by Krista Walsh
“What?” she asked.
His face cleared and he shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’m just trying to make you out. To see you for what you are. You’re a stunning woman who steals the room and puts everyone else in the shade, but you claim to have the ability to devour my soul. It’s like showing me a piece of chocolate cake and telling me it tastes like sewage. I find it difficult to believe.”
Allegra froze, part of her worried that if she made any sudden moves, he would flee. “Do you regret your choice to spend the night with me?”
Matthew met her gaze. “No,” he said. “I just…I’m not about to lie and say that what you do doesn’t bother me. You sleep with men to kill them. It’s a difficult concept to wrap my head around. I should be running. I should have run the minute your eyes flashed gold.” He smiled, the lines around his mouth tightened. “Like I said earlier, maybe I’m just an idiot. But maybe not. You make me feel like there’s — I don’t know, new possibilities. Like I could be doing so much more with my life. Saving the world or something. What do I do? I work, I go to the gym, I sleep with as many beautiful women as I can. Who am I to judge how you spend your time? I’m far from virtuous.” His brow furrowed, then cleared. “And, I have to admit, you’re not the vilest demon I’ve ever come across.”
Allegra raised an eyebrow and cupped her chin in her palm. “Oh?”
He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “When I was a kid, I used to stay with my Gran over the summers. She would take me on her appointments when people wanted her to connect with lost loved ones or rid their homes of lingering spirits. One day, I think I was ten years old, I went with her to this townhouse. She left me to play in the backyard while she met with the family, and I discovered a body. A woman. Her head had nearly been ripped off, and her stomach was hanging open.” He closed his eyes, and his throat convulsed with a hard swallow. Allegra was tempted to touch him, to reassure him that he was safe here with her, but the gesture seemed far too intimate to carry out. “She’d obviously been dead for a while. I got my Gran and she got us out of there fast. I could tell it was some supernatural beast that had killed that woman, but she just handed the problem off to someone else. Someone with more skills in that area, she told me.”
Allegra listened to the deep rumble of his voice and relaxed into the warmth of the bed. She rested her hand on his chest while he spoke and focused on the vibrations buzzing through her fingers.
He frowned. “That’s when I knew there was more to that world than she’d told me. That it wasn’t just ghosts and energies, but real physical threats as well. It was the last summer I spent with her. After that, my parents decided it wasn’t a good idea, and I went along with what they said, too terrified by what I’d discovered to want to see any more. Now I wish I’d had the chance to stay with her. To learn more about what lives in the world. Maybe then I’d be more prepared to face whatever seems to be chasing you in the shadows.”
Allegra brushed her fingers over his skin, amazed by how comfortable he sounded about the otherworld. She found it incredible that she had found someone who didn’t run away at the symptoms of her demon. On the contrary, he wanted to know more.
Her eyes heated with her passion, and he smiled up at her, rising to press his lips against hers.
“Stunning,” he whispered.
It was a word Allegra had heard applied to herself from childhood, but never before had it taken on such meaning as it did on his lips. As though he didn’t just mean the physical features that nature had perfected, but all of her. Even the parts she’d always condemned as hideous. With him, she actually felt beautiful, and the sensation was so unusual and new that tears stung the corners of her eyes.
She blinked them away and sat back, mentally scoffing at her own sentimentality.
Matthew Austen is only a man, she reminded herself, working to tamp down the emotions fluttering in her chest. He is a medium. That’s why you are drawn to him. Because he sees you. That is all there is to it.
Because he sees you…
An idea suddenly formed.
She bolted up, pulling the sheets with her. Matthew started at her sudden movement. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You say you inherited your grandmother’s skill. So you know how to spot ghosts and could follow them, yes?”
His eyebrows lifted. “I’m not as trained as she was, but I can sense them, sure. That’s how I knew that spirit thing was standing over you earlier in the bar. Although that one was different. I thought for a minute I actually saw it.”
A wave of feverish heat seeped out from Allegra’s core. She dragged her demon back down and edged closer to Matthew, thinking about how close he might have come to looking the draugr in the eye.
“Why?” he asked, pulling her out of her fear.
Allegra propped up her pillows and leaned against them. She started picking at the nail polish in the crease of her index finger as she ran through her idea. “Because from what I know of these draugrs, they often appear after a murder has been committed.” She shared her theory about Penny and how Tim had killed her to get control of the hotel.
“To prevent the draugrs from becoming more powerful than they already are, I need to track down Penny’s body, wherever it is, and cast some sort of banishing spell over it. Only I have no idea where to look. Depending on how many renovations the hotel has undergone over the years, she might be hidden in the walls or buried beneath the pool.” She turned her head toward Matthew. “But if you are able to sense her, we might be able to find her more easily.”
“I don’t know how much I can help,” Matthew admitted. “Unless Penny is haunting the place herself, I might be walking just as blind as you are. It’s the spirit I detect, not the body. Do you have anything else to work with?”
