Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series
Page 46
His body tensed next to hers and his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“She said you bought me a ring.”
He closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that. I did, and she said it was white-trashy, whatever that means. She told me to take it back and try again. I … haven’t yet. I guess I’m not good with jewelry.”
“Well, what was wrong with it? Did it have an adjustable band and diamond chips or something?”
“No, it was a real diamond. It was big. I guess she thought it looked fake.”
“Giveittome,” she said in a quick, jumbled blur.
His expression was so startled, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I mean, if you want. You let me decide if it’s white-trashy.”
“Okay. I’ll dig it out later. Hey.” He gave her a nudge with his right arm, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“How do you feel about the surname Thanos?”
“It’s all right, I guess. Why?”
“It was my original surname. I changed it in 1978 after I staged my death.”
“You’re reverting?”
“I think it’s time.”
“I like it. Charles Thanos. Ruby Thanos. Has a certain quality. Like, a certain yacht-owning quality.”
“You want a yacht?”
“Maybe. Do I get to register it under the name Marion Thanos?”
A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I thought you were attached to Wilder.”
“I was waiting for something better to come along.” He lifted his gaze from the now-slumbering Ruby and turned it toward Marion. She picked her head up from his shoulder. “What?” she asked.
“You really want to keep me?” He blew out a breath, turned her hand over, and laced his fingers through it. “I’m a mess,” he said. “I don’t know what normal means anymore. I haven’t been living normal. I’ve been a hobo for too long.”
“Me too, remember? Foster homes? Truck?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Do you miss it?”
She had to think about it. Initially, she’d griped about being so constrained on her grandmother’s property, but then it’d burgeoned into a little community, and a lot of people kept sticking their necks out for her just so she’d get a taste of the freedom she’d enjoyed for so many years.
This was her lot in life.
Charles squeezed her fingers and brought her hand up to his lips for a kiss. Such a small gesture, but it sent tingles through her arm and down her spine.
That wasn’t demonic magic, just plain old mutual attraction.
Maybe her lot in life wasn’t so bad.
“No, I guess I don’t,” she said on a whisper.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next with your parents being here and Pop being in his funk.”
“We’ll keep watching each other’s backs.”
“Good. I thought we could take your truck out for a spin. I haven’t been in one for a year.” He grinned as she leaned in and brushed her lips across his.
“Really? But what about—”
“Like I said. The boys and I made a mess for Pop. I think he and his friends will back off for a little while to regroup. I think they’re afraid of us, and they should be.”
“Hot.”
He laughed. “I love how adaptable you are.”
“It’s in my DNA, I guess. Love anything else about me?”
“I love everything about you, and you in general.”
“Try harder, Cupid.”
“Fair enough. I love you, Marion.”
“Good.”
“Aren’t you going to say it back?”
“You made me wait a year. I can’t make you wait five seconds when we have forever?”
“Who told you about that?”
“Claude. You boys and your goddamned secrets.”
“Forever, then.” He counted softly against her cheek.
He only got to three before she said it back.
About the Author
Holley Trent is a Carolina girl gone west. Raised in rural coastal North Carolina, she currently resides on the Colorado Front Range with her family. She writes sassy contemporary and quirky paranormal romances set in her home state.
She’s hard at work writing other stories set in the Sons of Gulielmus world, including one for the mysterious Creole cambion Chaude (and maybe even a shorter work about a certain excitable werewolf).
See Holley’s complete backlist of paranormal and contemporary romances at her website, www.holleytrent.com. When she’s not on deadline, she boldly tweets under the handle @holleytrent.
A Demon Bewitched
Sons of Gulielmus, Book 3
Holley Trent
Avon, Massachusetts
Copyright © 2014 by Holley Trent.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.
www.crimsonromance.com
ISBN 10: 1-4405-8243-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8243-1
eISBN 10: 1-4405-8242-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8242-4
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123RF/Rehan Qureshi
To my husband, who may or may not have lent his name to a certain hillbilly werewolf.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
If Claude Fortier had been a typical man, he wouldn’t have seen the punches and slaps coming.
A typical man wouldn’t have lost count way back in the 1860s of how many fights he’d had to carefully extricate himself from. Fighting men was too easy. Hurting them was too easy, and he didn’t even have to use his magic to do it. He could probably put a fist through his opponent’s skull without too much effort.
He wasn’t fighting a man this time, though.
