The Dark-Hunters (702 page)

Okay, I’m really not this big a slut.
It’d just been so long since she’d touched a man without having to deal with his issues that her hormones had swallowed her common sense. And honestly, she wanted him back for another round.…

One that lasted a whole lot longer than three minutes.

Trying not to think about that, she went to help with whatever was happening.

Sure enough, there was a massive fight in the bar between two biker humans. Dev grabbed the biggest one and pulled him away from the smaller man he’d been pummeling while another shapeshifter male got between the combatants.

The bigger human slugged Dev hard across his face.

Dev didn’t even flinch as he grabbed the human by the shirt and shoved him back. “Boy, you knock on the devil’s door and he will head-slam you through the wall.”

“Fuck you.” He moved to strike Dev again.

Dev ducked, spun the man around, and threw him so hard into the wall that his head left a dent in the Sheetrock. The human staggered back two steps, then crumpled to the floor.

“Dev!” Aimee Peltier snapped, coming around a table to check the human’s pulse. Tall and slender, her long blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She glared up in fury at her brother.

Dev’s face was a mask of innocence. “What? He was warned. Not my fault he’s too stupid to know when to shut his mouth and keep his hands to himself. I ain’t a saint, baby. They hit me. I hit back. You know the Sanctuary motto.”

The bear who held the other human laughed. “So, Dev, you want to escort this one out?”

The human held his hands up in surrender. “I’m leaving. Right now. I don’t need to kiss a wall first.” He bolted for the door.

Aimee rose to her feet with a lethal glower. “He’s breathing, but damn, Dev … You know better. You could have killed him.”

Honestly, Sam considered Dev justified in what he’d done. Like Dev said, he’d warned the human.

A weird groan came out of the man before he rose to his feet. He narrowed his gaze on Dev. “You’re going to die for that, Bear.” He swept his gaze around at the other male bear and Aimee, then turned that soulless stare to Sam. “All of you are going to die, including you, Dark-Hunter.” Throwing his head back, he laughed maniacally.

This guy was definitely
not
human.…

Dev grabbed him. “Enough of that crap. You’re—”

The man exploded all over him.

Dev cursed as he was soaked by something light yellow that had the viscosity and properties of snot. It went all over him, even into his mouth, eyes, and ears. “Ah, gah, it’s a slug demon. Aimee, mindwipe the humans. Colt, get me a towel and Lysol and Listerine.” Spitting out some of the mucus, he slung his arms, which caused the snot to fly in all directions.

“Hey!” Sam snapped, ducking the sticky shrapnel. “Keep your snot to yourself.”

Dev scoffed at that. “Oh, so now you don’t want to touch me, huh?” He tsked. “What is it with women? The instant you put a little slime on them, they get squeamish and have no more use for you.”

As he stepped toward her, she backed up. “Don’t make me have to hurt you.”

“You’re such a tease. I knew it. Fine, I’ll take my slimy self upstairs and de-slug. Definitely brushing my teeth first. Then gargling with boiling water and straight rubbing alcohol.”

She shook her head at him. How could he have a sense of humor about being coated in slug juice that smelled so bad? She couldn’t imagine how a Were-Hunter with heightened senses could tolerate it and not toss his cookies. Though she’d never been hit by demon snot, she knew from others that it was nasty and that it burned.

“I think you’ll forgive me for my rudeness?” Dev vanished instantly.

Sam turned to see Aimee “visiting” the handful of humans in the bar to erase their memories of the demon and Dev. She met the other bear’s gaze and couldn’t help asking, “This happen often?”

“Not usually. Demons don’t normally come here, except for Simi and on rare occasion her brother Xed.” He glanced toward Aimee. “May the gods help them. Aimee’s not real good at that. Hope she doesn’t burn out anything they need.”

Ahhh, that explained Dev’s paranoia. Made her wonder what Aimee had taken from him with her ineptitude.

The bear extended his hand to her. “Name’s Colt.”

“Sam.”

He dropped his hand when she didn’t take it and scowled at the mess on the floor. “Could you tell he was a demon before he exploded?”

