A Dangerous Hunger: (The Sentinel Demons)

by Scott, J. S.

  Talia just gaped at Drew, unable to speak for a moment. She looked at the devilishly handsome Sentinel in complete and utter shock. “Me?” she squeaked. “Not possible.”

  “I’m afraid it is possible, and I’m telling you the truth. You are my mate,” he repeated gravely, his dark, liquid eyes shining with sincerity. “It’s not possible for me to do anything to harm you. My only instincts are to protect you.”

  Talia shook her head in disbelief. “You must be mistaken. How do you know?”

  “Believe me, I’m not wrong,” he answered huskily, reaching out to grasp her hand.

  Talia felt the connection immediately, a strange force tugging her toward Drew. It was electric, exciting, and absolutely terrifying. “Taking Pumpkin away hurt me,” she pointed out nervously.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were my mate until I saw you. I’ll give her back. She’s fine.”

  Talia tilted her head, assessing him. “Isn’t she the sweetest cat in the world?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Drew replied glumly. “I hate cats.”

  Talia gasped. “How can you hate cats? Pumpkin has been the only real friend I’ve ever had.”

  “Cats aren’t friends. They’re animals. And cats hate me as much as I hate them. They sense my demon.”

  “Animals make better friends than people sometimes. If you feed them, love them, and take care of them, they love you no matter what.” Talia wasn’t quite certain that her first statement was absolutely true because she’d never had real human friends. She was too much of a freak.

  “Stop doing that. You aren’t a freak,” Drew growled.

  Talia knew she hadn’t said that aloud. “Are you reading my mind?” Now that was unsettling.

  “Your thoughts flow to me naturally. It’s normal for a Sentinel to hear the thoughts of his mate,” Drew informed her calmly.

  “It isn’t natural for me. Stop it.” Honestly, it was damn uncomfortable. She didn’t want Drew to know her every thought.

  “I’m a demon. I can’t help myself. Your mind is a very intriguing place to be.” Drew grinned at her mischievously.

  There was that damn dimple again, and he looked so incredibly…edible. “This can’t be right.”

  “It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you, believe me,” Drew informed her, moving to sit on the couch beside her.

  Somehow, Talia doubted that. She was overwhelmed and confused. She pulled her hand from Drew’s and clutched the pillow to her chest instead. “Can I have my cat back?” she asked quietly.

  “You can have any damn thing you want,” Drew agreed readily. “But you’ll have to come and get her.”

  “Why didn’t you just bring her?” Talia asked curiously.

  “She doesn’t like the carrier I made,” he admitted unhappily.

  “She doesn’t like any carrier. You could have just held her,” Talia pointed out.

  Drew scowled. “I told you I don’t like cats, and that includes actually picking them up.”

  “Then maybe you should think twice before you steal one.” Talia laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Drew looked so forlorn, and it was incredibly amusing to her that the big, bad Sentinel demon wouldn’t touch a sweet kitty like Pumpkin.

  “She’s a menace. She ate all my tuna,” Drew grumbled, pulling a truffle from his pocket and popping it into his mouth.

  “She opened the cans herself?” Talia asked innocently.

  “She was crying,” Drew said defensively.

  Talia smiled, watching Drew try to explain why he’d been so concerned about a whining cat. “If you drive me to your house, I’ll get her.”

  “I live in Seattle,” Drew answered. “It could be a long drive. I teleported.”

  “Then just take me that way and bring me back,” Talia suggested, not blinking an eye about his mode of travel. She’d never done it, but she knew that was how demons usually moved.

  “I’m not bringing you back,” Drew informed her casually. “You’re being pursued by Evils, and you’re not safe here. I have no idea why they’re after you, but they obviously are. You’ll stay with me. You’re my mate, and that’s something we have to work out.”

  “It doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it. You could find someone else.” Strangely, that thought didn’t sit well with her at all, and she felt a sharp, proprietary instinct as she said the words, a jolt of negative reaction to her own words fluttering in her belly. She didn’t want him to find anyone else.

