by Larissa Ione
They hurried along dimly lit hallways made darker by the black floors and populated only by the occasional nurse or maintenance worker, all of whom eyed her warily. Tayla took note of the rooms, some clearly for patients, some very lablike in appearance, and she was more than a little surprised to see a workout area complete with weight benches, treadmills, and punching bags. The hospital was larger than she would have expected.
Finally, as they entered an area of the hospital that went from sterile and weird to sterile and weirder, he slowed, drawing a set of car keys from his pocket.
“Where are we?” She trailed her fingers over the paw of a gargoylelike statue guarding the arched entrance.
“Administrative offices. The parking lot exit is ahead.”
The sound of her bare feet slapping the floor echoed as they walked past the small rooms and cubicles that resembled any other corporate offices she’d seen on TV. She almost expected to see men in suits behind the desks.
“Which one is yours?”
“Ahead on the right. We’re going to duck inside.”
They slipped through the doorway, and the door clicked shut behind them. Moving quickly, he closed the blinds on the only window, which faced out into the hall. With a few taps on his computer keyboard, he brought up a video feed of an underground parking lot.
“No one there.” He turned off the monitor. “We can go.”
“Wait a second,” she said, turning away from him.
Employee parking lot. In a demon hospital.
None of this made sense or connected in her head. She felt as if she’d read a book from cover to cover, but couldn’t remember anything but the first and last chapters. The last eight years of her life had been spent learning about demons, how to hunt them, fight them, kill them.
No Aegis lesson had ever prepared her for Life in the Everyday World of Demon Doctors. Demons were supposed to live in sewers and fiery netherworlds. They didn’t hold jobs. They didn’t save lives. They tormented, raped, and killed.
There were exceptions, what The Aegis called corporate hellspawn, fiends who masqueraded as humans, living among them to gain power and control over her race, but they were supposedly few and far between. And beneath their human skins, they were ugly beasts, with fangs and claws like any other.
“Slayer?” His voice was close, so close that his breath stirred her hair. How had he moved so silently?
Maybe he hadn’t. Things had been happening to her lately . . . loss of strength, hearing, sometimes, even, her sense of taste.
Worse, her libido seemed to have careened out of control, was even now firing up in his close proximity. She stepped away, but his hand came down on her shoulder and spun her around.
“What is your deal?” she snapped.
“Why are you stalling?” Suspicious dark eyes drilled into her. “My brother said your being here could be a trap. Was he right?”
“You’re paranoid.”
He pushed her against the wall, held her there with the weight of his body so she could barely wiggle. “I’m cautious, and not all that patient, so answer the question.”
“I’m not stalling. I’m freaked out. Happy?” She glared up at him. “And do you get off on manhandling women?”
“I get off on handling them. But you don’t get off, do you?”
“Shut up.”
“Do you have a problem with men? What about women?”
At her sudden intake of air, he grinned, the devastating one that made her shiver in pure, feminine appreciation despite what he was. “You’ve been with women?”
She shook her head, but her denial lacked conviction. She’d never gone all the way, but her frustration at being inorgasmic with men had driven her to see if her inability to come while being touched by someone else extended to the other sex. A few humiliating minutes with a bisexual Guardian had proved without a doubt that women just didn’t do it for her.
“Why the interest in my sex life?”
He dipped his head to her throat and inhaled deeply. “Your scent is dark, drugging.”
Oh, God. She wriggled to escape his seductive presence, but he tightened his grip. “You didn’t answer me,” she said with as much force as she could muster. “Why the interest in my sex life?”
Hot breath feathered over the skin of her neck as he spoke, his voice dripping with erotic promise. “Because you are possibly the only female in history who hasn’t achieved orgasm with a Seminus demon.”
“Ah. So your pride is bruised.” And just what was a Seminus demon? She’d thought she knew them all.
“My curiosity is piqued.” He let his hand drift to her flank, where he stroked slowly. His erection, a thick bulge behind his fly, pressed into her belly. She tightened her abs as though to shrink away from it, but the resulting hard flesh on hard flesh only made her more aware of the intimate contact. “Can you bring yourself pleasure? When you touch yourself, do you come?”
Heat flushed her face. “That’s none of your business.”
“That would be a yes.” His fingers slipped behind her until he was probing her cleft through the thin scrub material. “I can picture you pleasuring yourself,” he murmured. “Your legs spread wide, your sex swollen and wet, your fingers coated in your slick arousal. What do you think about when you come, Tayla?”
“Stop,” she choked out.
“Why? Because I make you hot?”
“Because you disgust me, demon.”
He laughed, because he didn’t believe her words any more than she did. Pressure between her legs made her squirm, seeking more of his touch while at the same time trying to escape.
“I wonder what disgusts you more, the fact that I’m a demon, or the fact that when I touch you, it doesn’t matter.”
Growling, she brought her knee up, but he stepped back in time to avoid a shot to the groin. Pain shot through her head once more, spreading like a spiderweb of cracks in glass until she thought her skull would shatter.
The door creaked open. “Hell’s fucking bells.”