Allegra closed her eyes and thought back to her conversation with Tim in the garden. He’d given nothing away, but…her pulse quickened as she recalled the conversation he’d been having with the gardener. Tim had been too far away for her to hear what he was saying, but his body language had been aggressive. Angry. The gardener had wanted to renovate. Even if Tim didn’t want to, his reaction had been extreme.
“He would not have been as stupid as that,” she said aloud.
“Hm?”
She gave herself a shake. “You might want to start in the garden. I find it unlikely he would have been such an idiot as to bury her where any one of the gardeners could find her, but still, it is worth a check.”
Matthew twined his fingers around hers. “I’ll walk around first thing tomorrow and do my best to sense something. If what you say is true and these draugrs are getting stronger, it would be irresponsible not to try to put a stop to it if we can. Maybe find a way to finally put my abilities to good use.”
Allegra huffed and wrapped her arms around her knees, keeping her fingers looped through his so he was wrapped around her. “I still ask myself how I became caught in this chaos. How the burden fell on my shoulders to solve. But as it seems that it has, I would appreciate your…assistance.”
The word sat uncomfortably on her tongue, an unfamiliar sound and shape.
Matthew eased his fingers out of her grip and leaned back. He traced a pattern on the bare skin between her shoulder blades. “Why are you so averse to my help? Don’t you want to prevent another Monique from happening?”
Allegra let out a soft hmph. “I realize we do not know each other very well, but in the time that we’ve worked together, have I struck you as the sort of woman to take on issues that are not her own?”
“Not once,” Matthew said, his lips quirking upward.
“Then there you have it. I enjoy my circle of life. I enjoy my routine and indulgences.” She smiled as a memory played through her mind. “I learned that from my aunt. She created a life for herself where her only responsibility was to look beautiful and make the men around her feel as though they were the most important part of her world. I modeled my life after hers. I do not enjoy surrounding myself with unneces
sary drama.”
Matthew laughed, hugging his arm around his stomach. “You? Not liking drama? Allegra, you’re a whirlwind. You stir the pot no matter where you go.”
“Perhaps,” Allegra said. “But never in a way that affects me directly. I never lose sleep at night.”
“It’s a fair excuse, but I don’t think that’s all of it. No one would turn away from preventing a murder just to keep their life easy.” Allegra raised an eyebrow, but Matthew shook his head. “Not even you. So why?”
She huffed and shifted away, but he slid the fingers on her back to her waist and held her in place. She opened her mouth to tell him he could go soak in the fire of the seven hells, but the way he stared at her, with no judgment in his gaze, pierced through her anger.
Just like earlier, when she’d wanted to tell him the truth about herself, the need came over her to speak. She wanted him to know the worst about her, not just the best. She wanted to stand naked in front of him so she would know the way he looked at her was real and not just the lust of the moment.
She’d never sought that kind of approval before. On the contrary, she’d spurned it. No one had a right to judge her or look down on her for what she was. But this man had altered her expectations of herself. She didn’t know if she liked it, but she couldn’t resist it.
“The real reason is not so different from what I have already said. It’s just more…personal.” She wrinkled her nose in displeasure. She hated admitting she didn’t have her life sorted out. “I want the lifestyle that my aunt led, but I resent that having that lifestyle comes at a cost. I am a succubus demon. The word of note there being demon. A monster. Succubi are fortunate that our physical forms take on a perfect version of the species we feed on, but beneath our skin runs the same ugliness that gives away others from our realm. It lives inside me, a nightmare waiting to be wakened. I have spent my life working to crush it, to keep only the elements that benefit me. I hate the violence and rage running through my blood. The grotesqueness of it.”
She shivered. Vaguely, she was aware of Matthew sliding his hand back in hers and giving it a slight squeeze.
“I avoid anything that might bring it out. I chose a career that lets me luxuriate in the beautiful. I do not keep friends. I have not spoken to my family since I moved away at eighteen. My brother was my one exception — even a demon experiences loneliness from time to time. Now he is gone as well, and I have no one, which I prefer. It keeps me safe.”
Only after she fell silent did she realize she’d said more than she intended. Once she’d begun, the words had spilled out of her. A flush crept up her neck, heat blurring her vision, and she kept her gaze locked on the door, refusing to look at Matthew.
He nudged her shoulder with his and pressed a kiss on the back of her hand. “Your reasons might be different than mine, but your actions aren’t so much. It’s easier to move around when you don’t have connections. To have the freedom to do what you want and form the life you want to live. We all have demons, Allegra. Yours might be a little more real, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it to some extent.”
She swallowed hard and didn’t reply, turning her head away to stare at the box of teabags on the bedside table.
“So why are you looking into this draugr situation?” he asked, and she appreciated that he wasn’t pushing the issue. “Why get involved this time?”
Allegra cleared her throat, drew her hand out of his, and picked at her fingernail, hissing a curse when the polish cracked. Matthew rested his fingers on her back and she leaned against the pillows, trapping the warmth of his hand behind her.
“Because I prefer to know what’s coming. These draugrs have already fed on me once, and I will not allow it to happen again.”
