by JL Madore
He broke his pizza crust in half and gave each of the scurrying little vermin their share on their folded paper towel plates. “Keep it off the sheets this time, Dean,” he said, pointing at the brown one. The furry little critter nibbled away but did as he was told. “Glad we had this talk.”
Careful not to crush them, he laid back and hit play. Picking up where they left off, he laughed at how ironic it was that this was Veronica Hennington’s favorite show. “That’s a ’67 Chevy Impala,” he told the boys. “Listen to her rumble.”
He gulped back another round of Get This Shit Goin’ and the room started a slow spin. “Yep, shit’s goin’ now.”
He opened the box for the pizza and pulled out another slice. Both animals raced up the bed and onto his chest. Sam pushed against his arm. “Sorry buddy, I only have one hand. You’ll have to wait ’till I’m done with my slice.”
They settled in and watched the show.
He could do this. He could resume his life, think fondly of Ronnie, and know he made the right choice by sending her home. Right for the garrison. Right for Ronnie. Right for him.
He swallowed the last of his mouthful as pizza solidified in his gut. It was right for him too, wasn’t it? He glanced up at the screen. Sam and Dean didn’t need love. They were brothers. They had each other’s backs. They dedicated their lives to fighting monsters. They got laid when they needed the release but never expected it to go anywhere. Never wanted it to.
He took another swig of liquid mind-numbification.
Was he really hanging out with rats and comparing his life to a TV show? He tossed the boys his crust and clicked off the show. The sensation of wishing he had someone to talk to was wholly alien. He blamed Ronnie for that.
Man, that girl could talk a lot about nothing.
Honestly, at that moment, he’d give his left nut to hear her voice. Yeah, he would. He picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts. His thumb hovered over the button . . . hovered . . . hovered . . ..
He rolled his eyes and tossed the tech onto the bed. “Never drunk-dial an ex, boys. That’s just pansy-ass, Nancy-boy behavior. Remember that.”
Dean yawned and Danel agreed. It had been a long night.
After scooping them up and returning them to their cage, he eyed the gym bag inside the door. Seth had packed his vest and weapons for him, along with his clothes last night. Why bother? He wasn’t a warrior anymore.
He was broken because of the fight and now the fight didn’t want him because he was broken.
Blech . . . all this self-pity gave him hives.
He wasn’t the first soldier to find himself benched because of injury. The question was where to go from there. He should have asked good ol’ Howton if he needed someone for personal security. “I’ll guard your daughter’s body day and night, sir,” he slurred. “You don’t even have to pay me.”
He wondered if Ronnie had a bodyguard; if she needed one. Did the people who pressured Howton give up after two attack teams end up dead? Or did they still lurk in the shadows?
His beast growled a menacing warning and Danel didn’t even try to hold the reins. Ronnie was good. She was safe. She was home. She didn’t need—
His phone rang, and he did an amazing stagger stumble half-gainer onto the bed. Private Caller. “Ronnie?”
“Uh . . . no, sorry. It’s Austin.”
Danel rolled onto his stomach, his knees and feet flopping onto the floor. The slosh in his belly brought up a disgusting taste in his mouth. He swallowed and tried to focus.
“Hey, what’s doin’?”
“Ronnie called. When she took stock of herself this morning, she realized that she left her purse behind. She’s not sure if it was in the car or the apartment. Can you have a look, so I can send it back to her? It has all her IDs in it, and she’ll need it if she doesn’t get back right away.”
“Not a problem. I’ll walk down to the garage and check. And Austin?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad she found a friend in you. Ronnie is good people.” Danel hung up and watched the room spin. Postponing the errand until his alcohol stupidity wore off held merit, but he knew how women got when they lost their purse. He’d certainly helped enough mugging victims in the streets to know the drill.
Forcing himself vertical, he pulled on the jeans he’d discarded a few hours ago and waited until the slosh in his stomach leveled out. She’d had it in the car on the way to the apartment. He’d checked her license before allowing her to drive his car. Did she have it when they went inside?
