by Brenda Huber
He stopped, cursed, and she nearly crashed into his broad back.
He strode forth. She scrambled to keep up.
He was going to give her whiplash at this rate.
Once he reached the door, he flung it open without warning. There, just on the stoop, stood a hideous creature. It sprang back at the sight of Xander. Xander held his hand out to the side, palm up. Threatening. Thankfully, for her peace of mind at least, he didn’t ignite one of those frightening plasma balls.
But the threat remained as he stared the beast down. She scurried ahead and grasped his waist, frantic to get his attention. Peering around his arm, she opened her mouth to remind him of the enchantments, but the words died in her throat.
His eyes were red again. Eerie. Demonic. And the smile on his face was—
Completely. Curdle-your-blood. Terrifying.
“Give your master a message,” he snarled. His voice was deep and layered, as if many voices spoke at once.
The creature blinked, but he lingered. Waiting. Worried Xander might forget her admonition about the plasma balls, Kyanna dug her fingers into his hips.
“This woman belongs to the Slayer,” Xander snarled.
Kyanna frowned. She didn’t belong to him. She didn’t belong to anyone but herself. Why was he saying such a thing? But then it clicked. He was warning the other demons away. It had nothing to do with her personally. Only with what he hoped to gain from her.
Nodding, the creature crossed his arms and slapped fists to shoulders. And then he vanished.
She thought that would be the end of it and began to relax. But then Xander spoke in that deeply layered voice again, addressing the darkened alley, though no one—as far as she could tell—remained. “Gie tuski mulchoi, cami ghia.”
Her breath catching in her throat, she strained to see into the darkness of the alley. But Xander closed the door before she could make anything specific out of the wavering shadows.
Her fingertips began to tingle. Suddenly realizing she was still clutching him, she released him and jumped back. Xander slowly turned on his heel. His expression was set, grim. Shaking his head, he stalked around her without so much as a glance in her direction. At least his eyes were no longer red.
“Wait,” she called, chasing after him.
He stopped. She nearly crashed into him. Again.
“Will you stop doing that?” Her head was spinning as it was. All the things she’d seen and heard tonight. All the revelations. And he wasn’t helping with all these abrupt stops and starts.
He gave a small grunt and stalked off again.
“What was that last bit? What did you say after that…that thing left?”
“I informed the others hiding in the shadows that you are under my protection.”
That gave her a moment’s pause. But then she plowed on. “What was that thing any way?”
“Charocté,” he called over his shoulder. “A servant class of demon. They’re normally docile and obedient. It had to have been scratching around here, looking for another way in on its master’s orders. They won’t scratch their own asses without permission.”
Well that’s certainly a pleasant bit of imagery.
“Then why can’t you identify it, figure out who it belongs to?”
“Charocté all pretty much look alike. It’s nearly impossible to tell them apart. And it would be virtually impossible to tell exactly who it belongs to.”
“Why couldn’t you capture it, make it talk?”
He stopped once more, only this time she managed to pull up as well so she didn’t bounce off his broad back. Slowly he turned to stare down at her, just as slowly he elevated an eyebrow.
“Oh, right.” Duh, Ky. The enchantments had prevented him from stepping foot past the threshold.
“Where do you sleep?”
“What?” she squeaked.
“Sleep, woman. Where do you sleep?”
“Upstairs.”
He turned toward the door she’d shooed him away from earlier.
“Wait! You can’t go—”
Her words strangled off with a gasp as he jerked the door open and took the first step up, an army general claiming new territory. His momentum sent him ricocheting off the secondary enchantments like a basketball off the backboard. He landed on his butt. At her feet. With a very angry grunt.
“Up there,” she finished, wincing.
Glaring up at her, he gingerly climbed to his feet.
“There are secondary enchantments on the apartment. And before you ask, no, I’m not lowering that one either.”
The grim set of his mouth expressed his displeasure eloquently.
“No,” she reiterated, edging backward with a great deal of caution as he took an intimidating step toward her. “And that wasn’t meant as a challenge. You stay. But you sleep down here, in the office.”
He looked back to the steps, to the dagger on the fifth step up. So close, yet impossible for him to reach.
“I want my dagger.”
“No.”
“Woman—”
“Kyanna.”
“Kyanna,” he conceded less than graciously. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already. By my bare hands.”
She weighed his words. Biting her lip, she conceded the point. A measure of trust for a measure of trust? “Do I have your word you won’t use that thing on me?”
“The word of a demon.” He tossed her earlier mistrust back at her with an eloquently arched brow.
Cute. But she wasn’t about to let him off so easily. He might intimidate others into doing his bidding with those menacing looks—okay, he might intimidate her more than a little as well—but this was her life she was putting on the line. She at least wanted the illusion of a sworn promise. Crossing her arms, she stared him down. Mutiny etched in every tense muscle.
At length, he lifted his gaze to the ceiling, muttering something beneath his breath. The words sounded remarkably similar to the language she used while casting enchantments. Finally, he turned his attention to her. His expression was placid, though she could see the effort it cost him.
“I swear I will do you no harm.”
