by Misty Evans
Rad buried his mouth against my neck and suddenly stopped our hurried coupling, hips pressing mine tight against the stones. Both of us were heaving air, our chests surging and falling against each other. I tried to buck him to get him moving again, but he refused to relinquish his position, licking my collarbone while he pulsed inside me, tensing and releasing, tensing and releasing.
He stroked a thumb between my folds and the nerve endings there swelled and heaved. I begged for release, but he continued to tease me until I was nearly crying. Then he took one more hard drive into me and everything in my body maxed out, peaking in a rush and shattering into a thousand pieces.
Once I came down from the high, him still pinning me against the wall, he began slow, deliberate in and out strokes. My legs were too heavy to hold up and he propped his arms under my knees to keep me fully opened and at his disposal. Exquisitely sensitive, I nearly sobbed, but the feeling was a sweet pain. He was so hard, so perfect, I glanced down between our two bodies to see him. Stroke after stroke he went all the way in and drew all the way out until my pleasure built again.
I sensed the moment his climax began. Sensed how he became harder, tighter. Our eyes locked, past and present and future tied up in impossible knots, but truth evident in them. This was our pinnacle, not just physically, but emotionally as well. Our hearts, our lives were tangled and at odds, and there was nothing we could do to change that.
One final plunge and I hit the apex with him, both of us hanging onto the other for dear life. He throbbed and pulsed inside me, my tender flesh hugging him tight, and if I’d had a soul, I would have sold it to keep him right there forever.
Chapter Twenty-three
Rad put me to bed after that. Alone. I slept most of the day and woke at sunset to the delicious scent of pasta primavera teasing my nose. Mm mm. My favorite.
The best thing upon awakening wasn’t the tray of food next to the bed, however. I’d slept dream-free. No Rad, no silver dagger, no waking up screaming. It was the best sleep I’d had in centuries. I felt like a new demon.
Physically, anyway. My mind was still tortured by the past—recent as well as distant. Giving into my desire for Rad hadn’t been smart and the ghosts of my parents and sister hung on me, the old guilt of not being able to save them now mixed with the new guilt of knowing Rad had something to do with their deaths.
The church’s upper story windows were a mix of stained glass and clear. My bedroom boasted one of each. The stained-glass window showed a depiction of Christ’s temptation. As I shoveled down the pasta, I stared at it.
Jesus, alone and weary in the desert, struggling to find his footing in an unknown land. My world had been flipped upside down in the past week, and a part of me wished I could turn back time to the night I served Nudra his warning papers. I would do it all so differently.
Everyone learns from disaster, human and demon alike. When my family was murdered, I’d had to find new footing in this unknown land and resist giving into the temptation to take the easy way out. To turn loose of the vicious demon living inside me and harm anyone stupid enough to get in my path. Through the years, I’d discovered one undeniable fact about life…you either deal with it on your terms or it deals with you on its terms.
Personally, I prefer the former, and I suspect Jesus did too.
Knowing I’d hit my grief ceiling and there was no point in castigating myself further over the past or present, I finished eating in the twilight of my room. Then I washed my face, brushed my hair into a ponytail and put my usual work clothing ensemble on before heading downstairs.
Rad and Cole were watching a Bears game on the flat screen TV in my den, arguing over which player should be first-string quarterback. When I walked in, Rad dragged his attention away from the TV and whistled low under his breath. He looked like he wanted to eat me. “How was the pasta?”
The Chaos demon didn’t care whether I enjoyed his cooking. He was referring to what had happened earlier in the day. “Needed salt. Otherwise, it was…satisfying.”
“More salt.” He grinned. “I’ll remember that.”
A two-way radio sat on the coffee table along with the TV remote. “Why aren’t you watching the front door?” I asked Cole, picking up the radio.
I’d moved into his line of sight and he shifted and motioned me out of the way. “No need. JR’s got the new security system in place. He’s tweaking it now and keeping an eye on the video coming in.”
