Rohan pushed away from me, so slow and pained it was as if he had to physically snap our connection. The fiery gold of his eyes sparked an answering shiver of bliss in me.
He stretched out a hand and pulled me up, dragging a thumb along the inside of my wrist.
I stumbled up the stairs to the dais.
A beautiful mermaid dragged herself out of the shadows near the collar. Clump. Click. Her fish tail ended in bloody knives. They struck the flagstones off-beat with the haunting, ethereal melody she sang that made me yearn to offer myself up to her, even though I knew that would be the last thing I’d ever do.
Rohan looked at her. Looked at me. Opened his mouth. Shut it.
“That’s the Little Mermaid,” I explained.
“Why the hell would you think of her now?”
I planted my hands on my hips. “Way to assume I’m responsible.”
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t even know what she was.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You just Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man’d us. Death by mermaid. Bhenchod.”
The mermaid clumped back and forth in front of the boulder, singing all the while. Beckoning us to come take the collar. If we could.
“I didn’t conjure her up.”
“Then why did she manifest? What’s her deal?” Rohan asked.
“The original story isn’t singing crabs and catchy melodies. It’s this graceful mermaid who trades her tongue for legs that feel like she’s walking on knives with every step.”
“It was you,” he said. “Your fears of losing the ability to dance.”
“Lived it already. Can’t happen twice. So nope. Not my fear.”
The mermaid stuck close to the boulder. Those knives of hers would do serious damage as soon as we got within striking range.
“How do we kill her?” Rohan asked.
“We need a prince who with a single rejection, which, let’s face it, is the most likely outcome, will turn her into sea foam.”
Rohan was staring at me with something suspiciously akin to pity. My face grew hot. No way. This wasn’t on me.
I stomped toward the mermaid.
Eyes blazing, she slithered over to us in an inhuman burst of speed, flinging drops of sea foam from her fingertips.
I barely had time to shoot a crippling bolt of magic. The mermaid lurched as my strike found its mark. Her tail thwacked the ground, the floor now visible through the impressive hole I’d created in her gut. Unbalanced yet undeterred, she roared, her stumpy tongue waggling at us, her knives flicking back and forth like a metronome.
A gob of sea foam hit Rohan square in the face. He grimaced and wiped himself off with his sleeve but he didn’t turn Hulk, freak out, or seem to be tripping balls, so that was good.
He partially extended his own blade along the length of his right leg and cut the bottom half of her tail off with a jumping spinning kick that was a thing of beauty in its execution. The tail fell to the stones with a meaty plop and a clatter of knives.
I jumped over her writhing body, snatched the collar off the boulder, and tucked it into my pocket.
Whoosh! Thump!
Rohan pressed down on my back, forcing me to duck, just as a volley of spears shot out of the walls, passing so close overhead that I patted my head to make sure I hadn’t been scalped.
A blood-curdling howl raised the hair along my arms. The mermaid raised her voice in answer, but wriggling on the ground as she was, she was the least of our worries right now.
The cù-sith were soul reapers. We had until the demon dog’s third howl to reach safety or our lives were forfeit, and since its baying could be heard for miles, it didn’t even need to face us, robbing us of the chance to kill it.
And if we didn’t kill it, we’d be trapped in this illusion forever.
We raced through the temple’s corridor, a now endless stretch of hallway, the exit elusive.
The mermaid had been left far behind, but my back warmed with the splat of sea foam, and then her whisper of a laugh shivered inside my head.
I grabbed Rohan’s arm, stumbling after him. He was going to leave me. I’d be alone and deserted and I couldn’t do this. I clutched his arm tighter, one last touch before he went back to L.A. and his life there. His loves there.
My knees buckled.
Rohan yanked me up. “What’s wrong?”
We weren’t going to make it. We wouldn’t outrun the cù-sith’s howls. I’d doomed my lover, my best guy friend.
I tried to pull free and curl into a ball.
The second howl set birds wailing in alarm.
I forced myself to run, one hand pressed against my burning side doing my best to ignore the insidious voice still gnawing away at me.