“With the dagger,” she prompted.
“With the dagger.”
“Nor with your bare hands,” she added.
The muscle in his jaw leapt.
“Nor with my bare hands.”
“Nor with plasma balls,” she wheedled.
His nostrils flared and he drew a deep, deep breath. “Nor with plasma balls.”
“Ever.”
“Woman!”
“Ever,” she insisted, planting her fists to her hips.
“Ever,” Xander snarled.
With a healthy dose of unease, she stepped unimpeded past the secondary enchantments and picked up the weapon. Drawing a deep breath, praying she wasn’t about to make a huge mistake, she returned to the hallway and handed him the dagger.
Grim, his gaze never leaving hers, he reclaimed his property and slapped it back in its sheath.
He straightened, glowering. “I cannot protect you with enchantments between us.”
“If you can’t get through them, then they can’t get through them either, correct?”
Put like that, either he’d be forced to acknowledge her point, or admit that someone else was better than he was, thereby rendering himself useless. She could have patted herself on the back for her quick thinking. A guy like him—a demon, she corrected—wouldn’t willingly admit to a personal flaw if there was any possible way around it.
Why is it so hard to remember that crucial fact? He’s a demon. Not a man. Not some guy. A demon!
Probably because right now he looks very, very human. And too damned sexy for my own piece of mind.
His eyes flickered red, and she quickly
stifled the urge to run for cover. In the end, he nodded, surprising her.
“Good. I’ll be right back,” she announced, then escaped upstairs before he could change his mind, or make some crazy pronouncement that she sleep down here instead.
A few moments later, she pounded down the stairs, a pillow and a stack of blankets filling her arms. Sweeping by a scowling Xander, she hurried to the office and began making up the sofa. Just as she was plumping the pillow, a thought occurred to her.
“I didn’t think,” she admitted, nibbling her lower lip as she assessed him. “You do sleep, right?”
He’d come to stand in the doorway. Filled it. Muscled arms crossed over his bare chest, feet spread. His expression impassive.
At length, once he’d caused her to begin fidgeting nervously, he finally deigned to reply. “Yes, I sleep.”
“All righty then.” Rubbing her damp palms up and down her hips, glancing anxiously around the room, she cleared her throat. “I’ll, ah, I’ll just be upstairs. If you need anything just, um, just give a shout, I guess.”
She’d said the last as she’d crossed the small room, expecting him to step aside. But he didn’t. Xander’s steady gaze had followed every move she’d made, fidgets and all. But he’d not twitched a muscle otherwise.
She came to stand before him, chin held high. Never mind the panicky way her insides quivered.
“Excuse me.” She kept a polite smile pasted to her mouth.
He stared at her, inscrutable. Frustratingly silent.
Did he think to force her to stay with him here in the office? Because if he did, he had another—
Without warning, he leaned forward and captured her lips with his own, though he didn’t touch her anywhere else. Shocked, she stared up in to turbulent gray. The moment her eyes slid shut, the tip of his tongue swept the seam of her lips, prodding, demanding entrance.
To her mortification, her body responded, yielding to his without the slightest resistance.
This was no brush. No flutter. No gentle flirtation.
This was firm. Possessive. A succinct exertion of will.
And damned effective.
The moment her hands drifted to his chest and she leaned into him in surrender, Xander drew back, leaving her weaving on her feet. Kyanna blinked up at him, utterly speechless.
“Sweet dreams, Kyanna,” he murmured in that raw, husky rasp of his. A rasp that now sent thrilling shudders skating down her spine.
His expression hadn’t changed. Not one bristly whisker moved. And yet his eyes held depths she couldn’t fathom. Irritation swirled therein. And desire. Unmistakable and hungry.
“Goodnight, Xander,” she replied firmly, squeezing around him.
Disappointment. Resignation. Relief. Was she really reading all these emotions in his steady gaze? Or was it wishful thinking on her part? A reflection of her own emotions?
She hesitated there in the hallway, just outside the door, the taste of him fresh upon her lips. He’d kissed her. Shaken her to the depths of her soul. Firming her resolve, she glanced over her shoulder to make certain he’d remained in the office. He had. He stood with his back to the door, staring at the sofa. Fisted hands clenched at his sides. His shoulders rising and falling on slow, measured breaths. Trying to keep her steps slow and casual, she crossed to the storage closet and drew out the ward stones, tucking them furtively against her stomach.
As she returned to the office, Kyanna kept wary watch on Xander’s broad back. She caught the way he suddenly stiffened. Kyanna kicked her speed up a notch as he whirled toward the door, and she scrambled to drop the stones in place across the threshold, her lips moving silently as she rushed to whisper more enchantments into place.
Fury lit his features. His eyes glowed red. His muscles seemed to swell before her eyes.
“Damn it, woman,” he snarled, his rough voice deep and oddly layered. He stormed right up to the doorway, and no farther. Xander reached his hand out, only to hiss and jerk it back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, leaping back despite the barrier between them. “I can’t allow you to wander around out here all night.”
