by Erin R Flynn
“I lied. I don’t need to keep my promises to traitors,” I purred.
“I’m not a demon,” she sneered.
“You’re a woman who captured women to be sex slaves. You’re a traitor against your sex.” I punched her in the face hard and broke her jaw so she couldn’t tell anyone else her secrets. I saw a few of our demons move out of the corner of my eye and the rescued lust demons joined us. “Get your vengeance.”
Oh, they did. I watched as the ones who could broke every bone in her until the last smashed her head like a piñata, but instead of candy, gross stuff poured out and all over the floor. Once that was done, I only had eyes for one other person who was currently restrained by ISLE and demanding to speak to someone who he clearly desired to save him.
No, there was no saving anyone, especially since he knew about the drug. He planned to trade that information for his freedom.
Caden’s eyes went wide when he saw me, and then he growled, understanding I’d played him since the beginning. “I will kill you.”
“Oh no, you first,” I chuckled, moving faster than the ISLE agents could track and delivering a clean kick to his head, snapping his neck and caving in part of his skull.
“Holy fuck,” the agent that had been holding Caden’s arm whispered as he let go, Caden falling to the floor dead. “You’re insane.”
“No, I’m justice,” I seethed, moving to the next vampire in custody. I grabbed him from the ISLE agents and fisted his shirt. “What did you know and when? How deep were you involved?” I kissed him, feeding as I flipped through his desires. The funny thing about asking the guilty questions was they immediately thought of the answers because they were desperate for you not to find them out.
It was like the moment you told someone not to think of something, that was of course what they thought of. The mind was a funny thing like that.
I got what I needed and threw him back to the agents. “He never raped any of the demons and was stuck in a shit coven.”
One of the agents snorted. “Can you rape a lust demon?”
Kyle threw a clean side punch to the guy without even blinking. The agent went flying across the room. “Ladies, he doesn’t think you can rape a lust demon. You want to show him how wrong he is?”
“Wait, we’ll reprimand him,” Dylan cut in, giving me a glance for some backup.
I shook my head. “I am a lust demon, Dylan. I want a piece of him too.” Instead I moved on to another vampire, feeding and getting my answers. Him I tossed to Elijah with a look the vampire knew more than we wanted others to find out.
“We are not giving anyone the chance to slip the noose or politics to rule the night,” Elijah explained after crushing the guy like a bug. “And you can’t stop us. We have diplomatic immunity.”
“You didn’t say you were going to slaughter them all,” Director Stevens snapped.
“We didn’t say we weren’t,” I defended, shrugging when I got several dirty looks. “We let that guy go. We also didn’t know the extent or that they all have cards they plan to play to get out of this, people they know won’t care they hurt demons. It ends. We’re out now, and this is the price paid for centuries of sweeping crimes against demons under rugs. We are the punishment now and time they realized it.”
Some of the ISLE agents got the idea to start trying to get people out, but Natalia came out from the back with a few dozen demons from corporate. Elijah nodded when I glanced at him, saying he’d called in for help. Good, he had it and that left me just to go through the people and sort them.
A dozen in and I was brimming with energy, which I gave to the lust demons, and then I got back to it.
Aidan had already figured out there was something they knew that we didn’t want to get out as he helped me facilitate what I was doing. That seemed to signal something with Dylan, and he didn’t look happy at our form of justice, but he quietly stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and didn’t interfere at least. The next time I glanced at him, Director Stevens was there as well.
I heard a wordless scream and turned in time to see one of the lust demons burning a painting, figuring out that it was the one that represented her. The others followed suit, and so much smoke set off the sprinklers.
Whoops.
They took them outside and finished the job, looking lighter after it was done.
“Tell me they deserve this and more or I’ll punch you in the face,” I told Dylan and the director as I walked past them to get the last of the people involved.
“They do. It’s just a shock,” Dylan defended. “They would all be sentenced after being found guilty.”
“We know they are,” I shouted, spinning on my heel and gesturing to the demons. “We can feel their desires for us not to find out the truth, for them to get their phone call to whomever to get out of the shit, or worse.” I pointed to the one I was heading to next. “This one desires that I also don’t figure out that he likes to rape wolves in LA and uses one of your agents as a threat if they try to report it.”
“Who?” Director Stevens demanded, his eyes full of fire and rage.
I went over to the guy and asked him the name. Instantly the guy desired I not find the name as he thought it. I told the director and found out it was someone who had already been “cleaned out” with the corrupt. Right, yeah, so those guys had been killed too. They really had no leg to stand on.
We were maybe just a bit violent in how we were killing. Well, some of them.
The last one riled up more than I would have liked as I was already so on edge. He didn’t know anything about the drugs, but he completely got off on the lust demons being totally desperate, waiting until they were so starved to toy with and abused them so much worse than the others.
“Welcome to being the prey, fucker,” I snarled before kicking him in the groin hard enough I shattered his hips and his dick would never function again. He fell to the floor in a heap, and I squatted over him, punching his face in. “You sick, sick fuck. We are not toys. We are people. We feed just like you do on blood. It’s not our fault how we have to feed no more than it was for you!”
