“After he finally gets the message, I hopefully won’t ever have to see him again.”
“Well, except for during our hunter meetings.”
Of course! I was never really going to get rid of him, was I? “I’ll pick you up at seven. I’ll be downstairs waiting for you.”
“Sure thing, thanks.”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, I better get going.”
“Wait a sec…don’t you want me to drive you home?”
“Oh no, I can walk from here. You know my aunt’s place is just around the corner.”
“Yeah, but it might be dangerous—”
“Nah, I’ll be okay.” Lavie turned to leave. “Before I go, you don’t have a demonic shadow attached to your aura, but something dark’s definitely touched you.”
I nodded. Her words didn’t surprise me. A lot of dark things had been invading my life lately. “Bye, Lavie. See you soon!”
She nodded and made her way out of the diner.
I couldn’t help but feel freaked out by our conversation. We’d exchanged so little, yet so much. My biggest fears about Jonathan were turning into something much, much worse. When had something demonic touched him, and why? Did I have something to do with it because we’d had sex after I’d obliterated a demon? No, it couldn’t be me.
My head was starting to throb. With the amount of bad things going on around me at the moment, and my still not being fully recovered after the attack a few nights ago, it was starting to take a toll on me.
Instead of leaving, I ordered another coffee and a jam donut. I took my time eating it, washing the sugar-sweetened taste down with the lukewarm liquid. Just before polishing off the last of my coffee, I swallowed two more headache tablets. Maybe I should’ve gone to the doctor and had something a little stronger prescribed, but the last thing I needed right now was to add drugs to my list of delirious complications.
Sitting in the booth by myself, I could sense a dark stain creeping into the wound on my clavicle. It might not itch or sting any longer, but I knew this wasn’t a regular bite. Whatever monster jumped me definitely had some sort of dark attachment, and had probably infected me with it.
Something tickled the recesses of my mind, something that seemed to fit my bewildered thoughts, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
The Ghostbusters theme song echoed out of nowhere and my phone vibrated in my pocket. The ringtone had been Ebony’s idea of a joke. I didn’t bother to check who was calling.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Foxy Lady, where are you?”
“Having coffee with Lavie,” I lied. I didn’t want him to worry.
“Okay, call me when you’re on your way.”
“Why?”
A sigh filled my ear. “I’m not going to take any chances. I’ll be waiting by the door, so don’t leave the car until I get to you.” He paused. “Actually, just call me when you’ve parked the car.”
“Uh…okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m on my way home now. I should be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Okay, good.” He sounded relieved. “What are you wearing?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “The same thing I was wearing when I left the house.”
“Oh, damn. I keep hoping for that trench coat—”
“See you soon, Papan.”
A giggle escaped me and I didn’t bother to finish off what was left in my cup. Instead, I paid and left. Walking to my car took me seconds because I was parked right outside the diner. As soon as I was inside, I locked the door and headed for home as quickly as I could.
The streets were pretty quiet and as much as I tried not to get nervous, I did. Papan’s call had reminded me that dangerous monstrosities could be lurking in the dark.
As soon as I hit the driveway of my house, the front door opened and Papan jogged over to the car before I had a chance to call him. He waited patiently while I switched off the ignition and unlocked the driver-side door. He actually opened it for me and took my hand as I slammed it shut.
Even with Papan walking beside me and Oren’s protection spell heavy in the air, my heart was beating a little too fast. I half expected to be pushed down at any moment.
“Are you all right?” he said as soon as he’d locked the front door behind us.
I managed a nod, and released a heavy breath.
He pushed the sweaty strands of my hair away from my face. “Come on, I’m going to make you a cup of coffee.”
“I just had coffee.” I wasn’t going to get any sleep if I had more caffeine.
“I doubt it had a shot of whiskey in it, which is just what you need.”
I smiled at him. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better.”
“Wait until you see how good I am at making a woman feel better.” He winked at me and headed for the kitchen.
I pressed my back against the door, grateful for Papan’s insistence to be there for me, and for Oren’s magical defenses.
As I dumped my wallet, keys and phone on the hall table near the door, I refused to let some monster scare me enough to feel unsafe in my own home.
I would overcome this.
Chapter Seven
After a quick shower, I got dressed, downed two cups of coffee, ate two slices of toast, and slipped out of the house before Papan woke up. We’d enjoyed a cup of Irish coffee together before the whiskey kicked in and I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up in my bed, but barely remembered him carrying me up there.
I raced out of the house dressed as casually as I could—black yoga pants and a fitting tee—and jumped into my car, enjoying the morning sunshine already making the day shine.
It was early by my standards. I hardly left the house before seven, but I knew Jonathan arrived at the store early and opened up in case anyone wanted to buy some weird and obscure dusty book before they headed for work in the city. He had to compete with two chain bookstores on the same street, and did a lot of his business at odd hours, or online with overseas book collectors.
