by Jessi Gage
After rounding the corner that would take them toward downtown Dover, he turned crazed eyes on her. “Are you okay? I can’t believe—shit, you’re bleeding.” He fished a hanky out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“I am?” As she reached for the white cloth, she noticed specks of blood on her hand. Shards of coffee-pot glass had struck her hard enough to break her skin in several places. Now that the house was several blocks behind them, she felt pin-pricks of pain on her cheek, too, and where her partially-zipped hoodie revealed a V of her chest.
“Aren’t coffee pots supposed to be tempered glass?” she asked as she blotted the cuts. “They shouldn’t shatter like that, should they?”
“I used to store my coffee maker on top of the fridge to save counter space,” Emmett said. “It exploded just like that when I dropped it one day. I think they’re just not supposed to break because of heat. But honestly, I don’t know. Does it hurt?”
She shook her head, even though it kind of did. She didn’t want to worry him. Her brand new boyfriend had been through enough for one day. She certainly wasn’t going to make a big deal out of the fact her cuts wouldn’t stop bleeding. With each blot, the handkerchief came away with persistent spots of red. “You carry a hanky?” she asked with a nervous laugh, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” he said without taking his eyes from the road. “Since I was a kid. My grandpa says real men always have a handkerchief handy in case a lady needs one.” His throat bobbed with a swallow. She kept waiting to see his half-smile emerge, but it didn’t come. It might not come for a while.
She wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling, which probably meant she was in shock, but she knew Emmett, scared and worried about her, was the cutest thing she’d ever seen. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, but she settled for scooting over to press her shoulder to his while he drove.
The contact seemed to relax him. He took a breath, and the worst of the fear cleared from his face. “Seriously, are you hurt? You fell.”
She wasn’t hurt much, but she was cold to the bone like the one and only time she’d ventured into her basement. “I’m okay. What about you? Did that thing hurt you?”
He huffed a breath, releasing a little more tension. “I’m okay.” He glanced at her. “You might have glass in those cuts. Just keep dabbing like that. Don’t rub.”
He didn’t have to tell her. A few spots flared with sharp pain. She dabbed them gingerly, ready for the red spots to start shrinking in size. “It’s a good thing I had long sleeves on.” She tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob.
Emmett stopped the sweeper in the middle of the road. “Let me see.” He took the hanky and dabbed at her left cheek and eyelid. Then he drew her into his arms. “Hey, hey. We’re okay.” He rocked her sweetly.
He was warm and solid. His living strength banished the clinging cold. He held her for a long time. The occasional car crept past the sweeper, being forced to the wrong side of the road to get around.
An unwelcome thought intruded. Had she learned nothing from standing up to Brad and Mr. Shadow? Was she doomed to run away from everything that upset her?
She pushed out of Emmett’s arms. “I can’t run from this. That’s my grandmother’s house. I have to go back.”
“The hell you do. You’re staying with me until we can get it blessed or cleansed or whatever.”
We. She liked the sound of that. “So, I’ll be able to go back?” If she planned on returning soon, it wasn’t technically running away.
“Of course. We’re not going to just let that thing have run of the place. It doesn’t belong there. We’ll fix this. I promise.”
Coming from him, that word meant something she had never let it mean before. Emmett had kept a doozy of a promise to himself for years. That took character. A promise made by Emmett was a promise she could trust. On the other hand, it irked her that he was making her problem his problem.
He let go of her and put his hands on the wheel. “Come on, I said I’d buy you a coffee. We’ll swing by Dunkin’s. Then I’ll take a closer look at your cuts and make some phone calls.” He hit the gas and jostled the stick shift through the gears.
“But you need to sweep, don’t you? You can’t spend the day taking care of me.”
“Windham County will survive if I take today off.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need you to coddle me. Just drop me off at your place and go back to work.”
“Maybe I’m the one who needs to be coddled.” There was the half-smile she’d been missing. Now, if it would just melt away the worry in his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’m shaking in my boots, here.”
“It’ll be okay.” She found it easier to be brave for his sake than for her own. “You prayed and it went away. That’s awesome. I wish I’d thought to try that.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “What have you tried?”
“Standing up to it and putting bundles of herbs in all the windows. Seems pretty silly now. But like I said, it was just a shadow before. It did that hand thing—” She made the beckoning motion. “But it was just a shadow on the wall, well, mostly on the wall—except that one time I think I saw it in the mirror—but it was nothing like that...that— What the hell was that?”
“I think it was a demon. I think there’s a demon in your grandmother’s house.”
“Well, damn it,” she said.
“Exactly,” Emmett said.
* * * *
Emmett shone a flashlight over the formerly flawless skin between Jade’s collarbone and the pink lace trim of her tank top. She was sitting on the lid of his john so he could look for tiny shards of glass in the dozen or so cuts peppering her chest, neck, and cheek.
His molars ground together with rage. He had woken up that morning determined to put her firmly in the friend box. Now, just a few hours later, his gut ached with the urge to avenge this attack on her, and the urge went way deeper than simple chivalry.