He and Rad both let go of a sudden yell of disgust as one of the Bears missed a pass. Cole continued as if nothing had happened and grabbed the radio out of my hands. “Damon sent the Merc demons you wanted. I positioned one on the roof and the other is on perimeter duty. I trained both of them, so I know they’re the best.”
“What about the firewall?”
“Yasmin’s working on it.” He used air quotes around working on it. Which meant she wasn’t working on anything other than being a bitch.
“JR’s a god among techies,” Rad said. “That security system is sick.”
They both clapped when the Bears completed a touchdown. A few hours ago, they’d wanted to kill each other. Now they were best friends, all because of a Sunday afternoon football game? Men. “Did either of you offer to help JR with all that work?”
Cole waved me off. “He wouldn’t let us.”
“He’s kind of…well…freaky,” Rad added.
I grabbed the remote and shut off the TV. They both protested loudly. “I happen to like freaky, especially when it saves my ass.” I tossed the remote on the coffee table. “Sorry to break up your bromance, but we’ve got work to do.”
JR was set up in my home office, madly typing away on a massive curved keyboard and watching a bank of six screens, each one divided into quarters which showed different sections of the church’s perimeter, parking lot and the cemetery.
He didn’t look up when we came in, but started talking to me as if I’d been standing there all along. Clicking keys, he rattled off specs and terms that meant nothing to me even though they sounded impressive. “Twenty-four vision bullet cameras, night vision and infrared, turbo view HD, vandal proof, 4G phone compatible, high compression resolution—”
“Why aren’t any of them positioned on the sky?” I asked.
JR stopped typing and looked at my chin. “What?”
“The sky.” I pointed at the screens, did my best bat imitation. Vampires didn’t actually turn into bats like folk tales suggested, but they had mad skills when it came to climbing trees and jumping tall buildings. “We’re looking for vamps and they often come by sky.”
“Oh.” He fiddled with a few keys. The evening sky suddenly filled all four quads of the screen labeled Number Five. “How’s that?”
On screen three, a dark shadow emerged near my car. At the same time, an alarm sounded from the computer’s speaker and Cole’s radio sputtered to life.
“Alpha one, this is Falcon,” a gravelly voice announced. “We have a perimeter breach on the south side. Permission to engage? Over.”
I squinted at the screen. The sun had gone down and the parking lot’s solar light didn’t give off enough illumination to show a lot of details. JR’s cameras enhanced what light there was. The person was small, almost childlike, and had a gangly, girlish walk as she approached the front of my car and looked up at the church. An odd sensation tugged at me, as if I knew her. Not like I knew her knew her, but my body recognized her. My blood recognized her.
Vampire.
“Don’t engage,” I told Cole. “Tell him to stand down.”
“One of your friends?” Rad asked.
He must not have felt the pull of her blood. That was good. “She’s just a kid. Not a friend, but not an enemy.”
The vampire girl hopped up on the hood of my car, hung her arms over her bent knees and continued to stare at the church. I narrowed my eyes. My car was not a couch. “Then again, looks like I have to kick her ass.”
Cole’s finger hovered over the ra
dio’s talk button. His voice was edged with impatience. “Engage or not, Kali?”
“Ask your mercs to scan the area and see if they see anyone else.”
Cole relayed the message and JR reset the computer’s alarm. Silence fell as we waited for a response.
“Negative,” Falcon, the roof-top merc responded.
“Negative,” Jack Rabbit, the on-the-ground merc dittoed.
“Everyone hold position.” I adjusted my cape, grabbed a stake out of one of the inside pockets. “I’m going out.”
Rad and Cole protested but I shut them down. Cole relayed my instructions to the mercs and I went out the front door, Rad on my heels like a trained dog. Jack Rabbit fell in with us, keeping his focus on the nearby street and trees, semi-automatic with a hundred rounds of holy water ready to fire.
The girl slid off my car, kneeled and bowed her head as I approached. I shot a look at Rad and he shrugged.
