The creature shrieked, released her and jumped from the landing. Dalila had no idea what happened to him afterward, for that’s when she fainted.
Ashe pulled her inside. He cradled her limp body in his arms as he stared out the window. His heart pounded and his stomach clenched tightly. He had almost been too late to save Dalila from the incubus. He could feel his hands shaking. He carried her over to the bed and laid her down.
He did not understand why the creature had attacked. Dalila had been protected with his essence. Once a cambion or demon marked a human, they could not be desecrated.
With a gentle touch, he brushed the hair from her face. Her body sported several red scrapes but they appeared minor. She would be all right. Even so, anger welled up inside him. That demon had dared to touch her, to hurt her. He walked back over, closed and locked the window.
Earlier, when Dalila had allowed him to bind her, he had known that she had given him her complete trust. In turn, he had let her down and allowed evil to assault her. He would never let her down again.
He swore then and there to protect her with his life. If necessary, he would even go to Prince Asmodeus and make a deal. No matter the cost.
All the tension inside him made his muscles ache. He looked back over at Dalila. “Why are they so intent on getting to you?” He stalked into the living room, briefly glancing back over his shoulder as he reconsidered leaving her side.
He shrugged away his concerns. For now, she was safe. No incubus could get into the apartment. And Dalila would not be leaning out a window again anytime soon. Of that he felt assured.
He reached for his jacket, which was still draped over the chair and fished inside a pocket to pull out his cell phone. He flipped it open and punched in the number of his contact.
When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “This is Ashe. I need to know more about why the incubi are after Dalila Na’eem. No. It is more than that. I can feel it. Call in some favors. Find out and get back to me.” He flipped the phone closed. This had to be more than revenge on him. They had gone through too much trouble to get to her.
The demon had not even disguised his true visage, which meant he had to have known, have smelled, that Dalila was marked even before he had declared her as his. Yet the creature had still tried to take her.
To kill her? To torture her? What? He paced the room, his mind swirling.
He had to control his temper, all his emotions, so he could figure out what to do. He glanced down and realized that he was still naked. He needed his pants. When he walked back into the bedroom, Dalila was just coming to.
When she turned her head, their gazes locked and her eyes widened.
At the petrified look on her face, his heart ached. When she had reached out for him earlier, after he had carried her to bed, he knew that not only had she come around physically and mentally, but emotionally as well. Now that special connection between them had been lost. Or, at least, severely damaged. “You are safe.”
She scrambled off the bed but her knees gave way and she collapsed on the carpet.
He moved to help her.
“No! Stay away from me!” She stuck her hand out then jerked it back to cover her bare breasts. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Her voice shook and she glanced toward the window.
“An incubus? No.”
“You’re a demon! Or whatever. I saw your eyes. The fire.”
“Only half demon. If that makes a difference.” He hung his head. He had never been more ashamed of what he was. It made no difference that he hunted those of his kind who overstepped the boundaries between good and evil, for he could not remove the demon blood from his veins or change what he was. He raised his head and his gaze connected once more with hers, hoping he would see something different in her eyes. But nothing had changed.
“I had sex with a demon.” She grabbed her stomach. “More than once! We didn’t even use a condom. Oh, I’m so stupid! How could I have done that? I never forget.”
“Do not condemn yourself.” Once they had come together, something other than common sense had taken charge. Something fated. Though such things were considered an ancient belief, even by his own kind, he felt it. Certainly she had to feel it too.
“No, no, no, no, no.” She shook her head.
The sound of continued horror in her voice stabbed at his heart. When he saw tears in her eyes, it almost tore him apart. “You are not damned, Dalila.” He could see her thoughts. Her fears. “Protection with me is not necessary, so calm down. You are not diseased, nor have you been harmed in any way.” He saw her trying to pull herself together. He ached to go to her, to hold her in his arms. He did neither, knowing she would not accept his comfort.
“Not harmed?” she whispered. After tense minutes of silence and only the sound of her heavy breathing in the room, she spoke again. Her voice trembled, each word almost unrecognizable. “Everything you said was true.”
He saw the realization in her eyes that this had actually happened and she could not change things. “Yes.”
“What are you going to do to me?” She scrambled into a corner of the room and drew her knees up to her body, shielding her nakedness from his view.
When the fear in her eyes gradually faded to wariness, he found enough strength to answer. “Nothing. You are safe as long as we are together. I thought I could protect you from the incubi by marking you with my essence, my cum. But it has gone beyond that now.” He grabbed a robe off the back of the bedroom door and tossed it to her. Then he scooped his pants off the carpet and stepped into them. “I am waiting on a phone call from someone who should be able to give us some answers.”
Still in the crouched position, Dalila slipped into the robe. Her eyes never left him, as if she expected him to jump her. She slowly rose to her feet but stayed close to the wall. “How about you leave right now and we forget about all this? That’s a good answer.”
“This does not just go away if I do, Dalila.” He turned and left the room.
