by Lane, Jessie
Of course, it didn’t matter how gorgeous the human looked, he wouldn’t be getting into her panties. Hell, no one had gotten into her panties yet, first because her family shadowed her every move and then later because she was afraid of doing something stupid in the heat of the moment. Like accidentally breaking a human while she was trying to get her groove on. That would be a tad awkward. So in reality, she could admire the pretty packaging but she couldn’t un-wrap it. Jenna was half tempted to call up the Guinness Book of Records and ask if she was the oldest living virgin yet.
“Let’s start out with basics Kent. My name’s not Annie, its Jenna. Or if you’d prefer, you can continue to call me O’Conner when we’re off duty. What’s your first name?”
Kent leaned closer to me as I sipped from my beer. “Can’t tell you that, Jenna. You’ll just have to keep calling me Kent.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both, but I have to admit that I like the way your lips smile when you say my last name. It makes me picture the other things your lips could do. I think I’m becoming kind of partial to it.”
Jenna smiled around the opening of her beer and then took another sip. “Why Kent, you disgusting hound dog, I do believe you’re hitting on me.” Rock music started to blare from the jukebox and we watched as some of the guys from our team were dragged on the dance floor by the scantily clad girls at the bar. Now with a small pleasant buzz in her head, she clunked her beer down on the table.
The obnoxious chimes of a cell phone went off and she watched out of the corner of her eye as Kent took his phone out of his front pocket and looked at the caller ID. Looking up at her, and then eyeing her empty bottle, Kent leaned over and whispered in her ear. His hot breath tickled the edges of her earlobe and the hair surrounding it. “Wait right here, I’ll get you another drink.” Flashing Jenna a smoldering smile that displayed his perfect white teeth, Kent headed towards the bar as he answered his phone. Turning her attention back to the dance floor, she stood there waiting for her next beer while watching and laughing at the guys who could shoot a weapon with deadly accuracy but couldn’t swing their hips in time to the music to save their life. Adorable, but pathetic. Really pathetic.
As Jenna stood subtly swinging her hips to the music, she caught the whiff of Kent’s scent getting stronger as he walked up behind her and boldly pressed his chest into her back. He set down the beers on either side of Jenna’s hands, resting them on the table in front of her before grabbing her hips with his hands so that he could press her body back into him further. Dropping her head back to rest on his shoulder, her body heated instantly to his touch, and her muddled brain was trying frantically to remember why this was a very bad idea. Especially as she felt the hard length of him growing and pressing into the cheeks of her backside. An image of the red haired Alpha quickly floated through her mind. With a sudden shot of cold clarity, Jenna stepped away from him and grabbed her beer bottle.
Shooting her eyes around the room, she assessed that none of their teammates saw the incident while also spying a pool table in the back room. Turning around to face a pouting Kent she gestured her head towards the back. “Do you play pool?”
His mouth broke into another smoldering smile. “Hell yeah. Let me show you how it’s done, darlin’.” Grabbing her free hand with his, he dragged her back to the pool tables. By the time eleven o’ clock rolled around Kent and Jenna had played several games and were currently tied. Some of their teammates had drifted back to join them at the other empty tables while steadily placing a growing bet on who would beat who in their little tournament. Now close to the end of what would be their tiebreaker game, Jenna only had two striped balls left on the table while Kent had five solid ones. As she chugged her tenth - or was it twelfth, it started with a ‘t’ she was sure- beer, Kent sat halfway on a barstool in front of her.
“How about a bet of our own, gorgeous?”
Cocking an eyebrow, she grinned. “Depends on the wager. What do you want to play for? Fifty? Hundred bucks to the winner?”
Kent smiled like a cat looking at a cornered mouse. “Actually, I wasn’t thinking about money. I was thinking about a kiss.”
Surprise flashed over her face. “A kiss? I think I’d rather the hundred bucks there buddy boy.”
“Agreed then. If you win, you get a hundred bucks. If I win, I get a kiss.”
Holding her empty beer bottle for a minute, Jenna looked at the table debating the odds. There was a damn fair chance she was going to whip his ass at pool anyways. Why not sucker him for the hundred bucks to teach him a lesson? Glancing back at Kent with a confident smile she told him, “Deal.” Walking to the side of the table Jenna leaned over and lined her shot up for the corner pocket. This was going to be the easiest hundred dollars she’d ever made. Too bad Kent’s pride was going to take a hit in the process. Seconds later a chorus of cheers erupted around them as she sank the red stripped ball in the pocket.
Walking to the opposite end of the table so that she now faced Kent on the far side where he still sat on his stool, Jenna lined up a long shot to take the blue stripped ball into the far pocket. Just as her pool stick hit the cue ball though, Jenna felt an electric tingle race up her back. Following the direction of the sensation her widened eyes lifted and looked at Kent’s own startled eyes. She watched in her peripheral vision as the blue stripped ball went wildly off the mark and missed the pocket. Kent’s pupils were so dilated the black almost encompassed his entire cobalt blue iris.
Oh shit.
Her Mama had taught her that feeling a wave of electric sensation through the body, and a person’s pupils expanding like that, only meant one thing. Kent was a demon. And he had just used some kind of telekinetic power to sabotage her shot. Cheating little bastard.
