by Linda Wisdom
“Forged, I’m sure.” Maggie had to wiggle her fingers because of the magick that threatened to erupt from the tips.
“I don’t need forged papers, Margit.”
Maggie prided herself on not giving away her emotions even when she was blindsided by a sexy half-demon. This was one of those times when she had to dig down deep to keep her expression serene.
Declan’s black eyes smoldered with an eerie silver sheen. “You’re more than an everyday witch, Maggie O’Malley.” He paused. “Tell me something. How did a witch with Nordic looks like yours come up with a name straight from the Emerald Isle?”
“My father.” She gave him her usual explanation.
He raised an eyebrow at that. “What was his name?”
Maggie flashed him a blinding smile. “Sven O’Malley.” She stood up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
Declan also stood. “As do I. I was notified that you’re holding one of my people.”
I should have known the female demon belonged to him. Jealousy, party of one.
“That’s not my department.” She looked around until she spied one of the messenger ferrets. “Bickie, would you take Declan over to the holding cells?”
“I’d prefer you to be my guide.” Declan continued, watching her with a heated intensity that flowed over her skin’s surface.
“And I’d prefer a long weekend camping in the Outback. I have a meeting to attend. I should warn you now that the female had to be sedated because she was very agitated.”
She ignored the look of anger on Declan’s face as she looked down at the black ferret whose head whipped back and forth as if he were viewing a tennis match at warp speed. He continued slurping coffee from his tiny to-go mug.
“Have a good day.” Maggie smiled as she sauntered off.
“Dude, you were so lucky,” Bickie told Declan as he led him out of the dining room.
“Why is that?” Declan watched the sun bounce off Maggie’s gilded hair as she crossed the compound.
“Maggie tends to break things or shoot someone when she gets that look on her face. I could tell you stories,” he trilled in his overly caffeinated voice.
The half-demon looked down at what he considered his new best friend. “Really? Such as?” It wasn’t easy to throw a subtle suggestion into a brain moving along at that high a speed, but he soon accomplished it.
And Bickie didn’t stop talking about the comely witch as he led Declan to the holding cells.
***
“The next time we go after a Bloater, someone else will go in… Frebus.” Maggie shot a grim eye toward the blond-furred creature.
“Bloaters don’t like our kind,” he defended himself. “They’d smell me a mile off.”
“So do we,” Meech muttered from the other side of the conference table. “Ever hear of taking a shower or even using cologne other than something that smells like a century-dead skunk?”
“As if you smell any better,” Frebus snarled.
“Boys, boys,” the witch soothed. “If you keep this up, I’ll have to put you both in time-outs. We’ll have playtime later. It’s just that our last three missions have ended up as disasters.”
“Not really. When you consider the end result, they were all successful.” Tita, a tall sultry vampire and the other female on the team, chimed in. Her pale slender fingers were cupped around a mug of blood.
“No loss within our team and no damage. Unless you consider your outfit last night.” Her nose wrinkled with distaste. “Too bad. Now, can we get on with this? Some of us prefer sleeping during daylight hours.”
Since she was several centuries old, Tita could move about indoors from dawn to dusk, but she chose to keep the schedule she’d been forced into when she was first Turned. She specialized in night jobs and hypnosis, and could see perfectly in the dark, which made her a very useful Guard. Not to mention she had her own lethal methods. She leaned back in the dark-red leather chair and crossed her legs, with an evil grin at her colleagues that revealed wickedly sharp fangs.
“I heard that the owner of Damnation Alley is here on the grounds,” Meech brought up. “Do you think he’s going to file a complaint against us for destroying his club?”
Maggie opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. An odd prickling sensation skated along the tops of her arms, leaving her feeling unsettled. She already knew Declan was in the compound, so it wasn’t some witchy warning system.
