Книга - Tempting The Dark

Tempting The Dark
Michele Hauf


His calling……might be her destructionWhen the door to Daemonia is opened, Savin Thorne is reunited with a childhood friend he thought he’d lost forever. After years of captivity, Jett has escaped—along with hordes of monsters streaming into the mortal realm.With Savin, she has her first experience of desire. But their passion can’t save them. It might even be their undoing…







His calling...

...might be her destruction

When the door to Daemonia is opened, Savin Thorne is reunited with a childhood friend he thought he’d lost forever. After years of captivity, Jett has escaped—along with hordes of monsters streaming into the mortal realm. With Savin, she has her first experience of desire. But their passion can’t save them. It might even be their undoing...


MICHELE HAUF is a USA TODAY bestselling author who has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries usually feature in her stories. And if Michele followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries and creatures she has never seen. Find her on Facebook, Twitter and at michelehauf.com (http://www.michelehauf.com).


Also by Michele Hauf (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

The Witch’s Quest

The Witch and the Werewolf

An American Witch in Paris

The Billionaire Werewolf’s Princess

Tempting the Dark

The Dark’s Mistress

Ghost Wolf

Moonlight and Diamonds

The Vampire’s Fall

Enchanted by the Wolf

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Tempting the Dark

Michele Hauf






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-08214-3

TEMPTING THE DARK

© 2018 Michele Hauf

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Contents

Cover (#ud9d3813a-e677-5be9-8764-b67e76ade1ff)

Back Cover Text (#ub1e3dbc9-5a5a-556c-81c8-b5e98f445694)

About the Author (#ua1fbcb7d-6f2f-58d1-b1b8-2dd05d3470ce)

Booklist (#u29bd9d41-26c9-5958-9a86-9274368e62e0)

Title Page (#u708521ea-0c45-55b3-b7fb-95a08adfca41)

Copyright (#u97bf9d16-81b1-549a-9cc6-8bbef342e8c3)

Chapter 1 (#uf90d18c1-5629-5047-8be9-c77a1db51da4)

Chapter 2 (#u9bfd4a18-79b5-5ee8-8cf6-ba8aec65648d)

Chapter 3 (#u6db93e72-0848-5fa4-ba6f-a73d648cc7b7)

Chapter 4 (#u9797c7a1-240d-55db-b8b4-f04f2e0a82b9)

Chapter 5 (#u83f8a4e2-97a0-5ece-92d9-2cdc6b5e69ca)

Chapter 6 (#u182e47a2-b025-5cfc-8c22-05bc3f6ee376)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter 1 (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

Savin Thorne stood before the weird, wavery, silver-blue vibrations that undulated in the midnight sky twenty feet above the lavender field. He waited. Twenty minutes had passed since he arrived in the beat-up pickup truck he barely kept alive with oil changes and the occasional battery jump. He’d gotten a call from Edamite Thrash regarding a disturbance in this countryside location, north of Paris.

He knew this area. It was too familiar. His family once lived not half a kilometer away. Yet when driving past the old neighborhood, he’d noted his childhood home had been torn down. Construction on a golf course was under way. Just as well. The bad memory from his childhood still clung to his bones.

To his right, Edamite Thrash, a corax demon, stood with his eyes closed, his senses focused to whatever the hell was going on.

Savin could feel the undulations in the air and earth prickle through his veins. A heebie-jeebies sensation. The demon within him stirred. Savin tended to think of the nameless, incorporeal demon inside him as “the Other,” for no other reason than it had been a childhood decision. She was upset by whatever was irritating the air. And when she stirred, Savin grew anxious.

Ed had been getting instinctual warnings about this disturbance for days, and tonight those dire feelings had alerted him enough to call Savin.

Savin reckoned demons back to Daemonia. The bad ones who had no reason or right to tread the mortal realm. The evil ones who had harmed mortals in this realm. Sometimes even the good ones who pushed the boundaries of secrecy and might have been seen by humans or who were trying to tell the truth about their species.

Savin wasn’t demon. He wasn’t even paranormal. He was one hundred percent human. Except for the part about him hosting an incorporeal demon for the past twenty years. That tended to screw with a man’s mental place in this world. But most days he felt he was winning the part about just trying to stay sane.

A sudden whining trill vibrated the air. Pushing up the sleeves of his thermal shirt to expose the protective sigils on the undersides of his forearms, Savin planted his combat boots and faced the sky that flickered in silver and red.

Ed hissed, “Savin, did you hear that?”

“I did. I’m ready.”

Behind them, hefting a fifty-pound sack of sea salt out from the back of a white hearse, Certainly Jones, a dark witch, prepped for his role in whatever might come charging at them.

“Hurry up, Jones!” Ed called. “It’s happening!”

With that announcement, the sky cracked before them. A black seam opened from ground to clouds. From within, a brilliant amber flame burst and roiled. A whoosh of darkness exploded out from the seam.

Savin cursed. That could be nothing but demons. An invasion? He felt the dark and malevolent beings, incorporeal and corporeal, as they flooded into this realm. Cool, hissing brushes across his skin. Wicked alien vocals. The gnashing of fangs and rows of deadly teeth. Tails scything the air. Claws clattering for flesh. And the ones he could not see vibrated a distinctive hum in his veins.

The protection sigils he wore tattooed on his body kept those invisible incorporeal demons from entering his system. As did the bitch demon he’d been serving as shelter to for twenty years. But that didn’t mean he was impervious to an external attack by a corporeal demon. He was strong but did not hold a weapon.

The only weapons he required were his stubbornness and his innate ability to see and deflect most demons with a few choice warding incantations.

In the inky darkness, there was no way to count their numbers as they spread across the field and whisked through the air above the men’s heads. Standing center of the freshly laid salt circle, Certainly Jones began to recite a spell. Ed swung above his head a black bone lariat bespelled to choke and annihilate demons.

For his part, Savin could recite a general reckoning spell that would reach about a hundred-foot circumference about him and send those demons back to Daemonia. So he began the chant composed of a demonic language he hated knowing.

“There are hundreds,” Ed said as a curse as he avoided the salt circle with a jump. “We’ll never get them all. Savin?”

He couldn’t speak now, for to do so would shatter the foundation of the spell. Raising his arms, palms facing inward—but not touching—and exposing the demonic sigils on the underside of his forearms, Savin expanded his chest and shouted the last few words. And as he did so, the power of those spoken words formed a staticky choker between his fingers. He spread his arms out wide, stretching the choker in a brilliant lash of gold sparks. Then, with a shove forward, he cast the net.

Demons shrieked, squealed and yowled as they were caught by the sticky, sparkling net. Like a fisherman hauling up his catch, only in reverse, it wrapped up dozens, perhaps a hundred or more demons, and wrangled them back through the rift in the sky.

“I expel you to Daemonia!” Savin recited, then immediately prepared to begin again.

“That took care of at least half!” Ed called. “But some are getting away. Jones! How’s it going getting that damned door to Daemonia closed?”

“Soon!” shouted the witch.

Savin’s net, filled with yet more demons, wrangled another gang and whipped them back through the rift.

The dark witch, a tall, slender man dressed in black, stretched out his tattooed arms. Using specific tattoos as spells, he shouted out a command that gripped the serrated rift in the sky and vised it suddenly closed.

The night grew intensely dark. Not even a nocturnal creature might see anything for the few moments following the closure of the rift to the Place of All Demons.

Savin dropped his arms and shook out his entire body like a prizefighter loosening up his muscles. He felt the air stir as a few creatures dashed above his head. None dared come too close, or try a talon against his skin. They could sense his innate warning.

No demon dared approach a reckoner.

Ed tugged out his cell phone from an inner suit-coat pocket, and the small electronic light glowed about his face and tattooed neck. The thorns on his knuckles glinted like obsidian as he punched in a number. “I’m calling the troops in Paris. We’ll head to town. Certainly, will that seal hold?”

“For a while,” the witch said. “But I’m not sure how it was opened in the first place. Had to be from within Daemonia. Which is not cool. Something wicked powerful opened it up.”

The witch cast his gaze about the field. Dark shadows flitted through the sky, black on black, as the demons that had avoided Savin’s net dispersed. The cool, acrid taste of sulfur littered the air.

Savin thought he heard someone walking across the loose gravel back by his truck. He swung around, squinting his gaze. He didn’t see motion. Could have been a demon. More likely a raccoon.

“The energy out here is quieting,” he stated. For the hum in his veins had settled. “I think we’re good for now. But Ed will have to post a guard out here.”

The corax demon nodded to Savin and gave him a thumbs-up even as he spoke on the phone to organize scouts.

Savin slapped a hand across Certainly’s back. “Good going, witch.”

“I can say the same for you. You took care of more than half of them. I don’t know anyone capable of such a skill.”

“Wish I could be proud of that skill, but...” Savin let that one hang as he strode back to the parked cars with the witch.

His system suddenly shivered. Savin did not panic. He knew it was the Other expressing her thanks. Or maybe it was resentment for what he had done tonight. He’d never mastered the art of interpreting her messages. So long as she kept quiet ninety percent of the time, he couldn’t complain. Some days he felt as if he owed her for what she had done to help him. Other days he felt that debt had long been paid.

“I’m off,” Ed said as he headed to his car. “I’ll post a guard out here day and night. Thanks, Savin. I’ll get back to the both of you with whatever comes up in Paris. If my troops find any of the escapees, we’ll gather them for a mass reckoning. Okay with you?”

