Chapter One
The last place Jackson McKay thought he’d meet his maker was the rugged, snow-covered Himalayans. He slid feetfirst down the steep mountain. Pain pierced his right knee as he ricocheted off boulders. Skeletal shrubs snagged his clothing and tore his arms. His fucking useless arms, as they were currently occupied with a huge-ass Buddhist idol. He slammed his bootheels into the soft ground as he tried to find purchase in the slick slope. No good.
He heard shouts. He didn’t have time to listen as the lip of the Singalila Ridge came rushing toward him. Not too much farther and he’d be flipped out into the deep gorge between the ridge and adjacent mountain, and then it was bye-bye Jackson.
A black leather-clad arm shot into his peripheral vision and snatched at the collar of his jacket. With a wrench that strained neck and back muscles, Jackson came to a forced stop a few inches from the edge. The rigid denim of his coat cut off his air for a moment before his rescuer released him. Jackson flopped backward, lungs expanding as he took deep breaths. He lay on the sun-warmed slope, forcing his heart rate to slow.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he muttered. That had been much too close. He fancied he heard the devil screaming in rage that he’d been cheated of Jackson’s soul.
After lifting his head and squinting into the noonday sun, he dropped his gaze and glared at the gold statue, which stared back at him with blank, innocent eyes. “Hope you enjoyed that, you son of a bitch.”
“Come now, mortal, it is not the idol’s fault you fell.” The melted-dark-chocolate voice poured over him, heating more than his skin. His savior shifted between him and the sunlight bursting through white clouds after days of snow.
Jackson lifted his gaze to the speaker. Because she was haloed by the eye-burning glow, he could only make out the curves of her body and the flash of white teeth which peeked from the slight smile he knew played upon her full lips. The same smile that held a not-so-subtle look of derision when she was around humans. From the cock of her hip and tilt to her head, Jackson read quiet satisfaction.
Yep, the reason he wasn’t flattened like a pancake on the rocks below was because a badass demon had saved his life.
Before he could respond to Mari’s taunt, rattling sounds came from behind him. Pebbles kicked up by Lexi and Mikos’s arrival bounced around and off Jackson before taking a dive into the gorge that yawned like a great beast for something to eat.
“Damn it, Jackson, that was too close.” First to slide to a stop nearby, Lexi stood beside Mari and loomed over him. Lexi peered down and demanded, “What the hell happened?”
“Lexi, my dear, language, please,” chided Mikos.
With an impatient flip of her hand, she waved off her lover’s admonishment, but not before sending Mikos a hungry look that tugged at something deep within Jackson. Not that he wanted that for himself. Hell no. Such sappiness was not for him. Anything he felt now had to do with his near-death experience.
“So what the heck happened?” she continued. “You trip over a rock?”
The dubious note in her voice said she didn’t believe he’d done any such thing. With good reason. They all had skills and talents. His was being quite light on his feet. In his line of work, it paid to be quick and quiet.
“The human seems to believe the idol had something to do with his misfortune,” Mari, the she-demon and former angel—now fallen—drawled.
An eyebrow arched. “Oh?” Lexi said. “How so?”
Lord in Heaven, he wished Mari hadn’t heard him talk to the Buddha. Jackson had been staring at the statue, straight in the face, when he was struck from behind. Next thing he knew, he was flat on his ass, sliding to his death.
If not for her fast reaction in snatching him back from cliff’s edge.
His gaze switched back again to Mari. Suddenly feeling very exposed and vulnerable on his back while the others surrounded him, Jackson said, “You all mind if I get up before the third degree begins?”
“Do you think you can without falling again, human? I may not be as inclined to save you a second time.”
He shot Mari an aggravated look, then climbed to his feet, brushing off Mikos’s extended hand. He’d get up on his own, damn it. Being rescued by Mari was a slap in the face of his manhood, even though Jackson appreciated not dying. Fucking idol.
Now that he was standing, he felt confident facing his three partners. Matching skeptical looks shadowed their faces.
“Okay, you’re up,” Lexi said. “Now spill it.”
