The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set)

by Deborah Wilde

  He pulled up the parking brake and tugged on his earlobe. Our twin code for “I have your back.” A code that had been noticeably absent on this mission.

  Ari carried me up the front walk, kicking on the doctor’s door to get him to hurry up.

  The doctor took in the full glory of my shoulder. “I just saw you the other day.”

  “I lead a busy life,” I mumbled.

  “Evidently.”

  I lolled in and out of consciousness for a while after that, though I did come to with him standing over me, holding up forceps. “This is going to hurt.”

  I blacked out again.

  By the time I came to for good, laying on the back seat of our car, my shoulder was bandaged.

  I watched dawn break through the back window. It wasn’t even one of the better ones, bathing the sky in pinks and soft blues. Nope, this one was the color and attractiveness of dryer lint. Strangely fitting.

  Ari sat in the front seat on the phone. “Yes. He’s dead.” There was a pause. “Thank you. Nava was instrumental–” He tapped the side of his fist against the window twice. “No, it was actually Nava who–” He shot the phone the finger. “Yes, sir. Thank you, again.” He tossed the phone in the cup holder. “Fucking Mandelbaum,” he said.

  I smiled. After all I’d been through, getting the rabbi’s approval no longer mattered. I played possum so Ari wouldn’t have to apologize for the phone call and then at some point, I actually fell asleep because when Ari woke me, we were back at the chapter house.

  He helped me inside.

  Kane sat on the bottom step in the foyer waiting. He raked a cold calculating glance over the two of us. “Everyone hale and hearty? Excellent.”

  “Stop being such an asshole,” Ari said. “You’ve pulled shit in our friendship, too.”

  Kane stood up. “Which begs the question of why, exactly, we’re friends?”

  “Whatever, man.” The two of them turned away from each other at the same time, Kane to go upstairs and my brother into the kitchen.

  Gong. Show.

  I headed up as well, going directly into my bedroom, and sitting down by my window. Physically, I was feeling a million times better. I stared out into the night, cocooned in silence, thinking about Daniel.

  Thinking about me. I didn’t want to be a destructive force. Not with the people I loved.

  Or had loved once.

  I pulled out my phone.

  “Hey, Cole. Did I wake you?” A good bet, given the time, but if I didn’t do this now, I was worried I never would.

  “Nothing good ever happened in a 6AM phone call.” His voice was scratchy with sleep.

  “I’m sorry that I shut you out.”

  “Me too.”

  This wasn’t a jettison, it was a mercy. Cole really was my past. He belonged to a Nava who didn’t exist anymore and trying to resurrect that relationship would end up as well as reanimating the dead.

  My throat grew tight. It didn’t matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise. This was still a sacrifice. “Cole…”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad I saw you again.” I drew a heart in the condensation on the window, then smudged it out. “I got closure.”

  “Then I’m glad.” He yawned again.

  “Go back to sleep. Be well.”

  “Wait. Do you want your Twenty-One Pilots T-shirt back?”

  I looked at the Fugue State Five shirt that I’d stolen from Leo, now folded on my pillow. “I’m good.”

  And the biggest surprise as I hung up? I really was.

  There was one more loose end to tie up.

  As I stepped down onto the first stair, the skin between my shoulder blades prickled. Stair two: a sickening dread uncoiled in my gut. Stair three: my chest tightened.

  Run.

  I clutched the bannister, rubbing my palm over the polished wood like I could make a genie appear. A genie who could grant me three wishes, all of them ensuring that if I descended the staircase, and went down the hallway that I’d be safe.

  There was a lot about my behavior that I refused to apologize for, but maybe I hadn’t been entirely fair to Rohan. Did he have control issues? Emotional issues? No kidding. But he also had my back. That part was good, but what about when he had my heart?

  Run.

  I sank down on the stair, my head buried in my hands. There was no way I could be in a relationship with him and not fall in love. And love was when things got twisted. Look at Daniel. Or, less demony, Cole. I’d loved him and I’d assumed he would stand by me but he hadn’t. Maybe teen love didn’t exactly set a high bar, but the principle was sound. The harder you loved, the more at someone’s mercy you were, and I wasn’t sure I could open myself up given the power I’d be handing over to Rohan.