Her heart nearly exploded out of her chest. How unlucky could one girl get? A shifter and a demon in one freaking day? This was some truly scary shit! Hastily setting the pool stick down, she sprinted for the front of the bar leaving a startled group of co-workers calling after her. What was worse, she had to pull her speed back so that she ran at what would be considered a fast human speed instead of the preternatural one that she could easily let rip. She had to get the hell out of here as fast as possible. Bursting through the front door of the bar, Jenna rounded the corner and started sprinting to her bike in the dimly lit parking lot. One second blessed retreat was seconds away and the next Kent stood in front of her bike, blocking the way for Jenna to get to it. He’d moved at a speed that even her eyes couldn’t track.
With both of his hands in the air, in an ‘I-mean-you-no-harm’ manner, she quickly slammed her heels into the dirt to skid to a stop just a few feet in front of him. Kent looked as shocked as she felt. By his body language, there were no signs that he actually meant her any harm but that did little to reassure her. “Jenna, it’s okay. I’m not sure what you know, or what you think you know, but I swear that I’m an upstanding guy and you have nothing to fear from me, darlin’.”
“Good. Then get out of my way, Kent, and let me leave.”
The electric tingle traveled up her spine again as she simultaneously felt an invisible nudge at the front part of her forehead. This jerk face was trying to poke around in her brain! “Stay out of me head, asshole!” She snarled. “You’re not welcome there.”
Jenna continued to watch Kent’s startled face before she caught a semi familiar scent on the wind, along with the slight sounds of movement at her back. Turning her body slightly to the left, she back flipped so that she was now a few feet further away facing Kent and her new unwelcome party crasher. Standing in a defensive crouch, Jenna’s eyes raked over the red headed Alpha bounty hunter from earlier today. Pompous little jerk thought he could sneak up on her. Jenna’s body started to tremble slightly with rage and she realized that she was literally just seconds from losing it out here in the middle of a public parking lot. Seconds from blowing her secrets to hell in a hand basket. Wouldn’t that just please her mother to pieces?
The Alpha stood there coolly with an expressionless face, arms crossed over his massive chest. Shaggy hair blew in the wind as his eyes one again tried to express assertiveness to her. Keeping Kent in her peripheral, she started to assess what her chances were of ripping out of there on her own two feet and not getting caught.
“Jesus, Jenna! Calm down already! You had to pop up on her like that, Adam?”
So the Alpha’s name was Adam? Well, Jenna’s mind was already thinking of the million ways she could tell the unwelcome, but undeniably hot, Adam to go pound sand up Kent’s ass and then his own. Who cared if it wasn’t anatomically possible? Adam’s eyes never moved from her own, even as Kent yelled at both of them. He was still trying to prove that he was the big bad dominant shifter whom she should drop to her knees, beg for mercy, and offer her throat to in submission. She hoped he wasn’t holding his breath for that to happen. Instead, Jenna bared her teeth to him in a silent growl. Her Mama had not raised her to bow to anyone and she‘d be damned if she started with him. Seemingly intrigued by her response, Adam finally spoke with a deep baritone voice that was graveled and sounded just shy of him growling.
“Yeah Jenna, calm down and while you’re at it why don’t you tell us what you are exactly?” He stood there silently gauging her reaction. “I know you’re not a vampire because you were walking around in broad daylight earlier today. Your scent hints that you’re some kind of shifter but that doesn’t quite make sense either because you apparently felt Kent here trying to skim your thoughts. So would you like to enlighten us? I have to admit I’m extremely curious.” His molten amber eyes twinkled with a challenge like this was some well played game he was enjoying.
Jenna had to wonder if he would think it was a game if she slammed his head into the metal light post just a few yards away, then kicked him in the nuts while he was down and out.
This was bad. Very, very bad. To be caught between two men who weren’t human was a nightmare scenario. Especially since they were two different species of Others. One a demon and one a shifter. It would have actually been much better for Jenna if it had been two shifters or two demons instead of this combination. The reason for that deduction was simple. If it had been two shifters then all she would have to be on guard for were physical attacks. Such as a shifter’s abnormal strength and speed, or them changing into their animals. If she had been caught between two demons it would have been the opposite. Instead of furry bodies or extraordinary strength, she would have been on the lookout for what their mental abilities were capable of.
Demons weren’t exactly what humans thought they were. When someone said ‘demon’ frightened little humans thought about the twisted, maniacal things mentioned in holy texts or glamorized in Hollywood movies. Well that was only a fraction of the truth. The beings that escaped from Hell were literal monsters that scared the bejesus out of just about anything. However, they couldn’t survive on the surface. Best they got was a twenty four to seventy two hour vacation of biblically evil proportions before they started to disintegrate. You could say there was something in their genetic makeup that could not withstand the Earth’s surface. No one knew what it was that caused them to deteriorate away, and frankly no one with a sane mind wanted to know. Everyone who wanted to keep living was better off if they had to go back to Hell, for obvious reasons.
