by Nina Croft
“Then why wasn’t she at the bar?” As soon as he’d realized that Bella was gone, he’d accessed her phone records and heard her talking to this Justin. He knew who he was of course; he’d read the file Cade had put together on her. The two of them were close, actually lived together, and his fury rose at the thought of anyone else touching her.
“Maybe they wanted a bit of privacy.”
Torr gritted his teeth. She had no right to even think about wanting to be in private with anybody but him. But he knew it was more than that. The bar had been thick with the stench of demon. They’d tracked the demons from there to this place.
“We’ll find her.” Cade said.
A scream pierced the night. Torr broke into a run, heading toward the sound. Something shifted in the darkness beneath a railway bridge. Bella. Releasing his demon form, he flew the last few feet. She lay on the concrete ground, her eyes closed. A minor demon crouched over her, claws extended. Torr reached out and snapped the demon’s neck, nearly tearing the head from its body; it crumpled and vanished into greasy ash. Torr spun around as Cade grabbed the second demon by the throat.
“Cade, keep him alive. We need to find out who sent them.”
Cade turned and lifted an eyebrow at the pile of ash at Torr’s feet.
“Just hold him,” Torr said. “I want to check on Bella.”
Crouching down beside her, he reached out a hand and stroked the bright hair from her forehead. She had no obvious injuries, but she didn’t stir.
He straightened, strode over to where Cade stood with the other demon clutched in his fist. Torr gripped one hand in the demon’s hair and slammed him back against the wall of the tunnel. Peeling back his lips, he flashed his fangs and the demon cringed back. “Who sent you here?”
Someone had to have brought them across. These creatures couldn’t have escaped the Abyss without help.
“Razul released us. Sent us here. Told us to take the woman.”
Fury roared through him, and he lunged forward, his fangs sinking into the hot flesh of the demon’s throat. He swallowed convulsively until the body went limp in his arms, and then tossed it to the ground.
Breathing heavily, he fought to control the darkness that raged inside him. It was a long time since he’d tasted demon blood; it was like a narcotic, burning through his entire body and mind.
A hand touched him lightly on his arm and he snarled and swung around.
Cade stood his ground. “We should get out of here. Someone might have heard and called the police.”
Torr nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Returning to where Bella lay unmoving, he gathered her in his arms, held her tight against him. The steady thud of her heart against his chest soothed him.
He glanced over to where her friend, Justin, lay, clearly dead, his ribs peeled open to reveal the cavity where his heart should be. Had Bella seen him die? Had she recognized his killers as something other than human? Until he knew, he couldn’t decide what to tell her.
“I’ll get rid of the body.” Cade spoke from beside him. “You get Bella back.”
He nodded, spread his black wings, and took off.
***
Bella came awake slowly. Her head throbbed, and when she opened her eyes, a shooting pain shot through her skull. She shut them tight and tried to work out where she was and how she had gotten there.
The last thing she remembered was…
Her mind shut off the thought before it could finish.
She couldn’t move, and it took her a minute to realize that she was held in somebody’s arms. Held tight against a rock solid chest, her cheek pressed against smooth silk so she could feel the rapid thud of a heart. Breathing in, she recognized Torr’s distinctive scent, musk and heat, smoky spices. She waited for panic to engulf her. Instead, a sense of comfort wrapped itself around her. As though he could stop the world from breaking through the protective barrier she had built to shut out the night’s events.
His hands tightened around her as though he sensed she was awake. “Bella?”
The word was whispered close to her ear, and she moved her head slightly in acknowledgment. His tight grip loosened and she almost protested as he lowered her gently onto a bed.
She tried opening her eyes again, this time the pain was manageable and she peered out through her lashes as Torr moved away from her.
The room was strange; she wasn’t in the apartment. At a guess, she must be in Torr’s room. It suited him, monochrome, white walls, and black furnishings. She was lying on a crushed black velvet cover on what had to be the biggest bed she had ever seen. And her cheek now rested against a black silk pillow.
Torr filled a glass from a jug on the small table and came back to her. He sank down on the bed beside her and held out the glass and a couple of tablets.
“They’re just Tylenol,” he said when she hesitated.
Ignoring the jolt of pain, she pulled herself up so she was leaning against the headboard. She held out a shaking hand and he dropped the pills into her palm. She put them in her mouth, then swallowed as he held the glass of water to her lips. He was being so kind, as though she was fragile, and that scared her.
After placing the glass on the bedside table, he turned to study her. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like I’ve been hit over the head with a baseball bat.” She ran her fingers over her skull but she could find no lumps or bumps to explain the pain. “What happened?”
“You fainted. I presume you hit your head on the ground, but there doesn’t appear to be any damage.”
She frowned. “I’ve never fainted in my life before.” Closing her eyes, she concentrated. She’d gone to meet Justin. The bar. Under the railway bridge. Then it came back to her.
Justin!
For a brief moment, she clung to the idea this was some nightmare. That Justin wasn’t dead. But she’d never been much good at self-delusion. Behind her closed lids, she saw his lifeless body, his face full of whatever final horror he’d been subjected to. When she opened her eyes, Torr’s face was filled with pity.
