by Michele Hauf
Wrapping the towel about his hips, he opened the bathroom door to find Jett sitting up on the end of the bed, waiting for him. She was naked. Looking every inch a human. It didn’t take long for his erection to rise and salute beneath the towel.
“Morning,” he mumbled.
“We need to talk.” She patted the bed beside her.
“Sure, but, uh, it’s going to be mighty hard for me to concentrate with you doing your Venus thing.”
“My Venus thing? Oh. Sorry.” She grabbed a T-shirt from the pillow and pulled it on. “But what about you, looking all Greek god and glistening with water—Ah, shit, Savin, I have to tell you this. I can’t get distracted by all that...candy.”
“Candy?” He smirked. Never heard his abs called candy before.
All right, so he was on board with the woman fucking up his life a bit. But she was right. They did need to talk. And both were aware of how far that talk would progress if they were not fully clothed.
He pulled up the blanket from the bed and wrapped it about his shoulders. “Better?”
“Sure. But not really. Just sit.” Impatient, she got off the bed and paced before him as he sat on the end. “I know we’re still not okay with the thing that happened to your mother. You may never believe me—”
“My mother wasn’t hurt, just more scared by your sudden need to grab her. For now, let’s pretend it never happened. I think that can work for both of us. Okay?”
“If you say so. But your mother hates me now.”
“We’ll leave that for her to worry about. So what do you want to talk about? Is it about last night? Sorry, I was in my cups, as they say. If I said or did something wrong...”
“No. It wasn’t you, it was me. I was bold. I shouldn’t have—But I had to know—”
He grabbed her hand, stopping her pacing. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, but you need to know what’s going on out there. Ed reports the influx of demons is growing. Incorporeal demons are taking up residence in humans. The exorcists are busy.”
“I suspected as much. My skin crawls with recognition of so many demon entities,” she said, meeting him with a direct and defiant look. “You need to send back the queen.”
Savin nodded. “That seems to be the fix. Ed wants me to meet him this afternoon. The dark witch has developed a tracking spell for the queen. I’m hoping it can locate the old one, but we don’t even know if she is in Paris.”
“She’s right here,” Jett said.
“I know that, but I still haven’t figured a way to avoid the spell zooming in on you.”
“I’m not talking about myself. When I said she’s right here...” Jett pulled her hand from his clutch and placed it over his heart. “I mean, she’s right here. Inside you.”
“What?”
“Savin, last night when we were making out on the couch...I sort of took advantage of you. You were... I needed to get answers, so I looked inside you. I was able to briefly connect with and see the demon within you. And I recognized her.”
Stunned that she’d done such a thing, without his permission, Savin wanted to charge out of the room. But something kept him on the bed. A shiver inside him. The demoness knew that Jett had seen her. What did the Other fear?
“You know her?” he asked.
Jett nodded. “She’s the one who had us brought to Daemonia. Savin, the demon who hitched a ride in you is Fuum, the former queen. The one who kidnapped me and put me in her place so she could escape. I know it. I felt her and she felt me.”
“Fuum.” The same name CJ had read in the Bibliodaemon. The former queen who had disappeared from Daemonia.
The shivering inside Savin turned to a jitter. His arms and hands began to shake. A piercing burn stretched from throat to gut. This was not a nervous reaction to hearing the uncomfortable truth about his latest romantic entanglement. Savin had experienced this before. And it never ended well.
“Leave,” he said curtly.
“What?”
“Just get out of the apartment. She’s going to blow.”
“She’s—” Jett nodded. “You can’t control her?”
“Not when she gets angry.” He stood and stretched out his arms, the blanket dropping behind him. “Oh, man, it burns inside me.”
“Unhand him!” Jett cursed. “Or I will make you regret it!”
Savin gritted his teeth. His body moved toward Jett, and his feet felt as if the Other controlled them as he tried to stop the movement. The Other was pushing him, commanding him.
“Get the morphine,” he managed through a tight jaw.
Jett searched the cabinet top. “Where is it?”
“In the living room.”
She ran out and he heard her collect something. Savin punched the wall and shouted because his knuckles opened and blood ran out. “You’re the queen?” he said to his disgruntled passenger. “I will send you back!”
Bodily, he threw himself against the wall. His shoulder crunched upon impact and he dropped. His entire body shook as the darkness within him went on a rampage.
Jett plunged to the floor beside him, and the stab of the needle entered his neck.
Savin swore at the pain. He grabbed Jett by the shirt and whipped her across the room. It hadn’t been him! She landed hard against the cabinet, toppling the demonic devices. With a shake of her head, Jett said something in the Daemonic language and then...she shifted.
Chapter 24
She had never wanted to drop her sheen before Savin. But now was no time for vanity. Or to be ashamed of her true nature. The demon inside Savin was powerful, and the Other was determined to hurt him, and Jett, at all costs.
Even as her horns grew out and over her ears, Jett lunged forward and gripped Savin by the shoulders. The connection, her hands to his skin, shocked her influence into him and jolted the demoness. Savin yowled, but it wasn’t his voice that sounded, but rather the former queen’s.
