“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“No.” The bolt on the front door slid into place as if by an invisible hand behind her.
“What the hell are you?” she whispered.
He grabbed her bag off the back of the chair, gave it to her, then took hold of her hand again and led her to the back door. “I’m a demon hunter, a warrior.”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “A demon hunter?”
He dipped his chin and tilted his head to the side, taking her in. The movement reminded her of something she’d watched on Animal Planet, and left an invisible trail tingling across her skin. She sucked in a sharp breath, and his gaze darted up to hers. It was intense, probing, and—God—hot. Warmth enveloped her, and to her complete horror, her body responded to the heat in those eerie green eyes. The sensation heightened further by her acute awareness of his rough, dry palm against hers.
His nostrils flared with a rough indrawn breath, and his eyes seemed to darken oddly.
Jesus, he was big, and there was something about him so, so damn wild and terrifying, like there was a monster lurking underneath, and yet she realized as scared as she was, she had this weird compulsion to trust this…this demon hunter, this warrior.
He cleared his throat and motioned to the parked cars. “Which is yours?”
She pointed out her red Honda Integra. “Where are we going?”
“Give me the keys.”
Digging around in her purse, she found the keys and handed them over. He led her around to the passenger side and she climbed in. He jogged around, adjusted the seat back as far as it would go, and squeezed in behind the steering wheel. It didn’t make much difference; his impossibly long legs were still scrunched up in her small car.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked again.
His long fingers flexed around the steering wheel several times and she thought his fierce expression softened a fraction. “I’m taking you somewhere you’ll be protected, until you’re capable of cloaking and controlling your powers. Somewhere safe.” He started the car and pulled out into the quiet street.
Powers?
“There must be another way. This whole thing is crazy. I can’t just disappear. What about my business? My home?” How could he expect her to leave everything she’d worked so hard to build?
“I know it’s hard, but it’s not safe for you here anymore.” His voice was hard as granite, leaving no room for argument.
Was this really happening? The coastal landscape tilted and warped through the windscreen. “So you just expect me to…to leave and never come back?” she whispered.
“You don’t have a choice. Do you have family, friends here?”
There he went, randomly changing subject again, catching her off guard.
“Do you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Um, no, not really. No one close anyway.”
“Good. That’s good. No one to miss you, not for a while at least.”
No, she didn’t have anyone. Her parents were gone, and the few friends she had throughout her life—well, acquaintances really—had never stuck around.
It wasn’t much, but it was her life, and she didn’t want to just walk away.
The reality of her situation hit with sudden and frightening force. Her head swam and her throat constricted like invisible hands were trying to squeeze the life out of her. Gripping the door handle, she struggled for oxygen. Black spots dotted her vision. She was in the grip of a full-on panic attack and moments away from passing out.
“I—I can’t…” Her lungs felt bound. She tried to take a breath, but a tight band gripped her chest. The car jerked to an abrupt stop, her shoulders taken roughly. Hands moved up to cup her face, forcing her to look up.
“Christ, you need to calm down. You’re doing yourself harm, demi.” His thumb gently brushed back and forth across her jaw, and she focused on the contact. One big hand moved down to clutch hers, enveloping her fingers. Warmth radiated from him, making her skin tingle.
“Take slow, deep breaths. That’s it. In and out. Good girl.” His tone was gentle, and after a few minutes of listening to the deep, raspy timbre of his voice, her heart rate slowed. That intoxicating, spicy scent hit, and she gasped down a much-needed deep breath. It overrode the fear and somehow broke through the terror.
His expression was still hard, but his jaw wasn’t clamped shut and his eyes had softened slightly.
She pulled her hand from his, needing space. The way he affected her was almost as terrifying as the man himself. “My name’s Eve. Not Demi.”
“Okay,” he said, watching her carefully.
The hand that had been holding hers dropped to one of his jean-clad monster thighs, and he rubbed it against the denim like he was trying to rub her touch away.
“Why do you keep calling me that? Why are you here and what’s happening to me? Please, I don’t understand any of this.”
He searched her features for several long seconds, unnerving her. “There is a reason you can hear people’s thoughts. You are more…you are…different.” He shifted in his seat. “Demi is not a name. It’s what you are. A demi-demon. Half human and half demon.”
What?
She shook her head in denial.
No.
How can that be?
Yes, she’d always known there was something different about her, in the last few months more than ever. But a demon? No.
She shook her head. “Demons aren’t real. They don’t exist.” The logical side of her brain tried to argue, but she’d seen one with her own two eyes, hadn’t she? Right there in her shop.
The memory of that disgusting creature caused her to shudder. He was telling the truth. There was no denying it, no matter how badly she wanted to. Not now.
She hadn’t let herself believe she was truly hearing people’s thoughts, but the voices, the words that flew through her mind, they hadn’t been hers. And after last night with Eric, she knew it was the truth.
“Mrs. Jensen was a demon?”
“No. Orthon have the ability to take on other forms.”