“I love a good mass demon bash,” Savin said. But his heart could not quite get behind his sarcasm. “Check in with me when you need my help again.” He fist-bumped Ed and the dark witch, then climbed into his truck and fired up the engine.

Alone and with the windows rolled up, Savin exhaled and closed his eyes. His muscles ached from scalp to shoulders and back, down to his calves and even the tops of his feet. It took a lot of energy to reckon a single demon back to Daemonia. What he’d just done? Whew! He needed to get home, tilt back some whiskey, then crash. A renewal process that worked for him.

But first. His system would not stop shaking until he fed the demon within.

Reaching over in the dark quiet and opening the glove compartment, he drew out a small black tin. Inside on the red velvet lay a syringe and a vial of morphine that he kept stocked and always carried with him. He juiced up the syringe and, tightening his fist, injected the officious substance into his vein. A rush of heat dashed up his arm. A brilliance of colors flashed behind his eyelids. He released his fist and gritted his teeth.

And the shivers stopped.

“Happy?” he muttered to the demon inside him.

He always thought to hear a female chuckle after shooting up. He knew it wasn’t real. She had no voice.

Thank the gods he no longer got high from this crap. The Other greedily sucked it all up before it could permeate his system. A strange thing to be thankful for, but he recognized a boon when he saw it.

Flicking on the radio, he nodded as Rob Zombie’s “American Witch” blasted through the speakers. Thrash metal. Appropriate for his mood.

Savin was the last of the threesome to pull out of the field. He turned left instead of right, as the other two had. Left would take him over the Seine and toward the left-bank suburbs of Paris. He lived near the multilaned Périphérique in the fourteenth arrondissement. Driving slowly down the loose gravel, he nodded to the thumping bass beat, hands slapping out a drum solo on the steering wheel.

When the truck’s headlights flashed on something that moved alongside the road, Savin swore and slammed on the brakes.

“What in all Beneath?”

Was it a demon walking the grassy shoulder of the road? He’d felt more incorporeal demons move over him during the escape from the rift than actually witnessed real corporeal creatures with bodies. But anything was possible. And yet...

Savin turned down the radio volume. Leaning forward, he peered through the dusty windshield. The figure wasn’t clawed or winged or even deformed. “A woman?”

She glanced toward the truck. The headlights beamed over her bedraggled condition. Long, dark, tangled hair and palest skin. She clutched her dirtied hands against her chest as if to hold on to the thin black fabric that barely covered her limbs from breasts to above her knees. Her legs were dirty and her feet almost black.

She couldn’t be a resident from the area. Out for a midnight walk looking like that? Or had she been attacked? Savin hadn’t passed any cars in the area, which ruled out a date-gone-bad scenario. That left one other possibility. She had come from Daemonia. Maybe? Corporeal demons could wear a human sheen, making them virtually undetectable to the common man.

But not to Savin’s demon radar.

Shifting into Park, Savin spoke a protective spell that would cover him from head to toe. He was no witch, but any human could invoke protection with the proper mind-set. The demon within him shivered but did not protest, thanks to the morphine. He shoved open the door and jumped out. His boots crushed the gravel as he stalked around to the other side of the hood.

“Where in hell did you come from?” he called. Daemonia wasn’t hell, but it was damned close.

The woman’s body trembled. Her dark eyes searched his. They were not red. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She looked as though she’d been attacked or ravaged. But demons were tricky and knew how to put on a convincing act of humanity. And yet Savin didn’t sense any demonic vibes from her. He could pick a demon out from a crowd milling in the Louvre at fifty paces. Even the ones who had cloaked themselves with a sheen.

He stepped forward. The woman cringed. Savin put up his hands in placation. With the sigils on his forearms exposed, he advertised what he was to her. Just in case she was demon. She didn’t flee. Nor did she hiss or spew vile threats at him.

Now Savin wondered if she had been hurt. And perhaps it had nothing to do with what had just gone down in the lavender field. Had she been assaulted and fled, or had some asshole abandoned her far from the city?

“It’s okay,” he said firmly. “I’m not going to hurt you. My name’s Savin Thorne. Do you need help?”

“S-Savin?” The woman’s mouth quivered. She dropped her hands to her sides. “Is it... Is it really you?”

He narrowed his gaze on her. She...knew him?

“Savin?” She began to bawl and dropped to her knees. “Savin, it’s me. Jett.”

Savin swallowed roughly. His heart plunged to his gut. By all the dark and demonic gods, this was not possible.


Chapter 2 (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

Twenty years earlier

Savin grabbed Jett’s hand and together they raced across the field behind their parents’ houses. The lavender grew high and wild, sweetening the air. Butterflies dotted the flower tops with spots of orange and blue.

Jett’s laughter suddenly abbreviated. She stopped, gripping her gut as she bent over.

“Wait!” she called as Savin ran ahead. “I’m getting a bellyache. Mamma’s cherry pie is sitting right here.” She slapped a hand to her stomach. “I shouldn’t have eaten that third piece!”

Savin laughed and walked backward toward the edge of the field where the forest began. The dark, creepy forest that they always teased each other to venture into alone. Neither had done it. Yet.

Today he’d challenged her to creep up to the edge and touch the foreboding black tree that grew bent like a crippled man and thrust out its branches as if they were wicked fingers. If she did, he’d give her his Asterix comic collection. Fortunately, he knew she wouldn’t do it. Jett was a chicken. And he teased her now by chanting just that.

“I am not!” she announced as she approached him, still clutching her gut. Her long black hair hid what he guessed was a barely contained smile.

“You can’t use that excuse to get out of it this time.” Savin planted his walking stick in the ground near his sneaker. The stick was one he’d found in the spring and had been whittling at for a month. He’d tried to carve a dragon on the top of it, but it looked more like a snake. “Girls are always chicken!”

“Am not.” Jett stepped out of the lavender field and stopped beside him to stare into the forest that loomed thirty paces away.

The trees were close and the trunks looked black from this distance. Savin nudged Jett’s arm and she jumped away from him and stuck out her tongue.

“I don’t need your comic books,” she said. “Anyway, I’ll get them all when we get married someday.”

Jett was the one to always remind him that they’d get married. Someday. When they were grown-up and didn’t care about things like comic books and creepy forests. Which was fine with Savin. Except he thought maybe he should kiss her before that happened. And actually love her. Jett was a girl with whom he raced home from school, ran through the fields and played video games. They spent every day with each other. But love? Right now that sounded as creepy as the forest.

“Whatever.” He stubbed the toe of his sneaker against the walking stick.

“Why don’t you go in there?” she cooed in that cotton-candy voice she always used when she wanted him to do something.

It made Savin’s ears burn and his heart feel like bug wings were fluttering inside.

“Maybe I will.” He took a step forward and planted the stick again.

Looking over the forest, he thought for a moment he saw the air waver before him. Did something flash silver? Of course, a haunted forest might be like that. He didn’t dare say “maybe not.” So he took another step, and then another.

And he heard Jett’s gasp behind him. “Savin, wait—”

He turned to see Jett’s brown eyes widen. She pointed over his shoulder. When he swung around to face the forest, Savin didn’t have time to scream.

Sucked forward through the air, arms flailing and legs stretched out behind him, he dropped the walking stick. Cold, icy air entered his lungs, swallowing his scream. Yet beside him he heard Jett’s scream like the worst nightmare. The world turned blacker than the cellar without the lights on. And the strange smell of rotting eggs made him gag.

Of a sudden his body dropped, seeming to fall endlessly. Until he landed on his back with a crunch of bones and a cry of pain.

He lay there, silenced by the strangeness of what had happened. Had a tornado swept him off his feet and into the depths of the dark forest? Had the sky opened like a crack in the wall and sucked him inside? What was he lying on? It felt...squishy and thick, and it smelled like the worst garbage.

“Savin?”

Jett was with him. He sat up, looking about. The landscape was brown and gray, and a deep streak of red painted what must be the black sky. His fingers curled into the mud he lay on, and he felt things inside it squirm.

“Jett?”

“Over here. Wh-what happened? What is that!”

An insectile whine preceded the approach of a creature that looked like something out of one of those nasty video games his parents had forbid him to play. Jett scrambled over to Savin. He clutched her hand and they both backed away from the thing that walked on three legs and looked like half a spider...with a human face.

“Run!” Savin yelled.

* * *

They ran for days, it seemed. They encountered...things. Monsters. Creatures. Demons. Evil. They were no longer anywhere near home. This was not the outer countryside surrounding Paris. There was no lush lavender field to run through. Or even grass. Savin wasn’t sure where they were or how they’d gotten here, but it was not a place in which he wanted to stay.

Jett cried as often as she wandered in silence and with a drawn expression. She was hungry and had taken on many cuts and bruises from the rough, sharp landscape and the strange molten rocks. Every time something moved, she screamed. Which was often.

This had to be hell. But Savin honestly didn’t know why they were here. Had they died? They hadn’t encountered people. But they did see humanlike beings. Strange creatures with faces and appendages that morphed and twisted, and some even had wings. None had spoken to them in a language they could understand.

“I want to go home,” Jett said on a tearful plea.

Savin hugged her close, as much to comfort her as for his own reassurance. He wanted to go home, too. And he wanted to cry. But he was trying to be brave. He’d hand over all his Asterix comics right now if only they could be home in their own beds.

“We’ll get out of here,” he murmured, and then clutched Jett even tighter. “I promise.”

* * *

They tried to drink from the stream that flowed with orange water, but it burned their throats. Jett’s tears permanently streaked her dirtied face. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her hands were rough and darkened with the gray dust that covered the landscape, and her jeans were tattered.