Hands pressed to her temples, she glanced at the doorway, where a huge guy who looked a lot like Eidolon right down to the arm-length tattoo stood, his face a stony mask. He was bigger than Eidolon, nearly as tall, and his dark hair fell like a thick, wavy curtain to his shoulders. His black uniform, some sort of short-sleeved military BDUs, enhanced his sinister appearance despite the stethoscope around his neck. Or maybe because of it. He looked as if he could take a life as easily as save one.
“Let it go, Shade.”
“Like hell.” Shade closed the door a lot more quietly than she’d have expected, given that the guy looked homicidal. “What are you doing with her?”
“Wraith already told you, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Dammit, E, I should have been brought in on this decision. It’s my hospital, too.” Shade moved toward her, and she instinctively sank into attack position. “I have a say regarding her disposal, and I say we give her to Yuri.”
Disposal?
Eidolon angled closer to her, putting his big body between her and the other demon. “Wraith doesn’t want that.”
“No, he wants her dead. And since when do you give a shit what Wraith wants?”
“Enough, brother. We’ll talk about this later.” Eidolon’s words, sharp and edged with menace, fell like a cold blade.
For a moment it appeared that Shade would heed the warning, but then he sniffed the air, nostrils flaring, and his eyes, which she just realized were darker than Eidolon’s, turned molten gold. “Unbelievable. I’d have expected this of Wraith, but you?” He made a harsh sound of disgust. “I take that back. Even Wraith wouldn’t touch an Aegi whore except to put her down.”
Tay didn’t have time to take offense. Eidolon’s fist connected with the other demon’s face. A crack rang out, and blood splattered on the walls. She watched in morbid fascination as the paint absorbed the thick fluid like a thirsty sponge.
“This is my hospital and I have the fina
l word.” Eidolon’s jaw clenched so hard she heard the pop of bone. “No one harms the Aegi but me.”
“The Aegi whore thanks you,” she muttered, but neither demon seemed to hear.
“You are so damned thick-skulled.” Shade touched the back of his hand to his bleeding nose. “You aren’t a Justice Dealer anymore, E. You don’t have to play fair.”
The tension seemed to drain out of Eidolon as he looked at the other man. “You have no idea how much I wish it were that simple.”
“It’s the s’genesis, isn’t it? Messing you up, screwing with your judgment.”
There was a long silence, and then Shade opened his mouth to say something else, but Eidolon cut him off by grasping the side of his brother’s face. The hold reminded her of a scene from a Star Trek movie she’d once seen, where Spock probed some Vulcan chick’s mind. Shade closed his eyes, and a few seconds later, blood stopped trickling from his nose. Feeling like a voyeur, Tayla wanted to look away, but couldn’t. How had the two brothers gone from violent bloodshed to some sort of intimate bonding so quickly?
The throbbing in her head finally subsided, and she cleared her throat. “Hey, is the touchy-feely homo moment over? Because I’m wondering how Minion of Darkness One got to hit Minion of Darkness Two without his skull fracturing.”
Eidolon’s mouth twitched in a half-smile. “I had the Haven spell altered so it didn’t apply to me or my brothers.”
“So you guys can beat anyone you want?”
“No. Just each other.”
They came to blows so often that they’d designed an antiviolence spell around their sibling rivalry? “Growing up in your house must have been fun.” A lot like growing up in foster homes, probably, something she knew way too much about.
Shade stepped back from Eidolon and speared her with a look of pure malice. “We weren’t raised together.” He turned to his brother. “Nancy didn’t show up for work today, and she’s not answering her phone. Watch your back.”
Nodding, Eidolon opened the door and ushered Shade out. “Come on, slayer. I’m taking you home.”
Five
The trip through the underground parking lot proved uneventful, though once they’d settled into Eidolon’s sporty but unassuming silver BMW, he forced some sort of gem into Tayla’s hand. Instantly, she went blind, but for some reason, she couldn’t drop the stone.
Clammy sweat coated her skin as he started the car. “What did you do to me?”
“The effect is temporary. I’ll take back the artifact once we’re clear of the hospital.”
The BMW slid into motion, the smooth ride angling up some sort of steep incline. Once they leveled out, she wondered if they were out of range of the Haven spell, and then decided that pummeling him while she was blind and he was driving might not be the best idea she’d ever had.
Silence descended on the leather-scented interior like a shroud. Tay bounced her legs. Tapped her fingers on the arm rest. Chewed her lip.
Anything to keep her breathing even and steady when all she wanted to do was fight the darkness, silence, and unknown.
“I should have sedated you.”
“I’m sure you’ll regret it soon enough.” Like when she drove a blade through his throat at her first opportunity.
“I already do.”
She really wanted to glare at him. “Anything else you regret? Like saving me? I mean, why didn’t you let me die?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not a doctor?”
“You’re a demon, smartass, so you can’t tell me that the hypocritical oath applies to you.”
“Hippocratic, and it doesn’t.”
“A, I was being sarcastic, and B, you didn’t answer my question.”
She felt the vehicle take a sharp turn and sensed that he’d steered a little harder than he needed to. “I don’t owe you any answers.”
“Christ,” she muttered. “I hate demons.”
