“…or I must be like him?” she finished.
He nodded, sweeping his gaze head to foot as though to guess what she might be capable of.
Exactly how much did Drew’s father know? Given the way Brax and Rae talked of protecting the innocent and how Brax had never said a word to her, she had expected most families to be just as in the dark.
“It came after all of us,” his father said.
So demons weren’t above cornering more than one person at a time. “Were you hurt?”
“Knocked around a bit.” He retrieved a couple of mugs from the cupboard. “But it almost killed Drew.”
“And only he was…”
“Changed? Yes. Drew was adopted. Neither myself nor my wife carry the gene.”
Adopted? His father’s comments, coupled with finally learning who Molly was, reminded her of how much she didn’t know about Drew. “What did it do?”
“The demon? We found out later it was on the hunt for sacrifice victims. Drew ended up coming between us and its sword.”
“She finally settled down.” A woman who had to be Drew’s mother shuffled into the kitchen, coming to a stop when she spotted Blair. She grinned warmly. “Hello.”
“Drew brought over a friend.”
“I’m Blair.” She rose and offered the other woman her hand, realizing then she hadn’t introduced herself properly to his father either.
A warm smile seemed to ease the worry lines on the woman’s face. “It’s very nice to meet you.” Blair didn’t miss the exchange of curious looks between the couple. “I’m glad Drew finally brought a girl home.”
She started to shake her head, not wanting his parents to jump to any conclusions about them. Certainly not when Drew hadn’t even bothered mentioning her before now.
“Drew and I are…complicated,” she decided on, using his term. “I didn’t know he had a little girl.”
“Until two months ago, neither did he.”
“Giselle,” Drew’s father warned.
Drew’s mother waved him off. “The boy hasn’t brought a girl home in a couple of years. I’m allowed to talk to her.”
“Just don’t dig out the naked kid pictures,” Drew said from the doorway. He smiled when his gaze landed on Blair.
Even after the continuous upheaval in the last few hours, his slow grin made her stomach tug.
“How’s Molly?” his mother asked.
“Asleep.”
“It was the same nightmare, wasn’t it?” his mother asked.
Drew’s eyes never left Blair. “Yeah, but I don’t think she’ll be having it again.”
Positive she was missing something, Blair glanced between the three other people in the room.
“So,” his mother prompted after they stood in thoughtful silence. “How did you two meet?”
Chapter Ten
“Again.”Blair groaned and pushed herself up on her elbows. “No.” Getting up was one step away from getting knocked back down.
“If you want to play hero, you have to be prepared.” Drew circled her, his steps muffled by the mat in the middle of the training room. A mat she’d become intimately familiar with.
She sat up. “I don’t recall saying I was looking to sign up for anything.”
Drew offered a hand and pulled her to her feet. She tried not to wince at the aches and pains that began to take their toll since her first attempt to fight him off.
A cocky grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Ready?”
Putting her arms up in the defensive posture they’d been working on, she nodded. While she seemed to be picking up on some of the tactical training faster than she would have imagined, there was still a lot to learn. Like how to remain on her feet.
She’d gone along with his suggestion to try some light training maneuvers, thinking he needed the distraction of it more than she did. Last night she’d offered to go back to her place, unsure what else to say when he’d lapsed into silence on the way back from his parents’. He’d refused, keeping one arm wrapped around her most of the night, as though he feared she might slip away on him. Unfortunately, he’d tossed and turned most of the night and neither of them had a good sleep.
He still hadn’t mentioned much about Molly, and every time she attempted to broach the subject was just one more opportunity for the man to prove he excelled at distraction tactics. She might have pushed harder if she hadn’t gotten the impression from his parents that Drew was still adjusting to becoming a father.
And if it all didn’t make her wonder—and worry—about what other secrets he might be holding onto.
Blair’s attention drifted to the array of weapons the others used to train.
Drew laughed. “Feeling that ambitious?”
“Not even close.” She was hardly ready to try a sword when she still couldn’t manage to throw him off with any amount of regularity. They both knew she couldn’t tap into her full potential indoors on a training room mat, but Drew said this was all about baby steps. That and not getting his ass fried—which he commented on every time her frustration got the best of her and she unknowingly triggered another boom of thunder outside.
He came at her again without the speed she knew he was capable of. She pivoted on her heel, whipping around to sidestep him. His arm swung out to snag her, but she dodged and caught his wrist and, wrenching it back, ended up behind him.
He spun around, but she’d already dropped into a crouch. His foot shot between hers, and she was thrown back on her ass. Again.
“Better.”
Her head dropped back to the mat. “So by that, you mean it only took six seconds to take me down instead of two point five?”
Laughing, he helped her up once more. “Again.”
Resisting the urge to rub her aching behind, she stood opposite him. “Do you have to be so eager to kick my butt? It’s not an attractive quality in a man, really.”
“Bet I can change your mind.”