This new bit of information threatened to throw her back into full panic mode. “Orthon? I’m one of those awful monsters?”
He took her hand awkwardly, again like he didn’t really want to touch her. “They’re a special breed, born trackers. They’re lower level demons, the vermin of the demon world. You’re not one of them.”
“What am I?” she forced out, not even sure she wanted to know.
“I can only guess. But your sire was most likely a Pathos demon. They sense and are drawn to high emotion, usually suffering.”
“Oh God.” Her stomach churned. “Will I…will that happen to me?”
“No, Eve.” Her name rumbled from his chest in that deep, coarse voice, and she shivered. “Demon DNA mutates when mixed with human. In your case, you developed telepathy.” He trapped her with his stare. “Your power makes you very rare in the demon world. No full-blooded demons possess your ability. And only a handful of demi have ever been born with your gift.”
“That’s why I’m being hunted?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t a gift. It’s a curse.”
“You’ll learn to embrace it,” he said with certainty.
The idea of living with this thing without going insane—she wasn’t convinced. “And you’re here to…what? Protect me?”
“Yes. And I promise I won’t let anything hurt you. But you have to do as I say.”
She didn’t have much choice but to trust him. “Are you a demon, too?”
“I’m half demon.”
“So you’re half human, like me?”
“No.”
Okay, by the cold don’t-even-go-there look on his face, he wasn’t about to share. That was fine with her. The fact that there were demons running around in the first place, and that she was one of them, was more than enough to take in for now.
“Your name? You haven’t told me
your name.” A sudden need to know in whose hands she’d placed her life seemed extremely important.
His throat worked before he spoke, Adam’s apple sliding up and down his thick throat. “Lazarus.”
Tingles danced across her scalp at the way he said it, the sound of that voice. She started feeling breathless again for some unknown reason. She cleared her throat. “Lazarus,” she repeated, letting it roll off her tongue, liking the feel of it. “I suppose I should thank you, then, for helping me.”
“That’s not necessary.” He looked more than a little uncomfortable.
Why should her thanks make him uncomfortable? The urge to reach out and touch him, to soothe the frown lines creasing his brow was almost too hard to resist.
Eve ignored the crazy impulse. Despite his having saved her life and calming her during her panic attack, she couldn’t let her guard down. Lazarus continued to watch her closely, silently. No doubt afraid she’d flip out again. The silence pressed in around her. The only sounds were coming from the street, muffled inside the enclosed space of her car.
That’s all.
Her mind was utterly silent.
“I can’t hear you,” she whispered.
A dark brow lifted in question.
“Your thoughts, I mean.”
“I’m immune. My job is to find your kind when they come into their powers, get them to safety, make sure they’re not captured. I couldn’t do my job if, for example, you could hear what was going on in my head right now.”
The look he aimed at her was so different from the fierce expression he’d had plastered on his face since walking into her shop, and what she saw in his eyes should have terrified her. But alarmingly, what she felt was quite the opposite.
“I can see how that could be a problem.” The tightness in her shoulders eased despite all the unguarded intensity he was throwing her way. “I have to admit, the silence is nice.”
Although just then it would have been useful to know what he was thinking. Her mind had been crowded for the last month, full of things she could have happily gone the rest of her life never knowing. She’d been positive she was losing her mind.
“Until you’re able to control your power, and as long you’re beside me, I can block it for you.”
“You can do that?”
He dipped his chin.
That kind of freaked her out. What else could he do? “So you’re pretty powerful, huh?”
Another nod.
She glanced out the window, took in the familiar scenery, and pain sliced through her. “What will happen to my store, my house?”
“Eventually we’ll set you up with everything you need to start a new life.” His gaze skittered away. “Maybe once you’ve mastered your power you can have another book store somewhere,” he said, as if that would fix everything.
“But not here.” Her heart squeezed. Leaving her store and never coming back to this place, a place where she’d created a happy, if lonely existence, physically hurt. Once again her life was out of her hands and she was at the mercy of someone else. “Can I get some of my things?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
Eve turned back to him, desperate for him to understand, and reached out, resting her hand on his forearm. She sucked in a breath as little tingles shot up her arm. Lazarus’s eyes flared and the muscles under her fingers bunched hard.
His gaze dropped, zeroing on where she touched him.
She quickly pulled her hand back, curling her fingers into a fist. “Y-you can’t expect me to just leave everything, to just walk away without a backward glance.” His gaze lifted back to hers, intense, his mouth a hard line. He was about to refuse her again. “Please, Lazarus.”
He continued to stare at her, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. Finally, he muttered under his breath, “Shit.” He started the car again and pulled into the street. “We have to be quick.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you.”
They pulled into her driveway a short time later.
“Wait here.” Lazarus took the keys from the ignition and opened the door, but paused, turning back. “And, Eve, don’t try to run. You’d be putting yourself at risk, and I’d have to chase after you. That would piss me off. You don’t want to do that.”
