Temptation by Fire

by Tiffany Allee

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you’d planned yesterday? If tying Thomas to the table was something good, something you needed to do, you should have told me. Because honestly, it made you look like a Grade-A serial killer.”

  I almost asked how many grades of serial killers there were, but said instead, “I was trying to protect you. This stuff…” I dug my fingers into my thighs hard enough to hurt so I wouldn’t reach out to smooth the wrinkle in her brow. “It changes you. I didn’t want you exposed to any more of this shit than you had to be. You’re safer in the dark.”

  She shook her head and glanced down at her feet, still bare with toenails painted pink. Then as if talking to herself, she muttered, “Curiosity killed the cat, genius.” When she looked back at me, a touch of fear flashed in her eyes.

  And it fucking tore at me.

  “You can trust me.” Hands held up as if she had a gun pointed at me, I stayed at a safe distance and studied the woman who’d ruined months of planning and quite possibly signed my death sentence.

  And more important, her own.

  I should be angry with her, but oddly, I couldn’t find the rage. Instead, I took a moment to appreciate her creamy skin, revealed nicely in shorts, if not her oversized sweatshirt. Legs stretched out from under her shorts, impossibly long for such a short woman. I trailed my eyes across her body until they hit her face. That part of her was pinched in irritation or embarrassment, and she glared back at me.

  “Are you done?” She didn’t look fearful anymore, at least.

  I raised an eyebrow at her, trying to cover the stab of alarm that hit me. What was I doing? I wasn’t here to check her out. Definitely wasn’t here to flirt. I was here to warn her that she wouldn’t be safe until I took care of Thomas.

  The hell of it all was, I couldn’t leave her here with just a warning. I couldn’t send her out of my life thinking that I was a murderer. My hands sure as hell weren’t clean. But the idea of Ava thinking I was a common killer—or hell, someone who killed for enjoyment—turned my stomach. Because I wasn’t. I wasn’t that far gone.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Chapter Seven

  “I need to ward your apartment before we talk,” I told Ava. “Not likely they’ll come here in the next few minutes—in fact, we probably have a couple of days before Thomas can get his shit together, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.” It was reasonable, if not the only reason I wanted to push our conversation back a bit.

  She blinked. “You need to do what now?”

  “Just draw some symbols around the building and here in the apartment. Don’t worry, you’ll still get your security deposit back.”

  Her jaw tensed but she nodded, causing a sheaf of hair to fall over her eyes. She blew a breath up, knocking the hair out of her line of sight with the puff of air. “Fine.”

  The sharpest knife in her kitchen still hurt like hell when I cut my arm with it. Ava watched, a mixed expression of fascination and concern on her face, as I captured a few tablespoons of blood in one of her glasses. I didn’t need much, just enough to get some basic runes drawn that would last a couple of days. I could reach out to Franklin after that if Ava refused to leave until I tracked down Thomas. Franklin’s blood was stronger than mine. He had more demon blood in him than I did, more tattoos. And his blood had staying power.

  I glanced at her while I let a bit of my blood drain into the glass. Disgust didn’t trace her features like I’d expected—she merely looked a little worried and, by the slight tapping of her foot, impatient.

  Finally, she turned to straighten up the kitchen. My gaze followed, starting with the foot she’d tapped, then moving up her long legs to the rest of her tight body. I wondered what she would taste like, if I glided my tongue up her leg, or over her breasts. Would she cry out if I took her nipples into my mouth and teased them? Would she gasp my name when I entered her?

  She’d taste sweet all over, I would bet. And given the open attitude she seemed to approach life with, I guessed she wouldn’t hold back in bed, either. She’d give as good as she got.

  I could almost feel her. In my imagination I could feel her body pressing against mine, as I licked and touched and nibbled every glorious inch of her. My body, cradling hers, as I took her in her bed. That sweet ass tight against me as I slid into her from behind, holding her steady against her living room wall. Even better, the sounds of her pleasure filling the air as I pushed her knees apart and tasted her on the floor in the hallway where I’d first seen her in that towel.

  What the hell are you doing?

  My pants were suddenly too tight again. I grimaced and turned my attention back to the wound on my arm. The blood had stopped flowing, and while the amount in the glass looked like enough, I pressed two fingers against the wound anyway. A bit more wouldn’t hurt, and I desperately needed a distraction.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “I’ll wait here.”

  “No. It isn’t safe.”

  Ava grudgingly followed me outside. But until I made sure no demons could get into that apartment, I didn’t want her out of my sight. I pushed a Dumpster aside and carefully marked two symbols on the brick wall behind it. I took my time and tried to ignore the pretty woman watching me. Any imperfection could make the symbols useless. They had to be as close to perfect as possible, and that was difficult enough to do with only fingers for a brush and with her legs in my direct line of sight to distract me.

  Two symbols and ten minutes later, I was satisfied.

  “What do those do, exactly?” she asked, watching my blood dry on the wall.

  “This one prevents a demon from crossing into the property.” I waved over the curvier of the two symbols. “And that one deters them from wanting to enter if they get close enough for it to take effect. It’s not as powerful as the other, and on its own won’t keep any determined demon out, but it can be effective when used with the other one. A small distraction, anyway.”

