Chloe stood and tugged her shirt on over her head, her bra forgotten and her heart beating a frantic tattoo. Edward knew her sister? How? What did he know about her? She wanted to scream at him, tell him he couldn’t have known Zanna because Zanna told her everything.
“Ah, there you are, my pretty.”
The voice was dark and sinister, making her stop cold. Her hands froze and immediately turned to ice. She could swear she smelled sulfur tingeing the air.
Chloe turned her head so she could look over her shoulder at the demon standing behind her. Way too close for comfort. He stood there, in all his demonness, looking at her with eyes that had no pupils they were so black. His skin was equally black and leathery. Two giant wings had unfolded behind him, puffs of smoke drifting off them. She couldn’t tell if he wore clothes or not and, frankly, she didn’t want to know.
“Never send an incubus to do a real demon’s job.” His black eyes landed on Edward as he uncurled himself from the floor. “The only thing they think about is…well, sex.” He chuckled.
“And the only thing you think about, my fellow hellion, is death,” Edward said.
“It’s my job. Have you found out where the pendant is, yet?”
Chloe’s head whipped around to stare at Edward, wide-eyed. “You deceived me! I knew it.” Her heart crashed against her chest, shattering into a thousand pieces. “Is that why you wanted to know? So you could give it to him?”
Edward held his hands up in surrender. “No, Chloe. I wasn’t going to give it him.”
“Oh, is that what you call yourself these days? Chloe? How cute,” the demon said. “Now, where is that pendant?”
“I’ll never tell you.” She finally spun to face him trying to look as un-threatened as possible. She doubted it was working.
“Oh, I think you will.”
He took a step toward her but Edward planted himself between her and the demon, blocking him.
“Back off,” he warned.
“Or what? You’re nothing but a useless half-demon,” he snarled. “You can’t even get killing the girl right. Why do you think they sent me? The coven dispatched me the second you were gone because they knew you couldn’t handle the job. You weakling.”
He was going to kill me! Hot tears stung her eyes but she blinked them back, refusing to let them fall. She wouldn’t let these two see her weakness.
“I wasn’t sent to kill her. I was sent to retrieve the pendant. If you kill her here, now, you’ll never have it.” Edward was completely unruffled at the insults the demon hurled at him. “I won’t let you near her.”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m taking her and if she doesn’t want to tell me where the pendant is—” He pinned her with his feral gaze, “—then I’ll extract the information myself.”
Something cold and sinister crept over her as she stood there, looking into those depthless eyes. His magic, sharp as a nail, probed her heart. Her walls went up, trying to protect her from him but she feared she may be too late. Especially when she felt the heat prickling through her senses, searing her mind.
The scream ripped from her lungs as she clutched her head and fell to her knees. The demon gurgled his approval.
“Let her go!”
Edward sprang into action, lunging across the bakery. Chloe wasn’t sure what happened next because all she saw after the demon released her was a tangle of limbs and black wings. Edward’s collision with the demon was quickly followed by a clatter of utensils. Black smoke puffed up from the floor during the scuffle and Chloe wasn’t sure if that was Edward or the demon.
She took a tentative step forward, her heart in her throat, trying to see what was happening on the floor when the demon went flying backward through the gaping hole of her bakery. The force of the kick Edward delivered sent the demon across the street, down an alleyway and landing with a resounding bong against a dumpster.
“Edward…”
“We have to get out of here.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the demon across the street was on his feet and flying toward them. His giant black wings beat together in a loud flutter, his dark eyes transfixed on Chloe. She wanted to hide. She wanted a black chasm to open in the floor and take her away. But she knew it was for naught, for the demon, being straight from the jaws of Hell, would find her.
“Now, Chloe!”
Edward’s booming voice knocked her out of her thoughts. He had her by the hand, dragging her out of the shop. They ran down the street, her feet pounding on the pavement in unison with his. Behind them, they could hear the demon following and she wondered, half-heartedly, how she and Edward could outrun a winged demon.
At the corner of 5th and Main Street, Edward skittered to a halt and turned around. He gave her a quick shove away from him and she stumbled backward a step.
“Stay behind me, Chloe. You’ll be safe as long as you stay behind me and don’t move. No matter what happens. Understand?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He spun around to face the fury coming toward them. She started to protest until she realized a storm brewed around Edward.
He held his arms by his side, hands palm out and fingers splayed open. The wind whipped up around him, tousling his hair and making his clothes flap. He chanted words she couldn’t hear.
Overhead, the sudden appearance of dark storm clouds blotted out the sun. The puffy clouds turned from white to dark and churned in a circular motion. Whatever magic Edward used made the demon stop coming after them as he fought against the wind, unable to advance any further. The violent wind shredded those giant wings, making them nothing more than tatters.