“You can’t make me harm him, you nasty bitch,” Jett said firmly. “But I will make you regret ever hitching a ride in my best friend.”
Focusing her will, she seared a vicious hex through Savin’s body and felt the demoness within shudder and jerk. Jett was more powerful than the one who had stolen her so many years ago, and she would make her know that now.
Savin’s head rocked backward, hitting the wall. Jett held his shoulders firmly, exercising her strength over her enemy. Her lover slapped a hand through the air, landing it on Jett’s waist. He gripped but did not clutch her for long. His arm dropped weakly. He couldn’t take much more of her influence coursing into his system. Two powerful hosts of darkness battled within him—and only one could win, rendering him incapacitated.
No. This wasn’t the way. She did not want to hurt Savin.
Jett released him and stepped aside. Spreading back her arms, she drew in her vita from the prone man on the floor, retracting what darkness she had put out in an attempt to defeat Fuum. It came to her in sparks of crimson that electrified her system upon reentry.
The Other’s vibrations shivered to nothing. Savin let out a gasping exhale as his demonic passenger relented. Fuum had been subdued thanks to Jett’s intervention. And likely the morphine had kicked in. Savin’s eyelids fluttered, but he managed to catch his palms against the wall so he did not drop to the floor. He glanced to her, mouth gaping.
Satisfied, Jett nodded and then was sweeping her hands over her head in preparation to pull up the sheen—when Savin grabbed her by the wrists.
“No. Don’t put on a sheen,” he said. “It’s getting harder for you, isn’t it?”
Suddenly humiliated to be standing before one she wanted to see her in only the best light, Jett bowed her head and nodded.
His eyes took her in, gliding along her dark gray skin and up over her face, which she knew altered slightly, narrowing, the flesh c
linging to the bone. And then the horns that she’d learned to take pride in captured his attention.
“You’re beautiful, Jett. It doesn’t offend me to look at you like this.”
“You might want to believe that. And speaking it sounds good to both you and me. But now that you’ve seen my true appearance, you’ll never forget it.” She sighed. “I am this thing, Savin.”
“You are Jett.” He reached to touch her horn, but she flinched away and he retracted his hand to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t. Just zapped the strength out of me for a bit there. I know you were fighting her.”
“She knows who I am,” Jett said. “And she knows that I know who she is. I’ve subdued her, but she takes her strength from you. You are a strong and mighty man. She’ll rise soon enough.”
“I know. But I think the morphine kicked in. I know when it does. I feel her make a sort of giddy shiver. It’s...weird.”
“I’m so sorry you need to do that. You shouldn’t have to.”
“The drug used to affect me, but I’ve become immune to it over the years. Either that or she sucks it all up before it can even influence my system. I don’t miss getting high, that’s for sure.”
“Have you tried to expel her?”
He nodded. “Yes, it won’t work.”
“But exorcists—”
“John Malcolm has tried to exorcise her. No go. And I can’t reckon her out of my own body. It’s just not possible. And...well, some sacrifices aren’t worth it. Like I’ve said, I’ve learned to live with her.”
“But now you don’t have to. If we can get her out of you and you can reckon her back to Daemonia, then I won’t have a thing to worry about.”
“That sounds great. In theory.”
Jett lifted her head but remembered her horns. No matter what he said, she knew he could only ever see her as not human from now on. She swept her hands over her head and pulled on the sheen. Her body segued from tight and muscled to firm and pale skinned and the horns receded with an inward tug.
And Savin pulled her to him and kissed her, drawing her body against his and pressing into her as if they could become one. His mouth tasted her slowly, deeply. The feel of his body, so commanding and strong against hers, weakened her need for shame, to believe that he could not adore her. Dare she hope they could have a future together?
“That’s how much you offend me,” he said as he withdrew from the kiss. “I know that’s what you were thinking. But don’t waste your well-being on such thoughts. We’re good.”
His words brought tears to her eyes. “How can we be?”
“I know a lot about demons, and where you’ve come from. And I know you, as well. Oh, sweetie, don’t cry.”
She sniffed and wiped at a teardrop. “You only know the nine-year-old me. I’ve changed, Savin.”
“Have you?”
“Of course, I—I’ve matured. I’ve changed! And I’m not an innocent.”
“Never thought you were.”
“I really do want to be human again. And oh, when you kiss me. Savin.” She stepped out of his embrace and crossed her arms over her chest, immediately regretting the distance from him, but feeling she had to tell him her thoughts or risk losing him forever. “I’ve been with...others. It was a means to learn and experience—Well, I am a woman. I couldn’t ignore my changing body or my growing desires.”
His expression softened, but he didn’t say anything.
“I thought that sex was what pleasure was. You know? It’s what I received and I knew nothing else. But now. Here. With you. When you touch me and kiss me. Oh. I know now that what I had then was never true pleasure. Only you have shown me that. And when you look at me, I see in your eyes such honesty and...is it admiration?”
“It is, Jett. And I’m glad I’ve been able to make you feel good. But I wish when you looked in my eyes you could see that I trust you, too.”
“Be honest, Savin. We stand on opposite sides. How can we each ever truly trust the other will work for our best interest?”
