Forged in Fire

by Juliette Cross

  I laughed as we strapped into my 380ZX and I zipped out of the driveway into traffic. Damn, it felt good to be behind the wheel again. For some reason, it seemed like forever. I checked the perimeter for Lord of Protection. No sign of him.

  “So, what happened with you and Malcolm last night? You never told me. Was he a good kisser?”

  “Mindy! Please.”

  “Oh, don’t you please me. Geez, for a tough girl, you can be a total prude. Give me the juice.”

  “I am not a prude,” I protested, shoving into fourth.

  “Um, yeah. You are. But I love ya anyway. So, what’s up with Malcolm?”

  “It was fine.”

  “Fine?”

  Mindy twisted in her seat to stare me down. I hated when she did that, trying to read my face. She was good at it.

  “Oooooo, what happened?”

  I realized I was blushing. It had nothing to do with Malcolm and everything to do with the hunk of man who came into my bedroom afterward and kissed me senseless. “Nothing. I mean, we had a good time, had a few beers.”

  “Aaaand?”

  She waved her hand, palm up, trying to pull the information from me.

  “And, yes, we kissed.”

  “Oooooo, where?”

  “At the front door.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She gave me a devious smile. I punched her lightly. “Stop it. To be honest, Min, he was a terrible kisser.”

  “Oh, nooooo! But he’s such perfect boyfriend material. A bad kiss can ruin everything!”

  And a good kiss can melt your brain into mush. Not to mention what it can do to other parts of the female anatomy.

  “Well, you can always teach him.”

  “Very funny. It’s just, I don’t know, I’m not feeling the chemistry.”

  “Uh-oh. Then break it off now and try to keep it friendly.”

  “Yeah. Well, I haven’t talked to him since last night, and he’s texted me like three times ‘hoping I had a good time’, as he put it. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to lead him on, you know?”

  “Take it from me. Do it fast and quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid. Trust me, it’s better if you’re up-front.”

  “Yeah, you’ve had a lot of experience with breakups. You’d know.”

  A sweet giggle. She knew I was teasing, even though it was true. “I can’t help it. I like boys.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware of that addiction of yours. Here we are.”

  I found a good spot under a streetlight, not in a dark alley where David had parked us last time. Moron. I could feel the music pumping from the entrance. The big-and-beefy bouncer stood on duty again.

  “Hey, there, Sunshine,” I said cheerily, passing him my ID. “You still here?”

  He glanced at my license, then handed it back between his index and middle finger, raking dark eyes up and down.

  “Still here.” Nice deep Conan-like voice to match the physique. “I’ll be glad to go wherever you go when I get off.”

  Mindy pinched me and pushed me through the door. “Geez, Gen! You’re snatching them up already.”

  I tried to remember why I was really here, wishing now that I was just out with my best friend to have a good time. We must’ve come on goth night. This crowd preferred dark monotones. Florence and the Machine’s “Heavy In Your Arms” pulsed slow and intense. Mindy made a beeline for the blue-lit bar.

  I reached out with my VS, not sensing the presence of Flamma. Glancing up at one of the metal cages on the edge of the dance floor, I saw Kat swaying gently. She winked at me, then looked away. I realized then that I wouldn’t detect Flamma or demons if they were casting illusion.

  She wore skintight gray pants and a white blousy top. Of course, daggers were strapped to her thighs, but I couldn’t see them until I focused very hard on breaking through the cast of illusion. I marveled at how the casts worked. What you saw and were able to penetrate depended not only on the strength of the caster but also on the strength of the one trying to break it. Non-Flamma couldn’t break through a cast even if they knew it existed.

  “Appletini, please,” Mindy called to the smiling bartender.

  “Oh no you don’t,” I whispered. “No way am I carrying you out of here like last time. Two Killians, please.”

  “Ugh. Okay, mother hen. Hey! There’s Jeff from psych class.”

  She sauntered over to a guy standing with two others at the end of the bar. I’d actually seen one of them somewhere on campus before, but couldn’t think where.