First, he shoved the idol at her. “Take the little bastard, will ya?”
Despite the doubt darkening her expression, she took the Buddha and carefully put it into a carrying case lined with some kind of woo-woo padding that was supposed to prevent the evil within the statue from leaking.
Wish they’d thought to put the damn thing in there the minute they’d found it.
When he’d first been told the tale of the idol, he’d found it hard to believe that an object which was supposed to represent something good could be so nasty. Guess the problem had more to do with the cult that had called forth a demon than the object.
The cult—made up primarily of youth in their early to midtwenties—thought they were getting some kind of sex demon so they could indulge in weeklong orgies without a loss of stamina. What they hadn’t realized was that the idol was playing host to a death demon from Hell imprisoned in the statue. In liberating the gold Buddha from a Shaolin temple, the young men and women activated the damn thing.
Fucking idiots. Jackson could imagine the shock etched on their faces when—instead of nonstop sex—the demon attacked and killed many of them. Now he had the bastard in his sweaty palms. The bastard that, even locked within the statue, had enough power and freedom to try to send him to an early grave.
Jackson swiped his hand across his jaw. “I don’t know what happened. I made the rookie mistake of looking into the creepy thing’s eyes and felt as if I were drowning. Someone hit me from behind and, next thing I knew, I was flying over the edge and snowboarding down the side of the mountain. I swear the little bastard pushed me.”
After a last glare at the idol, he looked around. Both females still possessed a skeptical lifted brow or tilted head. From Mikos—the fallen angel redeemed by the love of a mortal—he received a speculative expression.
Jackson’s lips twisted as he focused on Lexi and Mari. “Well, shit, girls. Haven’t we seen enough weird things in the last few months to at least consider the possibility I’m telling the truth?”
Lexi shrugged. “Sorry, Jackson. It’s not that I don’t believe you. Just wondering why you were affected and we haven’t been.”
His turn to shrug. “Beats me. Must be the notorious McKay luck.”
A joke, ’cause there was little in his life or his family’s life that resembled luck. Most times, the McKays experienced the exact opposite. If he were the suspicious sort, he’d think the universe had it in for him.
“Well, whatever happened,” Lexi said, “I’m glad Mari was there to stop you from going over the edge.”
Yeah, I’m glad she was there too. There it was again—she’d saved him. Chapped his hide. His male pride dictated that he thump his chest and shout he was the protector of fragile womanhood. He didn’t. Figured that doing such a thing in front of the two strongest kick-ass women he knew would get him shoved over the edge.
Instead, he growled, then said, “Now that we have the blasted critter, can we get off this damn mountain?”
As if his words were a catalyst, a roar of sound filled the air. A red-and-white helicopter, a Bell 412 by the look of it, rocketed upward from the gorge, soaring high into the blue sky
before diving back down to hover in front of them. Powdery snow and tiny chips of stone pelted their skin. Not soon enough, the crazy pilot backed off.
“Show off,” Lexi muttered. Then, with her lips drawn tight, she moved around Jackson and headed for the copter.
He couldn’t stop his smile. Gordon Reynolds. Gordie to his friends, pain in the ass to Lexi, was a twenty-one-year-old master at everything he did, including driving the woman who’d recently saved the world batshit insane.
Reckless, beyond smart and a total charmer, Gordie was discovered shortly after the four of them—Lexi, Mikos, Mari and Jackson—teamed up to protect mankind from the world’s dangerous relics. It hadn’t taken Gordie long to become an important part of the team, even as his risk-taking stunts tended to piss off Lexi. If he had a Bible, Jackson would swear the kid did it on purpose.
Speaking of pissing off the Defender… Lexi reached up and touched the earpiece curling around her ear. “Knock it off, Gordie, and get your ass down here. We have the Buddha. We’d like to leave now.”
“You got it, Boss. Give me a minute—the winds are pretty strong here.”