  Maybe I shouldn’t make these decisions until after I’d slept for ten hours.

  Run!

  I pulled myself up and was struck with a vision of myself at eighty having lived a safe, comfortable life, free of a certain infuriating alpha who made me laugh and gave me the greatest sex of my life and who, for all he pushed my buttons, also pushed me to be so much more. Or worse, not even having made it to eighty because I was too scared or too proud.

  Ari was right. Humans were greedy. I’d been so committed to getting more and more fortifications to my emotional shields, so committed to living life on my precise terms, that I hadn’t clued in to how lonely that existence could be.

  I ran down the stairs, skidding to a stop beside Rohan’s bed.

  He was snoring softly. That made me feel better because without it, he would have just been this too-beautiful mortal, artfully asleep in his tousled sheets, his dark sooty lashes falling across his cheek and that one single lock of hair drooping across his eyes.

  I ran a hand over his naked back and the tattoo across his shoulder blades of the word Kshatriya, the warrior caste, scripted in Hindi in midnight black ink. “Ro?”

  He flung an arm over his head.

  “Rohan.”

  “Mmmm?” He snuggled into his pillow. Damn, he was adorable.

  I shook his shoulder. “Wake up.”

  He cracked his eyes open. “What?” His voice was thick and rumbly. He glanced at my bandaged shoulder and wreckage of a shirt. “Busy night?”

  “I was shot.”

  “Of course you were. Anything else?”

  I shrugged.

  “Bet you kicked ass.”

  “I may have.” I dug my phone out of my pocket. “I want you to listen to something.”

  “Nava.” He lifted his head to squint at the time on my phone. “It’s some ungodly hour.” He dropped his head back down onto his pillow. “Can we do this later?”

  “No.” I scrolled through my music until I found the right song and hit play. The opening strains of “You’re the One that I Want” came on. I didn’t let myself watch him as he listened to it, but when the song faded away, I looked at him expectantly.

  His expression gave away nothing. “Why did you play that?” He yanked on the sheet, forcing me to move.

  I fluttered my hands, flustered. “Because the lyrics.”

  “Yeah. I know what the lyrics say.”

  “That’s why.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Nava, but you’re not Sandy. You’re Rizzo.”

  No one else had ever instinctively understood that about me.

  I brushed my lips against his. A feather of a caress, my nerves stacked like crates at Costco.

  He waited two heartbeats to speak. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, Ro. I am.” I tugged on his hand. “Upstairs,” I said, hitting the bottom of the slippery slope and letting Rohan in to my life in every way possible.

  His slow easy smile undid me. “Let’s go.”

  25

  I flipped on my bedside lamp and took his hands, tugging him to face me. Stretching up on tiptoe, I kissed his eyelashes. His nose. Pressed my lips to the underside of his jaw and scattered a million soft little caresses over hi
s cheeks, splaying my palms against his chest to capture the warmth of his skin.

  His eyes fell shut, his face tilting down to mine.

  When I didn’t immediately kiss him again, he tensed and cracked open his eyes.

  “Sit,” I instructed, walking him backward to the mattress. I kicked off my shoes and straddled him, sitting ramrod straight, my eyes drifting to his full, lush lips, trying to figure out the best angle to come at him. Like there was any approach that would keep my shields intact.

  I grabbed a scarf from a drawer. “Can I blindfold you?”

  His gaze licked across my skin. “Yes.”

  Amazed that I only fumbled the knot once, I sat back on my calves. He was glorious, sitting back against my headboard, his chest bare, his hair sticking up every which way above the slash of pink and black fabric wrapped around his eyes.

  Hands braced on the mattress, I leaned forward and ghosted my lips over his.

  Rohan’s lips parted tentatively. His fingers dragged along my spine, down to the mattress, finding my hand. He stroked the pad of his thumb over my knuckles, upping the kiss, pressing his mouth more firmly to mine.

