Demon Marked

by Anna J. Evans

  Andre was pretty sure his teeth were going to crack if his jaw got any tighter. He grabbed Emma’s wrist and held tight as he started back up the stairs. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Okay. So we’re going to find out who that is and we’re going to make sure he or she realizes what a very bad idea it was to fuck with our family.” Andre ordered his bud to call Francis.

  “It’s a man in a suit, the guy in charge,” Emma said softly as they emerged onto the street and started back toward the homeless shelter. “I saw him when I was feeding on the guy you hit. I couldn’t see his face, but I saw ... his shoes. I think.”

  Andre shot her a look but didn’t have a chance to say anything before Francis answered on the second ring.

  “What the fuck, Andre? Where the fuck are you? Where the fuck is Emma? What the fuck are you—”

  “Shut the fuck up and I’ll tell you,” Andre said, a little louder than he’d intended. A pair of young women in faded brown maid’s uniforms scurried to the other side of the sidewalk as he and Emma passed by.

  Andre took a deep breath and lowered his voice as he detailed their search of Emma’s apartment, finding the key, and Emma’s attack to his cousin. By the time he finished, he and Emma had reached the end of the block. He stepped to the side of the building and paused, wanting to keep an eye on the basement steps to make sure neither of the men who’d attacked Emma was going to try to make a run for it. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened to her if his gut feeling that she was headed back to the homeless shelter had been wrong.

  “Shit. Is she okay?” Francis asked. “Did the bastards hurt her?”

  “No, she’s fine. But they would have locked her in a cage if I hadn’t found her in time.” Andre lowered his voice further and did a scan of the immediate area. Aside from an older man with a walker on the opposite side of the street, they were still alone. “One of them was Death Ministry and the other one a guy who worked at the shelter. We need to find out what they know and who they’re working for.”

  “Where are they?”

  Andre gave him directions and the street address of the apartment. “It’s number ten. They’re both on the stairs leading down into the basement. One was unconscious a few minutes ago, and the other one fell down the stairs and is pretty messed up.” Andre shot a glance at Emma, who huddled next to him, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold despite the increasingly brutal heat of the day. “He wasn’t moving, but—”

  “I’ll have two men there in ten. Get Emma back here so we can keep her safe.”

  “I think we should wait to make sure these guys are here when the—”

  “Doesn’t sound like they’re going anywhere, Andre,” Francis interrupted. “And what if there are more where those two came from? You got nothing but a stun gun. You need to get out of there.”

  “You’re right,” Andre said, though it pained him to say the words. Francis was making sense.

  He, on the other hand, was still too disturbed by seeing Emma in danger to form any kind of real plan. He just wanted to reach out to her, to put his arms around her and pull her close, but he kept seeing her face when she’d told him she didn’t want to touch him—so serious, so disgusted, as if she’d suddenly realized he was as repulsive as the rest of the men on earth.

  But could he really blame her? When she’d just had two guys roughing her up?

  “We’ll be back at the office in twenty minutes.”

  “Make it less if you can.” Francis sighed. Even before he spoke, Andre knew he wasn’t going to like what Francis had to say next. “The police found that Death Ministry kid who went missing this morning down near the park.”

  Shit. And shit again. This just kept getting worse. “Dead, I assume?”

  “Yep. His stomach was ripped open. The rumor is that it was a demon attack, but I’m not so sure the rest of the DM is going to go for that explanation,” Francis said. “They may decide a revenge killing is in order. The girl this dude was last seen with would be a good target.”

  “This goes deeper than that, Francis. I don’t know how, but Emma has a few ideas. She can tell you about them when we get to the office.” And Andre was going to have to tell Francis about his phone call to Mikey, as well. That wasn’t going to be fun. But at this point, he needed to be absolutely honest with his cousin. Emma’s life might depend on it.

  “Sounds good.” Francis shouted something to Douglas. “Okay, two of ours just left the building. You get back here and start working that big brain of yours. Whatever shit’s going down, we need to head it off before it gets any worse.”

  “You’re right. Have you thought about calling your dad?”

  Francis made an unhappy sound. “I put a call in when I got the news about the Death Ministry guy, but he’s not answering his fucking phone.”

  “You don’t think something’s happened, do you? Do you think—”

  “No, he’s fine. We talked earlier. He was getting on a plane to Vancouver for a meeting. They’re probably still in the air. I left a message. He’ll call me as soon as they land.”

  “Okay. We’ll see you in a few,” Andre said, ending the call as Emma tugged on his sleeve.

  “You didn’t tell him about the man in the suit,” she said, her voice unusually soft.

  “I figured you could do that when you explain to him about the spell book. The supernatural stuff is your territory.” He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away again, so Andre stuffed his hands in his pockets and took off down the street toward Conti Bounty, leaving her to follow. It was only a half dozen long blocks, but he wished he hadn’t sent his driver home earlier in the day. The sooner he got Emma off the street, the better he’d feel.

  “So do you believe me now?” She stayed close to his side, though still kept very much to herself.

  “I do. Obviously those guys were after you. Probably because of that book, just like you thought.” He turned to look at her as they walked. “You’re a pretty smart kind of crazy, turns out.”