As though in recognition of his warning, the copter wobbled, rocking from side to side and dipping down below the ridgeline. Jackson eyed Mari while Gordie forced the copter to stop mimicking a seesaw. Lines crossed Mari’s forehead, and her mouth turned down. The she-demon did not understand why humans flew in metal boxes, as she liked to call helicopters and planes.
She and Mikos didn’t need to fly. They could blink in and out of existence anytime—they called it apporting—they wished and went anywhere with a mere thought. Not that Mikos did this often when he was with Lexi. Mindful of her human status, he traveled the usual ways mortals did. By car, train or plane. Sometimes he carried her. For herself, Mari refused to go anywhere near the human contraptions.
After Gordie lowered the copter enough and the Buddha was settled firmly on Lexi’s back, she and Mikos leaped from the ledge and landed inside the copter with ease. Jackson looked at Mari. A mocking smile pulled at the corner of her lips as she stared at the Bell.
“You coming?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. The she-demon would not give up control to anyone—human or otherwise, but especially human. For someone helping to save the human race, she had a rather low opinion of his kind.
“Not in that thing,” she said and jerked her head at the hovering helicopter.
“Jackson, let’s go,” Lexi shouted in his earpiece. “Gordie says a storm is coming. Fast.”
“Better get going, human. You would not want to be stuck up here by yourself.”
With a shrug, Jackson took off for the helicopter and leaped inside. As he grabbed the handle to pull the door shut, he stared at Mari. She stood motionless, her head lifted to the darkening sky. The wind buffeted her body and whipped her fiery red tresses into a tangle of curls, and she still didn’t move. The defiant expression on her face was almost a dare to the storm to try and take her down.
Damn, she was one fine filly. Wild as hell but beautiful.
He slammed the door and sat back in the seat, ignoring the questioning lift of Mikos’s brows. To Lexi’s pursed lips, Jackson said, “She’s going to get back on her own.”
Lexi nodded and turned to Mikos, sliding along the jump seat until she was nestled snugly against him, her head tucked under his throat. The fallen angel bent and touched his lips to her forehead. In return, an intimate smile softened her mouth. Molded by the harshness of her youth, when Lexi relaxed and smiled at Mikos, her true beauty shone.
Jackson pulled his gaze away and looked back out the window as snow whisked around them. He could no longer see whether Mari still stood on the desolate ridge. A place that seemed to fit her air of solitude. And rugged strength.
The woman, demon, angel—whatever—was as unyielding as hell. Larger than life. He’d never seen anything or anyone affect her. What would she be like if she allowed herself to feel? To allow herself to be emotionally engaged with a man?
Additionally, she never seemed to share herself with others. Male, female, demon or angel. She’d disappear for days with no one having any idea of where she was, what she did or who she was with, since she didn’t even tell Mikos.
The she-demon was a complete enigma with deep, complex layers. What would a man find if he could get close enough to peel apart those layers to reveal her core? And how many times had he considered being that man?
Chapter Two
Jackson leaned against the gymnasium door. He flexed his right knee, which was still sore and tender from his near-death slide down a mountain a couple of weeks ago. Once off the slopes and in the hillside city of Nagarkot, he’d been pronounced fine by the local doctor. The little joyride down the mountainside had left Jackson with a banged up kneecap and strained and bruised neck and shoulder muscles. Not much more severe than the normal scrapes and cuts he’d gotten over the last six months since he’d turned over a new leaf and joined a band of do-gooders to save the world.
How had his life changed so fast from the neatly roped-and-tied, orderly affair to the messy, knotted circle it had become? Six months for a complete turnaround was fast for a man who had been perfectly content as an unscrupulous mercenary working for the rich and powerful.
Especially the rich.
Now, instead of traveling the world to work for men willing to part with their ill-gotten money, he lived in a goddamn huge mansion with an angel who turned down Heaven, an ex-exotic dancer with a sassy mouth and a destiny to save mankind, a shape-shifting rock with aspirations to be a 1920s mobster, a cocky tech expert and—
Her.
The woman currently kicking the crap out of the poor punching bag.
Correction. Not a woman. Fallen angel. Demon, actually.
