His Seductive Target (Afterlife, #2)

by Nichole Severn

  “Nika.” He brushed a sweat-coated strand of hair from her forehead.

  A strong gasp jolted her upright into an arch. Her coughs and short inhalations returned the color to her skin, but an ice-cold difference in her eyes lightened her blue irises. She wrapped long fingers around his forearm to pull herself to her feet. She tried to steady herself, but her knees gave out.

  “Take it easy.” He caught her before she hit the floor. A tremor echoed through her body as an aftershock following an earthquake. She pressed against him and something real—something forgotten—tingled directly behind his sternum. Concern. Another tremor rocked him to the core, but not originating from her. He’d almost lost her, could still lose her if they didn’t find out what Isabel had done to her. But why did he care? She was the target. He’d been assigned to turn her over to the Deceiver.

  She reached for her neck then stared at her hand coated in blood. Hers. His stomach churned at the sight, but each passing second strengthened the clarity in her eyes. “What happened? Where am I?” Her voice wavered, filled with exhaustion and uncertainty. “My neck...”

  “We’re in Reynolds’s apartment.” He swallowed back the sour taste in his mouth from the possibility of losing another innocent life to the Arch-demon. “We came here looking for—”

  “Isabel. She—that thing—bit me.” What else did she remember? His talons? He swiped his tongue over his teeth, checking for his elongated incisors. Gone. Her entire body thrummed with energy, but she stood on her own. Still, she gripped his forearm. He ignored the discomfort, all too willing to help her get her bearings. That blue gaze landed on her partner slumped against the wall on the other side of the room and her face drained of color. Her nails bit into him harder. “It really killed him.”

  Her eyes sought his, latching on to him, unrelenting and crystal clear. “The monster killed Rachel too, didn’t it? What is it?”

  How easy it would’ve been to pass Isabel off as a hallucination perpetuated by grief of her murdered sister, but Grayson kept his mouth shut. They were on the hunt for a demon—a strong one at that—and he couldn’t risk her being unprepared a second time.

  “Isabel’s an Arch-demon, the strongest of the Deceiver’s servants,” Vdarra said.

  Nika’s attention snapped up to the other woman then to Jacob, noticing them for the first time. Her spine straightened a little more. The angles in her jawline sharpened. She centered on the gun in Jacob’s hand. “What is a Deceiver?”

  “A very real, very powerful entity that rules the Underworld. Mortals call him the devil,” Jacob said.

  “You’re telling me the devil is real and that thing that just killed my partner is one of his servants?” She scanned over him, her attention locking on the gun in his hand. “I guess you’re the one I should be thanking for shooting it.”

  He tried not to take that personally. She’d blacked out during his stand off with Isabel. No way she could’ve known he’d taken on a demon ten times as powerful as him. “This is Vdarra, the heiress to the Underworld, and her mate, Jacob, formerly an Arch-angel.” Grayson threaded his hand around her back and traced lean muscle under the edge of her shirt. God, she felt good pressed against him like this.

  Her lips parted in disbelief. Or was that her reaction to his touch? He liked to think the latter, but couldn’t read her expression. “Well, this just gets better and better.”

  Chapter Six

  “He’s dead.” Out of all the monsters she’d denied seeing as a child, Nika had never hallucinated anything so evil. Her hands trembled as she glanced toward Reynolds once more. He’d never tell her to go home and get some sleep because she’d put her entire life on hold for their case. Or that she looked like she’d been hit by a train when she arrived at another of their crimes scenes half awake. Her partner had lost himself in so many cases the same as she had. Never admitted it, but she knew. They’d been good together because of their obsessions to find justice. Then he’d had to go screw everything up. “It’s my fault. I knew something didn’t feel right about Isabel and I let him leave with her anyway.”

  There was no denying what she’d seen. No medication that could make the monsters go away this time. “Damn it. I was the only person who understood what Rachel was going through and I turned my back on her because I didn’t want to admit I could see what she did. I saw what she went through, what my parents did to her. Therapy, electric shock, mental institutions. So I lied. I said I couldn’t see the monsters. But they were always real. I should’ve listened to her. None of this would’ve happened if I’d just believed her.”