  Ava pursed her lips and considered it, and the expression was adorable. Although she would probably be mortified if she realized she was making it. “That makes sense, I guess. They don’t look at all alike.”

  Thank goodness for that. The many symbols that were useful against demons were tough enough to memorize as it was, with very few sharing similar designs. “They come from different parts of the world, created by different groups of early hunters. We use the most powerful rune for the job, no matter its origins.”

  “So there are other symbols that will ward demons away, only they might not work quite as well?”

  I grunted, wiping my finger on the edge of the glass.

  “Interesting.”

  Did she really find it interesting, or was she humoring me? I found two other relatively hidden places that were unlikely to be washed anytime soon and marked them before returning to her apartment. I shut the door behind us, and then marked the inside of the door.

  “Hey,” she protested. “How am I going to explain that to anyone who comes over?”

  I gave her a grim smile over my shoulder before returning to the symbols. “Don’t invite anyone over, that’s how.” Jealousy spiked through me at the thought of her inviting a man over. A silly reaction, since I didn’t have—nor would I ever have—any claim over her.

  Besides, if I had anything to say about it, she wasn’t staying in this apartment after tonight. Not until I’d taken care of Thomas.

  When I’d finished with the symbols on the door, I marked a few others under her windows while she tapped her foot behind me. Irritation laced her face, and her crossed arms hardly looked welcoming, but when I finished, I found it hard not to offer reassurance.

  “They aren’t all strictly necessary, but I’d rather overdo it than leave a hole,” I explained, washing the thick blood off my hands in the kitchen sink.

  She harrumphed at me, and I grinned.

  “How about some coffee?”

  “I have Coke.”

  “You only have Cherry Coke.”
>
  “Of course.”

  I made a face at her.

  “Oh, whatever. Fine. Get out of my way,” she said.

  I dried my hands then went to the couch. Trying to keep my expression casual, I settled in and watched Ava move around her kitchen. She pulled what looked to be the oldest coffee maker I’d ever seen out from under a counter. The tin of coffee found in the same cupboard was a cheap brand, and I was pretty sure the label on it wasn’t one the company had used in several years.

  Coffee was better than the sweet stuff she drank, but the delay also gave me time to think—or try to think—of the best way to tell her the details of why I’d had Thomas tied down with symbols carved into his flesh.

  I came up with squat.

  But I had to admit that it was fun to watch her work. Hips seeming to sway to music only she could hear, she didn’t realize how her movements captured my attention.

  It would have to be the truth. The unadorned truth. With any luck it would scare her away from me forever.

  The thought should have given me some relief, but instead tension knotted my shoulders.

  “Here.” She plunked a cup of coffee down in front of me, the liquid so dark that it looked thick enough to cut.

  “Did you have to add the tar to this, or did it come already in the can?”

  She eyed me levelly. “I’m giving you a chance here, remember?”

  “Yes. I also remember rescuing you from a demon’s shadowman. Which hardly gives you reason to poison me with…whatever this is.” A grin touched my lips. I couldn’t seem to stop baiting her.

  “Karson!”

  My grin faded. “Demons like Thomas need to be banished from this dimension.”

  “Yes. You told me about that.”

  “How do you think they’re banished?”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “There are two ways. One way is what you saw in that back room. The other is to chop off their heads. Guess which method offers a small chance of getting back the man whose body the demon inhabits?”

  “I’m guessing it’s not the headless option,” she said dryly. Then a dawning horror touched her expression. “Jesus. So you have to what, torture the demon out of a person? Do you light them on fire?”

  “God, no. The symbols weaken it. The circle of salt and candles help to keep it confined during the exorcism. And the burning sensation you experienced in your vision…well, during the latter part of the exorcism, their bodies sort of burn from the inside out. It doesn’t really create much smoke or a real active fire, but from their perspective…”

  “It would feel like being burned alive.”

  “Probably.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier just to chop off their heads?” Her tone suggested a breezy question, but her eyes watched me carefully. As if weighing me based on how I answered her question.

  “Yes. But if I wanted an easy job, I’d do something—hell, anything—other than this. And—”

  “And?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Are you aware your tattoos move?”

  “They appear to move when I’m drawing power through them, but it’s basically an optical illusion caused by the magic.” Not exactly true, but the truth was complicated magical bullshit that I didn’t even fully understand. Or give much thought to.

  “You know that’s freaking weird, right?”

  “Yep.” I sipped the coffee and—just barely—kept from gagging.

  “Why do you do this?”

  “My reasons are my own.” That’s all there was to be said about that. And it wasn’t debatable.

  She seemed to sense that needling wouldn’t get me to talk about that particular subject, and she got up from where she’d sat on the chair across from the couch.

  “Are you hungry?” She walked to the small kitchen table and picked up her cell phone. “I think I’ll order a pizza.”

  I needed to hammer a warning into her head and get the hell out of here. Come up with a new plan to get Thomas. I knew that. But for some reason, I couldn’t make myself leave. Hell, I didn’t want to leave. “Sure, just don’t get anything weird on it.”