Savin had torn up his shirt to wrap a bandage about her ankle after she’d cut it on what had looked like barbed wire. But after she’d screamed, that strange wire had unfurled and slunk away.

They sat on a vast plateau of flat gray stone that tended to crack without warning, much like thin ice on a lake. No other creatures seemed to want to walk on it, so they felt safe. For the moment.

Savin had fashioned a weapon out of a branch from a tree that had appeared to be made of wood, until he’d broken off the branch and inspected it. It was metal. That he could break. But the point was sharp. That was all that mattered. He’d already killed something with it. An insect the size of a dog, with snapping mandibles and so many legs he hadn’t wanted to count them.

“Do you hear that?” Jett said in a weary whisper.

Savin followed the direction she looked. An inhale drew in the air. For some reason it smelled like summer. Fresh and...almost like water. Curious.

“I miss my mama and papa,” Jett whispered. She shivered. She shook constantly. They hadn’t eaten for days. And Savin’s stomach growled relentlessly. “If I die, promise me you won’t let one of those monsters eat me.”

“You’re not going to die,” Savin quickly retorted.

But he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Jett stood and wandered across the unsteady surface, wobbling at best. Savin thought to call out to her, but his lips were dry and cracked. He wanted something to drink. He wanted his feet to stop burning because he’d taken off his sneakers after the rubber soles had melted in the steel nettle field. He wanted safety. He’d do anything to escape this place he’d come to think of as the Place of All Demons.

“I see water!” Jett began to run.

Savin couldn’t believe she had the energy to move so swiftly. But he managed to pick up his pace and follow. She was fifty yards ahead of him when she reached the edge of what looked like a waterfall. Actual water?

“Jett, be careful!”

But she didn’t hear him. And when she turned to wave to him, all of a sudden her body was flung upward—as if lifted by a big invisible hand—and then her body dropped.

Savin reached the edge of the falls and plunged to his knees. He couldn’t see Jett. Her screams echoed for a long time. And what initially looked like clear, cool water suddenly morphed into a thick, sludgy black flow of lava that bubbled down into an endless pit. He couldn’t see the bottom.

“Jett!”

* * *

He lay at the edge of the pit for a long time. Days? There was no night and day in this awful place, so he couldn’t know. After he’d decided that Jett had died in the lava, Savin had vacillated between jumping in and ending his life, and crawling away. No one could survive such a fall. Perhaps that was for the best. He hoped she hadn’t suffered. He hoped she was in heaven right now, happy and safe.

But as much as he wanted to give up, he also didn’t want to die.

Savin finally crawled away from the lava falls. He hadn’t the energy to stand. He’d lost his walking stick in the lavender field. The next creature that threatened him? Bring it on. He didn’t like the idea of being eaten alive, but maybe the thing would chomp on his heart and kill him fast.

He crawled endlessly. Nothing tried to eat him.

Calluses roughed his fingers, and his T-shirt was shredded. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore. And his throat was so dry he couldn’t make saliva. So when he heard the voice of a woman, he thought it must be a dream.

Savin lay sprawled on an icy sheet of blackness that smelled like blood and dirt. Again, he heard the voice. Was it saying...help me?

It wasn’t Jett’s voice. Was it? No. Impossible. Though his heart broke anew over her loss, he couldn’t produce tears.

“Over here...”

With great effort, he was able to lift his head and saw what looked like lush streams of blackest hair. Was it Jett?

He crawled forward. His fingers glanced over something soft and fine, like one of his mother’s dresses. It was blue and smelled like flowers. A woman lay on the ground, blue and black hair flowing about her in masses that he thought made up her dress. He couldn’t get a good look at her face because he was too weak to sit up or stand.

“Do you want to go home?” the woman whispered.

He sobbed without tears and nodded profusely.

“I can help you out of Daemonia.”

That was the first time he’d heard the name of this terrible place.

“Please,” he rasped. “I’ll do anything.”

“Of course you will, boy. I ask but one simple thing of you.”

“Anything,” he managed.

“Come closer, boy. If you kiss me, I will bring you home.”

Kiss her? What strange request was that?

On the other hand...all he had to do was kiss the woman and he could return home to his soft, warm bed?

Savin pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked back the direction from which he’d crawled. He’d promised Jett he’d protect her. He’d failed. He should stay in this awful place as punishment. But he wasn’t stupid. And he wanted to see his parents.

“A...kiss?”

“Just one. And then you can go home.”

Savin crawled closer to the woman until he hovered inches from her face. She smelled like a field of flowers. Her skin was dark blue and her eyes were red, as were the eyes of all the creatures in this terrible place. He wavered as he supported himself with a hand and leaned closer.

And then he saw her lips.

Savin cried out. He tumbled to the side and rolled to his back. Her lips were covered with worms!

“Just one kiss, boy. Your parents are worried about you.”

Now a teardrop did fall. Savin gasped and choked as he could only wish for the safety of his parents’ embrace. And then...he forced himself to lean over the woman and kiss her awful mouth.


Chapter 3 (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

He was called a reckoner now.

Savin Thorne sent demons who had come from Daemonia back where they belonged. He was hired to do so and rarely hunted them himself. He left the hunting for others. Once the demon was subdued or contained—usually in some style of hex circle—then he stepped in and worked his magic. A demonic magic afforded him, he believed, because of the demon within him. She had hitched a ride to the mortal realm when she sent him home following that foul kiss. He knew it was a female. And he could not get her out of him. He didn’t know her name, so had come to refer to her as the Other. He’d love to expel her from his very soul, but he’d tried every possible spell, hex and banishment without success.

He’d accepted that life from here on would be spent sharing his bones and flesh with the demon he’d once kissed out of a vile desperation.

Rain spattered Savin’s face and streaked through the headlight beams. The woman kneeling on the ground before him waited for his reaction. She’d called him by name. And her name was...

Mon Dieu, he’d thought her dead.

“Jett?”

She nodded, blinking at the falling rain. “I...I finally got out.”

“Finally...” Words felt impossible.

It was incredible to fathom. This frail, dirtied woman was Jett? All grown up? Had she been in Daemonia all this time? Twenty years? If he had known she’d survived the fall, he would have found a way to get to her, to rescue her from the unspeakable evils. Somehow.

Savin’s heart thundered. His fingers flexed at his sides. He didn’t know what to do. How to react. He should have been there for her when they were nine and ten and lost in the Place of All Demons. He’d promised her he would protect her. And he had failed.

Yet somehow Jett had survived. Had she escaped through the rift that had opened earlier? She must have.

She must be so... Twenty years! She had no home. No life. She had literally been dropped into this world.

“Jett.” Savin dropped to the ground before her, his knees crunching the wet gravel. Without reluctance, he hugged her to him. She was frail and shaking and they were both soaked from the rain. “I thought you were dead. Oh, Jett, I’m so sorry. It’s really you?”

He leaned back and studied her face. He remembered the sweet round face of the girl with the long black hair and the giggles that never ceased. Her eyes had been—Yes, they were brown. It could be her.

It had to be her.

“You’ve gotten so big,” she said, and then managed a weak laugh. “Yes, it’s me. Jett Montfort. I’m out. I’m... Oh, Savin.” She searched his eyes. Rain lashed at her pale skin and lips. “I want to be safe.”

“Of course. Safe. You are now. With me. I’ll...”

What would he do? He couldn’t leave her alone on the side of the road. She needed a place to stay. Clothes. Warmth. Food? How in the world had she survived in such a place for so long? It didn’t matter right now. She was frightened and alone.

“Will you come with me?” he asked.

“Where to?”

“My place. I live in Paris. I’ll help you, Jett. Whatever you need, I’ll help you to get.” And before he could regret another vow, he said, “Promise.”

She nodded, her smile wobbling and tears spilling freely. “Please.”

And when he thought to stand and help her up, instead Savin scooped her into his arms and carried her to the passenger side of the truck and set her inside. He tucked in her thin dress, which was nothing more than jagged-cut fabric clinging to her torso. She was covered with dirt and scratches, but the rain must have washed away any blood. She’d been hurt. Traumatized, surely.

She was a strange survivor.

And he owed her his life.

“You’re safe now.” He squeezed her hand, then closed the door and ran around to hop behind the wheel.

Legs pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped about her shins, she bowed her head to her knees and closed her eyes as Savin drove into the city.

* * *

What strange luck that her escape into the mortal realm should be met by the one person she knew and had thought of many times over the years. It couldn’t be a coincidence. And yet Savin was a part of the demonic world in a way that disturbed Jett. She’d watched as he stood before the tear between the realms and reckoned demons back to Daemonia. He was powerful. And dangerous.

To her, he could prove most threatening.

Yet in her moment of need, Jett had accepted his offer of safety. Because she was exhausted, tattered and worn. And yet triumphant. She’d done it! She had escaped to the mortal realm. And whatever happened next would challenge her in ways she couldn’t imagine. She had prepared mentally, but the physical challenges would be unknown. She owned a specific power. She could survive this new adventure.

As the truck entered the city, she watched headlights flash past in swift beams of red and white. It had been a long time since Jett had been in a cosmopolitan city with vehicles and buildings of human manufacture. She remembered Paris. The historical monuments and buildings, the gardens and sculptures. The elite shops and the River Seine. It hadn’t seemed to change.

She had changed. Everything she knew about every single thing had changed.