  “There is no one else, Talia. A Sentinel has one mate. Period. There isn’t anyone else for me but you.” He turned to her, his eyes turbulent and stormy. “It isn’t a choice, and you have no idea how I feel right now.”

  “How do you feel?” Talia wasn’t sure why she asked. She could see the truth on his face. Gone were all traces of his earlier humor, the carefree look replaced with the expression of a predator that had found its prey.

  Pressing her back against the arm of the sofa, his body imprisoned her, enthralling her with the heat radiating in waves from his muscular form. “Like a demon,” he answered hoarsely, his eyes dropping possessively to her mouth.

  Her whole body caught fire as his hot, demanding mouth suddenly captured and consumed hers. Drew’s embrace momentarily enthralled her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, opening to him as though it were the natural thing for her to do. The connection grew stronger as Drew deepened the sensual assault, exploring her mouth with a ferocity that made her breathless, her body going liquid, and her core flooding with urgent heat. Never had she known desire like this, the need to connect with another person so desperately. She met his tongue as he pillaged her mouth, the fiery ache in her belly growing intense.

  Suddenly, her body froze, her senses pounded by approaching Evils. She wrenched her mouth away from Drew’s, panting.

  “Evils. I can sense them,” she said urgently, feeling a level of malevolence like she’d never sensed before approaching. “They’re powerful.”

  “Fuck!” Drew didn’t doubt her instinct for even a second. His body tensed immediately and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. “Hold on to me,” he commanded.

  She didn’t have much time to react before she was plunged into darkness, clinging to Drew as the world grew dim and tilted wildly before fading to black.

  “You failed to tell me that the woman I was pursuing was actually my radiant.” Drew was having a hell of a time holding his temper as he faced his Sentinel king, Kristoff Agares, who was lounging casually on a recliner in his massive living room. Drew had been torn between watching over Talia as she slept off her reaction to his rapid transport to his home, with Pumpkin curled up at her side, and finding Kristoff so he could tear his head off. Finally, he’d flashed away from Talia to Kristoff’s home, his urgency for answers and information too tenacious to ignore. Talia was safe, and she was now his acknowledged mate. He’d sense it if she were in danger, now that they had met and were connected.

  Drew couldn’t sit, so he paced the floor in front of Kristoff, waiting for an answer.

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn’t know?” Kristoff swirled the Scotch in the glass he was holding, his brilliant blue eyes watching Drew pensively.

  Bloody hell! Actually…no! Drew had no doubt in his mind that Kristoff had known exactly what he was doing when he’d sent Drew after Talia, had known that she was his radiant, and he was sick and tired of his king’s cryptic answers. Instead of an answer, Kristoff had answered his question with a question. It was so damn irritating that Drew was pushed not to go completely demon on his king, and it was unsettling. He respected Kristoff, owed him his very life, but he was damn tired of his sovereign’s evasiveness. “You knew,” Drew answered angrily, pulling a chocolate from his pocket and popping it into his mouth, even though his supply was getting low.

  “You love being a
Sentinel,” Kristoff answered calmly. “A radiant is part of the deal. You always knew that.”

  Problem was, Drew did love being a Sentinel. While some other Sentinels had a love/hate relationship with their duties, Drew embraced them. He had a beautiful home outside of Seattle, and every toy a man—or demon—could ever desire. Best of all…he had an endless supply of food—any kind of food he wanted. He was a billionaire and would be for eternity. It was what he had wanted in return for becoming a Sentinel, and he’d gotten far more money than he’d ever dreamed he could have. He was one of the three Winston brothers, and he co-owned one of the wealthiest corporations in the world with Zach and Hunter. Though they weren’t related by blood, the three Winstons were brothers in every other way, and closer than most siblings. “I don’t need a radiant. I’m already happy.”

  “On the surface, perhaps, but no Sentinel is truly happy without a radiant.” Kristoff’s expression was thoughtful as he watched Drew pacing the room.

