One Hell of a Guy: The Cambion Trilogy, Book 1

by Tammi Labrecque

  Sebastian let go and the guy fell in a heap on the ground, crying and puking. Black Sweatshirt, meanwhile, was still immobilized by Sebastian’s grip around his throat.

  How is he doing that? she thought frantically, and then, incredibly, Sebastian picked the guy up and threw him — literally threw him, a good ten feet — against the brick wall on the other side of the alley, so hard Lily heard bones crunch. Black sweatshirt hit the ground as his friend had done, but there was no crying or puking; he was soundly unconscious, and the way the side of his head was dented, it didn’t look like he’d be waking up any time soon — if at all.

  The two guys holding her had let go — only about forty-five seconds had passed since Sebastian entered the alley but you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see whose side he was on, or how badly everything was going for anyone not on that side — and they were both turning tail to run when he caught Red Jacket on the back of the skull with a roundhouse kick right out of a karate movie.

  Red Jacket crumpled and Sebastian reached out and grabbed Wifebeater by the back of his neck, plucked him right out of his flip-flops, turned him to face Lily.

  “Tell the lady you’re sorry,” he said, and Lily couldn’t even recognize his voice. It had gone deep with fury, and his eyes —

  His eyes were red. Glowing. Red.

  Wifebeater moved his mouth, perhaps attempting to produce the apology that had been demanded of him, but nothing came out.

  From the other direction there was a rustling sound, and Lily and Sebastian both turned to see the other woman attempting to get the tatters of her clothes to cover her. Sebastian stretched out his arm, put his hand on her shoulder. “Stay there,” he said roughly.

  The woman went stiff and stopped moving.

  Sebastian turned back to Lily.

  “Did he put his hands on you?” he asked her, and it took her a minute to understand what he’d asked, the words were that close to a growl.

  “Y - Yes —” she stammered. His eyes. What the hell was going on with his eyes?

  With the hand that wasn’t holding him immobile, he reached out and broke Wifebeater’s wrist. Just … snapped it. Like a twig. The man screamed, a long, terrified sound, cut short when Sebastian shook him like a mother cat shaking a kitten by the neck.

  Then Sebastian broke his other wrist.

  This time shaking him didn’t stop his screaming, so Sebastian settled the matter by hurling him against the same wall he’d used to dispatch Black Sweatshirt, with much the same result: unconscious would-be rapist in a pile at the base of the wall.

  With all four threats removed, Sebastian seemed momentarily at a loss, then he took a step toward her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Your eyes,” she said. “Your eyes are glowing.”

  He closed them, took a deep breath, let it out, opened them.

  They were still glowing.

  “I’m sure it’s the light,” he said.

  She felt a high-pitched, frantic giggle bubble up out of her and barely recognized her own voice.

  “They’re glowing,” she said, and shook her head when he took another step toward her. “Don’t touch me.”

  He looked sad — how could someone look sad when they had glowing eyes and had just destroyed four human beings in the span of sixty seconds? — and turned to the other woman. She didn’t object when he approached her so he went in close, speaking softly, putting a hand on her shoulder again, but more gently this time.

  Maybe she was too traumatized to notice the eyes thing, or to care about the violence she had just witnessed — but Lily didn’t think so. Sebastian had done something to her, something to make her stand there like a mannequin when by all rights she should have already been twenty blocks away.

  Lily could hear him murmuring to the woman but couldn’t make out the words. The growling rumble of his voice seemed to be easing, though; he sounded more like himself every second. The woman nodded, seemed to be listening.

  Then she put her face in her hands and started to cry.

  Sebastian pulled off his coat — a coat which Lily happened to know had cost something in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars — and wrapped it around the woman, buttoning it at the collar as gently as any mother had ever bundled a child into a jacket.

  He finished saying whatever he was saying to her, and tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked up at him and Lily’s heart tripped a little — the naked gratitude was hard to watch.

  Finally, the woman walked off — with Sebastian’s coat, Lily noted — and Sebastian approached Lily.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel,” he said, softly. “I won’t touch you.”

  “What was that?” she said, shaking — still pressed against the wall where she’d almost been violated, because at least it was rock solid. The whole rest of her life felt like it was on shifting sand right now.

  “Can we just go back to the hotel?” he said. “We can talk there, I promise, but I’d really like to be anywhere but here right now.”

  She looked at the crumpled bodies around them — Baggy Shorts had managed to evacuate the alley at some point but the other three were still down — and nodded, shortly. “Okay.”

  She followed him back to the Venetian meekly, and didn’t ask any more question until they were safely back in the suite — but as soon as the door closed behind them, she swung around and poked him in the chest.

  “Explain that to me.”

  “There’s nothing to explain, Lily,” he said. “I assume you wouldn’t have rather I just left things as they were?”

  And she could see he would dismiss her, and evade any questions if he could.