And Savin remained the one pillar she needed more than she could fathom. He’d grown older, as had she. He’d gotten big and tall. The man was a behemoth wrapped in muscle and might. His dark brown hair was still shoulder length and tousled, as it had been when they were children. But now he wore a mustache and beard and a brute glint lived in his eyes. He had become a man. A very attractive man.

Jett couldn’t prevent the frequent glances out the corner of her eye to the man driving the truck. She had not seen such a handsome being in...a long time. And he occupied every air molecule with his presence. He overwhelmed the space in the truck. Being near him made her heart flutter, in a good way. That was something it had not done since she was a kid.

But was this man now her enemy?

No. She wouldn’t think like that. She needed help from Savin. And possibly protection. Even though he was the one person she’d best run from, he was all she had right now.

When finally he parked the truck and jumped out to run around the front of the hood and open her door, Jett stared out at the dark building front where he said he lived. This was the fourteenth arrondissement. Not far from where she recalled a massive cemetery sat in Gothic silence amidst the bustling city. While she and Savin had lived in the country when they were children, their parents had alternated taking them into the city on the weekends to visit the parks and museums. Memory of those times made her heart again flutter.

Could she have back that innocence? Did she want it back? What was innocence but a foul waste of power? The darkness within her would not allow her to ruminate on the past for long. Just as well. Time to move forward.

Now Jett had ventured into the city again. With Savin. And he didn’t suspect a thing about her, nor had he asked how she had survived for so long in Daemonia. Which was how it must remain.

She slid her fingers against the wide hand he offered, and stepped down onto the sidewalk. Her bare feet were scraped and bruised from running across the vast smoke-ice planes where cracks in the landscape were edged like razors. Pain had become but a bother to her. Healing would come quickly. Perhaps. She must be cautious about utilizing the skills she had been taught.

“Your feet hurt?” Savin asked when she wincingly stepped forward.

Pain in this mortal realm felt different than when she’d been in the Place of All Demons. It was acute. And the cool air brushed her skin roughly. A shiver ensured that she had grasp of the sheen she wore. She must be cautious.

Without another word, Savin whisked her into his arms and carried her inside the building and up four flights of stairs without a catch to his breathing. Jett clung to the front of his shirt, noticing beneath her fingers the hard, sculpted muscles. And he smelled like nothing she had smelled before. Freshly exhilarating, yet rough. It appealed so strongly she nudged her nose against his shirt and inhaled. Was this what the princess felt like when rescued by the knight? How many times had they played such a game when they were children, always alternating who got to be the rescuer and who had to lie in dismay in wait of saving?

Now that game had become reality.

Why she had such a silly thought startled her. She had tried not to think about the simple human life she’d lost while in Daemonia. Too dangerous.

He set her down, yet supported her by the elbow, before a door. A door inscribed with demonic repulsion sigils. Jett knew them well. One did not live in Daemonia for so long without gaining such knowledge.

She tentatively reached to touch one of the symbols—and flinched.

“Keeps the nasties out,” Savin commented. “Necessary. But, uh... Hmm... You’ve just come from there. Must have some residual gunk on you that will alert the wards. Let me take them down for you.” He swept a hand over the sigils and muttered a word she recognized as a demonic language. He knew so much? “There. Now it shouldn’t tug when you cross the threshold.”

He pushed the door open. Cool shadows invited Jett to step inside the narrow loft as easily as if she were crossing the threshold of her childhood home after returning from a day at school. No tug from the sigils, either. Whew.

Behind her, Savin muttered a reversal to seal the wards and closed the door. That action did pull at her system, but she disguised the sudden assault with an inhale and a sigh.

When she saw him reach for the light switch, she said, “No. Uh... I can see well in the darkness. I, uh...think it will take a while to adjust to the bright.”

He lowered his hand. “Yeah, okay. There’s moonlight anyway.” He gestured to a line of windows that ran across the ceiling, skylights catching the moonlight. Pale illumination sifted down over furniture and the cluttered walls of a living area. “This top-floor apartment is small, but it has its perks. You thirsty?”

She was. And suddenly so cold, even though it had been warm outside. Jett rubbed her hands up and down her arms and glanced at the front door. No sigils on this side. Yet she was literally trapped now.

What had he asked? Right. She nodded. “Yes, water. Please.”

He retrieved a glass from a cupboard and Jett marveled at the clear, clean water running from the tap. She’d forgotten how pure things could be. Unadulterated by the darkness she had learned to caress and rely on for comfort. When he handed it to her, she held the glass for a moment, taking it in. So normal. She remembered when her mother would hand her a glass of water. Drink it down. On to the next adventure, like chasing rabbits through the cabbage patch with Savin.

“I’m not going to ask if you are all right,” Savin said. Deep and calm, his voice chased away her shivers. “You can’t be. You just came out of Daemonia. Maybe I should let you settle in and feel your way around the place for tonight?”

She nodded. “Please.”

“I bet a shower will feel great. Come this way.”

She followed him through the living room stuffed with dark, wood-trimmed furniture and saw many guitars hung on the walls. Amongst them she noticed more demon sigils scrawled on the bare-brick walls. Some glinted at her, but none seemed to notice her presence.

“I’ve only got one bedroom,” Savin said, “but it’s a king-size bed. Comfy. You can sleep in that tonight and I’ll take the couch.”

She didn’t want to put him out, but—at sight of the bed, lush with a thick gray coverlet and pillows—pillows! She’d not laid her head on a pillow for so long. Jett decided to quietly accept the generous offer.

Ahead, he flipped on the light in the bathroom and she blinked and stepped back. It was so bright.

“Oh.” He noticed her discomfort. “It’s on a dimmer.” He turned a dial and the light softened. “You can shower and there are towels in the cabinet. I probably have a shirt you can wear to sleep in. Does that sound good?”

She nodded again and realized she clutched the water glass to her chest. So precious, the clean water.

Savin rubbed his bearded jaw. His deep blue eyes beckoned her to wonder if they were real. Never had she seen such blue irises. Lapis lazuli, she remembered, was one of the stones she’d collected as a child. Though to consider his eyes now, they looked sad. Concerned.

“Tell me what you need, Jett.”

She didn’t know what she needed, beyond the temporary safety she felt standing before Savin’s powerful build. In his home. Behind the sigils that would keep out demons. Of utmost concern was keeping any and all of those sorts away from her.

“This is good. I will shower and sleep. I feel like I can sleep.” She rarely slept. To imagine lying for hours without nightmares? It seemed an impossibility. “You are too kind.”

“It’s not a problem. I’ll be out on the couch if you need anything. You’re welcome to wander about, help yourself to whatever appeals in the fridge. Just...uh, do what you need to do. Make my place your own. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Another nod was all she could offer. She didn’t want to talk about that place. Not right away. In order to move forward, she needed to put that experience behind her. To truly be free. But she was curious how Savin had escaped and how he’d come to be a man who reckoned demons out of this realm.

“Good night,” he offered. When he brushed past her, the heat of his skin shivered over hers.

Jett lifted her head and sucked in a breath. As she followed his exit from the room, the flutters returned to her heart and her skin flushed warmly. Was this what desire felt like?


Chapter 4 (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

Savin did not sleep much that night. He lay there in the cool darkness, bare feet jutting over the end of the couch, thinking about the woman who slept in his bed not thirty feet away in the other room.

After watching Jett being literally sucked over the wicked lava falls in Daemonia, had he given up on her too quickly? Should he have lain there at the edge longer, waiting for her to emerge? He’d thought he had sprawled there for days. But he’d learned it was impossible to gauge time in such a place. He’d never cried so much as he had after losing his best friend. The remembrance zinged in his muscles with stinging aches and he almost thought to feel his skin burn now as it had then.

That harrowing experience had been seared into his very bones. It had become a part of him. It was him. It was the reason why he reckoned demons. Such creatures did not belong in this realm. No human should have to experience what he had lived through.

And now Jett was back. Alive, and seemingly sane. But how damaged must she be after living in that place for twenty years? He couldn’t imagine. The demons he reckoned to Daemonia were often vicious, wild, physically disgusting and, many times, homicidal. For a human to exist in such a place, and with those creatures, for any longer than he had survived there seemed incomprehensible.

Yet there existed demons of all sorts, natures and aptitudes, and some were even—surprisingly—benevolent. Edamite Thrash being one such example. Savin could only pray Jett had been guided and sheltered by one possessing a modicum of kindness.

He had so many questions to ask. Why had they gotten sucked into Daemonia? It was something he’d asked himself thousands of times over the years. Never had he gotten an answer. Might Jett have brought back that answer with her? He wanted to know, if she could tell him. But he must be careful with her, allow her time to heal and to adjust to the mortal realm.

Hell, he was thankful she was alive.

Hours later, the sun prodded Savin out of a snore. He rubbed a hand over his head and then his shaggy beard. He needed a shave. He tended to avoid the manscaping bullshit and suffice with a shower and comb. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

Except now a pretty woman lay in the other room. He didn’t want to scare her. Might be time to dig out the razor.

Rising, he tugged off the long-sleeved shirt he’d slept in and unbuttoned his jeans as he walked toward the back of the flat. There were no doors between the living room and bedroom, so he peeked inside before entering. Jett lay still and was covered by the sheet, so he quickly snuck through the room and into the bathroom, closing that door quietly behind him.

Turning to meet his reflection in the mirror above the freestanding porcelain sink, he sneered at the gruff man who rarely smiled back. How long had his eyes been so dark and sullen? Was that the appearance of a wild man or a scruffy hermit? He really had developed a lack of concern. Kept the demons back, he figured. They feared his appearance. Heh. Not really. That was what the sigils were for. Protection and repulsion.