“Justin’s dead, isn’t he?” she said.
Torr nodded, and the last flicker of hope died away. “I’m sorry.”
Grief ripped through her mind, quickly overwhelmed by a tidal wave of guilt. “I called him. We were supposed to meet at a bar, but he wasn’t there. Somebody took him. But who?” She had a vision of blood-red eyes, a mouth dripping with crimson. Maybe the question she should be asking wasn’t who took him, but what? She glanced up at Torr; would he think she was crazy? Maybe she was. Her head hovered on the brink of exploding.
“I should have got there sooner,” Torr said, interrupting her thoughts.
“It’s not your fault. If I’d not called him…if I hadn’t asked him to meet me then he’d still be alive.”
However, something didn’t make sense. Her brows drew together as she tried to get it straight in her mind. “How did you even know where I’d gone?”
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“When I realized you’d left the building, I accessed your phone records.”
She should have felt fury at the invasion to her privacy; instead, she was impressed. “You can do that?”
“Of course.”
“Why come after me? Why am I so important to you?”
“You are unique.”
“Yeah, right. My ‘powers’.” It was odd; Justin had referred to them that way as well. He’d thought she should learn to use them, but by that point, all she had wanted was to stop feeling other people’s pain, when she already had enough of her own. Justin had helped her do that as well. Grief washed over her again, and she blinked back a tear.
“Were you close?” Torr asked.
“If you mean did we sleep together, then no. Justin wasn’t like that; he preferred guys for sex. But he was my friend. We looked after each other.” She rubbed her eyes. “I just don’t understand. What were those things? Why did they take Justi
n?”
Torr shrugged. “We don’t know who they are yet, but possibly kids high on drugs. Justin was in the wrong place that’s all.”
“They had red eyes,” she said.
“You probably just saw a reflection from the street lights.”
It was more than that, but her brain felt fuzzy, unable to concentrate. “What happened to them?”
“They ran off when we got there. Cade chased them, but they got away.”
All very convenient. “And what happened to Justin?”
“Cade is dealing with it.”
“He’s not an ‘it’,” she snapped. “He was my friend.”
Torr sighed and sank down onto the bed beside her, running a hand through his hair. “Try to forget it for now. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”
She glanced away. No way could she forget. If someone had killed her, then Justin would have gone after them. The rules of the street. You looked after your friends. And if you failed to look after them, then you made sure that whoever hurt them paid. You couldn’t afford to appear weak.
For now, she would put aside her grief and concentrate on revenge. But first, she had to find those responsible.
Justin made more friends than enemies, but it was inevitable in their line of business that they were going to piss some people off. Mostly they relied on disappearing after a job was over. But maybe someone had caught up with them. Perhaps it was tied to her arrest the night before. Would they come after her? They’d obviously planned to kill her tonight as well.
There had been something wrong with the men who’d killed Justin. Maybe it had just been drugs, but she’d never seen drugs that could do that. She would ask around; somebody must have seen Justin leave the bar and who he’d been with. Somebody would know something.
But maybe there was a better way. She studied Torr through her lashes and found him staring straight ahead, his eyes alert beneath the heavy lids, a dull flush along his sharp cheekbones. He was seated on the bed beside her, so close she could reach out and touch his thigh. She balled her hands into fists at her side.
He ran a security company; he’d accessed her phone records with a speed which was impressive. He would have the resources to find Justin’s killers.
“Will you help me?” she said. “Find out who did this to Justin and why? I’ll repay you.”
“I promise, and I don’t expect anything in return.”
Unease jabbed her in the gut. Why had he come into her life? What did he really want from her? Common sense told her she should get out now. Just leave, but she knew Torr was her best way to find Justin’s killers. All the same, she wanted to make sure everything was upfront. She didn’t want to be any more in his debt, than absolutely necessary.
He’d made it clear there was one thing he wanted from her.
She couldn’t guarantee she could provide it, and the whole idea of opening up her mind to the feelings of others filled her with dread. But she always paid her way.
“Nobody does anything for nothing,” she said slowly. “You’ll want something from me, and I’d prefer we settle it now.”
He turned his head so he looked straight at her. “You know what I want.” His voice lowered and a frisson of awareness ran through her. She bit her lip to concentrate her mind.
“Not really. You want to use me to check whether people are telling the truth. And honestly, I don’t know whether I can do it. Even before I managed to control—”
“How did you learn?” he interrupted.
“Justin knew somebody. He said she was a real weirdo, but he also reckoned she could help. She told me she was a clairsentient, and she taught me how to build a wall around my mind, to keep others out.”
“Then we need you to learn how to take down that wall.”
A shiver ran through her. “I’m not sure I want to.”
“You just need to learn to control it. You can do it. I know you can.”
She frowned. “How can you? You talk as though you know me, but really, you know nothing about me.”
His features hardened. “I’ll help you. I won’t let any harm come to you.”
