Prey (The Hunt Book 2)

by Liz Meldon

  Inside the dark bedroom, illuminated only by the barely-there bits of nighttime Farrow’s Hollow filtering in from the skylight, she stopped at the end of his bed. Her fingers grazed the blankets, memories of that day, that wonderful day, bringing a blush to her cheeks.

  It vanished, however, at the sound of him inside the bathroom. Water running. Splashing. Footsteps on the tile—and then his looming figure in the doorway. He swiped at something on the wall of his bedroom, and suddenly soft yellow lighting erupted from all four corners of the long, narrow room.

  Even in that cozy lighting, he looked angry with her.

  “I should have realized,” he said, each word slow and deliberate, like it took real effort to say, “the other day… When you burned my hand, you were angry. You…”

  Severus started pacing, leaving faint wet outlines of shoeprints on the ground, his face almost clean, excluding the bloody marks along his hairline. Like unwashed hair dye staining his skin. Unsure of what to do, where to sit, Moira stood there, perfectly still, until he whirled around to face her—then she started picking at her nails.

  “Moira, why the fuck did you do that?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” she argued, less defensive than she could have been after the shift in his tone. Still, his I’m just disappointed tone of voice was almost as insulting as the I’m fucking pissed attitude he’d adopted only moments earlier. She forced her hands to her sides, curling them into fists. “I was trying to help you. I didn’t know that would happen. I just meant to shove him off.”

  “You should have gotten the fuck out of there like I told you to,” he insisted, the demon eyes reappearing at last after one hard blink. “I told you to go. I was fine.”

  “Not from where I was standing.” She lifted her chin a little, refusing to be cowed by the blackness. “You were getting the shit kicked out of you.”

  “I’m a demon. I’ll heal!”

  This time she flinched—but only because he’d shouted. Severus picked up his pacing again. If he’d had even a smidge of decorative crap to throw around his room, things probably would have started to shatter. Instead, he just radiated anger—and all the petty emotions that went with it. Moira could feel it standing five feet away, the heat rising all around her with no escape.

  Her lower lip wobbled—noticeably now, so that she could feel it—and finally she let the tears come. Fat, heavy, livid tears that left hot streaks down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away, but she didn’t let her face screw in despair, either. Moira kept her emotions in check, the tears her only giveaway—and the trembling fists.

  When Severus finally stopped stalking back and forth, he looked up at her, the demon eyes gone again, and frowned. In that moment, it was like he had only just seen her, truly seen her, since the fight at the bar started. Her hands stopped shaking, and she closed her eyes as he marched over and engulfed her in a hug—a wet, hard, unyielding hug, one that, in spite of everything, she still found comfort in. Slowly, she brought her hands up and gripped his sides, fisting them around the fabric of his damp shirt, and let him hold her. The tears ceased shortly after, and she sniffled when he started to rub her back.

  “I’m sorry for shouting,” he murmured against her temple. “I just shouldn’t have brought you tonight.”

  “But I wanted to come,” Moira said against his chest. “I wanted to be there.”

  “And I should have known better.” He exhaled sharply, his breath hot on her skin. “I’m sorry, Moira, for everything. Tonight was my fault, not yours.”

  She nodded. Although it crossed her mind to argue, to insist that she was the one who had outed her abilities, she didn’t. The argument would fall on deaf ears for both of them. Moira was still learning. Severus should have known better.

  She didn’t belong in a demon bar—no matter how real it had made her feel again.

  Severus held her a little while longer, rubbing her back, disturbing the damp bralette clinging to her until she couldn’t take it anymore. He then let her change into something dry—not warm, but good enough. Charcoal grey eyes, almost human in appearance, watched as she stripped out of her clothes, tossed them aside, and dragged one of his baggy old T-shirts over her head. His scent soaked the material, and she brought it to her nose under the guise of wiping at it—but really, she was holding it there so she could breathe him in and think of him in a different light. When he was on top of her, inside of her, pleasuring her because he seemed to get a thrill out of the act itself, out of watching her climax against his mouth.

