“The future’s never set in stone,” Sage said. “Every supernatural in the world knows about Rosella and how her power works. She can see possibilities. She can’t know for sure which possible future will happen until it comes to pass.”
“Are you agreeing with Noah?” I couldn’t believe it. Until now, I thought Sage was on my side.
Apparently I was wrong.
“I’m not ‘agreeing’ with anyone,” she said. “I just thought you should know the facts before making a decision.”
I knew the facts. I was about to walk into a bar where a known demon was hanging out, waiting to do who knows what to who knows who. He was probably searching for his next victim to kidnap.
The thought of being close to a demon again made my stomach do all kinds of twists and turns.
But Noah and Sage had protected me last time. They’d protect me this time—and all other times to come in the future—as well.
“I need to do this, and I trust both of you to protect me,” I said, making sure I sounded as confident as possible. “I’m coming with you.”
“Only on one condition,” Noah said.
“And what’s that?” I raised an eyebrow, amused. Noah had apparently taken a page out of my book after the condition I’d given the Voodoo Queen and was now giving me one in return.
“You have to do everything Sage and I say,” he said. “That means if we tell you to stay in one spot and be quiet, you stay in that spot and be quiet. No more attempts at heroics like you did with the coyotes.”
“They weren’t just coyotes,” I reminded him. “One of them was a mountain lion dyad.”
“You’re avoiding the point,” he said. “You said you trust us. If that’s true, you need to listen to us and let us protect you. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
He studied me for a few seconds, looking like he didn’t believe me. “I’m not sure you do,” he said. “Promise you’ll listen to us this time. Say it out loud and convince me that you mean it.”
I sighed—I’d already agreed when I said that I got it. Did I really have to spell it out for him that I meant it?
According to the way he was watching me and waiting, yes, I did.
“Why do you even care so much?” I asked. “I would think it would be a relief for you if the weak human you’re stuck babysitting did something stupid and got killed. Then you wouldn’t have to be held back by me anymore.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, as if just the thought of that happening pained him. But his eyes hardened a second later, once more looking like he didn’t care at all. “No one’s getting killed under my watch,” he said. “Except for the demons. So you either make the promise, or you’re going back to the hotel. Your call. Just decide quickly, because we don’t have all night.”
“I promise I’ll listen to you this time,” I said, holding his gaze so he knew I meant it. “And that I won’t do anything that might stop you and Sage from being able to protect me.”
“Good.” He nodded and reached for his weapons belt, like he was making sure his knife was still there. From the serious way he was watching me, I could tell he was satisfied with my promise. “Let’s go.”
With that, he turned around and led the way to the bar.
Raven
Despite Noah’s initial urge to lead the way, he eventually let Sage and I take control. Never being taught how to read made him pretty terrible at directions.
It didn’t take us long to find the bar—it was the busiest one on Bourbon Street. Even though the night had just begun, there was already a line out the door of people waiting to get in.
We waited in line, and I flashed my ID to the bouncer before being let inside. This was my first time going to a bar since turning twenty-one—the restaurant I’d gone to with my friends on my birthday didn’t count, since they let anyone in.
I certainly hadn’t expected that the first time I went to a 21+ bar would be in New Orleans with two wolf shifters on a mission to kill a demon.
My life had seriously taken a turn for the weird.
Inside the bar was packed with partiers, and the music was so loud that I could barely hear. I looked around, expecting a demon to jump out at us at any moment.
Would I even know when the demon was near? Eli had looked like a normal guy when I’d met him at the restaurant on the Pier.
Since the demons looked normal, how did Noah and Sage know where they were? I wanted to ask, but I stopped myself. Because I didn’t want to give us away. If the demon was nearby and overheard, then I’d destroy the mission before it had a chance to begin. So I kept my mouth shut.
It was probably something I should have asked beforehand, so I wasn’t wondering the moment we stepped into the bar where the demon was hanging out.
I felt stupid for not asking earlier. Then again, I’d learned so much in such a short period of time that I had a lot on my mind. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. All things considering, I thought I was doing a pretty good job handling everything that had been thrown at me recently.
Since Sage and Noah had elevated senses, I assumed they could smell the demons. Noah had said earlier that I smelled like a human, and he and Sage could smell that the shifter pack that had attacked us was coyotes. It didn’t seem far-fetched that they could smell demons, too.
Noah said something to me, but the music was so loud that I couldn’t hear him.
“What?” I asked, pressing the inside of my ear in the hopes that it would help me hear him better. It was a trick my friends had told me about when we’d started college.
Noah just reached for my wrist and guided me to the bar in the center of the room. Heat rushed through my veins the moment his skin touched mine, and I wasn’t aware of anything but where he was touching me. The energy I felt from his touch was unreal. Somehow, I managed to follow him to the bar without tripping over my own feet.
Once we were there, he found an empty seat and sat me down in it. “Wait here,” he said. “Sage and I will go check for our friend.”