  “I am,” Drew answered adamantly, stopping for a moment to send Kristoff an irritated look. “Besides, I don’t think Talia and I are well matched. She’s actually Dr. Maris, and a sought-after authority on ancient history. Christ, she’s fluent in four different languages, including Latin. What could the two of us possibly have in common?” Drew had been an Irish peasant, and he hadn’t even been able to read before Kristoff had brought him into the Sentinel world. Yeah. Okay. He could read now. He liked to read. But he was no match for a woman as brilliant as Talia.

  Kristoff shrugged. “She’s your radiant. You wouldn’t be matched if you didn’t need each other, if you weren’t destined to be together. And you do need her, Drew. Maybe you don’t want to admit it right now, but she is your match.”

  Oh, Drew could easily admit that he wanted her, that he had definitely experienced the typical Sentinel reaction to a mate: a feeling of possessiveness and protectiveness so extreme that it was damn near uncontrollable. His soul longed to be joined with her light, and he wanted to fuck her until they were both so sated they couldn’t move. Bloody hell! If this torturous need that he was feeling was what Zach had experienced with Kat, he wished he had been more sympathetic to his brother when he and Kat were suffering through the mating process. “I don’t want this,” Drew denied quietly, knowing his words were a lie even as they left his mouth. Maybe he hadn’t ever wanted a radiant because he didn’t have one. But now that he had Talia, he didn’t really want to give her up. Maybe he’d never noticed the darkness of his soul because he’d never known anything different. Even as a human, he’d known very little except deprivation and loneliness. But the moment he’d recognized Talia as his radiant, the spark of light had ignited inside him, and he didn’t want to let that go. She was extraordinary, and she was his. Maybe on the surface, they had nothing in common. But that didn’t change the way he felt, the sense of rightness that had clicked into place from the moment he experienced the emotions and the spark of fire that lit his soul as he recognized the woman who was meant for him.

  “Okay…then don’t mate with her,” Kristoff said, the corners of his mouth twitching as though he were trying not to smile. “Just do what you do best and protect her.” Kristoff let out a masculine sigh. “You’ve always been the protector, Drew, the Winston who covers all the details. When the mess happened with Kat and Zach, you were there to do damage control before I was, to keep the Sentinels and Evils from being unveiled. You watch over Hunter, and you keep Zach from rushing into anything irrational. Talia’s bold, probably braver than she should be when she’s dealing with demons. Obviously, she’s been confronted with paranormal beings her entire life. Her lack of fear is actually a weakness for her right now. She has no idea what the ancient Evils are actually capable of doing to her if they find her.”

  Tired of pacing, Drew flopped into a chair across from Kristoff. “She’s being pursued by Evils,” he admitted to Kristoff. “She’s psychic, so she’s escaped most confrontations with them, and that’s why she was able to elude me for so damn long. But they want her. Why? She’s under Sentinel protection. She was one of Hunter’s rescues.”

  Kristoff hesitated for a moment before answering, “For the same reason they were after Kat. She’s special, Drew.”

  Drew’s head jerked up and he looked at Kristoff warily. “Why? What dormant power does she have? Are you saying she has a power like Kat does? Realm-walking?” Fuck! He didn’t want Talia to be in danger because she possessed a greater power than most radiants. He wanted her safe, and if she was a special radiant like Kat, she was way too much of a target for the Evils, something they’d covet and do just about anything to possess.

  “No. She has a different latent ability.”

  “What?” Drew demanded to know.

  “That isn’t something you need to know right now, and I’m not even certain I’m completely correct in my assumptions,” Kristoff replied, his expression remorseful.

  “Fuck! Are you serious?” Drew felt his demon clawing inside him. If his mate was in danger or possessed a power that could harm her, he had to know. “Talia’s already tormented by some kind of compulsion to find out everything about demon history. It’s eating her alive. And you’re holding back information that might help her?”