No. She most certainly did not want to do that. He didn’t move, continuing to watch her, she guessed waiting for some kind of confirmation from her. Unable to do anything else, she gave a jerky nod. With that, he climbed out, jogged up to the house, and went inside. He was gone less than a minute before he reappeared and motioned her in. She got out and hurried up the path. As soon as she stepped inside, he ushered her toward the bedroom.
“Be quick.” Somehow he managed to make his rough voice sound almost gentle.
Sadness overwhelmed her as she entered her room. Her throat tightened, tears threatening to escape, but she swallowed them back down ruthlessly. She couldn’t indulge in her misery just yet because once the pain broke free, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to rein it back in.
Slipping off Lazarus’s jacket, she laid it on the bed, grabbed a bag from the top shelf of her closet, and got to work stuffing in as many of her clothes as she could.
She was coming out of the bathroom when she spotted the thick stack of photos on her dresser. Among them was her favorite, taken two weeks before her parents died in a house fire. Whoever had taken it had captured so much joy, so much love between them it was still hard to look at all these years later.
God, she missed them.
From the doorway, Lazarus cleared his throat. She glanced up. Tension lined his brow and creased the corners of his eyes and mouth, conveying the need for haste without saying a word.
“Right, sorry,” she murmured. “I was just…my parents.” She held up the photos.
He moved closer and looked at the pictures over her shoulder. “I thought you didn’t have a family?”
“They died when I was a kid.”
He frowned, those creases between his eyes coming back. “Who took over your care?”
“My aunt took me in for a little while, but they passed me on to someone else pretty quickly. I spent my childhood being passed from one foster family to the next.” She turned to look up at him. “It was the demon thing, wasn’t it?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It happens sometimes, humans sensing it in children, that there’s something different about them, something that keeps them at a distance. Usually in children who end up with powers like yours.”
“Like mine?”
“All powers are different, some are just more potent.” He looked down at her, expression softening slightly. “They wouldn’t have understood their…aversion to you.”
Eve smiled at his attempt to sugarcoat the fact that her aunt and her family had hated to be around her, the same for the foster families she lived with. It had been hard—God, it had never gotten any easier—and once or twice throughout her life, in her darkest moments, she’d even contemplated ending it. “I always thought it was because I was adopted, because I wasn’t their blood that they sent me away. I guess I can’t blame them for their reaction to me now. They had a demon in their home.”
It explained the changes in Eric, why he’d acted the way he had around her. As a kid, she hadn’t understood why nobody liked her. She’d spent all her time trying to please people. Had thought if she was a good girl, if she did as she was told and never made waves that maybe they would love her, that they’d keep her. It never happened. She’d spent those lonely years sitting at the edge of the room, watching from the outside while everyone else had fun—usually with a bag of cookies in her hand. Food became her comfort. Eating something delicious made her feel good, filled the emotional void in her life. Still did to a certain extent.
When she looked back up, the tenderness softening Lazarus’s expression startled her.
“They were assholes,” he said. ”Whatever way you look at it, they shouldn’t
have treated you that way. I don’t give a fuck how they felt.”
She realized she’d blurted everything out loud, about her loneliness, her issues with food. Her face heated. “It’s okay…I…” She swallowed whatever she’d been about to say, then a thought occurred to her. “Why didn’t my parents have the same aversion to me? They loved me, Lazarus, I know they did.”
He watched her carefully. “My guess? At least one of your adoptive parents must have had demon blood. They would have easily sensed it in you as an infant.”
“They were like me?” Stunned, she stared at the picture in her hand.
“That’s my guess.”
Would they have told her who she was? Helped her through this transition? God, how different her life would have been.
Carefully, she placed the photos in her bag. “I know this sounds crazy, but knowing that, somehow it…helps.” She looked up at the big male standing in front of her and smiled. “Thank you.”
He stilled, unnaturally so. His gaze dropped to her mouth for several long seconds then darted back to her eyes. He looked conflicted, God, tormented.
Her hand lifted, was moving to him before she knew what she was doing. She wanted—no, needed—to touch him, had the insane compulsion to try and ease the torment she saw in him, to make some kind of connection.
Impossibly, he stilled further when she pressed her hand to his biceps. He was hard as steel beneath her palm, like he’d been honed from marble. And like last time, something happened between them. Tiny zaps of electricity seemed to flow from his body to hers, lifting goose bumps all over her skin.
His eyes looked different, had somehow changed. She felt…God, trapped, unable to look away from the luminous, swirling pools of emerald. The color flickered dark then light, like a flashlight being switched on and off behind his irises.
She moved closer.
He shook his head, silently telling her to stay back. “We have to go,” he ground out.
Captivated, almost mesmerized by the unearthly green staring down at her, Eve jumped and cried out in alarm when her phone started ringing. Lazarus’s big frame went statue still. The vibrant emerald depths holding her frozen darkened, slowly eclipsed by midnight, causing the whites of his eyes to stand out in stark relief against the ebony that now completely covered the once vivid color.
Knight's Redemption (Knights of Hell Book 1) Page 4