I assumed by the way he was calling the demon a “friend” that he didn’t want to risk the demon possibly overhearing our conversation.
“You want me to sit here alone?” I gaped at him, sure my eyes looked like they were popping out of my head.
“You’re in the center of the bar, surrounded by people,” he said. “As long as you’re in plain sight, you’re safe. Think back to Santa Monica. Eli didn’t try anything until you were alone, right?”
“Right,” I said.
He’d waited until I went to the bathroom, and then he’d nabbed me in the empty hallway and pulled me out to the alley behind the restaurant.
“Exactly,” he said. “They have no interest in revealing themselves, and they’re not stupid. They bring the least attention to themselves as possible. As long as you stay right here, you’ll be safe. I’ll be checking the ground floor, and I won’t lose sight of you the entire time. Sage will go upstairs and check there.”
“And you want me to just… sit here?”
“Yep.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a wad of cash, and handed it to me. “Buy yourself a drink. Something non-alcoholic. We can’t have you getting drunk on the job.”
I glanced down at the money he’d handed over. It was all hundred dollar bills.
Did he have no concept of what this was worth?
“I don’t think any drinks at this place are that expensive.” I plucked one of the bills out, shoved it into my pocket, and handed the rest back to him.
“Keep it.” He shrugged, not taking it back.
I didn’t want to draw attention to the bunch of hundred dollar bills in my hand, so I folded them up and put them in my pocket with the others. “Thanks,” I said, suddenly feeling like a sitting target with this much cash on me at once.
“I’ll come back once I find our friend,” he said. “Until then, stay here.” He watched me, clearly waiting for me to confirm that I had no intentions of trying to pull o
ff any “heroics” again.
“I promise.” I held out my pinky in a pinky promise.
He looked at my hand like I’d gone nuts, making no move to link his finger with mine. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“It’s a pinky promise,” I said slowly. “The most serious of all promises?”
He stared at me blankly. Clearly he had no idea what I was talking about.
“Never mind.” I dropped my hand down to my side. “Go find our friend. I’ll be waiting right here.”
He nodded, studying me again as if making sure I was actually going to stay put. Then he walked away to find the demon.
As he walked away, he kept me in his line of vision—making me confident that he’d meant it when he said he’d keep me safe.
Raven
It seemed flashy to hand the bartender a hundred dollar bill at a dive bar like this, so I settled for a cup of tap water with a lime. The bartender didn’t look pleased that I’d ordered the one free item on the menu. But it wasn’t his place to tell me to move, so he placed the drink in front of me, gave me a dirty look that said, “you better buy something that costs money later,” and moved on to the next customer.
I was sipping my water, keeping an eye on Noah as he walked around the room, when a guy around my age squeezed into the spot next to me. I assumed he was there to grab a drink—lots of people were trying to grab drinks to bring back to where they were hanging out with their friends. So I scooted over to make room for him, not paying much attention to him.
“You’re at the hottest bar in New Orleans and you’re sitting by yourself drinking a water?” He looked right at me, clearly speaking to me.
I was taken aback—I hadn’t expected anyone to try talking to me. The guy was my typical “type.” He had brown, boy-band styled hair and was wearing a light plaid shirt. He looked nice enough. If it had been any other circumstance, I would have been happy to chat with him and see if we clicked.
Now I was just annoyed that he was blocking my view of Noah.
But he was waiting for me to answer, so I needed to say something—anything other than the truth.
“I’m just waiting for some friends,” I said the first thing that popped into my mind. After all, it wasn’t a lie. I was waiting for some friends.
I was waiting for them to locate a demon in the bar so we could kill him and pocket one of his teeth.
“How about a drink while you wait?” he asked. “A real drink.” His eyes flashed with amusement as he glanced at my water again.
There was nothing strange about his comment—it was perfectly normal for a guy to offer to buy a girl a drink at a bar—but something about him made the back of my neck tingle in warning.
“No, thanks.” I scanned the room, hoping Noah and Sage would hurry up and locate the demon.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I hear the margaritas here are fantastic.”
“I don’t drink.” I faced away from him, hoping he’d get the hint.
“Why not?” He reached for my arm. His fingers brushed against my skin, sending more warning shivers down my spine.
I pulled my arm away from his hand and glared at him. “I just don’t,” I said. “Aren’t your friends waiting for you?”
Hint: Leave me alone.
“Nope.” He smirked. “They all drank too much during the day. So I had two choices—stay in with a bunch of guys puking their guts out from too many Bloody Marys, or hit up the town by myself. Naturally, I chose choice number two.”
“Cool,” I said, even though I couldn’t care less. I wanted to get up and leave this guy at the bar. By staying here, I was giving him the impression that I didn’t mind how he kept pressing me to talk to him.
But getting up and going somewhere else would go against my promise to Noah.