She was his girl. He couldn’t believe he’d considered pushing her away.
If it had been a person that had done this to her, he’d have laid the bastard out cold in a heartbeat, but the thing that had attacked her wasn’t something he knew how to fight. He was going to need help. He had to call Nick.
But first, he had to take care of Jade.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” He knelt in front of her and used a razor blade to scrape a sparkling sliver of glass out of a cut below her collarbone.
She shook her head. “You’re fine. Thanks. I couldn’t get close enough to the mirror to see those little guys.” She sniffed.
A few minutes ago, he’d heard her quietly crying behind the closed and locked bathroom door. He’d knocked. She’d let him in, and he’d found her beautiful face anguished and her fingers slippery with blood.
She’d been through so much. As soon as he got her patched up, he was going to hold her and let her have a good cry on him. Maybe he’d have a good cry, too.
“No wonder you were sleeping in your car. I don’t blame you. I wish you had told me. I hate that you were facing this alone. Here, can you hold this for me?” He wiggled the flashlight.
When she wrapped her slender fingers around it, he guided the light to a suspicious red spot on her neck. She held it there while he worried another sparkling sliver from her flesh and wiped it on a piece of gauze.
“You would have thought I was out of my mind.”
He huffed a wry laugh. “Yeah, probably.” He directed the light onto her face and noticed a trace of yellow bruising around her eye. She’d covered it well with makeup on Friday night, but here it was, staring him in the face, making his stomach clench, proof that someone had hit her before she was his.
He wanted to ask her about it but figured she’d been through enough today. Besides, it probably wasn’t any of his business, although he sure wanted to make it his business.
His hand started to shake. He took a second to bring his an
ger under control.
Damn, he hated seeing her hurt. He hated knowing how alone she’d been since he’d ended their date so abruptly on Friday. Even more, he hated that she’d misunderstood the reason.
Clearing his throat, he focused his attention on a tiny flare of light on her cheekbone. More glass. “I’m sorry I was such a dick Friday night,” he said while he scraped it out.
“I know you didn’t mean it like that, now. We’re okay.”
Hearing her say we made his heart smile. But it didn’t stick. He had never fallen so hard and fast for anyone. They were only days in, if he counted their date Friday. Though he was absolutely committed to a relationship with Jade, it was just a matter of time before his fear of marriage collided with his raging hormones. Probably a very, very short time, given his reaction to her so far.
Something was going to have to give. The prospect of breaking his virginity vow was unthinkable. That left—gulp—marriage.
Oddly, the thought of marrying Jade didn’t fill him with dread like the thought of marrying Chelsea had. Jade triggered something primal in him that didn’t care about silly eventualities like irreconcilable differences. With her blood on his fingers and her sweet, coffee-scented breath on his face, he had a moment of thinking this beautiful, sensual, free-spirited woman could be enough for him. More than enough. He thought he’d be willing to stick with her no matter what. No disagreement could ever be bad enough to make him want to walk away. But as soon as he had the thought, he tamped it down because it was almost as terrifying as the thing they’d just fled.
He had no business considering anything long-term with this girl. She’d said it herself; she was only going to stick around Vermont for a year. Then she would go back to Boston.
Back to being an exotic dancer. Maybe back in the path of whoever had hit her.
His shoulders tensed. Some inner caveman part of him wanted to shake his club and say, “Woman, you will not go back to that life. You’re mine, now.”
Like that would go over well with his Boston beauty. She’d shake her club right back, or smack him over the head with it. And that feistiness of hers made him want to keep her locked up in his cave even more.
Finished with the slivers, he shoved away all thoughts of his future, or lack thereof, with Jade, and determined to be the best boyfriend he could be for the time being.
“Lean over the sink,” he instructed. When she did, he dabbed alcohol over her cuts.
She winced and gritted her teeth but didn’t make a peep.
He couldn’t contain his proud smile. She might be wearing a sweatshirt with “Drama Queen” spangled across the chest in glittery letters, but his girl was as tough as the most stoic New Englander.
“I think they’re small enough not to need bandages,” he said. “The air will help them scab up.” He blotted her chest dry with a clean towel then led her out of the bathroom and to the sofa. He sat down and pulled her against him in a fierce embrace. “Come here. Let it all out, sweetheart.”
She gave a single heart-wrenching sob. But instead of crying, she took a deep breath as if to steady herself and said, “You’re way too good for me, you know.”
“That’s funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
She shook her head, her full, kissable mouth compressed in a line. “Please. I’m such a coward.”
“That’s the craziest thing anyone in the history of the world has ever said.” He lifted her chin so she would meet his gaze. “You’ve been living in the same house with that thing for a week. You’ve tried standing up to it the only way you could think how. You jumped on it when it attacked me. You’re my hero. I’m so proud of you. And look at you now. You’re shaken and hurt but still composed. You’ve got a spine on you, honey.” He couldn’t help stroking his thumb over her cheek, right over the old bruise he wasn’t going to bring up. She closed her eyes, and her lips parted around an exhale. She was so beautiful. And she trusted him. He wouldn’t let her down.
