Ruined

by Jus Accardo

  He watched me for a second from across the room, the light from the window casting an eerie shadow across his face. In that moment he truly looked demonic. Demonic, but beautiful. Dark and dangerous and breakable all at the same time. “This is—shit. I have to leave.”

  I jumped to my feet and crossed the room to where he stood, lingering at the base of the hallway. When he didn’t come closer, I reached for him. “Jax, wait.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he growled. There was a flash of black before he closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were normal again.

  I shoved him across the hall and into the adjacent wall. “I think I do.”

  Slipping my fingers under the shoulders of his trench coat, I slid the heavy material off. It fell to the floor with an audible plop. Still, he tried to pull away. I wouldn’t let him.

  Tracing patterns across his chest, the hard muscle beneath my fingers trembled, our skin separated by nothing more than thin cotton. With a groan, he wound his fingers, shaking with need, into the material of my shirt. His head tilted back against the wall, eyes closed, as his breath quickened.

  “Don’t,” he hissed. But it was halfhearted. His hands were moving across my back, tugging at the fabric of my shirt, the conflict in his voice leaning toward acceptance. And finally, surrender. “Fuck…”

  Jax’s fingers scraped against skin as he dragged me closer. A wave of need washed over me, and I held on tight, desperate for him to see this through. I brought my lips to his ear, begging softly, “Please don’t stop this time.”

  He growled and tensed. “Don’t push me, Sammy. This isn’t what you want.”

  His voice changed. Lower and laced with an edge of danger, it only made me want to nudge him more. We’d never gone this far and it was something I’d thought about nearly every day since that night in the woods. My lips rose with a defiant smile. “It’s exactly what I want.”

  I pulled back and saw him break. Like a piece of glass shattering into a million tiny pieces. His stony resolve gone, he crushed his lips to mine again, but it wasn’t the same as before. It was harsh. Violent.

  A second later he shoved me away and the sound that filled the air caused my heart to shudder.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jax

  I ignored the demon and did my best to focus on Sam. She was standing in front of me, pale, as the waves of orange lust bled slowly into gray. The noise. It hadn’t come from her—it’d come from me.

  Sam, whose beautiful, creamy white skin would look so lovely covered in red. Next came the images. Sam, lying broken and bloody on the floor. Her eyes wide open and unseeing. Stomach torn open. Legs bent at unnatural angles. No color rising from her still form. Only the cold, empty space of death.

  “Jesus!” I stumbled back, trying to put more distance between us. Azirak didn’t argue. It didn’t want Sam dead anymore than I did. But it did want to feed. And showing me that gruesome scene with Sam as its star was enough to get me moving.

  “Jax?” She reached for me, but I shoved her aside.

  What the hell had I done? The goal was to stay away—not drown deeper. Reality came crashing down. I’d stayed, fueled by the energy I’d taken in from the demon kill. A single kiss. That’s all I’d planned. Just to taste her one last time. But the energy in my system was like a drug. Some supernatural narcotic that stole away my inhibitions and good sense. Add that to the fact that Sam was already a problem for me and it was a cluster-fuck.

  “Get away from me,” I snapped, turning away. A bastard. That’s what I was. The hurt in her expression was just another reason to hate myself. Distance. I needed distance. The demon inside didn’t mean to feed from the pang of rejection radiating from Sam, but it did regardless. It couldn’t help itself.

  “Is it just physical? Is that it? I know—I know you want me. Do you feel guilty because you don’t have any real feelings for me? I mean, I know you care, but it’s been a long time. People’s feelings change.” She sucked in a deep breath and I had to force myself to stay where I was. I missed the feel of her in my arms. The warmth her body provided. “It’s okay. Really. I’m a big girl, Jax.”

  The whole room darkened and I couldn’t help laughing. I didn’t mean to turn around, but the sound of her voice was like a beacon, forcing me back. “If it was just about sex, this wouldn’t be an issue.” One step. Then another. I stopped in front of where she stood, leaning close enough to feel her breath on my neck. Sweet and vital. “It’s so much more than that with you. It always has been—and that’s the problem, I think.”

  “Just so you know, from a girl’s point of view, that’s not usually a big problem.”

  “It is.” I took a step away. “Every minute I’m with you, I’m…happy. It makes the demon hungrier. I’m not meant to be happy, Sammy. I’m paying for what Cain did to Abel. It’s been getting worse. It was bad in the beginning, painful, and now it’s becoming unbearable.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m not allowed to be at peace. And since I’ve been refusing to accept that, these stolen moments with you are taking their toll. They destroy my control. With the jacked-up energy I got from killing those demons, I should have lasted for at least two days—maybe more—just taking bits from people here and there. It should have kept Azirak sated. But I can feel the itch again. It’s worse when—when we’re close.”

  “You’re saying you have to feed it again,” she confirmed. “Something like what happened in the alley with that guy?”

  How the hell could she ask the question like it was nothing more than an inquiry about the weather? “Yeah.” The words were bitter. Knowing it and admitting it out loud were two different things. “I have to feed it again.”

  “And that would make it easier? To be close to me?”

