Demon Hunter (The Collegium Book 1) (9 page)

“I want to make love with you,” Steve said.

“Mmm.” Fay reached up to pull his head down to hers. Great minds thought alike. Her body craved contact with his, her skin so sensitive that the shift of fabric against it was a sensual enticement.

“Alexandria will be safe.”

“What?” Since he wouldn’t bend, she stretched up, intent on claiming his mouth.

“The Suzerain’s house is in Alexandria, close to a portal, central to political routes. It’s been protected for millennia. The Collegium with all its guardians can’t get through Granddad’s defenses.”

Her intent to kiss him froze. “You said your apartment was protected.”

“It is, but it’s still in New York. The city is Collegium ground. You’ll be safe in Alexandria. Then we can concentrate on one another.”

She wriggled in his lap, but with annoyance rather than desire.

His mouth compressed and his hold tightened, preventing her attempt to escape.

“This is not your decision, Steve. I have to stay and face the Collegium. They can’t be allowed to get away with perverting their founding purpose. They’re meant to
serve
. If I hadn’t burnt out my powers, I wouldn’t be here, hiding. As soon as I’m rested I have to deal with Dad and stop the Collegium dealing with demons.”

“I know your sense of duty, Fay. I respect it. But I’m a mercenary. I calculate risks for a living. For you to stay in New York serves no purpose.”

She pushed against his chest. “I can’t—I won’t—leave Emma to stand her word against Angus’s for what happened in the demon lab.”

“A witness report doesn’t have to be delivered in person. Stop being emotional and think.”

“Emotional? Me?”

The stern line of his mouth relaxed. “Your Collegium training is cracking. You’re definitely emotional—and you’ve a right to be. Your dad—“

“Don’t you see? He’s why I have to report to the Collegium in person. I can’t challenge the President from a distance, hiding like a coward.”

“Retreat sounds reasonable to me. Write a report and send it to all the senior members of the Collegium. Let them know what is happening. I don’t like the Collegium, but I don’t believe it’s changed so much that they wouldn’t be horrified.”

“The demon said the Collegium is infected.” Her hands clenched on his shirt.

“And you’d trust the word of a demon? Even if you do, he said infected, not diseased. Give them the information to mobilize against the infection. When you know what they choose to do, then you can decide how you’ll fight.”

Her emotional need to attack because she’d been attacked and betrayed, clashed up against her training. Logic won, but by a slim margin, and she resented Steve for forcing the conclusion on her. “Fine. I’ll leave New York.”

“Good.”

“But I’m not going to Alexandria.”

She waited for his argument and was disappointed.

“Where?”

“You said Alexandria has a portal. Well, so does Jim, my mom’s husband. I’ll go to Fremantle, Australia.”

Calculation narrowed his eyes, then he nodded. “We’ll go.”

She tilted her head in challenge and question.

“A joint report, Fay. I saw the demon, too, and Angus’s betrayal. Attempted possession is filthy. It’s my fight, too.”

“Okay,” she said grudgingly

“And of course, there’s the matter of love-making.”

The heat in his gaze transformed her anger into an even more volatile passion. Her stomach muscles tightened at the stroke of his fingers. “I don’t like you much at the moment.”

“I gathered that.” He lifted one of her hands from his shirt and kissed it before cradling it against his face.

“I don’t like running away.”

“I don’t like standing by while you fight. But I control my instincts to protect even when you tackle demons. Sometimes not fighting is the harder choice.”

She melted.

This time when she guided his head down for a kiss, he allowed it.

Desire. Tenderness. Hunger. Need.

His hand skimmed up her body to push aside the sensible bra and cup her breast, massaging with sensual, possessive enjoyment, while his tongue stroked into her mouth, coaxing and demanding. The hard power of his arousal pressed against her thigh.

She wanted to part her legs and ride the ache he was creating, ride him. She might be a virgin, but that didn’t mean ignorance of her sexuality or her body’s needs, just that she’d been scared to share herself. But she trusted Steve.

