by Cathryn Fox
Michelle wanted this case closed. For many reasons.
She stopped when she got to the lobby, taking a quick moment to run through the headlines in the newspaper, dying to know what was going on in the outside world. How the bunnies could spend their lives ignoring reality, totally baffled her. The closest Tabby got to reality was watching American Idol.
Before she’d finished scanning the paper, Ash rushed from the bar, looking like sex incarnate. A black leather coat billowed around his powerful legs, the well-defined thigh muscles bunching as he cut across the wide expanse of floor. Michelle cast her eyes down as though concentrating on a news article, but mindless compulsion forced her to glance up and watch his sexy swagger.
A gorgeous, curvy Barbie-doll type stepped up to him and blocked his path before he could reach the main doors. He took a quick glance around, then, with a look of weariness on his face, leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Michelle’s distance kept her from hearing the exchange, but she could well imagine that the girl would soon be decorating his arm and eventually his bed. Then God only knows what came after that.
The cop in Michelle had to put a stop to that, and the woman in her, well, the woman in her felt a tinge of jealousy, aching to be the one on his arm, and feeling his mouth on her pussy as they explored a brief affair. Dammit.
She stood and casually made her way across the room, straining to hear the conversation. As she listened she caught snippets of their discussion and what she heard shocked her. Ash had turned the girl down and then resumed his long strides toward the doors. Demons never turned down women. Ever. Seducing unsuspecting females seemed to be their driving force, their reason for stalking the night in this world.
And night was already upon them.
Michelle zipped up her jacket, felt for the reassuring length of the dagger at her hip, pleased that she’d secured it there before meeting the bunnies for drinks and then followed him outdoors into the dark. Keeping a reasonable distance between them she followed his footprints in the rising light of the moon, her boots crunching on the freshly fallen snow. It was a bit frightening how fast he could move, and without sound.
The last of the day’s skiers trudged back to the lodge, unaware that a demon walked amongst them, which brought out her protective instincts all the more.
She caught a glimpse of him up ahead. He paused for a brief moment, seeming almost to be sniffing the air, and then, as if something or someone had suddenly caught his attention, he twisted around and made his way to the secluded staff parking lot. After a brisk walk across the vacant, snow-covered lot, Ash suddenly disappeared from her sight.
Wind whistled around her, her heart beating double time, her hand automatically going to the dagger at her hip and pulling it free. As she cautiously crept forward through the shadows she heard low, angry voices.
Pale white light from one of the few lampposts in the poorly lit lot provided sufficient illumination for her to see Ash with another monster.
“I don’t deal drugs,” Ash said, the disgust in his voice loud enough for her to hear. “Get that through your dumbass head.”
Michelle couldn’t hear the demon’s response, but it was obvious that it wasn’t happy. After studying and hunting demons for years, she knew heroin was a demons drug of choice. It didn’t seem to have the same addictive effect on them that it did on humans. What it did do, however, was enhance their already impressive strength. The one time Michelle had gone up against a demon who’d had a fix, she almost hadn’t walked away. The drug had somehow slowed the effects of the holy water she’d used on it too.
As far as she was concerned, demons could have the Earth’s entire supply of heroin, but it was the currency they used in order to buy it from humans “seers” that had her worried. A promise of immortality could buy a demon a lot more than drugs in this world. And what if that promise turned out to be true?
As Michelle shivered in the cold, wondering what she should do, if anything, Ash must have decided the conversation was finished. He suddenly reached out and earslapped the other demon with two cupped hands.
Michelle wasn’t the only one caught off guard. The demon let out a howl of pain, its eyes flashing yellow. Why did he have to go and do something so stupid?
Blake Ashen looked more than capable of handling himself, but Michelle wasn’t about to take that chance. So far, he was the only lead she had in finding out what had happened to all those dead and missing women. She gripped the dagger tighter and rushed forward.
“Get the hell back!” Ash shouted when he saw her coming. He only shifted his attention to her for a split second, but it was long enough for the demon to seize an opening. It lunged up, striking Ash across the throat with the vee of its thumb and forefinger. Ash dropped to his knees, choking, his hands going to his neck.
Michelle thought for a moment he was dead. That blow certainly should have killed him.
The demon turned on her.
“Give me the knife,” it said, holding out its hand. Then it smiled at her.
She’d never get used to how impossibly handsome demons were or how magnetic their appeal. Something about them literally pulled at a woman. She’d once read an article about men with an extra Y chromosome. Supermen, they were called. She wondered how many extra chromosomes a demon must have to make a woman feel like this. One long lingering look from this monster made her feel warm, but one quick glance from Ash could give her an orgasm on the spot, he made her that hot.
“Sunny, snap out of it,” Ash choked out as he climbed to his feet. “Your dagger. Use it.”
The sound of his voice pulled her back. She blinked her mind back into focus. This was no superman. This was a demon and it didn’t belong in this world.
It was also coming for her.