He stood up. Bella thought he meant to leave her and fear washed through her. A vision of that thing crouching over Justin flashed through her mind. She saw again, Justin’s wide staring eyes, stamped with a horror she didn’t even want to imagine.
She held out a hand to him, the movement instinctive. “Don’t leave me.”
He pulled up a chair close to the bed, sat down, and took her hand. “I won’t.”
Warmth and a sense of peace transmitted itself to her from his warm palm. It occurred to her then that she had never asked anyone for anything before, certainly not to hold her hand while she slept.
***
Torr experienced a faint flicker of guilt that he seemed to have achieved his goal through the death of her friend. However, he could do nothing about it now.
He’d had to get off the bed. Lying beside her and not touching her had been driving him wild. Now he held her hand, and watched as she closed her eyes and her features relaxed.
The demon’s blood still buzzed in his veins. It was all he could do to sit here quietly while what he needed was to drag her into his arms and never let her go. He re-lived that flare of panic when he’d seen the demon crouching over her.
Never again.
From now on, he wouldn’t let her out of his sight.
And despite sating himself on the demon’s blood, his gums ached with the need to feed from her. That would, no doubt, go down extremely well.
It was a long time since he had felt hunger like this. When he had first been thrown into the Abyss and gained his dark powers, the need to feed had been relentless, fueling his revenge, and he had feasted on the blood of his enemies. Back then, sunlight had been anathema to him. Now the hunger had faded and he no longer needed to feed regularly, and sunlight caused him no more than a flicker of pain.
Some of his brothers hunted the lowlifes of the city when the need to feed came upon them. But for him, blood these days was inexplicably tied in with sex. He no longer fed for revenge, and he’d found that the easiest way to get close enough was to feign sexual desire. Afterwards, he’d clear the person’s memories. They meant nothing to him but the fulfillment of a necessary appetite.
He could see the throb of the blood in the vein at her throat, so close to the surface, and heat coiled low down in his belly. He longed to stretch out next to her, burrow his face in her throat, sink his fangs into her and make her his, in every way possible.
As he watched, a tear seeped from beneath her lashes and she whimpered in her sleep. She came across as such a strong and tough woman when she was awake, as though she could take on the world. Now her vulnerability was clear. His craving to feed receded, to be replaced by a need to hold her, make her feel safe and loved.
From the information in her file, he’d deduced that she’d had very little love in her life.
Her fingers tightened in his, and she jerked as though pulled by invisible strings. Suddenly, she pulled free, threw back her head, and screamed. “No!”
For a moment, her body went rigid; her eyes flashed open, drenched in tears and filled with horror. She stared around her until her gaze fixed on him and some of the tension oozed from her. She blinked and shook herself. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.”
“I was dreaming.”
“About your friend?”
She shook her head, her blue-grey eyes haunted.
“Tell me,” he murmured. Reaching out, he twined his fingers with hers, stroked her palm until the faint tremor stilled. For a minute, he thought she wouldn’t respond, and then she licked her lips.
“I used to have this nightmare all the time, before I built the wall.”
“What happens?”
“I die.”
Shock ripped through him. “What?”
“Over and over again. But the dying isn’t the bad part. They’ve taken
someone from me. Someone I love, and the pain is unbearable.” She gave him a wan smile. “I used to tell myself that it was a good thing my mother didn’t love me. Love hurts.”
Torr didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know. “How? How do you die in your dreams?” He waited; dread filling him, for her to answer.
Bella looked away, staring ahead, almost in a trance. “I’m in a stone room. There are no windows. They are closing up the door, bricking me in, and I can feel their hatred pounding into me. The last stone slides into place, the light is gone, and I am alone. I don’t want to live, because I know he’s gone, but it takes such a long time to die.”
Torr’s heart was being ripped from his body. He’d done this to her. Why would she ever want to trust in his love again? He had failed to keep her safe the last time. Why would she trust him now?
Bella blinked and came back to herself, though her eyes were steeped in sorrow. She needed comfort and he gave in to the urge tearing into him. Standing up, he reached out and picked her up into his arms, then turned and sank onto the bed with her held tight against his chest. For a second, her body was rigid with tension, and then she relaxed against him, her palm flat against his heart, her face in the curve of his throat.
He stroked his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of her neck, down over the supple curve of her spine to pull her even closer. He rubbed the swell of her ass, and she pressed against him, so the blood rushed to his groin and his cock thickened in his pants.
She went still, then pushed herself away from him. His whole body screamed out in denial, but he forced himself not to tighten his grip, keeping his hands loosely on the curve of her hips. She came up on her knees, straddling his thighs, so she could stare into his face. Hers was pale, her lashes spiky with tears, but her eyes filled with need.
“Don’t leave me,” she said again.
And this time Torr knew she was not just asking him to hold her hand.
A small doubt niggled that he was wrong to take advantage of her vulnerability. However, he couldn’t fight the savage satisfaction that roared through him, lighting a fire in his blood, which threatened to burn out of control. It had been so long.
He would make her forget. Forget her nightmares, her murdered friend, fill her body and her mind with nothing but him.