I started to panic. Tried to call my fire again. Nothing.
Irony. My healing ability may have just helped seal my doom.
Thinking became harder.
I could feel my heart start to slow.
Thump
.
I remembered Nain’s teeth on my neck, my collarbone, just hours ago. Ecstasy.
Thump
.
Please, fire?
Thump
.
Please.
Thump
…
Please, fire? I begged as the vampire kept drinking.
I thought of all the things I still needed to do: destroy Astaroth. Make things right with Brennan. Learn who my parents were. Feed my dogs. Let Ada teach me about defensive gems.
Many things involving Nain.
Thump
.
Please.
Just a spark?
Thump
.
And then I felt it. Even as my heart slowed more, a flicker. Just a little.
Please.
I opened my hand. Willed the fire forth.
A tiny, perfect ball of fire appeared in my hand, and I smashed it into the vampire’s back. Flames crept along the back of his shirt.
He ripped his fangs out of my neck, and I nearly passed out from the pain of it. He screeched, flinging himself away and trying to put the fire out. He rolled, and, eventually the flames died out.
His back was burnt, blackened, and terror, anger, flooded from him. Panic. The basement smelled like cooked flesh. I stood up said a silent thank you to whichever gods had helped me remember my fire.
I still hated using it. Stolen treasure. It still felt dirty flowing through my body. But it had saved my life this time. And I wasn’t done yet.
I called forth another ball of fire. I was dizzy, determined not to let him see how weak I still was. My body had resumed healing itself, slowly. The gaping wound in my neck, where he’d been biting me, was the worst of it. The burning as I healed was almost too much.
No way I’d let this parasite see that.
“I believe you said you wanted to play,” I said.
He snarled at me, but cowered into a corner.
“Where is Astaroth?”
He hissed at me, and I bobbled the fire in my hands.
“You know where he is. You were going to bring me to him. So where is he?”
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” he said. “I’m not telling you a thing, demon bitch.”
I felt the leader imp standing next to me. “Get Nain, please,” I said softly.
“Wifey already gone to get demon skin,” he said. “Heard you say his name.”
“Excellent.” Then I glanced at him. “I didn’t know you two were married. How nice.”
He shrugged. “Five hundred and twenty seven years.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
We stood that way a long time, me holding fire in my palm, the vampire cowering and glaring at me from the corner, and leader imp watching my back.
“You have a name?” I finally asked the imp.
“Bashiok. Wifey is Dahael.”
“Sorry I didn’t ask before,” I said, still watching the vampire.
“Mistress is the first to bother asking.”
“Demons are jerkfaces,” I said.
The imp stayed silent, but I sensed humor.
It wasn’t long before I heard heavy footsteps up above, felt Nain’s presence. Dahael came scampering down the stairs first, followed by Nain. I felt my power growing, fed just by being in his presence. I devoured him with my eyes. I watched him as he took in the sight of me and my shredded, bloody clothes, surveyed the basement floor covered in drying, sticky blood. Rage flooded through him, and when his gaze finally landed on the vampire now pitifully cowering in the corner, I could feel how much he wanted to destroy the creature.
“Molls,” he said, cool and calm on the outside. Only the muscle tic in his clenched jaw gave him away. And I only recognized it because I’d seen him pissed off so often.
Usually, at me.
“Hey.” I nodded toward the vampire. “Vlad here knows where Astaroth is. He was going to turn me over to him. He won’t tell me, but then it occurred to me that it might be better if you ask him.”
I tried getting into his head. I’m still nearly tapped out. The fire and healing are all I can manage.
Nain looked at me, raised his eyebrow.
It makes me hot when you get all tactical like this.
I bit back a grin.
He hurt you.
Yeah. It was gross.
I’m going to enjoy hurting him. I am the only one who gets to bite you.
I blushed, felt my body responding to him, to the desire, rage, and adrenaline running through him.
I looked at Nain again, met his eyes. I nodded toward the vampire, and Nain gave me a nod in return.