It was how he claimed he’d met Troy Slevani, and now I was pretty sure there was more to their meeting than the casual buyer-supplier link he’d tried to feed me. I didn’t believe much of anything he’d told me lately. In spite of what Lavie said—or because of it—I was starting to suspect every move he’d made in our relationship. Well, everything since he’d returned from Europe.
The coffee and toast sat like bricks inside my stomach. I wanted to get this out of the way, head home before Papan woke up, put some time in at work, and then meet Oren back at my house. It was a tight schedule but I didn’t expect this confrontation with Jonathan to last long.
Being so early in the morning on a Saturday, I double parked on the street and waited for Lavie without obstructing too much traffic. She didn’t take long to step into the passenger side, smelling of herbs and dressed in a baggy pair of denim overalls and a long-sleeved tee underneath.
“Good morning,” she said, a little too cheery for this time of day. She belted herself in and placed her backpack on her lap.
“Hey.” I looked over my shoulder, signaled and joined the few cars on the road. As we passed Monster Coffee Break, I noticed it was still open. I doubted the place ever closed.
Lavie hummed. “I love this time of morning.”
“I thought you were a night person.” I assumed most of us were. Dealing with spooks and other scary things meant spending plenty of time in the dark. Personally, I still tried to keep some sort of sensible business hours at the office.
My stomach dropped at the thought. How many days had I been away from the office? I needed to catch up on our case files, concentrate on something normal for a while, and get back into the swing of my everyday life. So I could lose some of the fear clinging to me like a bad smell.
“I like both night and day, though you’d be surprised just how easy it is to find demons in broad daylight. They don’t keep the kinds of hours most movies and
books try to make out they do.”
I nodded and tried to stifle a yawn, but it got the best of me. I knew what she meant. I could wander into Bayview Cemetery in the middle of the sunniest days and encounter a spook.
“Did you have trouble sleeping?”
“Not really.” Papan’s company helped as much as the couch and crappy, early morning TV.
Lavie was quiet for a moment, staring out the windshield. “Are you ready for this? You obviously didn’t change your mind overnight or we wouldn’t be here, right?”
“Right,” I said with a sigh. Driving down the freeway and taking the next exit to get into the city, I added, “I have to do this. I can’t let him pretend everything’s still okay. Are you ready for some snooping, or whatever it is you have to do?”
She hugged her backpack. “Always ready.”
We didn’t speak again until I found a parking spot right in front of Prologue, Jonathan’s bookstore. It was so early I didn’t even have to put any coins into the meter yet, not for another hour.
“I’ll head in first and you can sneak in after me. What do you think?” This seemed so stupid. Jonathan would surely notice her. Then again, he might not notice much of anything while caught up in our drama.
Lavie nodded. “I’ll do my bit and meet you back here.”
“Sounds good,” I said with a nod, jumping out of the car. The last thing I wanted to do was linger in the bookstore any more than I had to. I wanted to get in and out as soon as I could. “Good luck.”
“You too,” she whispered, closing the car door.
I turned away, trying to calm my nerves with short and shallow breaths as I strode up the sidewalk and pushed the door open. The tiny bell above the door tinkled, and I expected Jonathan to look up from behind the counter with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he waited for a potential customer. He didn’t.
Instead, I held the door open long enough for Lavie to slip inside unnoticed. She headed for the jumble of dusty bookshelves and I let the door close quietly behind me.
Jonathan sat behind the counter, leaning on it. His head bent very close to that of a slim, tall woman who was doing the same from the other side. From this vantage point, all I could see was her red-heeled stilettos, leading up to some very well-formed calves, and a red dress stopping just above her knees. It fit snug around her curvy body, and her long, blue-black hair hung to midback.
Who the hell was this woman? Another one of his mysterious customers? I was suddenly annoyed, because he’d acted all jealous about Papan while he was busy flirting with other women. Then again, maybe he had accepted our breakup. It was hard to get a definite reading on Jonathan nowadays.
I shrugged my shoulders and headed toward the counter. When I was only a few feet away from them and they still didn’t stir, I cleared my throat.
Jonathan reluctantly pulled his undivided attention away from the woman in red. Their mutual laughter turned into muffled chuckles and a surprised smile from him when he spotted me. “Oh, good morning, Sierra, what are you doing here so early?”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to…talk to you.” I cleared my throat a second time. “I told you I’d come today.”
Suddenly, the homey ambiance I’d always felt inside this bookstore receded, leaving me feeling cold and vulnerable. The itchiness returned to my clavicle and I winced, noticing both the woman and Jonathan flashing me curious glances.
The woman was stunning and exotic. Her face was devoid of wrinkles, even though she looked mature in a very sophisticated way. She seemed out of place inside this bookstore, as if she were slumming. Her makeup was a little darker than I’d expected, and the dress cut low enough to expose her impressive cleavage. I imagined Jonathan had probably gotten an eyeful when they’d been leaning close.
She eyed me like a predator would its prey, and her freaky eyes looked gold.