  “This information won’t help her,” Kristoff answered irritably. “Tell her everything she needs to know. She’s your radiant. You can answer all of her questions. Knowledge is the only thing that will bring her relief. Her bloodline to a demigod is obviously stronger than Kat’s, a connection that’s making her feel compelled to seek out information. Her situation is different. Her drive to find out about the demons is probably coming from her ancestors. Once you enlighten her on demon history, the compulsions should stop.” Kristoff released a masculine sigh. “You know that radiants with powerful latent abilities are an unknown. I can speculate, but I don’t have anything concrete as of yet.”

  “It just started a few months ago,” Drew answered, wondering why it had only recently started, if Kristoff’s information was correct. If the connections to a demigod were stronger, why hadn’t this started earlier? “About the same time the Evils started to pursue her.”

  “There had to be some kind of trigger,” Kristoff informed him. “Something that woke the demigod connection. That’s the reason why the Evils can sense her so strongly now. She needs protection, Drew. She needs you. Protect her,” Kristoff demanded in the voice of an authoritative king that he rarely used with any of the Winston brothers, but there was also a plea threaded through the command.

  Drew rose, looking at his king warily. “You know her, don’t you? You know everything about her.”

  Kristoff looked away from Drew, his eyes trained on the flames in the fireplace. “I don’t know everything. I just know she hasn’t had the easiest life. I’ve never even met her. But I’ve watched over her enough to know that she’s special. So in that regard…I guess I’m fairly familiar with her.”

  “And you knew what she was doing and why she was doing it. You sent me to her because you knew she was my radiant.” Drew was furious with the lack of forthcoming information from Kristoff.

  “That’s not exactly correct.” Kristoff still wasn’t looking at Drew.

  “Fuck! Why can’t you just be straight with all of us? Me, Zach, Hunter…any one of us would die for you, but you don’t trust any of us,” Drew bellowed, his anger rising up along with his sense of betrayal. He felt like he’d been set up completely, going into a situation without any of the knowledge Kristoff was privy to, and could have shared with him.

  Kristoff came to his feet so fast he was only a blur of motion as he stood. “I trust you. I trust Hunter and Zach, too. But there’s only so much I can say, only so much I’m allowed to share, only so much I actually know before it’s time for me to know. I’m bound by my honor, and my honor is all I have left. Give me that, and trust me when I say I tell you everything I can!” Kristoff’s m
assive body was quaking, his nostrils flaring. “If you think I enjoy not being able to share everything I know or suspect…you’re wrong. It haunts me. But the survival of the Sentinels, and of the human race for that matter, depends on me following the goddamn rules,” Kristoff boomed in a tortured growl.

  Drew took a step back as he watched his king fight for control. Never, in all of the years he’d been serving Kristoff, had he seen his king lose his temper like this. “I trust you. I’m sorry. I guess I never really understood.” Drew’s gut clenched as he watched Kristoff’s expression mellow out, his persona returning to that of his usual calm self. Truth was, he did trust Kristoff, and he hadn’t known that his king acted the way he did because he was honor bound as king to do so, that he had to be that way for the survival of the Sentinels. “Why didn’t you tell us? We always thought you were just being an asshole.”

  “Sometimes I am an asshole,” Kristoff agreed ruefully. “I tried as best I could to let you know what position I was in. I had hoped my actions over the years would gain the trust of all of you,” Kristoff answered quietly, his tone low and grave.

  The past hundred or so years rolled through Drew’s mind. Kristoff had been there every time one of his Sentinels really needed him, protecting them just as they protected humans. The only thing that had ever bothered Drew was Kristoff’s evasiveness, his isolation. But he was king, and Drew supposed Kristoff was as close to them as he could possibly could be as a leader who wasn’t able to share information. There was a lot of difference between being unable and being unwilling. “You’re right. You’ve been a good king. And I’ve never had reason not to trust you.”

  Kristoff slapped him on the shoulder, and Drew returned the action as a show of loyalty and respect.

  “The day will come when it will be time for you to know everything. I’ll be able to be your friend as well as your king,” Kristoff said huskily, as though he were trying to hold back his emotions.