  I waited for our beers, then joined them. Mindy laughed heartily at something Jeff said when I walked up.

  “I know! I think the professor’s half-crazy herself. Jeff, this is my best friend, Genevieve.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he replied with a smile. “These are my roommates, Matt and Isaac.”

  Matt gave us a friendly nod and went back to a conversation with the brunette on his left. They seemed like nice guys. Jeans and T-shirts. No frills. The kind of guys who made me feel comfortable. Why couldn’t Mindy date a guy like Jeff instead of Dazzling Dave?

  “Let’s go dance!” screamed Mindy, pulling Jeff with her.

  Isaac didn’t move, keeping his back glued to the bar. I nodded to the floor. “You wanna go?”

  “Uh no. Not much of a dancer.”

  I decided to stay put too. I could scope out the scene better from here.

  “So, did you get all of the information you needed on Paradise Lost?” asked Isaac.

  I scrunched my eyebrows together, then remembered. He worked at the library. I’d seen him a few times on study nights with Malcolm and Mary. Isaac had bright blue eyes, framed behind thin, silver-rimmed glasses. An attractive face, though the angles were a bit too sharp. His brown hair curled at the nape of his neck. He was cute and nice, which made me wonder why he was standing so aloof, as if trying to be polite but keep some distance.

  “That’s where I know you from. Yeah, we got everything we needed. That was for a test in Renaissance Lit.”

  “Ah,” he nodded. “Professor Bennett?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled, though it didn’t put the guy at ease. I tried to figure out why all the tension, glancing down as I took a swig of beer. Oh, my attire. I looked like I was going to kick ass and take names. Well, I planned to do exactly that once I found myself a demon. I hadn’t thought of how my aggressive, albeit sexy-as-hell, getup would affect anyone else, especially Mr. Librarian. “Bennett. He’s such a douche.”

  Isaac laughed. Nice sound. Nice guy. I wished I wasn’t scaring the crap out of him.

  “He is definitely that. Smart as hell, but he’s got the god complex of a lot of professors.”

  I tried my friendly smile. He seemed to relax a bit. “So, I know this sounds like a line, but do you come here often?” he asked.

  “No.” I laughed. “Mindy brought me here on my birthday not long ago for the first time. Not my normal hangout.”

  “Mine either,” he said, relaxing further.

  I almost laughed. I felt like I was trying to gentle a timid dog closer to my fingertips for a morsel of bread. We fell into comfortable conversation for several minutes when I sensed him. I scanned across the bar, spotting Jude in the same shadowed corner where I’d first seen him, gazing at me with heat and flames. How he didn’t set me on fire with that raw, burning gaze I’m not sure. And yes, like a moth to the light, I couldn’t help myself.

  “Be back in a minute, Isaac.”

  I set my beer down and walked into the throng on the dance floor as Tool’s “Sober” began thrumming slow and steady, vibrating through my chest. People sort of swayed and bobbed heads rather than danced as the hypnotizing cadence rocked the place. Sweat and perfume mingled as bodies pressed close. I wove slowly through the crowd, catching Jude’s fuming gaze over the crowd as white spotlights swiveled over us to the beat. I wouldn’t be intimidated. At least, that’s what I told myself. I walked tall and strong, grazing by dancers, pushing
through them. The whole while, Jude melted me with his black stare. By the time I cleared the last obstructing person to the small space he occupied, my heart hammered at a painful speed. Still, I held my chin high, never breaking eye contact. That would be a sign of weakness. Not tonight.

  His voice scraped on that gravelly level. “What exactly do you think you are doing, Genevieve?”

  His eyes dropped to my breasts. The effect was palpable. He might as well have grabbed my blouse and stripped them bare.

  “What do you mean?” I tried to act casual, though it sounded like a frog was caught in my throat. “I’m meeting you here for demon-defense training. That was the plan, right?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  A rough hand wrapped around my upper arm.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” I said as nonchalantly as possible. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

  “With pleasure.”