  So she said it — the thing she’d been thinking of all the way back to the hotel. It was crazy, but she said it anyway.

  “You’re not human.”

  Chapter 11

  “I DON’T KNOW what you’re talking about,” Sebastian said, but he didn’t look her in the eye, “or what you think you saw—”

  “I saw you,” Lily said, “tossing four guys around, one hand each, like they were rag dolls.” She knew she wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t sure she was entirely sane, either, but that was not the point right now. What he’d done wasn’t possible. “No one is that strong.”

  “I am.”

  “No one normal is that strong,” she insisted. “And I’m not talking, like, ‘Oh, I work out.’ What … what are you?”

  The question hung in the air, like it had a life of its own. Just by being spoken, the words divided her life; there was the part up till now, when things were how they’d always been, and the part from now on, where she admitted there was more to the world than she’d known. Because what had happened went beyond abnormal. What he’d done wasn’t something a human being could do.

  Until now, her world had been … regular. Now her world held the unhuman. Maybe being so quick to accept it meant she watched too much television, but if that was the case then so be it.

  Sebastian wasn’t human.

  He also wasn’t answering her question, so she asked it again. “I said, what are you?”

  He didn’t meet her eyes. “That’s an odd way to phrase a question, Lily.”

  “It’s the exact right way to phrase the question,” she shot back. “If I’m gonna be inside an episode of Supernatural or whatever, fine. I can live with that. What I can’t live with is not knowing, being ignorant. I want you to tell me the truth, now.”

  He sighed, and he finally met her eyes. “You don’t know the word for what I am.”

  “Try me.”

  “The technical term is cambion.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  Deflated, but only slightly, she shook my head. “Okay, no, I don’t know that word. What does it mean?”

  “It means one of my parents — my mother, in this case — is a demon.”

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly very dry. “A … demon.”

  He nodded. “You said you
wanted the truth.”

  “I did,” she said. “I do. What about your father?”

  “A human,” he said tersely. “I don’t know why my mother chose him, and I don’t know why she chose to leave me to be raised by him. My mother doesn’t talk about things she doesn’t choose to talk about. What I do know is, she came back for me a couple of years ago and told me what I was, and what I could do.”

  “Which would be?”

  “You saw what happened in that alley. I’m strong.”

  “And?”

  “And a host of other things.”

  “What other things? Can you read my mind?” She wasn’t sure why this was the first and most pressing thing that occurred to her, but once it did she was quite sure she’d die of embarrassment if the answer was yes.

  Though what the hell difference did it make when all he had to do was ask her a question anyway?

  “I can’t read minds, no,” he said, and she was more than a little annoyed to see he looked amused.

  “Promise?”

  “I swear.”

  “Then how did you find me in that alley?”

  “I —” He faltered. “I’m actually not allowed to tell you.”

  “Not allowed?”

  “That’s what I said. And if you leave it alone and don’t badger me about it, I promise I won’t yell at you for leaving your phone behind when you went out to wander around an unfamiliar city.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out her phone, handed it to her. “I texted you after you left, and I just about had a heart attack when it went off in your room.”

  She said nothing. It had been a stupid and thoughtless thing to do.

  He waited a second, nodded when she remained silent. “But I can assure you, my abilities do not include mind-reading.”

  “Then what do they include?”

  “I’ve hardly got the time or the inclination to sit here and catalogue every inhuman ability that comes with my heritage. And, honestly? There may be some I don’t know. It’s not entirely normal for someone like my mother to procreate.”

  “What is your mother?”

  He looked away again. “My mother?”

  “Yes, your mother,” she snapped. “You said she’s a demon. What kind of a demon? Are there even different kinds? Different levels? Are there politics?”

  “You don’t ask much, do you?” It wasn’t a question, the way he said it. “There’s politics in everything, Lily. That can’t be much of a surprise to you.”

  “Are there different types?” She was wracking her brain for Sunday school tidbits and coming up pretty blank.

  “Yes,” he said, slowly.

  “What is your mother?”

  “What makes you think you’ll know that any better than cambion?”

  His very unwillingness to answer told Lily she very much needed to know. She repeated the question. “What is your mother?”

  He sighed. “She’s a succubus.”

  Lily went icy cold, then flushed. “I live in the world, Sebastian. You knew perfectly well I would know what that is.”

  “What is it, then?” he challenged.

  “It’s …” She floundered a bit, then recovered. “It’s a sex demon. Like, a temptress.”

  “That’s simplistic.”

  “They make people desperate to have sex with them.” She could tell from the heat of her face that she was beet red right to the roots of her hair but she refused to back down. “They give off some kind of … sex vibe. And people just fall all over them.”

  “I suppose that’s a workable description —” he began.

  “Workable, my ass!” She was furious. “You’ve got it too.”