  Wearing his shirt, the hem stopping at the top of her thighs, Moira could pretend that they were just regular people who’d spent the night at the bar. She could pretend, just for a moment, that she was drunk and he was too, that they’d danced the hours away, laughing with friends, before crashing in each other’s arms, in his bed, with plans to do brunch tomorrow morning, hungover and miserable—but still happy, too.

  “Here,” he murmured, and the illusion shattered. “Get in. Your skin’s ice cold.”

  Letting his shirt drop, Moira padded across his room and climbed under the sheets. Her head knocked back against the wooden bars at the top, the ones he had tied her to that first time, and her cheeks warmed. Severus seemed not to notice as he tucked her in, then sat too far away, perched at the end of the bed.

  “Severus?” She licked her lips when he glanced her way. Are you scared of me? Scared of her power, of what was simmering just below the surface. He didn’t seem to be a big fan of angels. Moira wanted to ask, to confirm that nothing had changed between them—and that nothing would, no matter what kinds of abilities sprung up from her depths. Instead, she chose an easier route and picked at her nails—nails that grew quickly these days and were becoming harder and harder to trim with her regular clippers. “So, what now?”

  “Now… You stay here.”

  She looked up sharply. “What?”

  “You heard Alaric… By morning, every demon in Farrow’s Hollow will know there’s an angel hybrid running the streets. They’ll know you’re with me, and they’ll come looking for you. You can’t leave this building.”

  “That’s insane.” A little half smile tugged at her lips, hoping this was just some joke, but Severus wasn’t smiling—and hers died too. “Severus, no. I don’t see why I have to—”

  “Because they’ll take you,” he said sharply, turning away. “They’ll take you, and use you, and pick you apart, hoping to find something inside you that will help them hurt the real angels.”

  The thought made her stomach turn, Diriel’s glittering black eyes flashing across her mind. She hugged herself, sinking deeper into the plush pillows beneath her. “Oh.”

  “I’m not trying to keep you all to myself,” he said softly. “This is for your own safety.”

  “But I have a life,” she argued, knowing it was a weak one at best—but it was true. “Can’t I just go home? I’ll stay in my room. I’ll have Ella—”

  “You’ll put all of them in danger.” Sharp as a whip, his words snapped across the gaping distance between them. “You’ll put Ella in danger. You need to stay here until I figure things out…until I can put an end to the rumors and say you’re something else. Something they’ll believe. Something from Hell, preferably. Something that isn’t so shiny and new and appealing to them.”

  “Severus, I don’t want to be put on lockdown in your house—”

  “And why not?” He stood and scratched at the back of his neck, still not looking at her. “No one knows this place exists save for Verrier and the witch who enchanted it, who just so happens to be my cousin. They can’t find you here. This is the only place in the city you’re safe, Moira, so you’re just going to have to accept that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been accepting a lot of shit lately,” she told him thickly. “A lot. And I could do with a little more patience from you while I come to terms with everything. Is it really so unbelievable that I wouldn’t want to be locked in here?”
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  “What’s unbelievable,” he growled, finally facing her, his features hard again, “is that after all this time together, after all we’ve done together, you still don’t trust me. I want to keep you safe, Moira. It’s what I’ve wanted from the beginning. Now it’s just from all of the demons in Farrow’s Hollows, too, for fuck’s sake.”

  Biting the insides of her cheeks, Moira looked to the skylight, to the heavy droplets of rain hammering it relentlessly. She had nothing left to say that she hadn’t already said. Actually…

  “Did Verrier give you the names?” she asked in a very small voice. Naming the angels who worked at Seraphim Securities had been the entire point of this evening’s outing, yet it felt so insignificant now.