Her thoughts raced as fast as her heart. None of this could be true. But she’d witnessed that strange, hideous creature outside her window and the terrifying change in Ashe’s eyes. As crazy as it seemed, the story of demons had to be true. Fire had shot out of his mouth!
She crept after him, wondering if maybe he had left after all. She peered around the doorjamb. Not knowing what to expect, her stomach churned and she could barely think straight.
No. He hadn’t left her. He had a phone in his hand and was standing over by the window, looking out. A frown marred his handsome face. She could make a mad dash for the front door but she doubted he’d let her go.
To tell the truth, after experiencing the presence of that creature outside her window, Ashe seemed the lesser of two evils. She rubbed her wrist, which was still a dark pink from her ordeal, and her side ached like crazy. She’d no doubt be sporting several bruises come morning. If she made it to morning.
While Ashe stood quietly, she took a moment to scan him, stretching her ability to its limits. She sensed his goodness, his conflict, his shame. And his determination to keep her safe. Her heart softened just a little. She couldn’t detect his demon side though, which confused her. Shouldn’t she be able to sense a creature different from herself? But then, she hadn’t sensed the incubus either. She’d only felt that something was wrong when she first woke.
His phone rang, the sound jarring in the quiet. He immediately snapped open the cell. “Yeah.” His brow furrowed as he listened. “Are you fucking with me?” He turned and glanced over at her as if he had known she stood there all along. His look darkened. “You are sure?”
Dalila’s nerves escalated, wondering what he was being told. Nothing good, from the look on his face. A cold chill traveled down her spine, followed by a strange warmth that she didn’t understand. Conflicting emotions, she supposed. In combination with her ability. What she saw and what she felt were two different things and she couldn’t reconcile the two.
He snappe
d the phone closed and tossed it onto the chair where his jacket lay. He planted his hands on his hips. “You better sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.” If she kept to her feet, she could move faster should she need to.
“You are a scanner. Why did you not tell me?”
His question took her by surprise and she wasn’t sure how to respond. She’d never told anyone about her ability. How had he found out? From the person on the phone apparently, but that still didn’t explain how the knowledge had become known. “Um…”
“Your mother was a scanner.”
Her heart leapt. So he knew about that too. She wondered where he was going with this and what it had to do with everything that had happened tonight. The not knowing caused her nerves to stretch so tightly she thought she might snap at any moment.
“Dalila, your mother was part demon.”
She froze. What? He’d said the words straight out, with no hesitation. She gripped the doorjamb and fought back the sudden wave of nausea that hit her. Her mind swirled—processing, rejecting, contemplating. Her knuckles turned white and she wouldn’t have been surprised if her face matched.
“Please come into the room and sit down,” Ashe urged, stretching out his arm in invitation but still keeping his distance.
Watching him warily, she somehow made it over to the chair next to the couch. The same chair she’d sat in while he’d licked her pussy. Somehow that seemed a distant memory now.
On shaky legs, she sank down onto the cushions. She looked up at him, pleading with her eyes for him to tell her that his words weren’t true.
The problem was…she feared that they were true.
Everything in her life slowly began to fall into place—her mother always insisting that she perfect her ability, their constant moving around without explanation, after she’d reached puberty, her mother’s refusal to discuss her own past, the absence of any photos, the absence of her father, a man she’d never even known.
Her mother’s odd obsession with anything dark or evil had always puzzled her. She better understood now. You have to learn to protect yourself, Dalila. To block your energy, like it is second nature. Her mother’s voice echoed in her head.
“I’m part demon.” She barely managed to get the words out. They seemed so unreal. But after everything that had happened, she couldn’t deny it. She was a cambion, like Ashe.
Did that mean she was cursed? He had said that she wasn’t but that was before he knew her history.
“Prince Asmodeous has been searching for you.”
“Who?” She recognized the name from her studies but her mind wasn’t completely functioning right now.
“He rules all that surrounds lustful behavior and has almost one hundred demons under his command. He is known for seeking revenge, which I had thought was his purpose. To get back at me through you.”
“Why would he want to get back at you?”
“I am a Hell Hunter, Dalila. I seek and destroy those of my own kind who have broken the sacred covenant between realms. I am afraid that my presence allowed him and the incubi to find you.” True regret shone on his face. “You would be a valuable treasure to their kingdom.”
“Me? Why?” Those were the simplest questions she could think to ask out of the hundreds in her head.
“You are an aberration. Well, actually your mother and you both. She was half succubus, basically an impossibility. But it happened. A succubus will mate with a human or cambion male then carry the sperm to an incubus who will impregnate a chosen human or cambion female with the seed.”
She nodded, aware of the history, though she’d never given it much thought.
“Somehow a succubus gave birth. To your mother. I had heard the rumors of such occurring but thought it merely fantasy. She has passed on, I am told?”
“Yes.” A pang of sadness stabbed at Dalila.
“You are the remaining link. You possess the powers of both darkness and light in your genetic makeup as did she, which is probably why we were so strongly drawn to each other, and why my semen did not protect you. You both are different from other cambions though, due to your succubus DNA. Breeding marvels actually.”