But she’d bet her favorite Hisshou fixed-blade military knife that her unease had to do with the sexy half-demon. Reposing in tattoo form on her shoulder, Elle offered spidery whisperings that echoed Maggie’s thoughts—trust an arachnid with mating on her mind to be alert to those particular sensations.
“Maggie?”
She straightened up at the sound of Tita’s voice.
“Sometime today? Tick tock.” Tita tapped her watch. “Fine, last night was a cluster fuck. No one’s fault.” She glanced sideways at Frebus, who slid further down in his chair, trying unsuccessfully to minimize his seven-foot furry self.
“Perhaps a little. We all know that outside intel can be sketchy or not entirely accurate. We need to have one of the researchers look into the Bloater communities. There are clearly things we don’t understand about them. That way, if we come up against another, we’ll know better how to handle it.”
Damn, I should have been the one to say that!
“I don’t understand why this particular Bloater suddenly popped up on our radar,” Meech said. “They always stay pretty much to themselves.”
“Easy. The so-called ‘blob from the swamp’ had been seen cruising the human communities for the previous couple of weeks,” Maggie said. “Dogs and cats were missing, and fear escalated when a four-year-old boy disappeared. Luckily, he was found a couple of hours later. The Bloater had nothing to do with that, but we needed to neutralize this one before something worse really did happen. Anyone know how we got the tip it would be at Damnation Alley?”
Frebus studied the contents of the file folder in front of him. “The call was anonymous and couldn’t be traced.”
“Then we need to find out if that was the only Bloater causing trouble,” Maggie announced, getting up from the table. “Frebus, you put in the request for a researcher. Meech, it’s your turn to write up the report for Mal.” The creature groaned. “Consider it safer than pissing off Reesa any more.”
“I’m willing to offer a personal apology to Declan,” Tita volunteered with one of her patented smiles that were guaranteed to make a male offer up a vein.
“That’s been done,” Maggie said crisply.
“O’Malley, to the holding cells.” Mal’s voice boomed from the speakers implanted in the walls. “Now.”
“Everything is now up to him.” And she knew just why her boss was demanding her presence there.
It all had to do with a demon named Declan.
***
Declan paced the room with the impatience of his kind. The last place he wanted to be was in the Hellion Guard compound. But Snips’s news that Anna had been brought here was enough to have him out of bed and in his car in seconds.
Not that the idea of seeing Maggie again didn’t have its charm. The witch intrigued him, and he intended to find out just why she had invaded his dreams and his very being.
“As I told you, she won’t awaken until late tonight,” an elf with large lavender eyes informed him.
He sensed that the elf’s delicate exterior housed a steel-like core. Tough as titanium, just like all Hellion Guards. Just like Maggie.
Except when she smiled up at him after he pointed out the flower—and what was it she had said? Something about new life amid the desolation.
“And she will awaken when I demand she do so. All I have to do is see her,” he said between clenched teeth. He took one step forward into the elf’s personal space. To her credit, she didn’t back down.
He froze when a razor-sharp blade rested against his nec
k and one arm was smoothly pulled behind his back.
“I suggest that the big, bad demon back the Hades up now,” Maggie purred in his ear. “Otherwise, I would be forced to grovel to the brownies so they’d scrub demon blood out of my favorite jeans. And they really hate demon blood.”
Declan knew better than to go up against a Guard, especially when he had other activities in mind for the sexy witch.
“The elf…”
“The elf’s name is Sybil,” Maggie said tautly.
He tightened his jaw. “Sybil explained that Anna had to be sedated. I can awaken her.” He deliberately relaxed his muscles to show he was as nonthreatening as a kitten.
He breathed easier when the knife was removed.
“The sedation used had to be very strong,” Sybil explained.
“And she is mine,” he reminded her. “I want to see Anna now.”
Sybil looked as stubborn as the other two but finally nodded and gestured him out of the room.
Declan felt his temper begin to simmer as Sybil led the way and Maggie walked behind him down a dismal gray hall toward a guarded room at the far end.
“Why is she considered a prisoner?”