“You can trust me because I give you my word. I...wasn’t able to protect you when we were kids. That kills me. And I’ve atoned for that ever since. But now? I will protect you, Jett. You have my word. And we’ll find some way to send the Other back to Daemonia. I promise you.”
She nodded, still not willing to completely trust him. He believed he could do such a thing, but was it possible? That be-damned conniving queen! She was to blame for all this. And all this time Fuum had hidden away inside Savin, him not being the wiser that he harbored the very demon who had irreversibly changed both their lives.
“I need to go meet with Ed,” he said. “He and CJ have a tracking spell for the queen. Maybe it’s time you come along and I introduce you?”
“So you can offer me as a sacrifice?”
“Never. I just want Ed to understand that you are no threat to any in this realm, and that our focus needs to be directed on the other queen.”
“I am not a threat.” Jett shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest. Was she? Every day she felt the darkness within her recede. And that was a good thing. Now to fight for her right to remain here, as a human. “If you think it will help, I’ll come along. And if it’s a trap, then so be it.”
He kissed her. Hard. Then bowed his forehead to hers. “How do I make you trust me?”
“You earn it.”
He nodded. “Then I will.”
Chapter 25
When Jett and Savin walked through the door, Edamite Thrash turned abruptly from his position standing before the windows at the end of his vast, ultrasleek office. He pulled his hands from his trouser pockets, and his fingers flexed into claws.
Jett felt his gaze go right to her and she sensed his discomfort and recognition. She also recognized him as a fellow demon, but his vibrations were cool and quite different from what she was accustomed to. He was kind; she knew that. But also leery of her. He wore an aura of restrained power and she guessed he would not hesitate to wield it against any who betrayed him, or who had done wrong.
A corax demon, she knew, could shift to an unkindness of ravens and fly off, then shift back to human shape, clothing intact. The demonic sigils visible on his neck above the white dress shirt resembled a black raven’s feather. As well, sigils decorated his hands, but most were covered by the half gloves that must conceal the thorns she knew grew on all corax demons’ knuckles.
“Ed, I want you to meet Jett Montfort,” Savin said as they stopped in the middle of the marble-floored office. He still held her hand, which provided her the added courage she required because she hadn’t known what to expect from this visit. But now that she had read Edamite, she knew she could control him. If need be.
Ed crossed the room and shook Savin’s hand, and then the demon with the slicked-back dark hair looked to Jett. He didn’t extend his hand to shake, and his brows quirked. “Demon.”
Savin nodded. “She’s my friend. I’ve known her since we were kids.”
Further consternation crimped Ed’s brow.
“I need to catch you up on things,” Savin said, “and I ask you to listen without judgment. I told CJ about her yesterday. I want you to have the same information.”
Ed crossed his arms high on his chest. His eyes did not waver from Jett. And she held her gaze firm, yet softened it, not intending to throw out any defensive vibes. But she held her sheen on tight. For now.
Savin laid it all out. How Jett had escaped to the mortal realm that night when the rift to Daemonia opened. How she’d been staying with him since then, and how he’d just learned she had been their queen. A title she had assumed for survival, he made clear.
“She is not a threat to anyone in the mortal realm,” Savin finished. “Nor to you or me.”
&
nbsp; Ed, who had taken to leaning against his desktop, stood now and wandered to the marble-topped bar along the wall. He poured a shot of whiskey and drank it. Then he offered Savin a drink, but he refused. The corax demon let his gaze fall slowly over Jett. He didn’t offer her a drink, but she wouldn’t expect it, either. He didn’t trust her.
If this man had taken it upon himself to protect Paris and police the local demon population, then he was doing a good thing for the humans. And it ultimately protected him and those demons who simply wanted to exist and not ruffle feathers. Without knowing her personally, Jett could only be a threat to him.
Unless she could prove otherwise. And she hadn’t a clue how to do that.
Ed let out a hefty exhale and approached them. Now his demonic vibrations felt a bit stronger. Jett lifted her chin, forcing out her influence as a warning. The demon stopped and nodded, sensing her challenge.
“This fucks things up,” he finally said.
Indeed.
“It doesn’t have to,” Savin said. “What if we can exorcise the demon from inside me and send her back in Jett’s place?”
Savin had also told Ed that she recognized the Other as the former queen, Fuum.
Ed nodded, finger to his lips in thought. “Possibly. But I thought—”
“Yeah. Exorcism is out. How easily I forget that.” Savin now walked over to the bar and poured himself that shot of whiskey. After tilting it back, he turned to Jett and silently inquired if she wanted any. She shook her head. “So that’s what we’ve got to work with right now.”
“A mess?” Ed posited.
Savin shrugged and poured another two fingers, quickly making work of the amber liquid.
Should she sacrifice and go back to Daemonia? It was the sure way to close the rift. And as Ed had mentioned, humans were beginning to notice the outflow from that realm. Possessions were occurring frequently. The news media were reporting exorcisms on the rise. And in Paris specifically. They could not let the rift remain unclosed for much longer.
But she didn’t suggest she be the sacrificial lamb. She desperately did not want that to happen.