Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series

by Holley Trent

  His mama had caught him baring his teeth at this one sommelier who’d turned his pointy Learjet of a nose up at Calvin because he hadn’t liked the brand of beer he’d ordered.

  Mama had kicked Calvin’s shin under the table and hissed, “Keep it up, and the county’s going to come for you with an ambulance and straitjacket. Take a mate! You’re going to choke to death on your own testosterone.”

  He’d growled at her, and she opened her menu, pushed up her reading glasses, and said in a little singsong voice, “Can’t wait to say I told you so.”

  Well, he didn’t want to find a mate. Mates meant little wolfie babies, and to Hell with that. He’d never condemn another generation to this curse. Sometimes? Being a wolf sucked hard, especially when he was supposed to be the alpha.

  Really, he’d been left with few options. Since he didn’t want to court a bitch, and as he was forbidden to share that part of himself with a human, he’d had no choice but to quit baseball and hole up until the season of mate imprinting lapsed.

  The way he figured it, he only had twenty or so years left in solitary confinement. It would be a piece of cake.

  That line of thinking had him wondering. Did her boyfriend know she was interviewing with The Wolff? Last thing Calvin needed was some knuckle-dragging three-tooth yokel to come out to his woodland sanctuary and …

  … well, ask him for an autograph, probably. He was Calvin Fucking Wolff.

  “So, got hot plans for Valentine’s Day?”

  He watched her count one, two, then three teaspoons of sugar into her coffee before she looked at him and asked, “Is that today?”

  “All day long, honey.” He pulled the door open and grabbed the creamer. “Lady like you doesn’t have a valentine? I don’t believe it.”

  He was glad she didn’t. Probably wasn’t a man out there that deserved her.

  “I’ve never had one. Where I come from, they don’t really do commercial holidays, so this is all new to me.” She accepted the creamer with both hands, and her fingers skimmed his on the pass-off.

  Soft hands.

  He imagined them pressed against his chest, and her on his lap with that skirt hiked up …

  He shuddered.

  “Are you cold, too?” she asked, and cocked her head to the side in that charming way again.

  He’d never paid much attention to women’s little tics and habits before now, but then he’d never really had to. Usually, the ones he met talked a damn blue streak and he could barely get a word in. With this one here, though, he felt like he was struggling to glean whatever he could about her. He didn’t usually work so hard. Didn’t want to work so hard.

  “No, not at all,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you cold?” Shit, of course she was cold. She’d been out in the rain without a coat. “Here, wear this. I’ll turn the heat up.” He took off his flannel overshirt and draped it over her shoulders before taking brisk steps to the thermostat. When he returned to the kitchen, she had her hands wrapped around the mug and was staring at his paper-strewn counters.

  “How do you find anything in here? How do you cook?”

  “Easy.” He eased into the chair beside her and counted off on his fingers. “I don’t look, and I don’t cook.”

  “That’s why you called the agency?”

  “Yep. As of right now, the Schwan’s delivery guy keeps me fed, and I’d rather buy more clothes than do laundry.”

  Her eyes went round.

  Yep. He was that rich. Good-looking baseball players got endorsement deals. Simple truth. Well, his mama said he was good-looking, anyway. She might have been a lick biased.

  Pretty boy or not, though, he was smart enough to know he wouldn’t stay rich if he kept living the way he did. His accountant had run the numbers. It would be cheaper to hire live-in help than to outsource everything. He’d expected the agency to send him a Mr. Belvedere or a Mrs. Garrett—some no-nonsense professional who wouldn’t agitate his dingbat of a wolf.

  “Listen, I need to get organized. I don’t want to hear that fuckin’ yap-yap-yap from my accountant again this year. He doesn’t like it when I claim big deductions and don’t have the receipts to back ‘em up.”

  “What else do you need help with?”

  “Well, Julia, you tell me what you can do, and I’ll tell you if it needs to be done.”

  She started itemizing things like “baking” and “gardening,” but really, he tuned out and just watched her lips move.

