Either way, I needed her gone.
“Yes.” I honestly didn’t know whether it was a lie or the truth. Somehow, I didn’t think the demon wanted to kill me, but I had a feeling what he planned was so much worse.
Nathalie swallowed once and walked away.
When I heard the door close behind her, tension thickened. It was nearly tangible in the way it wrapped around me. My heart rate was nearing its climax.
I was dangerously close to coming undone.
And not in the good way.
“I couldn’t find her. Now I know why. She was in the circle that called me, and yet here she is now with you . . .” His voice trailed off, as dark and deep as it was horribly lovely.
I should have shot myself right there, but I didn’t.
His footsteps were silent as he came to stand before me.
To my credit, I didn’t gasp in surprise, though I was utterly shocked to see him in a suit of all things. His dark hair was pulled back. His brands hidden beneath the tight fabric.
Silver eyes watched me. The world could have burned, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t look away.
“You went after them,” I said. “The coven. Why?”
The demon stepped forward and lifted a hand, brushing a strand of my honey-colored hair from my face. Black fire shone in his eyes. The same as before.
“You wanted one alive.”
“What did that have to do with anything?” I asked.
“I needed to know why.”
Faster.
Faster.
Faster.
My chest was squeezing painfully tight trying to contain my rapidly beating heart. His eyes dropped, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with my tits.
The demon cocked his head.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?” he asked softly.
“Know why?”
He dragged his gaze back up my body, and it could have been his hands touching me for the way my skin set aflame. I almost worried that very real flames had broken out for a moment, but not quite. Not yet.
My heart still hadn’t stopped.
“I do.”
Those two words, they were my undoing.
I took a step back, and he took one forward.
My ribs ached as the beating organ in my chest reached a fever pitch.
I lifted my pistol to shoot and unload my entire magazine in his chest, but a hand closed around the barrel, crushing it instantly. My grip faltered, and he used the chance to fling the useless weapon aside.
I took another step back. He took another forward.
My back touched the wall.
Cornered. He had me cornered.
“Why do you want me?” I demanded.
A cruel grin twisted his lips. “Does it matter?” he asked, repeating himself from the first time we’d met.
“Yes.”
“Liar,” he growled. “You’d fear me no matter what I tell you. You hate me for what I am.”
He reached for me with the same hand that easily crumpled a metal gun like paper. Fingers wrapped around my throat. Warm. Calloused. Immensely powerful. Magic invaded my pores with every touch.
“Does that matter?” I asked, repeating his own words back to him. “That I hate you for what you are?”
There was amusement in his gaze as he uttered, “Yes.”
His face loomed closer. He leaned into me, and something feather soft skimmed my jaw. He stiffened.
Another growl left him, though for the life of me, I had no idea what I’d done.
“Who touched you?” he asked, his voice hardly human. I suppose that was to be expected, in a way, given he wasn’t—but he sure did sound it at times.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I swallowed thickly.
“Liar,” he said again, this time with heat. “I can smell him on you.”
Him? Who the—
Realization hit me.
Before we’d come here, I’d been in the diner.
Flint had touched me.
“Who?” he asked again. A single word uttered softly had never sounded so deliciously damning.
“Does it matter?” I asked again. This question defined a lot. It answered a lot.
It confirmed a lot.
“Yes,” the demon hissed. I closed my eyes.
Fuck.
There was no playing this off. He was definitely interested.
“Stop touching me,” I snapped. It probably wasn’t the wisest thing to say to a demon, mind you, but it was the best I had when my heartbeat was currently going a hundred miles an hour.
“No,” he said. This time, the softness in his voice had something else there. Warmth. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why.
I growled in frustration, but that only seemed to encourage him. His lips barely touched me, but their shadow scalded what little skin they brushed against. Ecstasy ignited within me.
“You hate me. You hate my kind. But your body likes my touch,” he whispered. “It loves it.” He placed a hand on my hip, but was blocked from my skin by the holster at my side. “You are not like the humans. Weak of mind. Of will. Any other being, you would not feel this. Why do you think that is?”
He leaned back to see what was in his way, and I made a decision.
My heartbeat stopped.
Red tinted my vision as rage flooded. I slammed my foot down on his own, but the demon moved faster this time. He seemed to predict what was going to happen, because the moment my heart ceased to pound, he paused, his entire attention shifting.
Strong arms wrapped around me even as I tried to unleash myself on him.
“I knew you were in there,” he murmured.
It was hard to land blows when he crushed me to his chest without actually crushing me. I reared back to slam my forehead into his nose. A crunch sounded. His grip didn’t loosen in the slightest.
Power thickened as my magic rose with my rage. White fire consumed both my arms.
A pained hiss slid between his lips, but he held strong, or at least tried to.
My wild movements were harder to contain when I was on fire.
Two blows at his chest from my flaming fists sent him stumbling back.