She faced him again, wondering how much more her battered body could take. He didn’t give her any warning this time, coming at her full tilt. She took an instinctive step back, then planted her feet. Deflecting his first strike seemed to be going well until he snatched a fistful of her shirt and jerked her forward.
Blair twisted and drove her elbow up into his stomach. He grunted, but didn’t loosen his hold. His foot caught the back of her ankle, but she remained on her feet.
“Good,” Drew said, his approval making the pain a little less intense—for about ten seconds.
She put some distance between them, but he didn’t let her have the breather for long before he went back on the offense. The currents of air displaced as he shot his arm out played across her skin, giving her the tiniest warning of what direction his strike would come from. She turned her body into his chest, and caught his arm to pitch him over her shoulder.
And it almost worked. Right up until the training room doors burst open, killing her concentration.
Drew’s weight shifted and she felt herself falling sideways. She stumbled, going down on one knee, Drew half collapsing on top of her. Her face struck something solid, and she hissed out a breath, landing in a tangled heap.
Definitely a black eye coming on, she decided, lying still for a moment to catch her breath.
“You okay?” Drew hovered over her, his expression assessing.
She probed tenderly at her eye. “Something tells me bruises are the norm for you guys.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Blair rolled to her side, frowning at the sharp catch in Braxton’s voice. She hadn’t heard that tone since she was seventeen and he caught her making out with a boy in the garage.
“Training,” Drew offered.
Brax folded his arms across his chest. “Since when?”
Drew matched the militant pose. “Since she decided to play spin the bottle with a war demon.”
She shot Drew a thanks-a-lot look before ignoring his hand and climbing to her feet under her own s
team. “I was fine.”
Braxton’s eyes narrowed as he noticed her sore eye. “Did he do that?” He, meaning Drew.
“It’s no big deal.” Under her brother’s critical gaze, she let her hand fall back to her side.
“You don’t need to do this.”
Part of her wanted to agree with him. The part that had trembled seeing the war demon last night, the same part that wanted to shove it back in the closet where all monsters belonged. But that wasn’t going to happen. “Yes, I do.”
“You’re a journalist,” Brax reminded her. “Not everyone whose DNA mutates is cut out for this.”
“So you think I can’t do it?
He gave her an exasperated look. “This is not the same thing as telling you that you’re too short to climb the backyard fence. This is different.”
She held up her palm as though he could see the itch of electricity crackling under her skin. “Do you really think you need to remind me of that?”
“So what? You faced a war demon last night and now you think you should slay them?”
“A woman might have been killed.” Why did she have to keep reminding them of that?
“Because that’s what they do,” Braxton snapped. “They were stripped of their emotions thousands of years ago. Stripped of their humanity. They don’t kill to survive. They stalk, play with and kill their prey because it’s the only thing that makes them feel anything at all.”
Blair turned away from him, recognizing that she’d have a better chance beating a hole in the Great Wall with her bare fists than getting through to him. “We’ve covered this before.”
“And maybe not enough of it sunk in.”
She gestured to where she’d been stabbed. “You don’t think I know they’re dangerous?”
“Then don’t do this.”
“And what? Go back to normal? Pretend I don’t know what’s out there? Pretend none of this happened? It’s too late for that, Brax.”
“No, it’s not.”
She shook her head, noticing Gage and Jordan in the doorway. “I can’t talk to you right now.” She glanced at Drew. “I’ll talk to you later.” And then needing some time to cool off, she stormed out of the room.
Drew watched her leave, torn between going after her and giving her the space he knew she needed. All of this was a lot to get used to. He never had the benefit of talking things over with a sibling who shared his abilities. Given the friction between Blair and Brax, maybe he’d been better off with no one.
Braxton sighed.
“Well, that felt a little familiar,” Jordan mused.
“Not the same thing,” both Gage and Braxton said in unison.
Jordan shook her head. “Why ever would I expect you to agree with me on this?”
Gage shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t agree with you, I can just see where Brax is coming from.”
“She’s not like us.” Braxton stared at Drew.
“Why? Because she’s new to all of this? Gage and Jordan were cops before their genes were mutated. You were working on your master’s degree. Quinn was barely out of high school. Few Destroyers come into this with training. We all start somewhere.”
“Are you sure you’re not supporting her in this because it keeps her around where you can get some?”
Anger flared in Drew’s chest, and Jordan quickly planted herself between them.
“Whoa.”
Drew couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed by Jordan stopping them from doing something stupid, or grateful. “The only thing I’m trying to do is help her understand what’s happening to her. I didn’t want her facing that war demon any more than you, but if she finds trouble, she’s better off being prepared for it.”
“He’s right,” Gage said quietly.
“Fine,” Brax conceded. “Then I’ll train her.”
“So you can keep her in your protective little bubble?” Drew scoffed. “She doesn’t need you coddling her. Hell, she needs your support more than mine right now.”
Braxton closed his eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to her.”
“As someone who’s been in Blair’s shoes,” Jordan began, “the more you try to shelter her, the harder it will be on the both of you. She hasn’t signed on, right?” She looked to Drew for confirmation.