  “Nika, there was no way you could’ve known what you were up against.” Grayson strengthened his hold around her lower back and locked her to his side. Sweltering heat penetrated through her sticky clothing down into her muscles and even deeper, to her bones. The action, so intimate, set off all kinds of alarms, but she couldn’t force herself to move. His woodsy scent dove into her lungs and spread wide throughout the rest of her body like a flash flood cleansing her soul. With the slightest movement, she could rest her head on his shoulder and give in to the muscle aches vying for her attention. “There was nothing you could’ve done differently.”

  The charred scent of sulfur filled her nostrils. Sharp, it cleared the fog shock had settled over her brain and she swallowed the bile working up her throat. Pain intensified along her neck and shoulder where the creature had bitten her. T-shirt damp with her own blood, she ignored it. Rachel, and now Reynolds, had been ripped from her life before she’d had a chance to make things right. As a homicide detective she should’ve known her loved ones could be taken at any moment as so many others’ had, at least kept the possibility in mind, but her childish stubbornness had gotten in the way.

  Never again.

  “But you knew, didn’t you? That’s why you wanted to go in first.” She maneuvered out of his hold and notched her chin a bit higher to cut Reynolds from her tear-blurred vision. She turned on Grayson. His usually sculpted hair stood up at random angles. Fire boiled in her stomach, her fists shaking with the rest of her body. “You lied. You knew exactly what we were hunting and didn’t tell me. You could’ve gotten us killed.”

  His green eyes softened as he tried countering the space she’d leveraged between them. She ached in too many places to count. Her shoulder screamed for care, but she wouldn’t go back into his arms. How could she possibly find comfort with someone she didn’t trust? “Nika, demons like Isabel will do anything to keep their existence a secret. I was trying to protect—”

  “Don’t bother. I only need to know one thing.” Focusing on Vdarra, she put the distance she needed between her and Grayson to keep her head clear. Long black hair, structured eyebrows, and a razor sharp jawline consumed her attention. And those eyes. Brown, but almost black, like a darkness waiting to escape. Whoever—or whatever—this woman was, Vdarra obviously had a bit more experience with demons than Nika, but why did her name sound so familiar? “How do I kill an Arch-demon?”

  Vdarra’s mouth parted with a sharp inhale. “You can’t.”

  A deep rumble of a laugh from the left side of the room washed over her as Jacob shoved the gun he carried down the backside of his pants. Emerald green eyes locked on her and she couldn’t help but compare the shade to Grayson’s mesmerizing jade color. Really, there was no comparison. Grayson won. “Arch-demons, especially the one you’re hunting, are the most powerful beings in the Underworld apart from the Deceiver himself. Isabel has made herself almost invincible by killing other Arch-demons and taking their power. Now she’s the last one and she’s far more dangerous than any other demon I’ve come in contact with. The good news is the Deceiver wants her head as much as you do.”

  Jacob’s attention flickered over her shoulder, presumably to Grayson, and back, but she couldn’t decipher the silent communication between them.

  Her skin prickled. No way to kill her? To hell with that. “Then there has to be a way to at least imprison her, make her pay
for what she’s done.”

  “If there is such a place that could hold her, we haven’t heard of it,” Vdarra said. “And believe me, we’ve been looking.”

  “You’ve been tracking Isabel. That’s how you found us. Through her.” Grayson maneuvered from behind and took position ahead of her. His undeniable warmth beckoned her closer, but she held her ground. His wide shoulders constructed a vast barrier between her and Jacob and Vdarra, like he was protecting her. But from what? As far as she was concerned, they had done more to take down that monster than he had so far. Her hands itched to smooth the tension from his neck and back, but she fisted them at her sides. Her attraction didn’t make sense. On any level. “Why? You and Jacob bowed out of the fight against the Deceiver.”

  “Because that Arch-demon will do anything she can to get back into her master’s good graces,” Jacob said. “Two security guards and a cop have already died. We couldn’t stand by while dozens, if not hundreds, of innocents paid the price for us failing to kill her when we had the chance.”

