His Dangerous Ways: An Academy of Demon Hunters and Angels Reverse Harem Romance (Academy of the Supernatural Book 2)

by May Dawson

  Deidra’s hand slid up to my shoulder, and then she wrapped me into a tight hug. As I hugged her back, I smiled mirthlessly into her hair. “Sorry, I meant to tell you something funny and I really got way off—”

  “You told me something true,” she said softly. “And I’d rather have something true. You and your brother are so hard to get to know.”

  I frowned at her. “I don’t think so. Cade and I don’t have a lot in common.”

  “You’re both two of my favorite people in the world,” she told me.

  I hadn’t expected her to say that, and I felt her freeze, her fingers still on my shoulder, as if she’d said more than she meant to.

  “You’re one of my favorite people too, Deidra Ainsley,” I said. “Even if you trick me into talking about my feelings.”

  She laughed out loud at that. “That is a sin with Hunters, isn’t it?”

  The fact that I could tell her about the worst night of my life meant something to me. I could even tell her about the phantom image of my mother’s face, serene and calm as her hair flew around her in that moment of impact, that I didn’t trust anyone else with.

  But then the two of us were back to laughing, as easy and comfortable as two people could be with each other.

  I leaned forward and brushed my lips against her cheek.

  She turned her face into mine, and even though we were in the dark, her lips found mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Deidra

  When the witches swung open the doors to the van, revealing a dark driveway and a brightly lit mansion, they were far more respectful than when they’d thrown us in. They escorted us into the house, into an elegantly decorated living room lit with candles.

  Witches certainly do love candles.

  “What did they do to you?” Truby frowned at me, and I stared back at him in confusion.

  He reached out and, before I could pull away, raced his fingertips over my hair. My scalp tingled as my hair was released from the updo and it cascaded over my shoulders. There was a ting-ting-ting as Bobby pins rained down around my feet.

  I ran my fingers through my silky hair, and realized it was black strands, tipped with green, that fell around my fingers.

  My sense of wonder at Truby’s casual use of magic for such a small thing intermingled with hatred. Why did it matter to him if I looked the way I’d always chosen to look? Did he really care?

  “Now you look more like yourself,” he said. He frowned at Tristan, as if he was judging him for my makeover. Then Truby’s gaze caught on my necklace. He turned to Tristan and gave him a second look, this one a mix of skepticism and curiosity.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  Truby said, “I’d like to speak to you alone, daughter.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I gritted.

  My anger made his mouth twitch in a smile before it disappeared. He asked, “You still want to deny it?”

  “You weren’t exactly a father to me.”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice,” he said mildly. “Your uncle hid you from me.”

  “And you killed him for it. I wonder why he might have thought you weren’t the trust-worthy type.”

  “As if your uncle didn’t do his fair share of killing. As if your people didn’t kill my blood.” No emotion broke his veneer, which was calm and banal.

  A flicker of motion in the corner of my eye drew my gaze. Several witches were pulling Tristan from the room. His lips seemed to be sealed shut, because he made small, closed-mouth sounds.

  I rounded on Truby. “Let him go right now.”

  “I told you I wished to speak with you alone.”

  Anger tightened my throat. His quiet, certain tone—as if he were completely in control—just made me more furious. But I swallowed my rage.

  I should speak his language. I should be cool. “Take the enchantment off him, leave him alone in safety, and I’ll talk to you. When both he and I know he’s safe.”

  “Oh, so you care for him,” he said. “I wasn’t sure.”

  He snapped his fingers at the witches who were dragging Tristan to the door, then raised his eyebrows at me, as if to ask if I were satisfied.

  “What does that mean?” I demanded. “Snapping your fingers could be the code for take him in the alley and shoot him.”

  “Well,” my father said, “actually, I would gut him with a Lerias spell.”

  I stared at him. Super helpful. Then rounding on my father’s men, who had reached the doorway, I said, “Take that spell off him and leave him alone. I’ll talk to my...father.”

  I stumbled over the word.

  “Do as my daughter says,” Truby ordered them. A note of pleasure tinged his voice that made me bite my tongue. He was trying to reinforce my moment of obedience.

  He should’ve talked to Cade and Nix. He would’ve known that I didn’t have an obedient bone in my body.

  When I looked into Truby’s self-satisfied face, it was Liam’s face that flashed into my mind.

  I remembered my uncle’s patient gaze as he corrected my form in the dojo, always kind and gentle even though I took hit after hit learning to be tough in his world. I remembered how, in my moments of teenage foolishness, the way he’d rubbed his hand over his face in exasperation before peeking through his fingers at me, as if he couldn’t handle looking full-on at my stupidity.

  And I remembered, too, my uncle’s face in the dim light of my room when I was a little girl haunted by nightmares. He stayed next to my bed until I fell back asleep. He’d never acted like I was a pain to him, although looking back, I remembered how much black coffee he drank during those long, difficult years.

  I’d play Truby’s little game.

  And then I’d slice his throat open for what he did to Liam.

  When the door clicked shut, leaving Truby and I alone, he asked, “Why did you bring the boy with you?”

