by Sara Snow
Demon Kissed
Book 2 of the Venandi Chronicles
Sara Snow
© Copyright 2021 - All rights reserved.
It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue
1. Carter
2. Jacob
3. Georgia
4. Carter
5. Georgia
6. Georgia
7. Carter
8. Jacob
9. Jacob
10. Carter
11. Georgia
12. Carter
13. Georgia
14. Georgia
15. Jose
16. Georgia
17. Eli
18. Carter
19. Georgia
20. Jacob
21. Georgia
22. Carter
23. Georgia
24. Carter
25. Carter
26. Carter
27. Georgia
28. Carter
29. Georgia
30. Georgia
The Venandi Chronicles Continue…
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Prologue
Georgia
As soon as I left the warehouse, I knew I’d made the right choice by ending things with Carter. I’d let him push me around for too long, and he’d basked in the power that he had over me. When he warned me that I’d never make it on my own, I wanted to smack him. But judging by the shock in his eyes when I actually walked out, I didn’t need to.
My exit was enough of a slap in the face.
Sure, we were good partners. We fought well together, and now I knew why. Carter was half-vampire and I was half-demon. Like peanut butter and chocolate, we went together perfectly as long as we were slaughtering supernatural beings. But romantically? We didn’t have a chance.
The human side of me still needed to be able to trust her friends and especially her lovers. I’d been betrayed enough times in my twenty-one years to know that once you allow one lie to slip into your relationship, you might as well throw open the door to any kind of deceit. As soon as he and his demon-hunter friends decided to hide the truth about my identity, they chose to lie.
When I first met the members of the Venandi, I felt like I’d found a family, in a weird sort of way. Each member of the team had their own supernatural powers, and I was just on the verge of discovering that I had powers, too. Instead of making me feel like a freak, they brought me into the group, made a big deal about my abilities, and even let me stay with them in the huge, converted warehouse where they lived.
They told me I was special. They told me I was just like them. But they all left out one small detail—I was half-demon, and they knew it.
Now that I knew it, I wasn’t going to stick around and let the Venandi hurt me again.
My piece-of-crap car was waiting faithfully for me down the street from the warehouse. As I headed out of this industrial neighborhood and back to my apartment, I thought about how much I’d been ready to give up to join Carter and his team of demon slayers.
My car was junk. My job was, well, over. My apartment was a dump. But I did have my independence, and that was huge. Any demon who thought I’d be a great catch would have to fight me for my freedom first.
Driving through the streets of Chicago, I thought about everything that had happened, all the run-ins with evil beings and the fights I’d been through. The reason I was suddenly such a hot property in the demon realm wasn’t just because I had “special” powers, as Carter and his friends had tried to tell me. Sure, I could move things with my mind and heal from any wound faster than you could say “urgent care.” But that wasn’t why I was being followed by hordes of demonic stalkers.
I could still smell the foul breath of the creature who had trapped me that morning, exhaling the odor of death into my face as he told me I was a demon’s daughter. A major player in the demon realm, apparently, who wanted me to join forces with him.
Daddy’s little girl—how sweet! Too bad Daddy Demon wasn’t around all those years ago when I was being pushed around in foster homes.
Carter had shown up to help me kill the monster before he could drag me to my father, but I could have managed on my own. Now that I knew how to use my powers and where they came from, I was confident that I could kick any demon’s ass without their help.
I didn’t need some arrogant half-vamp like Carter to protect me. The next time I saw him, I’d be happy to tell him so.
I felt a pang in my heart when I realized that I wasn’t going to see Carter again. That was the whole point of me walking out. Carter was arrogant, yes, but he was also intense, and sexy, and a great kisser. I sighed.
Just as well you don’t have him in your life anymore, Georgia.
I had a lot to do if I wanted to take my own life back. I had quit my job at the call center, but I could easily pick up another minimum-wage position. Then, there was nursing school.
I had enrolled in an online nursing program, thinking nursing would be a stable job that would pay better than the wage-slave work I’d been doing. But after starting my classes, I realized that part of me really did want to help people, to ease their pain and make their lives better. Giving up on nursing school would mean leaving that kind, caring part of me behind. Now more than ever, with everything I knew about my demonic heritage, I needed to stay in touch with that part of myself.
Getting shot in the head in a convenience store robbery had set me back in my studies. I’d already emailed my advisor to request a medical leave of absence from nursing school for the remainder of this semester. My advisor had been nice enough to grant it, but I’d have to return next semester if I wanted to stay in the program. I still had my last paycheck from the call center and a small amount of savings to cover my expenses while I got back on track with school.