  “How do you know my sister was a security guard? The NYPD hasn’t released that information.” Nika’s instincts churned in her gut. Jacob glanced in Vdarra’s direction, his expression shutting down as his gaze hit the floor. The last eight hours flashed through her mind. The crime scene. Rachel’s apartment. Dr. Anderson’s reports. “I know your name.” She remembered why Vdarra Jansen’s name sounded so familiar. She’d seen it before. Her stomach churned. She swallowed hard, fingers tingling for her gun. “Your name was on the fingerprint list CSI gathered from the bank. You were there. You were there when that thing killed my sister.”

  Vdarra stepped forward, hands up in surrender. “No, I wasn’t. We didn’t get there in time to save them—”

  Air rushed from her lungs as she stumbled back into Reynolds’s desk.

  “You’re all in on this together.” Bile lodged in her throat. She swallowed around it, but the pain of nearly having the life squeezed out of her complicated things. She surveyed each of their expressions again, but no one denied her claim. Wasn’t there anyone she could trust to tell her the truth? Her head spun. The pain in her shoulder intensified. None of this made sense. Arch-demons. The Deceiver. Angels. Monsters that looked like people. What had she gotten herself into? She targeted her small Glock on the floor a few feet from her and swiped it up. A searing burn bolted down her arm. Damn it. She had to clean her wound before it became infected. Then again, what kind of treatment did doctors use for a demon bite? No. A hospital was out of the question. Home. She had a first aid kit stashed underneath the kitchen sink. “I have to get out of here.”

  “Nika, where are you going?” Grayson asked.

  Reynolds’s apartment, the hallway, and stairs all blurred as she forced her legs to carry her to her SUV. She couldn’t drive like this. She’d kill herself if not someone else in the short distance to her apartment. She pushed through the glass doors leading to the street. Bright yellow and black blobs shot across her vision. “Taxi!”

  Energy drained from her muscles with each beat of her heart. One of the yellow blobs stopped in front of her and she ripped the door open, reciting her address. After what felt like an hour but took minutes, she’d handed over her credit card to pay for the ride and stood at her locked apartment door. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. What was happening to her? “Need the key.”

  Her stomach flipped. She wasn’t going to make it inside. Nika shot one hand against the thin door to balance, but it was too late. Everything in her vision turned fuzzy as the world tilted on its axis.

  ****

  She gasped. Movement registered off to her right. The muscles down her back tensed. The pain in her shoulder had ebbed, but cleared her head fast. Sheets slid against her skin. How did she make it to her bed? The last thing she remembered...unlocking the door? No. She’d blacked out before she could even find her keys. Which meant someone had helped her inside. Suspicion reared its ugly head. She had a pretty good idea who would’ve been stupid enough to follow her from Reynolds’s house. Sneaking her hand under her pillow, she searched for the 9mm she kept there in case of an emergency.

  Gone.

  He’d taken her gun.

  “Looking for this?” The masculine voice swept through her, sexy as silk, and tightened the muscles in her lower abdominals. Grayson moved into her vision, holding her gun upside down by his index finger in the trigger hole. “Didn’t want you accidentally shooting me.”

  “It wouldn’t be an accident,” she said, mouth dry. Why did her head hurt so much?

  “Exactly why I took the gun.” He rounded her bed and took a seat in one of her kitchen chairs he’d placed next to the mattress.

  Nika tried to angle her head to could see him better, but fire shot down her neck and shoulder. She held in her gasp as she struggled to sit up and checked the rest of her apartment. Made up of two rooms, the kitchen and a living space where she’d been forced to put her bed, it didn’t take long to clear. A single window cast emerging sunlight into the space and highlighted the mess she’d left behind. Old case files, laptop, her small TV she’d placed on a nightstand. It all seemed to be in place.

  Except...

  “Where are my clothes?” Her skin flushed hot as she yanked the sheets higher. She hadn’t worn the black tank top and panty set for months, maybe even a year. With no one to show it off to, there hadn’t been a point, but how had he undressed and redressed her without waking her?