“Wait, wait…”
“A non-pure succubus with the ability to bear offspring through an incubus joining, could shake the foundations of this world.”
“Wait, wait, wait.”
“Prince Asmodeous, no doubt, has already gathered the seed he wishes his chosen incubus to use to impregnate you. Seed that will produce the most powerful cambion—one who will be loyal to the nether regions. An admiral of sorts.”
“Ashe, stop!” Her head began to hurt. “Are you saying that I’m to be bred with another of demon blood, like some sow?”
“You do not have enough demon blood in you to be overly influenced by any dark tendencies. However, if bred by an incubus carrying the seed of another cambion, that child, or children, of mixed genetics, born of you, could bring this world to its knees.”
Her stomach clenched. “The world? You mean like the end of existence?”
“No. Nothing of that magnitude, though it might appear as such to many. I should have chosen my words more carefully. The child would be a carrier of evil, shielded by the light of good. The child could inadvertently destroy crops, change weather patterns, start a pandemic of previously unseen proportions, among other possibilities.”
She shook her head in disbelief, until one of his words lodged in her mind. “Inadvertently?”
He stepped closer and crouched in front of her. “The child might not do those things on purpose, especially if brought up in the light of goodness. It would be as a curse. Ultimately uncontrollable. Once the line was crossed though, there would be no going back.”
She touched her stomach as their sexual encounter raced through her head. “You are a cambion.”
“Yes,” he answered slowly. “But I did not impregnate you. It is a purposeful act for us. Even for one of half blood. It cannot happen by accident. And you would have to be impregnated by an incubus for the child to have those particular destructive powers I spoke of. If impregnated directly by a cambion, the child would simply be another cambion. With powers, yes. But those powers would be far less significant and completely under his or her control. Many cambions have chosen not to walk in the darkness of hell, but to live in the light.”
It was all almost too much to absorb. “Can’t happen by accident? Like it couldn’t happen that my mother was born of a succubus?”
He didn’t answer.
“This is too much, Ashe.” She had to believe him though. To not believe and to be proven wrong would mean… She clutched her stomach and rocked back and forth. “How do we stop the incubi from getting to me?”
“There are ways.”
He spoke too low, too slowly, as if he were unsure of his words. Her mind raced, not liking the options that popped into her head. “If I do something so I can’t have children…” She couldn’t say the words directly. They were too horrible.
“It would not be possible with your succubus genes. Your organs have special protection. You would simply heal, regrow tissue, whatever was necessary.”
“If I were dead then,” her voice came out strained and she sounded tired even to her own ears.
“Unacceptable.”
“But—”
“No, Dalila!” He stood and paced. Then he turned and stared into her eyes. “We shall leave here.”
“Leave?”
“Disappear. They found you through me. They are tracking us now. If I left you on your own at this point, you would be too vulnerable to attack, so we must journey together. There are ways I can conceal my energy and places we can hide. I have friends who will help.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as it takes.”
“I can’t just pick up and run.” Or could she? Did she really have a choice?
Ashe slowly approached her. He touched the back of her head, gently stroking her
hair. “I will take care of you, Dalila. Do you trust me enough to believe that?”
As he waited for her answer, everything became clear to him. She had to have felt the connection between them through her demon blood, which was why she had come around sexually so quickly, why she had trusted him even when her human side rejected the logic of her choice. Being a cambion himself, he understood the conflict. He should have sensed that she was one of them, should have known that was why he had been so drawn to her. She hid her genetics well. A natural gift. Part of her psychic ability. “Dalila?” he prompted, needing her answer.
“I trust you to protect me, Ashe. I’m just scared.”
He pulled her out of the chair and into his arms. “Be cautious. Not scared. We can leave in a few hours, after the Brazen Moon sets and before the incubi have a chance to reorganize. Do you have a backpack?”
She pulled away and nodded, looking a bit pale and in shock.
His heart went out to her. “Pack what you can comfortably carry. Clothes. Personal items. Necessities only.”
“I’ll need to call someone to take care of my apartment. I’ll have to let my job know—”
He took a step back, giving her extra space. He did not want her to feel trapped again. “No one can know, Dalila.”
“But my things! My responsibilities.”
The idea of cutting off everything she had ever known, without a word to anyone, must scare her to death. But it was best. “Only by disappearing, with no one knowing why, can you truly be safe. We cannot take the chance that someone might give away clues by relating something they saw or heard. I know you would not want to put anyone else in danger by involving them, right?”
“No. Of course not.” She took a deep breath and then turned and disappeared into the bedroom without another word.
Before she had turned, a determined look had crossed her face, which made him feel better. She was slowly coming to terms with all this. At least he hoped so, for she actually had little choice. Her soul was at stake.
Chapter Five
Dalila tossed items into the backpack, almost without thinking. She couldn’t afford to think. Not if she wanted to maintain her sanity. Despite those feelings, deep down, she knew this was the right thing to do. But that still didn’t make it any easier.
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