  What he was really thinking was, Screw the interview, the only thing I want you to do is me.

  She was ringing every one of his bells and pushing each of his buttons, and she hadn’t even had to flash a tit to do it.

  He raked a hand through his uncombed hair and watched her stir yet another spoonful of sugar into her mug. She was taking her coffee the wrong way, and he thought that was the cutest thing he’d seen since the baby elephants at the zoo in Asheboro. His wolf wanted to curl around her and keep her safe from the world, and that was a problem.

  His wolf had never asked—hey, how ‘bout that one?—before, and Calvin suspected even if he’d told the furry dingbat no, the wolf wouldn’t take that for an answer.

  He blew out a breath. “Hey. Need to make a phone call. Be right back.” He backed toward the office, keeping his gaze locked on her.

  She poured a little more creamer into her mug and looked up to nod at him. She looked good in his shirt … in his house.

  He turned on his heel and tamped down the growl rumbling in his chest.

  “Chill out, asshole,” he muttered under his breath, and he didn’t know if he was talking to the wolf sharing his psyche or himself.

  Chapter Three

  Julia was studying the backside of the dishwasher detergent bottle when Calvin’s prickling energy made the hairs of her neck stand on end. The same thing happened whenever one of her brothers was nearby and she hadn’t heard their approach.

  Odd.

  She rubbed her exposed skin and turned to meet his narrowed stare. She didn’t know the man as far as she could throw him, but already, she could tell that wasn’t a good look. She fixed her face into a grin and held up the detergent. “Where I come from, dishwashers are twelve-year-old girls, and not machines.”

  “And where did you come from, exactly?” He leaned against the counter a few feet from her and crossed his arms over that broad chest.

  His biceps bulged impressively when posed like that. They didn’t make ‘em like that where she came from, with the exception of John, but John obviously had help from an outside gene pool. She was starting to like the outside world.

  Calvin’s long fingers drummed against the sides of his arms and she watched them, entranced. Big hands.

  She’d started to become a bit woozy from the blood rushing to her head when he cleared his throat.

  She drew in a breath and uncapped the detergent. “Um, an unincorporated community near Kofa, Arizona.”

  “Good to know, but that wasn’t what I was asking. How did you end up here at my house? Called the agency to find out how much having you on the payroll would set me back, and they said they didn’t send you.”

  Drat.

  She didn’t dare look at him. She just squirted the dish goop into the little square receptacle and then screwed on the cap.

  “Want to guess what they told me, Miss Liar Ingalls Wilder?”

  She cringed, stabbed the button that said Power Wash, and pushed the dishwasher door shut. “I don’t need to guess.”

  “I bet. So, what’s with the scheming? You trying to set me up for the okie-doke?”

  “What in blue blazes does that even mean?” She nudged the under-sink cabinet door closed with her knee, and gathered up all the righteous indignation she could muster. She crossed her own arms over her chest and stuck her chin out. “I never explicitly said I was from the agency. That was your assumption.”

  “And you didn’t disabuse me of the notion. That’s what my lawyer calls lying by omission
.”

  “Don’t you dare call me a liar! I may be a lot of things, but that’ll never be one of them.” She hated herself for letting her voice approach that stratospheric pitch, but her integrity was one of the few things she owned outright. What kind of succubus would she make if she couldn’t even tell a decent lie?

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad.” He scoffed. “Or is it bloomers? What do you have under that skirt, honey? I bet you’re wearing see-through mesh with bows at the sides.” He cocked his head to the side, and his grin went feral. “Or maybe a thong printed with little cartoon cacti.”

  “You’ll never find out.” She turned her back to him, huffing, and picked up the dishrag. Sticky countertops. Dirty floors. How hard was it to clean up after himself? Was he raised by wolves or something? With that attitude, maybe he was.

  “Pity. You know, if you just wanted an autograph, I could have given you that on the porch. You got me to open the door. So, congratulations.”