  Jesus. She was out of her fucking mind. “Maybe, but that’s not my point. If you knew what I saw sometimes when I looked at you—the images—you would never put yourself in the same room with me again.” I needed to drive the point home with cruel accuracy. “All I want right now is to kill you. I want to rip you open and spill you out, just to make the thing inside me quiet. Just to dull the pain.”

  She flinched as if I’d slapped her. “Well, then I guess we better get moving.”

  “Moving?”

  “The sooner we find these things and what they want, the sooner you can leave. That’s what the endgame is here, right? To get away from me? From this place?”

  “That’s the way it has to be,” I said, doing my best to keep the chill in my voice. Then I remembered what one of the demons said about her in the field. Something about being demon touched. Fuck. I’d forgotten all about it. Too busy trying crawling all over her. “But there’s something we need to talk about first.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Wonderful. Another secret? Are you related to Dracula? Maybe you have a cousin who’s a troll?”

  “Do you remember hearing something about being demon touched?”

  She shrugged. “Vaguely. Why, what’s it mean?”

  “I don’t know.” I sank into the chair across the room. “But it can’t be good.”

  She blinked. “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know,” I repeated.

  “Weren’t you a card-carrying member of the evil-infested? You know how to deal with this stuff. That’s what you said. How can you not know?”

  “I may have overstated my expertise when it comes to demonkind.” I pinched my thumb and pointer together and held it up for her to see. “Just a little.”

  “You— Are you serious?”

  “Don’t worry.” I pulled my coat tight and took a step toward the door. “We need answers. I think I know just the place to get them.”

  Azirak kept flashing the fight in the field through my mind, remembering the feel of the demon essence and the virtual high it had given us. It wanted more—and that was fine with me. We needed to know what it meant to be demon touched, and there was only one way to find out.

 
Interrogation.

  Normally the thought of beating the answers out of someone would have sent the demon into an excited frenzy, but unfortunately, I’d been inconveniently saddled with a sidekick. The thing seemed as unenthused as I was by the concept of Sam witnessing a repeat of what happened in the alley yesterday. But letting her out of my sight was out of the question.

  I checked on Rick before heading out with Sam. He’d been asleep, so still that in a moment of panic, I slipped a small mirror under his nose. Only after it fogged could I breathe again.

  Harlow was full of demons. Most places were. They were easy for me to find by simply inhaling, their acidic trademark scent stinging my nose. When I’d first come home, I’d caught the scent of a demon bar on the edge of town. A dive bar called the Inferno. I pushed open the door and took the lead, slipping into the decrepit building with Sam on my heels.

  The first thing that came to mind was to make her wait outside. But she was determined to be in the thick of this. To prove that she could handle whatever my life might throw at her.

  I’d made her wait around the corner on the way over when I saw a man try to rob an elderly lady. A quick round with him in the alley a block over and I felt a little more at ease. It didn’t sate the demon completely, and wasn’t nearly as potent as the demon kills, but it took the edge off the ache.

  We took a seat as the bartender eyed Sam, then turned to me. “What’ll it be, Tainted?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Drink,” the scruffy thing behind the bar spat. It wasn’t a demon. I didn’t think, anyway. It smelled wrong. Different from what I was used to, but most certainly not human. Then again, my nose was off lately. I hadn’t caught a whiff of the bastard that attacked Sam on campus, and I’d been standing right there. “As in, what do ya want?”

  “Coors,” I said, scanning the room. Except for me, Sam, and the bartender, the place was empty.

  Sam nodded. “Same for me, please.”

  The bartender disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he placed two open bottles on the counter without asking for ID. I eyed them for a moment, then looked up. “What?”

  “Just don’t get many of your kind in here.” He inclined his head toward Sam and flashed her a flirty smile. “Hers either. Humans tend to keep their distance from places like this.”

  “My kind?”

  “Tainted.” He tipped back his own glass and set it down on the bar with a clatter. “With a human no less. An odd sight.”

  I took a swig of the beer and almost spit it back out. Crap was warm. “Mind elaborating?”

  The bartender laughed and poured himself another drink. “Seriously?”

  I set down the beer. I wasn’t in the mood to play guessing games. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  The bartender sighed. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the counter rag. Swiping it back and forth over the same spot, he said, “’Course not. Your kind doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. Can’t say as I blame ya, though. The normal demons simply got trapped in human forms and have limited natural resources. You Tainted have to share your space. Raw deal, man. Raw deal.”

  I gripped the beer in an effort to keep Azirak down. The demon was getting impatient and it seemed to have a singular dislike of the thing behind the counter. I felt the same way. Neither of us would be opposed to a little dessert.

  The bartender tossed the rag over his shoulder and held out his hand. “Name’s Heckle. Bel Heckle.”

  Jax didn’t move.

  Sam shook the man’s hand instead. “Excuse him. His manners are only active between the hours of four and five p.m. every other week on Tuesdays.”

  Heckle guffawed and gave her hand a proper shake.

  “Trapped?” I asked between clenched teeth. I knew the full-blooded demons were running around in human form, but had no idea they’d been trapped like that. “Who trapped them?”

