Midnight's Master

by Cynthia Eden

Yes, she could imagine that it had been. Holly swallowed. “You wanted revenge against her killer?”

  “I got my revenge.” Same flat voice.

  That voice scared her. So she lifted her chin and put her hand on his chest. Right over the heart that thundered in a mad rhythm that belied his sinister cool.

  Niol jerked at her touch. “Don’t, Holly.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t touch you? I want to touch you. I’m not going to back off.” Because there was more to him than darkness and death.

  Once upon a time, she’d brought home every stray in the neighborhood and set up “Holly’s Home” for animals. Peter had shaken his head at her and told her she couldn’t save the world.

  Her mom had only let her keep one cat. She’d cried for days when she’d lost the others.

  And learned that she couldn’t save the world.

  No, no, she hadn’t learned that. Because she went on the news every night, a secret part of her hoping to make a difference.

  Just as she hoped to make a difference with Niol.

  Not saving the world but maybe saving him.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing.” Now his hands grasped her upper arms and he lifted her onto her toes, staring down at her with an almost desperate rage. “Don’t make me—” He stopped, and a muscle flexed along the rock-hard length of his jaw. “Don’t make me care about you, Holly. Because if I did and if anything ever happened to you—”

  She could see the promise of hell in his eyes.

  “Whatever you do, don’t make me love you.” His eyes bored into hers. “I don’t love well, but I kill perfectly.”

  Not the heartfelt confession every girl dreamed of hearing.

  A threat she’d never hoped to get.

  Her mouth had gone so dry her throat ached. She swallowed over the lump of dust and said, “Niol—”

  His head jerked to the right. Toward the long line of windows on the far side of the building. Windows always covered by thick black curtains. “What the—”

  Glass shattered as circles of fire—no, bottles with burning rags in them—shot through the curtains.

  The bottles crashed into the floor, into the tables, into the bar, and flames exploded in a burst of white-hot heat all around them.

  Holly opened her mouth to scream.

  Niol roared and lifted his hands, and the flames died in an instant, with only the faint wisps of smoke drifting in the bar.

  Her scream choked out in a gasp.

  Niol ran for the door.

  She grabbed her shoes. When had I lost them? She spared a brief glance for the scorched tables and bar, then she thundered after him.

  He nearly ripped the front door from its hinges. Fast and strong. She knew that, but she’d never seen him quite like this.

  The slam of car doors.

  The screech of tires.

  Holly’s gaze flew to the right. A black van shot down the street in a fog of exhaust and the stench of burnt rubber. Getting away. The bastards who had just tried to torch them were fleeing.

  And they’d get away. They were too fast.

  The tag. She could get the tag number and—

  Another roar from Niol. One that seemed to shake the street itself. He lifted his hands up high and then slammed them down at his sides.

  She watched, stunned, horrified, as the van flipped into the air, rolled, once, twice, then hit the black pavement and rolled again, finally stopping when it crashed into a wooden light post.

  Wow.

  “Niol…” She tried to grab his arm, but he was already storming down the road, heading for the broken van that swayed so slowly now, back and forth. Smoke or steam, Holly couldn’t tell which, rose from its exposed belly, spewing into the air.

  The driver’s-side door flew off and crashed ten feet away.

  That’s one pissed-off demon.

  Not that she blamed him. Those assholes had just tried to kill them.

  Screw the shoes. Running in heels wasn’t an option. So Holly kicked ’em off and took off after him.

  The whine of a siren reached her ears just as she skidded to a halt next to Niol. He had the driver out. He was a young guy with coal-black hair, matted red near his forehead. Watery green eyes. Busted lip.

  “Who the hell are you?” Niol’s fingers were white as he held up the kid. No, not really a kid. The guy had to be in his early twenties.

  Holly bent down, craning her neck to see into the demolished vehicle. Two more guys. One starting to move in the backseat—very, very slowly. The blond in the front was out cold.

  “J-Jon D-Douglas…” Blood dripped from the guy’s busted lip and stained his rounded chin.