What I didn’t have in my life right now was food.
Pulling up to my apartment building, I realized I was starving. I had battled a demon that morning, and won, without much more than coffee and a doughnut to sustain me. The first order of business, even before the hot shower I so badly wanted, was to stock up on food and get something in my belly.
The market was full of late-afternoon shoppers, most of them employees at the office buildings that lined the street. A couple of weeks ago, I was one of them, staring glassy-eyed at the rows of canned soup and pasta, a single girl in search of something cheap and filling to heat up for dinner.
That life, the life I led before I knew where I came from, seemed so far away now. I missed the girl I was back then, the one who didn’t know she had supernatural powers or a demonic father.
Seriously, what girl needs that?
Even with the mark-up on groceries at this little convenience store, the total cost of my food was less than fifteen bucks. I could live on boxed mac ‘n’ cheese and canned tuna with a side of frozen veggies here and there, no problem. Add a bottle of cheap red wine, and I was set for the rest of the week
.
At one time, I would have been proud of this little haul, so typical of a single girl living on her own for the first time. But tonight, my sack of groceries made me sad. I thought of Kingston, Carter, and the rest of the team sitting around a candlelit table in that warehouse that has become their home. On the outside, it looks like another vast, abandoned industrial building, but on the inside, it houses a training center, a game room, several bedrooms, and a kitchen where Kingston prepares the most delicious gourmet meals ever.
It wasn’t so much the food that I missed—although Kingston was a damn good chef. It was the camaraderie, the friendship, the trust. That sense of trust, shared with friends who cared about me, was what I missed the most.
“Hey, got a few bucks?”
A female voice broke into my thoughts. I had reached the door of my apartment building, and standing at the locked double doors, shivering in the cold night wind, was a thin girl. Her thin black hair, so shiny that it looked wet, clung to her forehead and sharp cheekbones, enhancing her enormous green eyes. Those eyes were circled by dark shadows. Her full lips were raw, as if she’d been gnawing on them. She wore skinny jeans that clung to her skeletal body like paint and a denim jacket that was way too light for the weather.
I thought about her request. I had five dollars in my wallet after buying this week’s groceries, but with no steady job, cash was going to be in short supply.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t have any money, but I have food.”
“Sure.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll take anything.”
She dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she turned her back to the wind. Her entire body trembled, and she reminded me of a stray kitten that I’d found as a child. The starving kitten had felt so light in my hands that I wouldn’t have known she was there except for the rapid beating of her tiny, terrified heart.
“Why don’t you come upstairs with me?” I offered. “I’ll make us both some dinner. You look like you could use something hot to drink, too.”
“Gee, thanks.” She wrapped her arms around her narrow ribcage and gave me an enormous grin. The grin was strange, almost sly, and it spread across her face like an oil spill. I felt a chill crawl up my spine, and I wondered if I was making a mistake. The girl was a stranger, after all.
A stranger who weighed about ninety pounds soaking wet. I could easily take her down if she turned out to be something other than human.
I opened the double doors for her, and she followed me upstairs.
“What’s your name?” I asked, turning to look at her.
The girl’s face was masked in shadow. Outside, the March wind howled, battering the thin walls of the building.
“Ziltha.” Her voice sounded deeper than it had outside in the cold. Less like a mewling kitten, more like a gargoyle with laryngitis.
“Pretty,” I said.
More like weird. And this is feeling like a bad idea.
We had reached my door. Ziltha, or Filtha, or whatever she called herself, was standing so close to me that I could smell the stale smoke on her clothing. It didn’t quite smell like cigarettes, more like cheap incense with a note of sulfur.
There was no way in hell I was going to open my door for this chick. But I didn’t want to attack her if it turned out she was just a scrawny runaway. One swift kick, and she’d crumble like a frail, dry leaf.
“Well, here we are. Home sweet home,” I said, my voice artificially bright.
I reached into my bag as if I were looking for my keys, but my fingers closed around an iron stake. I had been carrying the stake since this morning, when I left the warehouse with Carter to find the demon who was killing young women at the carnival on Navy Pier. When I walked out of Carter’s life hours later, I still had the stake in my purse. My conscience told me to hand it to Carter before I left. My gut told me to keep it, hide it, and use it to protect myself.
I was glad I’d listened to my gut.
I felt the girl’s hand on my left shoulder, clenching my flesh with unnatural strength. Her bony fingers dug into me, insistent and demanding.
“Who are you with, and what do you want?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to turn around yet, but I knew how this was going to play out.
“I serve the three kings,” she said. “Paimon, Bebal, and Abalam. Your father needs you. Come with me now.”