The angry witch boldly swinging at his head was very much a woman. To the best of his recollection, he’d never tussled with a woman. For that matter, he’d never come to blows in a country-western bar’s parking lot, either. He was far more likely to be found haunting one of North Carolina’s few strip clubs. The music tended to be much better than the “I love God, America, my truck, and beer (in that order)” tunes played at joints like Rooster’s. However, strip club patrons had a higher-than-average tendency to pick a fight when Claude suggested that they should, perhaps, keep their fucking hands to themselves. The dancers didn’t like being touched.
The irony wasn’t lost on him
that it was the incubus in the audience cautioning restraint. Honor wasn’t a catalogued sex demon trait, but a few had consciences. Claude was one of those few.
He laughed and leaned back to avoid a wild punch. “Well, goddamn, chéri. You’re really trying to lay it on me, huh?”
She growled.
“Save it for the bedroom.”
She swung again, grunting as she missed. “You wish. How about you stand still and make it easier for me?”
“Not today.” He stepped sideways and narrowly avoided her sweeping kick, whistling low. “Damn. I bet you could have me black and blue in all the ways I like. Just ask nicely, chéri. Maybe I’ll oblige you.”
She froze, and the creases in her forehead deepened slightly. “What?”
Thirty. She had to be around there. He’d been following her for weeks, from the time his prescient brother Charles had told him, “She’s back,” but this was the first time he’d seen her up close. Well, this version of her. The last time he’d known her, she’d been a young Creole woman named Laurette and they’d shared a home in 1843 New Orleans. Their love had been passionate, but far too short. He’d thought with her back that they had another chance—but this woman obviously wasn’t his Laurette. Sweet Laurette hadn’t been a witch, and she sure as shit hadn’t had a swing like a prizefighter.
Laurette hadn’t been a fighter of any sort, to tell the truth, and his inner caveman had liked that about her. This chick, though? She wouldn’t know sweet if it bit her on her well-apportioned ass.
Tuning back into the here and now, he shrugged in response. “I believe in being up front.” She didn’t look like his Laurette, but shit, the body she was in was fine. The way she pursed her full lips as she considered him made a certain neglected body part of his stand up and wave. He said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for steering him clear of the skinny jeans trend. His junk had already endured enough torture. Celibacy was a bitch.
“You crept up so you could make a crude pass at me?”
He tried to smooth his expression into a mask of trustworthiness. He’d had a lot of practice at that in the past two hundred-something years. Demons, or half-demons in his case, weren’t generally trustworthy sorts. Add his witch half to the mix, and he should have been born with a Caution blinker installed in his forehead. Instead, he’d gotten blue eyes that turned red when he drew on his magic. He was pretty sure they were blue at the moment. He hadn’t wanted to ensorcell her, just talk to her. That talking thing was going so well.
“I didn’t creep up on you. In fact, I very audibly said excuse me.” He leaned in and flicked at the small headphones dangling from her neck. He pulled his hand away before her swat could connect. Scrappy little—
He ground his teeth. “Maybe you shouldn’t walk into dark parking lots with your earbuds in. You should be able to hear what’s going on around you.”
Her dark eyes narrowed. “Maybe I wear them to discourage strangers from initiating unwelcome conversation. Some men just won’t take the hint. You think I haven’t noticed you’ve been here every night for weeks? Creepy.”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and stared at her. Apparently, his slow and gentle tactic had backfired. His plan was to reveal his witch magic to her gradually so she’d approach him, curious but comfortable. She seemed blind to it—or maybe she didn’t give a shit. He could take a hint.
“Okay,” he said, taking a step back in concession. He was growing weary of the whole exchange. Whatever curiosity he’d had about not-Laurette was waning by the second. She couldn’t possibly be his mate. Charles had gotten it wrong. “You don’t want to have a conversation? Suit yourself.”
“Really?” She packed a shitload of incredulity into those two—no, three—flat syllables.
He barely managed to suppress his snort. The accents in North Carolina were so different from region to region. He’d heard a lot of them during his decades in the state, but he couldn’t quite peg hers beyond the fact she wasn’t from the mountains.
“Bullshit.” She reached into her purse, and all he needed was a glimpse of the plastic to know her intent. Shy of decapitation, she couldn’t do him any major harm, but if he were going to be forced to inhale chemicals, he’d at least like a nice contact buzz or nicotine hit. Pepper spray, unfortunately, wasn’t formulated to have that side effect.
She aimed it square at his face, and he feinted left, weaved right, grabbed her around the generous thighs he’d been ogling for the better part of the evening, and hauled her up to his left shoulder.
“I was going to walk away, chéri,” he said through clenched teeth. “I was going to go and let your attitude keep you company, but you need to learn to save the fighting for when it counts.”