“Not even a little bit. You?”

Colt shook his head. “Acheron moves all of you in here. We have a Daimon walk into the bar in broad daylight, and now a demon sliming Dev. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem coincidental to me.”

“I agree. Snot funny.”

Colt rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you went there.”

“Me neither, but I couldn’t resist.” She jerked her chin toward the demon remains on the floor. “What would make a demon threaten us, then kill himself?”

“Stupidity? Slugs aren’t real smart. Maybe he thought he was teleporting and exploded instead. Or maybe even a bad case of indigestion. There’s no telling what he ate before he got here.”

“But why threaten us?”

“I’d say shits and giggles, but I’m with you. Something about this isn’t right.” Colt held his arm out toward her so that she could see his forearm. “Look … chill bumps.”

Yeah, right. Sam let out an annoyed breath. There wasn’t a chill bump on him.

Fang came running from the kitchen door with another blond man—a dragon shapeshifter—following a step behind him. He went straight to Aimee to make sure she was okay while the dragon took over mindwiping the humans.

Sam scowled. “Does the mindwipe happen a lot here?”

“Not as much as you’d think. We do a pretty good job keeping a lid on the unnatural around the humans. Max is the resident containment expert. He can clean out anyone without their knowing it.”

For some reason she heard Dev in her ear talking about stealing passwords again. The memory made her smile.

Colt frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” She didn’t want to share it with him. She liked having it as something between her and Dev.

I have lost my mind.
Dev was impossible and annoying. And right now, he was covered in demon mucus.

And still he’d been sexy.

I am a seriously sick woman. Only the deranged could think a man covered in paranormal snot was hot.

See what happens when you go a couple hundred years without sex. You lose your mind and all perspective.

She turned her attention back to Colt. “You know, I mentioned to Dev earlier that I wondered if the Daimon you guys thought you saw might be a demon in disguise.…”

“No,” Aimee said as she joined them. “He was a Daimon. No doubt about it. Believe it or not, we can tell the difference.”

Sam still wasn’t convinced. Demons and Daimons weren’t really that far apart on a subspecies scale. “Let’s pretend for a minute that I’m right and he was a demon messing with you. Wouldn’t all of this”—she gestured toward the demon remains—“make more sense?”

Fang laughed low in his throat like he had a secret none of the rest of them knew. “Yes, but he was a Daimon. Trust me. I
do
know my demons.”

Why was he being so stubborn? “Some aren’t that easy to spot.”

Fang snorted. “For
you
people. I happen to be a Hellchaser so trust me when I say I can tell when a demon is nearby. Spot over there is what woke me up out of dead sleep a few minutes ago. I knew the minute he changed from possessed human to demon and manifested his powers. It makes my skin burn and Daimons don’t do that to me.”

Sam was unfamiliar with the term he’d used to describe himself even though he’d said it as if she should know. “What’s a Hellchaser?”

Fang flashed a cocky grin. “Dark-Hunters hunt Daimons. Hellchasers hunt demons. No matter what they do to disguise themselves, they can’t hide from one of us for long. The minute they use their powers anywhere near us, we feel it. Just like you guys with your prey.”

He was right about that. As a Dark-Hunter, she could sense anytime a Daimon was anywhere near her. So it stood to reason that he’d have a similar power with his targets. “Then do you know why Spot was here?”

“My job is to police them. I’m not their therapist or parole officer. He could have come in to harass me or just for a drink. With a demon, there’s no telling. He might have even followed someone else in here for who knows what purpose.”

Sam gave Fang a droll stare as she mentally came to terms with the inevitable fact she’d been trying to avoid. Daimons walked in daylight and Fang was psychotic.

“Fine.” Disgusted with what she was forced to do, she pulled her glove off and went over to the snot that Max was in the process of cleaning up.

Nice dragon to mop up without complaining. Though he did pause to give her a puzzled frown.

“Don’t ask.” She knelt down and touched a small spot of the demon’s remains. It was so cold and slimy … uuuggghhh! Trying not to think about that or the fact that it was burning her fingertip, she closed her eyes and used her powers to conjure an image of the demon in his true form.