  “In the sink. You got a lot of blood on them.” He leaned back in the chair, his smile all too gut-wrenching for her taste. Steam from the mug of hot liquid between his large hands cast shadows across his handsome face. She forced her attention on the mug instead of drowning in those mesmerizing green eyes. “You’ve been through a lot in the last few hours. Thought you might want some coffee. Should help with the shock.”

  He offered her the mug, hand outstretched, and let his attention slip to the exposed skin above her tank top. She froze before taking the coffee, jaw set. A small laugh rumbled through his chest, deep and sensual, and lit up her insides. “Are you thinking about shooting me?”

  “Maybe.” She took the coffee and tried not to spill it across her sheets at the thought he’d seen her naked. She swallowed a too-big mouthful to tramp down the heat crawling up her neck. Damn. The struggle to swallow meant she had bruise around her throat. She could only imagine what she looked like right now. “I doubt you found all the guns I’ve hidden.”

  “There are six and I have to say I’m quite impressed with the one you managed to stash behind your lavender shampoo in the shower.” Shock coursed through her. Grayson relaxed back into the chair again, arms crossed over his muscular upper body with that heart-thumping smile. Despite that he hadn’t changed out of the blood-stained black slacks and dark gray dress shirt, she’d never been so turned on in her life. Not even Reynolds had been able to find all her guns.

  She shifted to relieve the pressure building between her legs, but the bite mark between her neck and shoulder overloaded her senses with pain. She traced her hand over the bandage and tape. Fire raged across her collarbones. She exhaled hard through her nose and closed her eyes in an attempt to hide the cringe. Not good. How was she supposed to track down a killer if she couldn’t even hold up a gun with her dominant arm? “I take it the bandages are your doing?”

  “Well, I couldn’t let you bleed all over the floor, could I?” He handed over the 9mm he’d taken from under her pillow, his gaze locked on her every move as though he didn’t want to miss a second. “You’ll need to keep it clean. There aren’t many cases of mortals living through demon attacks, so I don’t actually know what will happen to you if it gets infected.”

  Her head pounded with the memory of the last twenty-four hours. She shoved the gun back beneath the pillow with her free hand. In all her years as a cop, she’d never been bitten by a suspect. Almost killed, yes, several times, but the monsters she’d gone up against didn’t have wings and unn
atural strength. The thought of meeting Isabel again sent a shudder down her spine. Bits and pieces of the standoff with the Arch-demon bled through the pain in her shoulder. Distraction. Couldn’t think about it. She locked her attention on the man sitting across from her. His hair no longer stood up in wild disarray as she noted earlier. And, she couldn’t be sure, but his blood-stained slacks said he’d tried stopping Isabel from killing her. What a stupid move. The bitch seemed to bowl right over humans without batting a red-tinted eye. But she had to admit, things could’ve gone down a lot worse without him at her side. “Thank you.”

  Those green eyes of his brightened. A fraction of a smile curved his mouth up at once side. The tightness across his neck and back seemed to evaporate and she almost smiled seeing him so free of the weight he carried. “You’re welcome.”

  “But bandages and coffee don’t get you out of lying to me,” she said.

  “You’re right. I should’ve told you what we were up against, but would you have believed me?” He leaned back in the chair again.

  She took another drink of coffee to buy some time. Short answer? Not on her life. The hallucinations—demons—she’d seen as a child were so different than the one she’d encountered in Reynolds’s apartment. And they hadn’t come around for years with the help of medication and therapy. She answered honestly. “I don’t know. Were you convinced so easily?”

  The jade-green hue in his eyes darkened to forest green. Silence settled between them as his expression turned to stone. His easy-going smile disappeared. She intensified her hold around her favorite mug as her pulse rocketed into her throat. Obviously a sore topic for him. Had he lost someone to a demon too? Grayson unwrapped his arms and motioned toward her shoulder as he stood tall over her. “You should change your dressing on that bite. It’s bleeding again.”