  “Do you know who I am?” Niol snarled. The guy’s booted feet dangled over the ground. “Do you know just what the fuck you’ve done?”

  The wail of the approaching siren was silenced by the sudden rush of wind that shook the van.

  Holly reached for Niol. “Find out why, Niol.” She knew Niol had enemies. She would have been an idiot not to have known that a demon as strong as Niol didn’t always play nice with the other paranormals in town.

  But with all the twisted crap going on with the demon-hunter case…they needed to find out why.

  “I-I don’t kn-know you, m-man…” Bleary eyes started to clear, a bit. “Y-you got th-this wrong. M-my friends—we’re h-hurt, n-need h-help…”

  Niol’s lips peeled away from his teeth. “Do I look like I give a shit that you’re hurt? Asshole, if you don’t start talking, fast, you’ll be dead in the next five seconds.”

  Jon choked. Niol dropped him and the guy retched on the ground.

  “Human.” Niol shook his head. “A human came after me? The idiot must want to die.”

  A whimper from the backseat.

  Holly’s palms were slick with sweat. The setup was wrong. Any paranormal in town would have known that using fire against Niol wasn’t exactly the smartest option. The guy could manipulate the elements pretty much at will.

  Carefully, so as to avoid the, ahem, mess on the ground, Holly knelt beside the guy. He was shaking and rocking back and forth and the wind had quieted enough for Holly to hear the siren again.

  The cops were closing in. Not much time.

  She had to find out what was going on before Niol carried through with his rage. “Who sent you to Paradise Found?”

  Jon looked up, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. His eyes changed as he stared at her, she could see it. The bravado came back. Doesn’t think I’m a threat. She knew what the punk was going to say even before he snarled—

  “F-fuck off, bitch, you—”

  His words ended in a gasp and his face began to turn purple.

  His hands clawed at his throat as he fought for breath.

  “Don’t ever talk to her like that, asshole.”

  Holly glanced up at Niol. Lines bracketed his mouth. Fury covered his face. “Give him a breath,” she ordered softly, her stomach so knotted she ached.

  One black brow rose, but she heard Jon take a wrenching breath. “Good.” She held Niol’s stare a moment longer, then glanced back at the punk. “If you want to keep breathing, answer my questions.”

  What was this? Holly wondered. Good demon, bad demon? Whatever worked. Time was running out.

  A frantic nod.

  “Let him keep breathing.” Her hands were clenched, her nails digging into her palms. The pavement bit into her knees as she knelt before Jon. “You don’t know what you’ve gotten into, do you?”

  “H-how is-is h-he—” Jon broke off, shaking his head. “N-not p-possible—”

  “Trust me, it’s possible.” Lambs to the slaughter. Niol was right. The odds were sure looking good that ol’ Jon was human and way out of his league. “Someone sent you to torch Paradise.” To rouse the beast. “Who.” Not a question, and if the guy truly wanted to draw another strong breath, he’d better answer.

  Holly wasn’t particularly in the most caring mood. The guy had just trie
d to burn down the building she’d been inside. If Niol hadn’t been there—

  No. Not going to think about that.

  Sometimes it definitely paid to have the big, psychic badass as your lover.

  And as your muscle—because Jon started talking, fast, the stutter all but leaving his voice as he said. “Woman. Found us at M-Myer’s.”

  Myer’s. She knew that place. A run-down bar near MU. Frequented most often by freshmen with false IDs.

  “Offered us a g-grand apiece, cash, to burn the bar—”

  And the guys had what—jumped at the chance to become pyros? “You didn’t know who owned Paradise?” She had a suspicion but—

  “Hell, no, why would that matter?”

  Why, indeed?

  “T-told us to go in the day, when no-no one was t-there.”

  But she and Niol had been there. Chance?

  Lust.

  Such a deadly sin.

  “Weren’t g-gonna hurt anybody.”

  Just burn down the bar.

  “Give me a name.” Niol’s voice was still thick with barely banked fury, but at least he was letting the guy breathe okay now. That was an improvement.