“Wait.” She broke the kiss long enough to stand and come back to him, glad for the massive chair that let her settle astride. Her head arched back at the sheer heat of pressing into him.

He bit her throat as his hands gripped her hips. She held onto his shoulders and ground into him. He cupped the back of her head, holding her in place for a savage kiss.

“Wildfire,” he muttered.

She blinked, unable to focus. Sheer sensation stormed her body, blocking thought, leaving only Steve and a building tension.

He unzipped her jeans, forcing his hand roughly between them and beneath her knickers. Pressed so close to him, she wouldn’t allow him space or time to move with finesse. She felt his fingers against her hot flesh, rode them as they stroked and bluntly entered her. She climaxed.

Hot, desperate satisfaction, leaving the results of her burned out powers to roll over her in a wave of pleasured exhaustion. She turned her face a fraction and tasted Steve’s throat.

He was hard and tense beneath her, but he stroked her back with slow, easy pleasure.

She cuddled into him.

“Don’t go to sleep,” he said.

“Hmm?” She nuzzled the curve of his throat and lied. “I’m not.”

His hands went to her waist and lifted her up and onto her feet. “I don’t feel like being sensible either, but if we’re leaving New York we’ve a better chance of doing so before the Collegium guardians get organized. We already know they’re watching your friend’s portal, hence the golem.”

He waited till she was awake and steady, then crossed the room and picked up her coat. He helped her into it. She leaned back and rested against him.

“We’re not going to Cynthia’s.” She put her hand into the pocket of her coat and her fingers brushed the shell Jim had given her. “We’ll use the Collegium’s preferred porter, Paul O’Halloran. They won’t expect me to walk into their territory.”

“But Paul will know where we go.”

She gripped the token. “No, he won’t. If I’m with you, he’ll assume we’re running to Alexandria.”

“For that, we’d need to contact Faroud, the Alexandrian porter. Calling your stepfather—“

“I don’t have to. I don’t need a porter, just access to a portal. Jim gave me a token which will guide us to Fremantle.” She paused. “According to Cynthia, Paul doesn’t know Jim’s portal exists.”

“So the Collegium can’t track us.” Steve nodded. “That’s why they were waiting at Cynthia’s portal. Like me, they’d lost you.”

She turned in his arms. “You won’t lose me again.”

“For damn sure.” He kissed her.

Paul O’Halloran’s portal was walking distance from Steve’s penthouse, something Fay was sure he’d calculated before buying it. Fast travel was important to a mercenary—and to the heir to the Suzerainty, an element of Steve’s identity that her tired mind struggled to deal with. She put it aside to consider later. Steve was still Steve, and she trusted him.

The Collegium-registered porter was annoyed at being woken by their unscheduled visit.

“Put it on my account,” Steve said.

Neither he nor Fay had sensed watchers, and Paul didn’t look as if he’d been warned to delay or report back on Fay’s actions. In fact, it didn’t look as if he recognized her. She hung back a step behind Steve, grateful that her dislike of portal travel had led her to mostly travel as mundanes did. There were worse things than airport security.

Paul lead the way down wooden stairs to the portal, grumbling. “Your porter, Faroud, hasn’t phoned me.”

The portal glowed green. There was a circle of river pebbles around it.

Tokens
, Fay realized.

“We won’t need his guidance.” Steve’s hand tightened around hers. “Ready?”

“Hey! You’ll get lost and then—“

But Steve didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate, and Fay went with him through the portal.

In between, her senses collapsed in the usual sickening confusion. She made herself ignore the portal-induced nausea and concentrated on the seashell in her left hand. Steve’s body bumped against hers as their joined hands towed him after her. Like her and all non-porters, within the between their senses were effectively blind.

Blind astronauts.
She slowed her breathing, aware of panic nibbling at her exhausted control.

Steve wrapped both arms around her, never releasing her hand. She was his lifeline out of there. Without her and the token, he was lost.

