Tempting the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  Grabbing the diddley bow from the wall, he sat down and plucked out a few notes. She didn’t deserve morphine tonight. That was a treat. If anything would suppress the Other, it was musicomancy.

  * * *

  She was not tired, and if she could not make out with Savin, Jett needed to get out of this place for a while. To breathe. To let off some sexual steam.

  She pulled on a black dress that fit her curves tightly. The neckline exposed her breasts nearly to the nipples. They were both still so hard, and aching for Savin’s mouth. Pressing her hands over her breasts, she closed her eyes—and heard a noise.

  What was that awful screeching sound? It sounded like the worst death beetle dying over and over. It crawled over her skin and pricked into her pores. Body wavering, Jett clutched the cabinet for support. The brass devices on top of the cabinet wobbled. Her head filled with the racket.

  Then she realized where it came from.

  Staggering out to the living room, she saw Savin on the couch with the instrument he’d said he used to work musicomancy.

  “What awful noise!” she growled. “Stop it!”

  Savin’s jaw dropped. He ceased—and then he did not. He plucked the single string as he wavered a glass slide over the neck. The sound cut down Jett’s spine with an invisible blade.

  She screamed and raced for the door.

  Behind her, Savin stood and called, “Jett! What...what are you?”

  Chapter 11

  Savin let Jett leave. This time he wouldn’t go looking for her. She needed some space and privacy.

  And him? What did he need?

  “Answers,” he muttered.

  The short riff he’d played on the diddley bow had affected her in a way he’d not expected. Only demons should have reacted so violently to the discordant tune. Jett had clearly been disturbed by it. So much so that she’d had to put herself away from it. And he had shouted after her...

  “Is she demon?” he wondered with a sinking heart.

  He slapped a hand over his bare chest, remembering the feel of Jett’s fingernails sliding over his skin. Notching up his desire to new heights, fueling his need. Making her intentions perfectly clear with every kiss, every whisper, every sigh. His heart still pounded from their interaction.

  Or was it because he might have been making out with a demon?

  Any paranormal species that went to Daemonia—vampires, witches, harpies, sirens, whatever—could get in and out with few side effects. If the trip was quick. But it was known that anyone—paranormal or human—who stayed longer began to take on demonic traits. Some even changed to demon. It was like when demons came to the mortal realm. The longer they stayed, the more they risked developing human traits, and their demonic nature lessened, growing weaker until they were but shells that needed to return home or perish.

  It would make sense that Jett, having been in Daemonia for so long, would have taken on some demonic traits. But.

  “She can’t be.”

  Why hadn’t he had such suspicions immediately? A smart reckoner would have. He would have noticed that she wasn’t right. Picked up the hum of her aura. Savin was ultra-tuned to their kind. Rarely did he miss one. And those he didn’t pin as demon were masters of cloaking themselves with a sheen.

  Had Jett worn an impenetrable sheen since arriving in the mortal realm? It seemed impossible to maintain for any amount of time. A demon had to be very strong to do so. Yet others did all the time. How many demons had Savin not noticed? And had innocent humans suffered because he had not?

  He scruffed his fingers through his hair, tugging in frustration. Why hadn’t she told him? There was no reason not to. Did she fear him?

  “Of course,” he muttered. “I am a reckoner.”

  He punched the air with a fist and a growl.

  If Jett truly was part demon, he could well be her worst nightmare.

  * * *

  Arms swinging, Jett strode through the Paris streets. It was after midnight, but pockets of tourists still dotted the sidewalks. She passed over the river, drawing upon its natural power, infusing the strength of the flowing water into her system. Mmm... That was invigorating, most especially since the water was much cleaner than anything she’d ever drawn on in Daemonia. Now she marched onward with determination.

  She’d unexpectedly revealed herself to Savin. And in that moment, he had known. He’d called after her as she’d fled his home, asking what she was. It might have been the wrong move to leave without an explanation, but her body had literally moved her over the threshold, despite the tugging wards, to get away from that place.

  That terrible music! It had scraped inside her ears like the vilest insect chittering against her brain. Had she not been wearing a sheen, she suspected the sound might have brought her to her knees. The reckoner’s musicomancy was indeed powerful.

  And too revealing.

  As it was, the escape through the wards vibrating with the dangerous sound had affected her. Jett didn’t feel as though she could hold on to the sheen for much longer. Not without a breather.

  How could she go back to Savin now? The man had been her only hope for finding her family and getting back to normal. Could he accept her if she revealed her truth?

  Did she want his acceptance? Was she fooling herself that she could go back to how things once were? She’d been a child then. Even if she could fully integrate herself back into humanity, nothing would ever be the same. Those hadn’t even been her parents! Everything she’d once held as truth, as a means to survival, had been shattered.

  Feeling her eyes begin to tear, Jett shook her head and chased away the ridiculous emotion. An inhale drew up a shiver of darkness from within, instilling in her the confidence she’d almost lost grasp of. She would not shed a tear over silly pining for a normal family life. Nor even the hope for a romantic entanglement. Even if Savin meant more to her than a few kisses and touches. He had offered to protect her and had allowed her to stay until she could find her place in this realm.