  Both hands were sealed around my arms, my back pressed into the shadowed corner behind him. His thigh pushed between my own. I tried desperately not to moan, barely succeeding. He kept his chest from touching mine, as if that barrier was too dangerous to cross. The whole while, the angry beat and words of “Sober” pounded into me. I glared up at him, willing myself not to melt.

  “Dangerous girl, aren’t you, Genevieve? Let me explain to you very clearly what I mean. Dressing in this fashion with a body like yours gives off a certain signal to men, which I could care less about. What I do care about is the signal you’re sending to me, for it is quite clear this is for me.”

  One hand slid to my hip.

  “Stop it. You have no claims on me, Jude.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “No. I won’t be the other woman to your girlfriend, Kat. I’ll never be second to anyone.”

  His expression shifted. A ghost of humor crossed his face, then was gone.

  “There is nothing, has never been and never will be anything between Kat and me but a history of expelling demons to the underworld.”

  “But, well then…why did you regret last night…what we did in my bedroom?”

  “I have no regrets in my life but one. Maybe two. Last night was far from a regret and far less than what I wanted to do.”

  I sucked in a breath.

  “I don’t understand,” I struggled to say, wedged in by the heat and muscle of him hazing my senses. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

  “Untainted hands, heart and body. Do you remember me telling you about that?”

  I drunkenly nodded as his thigh brushed between my legs again.

  “When I see you like this, touch you, I’m quite willing to go to hell for a taste and drag you down with me. Both our souls be damned. I’m restraining myself not for any gallant reason. Burning awhile in hell is a small price to pay to quench the burning I have for you. But”—he leaned closer, lips brushing my ear—“what I won’t allow is any possible opportunity for that filthy fuck Danté to get his hands on you. You are mine, Genevieve. And I will have you. Do you understand my meaning now?”

  I think I stopped breathing halfway through his speech. I couldn’t move. I should’ve been more disconcerted by the callous way he tossed our souls aside, but his thumb brushed my lower lip, forcing my mouth open, and I just couldn’t think anymore.

  “Do you understand?” he asked, voice husky, warm breath close to my lips. “Say it.”

  I was caught in the storm of his eyes, walled in by flickering flame, unable to say a word.

  “And so there’s no misunderstanding whatsoever, you can warn the boy, or not, that if he dares lay a finger or even thinks about putting his lips on this skin,” he rumbled darkly, trailing his index finger along my jaw, down my throat, over the hollow to the V of my shirt, “then he won’t even remember his own fucking name when I’m done with him. Are you getting my meaning now?”

  I nodded dumbly. A hard wall of chest pressed against the softness of mine, pushing me against the brick. A whimper escaped my traitorous mouth. No way could I keep my senses in check when Jude had me in his arms.

  “Say it, Genevieve.”

  Sultry, whispered words as his thumb lifted my chin, my mouth closer for his taking. Yes. I wanted very much to be consumed by the flames of Jude. Yes. I wanted him and only him.

  “Yes.”

  A fierce melding of lips and tongue. He branded me, making damn sure I knew where he stood. God, the heat of him. My VS hummed through my veins, as if inviting the man to set me on fire.

  “Wider,” he whispered, pulling my chin down and pushing my thighs farther apart. The sensation nearly drove me mad. My hands pulled on his broad shoulders, willing him to crush me right through the wall.

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Yes.”

  He made some sort of rumbling sound in response, angling my head for better access, tangling a hand in my hair as he swept his tongue in deeper.

  “You’ll be the death of me,” he whispered, trailing scorching nips and sucking kisses along my jaw to the base of my ear and down my neck. That was quite an admission considering how long he’d been alive.

  I threaded a hand into the hair at his nape as his mouth tasted and melted me into a liquid, pliant creature. Something stirred not just down below, for that had gone up in flames from the second he touched me, but farther up around my heart. He knocked on a door slammed shut and bolted tight long ago when the one I loved most in the world had left me. I felt my hand trembling on the knob, wanting to open the door for him.

  One hand came up and cupped my breast, his thumb brushing soft circles, teasing. I moaned into his mouth, pressing closer. The same hand continued moving, up to my throat, fingers trailing, then up to cup my face, angling me so he could delve deeper.

