you did to Baz, but I really think you should talk to him. And your mom.”
“Well,” Lily said, “considering I’ve got a huge fucking target painted to my back, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go anywhere close to home right now.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past Juneau to have staked out your house. Mine, too, probably.” Merle shifted on the bench. “Which brings up the question where you’re staying until we sort this out. I talked to Rhun, and he can ask Bahram if maybe—”
“She can stay with me.” Alek stepped closer to the table, every primal instinct in him roaring at the thought of Lily staying with another male—an incubus, to boot.
Merle narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but he added, “I can hide her. I’m a demon, the witches don’t know me, I’ve got no connection to you that they know of, and there’s little chance she’ll be found at my place.” He caught Lily’s gaze. “My offer still stands. I’ll help you, no strings attached.”
She seemed to consider this, her indigo eyes thoughtful. “I’ll need to find the demon who shot me with that dart, so we can get to the bottom of this and reverse whatever he did to me.”
The sting in his chest was instinctual, the idea of her turning back into a witch cutting him deep. He pushed that hurt down as best he could, and masked the pain he knew would show in his energy pattern. He needed more time to win her heart, to make her fall for him to the point where she’d want to stay demon…for him.
“Even more reason to stick with me,” he told her, his voice projecting a calm he didn’t feel. “The jerk who shot you is a duhokrad. Who better than one of his own to help you hunt him down? I know the places our kind likes to hang out, I’ve got resources you guys don’t have access to. Stay with me, and I’ll help you look for him.” Not that he actually wanted to find the guy, but if it meant he got more time with Lily, he’d do it.
She slowly nodded. “No strings attached, right?”
“Right.” He ignored the yearning in his heart. Couldn’t let her know how much he wanted those strings.
“All right.” Lily jumped off the table. “Merle, can you look in your books for any precedent for this happening? What are the chances of reversing whatever it is?”
The ginger-haired witch regarded her for a moment, a crease building between her brows. “If this is magic-born, I’ve never seen anything like it. From what I can feel, there’s nothing left of you that is witch. You seem to have completely turned into a demon.”
Rhun nodded. “Your energy pattern is uniquely demon. I could trace you.”
“And you’ve got all the qualities and attributes of a duhokrad,” Alek added. “You feel like one to me.”
A tremor went through Lily’s aura, but she nonchalantly waved her hand. “All right, I think we’ve established I’m eligible to enter demon pageants and all.” She looked at Merle. “Can you fix this?”
You don’t need to be fixed. Alek bit back that response. Lily would skewer him for it, however true it was for him. If she’d been beautiful before, she was glorious as a demon female. An undercurrent of lethal prowess hummed in her aura, her creamy skin practically glowed in the moonlight, and the dark blue of her eyes seemed to have ripened and deepened after her transition, to resemble a particular shade he’d never seen in human eyes.
He wanted her more now than ever before, and he’d love for her to see herself the way he did.
“Well, if it is magic,” Merle broke in Alek’s thoughts, “then—in theory—there should be a counter-spell. There’s always a way to reverse a charm, the trick is finding out how
. If it’s some kind of established magic, we should be able to find it in the books, and possibly a cure, too. I can’t make any promises, Lil, but I’ll search everywhere…and you know me. No stone unturned and all.”
“Thanks.”
“Is there anything more you remember about the attack or the attacker? Any detail could help.”
Lily thought for a second, then startled. “Oh! Of course, why didn’t I remember that? The dart. It got lost when I fought the demon off, and I didn’t have the time to retrieve it, but maybe it’s still at the place where he attacked me. You could analyze the potion inside if you find it, right?”
“Yes.” Merle perked up. “Yes, we could. That’s great. Where exactly is that spot?”
Lily explained it to Merle, who promised to comb the area.
“If we find it, I’ll get right to analyzing it and let you know.”
Lily hugged her. “Thank you.”
“No need,” Merle whispered back. “We’ll make this right, Lil. We’ll keep trying until we get you back.”
Her only reply was an even stronger hug from Lily, before they moved apart.
Rhun snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot.” He walked over to Lily, pulled a small bag from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “Welcome to the Dark Side. Here are the cookies.”
Merle gasped and smacked his shoulder. “Rhun!”
He turned to his mate, shrugging and holding his palms up in a touching display of wounded innocence. “What? The least we can do is give her the damn cookies.”
“Where’d you even get these?” Merle’s eyes widened. “Wait—that’s what you had to get when you stopped at the gas station?”
Rhun just smirked.
“I swear I can’t take you anywhere,” Merle muttered then turned to Lily. “One more thing before we leave.”
Lily raised her brows.
“Call Basil. And your mom.” Her voice gentled. “They’re desperate to hear from you. And I know all three of you need to talk this over.”
From the look on Lily’s face and the flavor of her aura, one could have thought Merle had ordered her to organize her own execution.
Chapter 11
Lily watched Merle and Rhun drive away in Merle’s car. They’d given Alek and Lily a ride to Alek’s truck, which was still parked close to the theater where they picked up the human Lily fed from.
She quickly directed her thoughts away from the man, still not willing or able to deal with what she’d done. Why sink down a spiral of despair when denial was such a convenient option? Yep, denial it was.
Unfortunately, blocking out the topic of her feeding—on top of the already tabooed subject of her attack on her twin brother—meant her mind greedily latched on to the next big issue in her life right now, the sizzling attraction she felt to one fine demon male, currently getting into the driver’s seat next to her. She’d readily block that subject, too, but there were only so many things she could successfully suppress at once.