“What if I don’t?” I asked.
I heard the snap of a metal blade, then felt the point of her knife against my carotid artery. She dug the tip into my flesh, just deep enough to break the skin.
Shit. Even with my supernatural healing powers, I doubted I could survive a slashed carotid artery. Nobody fixes themselves that fast.
“Don’t you want something to eat first? Here ya go!”
I whirled around and slammed the bag of groceries into the girl’s abdomen, knocking the wind out of her. The breath whooshed from her mouth in a cloud of black powder, like the spores from a dry mushroom. She backed into the wall and clawed at the cheap wallpaper, trying to regain her balance, but she tripped on a can of tuna and fell flat on her face.
Leaping on top of her, I raised the stake and stabbed her in the gut. The iron rod went straight through her concave abdomen to the floor. I yanked it out and stabbed her in the chest, then stabbed her again just to make sure she couldn’t come after me. Her ribs cracked like bird bones under the force of my blows.
I almost felt sorry for the girl. Until she sprouted wings.
The wings unfurled from below her thin shoulder blades, poking through the frayed denim jacket. They made a whooshing sound as they snapped open, lifting Ziltha into the air. Her bony fingers sprouted long talons, which were aimed at my throat as she rose above me, preparing to plummet like a falcon.
I jumped out of her way and let her plunge into the wall to the right of my doorway. Her head hit the wall with a juicy thud. Her cracked skull left a long smear of blood on the wallpaper.
Frantically, I opened my door, my hands shaking as I shoved the key into the lock. Ziltha squirmed on the floor, her talons kneading the carpet. She moaned, but didn’t seem to be in any shape to pursue me. Finally, I managed to turn the lock, ran into my apartment, and slammed the door behind me. That deadbolt had never closed so fast.
“Okay. You’re okay,” I gasped as I caught my breath.
But I wasn’t okay. The atmosphere in my apartment felt wrong. A window had been left open beside my desk, and I was sure that I hadn’t been careless enough to leave it gaping like that. The papers that had been lying on my desk now lay strewn everywhere, tossed by the wind. My trashcan had been knocked over, leaving garbage all over the floor.
The wind, stronger than ever and brutally cold, continued to blast through the room. I tried to close the window, but the frame was stuck. Now I was absolutely sure I hadn’t left this window open—I always left it shut for exactly this reason.
Somehow, I managed to find a pad of note paper and a pen that hadn’t been tossed across the room. I turned on the computer and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the old machine to grind to life. When it finally started, I spent another few precious minutes trying to log onto the internet. I typed PIMON DEMON into the search engine and waited.
“Showing results for Paimon demon,” the search engine reported.
I scrawled the word Paimon on my notepad. He was a high-ranking demon, a king, in fact. Not that I found his status very reassuring. It would have been safer for me if my father had been one of the lower-ranking scum, an ordinary minion with no particular power or clout in the world of evil.
Carter. I needed to ask Carter who Paimon really was, because the mumbo-jumbo in the online encyclopedia wasn’t making any sense. Carter wasn’t here right now, but I still had his number in my phone. I pulled out the phone and was scrolling frantically through my contact list when I heard a knock on the door. This wasn’t the knock made by a waif of a girl. It was a meaty male fist giving the cheap door a serious pounding.
&
nbsp; I froze. What the hell now? Had Ziltha come back to life, or had she been joined by another minion who had a little more muscle?
“Chicago PD. Open up, please.”
“What do you want? How do I know you’re a cop?” I shouted. “Show me your badge. Put it up to the keyhole.”
I peered out the tiny hole in the door and saw a distorted image of a man in blue. He held up what looked like a wallet with a metal badge.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m investigating reports of a homeless girl who was harassing residents of this building tonight. Can I ask you a few questions?”
After all I’d been through with the Venandi, I knew better than to trust a total stranger, even one who said he was a cop. But part of me wanted to think that she still had friends out there, or at least protectors who were paid by the city of Chicago.
I wondered what the cop thought when he found Ziltha’s body crumpled and bleeding on the floor, her wings sticking out behind her. Would they know I attacked her in self-defense, or would they think I robbed her and left her in the hall to die?
I opened the door just a crack.
In the hallway stood a stocky man in a dark blue uniform with a gun belt around his waist. My knees weakened with relief, and I hung onto the door frame to keep from sinking to the ground.
“Have you seen a teenage girl tonight?” the officer went on. “Your neighbors said she was real short, skinny. Black hair cut like a boy’s. She’s been begging for spare change, got kind of aggressive with a couple of the residents up here.”