  “You should know that if you hurt him, I’ll never forgive you.”

  His lips quirked. “I recognize that. Are you going to answer my question?”

  “My magic is stronger with him than without him.” It was the answer Truby was most likely to understand.

  Something dark and worried flashed through his eyes, then was gone. “Interesting. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, perhaps I can help you come to understand it.” He regarded me steadily. “That’s not the sole reason, though. You’re fond of him.”

  The way he phrased it made the bond between us sound small, as if I was controlling and dangerous to Tristan. But that was probably the way Truby would like to see me.

  “Sure. I’m fond of him.” I parroted his stupid words back to him.

  “I want you to understand your past, Deidra,” he said. He said my name slowly, as if he was rolling the word over his tongue. “Our past.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Deidra,” he said again. “The tragic heroine in the Ulster cycle. Your mother and I shared an affection for that name. I’m not surprised she chose it.”

  Just talking about her with him felt like a betrayal. But I had to get him to trust me, in order to find a way to kill him. I could pretend to soften to him over time. Too quickly, and he’d know I was playing him.

  I turned away, my chin rising defiantly. Then, a minute later, I asked, “How did you meet my mother?”

  “We knew each other when we were barely more than children,” he said. “She was my first love.”

  “I didn’t know you could love.”

  “Oh that’s where you’re wrong, Deidra. I loved her, and I love you—in a way, since we don’t know each other yet. Because you’re my flesh, my blood—“

  I turned away, shaking my head, as bile rose in my throat.

  “Well,” he said. “I think you’ll come to understand.”

  “Then talk to me.” I might have been maneuvering him, but the emotion that broke through my words was real. I had to listen to him. I didn’t have to
pretend that the effort didn’t gut me.

  He sighed. “I met your mother on a rainy Saturday afternoon. It was pouring outside—we both lived in Virginia at the time, and I don’t think there’s anywhere that it rains like it rained there—and I took refuge in the library.”

  “I was raised by people who believed in witches. They believed that witches were dangerous.” His face clouded with memory. “That we were an abomination. Once I became a teenager, there was no denying what I was. They tried to have it exorcised. They tried to beat it out of me.”

  I stared at him, refusing to picture him as a young man, refusing to feel empathy for him. Or at least, trying not to.

  “Let me show you,” he said suddenly. “Not that part. Your mother.”

  “How can you do that?” I began to ask, but he was already catching my hand in his.

  When I tried to wrench my hand away, he squeezed tighter, pressing my fingers together painfully.

  He muttered the words of his spell. I stepped in toward him, intending to throw him over my shoulder to break his grip, and then cold magic rippled over my body.

  In a second, I was transported back in time in Truby’s memories, or at least his imagination. I reminded myself not to trust him, not at all, even though I was with him, in his head, as he ran up the library steps. The cold rain had soaked through his shirt, and it made his muscles tense, which made them ache even more. His back and shoulders were bruised.

  When he opened the door to the library, heat washed out over him, and his heart leapt. Just walking into the library made him feel better.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, Jonathan.” The librarian smiled at him from behind her desk. “We’ve gotten quite a few new fantasy books in.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled back at her. “I’m sure I’ll find them.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  He’d read everything else in this small town library, after all.

  He turned down the fantasy and sci-fi aisle, ready to inhale the scent of the books, ready to settle down in his favorite chair at the end of the aisle—

  There was a girl in his chair.

  She reclined with her back against one arm, her legs kicked out over the other. She held the book so close to her eyes that at first he couldn’t see her face. But he could guess from her slight figure and the long black hair in a high ponytail that she was young like he was.

  He stopped and looked at the spines of the books, searching for new titles. The only sound was the rain beating on the roof steadily, and the flicker of her turning the pages. Instead of the comforting scent of books, he could smell her; she smelled like cinnamon.

  “What is it?” She asked, still hidden behind the book cover. “Lost?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You keep going back and forth.” She sat up, and when she lowered the book, she had the most perfectly mischievous face, with freckles across her nose and plush red lips. “You found the creaky floorboard.”

  “I didn’t just find it,” he said. “I’ve known about it for a long time. I’ve read almost all the books in this aisle.”

  He wanted her to know that she was the interloper. He’d been here first. It felt almost like a matter of pride, for her to know that he was a reader.

  Although the next minute, he wanted to roll his eyes at himself; it wasn’t as if being a bookworm had made him particularly popular so far in life.

  “Have you read this one?” She held it so they could both see the cover.

  “Not that one. It must be new.”

  “Mm.” Her lips took on an amused cast.

  I almost gasped at the realization of how familiar she looked when she smirked. She looked so much like me.

  Cold rippled through my skin, and the next thing I knew, I was kneeling at her feet, my head in her lap on a summer day. Wait—no, it was Truby who sat beside her, reading to her aloud, as she stroked and played with his hair. But the longing I felt for my mother, that was all mine.

  In that moment, Truby had been content.

  His emotions—the warmth and joy he’d felt when he was close to my mother—unsettled me.