Images of them groping in the elevator, and stumbling like horny suckerfish up the hall, left him granite hard but with no idea about the purse. He shoved his hand down the front of his jeans to adjust things. He hissed as he brushed his erection, the thing sitting up and begging for attention.
The need was staggering.
Skeevy as it was, with Ronnie’s scent on his skin and images of their apartment hours flashing like his own RedTube video, he was keyed up. Having perfect recall wasn’t always such an enviable skill.
Cursing himself, he let go and dropped the idea of manual manipulation. That’s all Zander needed to see on his security feeds. Talk about skeevy. Helloooo, my brother.
He shook his head and continued his sloppy shuffle toward the garage. Hours of liquid medicating thrummed in his blood. It picked up tempo in his head and he left the lights off. He could see well enough from the safety lights along the floor to make his way.
Opening the driver’s side door of his Mustang, he knelt on the seat and looked around for the handbag. Nothing. He opened the back. As a wave of drunken splendor hit, he flopped onto the back seat. The world swirled, and he closed his eyes.
Nope. Open was better.
He laid there, in the dark, bombarded by the captured scent of his human female. He groaned. Sure, he wanted her for his own, but that record wouldn’t play. She was weak, a safety risk, annnnd he was an indentured servant against evil incarnate.
That put a target squarely on her pretty forehead if he didn’t steer clear. Ronnie. He breathed deep and his eyes rolled back in his head. His hand returned to his pants, unbidden.
He needed to scratch the itch.
Except the itch was poison ivy and scratching made things worse. Too. Fucking. Bad. He punctuated each word with a brutal round of stroke and tug. His ass arched off the seat, his head kicked back, and his jaw strained.
He was panting. Straight-up panting.
Her skin was so fucking soft. He replayed the feel of running his tongue down the flat plane from her navel to her sex. The fragrant bloom of her arousal. The heat of her flesh . . .
Shit got real from there, his release exploding hot on his hand. Oxygen burned in his lungs as all thought was banished and he was left with raw sensation.
Ronnie was sunshine . . . chaos . . . strength . . . passion.
She was also . . . his.
He cursed. He lived for his duty. He believed in Otherworld secrecy to keep entire realms safely separated. Having a woman like Kyrian and Zander divided focus. He wanted no part of that. Especially not with a human. Veronica Hennington was weak and a weakness he had no interest in pursuing.
They both had enough troubles as it was.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Can I get ya anything else, Miss Veronica?” Aibileen asked. She entered the dining room with a silver clearing tray and set it on the buffet. Gathering the syrup and fruit bowl, she eyed Ronnie’s empty plate and smiled. “My, your appetite improved while you was away. How you been feelin’, sweet girl?”
Ronnie finished her juice and offered it up. “Fit as a fiddle. How about you? Has your hip been giving you trouble?”
Aibileen winked. “Only when I chase my granbabies more than I should. Worth it, though. Those youngins light me up till I’m fit to burst, I tell ya.”
“I bet they’re big. How old is Darius now?”
“Thirteen, come his birthday in May.”
Ro
nnie rose from her seat at the table and refilled her teacup before heading out. She waited while Aibileen hoisted up the tray of dishes and walked with her. “How has Daddy been? Is he taking care of himself?”
Aibileen shrugged. “Your daddy does what he does and doesn’t much care what people says about it. Always has. I expect, always will do.”
Ronnie sipped her tea and nodded. True story.
“Now, what time should I have the car out front for your appointment this afternoon?”
“One o’clock should be plenty early. Thanks, Aibileen.”
The doorbell chimed, and she patted the maid’s arm. “I’ll get that. I’m headed to the study anyway. Is Daddy expecting someone?”
Aibileen shook her head. “Not that I know of. But then, what do I know, right?”
Ronnie laughed and headed across the house. “Ha! You’d know if a mouse sneezed in the pool house.”