His bark of laughter made her jump like a twitchy cat. “I didn’t let you die because doing so would go against hospital policy, which I wrote and can’t violate without losing the respect of my staff.”
He sounded as if he might be telling the truth, but then, demons lied as easily as they killed. “Know what I think?”
“Please,” he said drolly, “do tell me.”
Ass. “I think you kept me alive to get information about The Aegis. You’d have been stupid not to.”
“That was part of the original plan, yes. But since you aren’t hanging from razor wire in a dungeon with rubber floors that hose clean, you can assume the plan changed.”
His tone told her there was a story behind the rubber-floored dungeon, a story she figured belonged shelved alongside the only books she owned, tattered, used copies of Stephen King novels. “Does the change of plans have something to do with the play-fair-Justice-Dealer thing your brother was talking about?” When he didn’t answer, she pressed on, because the dark silence was making her nuts. “What’s a Justice Dealer?”
“My former career. I was raised by the Judicia.”
“Ah. Vengeance demons.”
“Justice demons,” he corrected. “Vengeance demons can be summoned by anyone, human or demon, to take revenge on another. Justice demons serve only other demons—generally species and breed Councils. And, unlike vengeance demons, Judicium must investigate the complaint before taking action.”
Interesting. Demons had their own cops. “What happens after the investigation?”
“Sentences are meted out based on the crime. But if we find that the petitioner is in the wrong, it’s the accuser who is dealt the punishment.”
“We? So you still do the job?”
“No. Since I’m not Judicium, my JD powers weren’t inherited and had to be bestowed upon me as a fledgling.”
“Did you like being a demon cop?”
“Are you always so nosy?”
She shrugged, making her scrub top rasp against the warm leather. “You got something better to do than talk? Besides drive, I mean.”
There was a brief silence. “I hated being a Justice Dealer. But because I grew up in a Judicium household, it was expected of me. My species’ innate gifts make us naturals in the field of medicine, so as soon as I earned my doctorate, I relinquished my JD powers.”
“Your brother said you weren’t raised together. How many brothers do you have?”
“Total? Dead and alive?”
Well, this was awkward. “Um . . . both?”
“I had forty-four.” Another sharp turn had her sliding in the leather seat. “I’m down to two. I’m the eldest.”
“Firstborn?”
“No. Twenty were born before I was, but only one survived to s’genesis. Roag was killed two years ago. Now, if I take back the artifact, will you shut up?”
“You betcha.”
He pried the stone from her fingers. Bright, noontime sunlight nearly blinded her as effectively as the darkness.
“Obviously, daylight isn’t an issue for you.”
“My species isn’t heliophobic.”
Of course not, because sensitivity to the sun would be a weakness, and from what she could tell, there was nothing weak about Hellboy. Not with those muscles, that jawline, those eyes. Everything about him screamed strength. Intelligence. Sex. Definitely sex. Her body reminded her of that fact with a wave of hot tingles across her skin.
“You got the heater on? It’s like a furnace in here,” she muttered, and he smiled as if he knew exactly what had jacked up her body temperature.
She huffed and glanced out the side window, where people were taking advantage of the mild spring day, dining in outdoor cafés and chatting on corners, clueless about the horrors that took place right under their noses. She didn’t recognize the part of the city they were in, but she did make note of the street names. His vile hospital couldn’t stay hidden. Not from The Aegis.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Like I’m going to tell you.”
“Stubborn human. You can think about it on the way.”
“The way where?”
“One of my nurses didn’t show up for work today. I’m checking on her.”
“Human?”
“Vampire.”
She kept to herself the thought that maybe a Guardian had cremated the bloodsucker.
Sliding a glance at Hellboy, she wondered if killing him would be as easy as driving a stake through a vamp’s chest. Sure, he didn’t look weak, but every demon had a vulnerability. Maybe his tattoos were his. The way they snaked around his hard, muscular arm, all the way to his throat . . . she remembered how they’d writhed when he was inside her, and yeah, they were part of him. Not inked tattoos, but extensions of his tan skin. Special features were often the heart of a weakness, and she intended to find his.
“What do your markings symbolize?” Before she could stop herself, she reached out and skimmed her fingertip over the clean lines of the top one, an oddly crooked set of scales, on his neck.
A sound broke from deep inside him, a rush of air through slightly parted lips. “Unless you want me to pull over and take you where you sit, you’d better remove your hand.”
She drew back so fast her elbow clanked against the passenger window.
Gripping the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles turned white, he brought the vehicle to a smooth stop at a red light. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if his larynx had gone a round with sandpaper. “It’s called a dermoire. It’s a history of my paternity. The symbol on my throat is my own. The one below it is my father’s. The one below that is his father’s, and so on, all the way to my fingers. When we meet others of our species, one glance will tell us all we need to know about our relationship to each other.”
The knowledge that he could trace his paternal roots back more than a dozen generations while she didn’t even know the name of her father clawed at her. He’d probably grown up all happy in his special little demon family, Mom baking freakin’ cookies and Dad teaching him how to ride a bike. Tayla’s upbringing had been less rosy, sleeping on cots if she was lucky, getting secondhand toys for Christmas . . . if she got a toy at all, spending most of her days hungry and hiding from drunks.