  “Some of it,” he conceded. “Notably, I have … persuasive abilities.” He smiled a little. “I suppose I could have made those guys leave, rather than tossing them around like that.”

  “Persuasive abilities?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I can … make people do things. If I concentrate, if they’re not naturally resistant — there are people who are. There are some ifs. Nothing is foolproof.” He grinned again, a little feral this time. “And I wasn’t really in the mood to reason with them anyway. I was in the mood to break bones.”

  She shuddered, but forced her thoughts away from it. They’d got what was coming to them. She wasn’t going to be squeamish about it; she knew what they’d had in mind for her.

  What mattered right now what that he’d been fucking with her head.

  “And what else do you get from your mother?” She moved in close to him, which was actually a mistake, because as soon as she did a little jolt of something very like electricity tingled along her nerve endings. She stepped back. “What about the sex demon stuff?”

  “I have some of that, yes.”

  “Yeah,” she said, furious. “Some of that. You’ve got a lot of that, and you used it on me.”

  “No —”

  “Yes!” She took two more careful steps back. “You’ve got this woo-woo sexytime magic that makes girls …”

  “Makes girls what, Lily?”

  “Oh, I don’t know — makes girls behave in ways they wouldn’t usually, and get fired from their very nice jobs for immoral behavior?”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Miri was right,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You roofied me — with your mind, but what difference does that make? It’s the same thing. And you got me fired!”

  “This is ridiculous,” he said, and stalked over to her, took her by the shoulders. “I wanted you; you wanted me, too. That’s as simple as it gets.”

  “I didn’t have any choice,” she said, and the fact that she was leaning into his chest rather than pulling away did not escape her, but there didn’t seem to be a whole lot she could do about it. “You’re doing it now.”

  “It’s not like that,” he said. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said, weakly. “You touch me and … I can’t think. I don’t like it. I don’t like what you’re doing.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” he said again. “I can — I have, before, even with you. That first night, when I took your hand, I made you dance with me.”

  “So you admit it?”

  “No, what I’m saying is, since then? I haven’t forced a single thing on you.” He ran his hands up and down her upper arms, raising gooseflesh there, and it was all she could do to even listen to what he was saying. “And that night, Lily, let’s not forget, you walked away. I didn’t know that could be done and you did it. You’re the only woman who ever has.”

  “Fat lot of good it does me, when I just keep coming back,” she said. “That has to be coming from you. Why would I keep doing something if I didn’t want to?”

  “What if you want to, Lily?” he asked.

  “How can I know? The minute you’re in the room, I just … fuzz up.”

  “I don’t have all the answers. Maybe there’s a certain element of it that just happens, because of what I am.” He shrugged a little. “I can’t help being what I am, any more than I can help wanting you.”

  “But why do I want you too, so much?” she asked.

  “Is it too much to imagine it might just be because you do?” he said, and he actually sounded almost … wistful.

  “I’ve never felt like this before, not with anyone. And it gets a hundred times worse if you touch me.” She shook her head again, wished she had the strength to shove him away. “It’s not normal. It’s because of what you are.”

  He sighed. “Then I suppose it is. But if being what I am, and wanting you, makes you want me too — what am I supposed to do about it? Cease to be?”

  “So because you want me, I don’t get a say?” she protested. “Do you not even see how dicey that is, for you to get all woo-woo and take away my right to decide?”

  And just like that, he wasn’t touching her anymore. He took both of his hands off her, very deliberately, and stepped all the way other side of the suite�
�s living room section. “Of what, exactly, are you accusing me?” he said, his voice very cold.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t mean —”

  “You are making a comparison I would ask you to evaluate very carefully,” he said, and it was evident from the cadence of his speech that he was choosing his words very precisely. “We were both there in that alley an hour ago. Are you seriously trying to draw a parallel between that situation and this?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I just mean …” What did she mean? “I just mean — I want to know I can choose. I don’t want you using your mojo on me.”

  He sighed again, shook his head. “My mojo, as you call it, doesn’t have an off switch.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “I’ve had no reason to try,” he said, and he sounded pretty pissed off. “You’re the first to complain, that’s for sure.”

  “And that’s another thing,” she said. “I don’t like the idea that if I did get involved with you, every woman in the five boroughs is going to be tossing herself at you.”

  “I don’t want any other woman in the five boroughs,” he said, “or anywhere else for that matter. I’m tired of women tossing themselves at me. It’s boring.”

  “You said that,” she said. “The first night in Abaddon, you said that to the bartender.”

  He leaned his hip against the nearest wingback chair, looked down at his hands for moment. “The thing you have to understand, Lily, is women have always thrown themselves at me, for as long as I’ve been aware of women. I thought it was because of something I did — because I was smart, or because I lettered in track, or because I helped them with homework — whatever. Maybe just because I was good-looking.”

  “That’s not something you do,” she said. “Even in … mere mortals, that’s genetics.”