Alek slammed the door and started the engine, and his enticing scent filled the confines of the truck’s cabin within seconds. Crisp autumn nights, burning wood, and an essence of male that made her want to purr. Oh, she was in trouble.
Because his intimate touch felt way too good, and the fire he’d sparked in her with just a few adept moves of his fingers was too addicting to be anything but dangerous. If he could make her shiver and melt like that without even taking her clothes off, she didn’t want to imagine what he was capable of between the sheets, skin-on-skin, sweat-slick and hot, bodies tangled in passion…
“Lily,” he ground out.
She startled. “What?”
“You can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Get aroused while I’m driving.” His fingers clenched hard around the steering wheel. “Your scent is making me crazy. If you don’t simmer down, I’ll pull over, drag you into the backseat, and lap up every last bit of you.”
Her eyes widened. Heat flooded her lower belly, his words evoking not only more memories of how he’d pleasured her before, but a number of new fantasies.
“Hell, Lilichka.” Alek cursed and rolled down his window.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. He looked so tortured, so adorably struggling to remain in control of himself.
He shot her look as dark as it was sizzling. “I’ll get you back for this.” Focusing on the traffic again, he sobered. “I know you want to get right on searching for the duhokrad who shot you, and I’d love to help you out tonight, but I need to go to work. I already switched shifts with another sentinel last night so I could take care of you, but I can’t find anyone who will swap shifts tonight.”
Right, he did have a job. Watching her home. Just thinking about that brought a sting to her heart. Push it down.
“So,” he said on a deep exhale, “I’d suggest you could come with me, but that would mean you have to hold my hand the entire time in order for the invisibility charm to work on you as well. Not sure you’d like to be shackled to me like that the whole night. Plus, I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring you anywhere close to your house right now, what with Juneau’s witches probably patrolling the whole area.”
Lily decided not to further explore the numerous ideas her unruly mind came up with at the mention of being shackled to him. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, we should avoid that.”
“You can stay at my place until I get back.” He held up a hand to stop her as she took a breath, ready to speak. “I know you’d like to look for the demon, but I’d rather not have you roaming the streets alone.”
Her hackles rose at his domineering words.
“Stop growling.” He sent her a quick look. “Think about it. You’ll be more successful searching for him with me there to show you around the demon underbelly of the city. The risk that you’ll be spotted by other witches is high when you’re on your own. I can take you on paths unknown by witches. And,” he added, glancing at her again, “you’re still adjusting to being demon. Not that I think you’ll be the Hulk on the loose, but…”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Say it. You think I can’t control myself.”
They stopped at a red light, and he faced her fully, his eyes without mercy. “Can you?”
Grinding her teeth, she breathed through her nose, anger a rising pulse in her blood. The light turned green, and he broke eye contact to drive on.
She looked out the other window, clenched her hands to fists and quietly said, “I don’t know.”
It took a lot for her to admit that, and the truth tasted bitter on her tongue.
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” Alek murmured. “And I’m not pointing it out to be mean or to rub it in. I just need to be sure you won’t get hurt.”
She was itching to give him some form of I can take care of myself spiel, but the fact was, he did have a point. And damn if it didn’t grate on her to acknowledge that. “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay at your place while you’re gone.”
His shoulders lost some of their tension, and he shifted into a more relaxed position behind the wheel. “We’ll go looking for the duhokrad first thing tomorrow.”
Back at his house, he came inside with her and pointed to the kitchen. “You can eat anything you find. If you want to lie down, the spare bedroom you slept in last night is all yours.”
Grant came trotting over, having noticed his master was home. He wagged his tail with all the vigor of a geriatric dog, which in effect was little more than a tired wave.
“Hey, buddy.” Alek bent down to scratch the mutt’s ears. Looking up at Lily, he said, “I’ll walk Grant around the block real quick before I head out. If you do decide to sleep later, best keep your door closed, or he’ll end up in your bed. He doesn’t do well with boundaries.”
“Got it.”
Alek grabbed a leash from a hook next to the door, snapped it on Grant’s collar and went outside, the dog trudging after him.
Ten minutes later
—Lily had helped herself to a bowl of Alek’s cereal and was munching that sitting at the kitchen table—Alek and Grant returned. The dog trotted over to her and lay down on top of her feet, resting his head on his front paws.
“If he bothers you, I can order him to lie down on his blanket.” Alek pointed to a cozy lounging area in the corner of the living room.
“No need. I don’t mind him.” She leaned down to pet Grant’s head. “As long as he doesn’t get too excited,” she added, eying the furry old guy.
“I hope he won’t pee on you.” Alek grimaced and muttered, “And I’ve always wanted to say that to a female.”
Lily grinned and winked at him. Returning her smile, Alek turned to the door.
“Oh,” he said and faced her again. “Almost forgot. Let’s exchange numbers.” He grabbed a pen and notepad from the counter, scribbled on it and handed her the note. “Call me if you need me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
He got out his cell, and she rattled off her number while he typed it in before he left.
And then she was alone. Well, not quite. There was a snoring dog on her feet.
Ten missed calls and fifteen text messages.
When Alek mentioned her cell phone, it reminded Lily that she hadn’t checked it since Merle gave it to her. Since it was running low on battery, she plugged it in using a cable she’d spotted in Alek’s living room tech area. Most of the calls and messages were from Baz, her mom, and Merle, along with some other witch friends like Lenora and Keira. The calls from her family and her best friend had stopped shortly after she attacked Baz, so she assumed they had found her phone by then. The other witches called right after the Elders meeting, when her phone had still been on mute.
And she had no inclination whatsoever to call back any of them. Having Merle in the know and on her side was enough right now, and she’d explain everything to the others once this unfortunate episode was over.