Striding her way through her childhood home, she admitted to herself that it was, indeed, good to be back. Her mother still lived in so many corners of that big ol’ plantation: the zinnias in the garden, the piano in the parlor, the pale aqua, Neiman Marcus dishes she loved so much.
She swallowed another sip of peppermint tea and set the beautiful little cup on the hallstand. Peering through the view window, she took in a familiar-looking, black man in uniform.
“Good morning, sheriff,” she said, swinging the door wide. “What brings you by?”
“Miss Veronica Hennington?”
Ronnie nodded. “What can I do for y—”
Strong hands grabbed her and shoved her back. Her slippers skidded on the marble mosaic and she stumbled. The sheriff pinned her against the wall while the door banged open and four men in black fatigues poured into the foyer. She had a strong suspicion that the first man wasn’t really a sheriff at all. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The strike of palm to cheek whipped her head around. She blinked as her eyes watered.
“You know why we’re here,” the fake sheriff said.
Did she? “My father’s political stance?”
The second slap to the face knocked her to the floor. The sheriff grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head up. “We found something of yours.”
Tears blurred her vision as she blinked up at another one of the men. She didn’t understand. Her purse?
She studied the men, their tattoos, the shaved heads. “You’re from Toronto. The ones who attacked me in the alley and came after us at Danel’s apartment.”
“Ding-ding-ding, give the lady her prize.”
“Kitten? Who was at the—”
“Daddy, no—” Ronnie’s warning came too late.
Grabbed and thrown to the foyer floor, her father glared at the home invaders. He pressed his fingers to the cut in his brow and then found her, held on her knees on the ground. “Get away from her. Do you know who I am? What I’ll do to you?”
“We don’t care about you.” Fake sheriff pressed the end of his gun to her father’s forehead.
Ronnie screamed, and the door flew open a second time.
It took a moment to connect what was happening to what she saw. Danel was there. In her house.
In a sequence of events that played out like a slow-motion movie before her eyes, Danel spun and grappled with the invaders. The knife he held cut through them like nothing. In the panicked beat of her heart, four opponents fell to the floor.
“Enough.” Fake sheriff hauled her to her feet. His arm wrapped around her waist like a steel cable, his other hand jabbed his gun against her chin. “You won’t plunge that dagger before she’s dead.”
Danel cursed, his gaze locked with the thug using Ronnie as a shield. “How many times do I need to kill you for attacking this woman, Duxel?”
“All you did was promote me to lead the Leviathan army.”
“You think you’re the Anti-Christ Superstar, but in my world, you’re just an undisciplined bully who needed to be put down.”
“You had no right to kill me, motherfucker. I was hired to do a mundane, human job. You made me look bad. This way . . . two birds, one stone. The girl is back to being leverage against her father, and you die. Win-win.”
Ronnie didn’t understand. She side-eyed the foyer mirror and studied the sheriff behind her. Was it the really the same man from the alley?
The man in uniform met her gaze and chuckled. “I can smell your little brain frying over this, human. How could be . . . it couldn’t. He was dead . . . wasn’t he? Yes, he was, thanks to your boyfriend over there.”
Danel’s stomach swirled in a tidal eddy of chaos but his hand and nerves remained rock steady. Duxel was right about the dagger but he’d bet he could draw his gun and fire before Ronnie got hurt. In theory. Except he didn’t trust his shot with his left and if he hit Ronnie . . . yeah, that wasn’t an option.
“Release her, Duxel, and back the fuck off. There’s no other way you leave here in one piece.”
“Actually, there’s no way you leave here, Persian.” Druxel whistled and another half-dozen Leviathans oozed in the front door. “As great a ruler as my father was, he never understood the power of a pack. Stryker had the right idea when he got Tanek. Divide and conquer—one Watcher douche at a time.”
Danel growled and took in the daemon force surrounding him. Five more. Their attention was focused on him . . . and Ronnie. No one seemed to care about Howton. He glanced at Ronnie’s father and eyed his weapons bag on the floor near him. The man seemed intuitive. Let’s see how quickly he could put two and two together under pressure.