“I’m going to call my friend, Nick. He’s in seminary and knows a lot about this kind of thing. He’ll know what to do. And until then, you’re going to stay right here with me.”
She relaxed by degrees into his embrace. After a while of just holding each other, she said, “I’m glad you came by this morning, but I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” With the top of her head warming his cheek, he prayed it would be.
* * * *
Draonius beat the wings of his avian vessel against an invisible wall surrounding Emmett Herald’s home.
Blessed, he snarled. So, the man was a believer, as Joshua had been.
It didn’t change his plans. No believer could be possessed with the power of a lord’s ring, but he had never had a ring, and that hadn’t stopped him from taking Joshua’s essence and his body, for a short time. He’d failed to hold his chosen vessel then. This time he would succeed.
He would prove to his prince it had been no mistake to free him. After all, he was a century older and wiser, and he had his devoted Mercy to serve him with her witchery. And he had Jade—or at least he would if not for that bedamned blessing.
He drew his precious few remaining essences tight around him, as he settled in an azalea bush to eye his quarry through a window. Emmett held her, cradled her face in his hand, petted her sleek, tiger-eye hair.
Jealousy tinged his vision in shades of crimson.
His hands had caressed her only a few nights ago. His lips had kissed her. He had mated with her, and it had been but a breath away from reality in the most elevated of dream states, that place where an enterprising demon could manipulate a mortal’s consciousness in order to feed. He had fed well that eve.
Jade wouldn’t remember, of course, because Mercy had proven surprisingly strong in overpowering the mortal’s mind. Even so, he’d laid claim to the woman. He did not appreciate a mortal man putting his hands all over his property.
No doubt, Emmett thought to protect her. Like Joshua, his faith would make him overconfident. Once Draonius gave Mercy control of Jade’s body, no amount of faith would save Emmett. A simple seduction, a ritual blade placed deep in his heart, and Draonius would be a possessor at last.
He would be free from the pull of the abyss. He would have a fine, strong, human vessel to inhabit and a lovely sensual body to take his pleasure with whenever he wished and to feed on each time she dreamed.
Glee buttressed his jealous heart as he settled into his perch, content to watch and wait. Eventually Jade would have to leave the house. Or, even better, she would tempt Emmett to sin and the blessing would fall.
It would just be a matter of time before he owned them both.
Chapter 16
Nick wasn’t at all what Jade had been expecting. From everything Emmett had told her about his best friend, she’d expected someone as flirtatious and athletic as him. It wasn’t that Nick wasn’t attractive in his way, and he did have a confident charm about him that could loosely be interpreted as flirtatiousness, but athletic was definitely a no-go.
Nick wore a Hawaiian shirt that could have fit three of her inside. With skull-and-crossbones high-tops, and a checkered pageboy cap over wispy, white-blond hair, he was the loner antithesis to Emmett’s popular jock. But when Emmett welcomed him with a broad smile and a one-armed guy hug, she could tell whatever they had in common ran more than skin-deep.
The three of them tucked in to spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner—Emmett had whipped it together while he and Nick caught up.
“Nick and I played football in high school,” Emmett said right after she had taken a sip of wine. She almost did one of those cartoon spit takes, but managed to swallow with a minimal amount of throat clearing. So much for her not-a-jock assumption.
“Yeah,” Nick said with a self-deprecating smile, “I get that reaction a lot. I’ve had to learn the Heimlich for my own peace of mind.” An enormous wad of expertly-twirled pasta disappeared from his fork into his
mouth. “I’ve even used it on myself a time or two.” A wink told her he was joking.
“Smart ass,” she croaked, a little wine still needing to be coaxed out of the wrong tube.
“I was about eighty pounds lighter then,” Nick said, justifying his former prowess on the football field. “It was before I discovered beer.”
When she was reasonably certain she could talk without starting up the coughing again, she said, “How does that work? Drinking enough beer to gain eighty pounds while you’re in seminary?”
“Hey, I’ve been holding steady at Go-Crom. This is all from undergrad.” He patted his belly affectionately. “And there’s nothing in the Bible against drinking. Jesus drank wine.” He raised his glass. “And the founding fathers were mostly all Christians, and they drank. Some of them even operated their own breweries. Only drunkenness is a sin.”
“And the bigger you are, the more beer you can drink without getting drunk,” Emmett said. He and Nick clinked glasses.
She shook her head. “Boys.”
After dinner, Emmett went to the fridge and passed Nick a bottle of beer. When he held one out to her, she said, “No thanks.” She never drank beer and rarely wine. Too many calories, especially for a girl who liked her sweets.
They all moved to Emmett’s comfortable living room. Nick settled into a black leather recliner and said, “Tell me about this morning, Jade.”
She shrugged as she took the cushion next to Emmett on his big leather couch. “Emmett already told you everything over the phone.” He’d held her hand while he called Nick and recounted their morning. Then they’d eaten sandwiches, popped some popcorn, and curled up on the couch together to watch cheesy action flicks the rest of the day. It had been one of the best afternoons of her life.