I smashed in his chest, mine heaving from exertion and upset as I stared down at the very dead vampire. I desperately blinked back tears as memories floated to the surface I didn’t want to think about.
“You’re trying to get to know her, but you still know so little about her,” Elijah said behind me. “You’ve seen enough victims to know the signs of trauma.”
“She went through this,” Dylan whispered in horror.
“She was tricked and trapped, but she was stronger than most so young, so they couldn’t get near her after they locked her in a concrete room with a steel door. She would attack if they came near her. She held out for two months before I found her and got her out of there. She did the impossible and fought through the mind numbing hunger and crazy it brings to keep herself safe.”
“And then what?” Director Stevens asked.
“The little shit ran from me,” Elijah grumbled.
I let out a slow breath before turning to face him. “In my defense, I was slightly traumatized and afraid of men, scared to trust my mind that I was really out of that place and not still trapped there slowly losing the strength to keep fighting.” I glanced around and took in the end result. “What do I need to know?”
“Cara and Bain are having a very public dinner, so neither of you were ever here,” he told me. “He wore a glamour charm here so no one saw him, and two of ours are having the dinner and making sure they’re only around humans.” He glanced around as well. “Go, Natalia and I will handle all of this.”
“Got it. Thanks for the backup.”
“Always, child,” he said gently.
“Where is she going?” Dylan asked as I headed towards the portal.
“To finish this,” I answered. “Kyle, with me. Elijah and Natalia have everything here and will get the victims to one of corporate’s safe houses.”
He fell
in step with me but didn’t say anything until we reached the portal. “Dylan suspended that agent for a month without pay just for that comment.”
“Good, he should. Even if I didn’t take it personally, the guy works for ISLE, not just any job, and they should never show that sort of disdain for anyone they should protect.”
“Which the director and I completely agree with,” Dylan said from behind me as he and Aidan joined us. “Where are we going?”
“To destroy evidence,” I mumbled as I changed the portal for what I needed. I activated it and walked right through to the coven leader’s estate. Half of the coven had been at the party since it was their main money maker and big deal, but the ones not there had no clue and didn’t live at the estate, so I wasn’t worried about them. Just to be safe, I knew we would round them up and interrogate them.
I headed right for where I needed, having gotten enough off the people I’d fed from to know exactly where I needed to go. Down one hallway and tucked back behind a sliding bookshelf was the entrance to the secret lab.
“Jasmine, what is this?” Kyle whispered as I punched in the code.
“They drugged me. They used the first demon as a test subject and perfected a drug that not only knocks out demons but drains them of power until they’re about as strong as kittens.” I glanced back at Dylan and Aidan as I opened the door. “The ones that knew planned to use that as their ticket to get out of this, as we both know any council would do whatever to get that.”
“Especially now that it’s out demons have organized,” Dylan whispered in horror. “Fuck, yeah, bash all their heads in. Shit. I’ll make sure to interview all the agents we brought personally and make sure no one got that information before you handled people.”
“Elijah was listening for that, but yeah, thanks, double checking is smart.” I went to the first medical fridge and froze. “If they found this, others could too.”
“What are you thinking?” Kyle asked as he moved up next to me.
“You want to take it all, not destroy it, so maybe someone could work on an antidote or way to fight against it,” Aidan surmised.
“That’s the smarter play, right?”
“I would,” he agreed. “If someone found something to slip into blood that we couldn’t smell or sense that hurt us, I’d want to find the nullifier that I could keep on me like humans keep their Epi Pens.”
“Smart,” Dylan agreed.
I nodded, going over to the desks and finding what I needed. Someone always ate at their desks and kept condiment packets even if they probably shouldn’t have in a lab. “Get Lewis on the phone. He can get a team to bring all the scariest stuff to Elijah’s private office and we can lock these fridges right in there.”
“What about the computers?”
“My office and I’ll bring them home. No one can get there, and I have security in place to completely fry everything in my office if someone bypasses anything.”
“Shit, you don’t fuck around,” Dylan chuckled. “What are you hiding on those computers?”
“More than you’d probably ever guess,” I admitted as I hurried to draw the portal to corporate as Kyle talked to Lewis. I finished the portal and activated it, nodding to Lewis as he came through first. “Once this is done, I want this place stripped of everything of value.”
“I know the drill, boss, I promise,” he said gently, knowing these cases were harder for me than the others.
“To the victor goes the spoils?” Aidan asked, giving me a confused look.
“To the victims goes the restitution,” Lewis threw right back. “We’ll take it all and sell it, split it between the victims, including once Jasmine drains their bank accounts.”
“Damn fucking right I will,” I grumbled, nodding to others in my department and thanking them for dropping everything to help and interrupting what they were doing.
I did the math and winced. Sleeping. They had been sleeping with the time difference in Berlin when Elijah had called an all hands on deck.
Kiera came through a few minutes later with a bunch of employees from our flagship club. “We were closing up for the night when Elijah sounded the alarm. I was talking to Lewis when Kyle called, so I rounded up who I could. How are the victims?”