He traced one of the finely tattooed sigils on the underside of his forearm. Composed of circles within circles and some directional arrows along with demonic repulsion sigils. Sayne, the ink witch who’d put the bespelled ink down, had promised him they would be effective against most demons. Of course, he could never be impervious to all because there were so many breeds of demons in existence.

There had been one occasion when Savin met a demon who had not been repulsed by any of his sigils. That demon had initially been locked in a cage in the bowels of the Acquisitions’ headquarters. Later, Savin had ended up working with Gazariel, The Beautiful One, to help track down a vicious vampiress intent on invoking a spell that could end the world by smothering all mankind with the wings of fallen angels. That was a long story.

Savin found his way into some serious shit at times. Like it or not.

Hell, he liked it more than not. Kept life interesting. And, well, it was what he knew how to do.

Flipping on the shower, he stripped down and grabbed the razor from the medicine cabinet. Time to make himself more presentable for his guest.

* * *

Jett sat up on the big, wide bed. She’d slept? Grabbing a pillow, she hugged it to her chest, burying her face in the rugged scent of Savin Thorne. She hadn’t smelled anything so good. Ever. The man entered her pores on a brute whisper of masculinity and crisp fall leaves, and stirred up thoughts that didn’t so much surprise her with their eroticism as rise to embolden her.

Was she still asleep and in a dream?

While she was in Daemonia, dreams had been elusive. Actually, nightmares might have been the only reverie possible there. When attempting to recline and rest, she’d learned to shut down her thoughts. To sleep? Surely, she had. According to Savin, it had been twenty years that she had been absent. A person couldn’t survive so long without sleeping.

“Twenty years,” she whispered.

Twenty years according to the mortal realm’s timekeeping.

It was impossible to track time in Daemonia. Night and day did not exist. The seasons of gray and white and rust did. Gray crept in on mist and eeriness. White had shocked with ice and the crackly lava flowers she’d grown to enjoy despite their charcoal scent. And rust? Fire and screams.

It was late summer here in Paris. Perhaps. She hadn’t taken careful note of the field and surroundings last night before Savin pulled up on the road beside her. But it was warm. Such comforting warmth teased at her skin. In all her time in that place, she’d not known such a gentle and undemanding temperature.

Now she was determined to open her arms wide and embrace it all. Take it back in and flood her system with the muscle memory of a normal life. She must once again become a part of the human race.

Was it possible? She didn’t have a clue. But she would not relent until she was proved either right or wrong.

A clatter from inside the bathroom clued her she was not, indeed, dreaming. Savin must have finished in the shower. And before she could decide if she should leave the bedroom to give him some privacy, the door opened. Steam wafted out on a sage-scented cloud. And a god wearing but a towel emerged.

“Oh, you’re up.” Savin hooked his hand on the towel where it was tucked at his hip.

Jett dragged her gaze from his face—he had trimmed what had been a wild beard to something a bit more ruly—down over his wide and solid chest. That was a lot of muscle, and all of it was tight and undulated in curves and hard planes and... She had seen demons who looked like they pumped iron in a gym. They’d had muscles of blackest flesh or coldest steel. Some breeds’ physical makeup had been so terrible as to reveal bone and organs. But this man? Those muscles did not wrap about a rib cage that lacked within it a beating heart. Savin Thorne was a hot drink of the clearest, cleanest water she’d ever desired.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

“Sleep?” Adjusting her gaze from the tantalizing ridges of muscle on his abdomen, Jett hugged the pillow tighter to her chest, sensing a weird increase in her breaths. Which, when checked, she realized was want. Need. Hunger for the man’s muscles pressed up against her body. “Uh, yes. Surprisingly. I think that’s the best sleep I’ve had in ages.”

“That bed is comfortable. I, uh...”

He glanced to the cabinet on the other side of the bed that stood up against the wall.

“Oh, you need to get dressed. I should let you have some privacy.” She dropped the pillow and walked to the edge of the bed on her knees, but Savin beat her to the cabinet, and if she climbed off the bed, she’d step right up against him.

“It’s cool,” he said. “I’ll just grab some things and change out in the living room. I’m sure you want to use the bathroom. You can use whatever you like. I might even have an extra toothbrush in one of the drawers. Toothpaste is in the cabinet.”

Toothpaste. That sounded so decadent.

“How about we take a walk down the street and find something to eat?” he offered as he claimed some clothes. “Then we can talk.”

“Talk?” Not about Daemonia. She wasn’t ready for that. And she wasn’t sure she would ever be. “Sure. It’ll be great to get out in the fresh air. It’s not something I’ve had...” Uh... No. She wasn’t going to detail what was now her past. “Thank you, Savin. It was weird luck that you were out there in the country to help me.”

“It was. But also not a coincidence.” He took her in with a shadowed glance. His eyes were deep blue and his thick brows were low above them, granting him a dangerous mien. A force to, literally, be reckoned with. “That place where the rift to Daemonia opened last night is exactly where it happened.”

Jett nodded. It. Yes, it had been. That day long ago when her life had been irrevocably altered.

“Sorry.” He winced. “You probably don’t want to talk much about all that. We’ll take it slow. I’m hungry. Soon as you’re ready, we’ll head out. Feel free to raid my clothes. You might make a dress out of one of my shirts, you’re so tiny.”

He strode around the corner and Jett slid off the bed to look through the clothes cabinet. She’d found a T-shirt to sleep in last night and it hung to her thighs. Her hand glided over a pair of gray sweatpants with a string tie at the waist. It should serve until she could buy clothes that fit her.

Might Savin lend her some money to get her life established? She would need it because she had no means to a job or even knowledge of how to acquire the basics such as food, clothing and shelter.

Had she done the right thing?

The innate part of her that had seen to her survival in the Place of All Demons rose within her, reminding her she was not the same girl who had been taken out of this realm so long ago. She was stronger, and more vital. And she would have whatever she wanted, using her wiles if necessary. Let no man, or demon, stop her.

“I will,” Jett whispered decisively. “And he will help me.”

In the bathroom, she found a new toothbrush and Savin’s comb. Her hair was a tangle and hung to her waist. Also, it was no longer the color it had been while she was in Daemonia. She wasn’t sure if she missed that or not. She’d often worn it braided and back, but she no longer had consorts to aid or help her dress. Such a loss.

A moment to focus inward and ensure that all would be well—and secure—served her temporary solace. Maybe? She was trapped within something she was not in this realm, just as she had been in the other realm. And she was already questioning her decision to escape. She’d left behind things. Privileges. A certain status.

Jett shook her head. She had to stay on focus. She had wanted this. Had striven for escape. And the best person to help her achieve normality had been right there, waiting for her. Surely, that was a positive sign. For now, she was safe around Savin. Yet she could not overlook that the wards protecting his home pulled at her when she got too near the front door. She needed to be outside, free from any repulsive magic.

Pulling up the sweatpants, she tugged the ties and bunched up the excess. It still didn’t fit smartly, so she’d be forced to hold them up while she walked. But the invite to get outside could not be refused. She craved fresh air and would swallow it in gulps.

Out in the living room and sitting on the couch, Savin strummed an acoustic guitar. When Jett entered, he stopped and stood, setting the instrument aside. “You found clothes. That’s good.”

She clutched the front of the pants.

“Or not.” He winced. “There’s a women’s shop two buildings down from here. You want to stop in before we eat?”

“I’d appreciate that, but I have no means to pay.”

“Jett, don’t worry about it. You have nothing. I’ve got your back.”

She nodded, again finding it hard to speak when he had already been so generous. At the same time, a part of her, the part that had shone and assimilated while in Daemonia, smiled and straightened her spine. Of course he should serve her and make her comfortable. She deserved it.

“Let’s go out, then,” she said. “I’m eager to breathe in Paris.”


Chapter 5 (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

In the women’s clothing shop, Jett found some black jeans with sequins dashing down the sides of each leg seam, and a blousy red top. Black boots with high heels had given her a giddy thrill. Savin had suggested she grab a few more things, and while she had been initially reluctant, she quickly warmed to the shopping gene that Savin knew all women possessed. He didn’t mind bulking up his credit card bill. Seeing Jett’s satisfied smile had been well worth it.

Of course, the smile had been too brief. It was almost as if she’d caught herself in a moment of joy, then quickly slammed the door shut on the freedom. It would require time for her to rise above her experience, surely.

Now she sat across a metal table from him on the sidewalk before his favorite sixth-arrondissement café. Four bags were corralled around her. She looked over the menu while he had ordered black coffee and three pains au chocolat. That was the first course for him. He would go in for the potatoes next.

“I’m not sure what I want,” she said, setting down the menu. “I feel hungry. Or do I?”

“You can have one of my pastries and then order something later if you’re still hungry.” He noticed her scowl. “It’s not a test, Jett. You can try as many things as you like.”

She managed a roundabout shrug-nod. He assumed it was overwhelming for her to be someplace so simple as a sidewalk café after coming from—Well, he wasn’t going to ask about it. He’d wait until she brought it up. It seemed the kindest thing to do.

“Paris smells like I remember. Old, yet hopeful,” she said after the waitress dropped off Savin’s order. She accepted a plate with one of his pastries on it and picked up a fork. “And the fountain down the street sounds so happy.”

He’d forgotten about that fountain. A guy could hear it if he really listened. He’d lived here so long it had faded into the background. Just another city sound. What his senses were most focused to? Demons. They brandished a distinctive hum to their aura. If one walked close enough to him, it registered as a twinge in his veins. Some, he even smelled the sulfur. And while they could cast a sheen over that hum, the scent and their innate red pupils, if Savin caught sight of them at the right angle, the red glinted.