She was glad, though she had to admit she’d never seen any magic like Edward’s before. She’d only read about it in dusty tomes in her mother’s spell room.
A gray funnel cloud dipped down from the clouds behind the demon. Chloe could almost swear she heard it growl as it touched the ground, destroying what was left of her bakery, flinging cars as if they weighed no more than a feather, crumbling buildings in its path.
Chloe wanted to scream, to duck and cover. Tornadoes were nothing to play around with. But Edward had said to stay behind him, no matter what happened. It would have been great had he mentioned he was an Elemental and intended to use that power. She realized as she stood behind him, watching over his shoulder, she felt no wind. No nothing. She was perfectly safe where she stood.
Ahead, the giant tornado approached the demon, who still tried to flap his destroyed wings and advance on the two of them. Instead, the funnel cloud swallowed him whole, overtaking the demon in one swift movement that encased him in gray clouds. Then the funnel went back up into the sky and black rain fell, turning the ground an oily color.
Everything went quiet and still. In front of them was a path of destruction where the twister had taken out the demon. Her bakery was the only building that had suffered damage, now nothing more than a pile of rubble. Edward managed to control the storm and keep everything else safe and secure. Chloe’s respect for his abilities went up another notch—to be able to control that much raw power with such precision required more skill than most witches possessed.
People began to filter into the street, looking up and down where the tornado had chewed a narrow path through the street and knocked around cars and street signs. The traffic light on the corner was a crumpled mass of steel and shattered lights.
Edward turned to Chloe, his hair a mess, eyes bloodshot and watering. His chest puffed up and down with every deep breath he took. They stared at each other for a deathly quiet moment, until finally Chloe found her voice.
“You’re an Elemental,” she said. “You didn’t tell me you were that kind of witch.”
“I didn’t think it pertinent information.”
She blinked at his response. “Maybe not, but how did—”
“My mother was an Elemental. Her name was Syria.”
Chloe gasped. She hadn’t heard that name in years. In fact, the only place she�
��d heard that name was in myth and legends of long past. Chloe took a step back from Edward, looked him up and down.
“That’s not possible. She died—”
“Thousands of years ago, yes, I know. Her undoing was when she fell in love with the incubus who impregnated her.”
Chloe looked at him as if for the first time, her gaze going up and down his body, pausing on his overly-handsome face.
“Your sister didn’t tell you about me, did she?”
“No, she didn’t.” She dragged her bottom lip through her teeth. “Why are you really here, Edward?”
“To find out who killed your sister. That pendant is the only link to the murderer.”
“I know.” She nodded. “I felt the magic in it.”
Taking a step toward her, he took her face in his hands. “I swear to you, on my honor, I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to help you.”
Perhaps he was telling her the truth. He’d saved her life, after all. Still… “That’s not what that other demon said.”
“He lied.” He kissed her gently. “You have my protection.”
Perhaps she did. But she wasn’t about to hand over the pendant. She didn’t care how hot he was. She’d gone through too much to lose it now and she wanted that as evidence when she confronted the killer. It was the only way she would ever see justice for her sister’s murder. She’d been biding her time in the human world, hiding out until the time was right. Apparently, the time was now.
“You’ll really help me?”
He feathered kisses over her brow. “Yes.”
“Even if the killer is the head of the coven?”
Edward pulled away, looking down at her. Concern flickered through his gaze. “You think he did it?”
“The sigil of the coven leader was burned in her back.”
“What about the pendant?”
“The pendant is the link to her and the killer. I put it on and...”
She swallowed the bile that threatened to rise, remembering the horrible vision. She’d repaired the chain and placed it over her head. She was able to use the magic in the pendant to see what had happened to Zanna. The man who had attacked her was nothing more than a hired assassin. But there had been someone else. Someone who held Zanna captive while he slashed her throat.
“And what?”
She swallowed hard. “The magic in it shows the previous wearer’s past.”
“And you saw hers. You saw who killed her?”
Chloe nodded, her heart sick.
“Zanna must have stumbled onto something that got her killed. Otherwise, she’d still be alive.” He took her hand, kissed her knuckles. “Whatever she found out, whatever she knew…I swear on my honor I’ll help you find it. We’ll find the killers together.”
Chloe fought back the stinging tears and nodded again. “Thank you. It’s time I got back to the coven. I know the coven is behind my sister’s death. I’m not going to allow them to win so easily.”
His gaze never wavered from hers as the corner of his mouth quirked into a grin. “I’ve never had any love for the man anyway. Bring it on.”
He held out his hand and, taking a deep breath, Chloe took it.
As his fingers laced with hers, he said, “Now, about those cupcakes…”
o0o
About the author:
Michelle Miles writes contemporary, paranormal and fantasy romance and found her love of writing buried in the fantasy books of Patricia A. McKillip and the beautiful romances of Victoria Holt. Never learning to plot, she always believed that jumping in feet first was the way to go and has since become a self-proclaimed Pantser.