  She tossed the rag in the sink and glowered at him. “Autograph? What would I do with your name on a piece of paper? Certainly, not even a … a … “

  What had Charles called Claude a day ago when he’d eaten the last of the jerky?

  She closed her eyes and searched her mental file cabinet for the word.

  She snapped her fingers when she remembered it. “A douche!”

  Calvin raised an eyebrow.

  She pointed at him. “Not even a douche like you would be so pompous to think such a thing has value.”

  He dropped his chin to his chest and stared at her through narrowed eyes, but his shoulders shook with laughter. “Are you kidding me? This some kind of candid camera program where you come in to get me all riled up and show the folks at home what a douche I am in private?” He scanned the corners of the room, ostensibly for the nonexistent camera.

  “There are no cameras in here.”

  “Oh, there are a couple, but that’s neither here nor there. If you don’t want an autograph, and you’re not from the media, then what do you want? Child support? I’m usually pretty careful, but there may have been a time or two when I was twenty-two and too drunk to remember the morning after.”

  Now her jaw dropped. “We’ve never made love.”

  “Made love, she says. La-di-dah.” He made a twirling motion with one hand. “How ‘bout sex? Have we had any of that?”

  Her hands balled into tight fists on her lap, and she ground her teeth, counting away her anger. She wasn’t going to let this man enrage her. There must have been something redeemable about him besides his looks, or else he wouldn’t have come onto Charles’s radar screen as appropriate for her.

  Maybe he’d made a mistake this time. Maybe Calvin was someone else’s—someone with a high tolerance of inflated senses of self-importance.

  “We haven’t made love. We haven’t had sex. We haven’t screwed. We don’t have a shared offspring, if that’s what you’re getting at. And I don’t want your money!”

  For that matter, she wasn’t sure she wanted him. Her brain was waving little mental warning flags, though her heart didn’t seem particularly put off by The Douche.

  As if she could trust her heart. Hearts got people in trouble all the time. Maybe the cult leader Martin Davis was right about that.

  “Then pardon my candor, honey, but what do you want?”

  She opened her mouth and he wagged his index finger.

  “Nuh-uh-uh. Give it to me honest. Who are you, and what do you want from me?”

  An indelicate sound, that had never escaped her body before, rattled her chest. A growl. She was so frustrated she could throw something. Fortunately, there was nothing handy that would fly right besides that sticky dishrag. Not that her aim was any good. Suspected tomboys back at the compound got put in the queue for reprogramming.

  “You want honest?” she asked through clenched teeth, and she met his hard stare. She wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t going to let this man bowl her over and kill what was left of her spirit. Screw what Claude had said about not scaring the guy off until after the wards were in place.

  She’d had it. She didn’t have to stay anywhere where she wasn’t wanted, and where she wouldn’t be treasured. She would hold out until someone wanted her and would treasure her even if it meant she had to run from demons and angels alike because they didn’t know which side she was on.

  She was both, but neither: a human with some annoying supernatural contributions.

  “I’ll give you the honest truth,” she said. She strode to the living door and didn’t speak again until she was staring at the woods through the glass door. She couldn’t see the driveway from where she stood, and certainly not the road, but she’d hoped her brothers were still down there just in case she needed a ride out of Appalachia. It was a long walk back to civilization, and she was underdressed for it. She hadn’t needed a down coat back in Arizona.

  “I was raised in a cult in the Arizona desert. I recently left it when I was assigned to be some old man’s wife. My mother is borderline insane and the descendent of a nephilim. My father—my real father—is a fallen angel named Gulielmus who’s now a powerful incubus. There are lots of people like me. Cambions. Demon spawn. I’m meant to be a succubus, but I don’t want that, so not only am I running from my human stepfather who has to report to his cult leader, but also my demon father, who apparently reports to Satan. My half-brothers brought me here because demons are blind to this spot, and my brother Charles swears you’re supposed to be my match.”

  Calvin said nothing. Just stared at her, unblinking, for several long moments.