A pair of eyes glowed bright in the shadows to one side, then with a blink and a swish of a tail, were gone.
Positive I could feel the cù-sith’s teeth at my back, I sucked in a breath, feeling like my insides had hit a brick wall. After what felt like an eternity, we rounded a corner, the temple’s exit just up ahead. Fresh air and sunlight wafted toward us.
With a bone-rattling rumble, the earth rent apart into a jagged pit. Rohan and I stumbled to a stop at its edge, kicking small stones and loose dirt tumbling down into the dark void.
A skimpy vine hung down for us to swing across.
I stepped back.
“I’ll go first. Prove it’s safe.” Rohan grabbed the vine, tensed, then faced me. “Give me the collar.”
“No way.” He wasn’t leaving me. Wasn’t using me and then throwing me away.
“Come on, Nava,” he coaxed in a purr, “you might lose it. This isn’t the time for you to be stubborn.”
I slapped my hand over the pocket where it was stuffed.
He grabbed my arm with his free hand, yanking me close. “Hand it over.” His eyes were narrowed, a thread of panic lacing his voice.
A gigantic shadow flew up from the void. The demon landed on the ground behind us with a thud that almost rocked us off our feet. Pure white with shaggy fur and a densely muscled body, her muzzle was slightly open, revealing wickedly sharp teeth. As a dog, she’d been a mop of fur, now she was a monster. Bull-sized with a still-braided tail and massive paws, her red slits of eyes shone out of the avalanche of white. She trotted toward us, about to howl for the third and final time.
Rohan’s blades snicked out on one hand, five sharp points gauging my skin. “The collar.”
I fired into his hand; just a shock. Enough to break free, creeping sideways out from between him and the demon dog.
“I want it, Nava,” he growled.
I clutched my head, the voices hammering at me. This was what happened when no one thought you were worth keeping around. You went on and on until suddenly you died.
No. I was the one calling the shots. I wasn’t some loser that got left. I wasn’t going to die here. I grabbed the vine and jogged a few steps backward to get a running start to swing over the pit.
Rohan caught me in an ironclad grip. He raised his arm, blades out and swiped.
I whimpered.
Rohan flinched at the sound, jerking his knives away violently.
The demon’s dirge of a third howl filled the sky.
Rohan trained horrified eyes on me. “Run.” He grabbed me around the waist and hurled me over the pit.
The howl abruptly cut off. The second my toes touched ground on the far side of the pit, I spun around, my heart encased in an icy grip, positive Rohan was dead.
Rohan had the cù-sith pinned to the ground, his expression caught in a tight snarl as he smashed his fist into the dog’s face over and over again. The demon emitted a single high-pitched whine before Rohan snapped her neck. He’d hit her kill spot because she disappeared.
Whelp, I wasn’t getting a dog that way.
With the cù-sith dead, the illusion’s power had been broken. The temple and jungle disappeared, leaving us in a deserted warehouse with rain sluicing down on us through the gaps in the roof. Getting soaked to the skin helped to c
lear my mind of the mermaid’s evil whispers, the means by which the demon dog had played on my fears. Well, cleared it somewhat. And speaking of fears…
“Rohan.” I stepped toward him, the collar spilling from my hand. “In the temple. The re-enactment of the betraying assistant by the pit. That was your fear, wasn’t it? What happened to you on that assignment?”
“Demons killed Rasha. I killed the demons.” He used his “don’t push it” voice.
Except I deserved better than that.
No, you don’t.
My hands balled into fists. “What. Happened?”
“What happened to you in the temple? You were holding me like you’d die if I left.” He prowled close, his eyes glinting dangerously. “Would you have?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” It took everything I had not to sprint when I left the warehouse.
Wind howled around me, dark clouds lending an ominous weight to the sky. My hair snapped in tendrils around my face. I hugged the collar to my body, half-hunched over, plodding toward the car.
Rain plastered my clothes to my body, my hair sticking to my skin in wet strands. Fumbling the keys in my icy fingers, I finally opened the car door and threw my filthy coat in the back seat.