“Okay, bloodsucker. Here’s the deal.” He spotted the sword the vampire had tossed aside, went over and picked it up, weighed it in his hand. My blood still stained the blade. “You know things. You’ll tell us. My blade can end it quickly if you behave yourself. But the demoness there? You’ve really pissed her off. And she’s not someone you want to piss off. Looks like you got a little taste of her wrath already. She can fuck you up real bad. And she can do it over and over again, for as long as it takes for us to learn what we want. And you know what I am. I’ll know if you try to lie to me.”
The vampire snarled. “Screw you. She’s dead, just as much as I am.”
I took a breath, swallowed against the sick feeling in my stomach. Now that he was here, and it was clear what would happen to the vampire, I almost felt bad for the bloodsucker.
Molly. He was dead anyway. Don’t.
This is wrong. Just kill him. I shouldn’t have called you.
He knows things. Do you want to be surprised like this again?
I didn’t answer.
“He knows where to find her, demon. He will take her, or one of us will make a gift of her, but either way her time is up.”
That is not acceptable. Hate me later, but this fucker is telling us what he knows.
“So where is he?” Nain asked the vampire, glancing at me.
“She was delectable, by the way. Intoxicating.”
I felt rage course through Nain.
“Can’t say I was as impressed with you,” I muttered.
“Astaroth is really going to have fun with you, mindflayer.”
I walked over to where he was huddled, in pain. “Tell us what you know,” I said softly. “He’ll end it quickly.”
He just glared at me. Then he laughed. “She doesn’t have the stomach for it. You chose a weak weapon, Nain Rouge.”
Then Nain met my eyes. “Go upstairs, Molly.”
I nodded, climbed the stairs. My imps trailed me, and I could feel Nain’s eyes on me as I went.
I waited in the living room with the imps. I paced, listened to the grunts and screams coming from the basement. A few shouts. Nain’s rage permeated the very air around me. He was frustrated. I felt victory a few times from him. I guessed he was learning something. I tried not to think about what he was doing.
It went on for hours. Eventually, I lost all sense of the vampire, and I heard Nain climbing the stairs. I glanced at the imps. “You should go outside.” Bashiok and Dahael nodded, scurried out the front door.
Nain walked into the living room. He was covered in pale blood. Not his. He met my eyes, and I saw him glance at my neck. It had not finished healing yet, but at least it wasn’t bleeding as much.
“He told me what I wanted to know. He didn’t know where Astaroth is, only how to reach him. Who’s in his inner circle. It’s a start,” he said.
I nodded. Felt sick.
“It was necessary. He signed his death warrant the moment he lured you here.”
“I know,” I said softly. “You liked hurting him.”
“Yeah, I did. Just like you like how it feels when you put the hurt on someone.” Then he walked up to me, stood in front of me. “But I enjoyed this even more than usual. He made the mistake of trying to take something of mine.”
“I’m not yours,” I said, glaring up at him. “Not your anything. Not your weapon–”
“Are we still on this?” he asked, exasperated. “You’re not my weapon. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. But you are mine, whether you’ll admit it or not.”
He closed in on me, and I backed up into the side of the vampire’s grand piano. Nain put a hand on each side of my body, caging me in. “You’re disgusted by what I did. I get that. I’ve done worse. And I’ll guarantee you that I’ll do worse than that before this is all over. I will do what it takes to keep those I care about safe. Anyone messes with Ada, Stone, Brennan, Veronica, they’re asking for the pain. And anyone who fucks with you is asking for it, double.”
The possessiveness, the anger, the violence he’d just demonstrated…it should have completely disgusted and terrified me. On one level, it did. But the more twisted part of me, the part that liked pain and craved fear, the part of me that was all demon — that part liked it. A lot.
He closed in on me, gently kissed my neck where the vampire had injured me. His lips moved over it softly, his tongue lapping at the fresh skin there, and I felt heat pool low in my body, molten need that was just as aroused by what he’d done for me as what he was currently doing to me.
Then, his mouth claimed mine, and I whimpered when he lifted me up onto the piano and pressed his body close to mine. His arms were around me, holding me close to him. Need coursed through him. He nuzzled my neck, sucked at my earlobe.