The suit he was wearing now hung in tatters as it went up in a blaze. The white flames eating at it.
“I know who you are, Piper Fallon. I know what you are. I know why you hunted Kenneth du Lac, and I’d be willing to bet it’s also why you called me from beyond,” he said, stalking forward once more. “But you underestimated who you called. Who I am. You opened a door, and I smelled you, I felt your magic, I heard the beat of your heart—and it called to me like nothing in all this universe has. I am here because you brought me here, and no matter where you run—I will find you again.”
I swallowed hard. The fire in me still burned. In this state, I was more susceptible to magic in the air than ever before. My baser survival instincts warped. I was burning, my emotions unraveling more with each passing moment as the aphrodisiac slipped into my skin and filled me with an awful fuzziness.
“Why?” I asked in an angry growl. The fangs that descended from my gums dripped with my blood and made my words convoluted.
“Because you’re mine,” the demon answered, as if it were so simple.
“I belong to no one,” I answered. He smiled again, and while it was cruel, it was also pitying.
“You think that now,” he said, looking up and down my form. “But I’ll convince you. There is no other in this entire universe for you, woman.”
I knew what he was saying, though he didn’t use the word.
He must have seen it in my eyes because that pitying edge disappeared behind cruel amusement.
“Yes,” he said softly. “You know what I speak of.”
“I’m human. It’s not possible.”
“Maybe you were once.” He scanned the white flames before staring in my eyes. “But you aren’t human anymore. You’re as bound by the laws of magic a
s any of us.” The remaining pieces of his shirt fell away, revealing smooth, branded skin.
“You’re lying,” I snapped.
He stepped forward, closing the gap between us, and wrapped his bare hands around my flaming wrists.
“If I were lying, I’d be dead right now. Your fire would have killed me. You were counting on that when you jumped in that circle.” His face was only inches from mine. “But you weren’t planning for me to hear you. You expected a weaker demon—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hissed, struggling against the rage and the fire and the passion as they threatened to consume us both.
“You shot me and ran. I did the only thing I could to find you. I tracked down every member of the Antares Coven and questioned them. I made Kenneth du Lac sing before I ended him. He told me who you are, and how you were made, and why you’re after him. I couldn’t allow him to walk free after that. Not after knowing what he’d done to you.”
I stood frozen, unable to even pull away. The silence between us was only broken by our breathing and the pulse of music from the club beyond.
“The magic you possess would kill anything on this earth, and in most other realms—except me. It hurts, but I don’t truly burn. Why is that, Piper?”
My lips pressed together.
No. This was not happening. It wasn’t possible.
I might not be fully human anymore, but I was human enough.
I refused to believe otherwise.
“I don’t know who you are, but if I can’t kill you, I’ll find a way to send you back to the hell you came from.”
He chuckled. “The only way I’m returning to where I came from is with you by my side.”
“Not happening.”
He leaned forward, closing the gap between us.
His lips brushed mine. I quivered, not from fear, but from fury.
His tongue darted out, sweeping the length of one of my fangs.
A growl rumbled through his chest, and I knew it was because of my blood.
I snapped my teeth at him, but he didn’t move away.
He let me.
Shock filtered through as my fangs punctured his bottom lip. Magical ichor welled. Flavor exploded on my tongue and I saw stars as my blood quickened. I trembled with desire.
His hands loosened around my wrists, then skated down my arms to my shoulders, around my back. The hard pads of his fingers pressed into the sides of my breasts as he ran his splayed hands down either side of my body, stopping only to grip my hips. He pulled me flush against him, and I reached up, twining my own fingers in his hair.
A low moan built in my throat as I sucked on his bottom lip.
He hissed in pleasure, and his hands tightened. Nails pricked my skin, the tiny dose of pain just enough to break the trance.
As quickly as hunger took me, an icy cold washed over.
I pulled away, and his heated gaze tracked the movement.
Crimson dotted his lips, his own fangs were prominent and on display.
The door to the club blew open. A gust of wind that didn’t belong shot straight for us. I slammed into the wall behind me while the demon was thrown across the room and into the pile of bodies on the bed.
“Come on!” The shout pulled at my attention.
Nathalie stood in the doorway with Barry at her side. The fae-witch hybrid had his eyes screwed shut in concentration as his hand movements directed the great wind, allowing me to pass.
With one look over my shoulder toward the figure slumped on the bed, I bolted out of the room. The door slammed shut behind me. Nathalie grabbed my hand, and before my head had righted itself, we were sprinting down the walkway toward the stairs.
“We’re never going to make it,” I panted as we ran as fast as our legs would carry us, pushing past the unsuspecting supes as they tried to get into the upper lounge.
“Not with that attitude, we won’t,” Nathalie quipped back.
What she didn’t know was the rage in me was dulling. My reserve of power had only just recuperated, and the crash would be on me again within the hour. Less than, if the buzzing in my head was anything to go by.