  With a shrug, Heckle leaned across the bar. He was wearing a grin that Jax itched to wipe away with the back of his fist. “Think of it as a punishment. Let’s just say playtime got a little rowdy and they’re in a timeout.”

  “I heard about this from the priest,” Sam said. “Something about the devil casting them from hell, right?”

  Heckle nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “And me? Why did you call me Tainted?”

  “Because that’s what you are. They’re full-blooded demons walking around basically bound and gagged—you’re a human with a stain on his soul allowing him to be cursed with a demon. Tainted.”

  I drained the rest of the beer and slammed the bottle to the counter. “Stain on my soul? And that means what, exactly?”

  I could see it in the bartender’s eyes. He loved having to explain it all. “When someone—a human—does something horrible, it leaves a stain. If the act is so horrible that the soul can’t be redeemed in a single lifetime, it gets passed along to future generations.” He leaned on the bar, winking once at Sam before continuing. “It’s a blemish. A dirty spot on an otherwise pure thing.”

  Sam took a sip of her own beer, trying not to make a face. Guess she wasn’t a fan of warm brew, either. “So you’re saying Jax has a demon because of a stain on his soul?”

  “That’d be correct, little lady. When a demon takes up residence in the body of a stained soul, that’s what we call Tainted. Bad attitude. Short temper.” He snorted. “Horrible fashion sense. Somewhere along the line, someone in your family committed a crime. You’re the lucky bastard who gets to pay for it. It doesn’t have access to its supernatural abilities, but unlike the other demons who need fresh feeds to access their latent talents—strength, speed, et cetera—a demon in a Tainted simply has to take control.”

  “Huh,” Sam said, taking a pull from her bottle. “That gives new meaning to the sins of the father thing.”

  This was fascinating, and maybe under different circumstances I might have been interested in a history lesson, but I wasn’t here about myself. “I need some information.”

  Heckle eyed me, suspicious, and sneaked a peek at Sam. “This ain’t a library, man.”

  “And it’s not a bloodbath, either. Might be nice to keep it that way.”

  “See what I mean? Bad attitude.” With a pointed nod toward Sam, he sighed. “What ya lookin’ for?”

  Things were getting messier by the minute. I launched right into it. “What does it mean if someone is demon touched?”

  Demons didn’t put off emotion the way humans did, so reading them was harder, but body language was body language. Heckle was scared.

  “I’m not getting any younger,” I prodded.

  “Every demon is different. Most have no lasting side effects when feeding, flu-like symptoms or blurred vision for a few days—I’m betting you leave folks with quite a headache after you do your thing. Some, though, leave some nasty calling cards.” The bartender’s brows rose. “Might help if you told me more about the situation. What kind are we talking about here?”

  “I don’t know. Sam is being hunted by demons. We don’t know why, but we heard one say she was demon touched. I need to know if we have anything to worry about.”

  Heckle watched him with an odd expression.”You care about her, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “And you have no idea why someone would target her specifically?”

  My patience was officially drained. I slipped from the stool and leaned across the bar, stopping inches away from the annoying bartender’s face. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, right?”

  Heckle backed away and threw up both hands in an exaggerated show of surrender. “Okay, okay. To be demon touched means a high-ranking demon has fed from the human. Even the smallest demon leaves a tiny mark on their feed. Like I said, it’s usually nothing that lasts, but the stronger ones can create a link.”

  “A link?” Sam asked.

  “Think of it as a symbiotic relationship. What happens to the demon, happens to the linked human. If the demon is truly powerful, he ca
n also control the human. Make it do his bidding.”

  Sam was pale. “What can we do to break it?”

  “The first thing you need to do is find out who the demon was that fed from her. Some can be broken. Others can’t.”

  “Any idea how we can do that? Find the demon?” Sam asked, voice a little shaky. She’d pushed the beer aside.

  “There is someone that might be able to tell you. A demon named Havat Doyle.”

  Sam looked hopeful. “Where can we find him—or, is it a her?”

  “Oh, Doyle is a he, all right. You can find him in the War Zone most afternoons and evenings.”

  “The war zone?” I asked, sure I didn’t love the sound of it.

  Heckle’s bushy brows waggled as he poured himself another shot. “You never been in the War Zone? Well, you’re in for one hell of a treat.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sam

  Heckle walked in front of us, whistling a vaguely familiar tune. I wasn’t the violent type, but if he didn’t stop, there was a chance I’d smack him in the back of the head. Obviously Jax had rubbed off on me.

  He led us down a narrow, wooded path, looking back once to give the thumbs-up sign. Yeah. This was how horror movies started. The poor, stupid couple followed some weirdo into the woods only to be hacked to pieces and then eaten by sparsely toothed men wearing overalls and mismatched shoes.

  “How much farther?” Jax asked coolly. We’d followed Heckle in Rick’s car, all the way to a sprawling estate on the outskirts of town. From the state of the property, no one had been out this way in a long time. The grass was past my knees, and as we finally approached the house, I could see several of the windows broken out.

  “Just around the back of the house. There’s a cellar underneath.”

  Jax paused. Grabbing my arm, he pulled me to a stop. “Tell us what we’re doing here.”