  “Weird? Such as?”

  “You know. Vegetables.”

  …

  Karson was an enigma. He’d gone from tying a man—a demon—to a table and cutting designs into its skin to teasing me about my coffee. Which was the real Karson?

  Weirdly, his ease with the situation made me feel more at ease, too. Not that I was ready to let what I’d witnessed go—no freaking way. But I was no longer afraid of Karson, no matter how much part of my brain insisted I should be.

  But I was afraid of Thomas.

  Humoring Karson, I ordered a pizza with all the meat toppings offered by Pizza Hut. He watched me order, a slight smile touching his lips when I clearly specified no vegetables to the woman on the other end of the line.

  My mind full of everything that had happened in the last couple of days, I set the phone down and stared at the symbol Karson had drawn on my door. The symbol he’d drawn with his own blood. I had ruined his plan. A plan that had taken months for him to implement. A plan that might have saved a young man, and that definitely would have saved whatever future victims the demon inside him would torture for their energy now.

  A weight settled on my chest. This was my fault. Sure, Karson could have told me more, could have prepared me for what I saw in that room, but why would he have? For all I knew, he’d been trying to spare me from knowing how horrible his job really was.

  I had to make it right.

  Determined, I sat on the couch across from him. “I pretty much screwed you out of exorcising that demon, didn’t I?”

  His mouth tightened, but he didn’t answer me.

  “You can be honest with me. Blunt.”

  “Honestly? Yes.”

  I managed not to flinch. “I owe you—not just you, but your Venators.”

  “You can pay me—us—back by getting the hell out of town until I clean up this mess.”

  “Would that even stop him from finding me?” I asked. When his jaw twitched, I knew I had him.

  “Maybe not indefinitely. Not if he really wanted to find you. Chances are, he doesn’t care enough about you at this point to put out that much effort. But I don’t need forever, anyway. I just need you safe until I can take him out.”

  “I’ll do you one better.”

  His expression hardened, like he was ready for a fight. “That won’t be—”

  Pushing up from the couch, I glared at him. “It is necessary. It’s only fair. And it’s the only way I’m going to feel better about this.”

  He followed me, a flurry of quick, sure motion, when I moved behind the couch to pace. “What are we talking about here?”

  “We’re talking about me helping you, of course. Helping you take out the demon I let get away.”

  “No. And that’s not negotiable.”

  I stopped in my tracks and whirled to face him. The pain, the guilt pressed against the back of my eyes, against my throat.

  He took a step toward me, his arm out as if he wanted to comfort me. I jumped back before he could touch me, and a twinge of regret pinched me when his hand dropped to his side and his jaw tensed.

  “How many people?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “How many people do I need to feel guilty for, then? How many lives will my actions have taken? How many people will I have killed, Karson?”

  He closed the gap between us, but he didn’t try to touch me again. “This isn’t your problem.”

  “I made it my problem. Tonight. When I saved that demon.”

  “It’s not safe, Ava. Your visions—”

  True horror flashed through me. “I’m not talking about my visions. God, no. If anything, this whole thing has shown me how not helpful they are. If not for my curse, you’d already have banished Thomas.” I shook my head, the world in front o
f me going blurry. “Besides, my visions are practically useless. They’re unpredictable, and I’m never able to change anything because of them.” Except that I had, tonight. Crap. That wasn’t something I was ready to deal with yet. Maybe ever.

  “Sure, they’re unpredictable, but in the hands of someone who could force you to learn how to use them? A demon that has been around long enough to see such a gift in use before—and who knows how to bring its full power out? You’d be more than useful to them. Whether you wanted to be or not.” Karson blew out a breath. “Fuck, Ava. There are a lot of people who would use you. Not just demons.”

  My stomach twisted at that little tidbit, but I was still determined to see this through. “Well, I wasn’t talking about using my visions anyway. What I’d help with wouldn’t attract that kind of interest.”

  “What are we talking about, then?”

  “I’m talking about…about other things. I don’t know. Helping research—I’m a good researcher. Helping you find another way at him. I could get you coffee while you plan, if that would help. I just want to be involved.” I shook my head vigorously, and my voice turned bitter. “My visions only lead to pain. Look at where they’ve gotten us with Thomas.”

  “Ava, if you got hurt…”

  “I trust you to keep me safe,” I said. Might not be smart, but it was true.

  Something in the air between us seemed to snap, a flash of emotion that was almost palpable. I met his gaze and licked my suddenly dry lips. He watched the motion, and then I was in his arms.

  I didn’t even have time to flinch.

  His body was hard against mine—solid and strong. But his lips were gentle, testing.

  After a moment’s hesitation, I melted into him. When my visions did hit, they hit the second that skin-to-skin contact was made. Apparently, Karson was safe to touch. For now.

  And I was determined to enjoy it while it lasted.

  I slipped my arms around his neck and he cradled me against him. With a soft caress, he moved one of his hands up against my neck. The skin of his palms was rough against my sensitive skin. The kiss changed. Deepened.