Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series

by Holley Trent

  Julia gasped. Where’d he go? I thought something was off about him, but figured it was because he looked a bit familiar.

  Claude is dealing with him for the moment. And I’m not surprised he looked familiar to you because he’s my son.

  “Oh, crap!”

  Marion and Ariel turned to look at Julia.

  Charles sighed.

  Julia chuckled nervously. “Sorry, girls, I just remembered I forgot to set the DVR for Calvin’s game. His team got new uniforms. Sexy tight pants.”

  Smooth.

  Sorry. Julia fidgeted the end of her braid and murmured, “Oh, crap. Oh, crap,” again and again under her breath, and Marion looked over Julia’s reclining form at him.

  “You two telepathing?” she asked.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not a word,” he said, trying for blasé and likely failing. “What makes you ask that?”

  She rested her hands atop her protruding belly and rubbed. He wanted to add his hand to the pile, to feel their daughter’s movement, but he wouldn’t dare. He wanted to just go on and tell her already, but every time he considered it, his courage fled.

  “I’ve been noticing some coincidences lately. I can usually tell when John and Claude are doing it because neither of them can keep a straight face when they’re talking. Makes me never want to ask them what they have on their minds, because it’s likely gross.”

  “Probably,” Ariel said blithely.

  “Whenever they get those stupid looks on their faces, I get that a funny feeling in my gut, just like I got back at the restaurant.”

  Charles’s heart rate suddenly sped, and his blood pounded in his ears. Fuck. That was a great way to get bumped up the demonic Most Wanted list—her being not-quite-human. Demons feared people who had their own power. If they couldn’t control them, they sought to rub them out.

  Maybe the sensitivity could be a good thing, though, if she learned to use it. She’d know when to be on her guard, even if she didn’t necessarily know what she was guarding herself against. Like when she pulled that butter knife.

  If she weren’t pregnant—carrying the child he hoped wouldn’t be as big a disappointment as Ross—he’d make sure she knew how to protect herself. There were ways of fighting dirty, even against demons. For the moment, though, he’d prefer her to remain in seclusion until he could figure some things out. If she hated him for it, so be it. He refused to lose yet another woman he loved to vengeful entities.

  Julia watched him with wide-eyed expectation.

  He swallowed, turned his face toward Marion, and nodded. “Yes. We were talking.”

  “Huh.” She tipped her hat back and narrowed her eyes at him. “What secrets are you two keeping?”

  “It’s none of your concern.”

  “Well, excuse the hell out of me.”

  “Don’t get surly. In case you’ve already forgotten, you explicitly disobeyed an order to stay put at your grandmother’s. The fact you’re still sitting here right now is because I’m feeling generous.”

  “Generous?” Her voice careened to a pitch he hadn’t known she was capable of, and she rolled over to hands and knees and crawled around Julia to get in his face.

  Why’d you have to go and get her angry? Julia asked. She sighed. It’s bad for the baby.

  Shush.

  “Quit it, you two. Whatever you’re saying, quit it. I’m trying to say my piece.”

  Inches from his face as she was, with her cheeks all flushed and brown eyes lit with passion, she reminded him of that first day he’d seen her. She’d been so annoyed that day, and her spiritedness had proven to be a hell of an aphrodisiac. Even now he wanted to lean forward and kiss her silly.

  He closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists at his sides to stop himself from reaching for her face. He’d have plenty of time to memorize her feel and taste again. He just needed to be patient a while longer.

  “Charles Edison, I’m a grown-ass woman and I’ve been on my own pretty much all my life. I’m used to watching my own back and doing for myself. If it weren’t for this baby, there’s no way you could have kept me locked up as long as you have. I don’t care about me so much, but I do care about her.”

  He opened his eyes and his mouth, intending to rebut, but she reached in and tamped his jaw up.

  She didn’t seem to notice what she’d done, and he was pleased he didn’t give it away by reacting to her touch.