Jett paused with her fork poised over the pastry. “Can I ask you a few things?”

“Of course. Ask away.”

“You were sending demons back into Daemonia last night, yes?”

“You bet. I’m a reckoner, Jett.”

“That is what I guessed. How did you ever come to do such a thing? And, uh...just how long have you been...back?”

He set down the pastry and brushed the crumbs from his beard. She wouldn’t like hearing this, but he wasn’t going to lie to her. Savin had a thing about loyalty to friends. He didn’t know any other way to exist.

“I’ve been back,” he said, “since I was ten.”

Her jaw dropped open and the fork hit the plate with a clink. “But you were ten then. When we...” She pressed her fingers to her mouth, and her eyes averted to study the sidewalk.

“I was in Daemonia for what felt like weeks,” he offered. “Maybe a month?”

“Time doesn’t exist there,” she said softly. The fragile pain in her tone cut Savin to the core. Should he have been so forthright?

“Right. No way to measure time there,” he said. “But I did find a way out.”

“That’s so good for you.” Her smile was again brief. Not easy. “And...your parents were there for you?”

“As soon as my feet hit mortal ground outside the wicked forest, I ran back home through the lavender field and straight into my house. My parents were over the moon. I didn’t think my mom would ever stop hugging me.”

Jett’s eyes still did not meet his, and he could imagine what she was thinking. How she had lost that opportunity for a cheery family reunion. Hell, he shouldn’t have mentioned that part.

“I tried to explain what happened, but they thought me...” He twirled a forefinger near his temple. “And when your parents asked me where you were, I didn’t know what to say. Would they believe a kid who said some strange force sucked us into a different realm? Kids always get accused of having wild imaginations. And I remember your mom, in particular, was Catholic.”

Jett nodded. Smirked at the memory. “To the extreme. So much guilt.”

“Right. Religion is...not for me. Anyway, after giving it some thought, I decided that being lured into the woods by a stranger and the two of us being separated was the only story they’d believe. That’s when the police arrived. They questioned me for hours. I cried a lot.”

“I imagine so.”

Savin lifted his chin and swallowed. Ignoring the stir of the Other within, he reached across the table and touched her fingers. “Those tears were for you, Jett. I just wanted you back.”

She nodded and yet pulled her fingers from under his touch. Wrapping her arms tightly across her chest, she leaned forward, protecting herself as best she could. “Were my parents upset?”

“Inconsolable.” He waited until she finally gave him her gaze. That soft brown stare that had once teased, cajoled and challenged him. “They loved you, Jett. But I know it was difficult for them to accept that I returned and you did not. Nothing was the same after that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” How to say it kindly? Surely, she might seek her parents now. And while he’d been but a kid, Savin had understood exactly what had occurred in the neighbors’ house down the street in those months following his return. The truth needed to be told. “Your parents split up about a year after it happened. I was still young and only heard the whispers from my parents, but I understood that your father moved out of the country.”

“He did? That’s... Wow.” She sat back on the metal chair and pulled up a knee to hug against her chest.

“And your mother...”

“My mother?”

“What was her name again?”

“Josette. Josette and Charles Montfort.”

“Right.” Savin raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m not sure what happened to Josette. After your dad left, my parents told me never to speak to Madame Montfort because I’d upset her. So I walked the long way around the neighborhood to get to school. Not that I stayed in school much longer than a few years.”

“But you were ready to enter middle school?”

“I managed middle school. Barely. My mom called it ADD. I knew differently. I dropped out in the first year of high school. The whole world, and the way I saw it, was never the same after—Well, I’m sure you understand. Anyway, I moved to the city when I was seventeen and lost touch completely with the Montforts.”

“I see.” Jett toyed with the pastry flakes on the plate, then rubbed her hand along her thigh. “I guess I can understand the divorce. My parents must have been shattered about my disappearance. They...fought a lot.”

“I remember you telling me about hearing their arguments. It happens. People change and seek new directions.”

“But another country? You don’t know where my father went?” she asked.

He shook his head. And one final terrible detail. “He got remarried, Jett. That’s all I know.”

She nodded, taking it in. Her fingers clasped tightly on her lap. Everything about her closed. “I wonder if my mother is still in the same house.”

“Impossible. That area we were in last night is where the lavender field once was. The houses were torn down years ago, Jett. There’s only a thin line of trees left from the original forest. They’re putting up new buildings and a golf course. I’m not sure where your mother went.”

“Would your parents know? I mean...” She exhaled heavily, and when she met his gaze, Savin expected to see tears, but instead a steely determination glinted in her dark irises. “I have no one now. I need to start anew. But I can’t do that without support. And survival aside, I’d like to find my parents. Because...”

“Of course. I can ask my maman for you. My dad died ten years ago.”

“Oh.” She dropped her gaze from his. “Death is—You resemble him, from what I remember.”

Savin winced at her tone. It had been so...dead. Like she had forced herself to say something kind. Like she didn’t really feel for him. It was a weird thing to notice. But again, he reminded himself, she had been through a lot.

“So you got out fast,” she stated. “And did you always want to be a reckoner after that?”

He snorted. “Hell no. I had no idea what a reckoner even was until seven or eight years ago when John Malcolm—he’s an exorcist—found me and told me I needed to be trained to do what I could do naturally. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve never asked for, but have accepted because it seems that’s what I’m meant to do. It’s a strange and repulsive calling. I just want to keep humans safe from demons.”

She nodded.

“You need to know something, Jett. When I came back to this realm, a demon hitched a ride in me. I call her the Other.”

“The Other?” she said with a gasp.

Yes, she remembered. They’d played a board game when they were kids that had been a bit like Dungeons and Dragons, and the creature who had lived in a dark cave had been called the Other. That was the name for the villain they had always adopted when playacting any sort of fantasy quest, adventure, or even when taking a tromp through the basement without the lights on.

Savin shrugged. “I was a kid. At the time, it was a name that fit. She’s the one who helped me get home. The bitch is still in me. She’s incorporeal. Can’t get her out. I’m not sure how to. I’ve tried, believe me. But we’ve developed a mutual respect for each other’s boundaries and I put up with her occasional fits.”

“Fits?”

“When angered, she can toss me across the room. Freaks the hell out of me. She’s been a bit prickly today. Weird. I’m chalking it up to our experience last night. But there are...measures I take to keep her calm.”

“Measures?”

He reached into his back pocket and laid on the table a tin box that he never left home without. He had a few more tucked in all the other places he might need a quick fix, such as at home and in his truck. “Morphine. It seems to keep the bitch chilled without affecting me too much.”

“Oh. Yes, morphine. It is a commodity in Daemonia. Smuggled in illegally from the mortal realm.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I knew that. That’s how I figured it might be something I could use to control her.” He tucked away the tin box. “Since my return, I’ve been able to see and feel a demon’s presence. In my very bones, you know?”

She swallowed and nodded again, strangely telling in her silence.

“And for some reason,” Savin continued, “I can invoke demonic rituals and languages to send them back to where they came from. It’s been an innate skill after my return. So after Malcolm trained me, I figured I hadn’t much choice but to become a reckoner. Wasn’t as if I had a vibrant social life or dreams and goals of becoming a corporate raider or even a chef or fireman. I’m just weird Savin Thorne who sees demons and feels them all around. I’ve learned to work with it.”

“You don’t seem so weird to me. Rather handsome, too.” She lowered her gaze, but her voice took on a confident tone. “You’ve grown up since I last saw you.”

“So have you.” He felt something close to a blush heat his neck. Savin quickly rubbed at his beard to hide his sudden nerves. Not that he didn’t enjoy flirting with a beautiful woman. He just...was surprised by his sudden and easy interest in Jett’s sensual appeal.

“So you can see demons in the mortal realm? All of them?”

“Not all. Most. And it’s not so much that I can see them—some I can—as that they give off a vibration that I can sense when they are close. But some are clever and wear a sheen expertly. You know about that stuff, yes?”

Another silent nod.

“Right. Probably hard not to get educated on the demonic realm when stuck in that place. Listen, Jett, I know you probably want to avoid questions about Daemonia, but can I ask one thing?”

“Of course you can.”

“Were you treated well?”

She straightened her neck and slid her palms along each chair arm. It was almost as if she had realized she was safe now and could be the woman she was. A regal confidence bloomed in her eyes. “Well enough. I survived. And I am in one piece. And now I’m here. That is what matters, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Yet her confident front did not hide the fact that she was frightened. Savin could feel the fear coming off her.

The waitress stopped by and set the roasted potatoes, sprinkled with rosemary, before him. Jett decided on tea and he didn’t push her to order more.

His cell phone rang and, seeing it was Ed, he told Jett he needed to take the call. “Yeah, Ed, what’s up?”

“We managed to wrangle a dozen demons after leaving the site last night. I’ve got them contained here at the office in the basement holding cell. Would you be able to swing by and reckon them?”

He glanced across the table. Jett was poking about in one of her shopping bags, the tissue paper crinkling. “Sure. Give me a couple hours and I’ll head over.”

“Great. I’ll give you more details then.”

“The cellular phone has advanced measurably in my absence,” Jett commented as he tucked away his phone. “I remember them being large and—what were they—flip phones?”

“They get smaller and sleeker every year. And the cameras on them are amazing. I’ve even got a demon tracking app.”

“What’s an app?”