  I stiffened, a wave of self-preservation rearing its head. Rohan released me and I attempted to get my panicky breathing under control. Hating my cowardice. Given everything else the two of us had done each other, this kiss should have been easy. “I want to tie your hands up.”

  His chest rose in a ragged breath and I’d swear his eyes were trained on mine, even through the blindfold. It took him so long to answer that I was convinced he’d refuse. “Do it.”

  “Incredible. Even your agreement to submission is issued like the most imperious command.”

  I expected a cocky smirk.

  “When your life fell apart, you kept it together by shutting people out.” He skipped his fingers across the blanket, one, two, three. “I did it by thinking every decision three moves ahead. If I could bend everything, everyone to my will, nothing bad could happen. After Askuchar, I needed that more than ever. And you were a wild card.”

  I’d gotten a confession.

  I lay my palm on his cheek. “Aw, Snowflake.”

  “Don’t you dare pity me.”

  “I don’t. I understand you.”

  “I know. God, I know.” Still blindfolded, Rohan nuzzled into my hand.

  This jumble of emotions blew through me, knocking the breath from my lungs. “Lie down.” I didn’t have any other scarves or actual bondage ties so I used two thigh-high cotton socks. “This okay?” I asked, tugging on the bow tie connecting his wrists to the bed post.

  “Yeah.” He stilled, head tilted with an expectant air.

  Rohan was one of the most alpha males I knew and yet he had no problem giving up control. To me. Not just in sex. He’d let me take the lead in fights and in finding the spine. If we were going to move forward, we’d be doing so as equals. Of that I had no doubt. A hummingbird flutter of nervous excitement licked through me.

  Taking a slow, deep breath, I cocked my head to the side, and pressed my mouth to his. My stomach did a backflip. Movies and books were filled with people losing themselves in kisses. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too hyperaware of who I was with. The erratic thump of his heart under my palm. The tension in his corded biceps. His low rumble when my tongue tangled with his.

  I draped myself over him, my weight sinking into his. Threading my fingers into his hair, I deepened the kiss. We were on the same wavelength, taking our time, savoring this new taste of each other. His was equal parts wildness, stubbornness, and gentleness.

  I rested my hand on his jaw, my thumb caressing his cheek.

  Rohan licked into the corner of my mouth. Every slow, insistent kiss burned my skin, laying more and more bare between us.

  The world fell away.

  If this kiss was my white flag, then I intended to draw out every second of my surrender.

  I existed in pieces. The fall of his hair like silk through my fingers. The fit of our hips, our bodies aligned like puzzle pieces, all hard edges and rounded corners. The faint hint of bourbon I tasted on him.

  I melted closer into him, my heart beating so hard the tremors rolled along my skin. Our kiss snaked through my veins, tingling the spaces between my toes, warming the jut of my elbows, and making the tips of my ears pulse.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, his lips trailing down my throat. A heightened prickling that pulled my already taut skin tighter.

  “You’re blindfolded.” I arched up under his touch.

  “It doesn’t matter. I see you. Bella. Jamila. Sundari.” He kissed his way across my collarbone. Kissed me like he was charting my landscape. “Guzal. Mei li in. Linda.”

  Rohan sucked my breast into his mouth through the fabric of my top. “Nava,” he sighed, flicking his tongue over my hardened nipple. My breath caught. So he did it again, his mouth lazily exploring me. “Krasivaya. Areumdaun. Yafa.”

  His lips descended lower, nipping at me to position me where he wanted me since he was still tied up. His mouth skipped along my abdomen, making me shiver in delight.

  “Schoen. Vakker. Utsukushi. So very beautiful.” A kiss with each compliment. He worshiped me with his lips and his words.

  My insides dissolved into jelly. “How do you know all these terms?”

  “I asked the roadies. It totally scored me chicks on tour.”

  I smacked him.

  “Kidding.” He paused. “I didn’t need help.”

  I smacked him again. “Bastard,” I said, laughing. “I’m gonna molest you now.”

  “It’ll cost ya.” He turned his puckered lips up to mine.

  A price I’d happily pay.