  “For the record, I think he’s wrong.”

  • • •

  Do what, now?

  Calvin was pretty sure she said demon spawn, but maybe he’d heard her wrong. “Demon spawn” was what the Arizona Desert Devil baseball team’s fans called themselves. Maybe his dingbat wolf, who was pressing at all Calvin’s psychic seams for want of his attention, was distracting him so badly he couldn’t think straight. His wolf didn’t care if she was crazy. That was the human’s hang-up.

  Her expression was as blank as the white paint in the guest bedroom he hadn’t let his mama loose in yet.

  Julia was being serious, apparently. Well, demons didn’t exist, and neither did vampires, contrary to what the CW Network would have young girls believe.

  He swallowed and put his hands up, palms-out, in a calming gesture. “Lady, I think you might need help,” Calvin said finally. “Is there somebody you want me to call? Maybe the institution you walked out of without signing out? I doubt they’d let you go if they knew what kind of stuff you’re spewing. I knew my luck had to give out soon. Figured I’d be okay holed up like this, never seeing the public, but I guess The Fates are getting their goddamned chuckles by sending trouble right to my front door. Naturally, trouble would have to look like a fantasy come to life, huh?”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “King Arthur wouldn’t believe you, and you know what kind of company he kept.”

  She just looked at him blankly. Guess there wasn’t a lot of secular reading material at the cult. Then her face crumpled, her shoulders slumped and her face kind of crumpled. Damn it. She was even gorgeous when she was about to cry. Calvin felt his resolve slipping. Julia sniffed wetly, but set her shoulders and raised her chin. “Okay. Fine.” She reached for her bag, and took several tentative steps back to the door.

  “Wait!” Damn it.

  She paused.

  This was crazy. This was certifiably nuts. But there was something about this girl. Before he knew it, the words were tumbling past his lips.

  “You’re hired.”

  Something was seriously wrong with him.

  Chapter Four

  Julia worried the collar of her borrowed flannel overshirt and stared at the computer screen.

  Two weeks, and they kept coming back around to this. The first time Calvin had tried to introduce her to the device, she’d accid
entally uninstalled his security camera software. The second time, she’d tried to use a web browser and had put in some benign search phrase, only to end up in an endless loop of pornographic pop-ups.

  Mortified, she’d called out to Calvin for help, and he’d come in, leaned onto the back of the chair, and muttered, “Lord have mercy, she’s flexible, isn’t she?” He’d laughed, and after getting rid of all the windows, he’d teased, “Doing research?”

  Her face had burned so hot, her ears popped.

  Here she was again, tasked with answering Calvin’s fan mail, and she couldn’t even remember how to access the messages.

  The computer she’d used once or twice back at the compound was a big plastic thing that took up half a desk, and it only had two functions. One was for the bookkeepers to track supplies and family allotments in the clunky spreadsheet program. The other was to screen brainwashing videos to the occasional wayward devotee.

  Julia had been one of those wayward devotees once. Technically, she’d been caught with her skirt hiked up and her legs wrapped around the thighs of the milk delivery driver.

  She’d been twenty then, and still dependent on the leader’s largesse to make her a match. Even if he had found someone for her then, no doubt it would’ve been someone old and gross and she would have just run off sooner, with or without her brothers’ help. The milkman, Loren, had been practically a cliché—tall, dark and handsome—and he’d been flirting with her for months. He was so patient. Sweet, even.

  He’d stirred things in her she’d always been taught not to stoke. He was young, worldly, vital, and he’d looked at her out of all the others. Naturally, she’d been flattered. Young men at the compound usually were sent away like John had been when they became a threat to the middle-aged set. Julia had tried to avoid Loren at first, but how long was she supposed to accept not being looked at that way—not being touched when she wanted it? By whomever she wanted to be doing the touching? What the hell did people expect? Seemed like a basic human need to her, but the cult had preached that she should err on the side of caution and covet nothing. Well, sometimes the line between needs and wants blurred.