He shook his head.
“And she might not, but the more you deny it, Brax, the more she might resent you for it.”
“And once that ship has sailed…” Gage shuddered, his attempt to lighten the mood loosening the tension in Drew’s spine.
Jordan took a swing at him, missed, and turned back to Braxton. “It’ll work out,” she promised, and then she and Gage retreated to the locker room.
Taking that as his cue, Drew headed for the door.
“Hold up a second.”
He paused, wary when Brax lowered his voice.
“You and I work together, Drew. We’re friends. So I’m asking you to back off whatever it is you feel for my sister until she has time to adjust. If she chooses this life, then it needs to be on her terms, not because of what’s happening between you two.”
Drew clenched his jaw.
“Just, see it from my point of view for a minute, all right? What would you do if you had someone you’d promised to watch over, someone that’s going through something pretty huge right now?”
An image of Molly’s wild curls and laughing smile ran through Drew’s mind.
“The last thing Blair needs is getting in too deep with anyone.”
Someone who doesn’t stick around. Drew heard the implication plain as day in Braxton’s voice.
“I wouldn’t hurt her.”
Braxton drilled his hands through his hair. “Not on purpose. That’s what would make it so much harder to kick your ass if she wound up with a broken heart on top of everything else.”
“Drew?”
They both turned to find Rae watching them, and Drew wondered how much she’d overheard.
“Can we talk for a minute?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He followed her out of the room without looking back. He almost wished he didn’t understand where Braxton was coming from, but what pissed him off was his friend still assuming he was just after sex where Blair was concerned.
Rae closed the door. “Was that anything I need to be concerned about?”
“No more than you worried when things were tense between Quinn and Braxton.”
Her eyes widened. “So you’re secretly attracted to Braxton too?”
“What?”
“Then it’s not at all the same thing as with Quinn and Brax.”
“Fine. Not the same.” Just like he wouldn’t be the same after her suggesting… He noticed the corner of her mouth twitch and glowered at her.
Unruffled, she took a seat behind her desk. “How are things going with Molly?”
Any other time he would have been relieved she hadn’t tracked him down to talk about how he was doing. He just couldn’t decide if Rae asked about Molly for personal reasons or business ones.
“Something’s happened,” she guessed.
He let out a breath. Talking it over with someone sure as hell couldn’t hurt anymore than trying to figure out what was going on with her on his own. “She’s having dreams.”
“Children do that sometimes I hear.” A smile softened Rae’s face.
“The other night she had a nightmare of a monster in a place where the music was too loud. Kept saying I needed to save her.”
“Blair?”
He nodded. “Last night she woke up from another nightmare, asking if I had saved her.”
Rae’s expression turned thoughtful. “Has she ever had any precognitive dreams before?”
“You’re assuming that’s what they are?”
“You’re not?”
Drew slumped back in his chair. “I don’t know what to think.” Every time he tried to get one step ahead of everything, something came along and knocked him back five.
&nb
sp; “How was she when you told her that you saved the woman in her dreams?”
“She said, ‘I knew you would, Daddy,’ and rolled back over, already snoring by the time I reached the door.”
“Sounds like she’s handling it better than you are.”
“Learning I’m a father to a five-year-old was enough to worry about without this… I don’t know if this is a one-time thing, or if this is just the beginning.”
“You could have her assessed,” Rae offered.
“No.” She was dreaming about monsters—demons—and that was plenty. He didn’t want her any closer to that side of his life than absolutely necessary.
“She wouldn’t be the first child to carry the Destroyer gene and demonstrate some extra sensory ability at such a young age.”
“Assuming she inherited the gene,” Drew pointed out. “How come I’ve never come across anything in the archives about this before?”
Rae crossed her arms. “It’s not a common occurrence, but with a few simple tests you might be able to determine the extent of her ability.”
And so would the network.
He’d chosen this path for himself, but he sure as hell wouldn’t sit back while some network bigwigs made his little girl their next science fair project. He’d like to think Rae wouldn’t let something like that happen, but there were people above Rae who might not hesitate to use Molly to further their knowledge. Anytime an agent was injured, network doctors clamored for the opportunity to test how they responded to various treatments and he wouldn’t bank on them not being just as curious about Molly.
“Just something to think about if you get curious,” Rae added, sensing his tension. “For now, go the hell home. Preferably before Jordan takes off for the day and you have no buffer between you and Braxton.”
Well, that answered his question about how long Rae had been hanging around outside the training room.
Weary, he let himself out of Rae’s office and barely avoided a collision with Darcy. He winced at her puffy lower lip and the bruise that marred her cheek. “Rough assignment?”
“Tricky stealth demon.”
He fell into step beside her, guessing she was headed for a caffeine refill before attacking the damn paperwork required after every assignment. He wasn’t sure what it was about the telepaths, but both Brax and Darcy were way too keen on dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s at first opportunity.
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