  “Yes. He named all of them, though he had no interest in divulging anything further. In fact, he told me to mind my own business when it came to angels, but that was expected.” His response was tight—restrained. “We’ll get back to searching for your father once I’ve…fixed this new little situation of ours. One life-threatening problem at a time, hmm?”

  Moira’s lips wobbled, and she pressed them together, determined not to break down. If the situation really was as dire as he made it out to be—and what reason would he have to lie?—then she had to stay here. For the sake of Ella and everyone else she cared about, Moira couldn’t set one foot outside until the demon glowering at her fixed what had happened tonight—what had happened in about ten seconds.

  Ten short seconds that had changed her life.

  She ought to be used to it by now.

  But she wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

  “Look, just…try to sleep,” Severus muttered as he headed for the door. “I need to think.”

  He caught the light switch on his way out, the warm yellow glow disappearing, followed by the click of his bedroom door closing. Moira sat there for a moment, listening to the dull roar of the storm outside, to the individual droplets pounding against the skylight—before drawing her knees to her chest and sobbing into Severus’s blankets.

  Chapter Seven

  “Fucking…ridiculous thing,” Severus grumbled. The digital interface on the oven beeped angrily back at him, and he heard Alaric snort from across the kitchen. Refusing to be goaded into anything, he squared his shoulders and tried again, the user manual spread open in front of him. He would conquer this damn oven timer—one way or another.

  Why did it need to be so bloody complicated, anyway? All he wanted was to set it for an hour—simple. Normally he wasn’t one for any complex cooking; brew a pot of lentils and he could be full for days. Most of his sustenance came from humans anyway, not food. Unfortunately, demon bodies weren’t quite as robust on Earth as they were in the hellscape below. It was part of the deal for being allowed in the human realm, the price you paid for going topside. Demons on Earth were weaker, healed slower, and operated at about sixty percent of their usual capabilities, power-wise. The farther you went from a hell-gate, the weaker you became. It was why cities located near the portals were so inundated with demons, Farrow’s Hollow included.

  “Aha!” He stepped back when the timer started ticking down, then hastily threw the skillet with the wrapped pork tenderloin onto the middle shelf. “Pork is in.”

  “Only took you fifteen minutes to figure the oven out,” Alaric announced, shattering his moment of triumph. “Pretty sure that’s a record, Sev.”

  His roommate hovered by the breakfast bar on the other side of the L-shaped counter. The tenderloin, however, was not for Severus’s consumption, but for Moira’s. The building’s newest resident was seated at the dining table that separated the first-floor seating area from the kitchen. Papers spread everywhere, she was nearly finished marking all the essays due for her teaching assistant job at the university. As Severus strode over, Alaric sliding off one of the barstools after him, she didn’t glance up.

  “Everything’s taken care of,” he told her, pausing at the other side of the table, his hand gripping the back of a chair. He tried not to smile when she savagely crossed out an entire paragraph and scribbled something in the margins. She had become ruthless with her grading since moving in almost a week ago, and given that her frustration was partially his fault, Severus felt he ought to make an apology of some kind to the students affected.

  When she was done, she set the pen down with a sigh and looked up.

  “Side dishes too?”

  “What do you take me for?” He cocked his head, grinning. “Of course the sides are done. You just need to heat them up.”

  Steamed vegetables and a very generous helping of mashed potatoes. Since Moira had been forced to move in against her wishes—for her own safety, but never mind—Severus had tried to soothe her temper by keeping her well fed. In just a short week of his meal regime, her cheeks were already a little less gaunt; as he’d suspected, she hadn’t been eating enough to match her new body’s needs. If this forced imprisonment lasted a month, Severus estimated he’d be able to completely get rid of all her figure’s sharp, pointy edges that she disliked so much.

  At the sound of Alaric getting his shoes and jacket together by the front door, Severus dug Moira’s phone out of his pants pocket and set it on the table.

  “Please only use it to call me,” he said, predicting the roll of her eyes before it happened.

  “I know, Severus.”