She swung her dagger, connecting with solid flesh. The demon doubled over from a combination of the blow and the holy water, sank to the ground and rolled to its side. Then came the telltale sucking sound of lungs drawing in air through a hole in the chest. It was a sound she would never get used to—not as long as she lived and no matter how many demons she killed. She tried not to gag. They looked too much like humans for her to totally detach.
The demon slipped back to its own world much the same way it had slipped into this one, fading into a shadow, disappearing before her eyes.
She looked up into another pair of yellow, glowing eyes. The yellow slowly faded and Ash’s calculating gaze dropped to the dagger in her hand. He shifted his body sideways and widened his stance.
“Impressive. But if you’re waiting for a thank you, you’re going to be waiting a long time. I have no reason to be grateful to cops.”
So, it appeared they both knew what they were dealing with.
His combative stance felt threatening, provoking her into action. She raised the dagger again, holding it defensively in front of her, praying enough of the holy water remained on its blade to protect her. Demons normally traveled alone. She’d never had to fight more than one at a time before and always in the past she’d had surprise on her side. None of them had expected her to fight back, especially after they turned on the charm.
“It’s not a thank you I want, Ash. It’s answers, and I want them now. Why are you here?”
He lifted one brow and began to circle slowly, forcing her to shift her footing on the slippery, salt-slushed asphalt to keep him in her sights. He put his hands palms out where she could see them in a gesture meant to show he was harmless. Michelle didn’t buy that for a second. “I could ask the same thing of you. Personally, I was just out for some fresh air.”
“How can you walk during the day?” she challenged him.
“Just like I walk at night. On two legs. Same as you.”
“Are there more like you?”
“I’d like to think I’m one of a kind.” His eyes narrowed as he tossed out a few questions of his own. “Why are you following me? What do you want?”
She wanted to catch him off guard. “What d
o you know about the missing girls?”
His eyes flared at that and he stopped his circling. Okay, that question shook him. So he was involved. Goddammit, how could she have allowed herself to think for one minute that he wasn’t?
He stood to his full six foot four, sexuality oozing off him in waves of heat that banished the chill of the night. “What?”
“The missing girls. What do you know about them?” Michelle couldn’t think clearly when he looked at her that way. She tried hard to fight off this second, more subtle line of attack.
His nostrils flared. “What do you know about them?” he demanded in return.
“Only that you’re somehow involved.” Lessons learned long ago had taught her that demons and trouble naturally gravitated toward each other.
He shook his head. The yellow was back in his eyes, deepening to a rich amber color. “Assumptions can be dangerous, sweetheart.”
“Stop it, Ash.”
“Stop what?”
She blinked her eyes, trying to clear her head. “Stop wasting your charm on me. It didn’t work for him,” she pointed the tip of her dagger to where the dead demon had fallen, “and it’s not going to work for you.”
Ash had the nerve to look insulted. “I’m not doing a damn thing to you.”
She hoped he was lying because if he could do this to her without any effort, she hated to think what he could do if he tried.
A fine shiver moved through her as she brought the conversation back around to the missing girls. “Are you telling me you’re not involved?”
“Hell yeah, I’m involved. I’m involved because my sister went missing a few months ago. And if you don’t get that dagger out of my face I’m going to take it from you and you’re probably not going to like it.”
Michelle took a step back and immediately remembered the picture in his room, recalling the similarities between the two. “Your sister? Is she demon too?”
Looking suddenly weary, she felt something inside him give as he pitched his voice low, so low she had to strain to hear. “Half.”
Half?
As she studied him a moment longer she spotted something in his eyes, something beneath the amber glow that looked suspiciously like sadness, and it slammed into her heart.
Half-demon?
She’d never heard of such a creature. As she took a moment to process that new piece of information, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to separate herself from her emotions. Jesus, how awful must that have been on a kid? Not much wonder he’d been in trouble with the law.
More than a little unnerved by the unexpected sympathy, she processed what he’d said. Half-demon meant half-human. Understanding dawned in small increments. “So that’s how you can walk during the day. You’re half-human.”
He nodded, a wash of conflicting emotions passing over his face. “Just so you know, I hate cops as much as you seem to hate demons. But it appears that we’re here for a similar reason and I think we’re both intelligent enough to know we’re better off working together than against each other if we want to get to the bottom of things. So, as the old saying goes, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
That would be great, except it wasn’t her back she wanted him to scratch.
Damn Ash and his demon charm.
“I have new information,” he said, showing good faith by making the first move.
“What is it?”
“First, put down your dagger.”
It seemed she was supposed to show good faith as well. Not bloody likely. She didn’t lower her blade. “So you’re saying you want to work together then?”
A slight, reluctant smile softened his features. “Yeah, imagine that? We worked together a few seconds ago and look what that got us. One less full-blooded demon in the world.”
Michelle still wasn’t convinced. “I didn’t think demons killed their own kind.”