“Alive,” I whispered, shaking my head. “It was bad, Kiera. The first were held for over a year.”
She cursed under her breath and rubbed my shoulder. “We’ll get them back and help them. We always do.”
“We always do,” I agreed, holding tight to that idea as we got to work.
“Elijah wants us all out of LA immediately,” Kyle announced. “Lewis, we need you to look through corporate properties for what’s the biggest we can use as a new home base so we can finish this.”
“Already done,” he replied, shocking us both. He just shrugged. “I saw this coming as he was splitting you guys between grounding Jasmine and you guys hanging out in the Caribbean. We’ve got that place in Atlanta, it’s not in use, and it can fit your team and extras.”
I thought through the places corporate had collected over the years, my eyes going wide. “That Mediterranean style estate with like a dozen bedrooms, home theater, and the killer pool I got from that owner we bought out and put in prison?”
“The one in the same, and you might be able to use that pool given it’s a warm winter even for the south,” he told me.
“Shit, yeah, sign me up. The pictures of that place were swank.”
“Let’s get this place done first before someone from ISLE makes a call to a vamp on their council or another coven close by that would interfere,” Kyle suggested, Lewis and I agreeing.
“It’s happened before when we give information to ISLE,” I muttered to Dylan as I walked past him pushing one of the fridges. I wasn’t trying to harp on the point ISLE had been corrupt…. But ISLE had been corrupt, and we’d be stupid to just trust it was all okay now.
And I wasn’t going to be stupid like that ever.
17
“Everyone thank Lewis and his team for getting this place ready and cleaned so we didn’t have to,” I ordered everyone in our new home base. “Someone get us a second full desk, as second me will need his setup as well as mine. Lewis, get him whatever upgrades and extras he needs. We need at least three more boards, as we’re wrangling everyone in the coven. We need them now.”
“Yes, boss,” several people called as I brought the coven leader’s computer from his office to my desk already set up in the first sitting area on one side of the main entrance. I saw others setting up monitors and the usual viewing equipment on the other side of the main entrance, as crazy estates like this needed a whole bunch of fancy sitting rooms no one ever sat in.
“Take a breath and clean up, goddess,” Mason whispered as he moved his hand over mine. “You’re worrying people, and that distracts them.”
It was smart and the right play, but I was so in my head I wasn’t paying attention. “ISLE or at least the director will be around, so get a glamour charm so you’re safe.”
“I already have one,” he assured me, pulling it out of his pocket and slipping it over his head. “I brought a bag of your stuff so you have at least shower stuff and something to change into.”
I nodded. “We need the printer fast so I can start giving them visuals of who to grab and bring to corporate.”
“Got it.”
I left the tower with him and followed the instructions he’d given me of how to get to the master suite. I stripped as I went to the bathroom, turning on the water in the shower to full blast cold before getting under it. I held my face up to the pelting, freezing water to snap me out of my shock at how bad it had been.
My upset at seeing lust demons suffer like that.
My worry that we didn’t get them all clouding my head.
My fear we couldn’t handle it this time.
I let it all clear out until I got to the root of the storm I was feeling. I slapped my hands over my mouth when I did and
screamed as I sank to my knees. I screamed and screamed out everything I’d been carrying since I’d woken in another cell, another cage, and the plans to keep me there forever.
And I kept screaming as memories assaulted me, no longer staying down, no longer willing to be pushed aside. I sat on my butt and buried my face against my legs with my hands still silencing me as I screamed. Distantly I felt the water temperature change and maybe that I wasn’t alone anymore.
But then strong arms wrapped around me, rocking with me and muttering something. I couldn’t tell what, but it was the voice that soothed me. I knew that voice. I knew that deep, confident voice. I knew the worried one that rumbled more like a growl.
Slowly I stopped screaming. Or really the screams weren’t as long. Each gulp of air I took I didn’t fully scream out. And slowly the screams became shorter and shorter until I was only gasping for air, my throat raw and my voice probably almost gone.
“Sweetie, please come back,” Dylan rasped, his voice no longer having that growl depth of deep but soft and panicked. He was holding me tightly from the left while Aidan was holding me from the right, begging me to do the same.
“Sorry,” I croaked. “I do my freakouts alone.”
“When you have cases like this?” Aidan guessed.
I nodded. “When I’m the bait and get myself locked up.” I went to say more, but my voice gave out. Even if my hands had kept me quiet, I’d really been screaming so it was the same on my throat.
“You’re not alone anymore,” Dylan murmured, peppering my face with kisses. “No more cases like this, Jasmine. I thought you were gone.”
I shook my head. I always came back. “Worth it.”
“To have them,” Aidan finished when my voice died again, sighing when I nodded. “Of course you think that.”
I wiggled to get the room to hold my hands about a foot apart and slowly brought them closer together, both of them getting I was showing the freakouts got smaller and shorter.
“No more alone at least,” Dylan begged, looking relieved when I nodded. This was the shortest one for sure if I still had any voice at all. The last time Kiera had found me passed out in the shower, my voice completely gone for a while and I was just screaming silently.