  “Enough.” I wrenched my lip between my teeth, biting down hard enough to taste copper. Let the pain pull me out of his dreams.

  Then Truby and I were across from each other once again. There was something wistful in his eyes, and then it was lost as he looked as if he were gloating instead.

  “Was it nice to see your mother?” He asked. “I could show you more. She looked so much like you.”

  I couldn’t deny how much I wanted to see more of her. I stared at him, rubbing my thumb over my bloodied lip.

  “I can heal you,” he offered, his gaze fixing on my my lip. “You could’ve just asked to stop, you know.”

  “I don’t need healing,” I said. “I’m used to pain.”

  And he was a part of why I was used to pain. He had caused the greatest pain I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t let myself forget that.

  He gazed at me, studying me.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said finally. “You’re very powerful.”

  “Yes.”

  He seemed amused by my deadpan answer. “Arrogant, too. I guess you aren’t just your mother’s daughter.”

  Everything he said seemed designed to prickle on my skin.

  “There’s no point in denying my power,” I said. “I never said it was a good thing.”

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in your strength, Deidra.”

  “It’s not my strength. I didn’t do anything to earn it.” It was totally unlike my ability in martial arts, which was the product of hard work and grit.

  He studied me curiously. “I hope you’ll give me a chance. But I hope you’ll give yourself a chance too.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I’d like to show you my house and my coven,” he said. “Tomorrow. For tonight, perhaps you and that boy could use a meal and some rest?”

  “Sure.” I wanted desperately to be away from him, to catch my breath. Seeing my mother had sent my emotions into overdrive. Belatedly, taking in his irritated gaze, I added, “Thank you.”

  “It’s going to be all right, Deidra,” Truby said, touching my elbow, giving me a smile.

  When he looked at me like that, I caught the briefest glimpse of the boy he’d been.

  It was hard to reconcile his words with the thought that I’d be all right when I killed him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Truby escorted me to a large bedroom. Tristan stood at the window, and he turned when he heard me, his face brightening with relief.

  “Please stay here and don’t try to go anywhere,” Truby said. “We have so much to talk about tomorrow.”

  “What happens if we do try to go somewhere?”

  “You’ll find it difficult to open the door or window without blowing my house apart,” Truby said, “and that’s very poor manners, daughter.”

  Tristan snorted. I glared at him. No matter what kind of situation we were in, apparently Tristan couldn’t resist implying my manners were less-than-stellar.

  As soon as the door had closed, and then Truby’s footsteps had faded down the hallway, Tristan rushed to me. His cool demeanor dropped away as he closed the distance between us.

  “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. I was bone-tired, exhausted and wrung out emotionally from Truby’s memories, but he hadn’t hurt me. “We have to assume he’s listening to us. Or even watching us.”

  Tristan nodded.

  I stared up into his handsome, worried face. Everything in me felt aching and tender. Liam’s death, even the loss of my mother—who I imagined for the first time as a freckled, laughing girl and not a blur of maternal affection—felt new.

  “I’m not entirely sure how to deal with all this,” I said, my voice coming out steady. “I would like to...forget for a little while.”

  “Some of Truby’s men brought in dinner.” Tristan indicated a table
in the corner, but his gaze never left mine.

  “I don’t think that’s what I want.” The memory of the heat between us on the dance floor caused my thighs to tighten all over again. As I remembered the feel of Tristan’s muscled thigh between mine, an ache pooled low in my belly, as if I longed to have him there again.

  He studied my face.

  “Is it strange?” I asked uncertainly. I waved generally, indicating the room. “In here.”

  We couldn’t speak openly. But I didn’t care who saw me kiss Tristan.

  “No,” he said. “The situation is strange. Your reactions to this...strangeness...seem normal enough.”

  “You wouldn’t really have anything to compare it to.”

  A familiar smile tilted the corners of his mouth. “Are you trying to argue me into thinking that you’re a weirdo?”

  “Maybe.” I couldn’t resist an answering smile. “Maybe I think you’re a weirdo, and I want you to know we’re kindred spirits.”

  “Rude.” His fingers brushed over my cheekbone, then slipped a wayward strand of hair back behind my ear. His gaze lingered on my hair, and I wondered if he was unsettled by Truby’s magic.

  Then he said, “I’m glad you’re back to your usual color.”

  “Oh?”

  “I like it.” He tugged playfully on a few strands.

  Then he wrapped his hand in my hair and gently pulled my head back. I gasped in surprise at the feel of his hand in my hair, before his lips met mine.

  Tristan kissed me with a wild, fierce edge. I wasn’t sure what was going on in his head, and we couldn’t talk about it. But I liked the way he kissed me.

  The two of us stumbled back and forth across the room, trading kisses.

  He caught me around the waist, then launched us both onto the bed. The feeling of being thrown made me giddy, made me laugh unexpectedly. Maybe I was just on the verge of losing it after such a strange day, but a strange, reckless, sweet feeling swept me.

  I’d wanted this moment with Tristan for a long time. When death felt like it was all around me, I wanted him so badly. I wanted him to make me feel alive.