Christ. Jackson swept a hand through his hair. When he found trouble, he went all the way. Said woman, Marisol Asheni—a flowery name for a hard-ass demon—struck the bag, the force of her blow rocking the heavy sack violently. He half expected the damn thing to crash to the floor.
Even as she pounded the hell out of the bag, her body flowed in lovely symmetry. Much like the woman herself, each of her movements was precise, effortless and made with minimum motions. And a helluva lot of grace.
Her taut ass flexed and smoothed under the formfitting tight shorts women—God love them—seemed to favor. Long legs, tanned and straight, looked silky under the soft lights. Her waist was bare, and when she moved he thought he caught a glimpse of something flashing at her navel.
Holy hell, the woman had a belly-button piercing. When had she gotten the damn thing? He sure hadn’t noticed it the last time he’d seen her work out. His appreciative gaze tracked a path up her body, flowing past her curved hips to her uptilted breasts, up the smooth column of her throat. Despite her features being too austere for true beauty and marred only slightly by the iron determination in her square chin, she possessed a wildness he found fascinating.
Her auburn hair, woven into a tight braid, swayed back and forth as she moved. The glowing strands flickered with fire—filled with gold, rich coppers and hot reds.
Any adjective used to describe fire fit Marisol Asheni to a T. As in trouble.
His momma used to say hell hath no fury like a woman with red hair. What she didn’t say was that he’d be drawn to said woman as a moth is to light. Frighteningly tempted to reach out and touch the fire. Maybe that’s why he’d always gone for blondes. Safety in the cool, calm shades. Aw hell, might as well get this posse on the trail. They had a job to do. He and the demon.
Jackson strode over to Marisol. The closer he got, the more his groin tightened. He swallowed as a glistening bead of sweat traveled down the sensual lines of her neck, past the soft curves of her breasts to drop into the deep, shaded valley. His tongue ached to follow the path.
Before the mere thought of what he was doing crossed his mind, Jackson touched Mari on the shoulder. To get her attention. And that’s exactly what he got.
Like viewing a slow-motion train wreck, he watched her spin around, grab his wrist and haul him forward. Goddamn, he had barely time to think again—the woman was Conan the Barbarian strong.
She pulled him around, yanking him off his feet. He crashed to the floor in front of her. His back hit hard and his breath exploded from his lips. While Mari held his arm up, she knelt on his chest, further pushing air out of his lungs. Red eyes flared. Moist pink lips stretched into a snarl. Her eyeteeth, the honking long ones, peeked through.
He should be terrified. Hell, he wanted to be terrified. Ought to be quaking in his Ariat boots. Instead, his blasted body completely found his situation a turn-on. A cock-swelling, balls-tightening turn-on.
When those red eyes widened, he figured she’d noticed his body’s betraying reaction. A shadow of annoyance crossed her face. Then a low sound rumbled from her chest. Christ, was that a growl?
“Honey,” he drawled, “if you wanted to get me on my back, all you had to do was ask.”
This time, he not only heard the growl, he felt it purring through his body. Shit.
“Human, you play a dangerous game.” Her throaty voice also hummed through him.
Merciful saints. At this rate, he’d never be able to move.
“What are you doing?” she continued, the weight of her knee easing off his chest.
He inhaled deeply, at first thankful for the cool, fresh air. When the scent of female musk and heady spices teased his nostrils, he stopped breathing. At least he stopped breathing out of his nose.
Marisol’s freaky red eye color faded, replaced with the lovely amethyst shade she normally spelled her eyes to be. Only when she lost control of her emotions, let anger rule, did the red show. With her head tilted, she studied him.
Her grip on his arm changed from hard to soft, and she let go of his wrist. After slowly lowering his arm to his side, he froze as a slow smile curved her lips. His stomach did a leisurely roll. What was the hot-tempered fury planning now? He didn’t believe she’d harm him. She’d had ample opportunity many times before and hadn’t. But there were other things she could do to torture him. From the wicked glint in her eyes, he wondered if several such things had crossed her devious mind.
The Death Skull: Relic Defender, Book 2 Page 1