I stopped a few feet from her. Far enough away she couldn’t get the jump on me, close enough I could get the jump on her if necessary. I estimated she’d been turned at the ripe age of thirteen or fourteen, and didn’t that suck? Who would want to be pubescent forever?
I could smell grave dirt and old blood on her. The idea of staking a girl sickened me, but she was a vamp and the action might be called for. “Who are you and what do you want?”
She rose but kept her head down. “I’m Madison, and I’m here to help you.”
“With what?”
She met my gaze. Her eyes were bright with determination, but her cheeks were sunken and she looked like she three days past feeding time. “With becoming queen, of course.”
She was ballsy. And desperate. Never a good combination. “And how can you help me with that?”
“I can tell you who’s going to stop the coronation and how he’s going to do it.”
That piqued my interest, even though I already knew it was Toel. I wanted to hear more, but information always came with a price. “Why would you do that, Madison? What do you want in return?”
She smiled a girl’s smile, anticipation evident. “To be your assistant.”
When I didn’t immediately respond, her smile faltered. “You need me. You’re not really a vamp and a few of them are waaay pissed that the Prince is even considering letting you into the nest.”
She pointed a thumb at her chest. Her hand was shaking. “I know everything that goes on here in Chicago in the vamp world. That’s why they call me The Mouse. I get in lots of places undetected, and I see and hear everything.”
It was a good shtick. And she definitely needed to feed soon or she was going to drop. I wavered, part of me wanting to bring her inside, warm her up and order blood for her from Chloe.
In my line of work, being compassionate is wise. Wanting to save someone is not.
She was a vamp and it wasn’t my job to save her, like it or not.
Taking a deep breath, I threw her a bone anyway. “Prove it.”
Her face lost its confident set, but she held her ground. Her eyes were so sunken, she looked more like a zombie than an Undead teenager. “What do you want to know?”
I liked her, vamp or not. She reminded me of me. An opportunity had presented itself and she was damn well going to take it. “What’s the name of the vamp who wants to stop the coronation?”
“Toel Maze. He’s the—”
I raised my hand to stop her. “Rule one, Madison. Never give away more information than you’re asked for.”
She blinked, opened her mouth, shut it again.
“Rule two.” I brought the stake out from under my cape and showed it to her. “Never trust anyone.”
Panic hit. She started to run. Anticipating that reaction, I flicked Volante out, catching The Mouse around the ankles and flipping her face-down on the ground. A second later, I jammed my knee into her back and pinned her there. “And three. Never walk into a situation without a solid escape plan.”
She raised her head, tried and failed to buck me off. Then she spit at the ground. “Fuck you and your stupid red cape too.”
I definitely liked this girl.
Chapter Twenty-four
“How did you find my home?” I’d tied Madison’s hands behind her back with plasticuffs and she was now sitting at my kitchen table. Not that I wanted yet another stranger inside my house, but I couldn’t cross-examine her in the parking lot without risking everyone’s security. For all I knew, Madison was a pawn in some game Toel was playing.
She stared at the table, belligerence radiating off her even though she shook with cold and hunger. “It was in The Vampire Quarterly under Lives of the Rich and Demon Spawn.”
More likely Toel had put it out on the vamp hotline, a carefully connected mental phone tree between the upper-level vamps, who then spread the word to their underlings. Nice of him.
I crossed my arms and leaned my butt on the table. “Why are you so strung out? When was the last time you fed?”
Her gaze danced up to my neck, shot over to Rad’s neck. Being half-human, he smelled better to her. “I can’t feed on humans. Grosses me out. I was human six months ago.” Her eyes came back to mine, pain-filled but still wild with blood lust. “And I can’t kill animals either. I’m a failure at this vampire shit.”
She dropped her head and I couldn’t gauge whether she was sincere or a really good actress. “So buy blood from the blood bank.”
“I don’t have any money.”