I had to be back at my apartment before that happened.
I released her hand, using my enhanced strength to push myself harder, faster. I shoved patrons out of the way, clearing a way toward the door.
Behind us, a roar blasted through the club, making every supernatural stand to attention.
Nathalie winced.
“You shouldn’t have come back for me,” I said, shoving a couple out of the way. The door was only feet from us, and the calming magic of the club was gnawing at me. It hit already sensitive nerves, and if not for the rage, I might have slipped into a slumber right then and there.
As it was, I slammed into the door. It flew open and hit the brick wall of the club with a bang.
Nathalie followed suit, panting even harder than me. She paused, bending at the waist to catch her breath.
“You know, I think this is the part where you’re supposed to say thank you.”
“We need to keep moving,” I snapped, jogging down the cement pavement. “My apartment should only be twenty minutes away if we run—”
Another roar split the air. Closer, but still in the club.
Fuck.
“I don’t think we have time for that,” Nathalie panted, struggling to keep up.
She was right. We wouldn’t make it more than five minutes without him catching up to us at this rate.
“We need to lose him,” I said. “Or you’re dead.”
“And you’re not?” she replied, lifting an eyebrow.
Answers.
She was searching for answers.
“If he catches me, I’m worse than dead,” I muttered. Not willing to say more than that now that I knew why he was hunting me. I may have a begrudging respect for the girl, but I still wasn’t going to tell her what happened back there.
“Can he track your scent?” she asked.
I grit my teeth. “I think so.”
“We need to get off the street, then. The nearest L station—”
“Is seven minutes away, not to mention the wait for the train. We won’t make it.”
My rage slipped entirely, draining away in an instant. With it, my speed flagged. We were so fucked.
“I’ve got an idea,” Nathalie said. She stopped instantly, and I balked.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She lifted her hand in the air and shouted, “Taxi.”
The driver approaching took one look at us and seemed to make the conscious choice to keep going. It wasn’t like he would be short on business, after all. There were fewer taxis on the roads these days. I couldn’t let that happen. Without thinking, I stepped off the sidewalk and walked into the middle of the street.
Tires screeched.
A car horn blared.
I stood, tired and pissed off with my arms crossed over my chest, staring over the hood at the taxi driver.
He looked a little pale when Nathalie hopped in. I went around and opened the back door.
“Piper.” The sound of my name made me look.
Standing at the end of the street was the demon.
I lifted my head above the roof of the cab to look him in the eye.
His name came to my lips, sudden and unbidden.
“Ronan,” I whispered.
“Run far, run fast, Atma, because I will catch you.”
He spoke softly, but his words reached my ears.
I pressed my lips together and climbed in the cab.
We started moving instantly. In the passenger seat, Nathalie was rattling off instructions for the taxi driver. I slumped in the back, hot and cold flashing through me.
Minutes. I had minutes at most.
I wanted to curse my body for being so damned fickle after using my powers, but that would do little good right now. I leaned my head back, staring at the ceiling as a wave of dizziness overcame
me.
Atma. He’d called me Atma.
I’d known he wanted me from the moment he got upset about Flint’s scent on me, but the fire . . . I shuddered. It didn’t burn him. Not as it should.
And then there was the blood . . . it told me his name. Or at least the name he went by, since their true name was ever-changing, evolving, as they were.
I closed my eyes.
For a decade, I’d hated the supernaturals who owned my world.
I’d hunted them.
I’d killed them.
And now, in the grandest twist of fate—I was bonded to one of them.
Permanently.
This week was just going from bad to worse, but I didn’t really have time to think about it as black dots appeared in my vision. Tremors shook me. The oscillations between hot and cold became so intense that my teeth would chatter only to be followed by an unholy swelter that left me panting.
Darkness rose up, and try as I might, there was nothing I could do to stop it.
12
Ronan
She ran. Again.
However, I wasn’t angry. No. Not after I’d seen her past. The man she called Claude Lewis had tricked her. Lied to her. Ruined her.
I may have killed him and enjoyed it, but the damage was done. Piper hated magic and all magical beings, including me. She abhorred us for the atrocities committed against her and her people.
I might not have been in this world, or even known of her existence at the time, but it wouldn’t matter to her. She blamed me with the rest of them, all the same.
Piper might have entered the first blood-exchange with me willingly, but I was going to have to tread carefully with her. Striking a fine balance between chasing her and giving her space.
She needed to grow. To heal. To learn that not every magical person would abuse or betray her.
I stared at the spot where the taxi had been. I could see it in her glowing red eyes as they faded to violet. She was entering stasis. The magic she wielded was wild. Unruly. Untamable. Yet . . . she’d tamed it. She bent it to her indomitable will, even if it robbed her of her strength afterward.
Touched by Fire: Magic Wars (Demons of New Chicago Book 1) Page 8