  Emma nodded, her long lashes sweeping down as she dropped her gaze to the ground. She really was so beautiful, and she kept getting prettier with every minute he spent in her company. It had been like that with Katie, but not nearly this intense. He’d fallen for Katie over the course of several weeks, not several hours.

  Oh, hell no. He couldn’t believe he was even thinking about emotions like that. He wasn’t ready, and Emma certainly wasn’t willing. She might be attracted to him, she might flirt with him, but she didn’t particularly like him or trust him—she’d proven that.

  “Can we stop by Sam’s shop on the way to the office?” Emma asked. “It’s only a couple blocks over.”

  “No. We don’t have time. They found that missing Death Ministry guy you were with last night. He’d been gutted.”

  “What? But when I left him, he was fine.” Emma shook her head. “I mean, not fine, obviously, he was dead, but he was whole.”

  “All I know is what Francis told me, and he said the body was ripped open,” Andre said, dropping his voice as they turned a corner onto a busier street. “For now, the police are calling it a demon attack, but—”

  “But they’ll know better once they do the postmortem,” she said. “It will show that he was cut open after he was already dead.”

  “Maybe a demon did do it.” Andre hoped his words would prove true. Demon violence was so much easier to deal with than the human variety. “Maybe something found the body and pulled it away for a snack.”

  “Except that demons big enough to drag a full-grown man out from between those Dumpsters and into the ruins don’t usually eat carrion, only things they’ve killed themselves. And they wouldn’t have left anything behind.”

  “True.”

  “Shit,” she said, suddenly veering to the left. “Come on, let’s go to Sam’s. Really quickly.”

  “No!” Andre grabbed at her arm, but she easily avoided him.

  “Then I’m going to have to stop s
omewhere else,” she said, the hint of her usual hardness in her tone. No matter how much he loathed her stubbornness, he was glad to hear that surly note return. The soft, deferential Emma had been scaring him. “I really do have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Well, you can wet yourself, then, because we’re not going anywhere except—”

  “I will not wet myself.” She stopped dead in the street, turning to him with her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry I stole your gun and pissed you off, but I thought I was doing what I had to do. And we are closer to figuring out what’s really going on than we were before. So give me a break. A pee break. Is that too much to ask?”

  Without another word, she spun on her heel and headed in the opposite direction from the Conti Bounty offices, clearly intending to take her potty break in the comfort of her sister’s shop. Andre sighed and followed, but for the first time he wasn’t tempted to stare at Emma’s ass. Right now, he didn’t want to fuck her; he just wanted to hold her. To have her want him to hold her.

  The realization was nearly as frightening as seeing Emma locked in that Death Ministry guy’s arms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Emma took her time washing her hands and splashing water on her face, soaking in the smell of fresh flowers and the light, ginger-scented soap Sam kept in the staff bathroom. The shop didn’t open until two o’clock on summer days, so she still had a few hours until Sam’s assistant, Paige, arrived to start filling orders and sorting through the new deliveries.

  Emma wished she and Andre could stay here until then, sitting in the silence of the sunny stockroom, surrounded by buckets of cool, peaceful flowers soaking in the water and vitamin solution Sam swore kept her blooms the freshest in the city. She was so tired. She hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, and sooner or later the adrenaline high was going to wear off and she was going to crash. Hard. She wished that she could crash here, in this sweet-smelling haven Sam had created.

  Sam. Emma was suddenly possessed by a powerful longing to see her sister, to talk to someone who understood.

  “Are you almost finished?” Andre knocked on the door, a light but impatient rapping that made her fingers curl around the cool porcelain of the sink.

  “Just a second.” She pulled in another deep breath.

  Instead she had Andre ... who didn’t understand at all. She could tell he was taking her reluctance to touch him the wrong way. But it would be pointless to explain to him why she was afraid to hold his hand. He didn’t believe in her demon mark and would only think she was even crazier than he did already if she told him she was afraid all the drama and danger of the past hours had made the darkness inside her harder to control.

  If only he’d come down the stairs a few seconds earlier. Then he would have seen the blue light shooting from her hands and face and realized just how dangerous it could be for him to touch her. Then there wouldn’t be this awkwardness between them, this horrible feeling that something good was going bad.

  She stepped out of the bathroom, expecting to find Andre lurking outside the door, ready to haul her down the street to the Conti offices. Instead he was across the room near the kitchenette, slicing an orange. The bright smell of orange peel cut through the sweetness of the flowers, making Emma’s mouth water.

  “Hope you’re planning to share that,” she said, circling around the wooden table that dominated the room where Sam compiled her arrangements.

  Her sister was blind, so she chose the flowers for her projects by selecting complementary textures and smells, which made for some unique works of art. It looked like she’d left instructions for Paige before she’d left. The purple and yellow and orange flowers erupting from the four vases in the middle of the table bore Sam’s distinctive stamp.

  “Actually, this is all for you.” Andre pushed a plate filled with orange slices and a toasted bagel across the counter.

  “Thanks.” Emma grabbed the bagel and took a huge bite, sighing with relief as she chewed and swallowed and went for another. “You sure you don’t want some?” she asked around a mouthful of bread, beyond worrying about good manners.