But that isn’t to say that they didn’t get away with some scary shit while they were top side. They’re evil beings to the bottom of their shriveled up black little hearts, so you could guess what they did while they were out. They went on killing sprees. They caused mass riots, sowed the seeds for mayhem, started outbreaks of disease, and chortled gleefully over senseless destruction. Then there were the ones who violated the humans. This wasn’t a thing to worry about if you were a shifter or a vampire, because frankly they could hold their own. They had enough claws, fangs, speed and strength to protect them. But puny little humans, especially the women, not so much.
On rare occasions these rapes resulted in pregnancies. If the fetus survived to birth then the result was something altogether unexpected. The fetus had now gone through a significant evolutional change. What you had now was a child who looked perfectly human but was something much more. They didn’t gain any physical traits from their demonic daddies, just genetic ones. In fact, demonic DNA was like a virus. From the moment an embryo formed the demon’s DNA started to take over. Evolution was smart enough to leave one thing unchanged though. The body.
In essence, what you had was a demon in a perfectly formed human body. So they walked like humans, talked like humans, ate like humans, and all their organs and bodily functions were human. They even had souls like humans. The chance to be unlike their paternal contributors and live blameless lives filled with the good things. So not all demons inherited the urges for causing death and despair that their paternal units lived for, but those genetics passed on one supremely notable thing. Their mental capabilities were off the charts. Every demon was different with varying ranges on abilities or strength in those abilities; however all of their talents lay in the brain.
Like telekinesis that could range from the ability to make a spoon levitate a few inches to levitating a car a foot off the ground. Or in a demon with high abilities, they could lift your house right off its foundation.
Jenna knew one of those demons.
And that’s just talking telekinesis. That’s not talking telepathy, pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, levitation, teleportation or whatever the hell else they were able to do with their super brains. But back to her point, Kent was a demon. He might have just given himself away on having telekinesis but she didn’t know the kind of strength his ability came to. He moved the ball on the pool table but could he lift one of the cars in the parking lot?
So being between an Alpha shifter and a demon of unknown strength was beyond bad, bad news.
This was a fuck-up- of epic proportions on her part.
This was why her family had never, up until the time she’d moved to Wilmington, let her out of their sight.
Barely controlling the urge to claw his eyes out, she spit out through her clenched teeth, “None of your damn business! That’s what I am! I’m not bothering anyone and I just want to be left alone. So take my advice and do just that. Leave. Me. ALONE!”
The tremors in her body increased. The ends of her fingertips ached with the pressure of the claws underneath her skin threatening to release at any moment. Jenna’s beast was hovering at the surface begging to be free. Raking its claws on the insides of her skin, demanding to get out and defend itself.
Anyone who thought she was dangerous as a human wouldn’t know what hit them if they caught the animal raging within on a bad day. If she wasn’t careful, her canines would start to elongate and sharpen at any minute. Glancing back and forth between Kent and the douche bag named Adam, Jenna knew she’d never get to her bike. Her only chance was to turn around, run as fast as she could till she was out of sight, and then let her beast loose to race to freedom. She just needed one teeny tiny distraction to get their attention off of her for a few seconds while she made a break for it.
Looking back and forth between the two men she cast her eyes around the parking lot looking for her fix-it-all shot. The problem was she didn’t see much in the way that could help. She couldn’t just lift a car. That was way too much information for them to have on her. Not to mention risking that a passerby would see the event and do something stupid. Like stop and take pictures, then spread the pictures in the internet. There was nothing close enough to drop on them. Hell this parking lot was devoid of essentially everything but vehicles from the street to its entrance. There wasn’t even any trash lying around! Shifting her right foot back in her crouch, she heard the faint sounds of dirt grating and crunching beneath her boot soles. That was it! Locking her mind onto the dirt particles surrounding both of the men, she shoved her own slight telekinetic psychic powers out from her hands so that a dense dust cloud puffed up around them from
their feet to their faces.
Spinning on her heel, she rushed off in the opposite direction to freedom. Letting speed jolt through her body, she flung herself as fast as she could get her legs to move down the street. Kent’s shouts behind her, along with the Alpha’s snarls traveling closer in her direction, forced Jenna to pump her legs faster. When she was safely in the dark between residential houses and out of sight she shifted as she threw herself over the fence into the neighboring back yard and let her beast take over. Landing on four paws, instead of her human two, she shook off the tatters of clothing and pushed herself quickly through the residential yards as fast as her agile legs would take her. The powerful light of the moon caressed the fur on her back as she raced for her life. Letting her instincts take over, Jenna moved through silent streets towards the new house she was renting across town with no sounds of pursuit coming from behind her. Avoiding traffic wasn’t all that hard since it was so late at night, but it did slow down some of her progress as she did her best to stick to shadows while heading towards home at the edge of the city
Jenna’s beast was growling at the knowledge that they had almost been caught. Angrier still that she planned to shift back as soon as they reached the house so that she could throw some new clothes on and hop in her truck to head home to her Mama’s. Her beast wanted to run free to hunt. Taste fresh blood in her mouth, as she devoured a meal of rabbit or squirrel.
Well her furry little ass could just get over it. They had bigger problems to solve.