  Severus keeping the device on his person at all times hadn’t helped make her transition to full-time resident any smoother. Unfortunately, Moira just didn’t seem to understand the true severity of her situation, and he couldn’t risk her calling Ella and inviting her over. The fewer people who knew about his home, the better. It was logical. Rational. Reasonable, given all the chatter in the city’s demon community about the new angel hybrid in their midst. However, all that logic and reason wasn’t much help to Moira, who he knew felt like a prisoner. Getting in contact with Ella would likely lift her spirits, but he couldn’t chance it.

  Besides, Ella hadn’t exactly been his biggest fan when he’d showed up on the front porch with a bag for Moira’s things a week ago. It was the only time he had allowed Moira to contact her, and his little hybrid had sold the lie that she was staying at her new boyfriend’s house for a little while—or so he’d thought. Ella had looked like she wanted to skin him alive, even more so after he answered her thousand questions as vaguely as possible while he puttered around Moira’s bedroom, filling the bag.

  The curly-haired human, short in stature but fiery in nature, had to suspect something. It was why Severus had sent the occasional text message from Moira’s phone to let Ella know that she was fine, and that she would fill her in on everything soon. After all, he had agreed to it—Moira would have to eventually bring her best friend into the world of demons and vampires and angels and everything else that could rip a human in half. It was a stipulation she’d made in exchange for staying with him quietly, without a fight. Ella needed to know the truth—she needed to be protected, and knowledge was the first line of defense.

  Fine. Severus would see to all that, but only after he had quelled the rumors circulating Farrow’s Hollow about Moira and her abilities. Until he could guarantee the safety of the woman who actually mattered to him, Ella was at the bottom of his priorities list.

  The inner demon had become increasingly protective of Moira with every bit of new intel Alaric privately shared with him. Farrow’s Hollow was abuzz with news of an angel hybrid, and nearly every demon wanted a piece of her, just as he’d feared from the moment she blasted Diriel off him. He had never been possessive over a woman before, but his inner demon was addicted to the bored, occasionally cantankerous woman sitting at his dining table—and he would eviscerate anyone who touched a single white hair on her beautiful head. Severus was on the same page for once, and some of his inner self’s aggressive protectiveness had seeped into his everyday behaviour—hence the phone hoarding.

  “So, still won’t tell me where you’re going, huh?” Moira asked as he round
ed the table and swooped down to plant a kiss on her cheek. She leaned into it with a soft sigh, eyes drifting closed. Severus lingered, breathing her scent, fighting to control the beast within.

  Understandably, Moira had been less than forthcoming physically since he had trapped her inside his home. He and Alaric had bought some furniture and converted the previously empty third floor into something Moira could feel comfortable in during her stay. Sometimes she did her schoolwork on the couch set, but despite having a perfectly apt queen-sized bed of her own, she slept in his every night—with or without him present.

  His lips parted when she smoothed a hand up his cheek, nails grazing his recently trimmed scruff. Alaric’s less than subtle throat-clearing from across the room had him straightening with a growl.

  “You don’t want to know where we’re going,” he assured Moira as he cupped her chin, thumb stroking her cheek. She had been getting warmer to the physical touch since that night, but, not wanting to worry her, Severus had kept that to himself. When Moira shot him a skeptical look, he sank down to her eye level. “I promise. You really don’t want to know.”

  One of Verrier’s informants had told Alaric that some of the demon mob families would be getting together tonight to have some drinks, eat some food—and then bid for ownership of Moira. None of it mattered, because Severus wouldn’t let them find her, but he couldn’t stand the idea that someone out there would think they owned her. Legally. He had no doubt that someone would be up from Hell to administer the binding blood contracts and everything. So, he and Alaric—well, just Alaric—had landed themselves on the guest list and intended to outbid every sick fuck present. Severus had a sizeable fortune after working for years as an escort, but it was Alaric who had a limitless supply of credit in every currency, courtesy of his father.