  She hadn’t realized how starved she was. But then, if you didn’t count supernatural feedings, she hadn’t eaten anything since the handful of stale pretzels last night at the Demon’s Breath. It was a wonder she hadn’t passed out from low blood sugar.

  “No, thanks,” Andre said. “I had a bagel while you were enjoying the world’s longest bathroom break.”

  “Hm.” Emma swallowed and reached for the other half of the bagel. “I needed a second.”

  “More like fifteen minutes.” Andre wiped his hand on a towel and circled around the counter. “We should go as soon as you’re finished.”

  Instead of coming to stand next to her, he moved to the wooden table a few feet away, keeping his back to her, staring at the flowers. Emma couldn’t help but feel a little sad that he’d so easily accepted that she wanted her space. Still, it was for the best. She didn’t want to hurt him, and what had happened with Stewart had only proven that she couldn’t be sure kissing Andre was safe right now. Hell, it might never be safe. Even on a good day, the darkness was still there, waiting to come out and play, struggling to triumph over her human side.

  The thought made it hard to swallow her last bite of bagel, and the orange slices still on her plate weren’t nearly as appetizing as they’d been a moment earlier. She might never kiss Andre again. Even five hours ago, she couldn’t have imagined that would make her so very sad. But it did.

  “Thanks for the food,” she said, wanting to reach out and smooth her hands along the lines of Andre’s shoulders. Instead, she grabbed his discarded towel and brushed the last of the crumbs off her hands. “That was nice.”

  “That’s me. Nice.”

  “I think you’re nice.”

  Andre turned, nailing her with a hard look. “You think I’m an asshole.”

  “Yeah, but a nice asshole,” she said, uncomfortable with the strained laugh that followed her words. “I mean it. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me today.”

  “Right. Appreciation made you decide to steal my gun and—”

  “I explained that. And I said I was sorry.”

  “I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry, I want to hear that you’re going to stop putting yourself in danger,” he said, closing the distance between them in two long steps.

  Emma stood a little straighter, unable to ignore the closeness of his body. He was only a few inches away. No matter how determined she was to keep this man safe, she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that they were alone for the first time. In a private place where they wouldn’t be interrupted, surrounded by bright colors and seductive smells that seemed to heighten all of her senses, making her crave that intimate connection she’d nearly allowed herself to believe would be possible.

  But it wasn’t possible. Not for her. Not now, not ever.

  “I can’t stop putting myself in danger. I’ve been putting myself in danger since I was a tiny little kid,” Emma said. She knew it was the wrong thing to say, but she couldn’t help herself.

  The unfairness of her mark was hitting hard today, harder than it had in years. But then, she’d never been so keenly aware of what she was missing as she was right now, staring up into the dark eyes of a gorgeous man she wanted to kiss so badly it hurt.

  “You’re talking about the demon mark again, right?” Andre moved even closer, his hands coming down on either side of her, pinning her between him and the counter.

  “Yes.” Emma tried to move away, but Andre refused to move his arm.

  “You’re going to have to show me.”

  She shook her head, dropping her chin, refusing to look at him. “No, I won’t.”

  “I want to believe you, Emma, I really do, but—”

  “No, you don’t. If you wanted to believe me, you would,” she said, increasingly breathless as he pressed even closer, the hard planes of his body molding against her, making her light up fro
m the inside, like the face of one of her victims.

  Her victims. She didn’t want Andre to become one of them. She had to maintain control, no matter how tempted she was to twine her arms around his neck and pull his lips down to her own.

  “It’s not that simple,” Andre said, one hand leaving the counter, wrapping around her waist.

  Despite herself, she relaxed against him, sighing as she felt the hard ridge of his growing arousal against her hip. God, she wanted to see him, to touch him, to feel that part of him pushing inside her, easing the unfamiliar ache he’d awakened. She’d never wanted anyone like this.

  All the more reason to put as much distance between you as possible.

  The dark craving had responded to her fear in powerful ways today—what if it responded to her desire, as well? What if it decided Andre would make the perfect snack and began to feed while they were ... in the middle of something?

  The thought of the blue light shining from between her legs was almost enough to make Emma laugh, but not quite. No amount of ridiculous imagery could banish the awareness of Andre’s body so close to her own, Andre’s mouth teasing near her ear.

  “Come on, Emma, show me.”

  Emma lifted her chin, shivering as he pressed a soft kiss to her neck, his tongue flicking out to taste the place where her pulse raced beneath her skin. She reached up, careful to keep her hands fisted as she pushed against his chest, forcing him back a few precious inches.

  “I can’t show you.” She stared into his eyes, heart beating even faster at the need she saw there.

  It wasn’t just physical need. It was something else, something more. Andre really did want to understand, but nothing in his realm of experience had prepared him for her. Sadly, her experience had prepared her for him. She knew how to convince him she was telling the truth. She also knew that the words she’d have to speak wouldn’t be easy to hear.

  “Come on, let’s go.” She tried once more to break out of his arms, but he only held her tighter. Once he’d set his mind on something, the man was like a pit bull—utterly intractable and determined to the point of being dangerous.