“Pride wounded? Poor baby.” She brought her elbow down hard on his back.
The blow knocked the wind out of his lungs, and he stumbled as he gasped for air, but somehow managed not to drop her.
Grunting, he started toward the back of the country-western bar’s parking lot, swerving a bit with each step as she flailed atop him.
“Put me down, or so help me, God, I’ll—” She shifted on his shoulder again, but this time he anticipated the blow and tossed her onto the grassy strip between the deep ditch that acted as a barrier between the bar and the sorghum field next door, and the concrete of the parking lot.
She fell with an oomph, and scrambled onto all fours as he backed up, predicting the offensive strategy she’d take next. Sure enough, she jumped to her feet, swiped her hands through the, air and pushed magic at him.
It was probably meant to hurt, at least a little. He feigned a yawn, patting his mouth, as she groaned and tried that little trick again.
His skin tickled where her magic touched, and he should have been angry that her reflex had been to fight and not talk. She’d come after him like a wildcat on the offensive, and all this time he’d been trying to be a fucking gentleman. He’d given her space, hadn’t stalked her.
At least, not closely.
He wasn’t angry, though. He’d never stopped loving her, even after her death all those years ago. In fact, he’d never forgiven himself for how she’d died.
He’d been back in New Orleans after traveling for several weeks and as was her custom, she’d taken him to her bed to welcome him home. The next morning he’d stepped out, intending to fetch news and breakfast, and when he returned, her blood had turned the white featherbed red. His father, the demon Gulielmus, had been standing in the dark corner, wiping blood off the sword he’d had from his old angel days.
“Get back to work, Scout,” Papa had said in an even, calm voice before he disappeared, the way he was prone to.
He’d left Claude the mess to clean up, but Claude couldn’t. He’d sat there on the bed, moaning and rocking, his own clothes soaked through with his lover’s blood, until his mother arrived.
Maman had led him away, saying nothing, and then set fire to Laurette’s little house while the neighbors watched, waiting with buckets of water in case the fire tried to jump. The fire was part of the magic. What it was supposed to do, Claude didn’t know, and Maman had refused to say.
It was only after the embers stopped glowing and Claude had stopped raging and bellowing that his mother said in the French she adored so much, “People who die like this don’t always stay dead, boy.”
At the time, that hadn’t helped. The only woman he’d ever loved was dead, and he’d had no choice but to toe the line for his father. He’d seduce women and taint souls for Hell, because what choice did he really have? Who would Papa kill next to make his point?
Claude had enough guilt, and he didn’t want more.
“You should have felt that,” the woman in front of him said now, drawing his attention back to her. She stared down at her shaking hands and then up at Claude again. “That wasn’t just a warning shot.”
He shrugged again and, taking a few slow, cautious steps forward, he kept his gaze locked o
n her tormented face. She may have been trying to be brave, but the roundness of her dark eyes and her ragged breaths through parted lips projected her fear of him. There it was. He knew there had to be some vulnerability in there somewhere.
“Your magic won’t work against me,” he said. “I’m generally immune to it.”
Unfortunately for her, the reverse didn’t apply. He was too strong. He could shuck off most minor magic without thought. Now that she was up close, he had a better reading of her capabilities. She possessed quite a bit of power for a natural witch.
“You … you know about magic?” She swallowed and then pushed to standing. She moved sideways, keeping her front to Claude but moving away from him. “My grandmother told me this would happen one day. She warned me. Said there were people in the world who could kill me without even touching me, and I didn’t believe her. When I was a kid, I thought she was just trying to scare me and my sister into keeping our guards up. I never fell for it, but why do I get the sneaking suspicion now that you’re one of those people?”
His mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me? You don’t know a witch when you see one?” He’d been putting out subtle tendrils of magic for weeks, and she hadn’t noticed it? He felt hers. It seemed to crackle under her skin, compelling him to touch her—to know her. But that’d be a dangerous thing for a woman he had no intention of keeping. This woman may have had Laurette's soul, but she obviously wasn’t for him.
“Um, no. Kind of like I can’t tell whether someone’s straight or gay just by seeing them.” She kept moving, muttering her disbelief under her breath, but he didn’t follow. Her words had been seriously jarring. Like recognized like. She should have recognized the witches around her and felt magic coming off other paranormal types, too, even if she couldn’t categorize it at first.
“Merde.”
She held a key fob up and pressed a button. Across the lot, a tinny horn honked and the lights on a silver convertible flashed. She gave him one long, assessing look, and turned her back to him to walk the diagonal toward the little vehicle.