  Right now she felt her only place was so far away and in another realm. But the option of returning wasn’t on the table.

  Crossing a busy street that flashed with bright headlights and red and violet neon streaks, she veered away from a crowd that danced outside a noisy nightclub to the music drifting beyond the closed doors. Instead, she eyed a black metal door just ahead. She recognized the beefy bouncer standing solemnly with hands clasped before him. Demon. He needn’t glance her way for her to pick up on his breed, but when he did, that confirmed what she knew. His red irises flashed with a glint from a nearby neon sign.

  There was no name on the building before which the bouncer stood, but she could feel the vibrations of many demons, likely within and behind the door. Jett curled her fingers into fists. The pain of her fingernails digging into skin was acute. But it was a good feeling. That meant she was alive. A place of comfort was what she required right now. A dark, loud nightclub where she could release her sheen and scream like a banshee. And no one would know who she was.

  Stepping up to the bouncer, she tilted back her head and met his gaze. Without a word, she delved through his skin and skull bone, needling into his feeble brain to work her influence on him. It was a handy skill she’d mastered while coming of age in Daemonia.

  The bouncer’s bottom lip quivered and his shoulders dropped in subservient acknowledgment. “My liege.” He bowed, then pushed open the club door for her. “Enter, if you will.”

  Jett strolled into the pitch-black hallway. The utter darkness felt like a hug. The floors pounded with a frantic beat, pulsing up through her shoes and liquefying in her veins. The raucous beat led her onward. The darkness offered safety. And knowing this was a demon club decided her next move.

  With but a thought, Jett shook off her sheen. The initial shiver of release was always orgasmic, and she sighed, which led to a s
atisfied growl. Her hair follicles tingled as the strands grew longer and spilled in long aquamarine waves down to her waist. All over, her skin prickled and took on a darker, dusky gray shade. Her fingernails grew to razor points and brightened to ruby. The demonic sigils that decorated her skin in violet and red lines, so fine no tattoo artist could achieve such, crisped to the surface with an exquisite sting that made her gasp. And her horns grew out from her temples in an obsidian curl that gently glided over her ears and tilted up to wicked points behind her head.

  Smiling revealed canines that could tear, and even kill. Jett smiled with the utter pleasure of being back in the form she was most comfortable with. She entered the flashing red club lighting. One hand to her hip, she assessed the atmosphere with a regal lift to her chin. Ninety percent demon occupants. A sniff surmised the remaining breeds, which she determined were vampire or witch. Perhaps a few werewolves. No faeries. She didn’t sense the weird energy of the sidhe species.

  The club’s décor was black and steel, burnished by red strobe lighting. A live band wielding guitars and a violin screamed to the masses from the stage. The crowd on the dance floor bounced as one, fists beating the air above their heads. Some of the heads were horned. A few tails whipped to the beat, their spaded tips slashing at skin and leaving in their wake fine cuts to spill black demonic blood.

  The growls and rock-and-roll snarls coalesced into a wicked, thrilling welcome to Jett’s innate darkness. She was demon. Or so she had become during her lengthy stay in Daemonia.

  Survival? Sure, that had been foremost. But ultimately, she had grown into the form and had accepted it over any lingering human traits. And she would not be put back or disregarded in any way. The power she possessed gleamed in her sinews and tightened her muscles. Let no demon try to challenge her.

  Striding toward the dance floor, she let the beat take her and bounced into the crowd. Head back and both arms outstretched, she reveled in the release of the confining sheen she’d had to wear to fit into this realm. To fool Savin. To win some time while she struggled to find her place.

  Adopted? What the fuck was her father, then? She would find out. And whether she embraced him or punched him, who cared? Now was not the time for maudlin memory trips.

  Shouting with the chants that surrounded her, Jett became the darkness she’d tried to ignore since arriving in the mortal realm. This was exquisite. And another lush, lung-deep growl felt appropriate.

  When the dancers around her slowly stopped moving and the macabre merriness settled to a few drunken giggles, Jett spun to a halt and looked about. Glowing red gazes observed her with awestruck expressions and open mouths. Even the band ceased playing with a discordant scrape of the bow across the violin strings.

  A particular male with small white horns sprouting above his ears and a switchblade smile stepped forward and bent to one knee. His hoarse voice held reverence. “My liege.”

  His actions were repeated by the circle surrounding her, and that waved back through the crowd until the entire club fell onto bended knee and bowed their heads, showing her their respect.

  About time, her darkness whispered. Screw hiding in fear. Let the party begin.

  Jett let out a wicked, throaty laugh and clapped her hands over her head. “We dance!”

  And the nightclub burst into a frenetic collision of dancing bodies.

  Chapter 12

  Savin slept fitfully in the bed. He’d sat up drinking whiskey while waiting for Jett to return. After 2:00 a.m. he’d wandered toward the bathroom but had veered onto the bed and buried his face in his pillow that smelled of her. Sweet, dark and not at all like sulfur.

  She was not a demon. She could not be.

  He rolled over, and while his eyes were closed in the dark, he listened acutely. Nothing in the loft stirred. The distant noises of Paris’s early-morning industry enlivened the air. Garbage vehicles rolled down the streets, collecting trash.