While this guy was irritating, I could put up with him if that’s what it took to keep my promise that I’d stay where Noah had left me. I hadn’t realized that putting up with a pushy frat boy was part of the demon hunting job, but it was better than failing at the first assignment I’d been given. Of course, waiting around at the bar while Noah and Sage scoped out the area wasn’t much of an assignment, but I needed to start somewhere. Once I proved that I could do this, hopefully they’d start trusting me more.
“So,” he continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t interested in chatting with him. “What brings you to New Orleans if you don’t drink? If you didn’t notice, that’s kind of what this city’s all about.” He held his hands out, motioning to the stumbling, drunken crowd around us.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said. “But I’m really just here to wait for my friends.”
He frowned and studied me, his eyes feeling like they were boring into my soul.
That creepy feeling from before amplified by a thousand.
Suddenly, Noah was by my side, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close to him. My breath caught—the warm, electric feeling I had whenever Noah touched me flooding my body.
Noah glared at the frat boy like he was a stray animal who’s wandered onto his territory. “Hands off my girl,” he said. His voice was calm—deadly and scary.
“Whoa there.” The frat boy chuckled and held his hands in the air, although he kept his creepy eyes on me. “You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” I tried to pull out of Noah’s grasp, but he held me tightly in place. I squirmed again, but Noah was strong—I wouldn’t be able to move until he wanted me to.
Annoying frat guy or not, this display wasn’t necessary. I was handling myself just fine. Didn’t Noah have more important things to worry about—like locating the demon?
“Do you know this guy?” The frat guy looked back and forth between Noah and me in concern. I couldn’t blame him. Noah looked pretty intimidating in his all-black leather getup. And I had no doubt that I looked panicked.
Before I realized what was happening, Noah leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. My heart leaped, and every bone in my body felt like it was melting into his. I didn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t think—all I could do was kiss him back.
A warm, golden light surrounded us, and everything around us ceased to exist. As we kissed, so many emotions coursed through me—desire, happiness, need, and most importantly, the feeling that this was right. Strings connected our hearts so they were was beating in time with one another, and our lips moved perfectly in sync, as if we’d kissed each other millions of times before.
Kissing Noah felt like I was coming home.
I felt his soul in that kiss—his burning need to do what was right, and to fix everything he’d destroyed. I didn’t even know what that meant, but it was what I felt. No—it was what he felt. It was like his feelings and my feelings had merged into one. I could feel his undeniable need to protect me and keep me safe, no matter what the cost. If I didn’t know any better, I might have even felt love. I knew that was silly, since Noah and I didn’t love each other—we didn’t even like each other. But everything about the way we were holding each other and kissing each other said differently.
When he eventually broke the kiss, I gazed up at him, so many questions racing through my mind at once.
What on Earth had just happened? Why had he done that? How had he made me feel that way? I mean, Noah certainly wasn’t the first guy I’d ever kissed… but never once had I ever kissed someone and felt like it wasn’t just our lips touching, but our souls as well.
His arms remained around me, as if he never wanted to let me go. And from the dazed way he was staring back down at me, I knew that the intense connection I’d felt while we’d kissed had been mutual.
Before I could get myself together enough to speak, Noah ripped his gaze away from mine and turned back to the frat boy. “She’s my girlfriend,” he said, his voice huskier than before. “I think that was proof enough.” He didn’t wait for a response before pulling me off the chair and leading me away fr
om the bar. He clasped his hand in mine, not letting go the entire time.
But I knew that look I’d seen in his eyes.
It was the same look he’d given me whenever I asked a question he didn’t want to answer. He was closing himself off—shutting down emotionally.
I refused to let him do that. After a kiss like that, I deserved answers.
“What was that about?” I asked once we were on the opposite side of the room.
He pulled me closer and glanced around the room, his eyes darting around like he was ready to attack at any moment. Finally he refocused on me, although I could tell he was still ready to strike. “I was saving your life,” he said, gripping my hand tighter as he spoke.
“From what?” I asked, since his response didn’t make any sense. “A frat boy who was trying to buy me a drink?”
“That guy wasn’t a frat boy.” He laughed, although I could tell he thought it was anything but funny. “He was the demon.”
Raven
“What?” I balked. “No way. That guy couldn’t have been…” I was about to say that he couldn’t have been the demon. But I paused mid-sentence, knowing I was wrong.
Because Eli had been a demon. And when I’d met Eli at the restaurant at the Santa Monica Pier, he’d looked like a typical surfer-dude tourist. Nothing about him looked outwardly demonic.
“He was.” Noah nodded and lowered his lips to my ear, speaking lower so only I could hear. “You can’t see past his glamour. I can. Trust me—he’s the target.”
I blinked a few times, taking it in.
The knowledge that I’d been so close to the demon—that the demon had touched me—erased all the gooey, melty-ness I’d felt from Noah’s kiss.
Well, it didn’t erase the after effects of his kiss completely. But it certainly dampened it.
The Angel Hunt (Dark World: The Angel Trials Book 2) Page 5