The sense of his deep trust brought her mind out of the beginnings of a spiral of panic. She hated portal travel. Hated it. But this way they’d be safe, untraceable. She concentrated again and felt the shell pull, the resistance like the lightest of threads. She groped in that direction and the thread thickened from cobweb to cotton, cotton to yarn, yarn to rope—and they were out.

“You’re safe.”

Fay stumbled from the Fremantle portal straight into Yolanthe’s worried hug. Her mom had been waiting by the portal, seated in a camping chair.

“I have to get out of here.” Fay appreciated the concern, but she had to get away from the portal. Power-burned, portal-sick, she had to get out into the open air before she disgraced herself.

“Up the ladder.” Steve understood. He pushed her towards the ladder, then rested his hands against her back, then thighs, supporting her on the short climb.

“Who are you?” Yolanthe demanded.

“Steve Jekyll. Fay’s friend.”

Fay brushed past Jim as he hurried into the laundry. “I’m okay. I just need…” She reached the back veranda, gripped the railing and breathed deeply. The evening air was alive with the scent of herbs.

A few seconds later, Steve stood behind her. She let go of the railing and let his strength support her.

“Anything following you?” Jim asked. A good question since he had the power of the portal to draw on for protection.

Fay shook her head, her eyes closed.

“We used Paul O’Halloran’s portal,” Steve said. “We didn’t tell him our destination and Fay used what she called a token to guide us here. Could he have followed us between?”

“Paul couldn’t track a fart in a paper bag.”

“Jim,” Yolanthe protested. She stood beside Fay at the railing and touched her arm. “Are you okay?”

Fay opened her eyes. “Tired. The demon’s gone.” Her eyes closed of their own volition.

“She’s power-burned,” Steve said. “I didn’t realize using a token between would require so much effort or I wouldn’t have allowed her.”

“My choice.”

“Ha.” He swung her up in his arms. “Is there somewhere we can sleep? We’ll tell you the full story in the morning.”

“Fay has a room,” Yolanthe began.

“That’ll do,” Steve said.

Fay crashed.

The near silent tap of keys filtered first through Fay’s waking consciousness. She rolled over to face the sound, opened her eyes and saw Steve.

“Good morning, rohi.” He sat in a chair swiveled to the window, one foot braced on the sill and the computer balanced on his knee.

“Morning.”

He wore jeans but no shirt and his skin gleamed where the sun bathed it. The bed smelled faintly of him. A delicious sense of rightness flowed through Fay. She stretched and realized that though she wore a shirt, her trousers were gone.

“I need a shower,” she said. The bedside clock said it was nearly nine o’clock. “And breakfast.”

“I’ve showered, but for breakfast, I waited for you.” His hair was still wet and he’d shaved. “I thought I’d save time. I’m drafting the report to send to the senior members of the Collegium.”

Fay’s drowsy pleasure in the small intimacies of life broke apart. She sat up.

“Don’t worry. They can’t track us back.” He tapped the small computer. “Even with new technology, I’m a leopard. I don’t lead anyone to me and mine.”

It wasn’t the thought of pursuit that bothered her. It was what the report meant: the Collegium’s purpose to serve humanity had been perverted by who knew what emotions and ambition, and the cause was her father.

“I’ll grab that shower.” She scooped up her bag on her way into the bathroom. Her dad’s betrayal went further than her. It went to the heart of the organization he’d been trusted to lead. Her report would destroy him—at least, she had to hope it would. If the Collegium members refused to believe her and Steve, and Emma from the demon lab, then Fay would be forced to fight her dad and all the organizational power he commanded. Demons could not be loosed on the world.

She ducked into the shower and turned her face to the stream of hot water. Fifteen minutes later she left the bathroom dressed, hair neatly braided and emotions under control. She would fight her dad if she had to, and she would win.

“May I see?” She indicated the computer screen.

Steve swiveled it to face her, putting an arm around her hips.

She put her hand on his shoulder and felt the heat of his bare skin.