  Had he been too trusting? No.

  Maybe the musicomancy had malfunctioned? Very possible. He was so new at it and was far from a mastery of the magic. But he knew an incorrect spell should not have sent Jett fleeing with a painful scream.

  Jett.

  Jett.

  He couldn’t get her out of his brain. He’d invited her into his life, and the place she filled had been swept free of the cobwebs and welcomed her easily. She belonged with him. It was an instinctual feeling. And that wasn’t because they’d been childhood friends. It was something more. Something he couldn’t put a label to.

  “Jett,” he murmured in his half-sleep reverie. “Come back to me.”

  * * *

  Jett stretched her legs out across the cool, sooted stone capping the aboveground sarcophagus in the cemetery she had wandered to last night after leaving the club. It had become a weird beacon for her. A respite tucked within the big city.

  The sun had risen, but a nearby tree canopy provided shade. A pair of sunglasses was in order for her next shopping trip.

  While standing in the center of the dance floor last night, surrounded by sycophants, she had felt her power rise. The inner strength and innate entitlement she’d grown into while living in Daemonia had suffused her system. She had been taken from this realm for a purpose, and she had fulfilled that purpose. She’d gained subjects and minions, and with the snap of a finger had decided the fate of so many.

  And she had reveled in that power.

  She still could. She did not have to forsake her demonic nature. She could keep it, hoarding it and using it as she wished here in the mortal realm. It came naturally to her. It would be a pity to abandon it completely. It had served her well.

  And yet she shuddered now, so far away from the comfort of that dark club, and having successfully tamped down her darkness. Such power was a place she could not return to, did not want to return to. It had changed her. And that purpose? It hadn’t been completely fulfilled. They’d wanted her for something more devious. It had been the last straw. She’d had to flee.

  Jett tilted her head against the inscription that declared some long-dead woman a “considerate wife.” Ugh. Considerate. She certainly hoped her epitaph would proclaim her wild, free and unabashed.

  Or did she?

  The shudder returned to remind her she wasn’t the same Jett who had lived in Daemonia. A part of her had never left Paris and had only survived because she had clung to those roots of normality.

  While she’d stepped into the exquisite feeling of control last night, today it saddened her that she had succumbed, if briefly, to that feeling.

  She did not want to rule others. She did not require them to fall to their knees and worship her. And most important, she did not want to begin the next generation that would follow in her stead.

  The only reason they had recognized her as a superior last night in the club was that she had released her sheen and allowed her demoness to rise. But now she again wore the sheen. It was the only way she could walk through Paris without turning heads. Wearing such a mask of humanity was tiring, but it also allowed her to stand aside and look over what she had been and what she could be.

  She could be a woman, a human woman with goals and dreams and loves and hopes.

  And Savin?

  Would he still want to help her if she told him all? Dare she reveal the vile secret that had sent her fleeing to the mortal realm?

  “Why?” she whispered, feeling the demoness speak up. “When I can have so much more by remaining as I am? What are these stupid thoughts?”

  The stupid thoughts were what had brought her to this realm in the first place, had pushed her to escape. The need for more, for normality, for love and safety. But now that she was here, could she pull off human again? It seemed so...lackluster. Boring.

  “No,” she hissed at her dark side.

  Whatever, the demoness inside her whispered dismissively.
You are a fool if you abandon me. Your kingdom asked so little of you!

  Bowing her head to her knees, Jett pushed her fingers through her hair and clasped them at the top of her scalp. No longer blue, nor thick and lush, it was simply black and wavy now. She preferred it blue—

  “No,” she groaned, and shook her head. “I am Jett Montfort. And I will not allow you to reign,” she said to the darkness.

  A pair of tourists wandered by, commenting in a language she did not know, and then shuffled past her quiet retreat.

  When the next person, a lone walker, paused before the sarcophagus and did not move for a while, Jett looked up into Savin’s deep blue gaze. No smile there, yet no accusation, either.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” he finally said. “May I?” He gestured to sit beside her and she nodded and slid over. “I didn’t mean to scare you last night, Jett.”

  “You didn’t scare me,” the demoness insisted boldly. Then Jett bowed her head, reining in the dark. “I scared myself. Or rather, I reacted to your strange magic.”

  “I don’t have any magic.”

  “You were invoking musicomancy.”

  “It’s still a work in progress. But I told you it’s only supposed to work on demons.” He propped an elbow on his knee and turned to her. The brute stoicism she’d initially seen that first night he’d taken her to his home lived in his gaze. He was no man to mess with, to lie to or to attempt to trick or fool. And he knew about demons.

  She knew what he wanted to hear from her. And even as she fought to maintain her secret, the dark inside her decided it was fitting and absolutely to her advantage to reveal her nature.

  “A person can’t survive in Daemonia for so long without taking on demonic attributes,” Jett blurted out. How much dare she tell him? She’d feel him out and see where he stood regarding such a revelation. “I’ve been wearing a sheen since I escaped through the rift. I couldn’t risk being seen in this realm. And when I learned you were a reckoner...”