  So the punks hadn’t meant to kill them. Just destroy Paradise.

  Better, but not the most reassuring thing she’d ever heard.

  “I-I didn’t get her name.” More blood shot from his mouth. Hmm…the guy might have lost a tooth somewhere. “Just her money.”

  Great.

  “Tell me exactly what the woman looked—”

  The screech of tires. The slam of doors.

  Holly didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that the cops had arrived. The siren shrieking full-on in her ears told her that time had run out.

  Chapter 14

  Fury was a red haze that colored his vision. Niol tasted the ashes of rage on his tongue and knew that his control was razor thin.

  Holly could have been killed.

  If the assholes had attacked while he hadn’t been around—

  I knew she’d be dangerous to me. Fuck me, I knew.

  He couldn’t afford this kind of weakness.

  Not now. Not ever.

  A slim black casket, gleaming in the afternoon light. Nina had been inside. Her laughter gone, her spirit stolen.

  Niol swallowed.

  Gillian. His half sister. He hadn’t even known about her, not until just a few months before her death. Seemed his mother had started a whole new life after she’d ditched his ass.

  But, Gillian had come looking for him. Wanted him.

  Then he’d found her that cold dawn…

  In her red dress. The dress I’d bought for her. Blood soaking the dress and pooling all around her slender body.

  He hadn’t been able to keep her safe, either.

  All his so-called power and two women he’d cared for were dead.

  His gaze locked on Holly.

  Not three. Not fucking three.

  “You’ll destroy everything, every damn body! I don’t want you near me, got it? I don’t want you near me!” His mother’s last words to him. Screamed in her fury.

  “Niol, pull it back.” The clipped man’s voice caught him off guard. He flinched. He knew that voice.

  Detective Colin Gyth.

  The shifter. He’d killed the murdering bastard who’d attacked his Gillian. For all their differences, and there were a hell of a lot of ’em, Niol owed the wolf a debt.

  “Pull. It. Back.”

  It took Niol a moment to understand. He tore his eyes away from Holly and glanced up at the sky. Toward the swirling clouds of red and black. The howl of the wind reached him and lightning crackled across the sky.

  Too much power. His curse.

  He inhaled slowly. She’s alive. Not like the others.

  But she could have been dead, because she’d been with me.

  So damn arrogant. He’d thought he could keep her safe from everything out there.

  He should have known. He hadn’t saved the others, and now, he was causing the threat to her.

  A cool hand against his. Soft. Feminine. “They didn’t get us.” Holly’s voice. Strong.

  But she wasn’t strong.

  A demon, but as weak as a human.

  Gillian had been a low-level demon, too. Fragile.

  So easy to destroy.

  Not her blood. I won’t have Holly’s blood on my hands, too. The stains on his hands had already soaked through the skin.

  Another deep breath.

  She stroked the flesh on his arm.

  His eyes stayed locked on those clouds. Control. He wouldn’t lose it now. Not in front of the cops who’d fire at him if his power went wild.

  Fire and maybe hit Holly.

  A long, thick arc of lightning, a blast of thunder, followed by a heavy stench in the air—fire and fury.

  Can’t. Love. Her.

  Deep breath.

  Won’t.

  Her fingers on him.

  Niol squeezed his eyes shut. “Get the bastards away from me if you want them to keep livin’.”

  “We need to get the Jaws of Life out here!” Brooks. The one Cara mistakenly had taken to mate.

  Cara. So like her sister Nina.

  A succubus who loved.

  Dangerous, that.

  Niol grunted and metal screeched.

  “Not anymore we don’t,” Gyth muttered and there was a clatter as the broken side door hit the ground.

  He could hear someone babbling, pleading. The asshole kid.

  His eyes opened. Narrowed on his victim. “I see you again, you’re dead.”

  “Ah, Niol, you can’t threaten someone in front of cops—”

  Slowly, he turned his attention to the human. What did Cara see in him?