He had started the report with the golem’s charge and covered the exorcism briefly. His disapproval of Angus came through clearly. Nothing, though, could make it easier to read Angus’s charge against her dad. “By the President’s order, we are to compel Fay and her powers.” Angus had attempted demonic possession.

Steve set the computer down on the windowsill. “You haven’t kissed me good morning.”

Her attention was on the report and the emotions it stirred, but his request nudged her with new obligations. Early morning intimacy included a kiss. She touched her mouth to his and was snagged by a surge of recognition. Steve, her lover. She deepened the kiss.

His lips parted in welcome, tongue teasing lazily. His hand slid from her hip firmly up her body to close over her breast.

The gentle squeeze sent pleasure through her, as sharp and urgent as pain. She made a muffled sound against his mouth and gripped his shoulder for balance while her free hand threaded through his hair. The rough silk of the short cut curls tickled her palm as her fingertips kneaded his scalp.

He broke the kiss. “If you were naked…” He rubbed his face against her breasts, showing without words his pleasure in their position, he seated, she bending over him. “I want to lick and suck and bite you.”

She dropped to her knees, breathless. “You’re almost naked.” She caressed his chest, finding a flat nipple and tracing a circle. She leant forward and licked it.

“Do it properly.” A low masculine command laced with approval.

“What?” She drew back to question him.

“Not with the arm of the chair between us.” He guided her in front of him. “Here. Between my legs.”

She shivered at how good it felt with his hard thighs around her, and at the sight of his erection pressed against his jeans.

“Ignore it.”

She glanced up at his face, to see his wry smile.

“The first time, I want to come inside you. And not in your mom’s house.”

Fay blushed.

He stroked her face, enjoying the soft dampness of her lower lip. Back and forth his finger ran until it coaxed her from embarrassment and she darted her tongue at it, tasting him. Then he guided her head to his chest. “Please.”

She teased one nipple, then the other, licking and lightly biting, discovering how good it  felt to fill her senses with him and how his response heightened her own arousal.

“Enough.” He groaned and hauled her up to lie on top of him as he ravaged her mouth.

They were both panting when they broke apart.

“The report,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She levered herself up slowly, reluctantly, stealing a final quick kiss.

“I’ll get us a hotel room,” he said.

“Yes.” She was grateful for him understanding, sharing, her reluctance to make love in the boardinghouse. As much as she wanted him, the knowledge lurked at the back of her mind that her mom—her
mom
—knew they were in here. What if Fay forgot herself and screamed?

She scooped up the computer and retreated to the bed with it.

Steve pulled on a shirt and buttoned it, while she edited the report, adding a couple of details, formatting it automatically to Collegium style. She added a couple of additional recipients to the list of senior Collegium members Steve had assembled. Captain Lewis Bennett might be burned out, powerless in terms of magic, and her father’s choice of a partner for her, but Fay judged Lewis cold and clear-eyed enough to see the truth and act on it; and he was no mean strategist. If he believed her and Steve, Lewis could be a decisive actor in the drama.

But she didn’t want to think of divisions within the Collegium and the need to tear it apart to cleanse the demon’s infection. She sought a distraction, and one was nearby and looking sexy. “What did you call me earlier? Rohi?”

Steve smiled at her, sensual anticipation and intimacy in his eyes. “An Arabic endearment. Literally, my soul.”

“Oh.”

He sat beside her on the bed, the dip of his weight bumping their shoulders together and sliding them hip to hip. “Is it ready?” A nod at the screen indicated the report.

“Mmm. I think so.” She hesitated. With this report, her personal break with her dad became a public challenge to his power and actions. Her breath shuddered as she inhaled.

“Hit send.” Steve rubbed her back.

The tiny tap of fingernail on plastic sent the message out irrevocably.

“Good.” He took the computer and switched it off. “Now breakfast.”

“Then the hotel room,” she said.

He kissed her temple, a salute to courage. She held onto the promise of it. No matter the bad stuff, this was her chance to build a new life. One rich with emotion and people to love. She grabbed Steve’s hand and hauled him up from the bed. “Mom’ll be waiting.”