He said not a word. He didn’t need to. His red eyes spoke volumes. As did his clenched, bulging muscles. Kyanna licked her lower lip nervously, then caught it between her teeth. He stilled, his unswerving attention suddenly riveted to her mouth. A furrow dug deep between his brows. Heat of a new kind boiled through the doorway. Kyanna spun on her heel, and she fled.
A single, enraged roar followed her. She escaped upstairs and closed the door behind her. Once safely behind additional enchantments and ward stones and locked doors, she leaned back, trying in vain to catch her breath.
He kissed me.
Holy hell, she’d just been kissed by a demon.
And she’d liked it.
This was insane. This was a disaster in the making.
What am I going to do now?
Chapter Nine
Xander prowled the confines of the minuscule office. He sent a vicious glare toward the ceiling—whether directed at that unpredictable female or higher yet, he couldn’t say—as he laced his fingers and propped his hands on the top of his head. Only centuries of exercising rigid self control prevented him from kicking holes in the walls and pulverizing her desk into toothpick sized splinters.
What the hell did I just do?
He’d meant the kiss to be a manipulation. Sneak inside her defenses, use her weak human hormones against her, snag the relic, and jet. He’d sorely miscalculated. Instead of her being completely at his mercy, he’d been the one caught in her silken web. Just as he’d feared. The taste of her lingered on his lips, making him crave more of her.
Talk about seduction gone awry. Might as well label this one an epic failure.
And then she’d done it again. Caught him by surprise. She’d been doing it all night, every time she’d stood her ground with him, refusing to budge an inch. He sure as hell hadn’t expected her to cage him inside the office. He’d been so busy worrying over that ill advised kiss and contemplating the tiny bed she’d made up for him—what did she think he was, a freakin’ dwarf?—that he hadn’t realized what she’d been up to until it was too late.
Hell, who was he trying to fool? He’d been so wrapped up in thinking about her lips, about how they’d been so soft and yielding, so delicious, that Lucy himself could probably have walked up and shaken his hand and he wouldn’t have realized it. Sweet Christ, if a simple kiss could render him senseless, imagine what having her beneath him, writhing and moaning as he buried himself between her sweet thighs would do to him. Her arms holding him close. Her legs wrapped around his waist—
Dragging both hands over his face, he battled the urge to roar once more. This time not in frustration, but in thwarted torment. He had to get a grip on his control or he’d be a wild, slathering, lust-driven beast by the time she returned tomorrow morning. Xander paced to the doorway. He squatted down and peered at the crystals she’d strewn in front of the door. Anglesite, quartz, ruby and—
Halite, maybe?
It was difficult to tell with the hallway dark now. And every time he tried to reach out to nudge them aside he got an unpleasant jolt. Like a damned dog with a bark collar. Or invisible fencing. The analogy didn’t sit well. Pissed off all over again, he reached out once more. The tips of his fingers began to blacken, his flesh began to smoke. Swearing, he jerked his hand back and pushed to his feet.
He concentrated hard, tried to conjure a fresh shirt. A bottle of Tylenol. A freakin’ Pepsi.
Nada.
He pulled his fist back. It would serve her right to wake up to holes in her walls. But it wouldn’t help him one bit to bring the damned ceiling down on his own head. Closing his eyes, he centered his focus and relaxed his fist. He imagined Sebastian’s farmhouse. The rustic, outdoorsy furnishings. The fresh, clean air
.
He opened his eyes—to Kyanna’s office.
Scowling, he closed them once more, dug deeper for the darkness within, called to mind Niklas’s flat in Paris. Or Gideon’s sprawling plantation house in Tennessee.
Opened to business ledgers.
Closed, brow furrowed deep in concentration, he thought of his own log cabin in the Rockies. The scent of pine, the chirping of birds. The babbling brook out back.
Open. That friggin’ Barbie-doll sofa.
Closed, he imagined war ravaged village streets. Screams and exploding bombs. Rampant gunfire. Smoke and death.
Open. Kyanna’s businesslike desk. Tidy and professional. And dead silence all but for some clock ticking away in the far recesses of Kyanna’s store. Tick. Tock. Like the drip-drip of cunning water torture designed to slowly drive prisoners insane.
Again he desperately tried to conjure that can of Pepsi. An exercise in futility, he knew. But damn, he could use a drink right now.
Nothing.
The sound of footsteps crossed above him. Back and forth. Back and forth. A twisted sort of grim satisfaction niggled. If he wasn’t going to get an easy night’s rest, then why should she?
But then another thought occurred.
Would she be all right up there without him?
Something like that would never have occurred to him before. What was the matter with him?
Cursing, he reached into his back pocket, pulled his cell phone out. Xander thumbed in a quick sequence of numbers, then settled onto the seat at the desk and glowered at the dinky bed as he waited for the call to connect.
“Dude,” Sebastian answered.
“It’s me.”
“That’s what the ringtone said.”
Smartass.
“I have a Guardian,” Xander said.
Something loud thunked in the background. A pop and a fizz. “No kidding? Where?”
“Isle, Minnesota.”
“You gonna bring the relic in or do we need to come to you?” Sebastian asked.