Oh yeah, that was a face even his mother would cringe over. Slug demons weren’t attractive. They looked like fat humanoid boars complete with tusks coming out of their chins and foreheads.

But the things she saw playing through her mind were baffling. They made no sense whatsoever.…

She saw a place without daylight. Not a city in this world, but it was a city where the sun didn’t shine—she had to force herself to ignore
that
obvious pun. It was like the sun didn’t exist in that realm … and it had to be an alternate realm. There was nothing about it to say it was the human world and it looked completely different. An odd combination of an ancient civilization and a modern one.

Suddenly the demon was in a hall where Daimons gathered in a number she would have never thought possible for them. There had to be well over a thousand Daimons and they spoke in a language she couldn’t identify.

Crud. She spread her palm deeper into the ick on the floor to get a better immersion into the demon’s last memories.

The room around her spun until she was in the body of the demon. She could hear what he heard, feel what he felt, and see everything through his bloodred eyes. The roar of the Daimons made her ears hurt as she tried to wade through them.

Her master was summoning her and she was desperate to reach him. He was in pain. She could feel it and it made her own body ache. It was her duty to release him. To fight and protect him …

A male Daimon grabbed her brutally by the scruff of the neck and pulled her forward to a dais where two black thrones were set. Each one was heavily carved to resemble human bones—something no doubt meant to intimidate all who saw it and boy, did it ever work on the demon as he faced the thrones’ occupants. A gorgeous man with short black hair sat in one and in the other was a beautiful blond woman whose eyes were so cold they seemed brittle.

“Can we eat this one, my lord?” the Daimon holding him asked.

The man on the throne shook his head. “Slugs are soulless. Servants. They’re not worth our time. Besides, he’d give you indigestion.”

The Daimon made a sound of disgust before he flung the slug demon away. It was then the demon saw his master.…

He was on the floor a few feet from him, being drained by two Daimons.

“Help me!” his master called as he reached out toward him, but he knew it was useless. There was nothing he could do against so many. The Daimons were killing his master.…

He would be next.

The woman on the throne laughed. “Look at the poor creature, Stryker. I think you’ve scared him to death.”

He had, but it was more than that. His master no longer wore a human skin. He was in true winged demon form and still he couldn’t fight the Daimons.…

The Daimons were far more powerful than all of the demon’s kind.

Terrified, he teleported away from the Daimons, back to the human world and to some semblance of safety.

No sooner had he arrived than he felt the unleashing—the sensation of his master’s death.

I’m free.
After all the centuries of serving under his master’s cruel fist, he was now his own demon. Forever free. Joy filled him.

Until a Daimon appeared to his right. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I—”

The Daimon lunged at him, cutting off his words.

The slug demon ran.

“Come back here, you worm! Die like your master.”

Terrified, the slug teleported again, but just as he flashed out, he felt something hit his chest like a vicious battering ram. Unable to breathe for the pain of it, he’d headed to the only place he could think of where the Daimons couldn’t kill him.

Sanctuary. It was the one establishment that protected all preternatural classes equally. The bears would make sure no one hurt him.

He flashed into the third story of the building where humans were forbidden to go and stumbled down two levels to the bar. At this hour, only a few patrons were in the club, along with a bear at the bar and a bear waitress. It appeared safe. There were no Daimons at all. With that thought foremost in his mind, he went to the bar to order a drink; all the while he watched for the Daimon to come for him and finish him off.

Seconds ticked by slowly.

No Daimons. No one approached him.

I’m safe.

His heartbeat slowing, he took his drink and sipped it, grateful that he’d escaped his near death in Kalosis at the hands of Stryker and crew. At least until the pain built inside his chest. It was unbearable. Agonizing.

What’s causing this?
Was it something to do with the body he’d stolen before he’d gone to Kalosis? Did the biker have some kind of internal defect?

He staggered away from the bar, trying to find some way to make it stop hurting. He accidentally brushed up against a grubby human.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going, dick.”

He growled at the pathetic human waste.

The human stood up and shoved him. “You wanna fight?”