  The song ended, moving into another. Jude forced his hands to my waist, squeezing, exhaling a heavy breath. He pressed his forehead to mine for a second before pulling away with a smug grin on his face. Completely satisfied with himself. Well, maybe not completely satisfied. Fine, fine man.

  “Now that we’re clear, how about you go hunt us up a demon?” he asked with an abrupt end to our make-out session in the corner of a grunge bar. He could pretend to be all casual, but his chest rose and fell fast enough.

  “Okay,” I said, pushing him a little farther away. He let me. “I need to do something with this…energy.”

  “Good girl.”

  A big smile. My heart skipped at least two beats. I took a deep breath and pushed out of the corner. After one step, a tight grip on my waist pulled me back. He swept my hair to the side, trailing his fingers along the lower back of my neck. Gooseflesh rose all over. He did that on purpose.

  “If you don’t see me, don’t worry,” he whispered in my left ear. “I’ll need to move around and stay hidden. Casting illusion won’t help. The demons around here will know me on sight.”

  “What about Kat?” I asked, glancing at her slim silhouette still in the cage. “She’ll surely draw attention.”

  “She doesn’t work this region normally. The local demons won’t know her. I’ll be watching. If you see a demon, lure him outside. I’ll follow and back you up.”

  “Who says I’ll need backup?”

  A squeeze lower on the hip.

  “I’ll be watching,” he promised. “Just to be sure.”

  “Stalker.”

  Warm lips on the slope between my shoulder and neck made me jump.

  “Stop that,” I hissed. “I’ve got to concentrate. I’m going now.”

  He smacked my butt as I walked away. Yes! Smacked it! I stumbled a step forward and moved quickly into the crowd, glaring over my shoulder to see a grinning demon hunter, bloated with ego and the knowledge of just how much control he already had over my body.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, bumping into a couple by accident and moving on.

  When I glanced back, Jude was gone. But not really, which gave me a sense of relief. As I found my way back to the bar, Jeff, Isaac and Mindy were downing shots of tequil
a.

  “Yayyyy! Come on, Gen! Come do one with us!”

  “Somebody’s got to get you home in one piece,” I assured her, hoping she wasn’t going to get puking drunk. “Y’all have fun, though.”

  They licked salt off their hands, clinked shot glasses, downed them and shoved lime wedges into their mouths. Mindy made an especially sour expression, scrunching up her cute face. Bright blue eyes widened as she clapped her hands.

  “Whoohoo! Another one, boys!”

  Leave it to Mindy. A party girl if there ever was one. I’d lost my beer or the bartender had thrown it away, so I sidled up to get another.

  “Killian’s?” he asked.

  I nodded, fishing in my pocket for some money. Just as I did, a prickling of needles stung along my spine.

  “Let me get that for you, sweetheart.”

  I turned to the eerily familiar voice on my left and looked up into the blood-red eyes of Fabio.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Once I’d gotten over the shock of him standing there with a stupid-ass grin spread on his face, I gave him a bright smile in return.

  “Well, hello there, handsome. You know, you should totally get some contacts to hide those. It may just be me, but that’s really not an attractive eye color.”

  “Doesn’t matter in a place like this, sweetheart. They all think I am wearing contacts. The joke’s on them.”

  “Aha, ha, ha, ha.” I laughed in an exaggerated tone, then added dryly, “Pretty funny joke.”

  He scowled. “How’s your stomach?”

  “Oh, awesome. Good as new. Next time, don’t be such a girl. You should really actually try to hurt me. How’s the nose? Didn’t heal quite right, from the looks of it.”

  “Still got that smart mouth, don’t ya. Bet you’ll lose the attitude when I take you to Master.”

  “You mean Danté? Oh, he doesn’t mind.”

  Yes, I was feeling quite cocky. The scowl changed to suspicion. I peered past him and saw Spiky lurking to the side, as menacing as ever.

  “He said you might not resist.” Fabio was trying to figure me out.