“She was a danger to herself. We had no choice but to restrain her,” Sybil told him.
“Anna doesn’t have one violent bone in her body.” The half-demon looked ready to create some violence of his own as his eyes shimmered silver. The temperature rose a good twenty degrees.
Sybil pulled a PDA out of her pocket, tapped the screen a few times, and handed it to Declan.
“Blood! So much blood! Brutality. She must be found for the sacred sacrifice so the evil one may return!” The female demon’s screams seemed to bounce off the walls even as she paced back and forth. Sybil could be seen in a corner in observation mode.
“Who is he, Anna?” The elf’s voice was calm with none of the bite she was known to exhibit when interrogating vicious prisoners.
“The revered one. One who ruled the world to the south.” Anna’s dark eyes glowed with a fervent light. “The Destroyer. The god of destruction.”
“What in Hades is she talking about?” Declan whispered.
“Sounds like she’s talking about someone from your part of the world rather than mine,” Maggie commented.
He pushed the PDA back at Sybil.
“Is Anna under arrest for something?”
She shook her head. “As I told you, she was brought here for her own protection. I know this looks upsetting, but she was better off being taken here than to our hospital, where she would have had to be restrained to a bed.”
“If that was the case, I should have been called. She should have been brought to me, not locked in a cell.” His jaw twitched with the emotions flooding his system. He despised being in a situation that was beyond his control.
“All we knew was that she was a demon. We certainly didn’t know anyone was looking after her,” Sybil said. “We only wanted her kept safe.”
Declan looked through the small window into a room where a slight female body lay unmoving on a narrow iron bed. He pressed his hand against the shatterproof glass. It wouldn’t have taken much power to melt it, and with the way he felt at that moment, he was very tempted to do just that.
He replayed Anna’s cries in his head. She was too delicate to be here. But the alternative was unthinkable. Here, he could protect her.
“I want in there now. I will awaken her.”
“It’s dangerous to interfere with a healer’s work when the patient has been sedated that deeply,” Sybil argued. “Anna’s mind could be damaged if she isn’t handled carefully.”
“Unlock the door, or I will destroy it.” Declan felt the heat and fury flow through his body like molten lava.
Sybil opened her mouth to further protest, but Maggie placed a hand on her arm.
“It’s all right, Syb. Perhaps Anna will be calmer with Declan here.”
Sybil pressed her hand against a metal plate by the door and whispered a few words in her language. A soft click followed her words, and the door silently swung open.
Declan pushed past the women and entered the room. He knelt on one knee by the bed and rested his hand on the sleeping female’s forehead before bending his head and lightly pressing his lips in the same spot. He felt the heat of her skin as bad dreams and fear infected her body.
Anna’s eyes slowly opened. The dark orbs brightened as she recognized him, and she tried to sit up while talking rapidly in their language.
“He wishes to destroy us all. We must stop him!” She clutched at his arms.
“You are safe, little one. I will never let anyone hurt you,” he soothed, wishing he had the knack for providing comfort, but consoling someone wasn’t something he was familiar with.
“Last night she talked about blood and danger,” Sybil said, while she stood nearby.
Anna gasped and gripped Declan tighter.
He stood up and gathered Anna into his arms. “This is over. I’m taking her home.”
“That isn’t possible.” Maggie stood in the doorway.
Declan knew she wouldn’t harm him as long as he had Anna in his arms. No matter what, he considered his charge an innocent.
“We are leaving. There will be no interrogations.” He glared at Sybil, who continued to look serene. “There will be no cells.”
Anna whimpered as the tiny room’s temperature increased. He took a deep breath, and the heat dissipated.
Maggie stepped back and to one side.
Declan left the room with Anna still cradled in his arms.
“We need to talk about this,” Maggie told his departing back and then yelped as flames flared up from her toes. “Hey! These are my favorite boots!”