Rohan’s hand came down on the door, preventing me from closing it. Water streaming down his scalp, he turned his face to mine, his expression bleak. “I need to know if everything I’ve ever believed I was fighting for still holds true.” The pain in his voice punched into me.
I cupped my palm to his jaw. “Oh, Rohan.”
He framed my face with his hands. “I’m sorry.”
I winced at the cloth melted to his wrist from where I’d shot my magic into him. It had been more than a mere shock. “I hurt you worse.”
He gave a pained laugh. “Stop being so competitive.”
I couldn’t stop spinning the sensation of his fingers splayed against my cheek, a steady warmth offsetting the rain sticking to my lashes, and rolling across me in a million cold drops. The tenderness in his eyes sped my heart and made the tips of my ears tingle. I didn’t want tender. I wanted every part of him to fill me up, his hands pining me down, and a hungry focus on his face for me and only me.
I pushed him into the back seat, falling on top of him. His palm brushed the scratched skin of my hip through my torn shirt and I winced.
He stilled. “I’ll hurt you.” His lips compressed in a flat line, self-disgust etched on his face. “Again.”
“Probably.” I sucked on his neck and he moaned. “Right now I don’t care.” I rubbed myself against his erection.
“You’re going to kill me,” he ground out, fumbling at my scrubs. I helped him peel the wet pants off, Rohan growling and me laughing at his frustration. The second my legs were free, Rohan rolled me off of him onto the seat, his mouth hot and desperate as he kissed his way down my body.
The rasp of his goatee on my skin wound me tight, heightening everything into a honed, hard clarity that was almost too much to bear. I dug my fingers into his wavy locks, my fingers tightening against his scalp.
His fingertips dragged along a curve of muscle, his soft hair tickled my belly, and his lips skipped up the inside of my thigh. His touch stoked embers that I wanted to coax into an all-consuming blaze.
Rain hit the roof in a wild drumbeat, lashing across the back seat. I’d swear it was sizzling as it hit my skin, like the hiss of water over sauna rocks.
Rohan hooked a finger under the elastic of my underwear, ripped them off, and licked my clit, a long slow tease.
Moaning, I reached overhead and clutched the door handle, Rohan’s fingers pushing deep inside me, his tongue stroking harder and faster. My body tensed in waves: thighs, abs, core.
Fingers still curled in his hair, I tugged him up. “Fuck me, Rohan.”
He rested his head against my stomach. “I don’t have a condom.”
“I do. Purse. Floor. Front.”
Rohan found it, dropped his jeans to his knees, and sheathed himself in record time. “Your wish. My command.” Switching places with me, he sat on the edge of the seat, his feet planted on the concrete.
The rain turned to steam as it hit our fevered skins.
I straddled him, sinking down on top of his hard cock with a loud groan. Requiring a moment to steady myself against the tangle of need and want.
“I thought I’d remembered it wrong. That you couldn’t feel this good,” he said. “God, Nava.” His hips snapped off the seat, one hand clutching my ass, making me ride him hard. He ran his fingertips, blades out, up and down along my spine.
Hips thrusting upwards, he pounded into me. Every time he pulled back, I chased him, my hands clutching his biceps, forcing him to bury himself inside me, over and over again.
He clasped the back of my neck with one hand, my blood singing under his relentless desire.
My curls snarled, Rohan running his hands through them with fingers that started out steady but soon were trembling. He claimed every inch of me, his breath coming in ragged pants, and those gorgeous eyes burning for me. I grinned, thrilled at reducing him to a shaky, needy mess.
I pushed down on his shoulders, gripping the hard lines of muscle, reveling in the feel of bottoming out against him. He sucked a tit into his mouth, the pressure almost painful. My body buzzed, my hands and feet pulsing. I felt brutally, intensely, electrically alive.
My orgasm ripped through me and I shattered. My vision blurred, the world falling away from me. My head tumbled back as I cried out, Rohan joining me seconds later.