  “Now, you hear this. I’m not a reckless sort of woman and I don’t go courting trouble, you aside, but I’m not going to live my life like some kind of house cat whom nobody wants to let outside because she might get carried off by a hawk.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “No excuses. If men and demons alike are terrified of Momma, then, well, she’ll just have to teach me to be a scary-ass bitch, too. Sitting here, I decided that. I’m not going to cower.”

  That was his girl. But fuck, he’d never felt more conflicted. Kick-ass heroines were all well and good in urban fantasy novels, but those women weren’t generally in the family way. She had skills with a butter knife, not a sword. He could lend her his gun, probably. Yeah. She’d need to learn how to defend herself. Try as he might to be around, sometimes he got called away, though he hoped to do much less of that in the coming months. Playing demon politics was incompatible with the family life he wanted.

  “I don’t want you to cower, sweetheart. But you should understand my overzealousness isn’t because I’m possessive. Demons, including my father, wouldn’t want to kill our daughter. He’d do to her what he wanted to do to Julia.”

  A cluster of teenagers tossing a football idled in front of them for a moment, and he waited for them to clear off before he continued.

  “He’d want to make our daughter a dirty little whore who would very likely turn against us the moment she got her mark.” He held up his hand and ignited the blue glow behind it.

  Her face went pallid. She’d seen it before, but not up close.

  “Now, you think about that. I’d rather her die than to be … this.” He crooked his thumbs back toward himself.

  Marion sat back on her heels and stared at him a long while. She finally blinked and blew out some air. “There are worse things than boredom, I guess.”

  He reached for his shoes and stood, brushing sand off his shorts. “Much worse. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “You sure about this?” Claude ripped a long stretch of electrical tape off the roll and smacked it over Ross’s lips, while Clarissa stood by with her arms crossed over her chest, wearing a scowl.

  “Leave him here. I don’t reckon your father will come looking for him here, even if he could step foot on the property.” She turned to Charles and wagged her index finger at him. “Why didn’t you say something about him sooner? We could have nipped the problem in the bud.”

  He scoffed. “It’s not the fact that I have a son that I wished to hide, but the reason he’s entangled in my business.”

  “Well?”

  “Do you remember what Pop told me when he sobered me up last year?”

  She shifted her weight and narrowed her eyes. “Something about you building an army. What of it?”

  “Since I hadn’t clocked in with the hellboys in all that time, he rightfully assumed I hadn’t started my recruitment drive.”

  “He gave you an ultimatum?”

  Charles nodded and put his arms up to grab his hogtied son’s shoulders. Claude eased him down from the back of the Jeep.

  When Ross was safely on the ground, giggling into the grass, Charles added, “He challenged me to a little contest. Tried to spark my competitive spirit, I guess. The deal was if he managed to spawn before me, he would make Ross my shadow.”

  Clarissa’s eyes went wide. “When’d you make the bet? Before or after you knocked up my grandbaby?”

  Fuck.

  Claude, now in front of him, pointed down at Ross. They bent, picked him up by the thighs and shoulders,
and carried him toward the open trailer door.

  “You answer me, Charles, or so help me I’ll have Agatha blow your sorry ass all the way to the Bermuda Triangle.”

  Claude whistled low as they tossed Ross onto a sorry sofa in the long-abandoned trailer. Apparently, Clarissa used to rent it out in the past, but hadn’t done so since her husband died fifteen years ago. It was on her property, so no demon who valued his life would stage a rescue attempt, and far enough away from the main house that she could tend it discreetly. Whether or not it was secure enough to keep a fanatical cambion contained was left to be seen.

  “I asked you a question, Charles.”

  Claude raised his shoulders in a You’re on your own fashion.

  Charles blew out a breath and turned on his heels. “The timing may seem suspicious, but you’ll have to trust me when I say that coincidence does imply causation. I found her before I heeded Pop’s summons.”