Declan fervently wished someone would try to stop them as he left the compound with Anna holding on to him. He knew it wouldn’t happen when he heard the elf tell someone they were cleared to leave.
As if that would make a difference. He was getting them out of there no matter what.
“I am sorry,” Anna whispered to him.
“You did nothing wrong.” In a short amount of time, he was outside the compound and tucking Anna into the passenger seat of his BMW. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
“But I’m not.” She curled up into a tiny ball, her bronze-colored hair falling over her face. “You’re not, and I’m so afraid.”
He slipped into the driver’s seat and reached over to cover her hand with his. “Believe me, Anna, you are safe. You are under my care. No one will ever hurt you.” He started up the car, soothed by the sound of the powerful engine.
Anna pulled in a deep breath and exhaled. “She likes you.” Her words were hesitant and shy.
“Who?” He knew even before she replied.
“Maggie, the Guard. She’s very pretty.”
Surprised laughter escaped his lips.
“I think she’d also like to fry me.”
“But you forget that with our kind, that’s an act of love.” Anna arranged herself in the seat to look out the window.
“Perhaps we’d be better off just sending candy and flowers like humans do.”
Chapter 4
“I am so stoked.” Sybil fairly bounced out of Maggie’s venom-red Viper and walked around the hood.
“Sybil, hon. Please don’t say ‘stoked,’” Maggie begged. “It doesn’t suit you.”
She fixed the back strap on one of her plum leather sky-high heels and then shimmied to smooth down her going-out uniform of a black leather skirt barely long enough to cover the essentials and a plum-silk tank top. She was sporting her club look with sparkly gel in her hair to slick it back.
Sybil had chosen a hot-pink strapless dress and had pulled her lavender hair up into an artful twist secured with black lacquered chopsticks that Maggie knew would turn into weapons, if need be. Sybil slung the chain to her tiny black bag over her shoulder.
“I’m not allowing you to spoil my mood. I never get to go to the
edgy clubs,” she complained.
“You might not even like Damnation Alley. Edgy clubs are usually dangerous, and most only like Dark ones coming in.” Maggie passed her hand over the Viper’s hood. “Protect yourself. Allow no one to cross your boundaries, and if so, sic ’em,” she ended with her usual relish for danger.
The car’s response was a throaty growl and a shudder as a dark shimmer overlay the convertible. “Besides, I thought elves and Fae had their share of sinister and edgy clubs.”
Sybil looked away for a moment. “We do, but as a member of the Hellion Guard, I am never welcome. They always think I’m spying on them. If it wasn’t for you, my social life would be woefully pathetic.”
“Pathetic? You date more than I do!” Maggie thought about it. “You’re right. It is pathetic. Most of our social lives revolve around activities at the compound. Sweetheart, you’re a total downer.”
She walked swiftly past the long line waiting to get into the club until she reached the black leather rope and the giant guarding the entrance. Black flames covered the rope, ensuring no one would try to get through without permission. If they tried, they would end up as ash on the cement.
“What makes you think you’re welcome here, Guard witch?” the giant bouncer growled even as he gave Sybil the typical male once-over. She smiled at him, but her eyes glowed with a green fire that sent the ugly giant a step back.
“Wow, where did Declan find you? Talk about someone who’s not a people person,” Maggie remarked. “Not a good way to bring in the business, big boy. You need to work on your conversational skills, because, guess what? I can go wherever I want.” She wiggled her fingers before zapping the rope. The power died in the leather.
“You will not enter.” The giant held up his hand, palm out.
“Shrink him, darling,” Elle advised from her spot on Maggie’s collarbone. The diamond-studded spider glared at him. “I would love to have him in my web. He might last longer than my last male.”
“Patience, pet,” the witch advised. “I’ll find you something inside.” She took a step forward.
“No.” The giant presented himself as a wall with his hand still up.
“Hmm, guess what? I don’t do ‘no.’ And I don’t talk to the hand.” She stared at his palm. “So I suggest you step aside, little man.”