“It’s a...” Savin chuckled. “A program designed to do something specific and usually make life easier. Though I’m not much for selfies.”

“What’s a selfie?”

“Something I think you would be excellent at.” He winked, and her lift of chin preceded a slight curve of her mouth. Yes, she would put all the selfie queens to shame with her natural beauty. “I’ll give you the tech talk later,” he said. “You won’t need to learn much to get up to speed. Except that swiping right can get you in more trouble than you are prepared to confront.”

And that was all he was willing to divulge regarding his failed Tinder experiment.

“I have no idea what you just said, but I think I’ll be fine without a phone for now. Getting up to speed on existing in this realm is going to take some time. You have somewhere you need to be?”

“Yes, that was Edamite Thrash. He’s a corax demon. Good guy. I’d never reckon him. He keeps an eye on the demons in Paris and isn’t afraid to move in when one steps out of line. Sort of the demon police patrol over Paris.”

“Edamite Thrash.” She seemed to make note of the name.

“I have some business across the river with Ed.”

“Reckoning?”

Savin nodded. “I won’t invite you along. I suspect you’ll want to keep yourself as far from anything having to do with demons as you can.”

“Sounds like a dream. But is it possible in this city?”

He felt awful that her dream was so dismal. “It is. Demons are populous in Paris, but the smart ones tend to mind their manners. I’ll walk you back to the flat and then make it a quick job.”

“I can find my way back on my own.”

“I do need to get my truck.” He wolfed down some potatoes and finished his coffee. Seeing Jett’s longing look at some passing tourists, he offered, “Unless you want to walk by yourself for a while? I don’t want to be too forward.”

She gave him that silent nod again. Somehow submissive, which bothered him.

He tugged out his wallet and laid a couple twenty-euro notes before her. “You take that and go off walking by yourself. Buy what you want. If your appetite comes back, you’ll be covered. Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll leave the door to my place unlocked. Don’t let the demon wards freak you out. Sometimes they tug when you enter.”

“Didn’t even notice them last night,” she offered airily.

“They’re not all-purpose, but they’ve served me well. I’ll loosen them up for you anyway.” Because she probably still had residue from Daemonia on her. “And feel free to tuck your new purchases into a drawer. Make yourself at home, Jett. My place is your place until you feel like you need to get the hell out. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He signed the check, then stood, and thinking he should shake her hand or something, he decided that was stupid. And would she get the friendly double-cheek-kiss thing? It wasn’t something he ever did—why was he fretting about this?

Abandoning his ridiculous thoughts, he tossed out a “See you later?”

“I look forward to it.”

So did he. Because those beautiful, sad brown eyes made him hungry for things other than food. A man shouldn’t have such thoughts for a woman he hardly knew. And yet he did know her. The nine-year-old Jett. The intrepid, laughing best friend he’d promised to someday marry. Seemed like a long shot now. She was different. Could she get back to the usual? Did she want to? What had she been through?

He wanted to help her. He really did. And he needed to protect her. Things that came out of Daemonia might be required to return, no matter their species. Might someone—or something—come looking for Jett?

* * *

Jett wandered the cobblestoned streets and sidewalks through Paris, inhaling the smells of gasoline, cooked food and ancient limestone. The sounds of rushing cars, chattering tourists, Notre Dame’s bells and the laughter of children lightened her mood.

The sights were both historical and contemporary. The old buildings that had been around for centuries, and that she could recognize, gave her comfort. The city had not changed in her absence. And the people had only marginally changed, fashionwise. But there were so many cell phones now. Did everyone carry them always? Including the children? How bizarre to want to walk down the street having a conversation with a person on the phone while your family or friend walked next to you, doing the very same.

The city was as she’d remembered, and yet those memories were so old everything had become new again. She found herself smiling despite not having used those muscles around her mouth for a long time. A satisfied sigh followed.

She could make this her home once again.

As she was weaving through tourists who crowded the sidewalks, the scent of roasted meat lured her to draw in the savory aroma. But she didn’t feel hungry. After one bite of Savin’s pastry, she had realized it tasted like stale paper. It was not what she’d eaten in Daemonia. All senses had been engaged during meals, lush scents and flavors combining to satisfy in the most bizarre manner. The humans would not know what to call the demonic foods, and some dishes might even repulse them.

She could grow accustomed to roast chicken and potatoes again. She must.

Savin had taken her bags back to his place, so Jett swung her arms as she crossed a busy intersection. The river was close. The water smelled dark, yet much cleaner than anything she had known in a while.

A passerby rudely brushed her shoulder and kept on walking, his attention on the cell phone at his ear. But the sensations Jett got from that quick contact shocked up her arm. Demon. It was an innate knowledge. He didn’t turn to regard her. He couldn’t know acknowledgment was required. Rather, submission.

That was a good thing. Maybe?

Part of her decided it was. The darkest part of her crossed her arms and gave a huffy pout. Really. Where was the subservience? Should not all demons know and fear her? It was going to take time to adjust to being just another face in the crowd.

Shaking off the surprise of having been so close to a demon—and not feeling compelled to follow—Jett wandered to the river’s edge and leaned over the wide concrete balustrade. If demons walked the streets without notice, that meant surely the city must be populated with all species of paranormals. Something of which she’d not been aware when she was an innocent child.

And now knowing so much served her both bane and boon. All grown up and in the know, she could be smart and protect herself from anything that wished to harm her. If that anything knew who she was. Something she intended to conceal as long as physically possible.

Holding a hand out over the water, Jett closed her eyes and drew in the power of nature. Flowing water had always strengthened her. She harkened it to that fateful plunge over the falls. Rather, that push. She’d initially thought Savin had caught up to her and shoved her screaming and flailing over the edge. But she’d corrected that after the long fall. He hadn’t been close enough. He could never have known what had occurred during that fall.

Similar to the fall an angel makes from Above? It was a tale she’d made up, a secret belief that had helped her through hard times. Innocence falling to destruction and ruin, and all that fantastical stuff.

But that truth wasn’t something she could share with Savin. Maybe? No, she wasn’t nearly so ready to completely trust the man. It had been twenty years. So much had happened. Both had changed and been altered by their stays in that nightmare place. Jett would be wise to tread carefully around the man who could reckon demons out of this realm.

Hearing the loud chatter of a woman next to her, Jett turned, expecting to find her conversing with another, and only saw the one woman.

“Technology,” she muttered Savin’s explanation. “What else has changed?”

For one thing, the movie screens. Or were they television screens? Whatever they were, there was one set up in the parvis before Notre Dame just across the river; it played a film on the cathedral’s history. The screen was so large, and the images remarkably clear, even from where she stood.

The cars that zoomed past on the bridge were the same as she remembered, save newer and probably faster. The people all looked the same. Fashion in this touristy district still left much to be desired. Jett could spot a true Parisian by her smart, elegant style. Or there, the woman riding the bicycle in a skirt, with her high heels tucked in a side bag. Definitely a city native.

The food all seemed familiar. The Notre Dame Cathedral was still an awesome monument. The whine of tired children tugging on their parents’ legs was familiar, as well. So much remained familiar to her, and that was heartening.

Yet where were the bowing sycophants?

Jett’s eyes sought someone, anyone who might recognize her importance. And she realized her sheen was beginning to wane, allowing her darkness to rise, so she tightened her hold on it and spread her focus over her skin once again. Mustn’t drop her mask. No matter how good it felt, or how much she desired recognition.

After walking awhile, Jett shrugged her achy shoulders and yawned. The crowd and the bright sunlight taxed her energy. She was beginning to require more focus than usual to stay in this form. So she headed back toward Savin’s place, wandering quickly past the Montparnasse Cemetery and then the Luxembourg Gardens, taking in all things, but also looking forward to rest. She’d breathed enough fresh air for today.

Most of all, she looked forward to seeing Savin again.

The only friend she had ever known had reentered her life. And that was remarkable.

But what he’d told her about her parents. They’d divorced. And he had no clue where either was right now? Besides the memory of her best friend, her parents had been her only connection to this realm. For the longest time she had whispered the Catholic prayers her mother had taught her, until the words had begun to literally burn on her tongue. And long after she’d learned not to invoke the Christian God in that place, the simple image of her mother or father had worked to keep up her spirits.

She needed to find them to truly return to this realm she wanted to once again call home.

Arriving at Savin’s building, she took in the vibrations cloaking the immediate area. Like Savin, she could read the air and sense demons when nearby. As well, she could vibrationally map out the living beings in the area. Sort of like sonar, she supposed. Savin was above in his home, already returned from his task. She knew it because his scent carried to her. That delicious essence of man that she’d slept wrapped in all night.

There were wards outside the limestone-faced building. Invisible, yet she could feel Savin’s signature sealing them. Wards against demons and a few other species, perhaps vampires and werewolves. They tugged at her musculature, as they had last night, when she mounted the inner stairs and climbed up four stories, but it wasn’t anything that would rip her apart or send her screaming.

Facing the wards drawn on Savin’s front door, Jett rechecked the sheen she wore, a masterful disguise. She’d need to relax and let go soon. Just an hour or so. A means to recharge.

Yet the last place she could do that was inside a fully warded reckoner’s home.

Or maybe, it might serve as the safest place possible.

She knocked on the front door, then tried the knob. It was open, and as she popped her head inside the flat, Savin called for her to enter. A fierce tug at her skin pulled and prickled as she crossed the threshold, but she made it inside and closed the door behind her, thus squelching the ward’s seeking force. It sought to repeal a demon. She was still strong enough to thwart the weakened repulsion.