  “But certainly his summons would have incentivized you to escalate your relationship.”

  “You would think so, but the truth was my only concern after leaving that meeting was to get her to trust me. I refused to take the bet. Everything else that happened …” He waved a dismissive hand.

  “He is what he is,” Claude said. He slipped the point of his knife inside the tape binding Ross’s wrists and slid it through. “I’m sure if he thought a child would be the end result of the rendezvous, he would have taken precautions. I hear that’s common when one meets their true love. Details are unimportant, but they sure as shit catch up to you later.”

  Clarissa drummed her fingers at the sides of her arms and kept those dark eyes fixed on Charles.

  He helped Claude relocate Ross to a sturdy wooden chair and clapped his hands clean on his jeans. “Why would I purposely bring a child into that world when I’m trying to steal my siblings away from it?”

  She jammed her hands into her apron pockets and stared at him some more, unnerving him in a way no one else could. Finally, she said, “You know I can’t stay mad at you. I do worry about what kind of relationship you can possibly have with someone you keep so much information from. I really do wish you two would get it together. She only has, what, sixty years left in her?”

  “Actually—” He opened his mouth to correct her on that issue, but Claude gave him a discreet pinch on the back, silencing him. Telepathically, he conveyed, Careful. I can’t promise I can do it. I’ve been looking into it ever since John got with Ariel, but I don’t want to play with untested magic. That’s a spell even my maman hadn’t done.

  According to Agatha, there was a way for immortals to bind their mortal mates to them so their life spans were linked. She knew how to go about it, but was forbidden to share the information. Charles happened to know the meddlesome biddy stuck her nose everywhere else, so why fucking not there?

  Surely you can find out from someone how to do it, he said to Claude.

  Oh, sure. I know exactly who to ask.

  Who?

  You know. I’ve been pleading with you to bring her through for months.

  My mother? Fuck you. No way was he ready for that. Maybe he’d never be ready.

  “What are you two talking about?” Clarissa tossed a roll of electrical tape to Claude, and he bent and wrapped it around Ross’s ankles and the chair legs. The tape would have to do until Claude could cast protective spells on the doors and windows.

  Charles pushed up an eyebrow. My answer hasn’t changed.

  Come on. She did it with her own husband, so she’d know.

  And he died when she did. Maybe she won’t be so willing to pass on that information.

  The dead are generally capable of dispensing information without judgment. You know that. Maman has said it repeatedly.

  Okay, okay. He paced in the narrow aisle near the table. Generally, you said. You do realize that when she died, we weren’t on good terms, right? Because of that whole my-father-killed-her thing?

  So?

  “You remember what I said about Agatha?” Clarissa asked. “Do I need to add a second body to that windsweeping request?” She leaned sideways and looked past Charles to Claude.

  Claude grinned, shook his head, and stood. “I swear we’re not trying to be duplicitous. We’re merely pondering the names of certain experts that could speak intelligently on the issue of Charles’s power.”

  “Oh yeah? Who’d you come up with? I’d like to meet ’em. I could always use a few new tricks in my demon-fighting arsenal. No offense to either of you.”

  Charles put up his hands. “None taken. I’m certain she’d be an elucidating influence,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Claude tilted his head toward the door, and Clarissa strode toward it with Charles on her heels.

  “The problem will be stabilizing conditions so we can bring her here. I’ll need to gather some supplies.” He slammed the trailer door and easily caught the padlock Clarissa tossed at him.

  “Why do I get the feeling this is a magic trick I shouldn’t approve of?” she asked.

  Charles scoffed. “It’s because you’re smart. Sometimes the dead don’t like playing professor.”

  He took off toward the house, and bile rose in his chest. Maybe his mother could give Claude the spell, but what words would she have for the son who had been swayed by power and lust a century ago? What would she say to the son who was the product of a coupling that should have never happened? To the son who hadn’t been there when his father’s spite overtook his self-restraint, and he’d snuffed out a bright light so no one else could see it?