That was obvious. Nothing she wore cost more than twenty dollars even when it was new. Which it wasn’t. The knees of her jeans were threadbare, and not from some designer’s scissors. Her jacket was soiled and torn. “Did you come here to apply for a job or so I would kill you?”
Her head snapped up. “I’m only fifteen. I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to live like this either.”
Fifteen. Yowza. Older than I’d thought but still damn young. “Nudra turn you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Demon Quarterly under Stupid Teenage Girls for the Taking.” I grinned, but she didn’t seem impressed by my obvious charm.
“I went to a concert back last month, ended up a vamp.”
“Hell of a concert.”
“Yeah.” She glanced at Rad. “Aren’t you the lead singer of the Chaos Demons?”
He nodded.
A small smile broke her parched lips and fandom shone in her red eyes. “That’s so cool. I have all your songs.”
She sounded exactly like what she should be…a fifteen-year-old girl…and my heart sank a little.
One, two, three, four…I counted off the seconds, waiting to see if she’d volunteer anything else about Nudra or Toel. She didn’t. Normally, I would have played the waiting game awhile longer since I was good at waiting. But duty called and I was on a tight timeframe, getting tighter by the minute. Madison wasn’t getting any younger or less dangerous. “Where’s Toel staying while he’s in town?”
“Untie me and I’ll tell you.”
Fast learner. I admired her human-like spunk and determination,. “Unbind her,” I said to Rad.
He drew his silver knife from its resting place in the small of his back and walked over to her.
Cole, who’d been standing guard by the back door, protested. “She’s going to vamp-out on us any minute.”
I was surprised she hadn’t already. For a recently-turned vamp, she had amazing control. I was jaded enough to think she was playing me. If she was, she wasn’t going to like the end result.
Nodding at Rad to cut off the plasticuffs, I toyed with the stake on the table. “Being a vamp, you’re preternaturally fast, but I’m a demon, which makes me faster. I’ll dust you before you touch any of us.”
She rubbed her wrists where the plastic had left its mark and then pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “The surfer vamp is at Nudra’s compound in Naperville.”
Well, well, what a surprise. Nudra’s ashes weren’t even cold yet and Toel had moved
in.
JR appeared in the doorway. “I’ve got an address for that witch you’re looking for.”
Finally something was going my way. “Lay it on me.”
He handed me a piece of paper, saw Madison eyeing his neck and tossed a set of keys at me as he backed toward the entryway. “I programmed the GPS in the Land Rover to take you to her front door.”
The paper held more than Amy Atwood’s address. There was information about her workplace—some ice cream shop she’d inherited from her grandmother—and a few incidentals. Social security number, bank account balance—which was anemic—a list of her friends and enemies, including their addresses and phone numbers.
I needed to give JR a raise.
“Let’s roll.” I grabbed my stake, motioned for Madison to get up, and started for my garage. “Follow me.”
My company car sat in the garage most of the time. I rarely had passengers and rarely needed a bulletproof SUV. Damon insisted I have it, though, and for once, I was glad he was such an obnoxious boss. I led the group to the underground garage—another of the magical renovations I was quite proud of—and unlocked the doors. “Rad and Madison in the back. Cole, you’re up front with me.”
Cole looked like I’d slapped him. “You’re putting Guitar Boy in charge of the vamp?”
“Guitar Boy?” Rad opened the doors for me and Madison at the same time and gave Cole a disgusted look. “I founded The Chaos Demons, I’m lead singer and I write all the songs.”
“Chaos Demons.” Cole snorted. “How original.”
I climbed in, started the Land Rover. “Get in, Cole.”
Rad sat behind me and made a snarky noise in the back of his throat. “Shouldn’t your bodyguard drive or did he fail driver’s ed?”
The two of them kept up the sarcastic banter for the next several minutes. I would have told them to shut up, but I glanced in the mirror and saw Madison smiling, her gaze ping-ponging between them as they mocked each other in that stupid competitive way males had. For some reason, her smile made me think of my sister and my heart felt a little lighter.