With the car door open, we were soaked, and the wind bit viciously into my back, but lazy satisfaction glowed deep inside me and heat burned through my chest.
He smoothed away my hair, resting his forehead against mine. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I splayed my palm against his chest, taking in the staccato beat of his heart.
“Someone came prepared.” He carefully lifted me off of him.
“Hmmm? Oh, yeah.” Reaching for my pants on the floor of the back seat, I smiled at him, covering the guilt twisting my stomach into knots. I’d tossed those condoms in my purse after I’d accepted Cole’s dinner invitation. I slipped back into the wet, dirty scrubs. Shit. How was I supposed to go to dinner with him now? Traces of the mermaid’s whispering still bounced around in my brain; traces of Rohan’s scent branded my skin.
I scrubbed a hand over my face as my phone trilled a reminder. Oh no. Rohan reached my cell before I could, picking it up off the floor of the car to hand it to me.
“Here.” His smile turned to confusion as he put the phone in my hand and caught sight of the screen. “Cole? Isn’t that your ex?”
“Yeah. I ran into him because of the investigation? He was friends with one of the victims?” I was babbling. Fuck this. I wasn’t betraying Rohan. I had nothing to feel guilty about. “We’re having dinner tonight.”
Make of that what you will, Mitra. The waistband of my scrubs snapped hard against my hip.
Rohan tugged his jeans on. “Make him take you somewhere fancy.” That was it. No scowl, no show of possessiveness.
It wasn’t the reaction I wanted but it was the only one I was going to get.
12
We made a brief stop at Harry’s to give him the collar. Rohan wouldn’t even touch it, leaving me to drop it off. Harry grimaced when he saw my disheveled, drowned rat appearance.
“Don’t say a word.” I placed the collar in his hand. “Is there some doggie owner going to come after us for theft and destruction of property?”
“No.”
“Good. Talk to your dealer and get me the location of that spine asap or I swear on my friendship with Leo, I will come back and hurt you.”
“No need to get mean,” he grumbled and shut the door.
Rohan and I didn’t speak for the ride back to Demon Club. I put on some random station and turned the volume up.
Once home, I stood under the shower for a good twenty minutes getting feeling back into
my extremities. My skin was turning lobster red but I still hadn’t unraveled the cold knot in the pit of my stomach. I argued myself back into and out of the date for the length of my shower and the time it took to get dressed. The internal debate continued while I cornered my brother in his room.
I shoved my phone with the open photo of Jane Doe into his hand. “Two of seven victims have the symbol. Not quite a hard link but a start.”
Ari looked at it for a long time before handing it back. “You shouldn’t have gone by yourself.”
“When are you going to admit I have something to contribute to this?”
He walked into his bathroom, returning with a small bottle of sleeping pills which he pressed into my hand. “You might need these for a few nights. Okay?”
Oh. “Okay.” I put them in my purse.
“You’re right. Two bodies aren’t enough, but I’ve arranged to see another one. How do you feel about gravedigging?”
I groaned.
Ari clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”
“Can we not do it tonight?” Not that I was blowing work off because of Cole. “I don’t think I can handle two dead people in one day.”
“Sure. Let’s spend tomorrow going over the files. See if we missed anything in light of this new connection. We’ll hit up the cemetery at night.”
I hugged him. “Thank you.”
I was almost at his door when he called out, “Hey, Nee?”
I turned back. “Yeah?”
“I get not wanting to be alone after what you went through today, but don’t let douchecanoe take advantage of you.”
“Wait. How did you know?”
He laughed and waved good-bye.
I sat in the car for five minutes before I’d pulled myself together enough to meet Cole inside the upscale burger joint he’d chosen. It wasn’t fancy, but he knew my weakness for a good burger and this place was reputed to have the best in the city.
Cole was already seated at a window table, but he got up to give me a big hug.
I grit my teeth at the pain that flashed through my shoulder. My accelerated healing abilities were doing wonders for the damage I’d incurred while fighting the cù-sith, but the still-visible knife scars on my skin wasn’t something I had a ready lie to explain away.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set) Page 69