The smile left Ash’s face. “He’s not my kind,” he said evenly. “He wanted drugs and I don’t deal drugs.” He dipped his head to look into her eyes and it was all she could do not to melt to the ground. His tone softened, sounding surprised. “Besides, he was going to kill you. I couldn’t let him do that.”
Rattled by the unexpected tenderness in his voice, she shot back the first thing that popped into her head. “I thought you hated cops.”
He raked his fingers through his dark hair. “Yeah, I do. Look, let’s just forget I said anything about working together, all right?”
Her mind raced. Was it possible that he really wasn’t a cold-blooded monster? That he was simply looking for his sister? She replayed the events of the night, recalling the way he’d declined Barbie doll’s invitation and the way he’d helped kill the demon. But even though Michelle had seen fleeting traces of humanity in him, he was still half-demon—and that demon half could be pretty potent. His sexual energy alone was enough to make her head spin. Could she trust him?
Did she have a choice?
With Dan’s belief that women were dying because they didn’t have the proper skills to combat such a huge hill, combined with the way he purposely avoided eye contact with her as he indulged in the bunnies, it was apparent that he wasn’t going to be much help.
“What would be the rules of this partnership?” she asked.
Ash’s eyes flared again, anger and frustration apparent. “Anything goes. I need to find my sister and then we have to shut these bastards down.”
The little hairs on the back of her neck began to tingle and her head cleared as her police training took over. “Shut them down? Tell me everything you know.”
He glanced over her shoulder. “Not here. It’s not safe.” He made a move to go around her.
She paused. Despite her brain—as well as years of training, both on and off the streets—telling her to proceed with caution, oddly enough her instincts told her he was safe. There was something about him that put her at ease and she didn’t think it was all demon charm. But since she never let her heart rule, she said, “And if I don’t agree to go with you? If I blow your cover?”
“Then I’ll feed you to the wolves.”
Michelle shivered at the coldness in his words, but in a way they reassured her. This was the honest reaction of a man out to find a loved one and it was a reaction she could deal with.
She slipped her dagger back into the sheath hidden in her ski pants. “Just so we’re clear, Ash,” she warned as she accepted their uneasy alliance. “If you blow my cover, you’ll wish I’d been decent enough to feed you to the wolves.”
Chapter Four
Blake turned up his collar against the cold night wind and sized up the unexpected turn of events. He’d been summoned to the parking lot by a drug-crazed demon he’d intended to kill. He hadn’t expected help from a cop.
The sudden crawling of his skin had nothing to do with the subzero temperatures. He sniffed at the air, knowing more demons would be on the move soon when the one he and Sunny had killed didn’t show. He grabbed her arm. “Come on, we really need to move.” He hauled her against his body and shuttled her back inside the resort, trying to decide on the best place to take her so they could talk without being overheard. He opted for the nightclub, maneuvering them both through the throngs of people on the dance floor, all scantily dressed and gyrating shamelessly to the music. Sure the resort was a classy place—exclusive really—but once the sun went down, the rich and bored suddenly morphed into the rich and horny.
He grabbed an empty table directly in front of one of the speakers, then leaned in and spoke into her ear, careful to make it look like he was trying nothing more than to get her naked.
He watched her eyes grow wide and felt her body shiver as he shared what he knew of the underground caverns. He paused for a long moment, working to control his emotions. He couldn’t lose Cass. A wave of guilt swamped him. Damn it all, he should have taken better care of his sister. He never should have let her go out in the world without his protection. His hands fisted and a gr
owl crawled out of the depths of his throat.
Sunny’s hand closed over his and squeezed, taking him by surprise. Her comforting touch went right through him. Something about her stirred warm feelings deep in his soul, feelings that were best left buried unless he wanted to give his demon room to play. And if his demon got out, God only knows what it’d do to her. A cop.
“I’m sorry your sister is missing.” His gaze flew to her face to see the sincerity in her eyes. “I’ll do whatever it takes to help shut this place down and find her.” His gut clenched as if he’d taken a physical blow. Other than his mother or sister, no woman had shown compassion toward him before and it was all he could do to fight down the need clawing its way to the surface. She might be a cop, but she was still a beautiful woman and the man in him wanted her—in ways that were dangerous to both of them.
He’d just finished telling her about his task of “auditioning” women when Neal stepped into the club and glanced around. Their eyes collided and Neal nodded his appreciation. With the way they Blake and Sunny were sitting so close, touching rather intimately, and speaking into one another’s ear, Neal clearly assumed Blake had made his selection.
“Shit,” Blake whispered, the bass from the speaker beating backup to the panic unfurling in his chest. He’d been going out of his way to avoid women, not wanting anyone to get the idea he’d found a candidate. But now he’d been spotted getting up close and personal with Sunny…
And Sunny was a cop. A cop who could handle demons. Common sense told him that of all the women at the resort, she was the one most likely to be able to take care of herself—as long as she knew what he’d gotten her into.