“Of course, I remember…” Jonathan made his way around the counter, took his time to reach me and grabbed my elbow, guiding me toward the bookshelves at the front of the store. He ushered me between them and I hoped it wasn’t where Lavie had decided to start her whatever-she-had-to-do.
I took a discreet glimpse and relaxed when she wasn’t there. Not too much, though. I hadn’t forgotten what I was here for.
“What’s up?” I was surprised when Jonathan leaned over and possessively pressed his mouth against mine. The kiss was nothing more than a territorial move, one I didn’t have a chance to deflect or respond to before he stepped back. “It’s good to see his smell isn’t on you this morning.”
I pulled away, staring deep into his eyes. What was he up to now?
“Who’s the supermodel?” I asked. “I hope I didn’t interrupt a business transaction.”
“Oh no, you didn’t interrupt anything. She’s a…colleague.”
I nodded, but noticed he looked away when he answered my question. “You seem to have a lot of colleagues popping up out of nowhere nowadays.”
He shrugged and a small smile curved his lips. “Are you jealous?”
“No, I’m not.” I was just trying to find out if this woman was the same league of colleague as Troy—the homicidal kind. If so, I needed to get the hell out of the store. From this vantage point, I couldn’t see the woman in red.
“I missed you.” Jonathan stepped closer, forcing me to tilt my head back so I could meet his eyes. “You’re here to make things better between us, aren’t you?”
I swallowed, unable to respond.
He took a strand of my wavy, long hair and twirled it around his index finger. “You can tell me if you’re jealous.”
“I can’t tell you that because I’m not.”
His demeanor changed instantly. My hair slid from his finger. “Why not?” There was that darkness again, shading his face and turning his pallor from olive to gaunt. “You’re my girlfriend and just found me with a stunningly beautiful woman—you should be jealous.”
“Well, I’m not.” I shook my head, looking away. “Actually, that’s why I’m here…”
“If this is about last night, I’m sorry about how I acted.” He extended a hand to take mine, but I hid it behind my back.
With my spine pressed against the dusty bookshelf, I wanted to get this over and done with. “It’s not about that. It’s about what I told you the other day. What you’re trying to pretend didn’t happen.” I sighed, knowing it was now or never. “Look, Jonathan, this isn’t working anymore.”
His eyes darkened and his forehead creased. “It’s never going to work because you’re hung up on someone else.” The accusation in his voice sounded almost like a warning. As if everything was my fault and he had no part in this big, old mess we were trying to pass off as a relationship.
I shook my head. “Don’t try to pin this on him. This isn’t working because it’s not what I want… I feel like I don’t even know you anymore. You’re moody, secretive and becoming violent.” I took a quick breath and exhaled it. I was on a roll and had to follow this through to the end. “I’m not going to take this crap from you anymore, Jonathan. In the last few days you’ve bruised my arms and wrist, yet you don’t seem to care. I know where this road leads and I’m not going to stick around for you to beat on. I won’t become one of those women.”
“No, no, no. I would never hurt you.” His eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I love you so much. I don’t want to hurt you. I healed you. As soon as I found out what happened, I went to your house to see what I could do to help.”
“Jonathan, don’t—”
“It’s just…you make me crazy. The way you act around that Papan guy makes me so damn angry. He’s using you, mooching off you while he continues to fake an injury, and you can’t see it.”
“Why do you keep going back to the injury? We both know he’s recovered just fine.” I lowered my voice. “He’s at my house for another reason, and you know it.”
“You can’t hide him from the hunter forever.”
�
��I can damn well try!”
“He’s not good for you.”
“And you are?” I raised my voice. “He’s never laid a hand on me in anger, yet you claim to love me and have been doing it way too much lately!”
“It’s because of you. You do this to me.”
He might as well have hit me with the accusation. I opened my mouth to respond, but shut it again when he closed the distance between us.
“Sierra, don’t do this, we can make it work.” He placed his left hand on my shoulder, so close to the bandage that I tried to shrug him off. He didn’t move his hand, though. Actually ground his thumb into the center of the bite, causing it to throb like he’d set off a heartbeat. “I need you.”
“You’re hurting me.” Black was starting to close in around me and I tried to keep it at bay. I wasn’t ready to enter into the dark patch now.
“Sierra, I love you. Don’t you love me anymore?” He lowered his face closer to mine. Hand still on my shoulder, gaze intense on mine. “Oh, that’s right. You never could say it, could you? I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me. You never loved me at all.”
“Stop it.” I winced at the pain he was causing my clavicle by pressing down harder.
A smirk stretched out along his lips. “We both know who’s been the idiot in this since the beginning. I waited around for you to show up when you never did, put up with your constant cancellations and you putting everyone and everything else before me. And now, you want to break things off because of that wolf.”
“If you ever loved me, you’ll accept what I’m saying. You can’t make me stay with you.” I closed my eyes for a second, counted to ten as I tried to push the pain and the darkness away. “Let. Me. Go.”
He withdrew the pressure on my shoulder and collarbone, then placed his hand on my jaw, tilting it back. His eyes pleaded with me. “Please, don’t do this.”
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