Matthew looked at her, a slight smile still tugging on his lips. “It’s reassuring somehow to know you share the same fear of death as we lowly humans. It makes you far easier to understand.”
Allegra squared her shoulders. “You think you know me, do you?”
His smile softened. “I think I know you better than most people ever will.”
Before she had a chance to call him on his arrogance, he trailed the edge of his finger along her jawline and leaned in for a kiss.
Her mind rebelled against his touch and told her to push him away, but her body responded of its own will and she rolled on top of him, straddling his waist.
He knew what she was now, which meant she had no reason to hold back. She smiled down at him, exposing the hint of her pointed canines. If he thought he was able to handle her, she intended to put his lofty opinion of himself to the test.
12
This time, Allegra was awake when Matthew left her room in the small hours of the morning, though she didn’t let him know it. She held still, keeping her breath deep and steady until the door closed behind him.
Matthew Austen was a problem.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, watching the down from her mangled pillow drift along the air currents.
While they’d been wrapped up in each other, she’d enjoyed pushing his limits and taking him by surprise. She’d never been more herself with anyone — anyone she hadn’t been about to kill, that is — and the experience had been liberating. The most fun she’d had in years.
Then they’d finished. Afterward, she’d lain in the dark and listened to his steady breathing as he’d fallen asleep. She’d thought of their conversation, and how it had been a relief to spew some of the spinning thoughts out of her head. In the exhilaration of the moment and the novelty of sharing her true self with someone, she’d been more honest with him than she could remember being with anyone who wasn’t of her world. Or anyone who was of her world, for that matter.
What had she been thinking?
In the light of day, the disparaging voice that had shouted at her when she’d taken Matthew to bed returned with a vengeance, blocking out every pleasurable, warm memory of the previous night. Only now did it sink in how stupid she’d been, telling him what she was, believing him when he’d said he wouldn’t share her secret with anyone. Believing him — just like that.
And she had enjoyed it. She’d enjoyed listening to the stories he’d told her about his grandmother and his adventures as a child, climbing through dusty vents and old dumbwaiters to help her find dated relics that were keeping the ghosts bound to their homes.
“She brought me up to never fear getting my hands dirty,” he’d said with a smile as he’d run his long fingers over Allegra’s hip. “I may love my fast cars and beautiful women, but I still get a more satisfying sense of adventure whenever I grab hold of a shovel.”
She’d relaxed under the gravelly tones of his voice as he’d shared his memories, and for a few brief hours, she’d imagined what her life would be like with Matthew in it as a regular fixture. Someone with whom she could talk about her day without smudging details.
Even now, with the spell of his presence wearing off, her thoughts drifted to lazy mornings in bed and late nights of champagne and expensive parties.
Fool.
Allegra curled her fingers around the remains of her pillow and squeezed. Her fingernails pierced the cotton and a few extra feathers joined the others drifting through the air.
A ridiculous dream that had no bearing on reality. No man would sit back happily in a relationship where his partner left him once a week to devour the souls of other men in the height of climax. He could never trust that she wouldn’t turn on him. She couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t turn on him. The desire for his body was closely matched by her desire for his soul, and while his life carried more meaning for her now, she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t slip as that desire grew.
And the switch could come sooner rather than later once her infatuation wore off. Because that’s all this was. He was something new, and she rarely experienced new. Any feelings she had for him were imaginary. Allegra Rossi did not form attachments.
She covered her face with her
hands and dragged her fingers over her cheeks before slamming her fists into the blankets beside her.
Her time with him had to end now. She would recover her self-control and wield it with the sharpness of a knife to sever the connection. She’d enjoyed their nights together, but to continue would be an act of stupidity on both their parts.
A pang of loss squeezed her heart, and she snarled at her weakness. She sat up on the edge of the bed, and the bedspread pooled around her waist, trapping her.
Any regret she felt was for the physical pleasure she’d no longer get to enjoy. He’d matched her skills and been a fun distraction. That was all there was to it. She would not be so…human…as to have developed emotions for the man. Gods forbid she had debased herself so completely.
She marched into the bathroom and stood under the cold spray of the shower until every inch of her rippled with goosebumps and the turmoil of her thoughts had eased.
At least there was one positive outcome of the encounter — Matthew had agreed to help her find Penny. No matter what he’d said about his limitations, his spiritual sensitivity would narrow down the possibilities, and having two pairs of eyes checking every corner of the property would be a significant advantage.
So she would use him to complete her mission, banish the draugrs before they got her, and that would be the end of it. She would go back to never seeing Matthew more than once or twice a year at the more lavish work parties, and all would be as if nothing had happened.
She climbed out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her chest before starting her skin regimen.
Perhaps I’ll try leaving town again, she thought, and she felt a tug on her heart at the idea of it. She wanted to sit on a French patio and sip her café au lait as the world passed by. She wanted to be alone, away from even the possibility of forming an emotional attachment.
She returned her jars and creams to their case and stepped into the bedroom. Using a second towel to dry her hair, Allegra sat down in front of the vanity mirror.