  This kiss wasn’t merely hunger. It was ineffable. Inevitable. Blood rushed from my brain in a dizzying surge, my insides stuck in that combustible moment when spark snapped into flame. I was a dancer. I had great balance. You’d never know it to look at me now, clutching at him. Eroded. Vertiginous.

  I broke the kiss, dragging in a breath, my breasts hot and aching for his touch. I snapped open the buttons on the jeans that he’d fallen asleep in, expecting to hit boxers. “Fuck me,” I said. “You went commando?”

  He laughed and the depraved sound jolted straight into Cuntessa.

  “Huh.” I trailed my fingers down his chest. “So did I.”

  “It’s probably good I didn’t know that before,” he said in a strangled voice. He strained against his bonds. “Untie me.” I gave a sultry laugh and he groaned. “Tease,” he said.

  I slid down his torso tasting the salt from the sweat on his skin. His erection strained and jerked under my arm. Grinning, I tugged his jeans down to free it, Rohan’s growled “touch me,” making me wetter than I already was.

  I called up my magic, the barest of hums tingling my lips, then I wrapped my mouth around his cock. Nowhere near enough to shock, just enough to blow his mind.

  “Holy fuck,” Rohan groaned, bucking off the mattress. His low steady stream of filthy commands drove me to the same crazed edge as my electric BJ drove him. I took a heapload of smug satisfaction at his desperate thrashing.

  “Bet the other Rasha don’t have as fun a party trick,” I smirked.

  “You’re not showing that to anyone else.”

  “No?”

  The blades at Rohan’s wrists shot out to slice through his ties, my socks falling in shredded heaps onto the mattress. He ripped the blindfold off, reaching for me. “No.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, not caring he’d broken free.

  We fell to the sheets in a tangle of limbs. He pressed me deeper into the mattress, gripping my hips as his mouth slammed on mine with an urgency I matched, kiss for kiss.

  Desire shimmered like heat between us.

  He wrestled me out of my shirt, so careful of my still-bandaged shoulder. Angling his body closer toward mine, he pinned me down, his leg jutting between my knees, sliding me against his hard thighs. His fingers flexed against the small of my back drawing me
closer against him and I moaned, every cell in my body flaring.

  “Why did you regret it?” The words tumbled from my mouth.

  “What?”

  “When you kissed me the first time. Right afterwards, you looked like you wished you could take it back.”

  Rohan looked mind-wacked, naked, his hair completely wrecked, and his eyes a gold haze. “You want to do this now?”

  It wasn’t so much want as need. I nodded and braced myself.

  “It wasn’t regret.”

  I shifted to move out from under the liar, but he held me fast by the hips.

  “It wasn’t,” he insisted. “I’d wanted you so much when everything was still a game between us. Then I kissed you and I wasn’t playing anymore, but you still were.”

  “Why? Do you want me?”

  He nipped at my mouth. “Fishing for compliments?”

  “No,” I said. “I know I’m a catch, but you?” I pressed my palms into my thighs and shrugged, my heart in my throat. I forced myself not to squirm under the weight of his direct, unflinching stare.

  “I’ve experienced a lot,” he said.

  To put it mildly. “The rock star thing.”

  “Rock god,” he corrected, rubbing my nose with his, “but that’s not what I meant by experienced. I don’t need saving, Nava. But yeah, there’s darkness. Surrounded by what we see, what we do to keep this world safe, day in, day out? I only want bright spots around me. And you?” He caught my hands, which I’d laced together so he couldn’t see them tremble. “You’re a supernova.”

  “Vague bastard.”

  Rohan barked a laugh but his eyes practically sparked at me. Talk about supernova. The fires of the universe burned in them and I was caught in their gravitational pull.

  I kissed him again, craving this connection. With him. Only him.

  His fingers glided up my neck, his thumb resting over my fluttering pulse. I swayed in toward him suckling the hollow of his throat and he hissed, tangling my hair in his hands and ghosting his lips along my jaw before claiming my mouth, a frantic edge to our embrace.

  He demanded complete and utter acquiescence, running his hands feverishly over my body. Both of us tearing at my clothing, until we were skin on heated skin.