He nearly took you from me
, he thought at me, and I felt something I’d never felt from him: fear. All the crazy shit he’d seen, all the battles we’d fought, and I’d never once felt fear from him.
His fingers dug into my hips, and he kissed me again, hard, rough, full of need and frustration and desperation.
Nain.
I could barely breathe, drowning under the sensation of the emotions going through us.
Molly.
I need you. Now.
Surprise ran through him, victory, and before I could even think, he lifted me up and pushed my jeans down my thighs. I kicked them off. He palmed my bottom, scraped his teeth along my jawline as I unzipped his jeans.
He claimed me with one long, hard thrust, growling in triumph. A similar wild sound left my throat, and then I was overtaken by the sensations running through my body, of him pounding into me, his hands and lips, teeth everywhere.
There was nothing gentle in this. It was not slow. It was not sweet. We went at it like the demons we were, more animal than anything else. Rational thought left me. I whimpered and moaned as he filled me, dug my fingernails into the hard muscles of his back and shoulders.
I could hear his every thought, feel his every emotion. We were connected in every way. Two bodies chasing pleasure with abandon; minds, souls entwining in a way I’d never imagined possible.
When he was finished, when we were both sated, exhausted, he drove into me, hard, one last time, bit my lower lip, then stepped back. I slid to the floor on legs that barely seemed capable of supporting me. I pulled my ripped, bloody jeans back on. My hands were trembling, my body aching and weak. Nain seemed to sense it. He walked forward, pushed my hands away gently and went to work putting me back together again.
So good. You were so damn good, Molly.
I glanced up at him, felt my face burn. Had I really just done that? With him? I looked away quickly.
He laughed, low and deep, and stepped closer to me. He folded me in his arms, kissed my lips, my neck, my earlobe, gently. “My name is Bael,” he whispered, his breath tickling the sensitive skin near my ear. “My real name. You’re the only one in this world or the Nether who knows it.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck, nuzzled his cheek and felt coarse hair abrade my cheek. “I think I might be in love with you, Bael. You bastard,” I murmured.
He laughed against my neck, and I felt a bolt of pure happiness, victory, run through him. “It’s about fucking time, woman. I’ve been in love with you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
We stood there, folded in each other’s arms, leaning against each other. Silent.
The moment of peace was broken by Nain’s phone ringing. He nuzzled my neck one more time. “That’s Ada’s ring. She never calls me unless something’s up.”
I nodded, started to step back. He dug his phone out of his jeans pocket, put his other arm around me again and pulled me close. He answered the phone, and his fingers softly trailed up and down my spine. I could hear Ada:
“Nain. The Morningside shifters are causing trouble. They attacked a couple of Normals and all hell broke loose. Stone and I are on our way there, and Brennan and Veronica are coming — they were checking out that lone were we’ve been hearing about. I tried getting a hold of Molly–”
“She’s here,” Nain said. “We’re on our way.” He hung up, put the phone away, then drew me close again. “Ready to go kick some shifter ass?”
I smiled up at him. “Always.” He grabbed my hand and led me out of the house. As we raced toward the fight with the shifters, I had a feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach, that this was the last time I’d feel this happy again for a long, long time.
Nain and I arrived at the Morningside neighborhood within minutes. Nain parked the truck, and we both jumped out, ran toward the chaos. Normals were screaming, and the snarls and growls of the shifters cut the night.
“This ain’t normal. Even these backward shifters don’t do things like this,” Nain muttered as we ran. “Be careful.”
“Yeah. You know me. Careful,” I said. I felt humor from him, and we separated, him heading toward where Stone and Ada were fighting one small group, and me heading toward Brennan and Veronica. They were working together, Brennan feinting, herding the shifters close enough to Veronica so she could grab them. Then she’d do her thing, and, before they knew it, with a single touch they had enough toxins in their bodies to put them in comas. They were lucky she had more restraint than I did.
I ran to where they were, went back to back with them.
“She’s here,” I heard one of the shifters, who had shifted back into his human form, yell to the others. “The mindflayer bitch is here.”
“I really am tired of assholes calling me that,” I muttered.