Don’t just stand there, help them. The blonde ghost crouched beside Ronnie’s father. The transparent female was a runway knockout and he knew in an instant where Ronnie got her unruly hair and piercing blue eyes.
“Fine.” He shifted his weight and stretched his neck. “I’ll give myself up without bloodshed if we leave this place and these people in peace.”
Duxel laughed, relaxing his hold with the distraction. “Where in this scenario do you have power to barter, Watcher?”
Danel turned to the heavily armed peanut gallery. “Six against one . . . I won’t even break a sweat. Let them go into the next room and I’ll show you what I mean.”
“They’d miss the fun. Are you afraid they’ll find out what you are, Persian? He’s not human, you know? Neither am I.” Duxel laughed at Ronnie’s bewildered look and dragged his tongue up the side of her face.
Danel rooted his stance, fighting to retain control of his darkest impulses.
The bastard copped a feel of her breast and his beast went berserk. “Do you think I’ve got a chance with your girlfriend, Watcher? She smells delicious.”
Danel threw the dagger at the closest goon and lunged for Duxel. Flying through the air, the rapid pop, pop, pop of his 9-millimeter was a welcome sound. Two thuds followed, and the scent of daemon blood polluted the air.
Good man, Howton.
Danel cursed as a blade pierced the meaty muscle of his thigh. He fought with Duxel and grabbed his dagger out of the skull of the one he’d hit. A roll to the side let Ronnie struggle free. He brought his blade to the daemon’s throat.
“Go.” He tripped two incoming idiots and bagged one of them with a hard shit-kicker to the sac. “I’m right behind you.”
Howton scrambled down the hall and dragged his daughter behind him. They ducked into the room on the left and shut themselves in.
Danel knocked Duxel out cold and lunged to catch the two he’d slowed down in pursuit. He cursed as they evaded and burst into the room down the hall. Pulling the blade from his leg, he was relieved to see the silver of steel.
He limped into the parlor, dropped the attackers, and slit their throats. He shook his head at Howton grabbing his phone. “No. Police can’t help us.”
He tossed his duffle at them and headed back to the door. “Arm yourselves.”
He had to hand it to Ronnie, she didn’t hesitate. He shoved the dead into the hall, so he could c
lose them in, and locked the door with his will. Heading back, he made short work of the two squirmers Howton shot and looked around.
Where were Duxel and the last one?
Blood pumping, he bolted for the open door and the wraparound porch beyond. Nada. Nothing but a picturesque southern plantation.
Fucking motherfucker, where did they go?
Ronnie screamed.
Danel threw his molecules to the wind, gusted through the open window and materialized between the Henningtons and the last the Darkworld intruder. “You should’ve fucked off with Duxel when you had the chance. You’re done now.”
And he was.
One minute later, Danel dropped to one knee, panting for breath and dripping with the black ichor of his enemy. He steeled himself for the Quickening and the questions that would follow. Questions he knew he couldn’t answer.
Zander stoked the fire, tossed on another log, and poured the end of the bottle into his glass. Resuming his position on the rug of their private chambers, Austin covered his naked ass with the blanket and curled herself back into his side. These were the moments he lived for. Sharing a breakfast tray and a mimosa with his wife on a Sunday morning had become one of his favorite new traditions.
He did most of the drinking. She allowed herself a splash of champagne in her juice and he indulged for the both of them.
“So, you were saying?”
Austin chuckled, her breath warm against his throat as she circled his nipple with the soft, tip of her finger. “I was saying that we should move into the house in the next few weeks. I want to be settled before I grow too fat to get through the door.”
Zander rubbed his palm over the mound of their daughter growing within his beloved. He tried not to let his fears show, but she knew he was afraid of what would happen in the next few months.
Mothers of Nephilim died in childbirth. Always.
They had no idea what the outcome of a Nephilim’s child being born might be. He would never have risked it, given the choice. His touch inched up each rib to cup the swollen mounds of her breasts. She’d never been lacking up top, and now, the added volume made her even more voluptuous.