Unfortunately, cancer is something that can affect anyone and Michelle wanted to be a part of this anthology to honor those who have survived the disease as well as remember those who have loves ones affected by it.
For more information about her upcoming releases, visit her website at MichelleMiles.net. You can also follow her on Twitter, @MichelleMiles, and Like her on Facebook, facebook.com/MichelleMilesRomance.
A Night of Forever
Lori Brighton
Chapter One
Cumberland, England 1859
Who was Aidan Callaghan?
The eternal question that constantly nagged at Mary Ellen. Two months ago, her brother-in-law, Grayson, had announced that a friend would be visiting. Mary Ellen had expected an elderly, titled gent who’d needed to borrow money. Perhaps a businessman wanting to invest in Grayson’s shipping company. Or perhaps even an obnoxiously demanding general friend from the war. She certainly hadn’t expected Aidan, a young man who had slipped into their home quiet as a mouse, brooding and mysterious as any hero from a gothic novel.
She sighed and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. For an hour now she’d been reclining on a blanket hidden behind a brittle patch of dying daisies, a book in hand. Then he had arrived. One moment the bench under the maple had been empty. Five minutes later she’d looked up while turning a page and there he was, reading his own novel.
She hadn’t dared to call out a greeting, or even stand to leave. That would only draw attention and she’d rather watch him unnoticed. Not that she studied him because she cared. No. Of course not. Aidan was too…too boring. Too…too serious looking...too quiet and much, much too much of a no one to pique her feminine interests. She’d decided years ago she would only marry a man with a cheerful disposition and, of course, deep pockets.
But she could admit, at least to herself, that Aidan Callaghan intrigued her.
Where had he come from? Who was his family? Where had he lived most of his life?
Other than Grayson, no one seemed to know the man. And getting information from Grayson was like getting her niece Hanna to eat cabbage. Impossible and frustrating.
Grayson and Aidan had met during the war, at a battle or something or another. Aiden had, apparently, saved Grayson’s life. A dashing story indeed. She might have believed the rumor, if the man’s personality wasn’t so completely dull. He’d barely said a string of words to her since arriving those months ago. He mostly sat quietly in corners, merely watching their antics. And in a household of four females, there were plenty of antics.
A brown skirt suddenly appeared before her, blocking her view. “You’re always staring at him,” her younger sister Sally complained.
Mary Ellen resisted the urge to jerk her down, knowing Aidan had already seen them. Her hiding place had been uncovered. “Whatever do you mean?” Mary Ellen pushed herself upright, feigning indifference. She hadn’t heard her sister approach, for she’d been too involved in thinking about Aidan.
Sally plopped down beside her, the dress she wore settling around her coltish legs. At fifteen she wasn’t quite an adult, although she seemed to think she was. “That man…Aidan.”
Heat shot to Mary Ellen’s face. “Am not.” She lied, of course, and pulled her shawl around her shoulders to hide her flushed face. Utterly sinful. But how could she admit the truth? And the truth was thoughts of Aidan kept her up at night. When she met his gaze, she felt it all the way to her toes. It was as if her corset was suddenly too tight.
“Are so always staring.” Sally leaned closer, her blue eyes wide with interest. “Are you in love with him?”
“Sally!” Mary Ellen glanced around, making sure no one had overheard. Her sister was at the prime age for romance. She still believed in happily ever after, silly chit. “Don’t be a ninny!”
Even as she reprimanded her sister, she couldn’t help but glance at Aidan. Sensing her attention, he lifted his head. Their gazes clashed. It was as if a bolt of lightning shot through her very being. Mary Ellen sucked in a sharp breath, but couldn’t seem to look away. He hadn’t heard their discussion. He was much too far away, yet she feared he had.
“Well, you are…” Sally’s voice trailed off into a low murmur that Mary Ellen could barely hear over the roar of blood to her ears.
Was he attractive? Yes, she supposed there was something incredibly
appealing about those fathomless light, blue eyes and dark, wavy hair. The charming way he tilted his head to the side when he was listening. The way he rubbed the back of his neck when he was bemused. The way his eyes sparkled and the corners crinkled when he was amused, even if his lips didn’t lift into a smile. And she supposed most women would consider his silence and mysterious past rather intriguing.
But not she. Not at all.
She wasn’t interested. He had no home. No title. And as far as she could deduce by the cut of his plain clothing, he had no money. She hadn’t plotted and planned for a season in London only to marry some nobody before she’d had time to find a somebody. Only a handful of months and this spring she’d be in London, absorbing the ton. Searching for the very man who would be her husband. Why then, couldn’t she blasted look away from Aidan?
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