  “These jerks just tried to kill us!” Holly’s fierce voice. She stepped in front of him.

  In front of him.

  Niol blinked.

  “They made molotov cocktails and threw ’em into the bar. Their van crashed when they were hightailing it out of—”

  “Lucky coincidence,” Gyth said, face straight.

  “—here, but this guy—” Holly charged right on, pointing her finger at Mr. Sobbing, “Confessed and right before you came up with sirens blazing—”

  Niol finally glanced around at the scene. Fury was settling, for now, and he could think past the immediate need to destroy.

  For the moment.

  Two patrol cars had braked nearby. Their lights still blazed, doors hung open, and uniformed cops stood on alert, guns drawn.

  Then there was Gyth’s black Jeep. Right in front of them.

  “—he was going to tell us about the woman who hired him to torch the bar.”

  “Was he?” Gyth, who’d had his own gun drawn, holstered the weapon and jerked the kid to his feet. “Then he can tell us all.”

  The kid stared at him, at the hint of fang Gyth had let slip loose. Then he looked back at Niol. His eyes widened and then rolled back into his head.

  He sagged in the wolf shifter’s arms, out cold.

  Lucky bastard.

  Niol started walking away from the cops, fast.

  Because he couldn’t be around the fools in that van a minute longer.

  And he had new prey to hunt because he’d slipped into that punk’s mind in that one precious instant, gone in hard and fast and deep. His probe had been so brutal he’d made the jerk pass out.

  Lucky. It would have been nice if the kid had suffered more from his psychic push, but he’d get that blood punishment later.

  For now, Niol had gotten exactly what he wanted.

  He’d seen the woman. A perfect image.

  Tall and slender. Hair bundled under a long black scarf. Golden skin. Dark sunglasses perched on high cheekbones. Rounded jaw. Thin lips. A small black mole on the side of her neck.

  New prey.

  I’m coming.

  He’d find out just why the bitch had targeted him.

  The cops got out
of Niol’s way. No one moved to stop him. Hell, no one seemed to move at all until Niol was gone.

  Holly crossed her arms over her chest, feeling chilled, and, well, abandoned.

  Niol hadn’t even glanced back at her when he’d marched across the street.

  “Storm, you just keep turning up in bad places.” Gyth stepped closer to her as he shook his head. Behind him, Brooks and the uniforms checked out the wounded pyros.

  One of the cops had his radio out as he called for an ambulance.

  Oh, yeah, they’d need that ambulance.

  “I was in the bar, minding my own business.” Just finishing up some great sex. “Then these jerkoffs decided to get fire crazy.”

  He crept even closer. So close that when he spoke again, she knew the others couldn’t hear his faint words. “Real stupid to go after Niol with fire.”

  It was. “They’re humans, aren’t they?”

  His nostrils flared. “Smell that way.” His gaze trapped hers. “But then, so do you.”

  There was a definite question there, one she was going to ignore. “I don’t think they know exactly who…” What. “They’re dealing with.”

  “I’d say that’s shit straight.” One brow rose. Those blue eyes were brilliant with intensity. “And I’d say it’s a good thing we arrived when we did. Otherwise, I think our torchers would be dust.”

  It was hard not to flinch at that. No denying that Niol had been enraged, but he’d held on to his control.

  She’d seen him fight to hold it.

  She’d also seen him walk away from her without a backward glance and that had hurt.

  “Why—” Holly stopped and cleared her throat. Because she’d sounded hoarse, from the wind, of course. It had been blowing like a mini-tornado moments before. Had to be from the wind. “Why were you in the area, detective?”

  He scratched the bridge of his nose. There was a groan from the man still in the front seat of the van. Holly glanced over at him. Brooks had his index finger in front of the guy’s eyes and the cop was getting him to track the movement.

  That one seemed to be coming around, finally.

  “I was coming to see Niol.”

  Her attention turned back to Gyth.

  “Had a few questions for your lover,” he continued in that same near-whisper voice.

  “What kind of questions?” Surely he wasn’t back to suspecting Niol—