  She had the right to hate him, and maybe he deserved it. But being who she was, maybe she wasn’t even capable of hate. She was certainly capable of feeling disappointment, though.

  To Charles, maybe that was even worse.

  • • •

  First came the panic, then the relief. It washed over Marion in a surge of pleasure nearly as intense as the real thing.

  But this wasn’t real. The fingers digging into her backside, holding her still as their owner worked his perfect body over her, weren’t solid.

  They were phantom fingers. This hedonistic surge was certainly all in her head, but it was the closest thing she’d gotten to intimacy in seven months. She’d only had Charles for a day, and that had been long enough to addict her on his brand of passion.

  The dream fell away, disintegrating at the seams before she found her peak.

  Unsatisfied, she sighed, turned to the left side that had become her favorite since she’d ballooned into a water-retaining blimp, and opened her eyes.

  She startled when her gaze met a bright blue one in the dim light.

  Charles leaned forward in the armchair he must have dragged from the hallway and tented his fingers. “Late for a nap, isn’t it?”

  Pressing her hand against her chest and breathing deeply to calm her racing heart, she closed her eyes again. “I don’t keep a schedule. It’s not like I have work commitments or anywhere I need to be on time.”

  “I see.”

  “Did you do that? The dream?”

  “I’m an incubus. I have lots of tricks.”

  “You’re an evil man, Charles Edison.”

  He could at least let her have the damned orgasm.

  He shrugged. “I try not to be.”

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Nearly five.”

  “Shit. Not to be rude or anything, but what are you doing here? I thought you were busy with Claude.”

  The words came out sounding petulant, which she hated herself for, but she wouldn’t take them back. He’d seen her and Ariel safely home from the beach, and then had vanished along with John and Julia. He’d said he had something important to take care of, and who the hell knew what that meant for a cambion? What he did in his free time wasn’t really any of her business, although she couldn’t help feeling like she’d gotten the short end of the stick in the relationship. She was on lockdown and pregnant with a sort of potential
ly supernatural wunderkind. He could go anywhere he damn well pleased and was practically indestructible. Hardly seemed fair.

  If he noticed her surly tone, he didn’t address it. He brought his right ankle up to his left knee and drummed his fingertips atop his jean-covered calf. Long, capable fingers that she knew from experience were strong and unyielding. Fingers that had in her dream held her taut in his embrace. But that had been just a dream. In her dream, he could touch her, and she didn’t have a big belly in the way.

  “Are you feeling well?” he asked softly. “Your cheeks just went red.”

  She swallowed, cleared her throat, and propped herself up onto her left elbow. “I’m fine. I thought I might have forgotten about an appointment, but I have my days mixed up.”

  He chuckled. “An appointment with the television, perhaps?”

  Yeah, she bet he knew the exact cause of her distress. He’d caused it, after all.

  “I’m sure that’s easy for you, blurring days together,” he said.

  “You’re right. I keep track of the days by the prime-time television schedule. That’s pretty pathetic.”

  “It is, actually. Would you like to have dinner?”

  “What?” What an odd thing to ask out of the blue. They were barely on speaking terms, but—she wanted them to be. She kept wanting to blame him for every damn thing, but he hadn’t made the mess. Like her, he was just swept up in it. She was starting to believe that more and more.

  “I’m not terribly hungry, but what’d Momma make?”

  “I don’t think she’s cooking.”

  “Oh.” She sat the rest of the way up and pushed the covers down to her thighs. “That’s not like her. Did she go out and get caught up in something? I’d better go see what’s in the pantry.” She started to tilt herself off the bed, but he put up his hands.

  “No need. How would you like a change of scenery?”

  “Two in two days? What are you trying to do, lull me into a sense of calm and contentedness before you suck my soul dry?”

  His expression had been serene before, but now his lips flattened into a tight line. His grip tightened around his calf so hard his knuckles turned white.