Now she dropped her shoulders and exhaled wearily. “You beat me back,” she commented.

Savin sat on the couch, a glass of what smelled like alcohol in hand, which he tilted to her. “It was a quick call. Four more demons sent back to where they belong. And you have been out the whole afternoon. You walk around the city?”

She sat on the wooden-armed chair across from the couch and pulled up her legs to hook her feet on the leather cushion. It was cool and not so bright in his place, and she appreciated that. “Paris is beautiful. I never appreciated the architecture when we were kids. So many people, though. I’m tired out!”

“Yeah, it’s August and the tourist crush is ridiculous. No wonder all the locals head out of town this time of year. I left your new things in the bedroom for you. You want a drink?”

“I recognize the smell of whiskey from when my father used to have a ‘sip’ after an evening meal. But I’ve never tried alcohol. At least, not anything made in this realm.”

“Really? I suppose.” He swiped a hand across his jaw.

She sensed he tried to be tactful and not ask about her experience, which she appreciated.

“Want to try some?”

“I’d never refuse a challenge from you.”

And while that statement was something that she would have said as a kid to Savin’s challenging glint in the eye, now it felt bold and powerful. Adult. And in response, Savin’s gaze seemed to slip across her skin in a welcome manner. Jett wriggled on the chair, lifting her chin. She liked to be admired by him.

He stood and collected another glass in the kitchen, then returned to pour her a portion from the bottle.

“Do you play all those guitars?” she asked as he handed her the glass. She sniffed it. Very strong, and not too appealing.

“Most are collectibles,” he said. “A few are prized possessions. That one is signed by Chuck Berry. Saw him at a concert a decade ago and met him when he was exiting out the backstage door. I like to play my own compositions. A little blues à la Chuck Berry, a little Southern rock. Some headbanging riffs mixed with a touch of classical. I’m also teaching myself musicomancy.”

Jett sat up a little straighter. “Is that some kind of magic?”

“Using music. But it’s slow going. Hell, I tend to sit and drink far too much whiskey, and then my playing gets looser and more random. I suspect that’s a good reason why I have yet to accomplish musicomancy.” He winked and tilted back the remainder of his drink, then poured some more. “I use the diddley bow for the magic stuff.” He gestured over his shoulder, and Jett noted a strange guitar-like instrument with a turtle-shell-sized body and a long, thin neck and only one string. “Made that one myself. That’s another hobby of mine. Fiddling around with making things. Made a bunch of navigational devices that I use for my work, as well. Guess I got the creative gene from my dad. You remember when I took apart your Nintendo controller?”

“I don’t think I forgave you for that. And I wouldn’t necessarily call destroying things being creative,” she teased. “You tended to take apart anything you could get your hands on.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Now I put things back together. I figured out how it all works. Now I’m all about restoration and creation. No destruction.”

Destruction. The word felt comfortable to Jett’s senses. It had been so easy to destroy that which annoyed her. But just as she noticed herself smiling about such memories, she chased away the thought. She would not slip around Savin. She must not.

She sniffed her glass, then took a sip. It burned down her throat, but it was actually tasty. As she drank more, the burn lessened. Another sip and the dark liquid smoothened on her tongue. “I like this.”

“Much as I hate to be the one to corrupt you, I can’t argue an appreciation for a good aged whiskey.”

“I am beyond corruption, Savin. So don’t worry about that.”

“Everyone is corruptible.”

“Yes, well, there’s nothing about me that can get any more corrupted. So trust, you won’t harm me. No matter what vices or sinful challenges with which you should tempt me.” She held out her glass toward him. Her voice thickened into a husky tone. “More.”

Glass clinked as he poured her another portion. Then he topped off his drink. The lingering look he gave her was in reaction to her sensual tease. Good boy. He understood her. She could work with that.

“Can I ask you one thing? It’s personal.”

“I don’t have any boyfriends, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Jett chuckled softly and pressed the cool glass against her lower lip. The man was so sexy. And she understood the meaning of that word now. How quickly she relaxed around him. And desired. She was feeling...sensual. Must be the whiskey. Yes, she did like this drink.

“No, that’s—” Savin looked over the rim of his glass. “Could you have boyfriends...you know...there?”

He wanted to know about her love life in Daemonia? Ugh. “Is that the question you wanted to ask?”

“Do I only get the one?”

Jett sighed and allowed her shoulders to relax against the comfy cushions. She crossed her legs, and with a slip off of the heel, she dangled her shoe on her toes. “Fine. Ask me anything. But I’m allowed to refuse any answer.”

“I don’t want to grill you, Jett. But I am curious. In turn, you can ask me anything.”

“You’ve been open with me so far. I owe you that much.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, the whiskey glass dangling from one hand before a leg. “How did you survive in that place? Was there shelter? Buildings? Towns? A place of safety?”

“There’s never safety in Daemonia,” she said curtly. The whiskey slid quickly down her throat and she slammed the glass on the chair arm. “But there are dwellings. And cities and citadels. Castles, hovels and all means of residence. I...had a place to live.” She couldn’t tell him everything. She’d never get out of this flat in one piece if she did that. “And I was generally free from the treacherous elements that I’m sure you remember.”

“So someone took you in? That’s good. I couldn’t imagine you wandering that horrible place for so long and on your own.”

“There is no alone there.” Jett cast her glance up toward the windows fitted in the ceiling. The sky was darkening. Thankfully. “Nor was there a sun. But you know, the many moons were pretty. Save for the fire moon. That one hurt if I forgot myself and walked out beneath it.”

“Like a sunburn?”

He might never understand that in Daemonia everything was multiplied, magnified, extremely enlarged, enhanced and so, so dangerous. He’d had but a taste as a child.

“A bit,” she offered quickly. Now she stood and grabbed the half-empty whiskey bottle and refilled her glass. Growing more confident, she sat on the couch, snuggling up about two feet from where Savin sat and facing him. The whiskey warmed her, and the exhaustion she’d been feeling earlier cooled to a comfortable relaxation. “Any more questions?”

“So many. But I won’t inundate you. I genuinely thought you were dead after that fall, Jett. Were you angry with me? For not coming after you?”

He lifted his chin just as their eyes met. Alpha in his command, and unwilling to show any weakness. She’d dealt with men like him. And yet she could feel his heart beating rapidly. He was frightened at his own emotions.

And she, well, she had long ago abandoned the sillier emotions such as fear, shame and empathy.

“I was never angry with you,” she said truthfully. “And I hoped for so long that you had made it back home. My wish came true. I’m glad for that.”

“I should have leaped over that cliff and tried to save you.”

“It would have been a suicide leap, Savin. You were wise to stay put. Trust me on that one.”

How she had survived the lava falls was a question she’d never gotten an answer to. And really, she’d decided long ago she didn’t want that answer. There had been a reason she was whisked into Daemonia. A wicked, selfish reason for which she could never forgive the perpetrator.

Savin considered her words. Surely his next question would be, how had she survived? So she would redirect his thoughts. “What about you? Do you have any girlfriends?”

His brow quirked; then his lips dallied with a smile before he shook his head. “I’m not so talented with the suave and smooth. All that dating stuff feels awkward.”

“A man so handsome and kind as you has trouble with women? Surely, you’ve dated.”

“I have. I do. Eh. It never lasts. I’m human, Jett, but this demon inside me makes it difficult to relate to human women. I’m different than most. I know things I shouldn’t know about things that shouldn’t exist. And I have to protect that side of me from discovery. You know? I did date a vampiress once. I don’t like the idea of getting bitten, though, and that did seem to be a requirement to a happy relationship.”

“Did she bite you?”

“I wouldn’t let her. It was tempting. I understand the bite is orgasmic. Oh, uh, sorry. I shouldn’t talk like that around you.”

“Why not? We’re both adults. I am a grown woman.” And she was feeling more of herself with every moment she sat near Savin. He’d toyed with getting bitten by a vampire? Jett traced the bottom tip of her canine tooth. It was sharp, but not as pointed as usual without her sheen. “I know things,” she said. “Trust me, I’m not an innocent.”

“All right, then.” He considered his glass, and Jett sensed his sudden discomfort.

“Vampires! So many creatures walking this realm,” she tossed out to break the tension. “All the things we once thought were only make-believe. All of them predators and prey.”

“I’ve never been prey and don’t intend to start. Trust me on that one.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Hand me the bottle. Let’s finish it off.”

She grabbed the bottle and went up on her knees to slide closer to Savin, setting the bottle on his thigh. When he gripped it, she placed her hand over his. He turned his head, and the scent of him invaded her pores on a tease. As a woman, she had needs. And those needs screamed for satisfaction right now. A new turn at satisfaction, actually. One that she might not regret, or that would leave her shivering in revulsion.

“My turn to ask the questions,” she said. “Or rather, I’ve a request.”

He studied her hand still resting over his, and she released him so he could pour the last inch into his glass. He tucked the bottle on the other side of his thigh, then said, “Shoot.”

Boldness had been bred into her over the long and unending years of her exile. And she was feeling her mettle now that she’d begun to acclimate to this realm. Jett touched the ends of Savin’s dark hair and swept them over his shoulder. With the back of her forefinger, she traced along his neck up to the bristly beard hairs. He was warm, much more so than she’d expected. Fiery, even. But never dangerous, at least, not to her darkness.

“Do you think I’m pretty, Savin?”

Now his gaze locked on to hers, and she felt the heat of him scurry over her skin. It danced about her arms and torso and tightened her nipples. Mmm...he was not a man to be ignored.

“I do.”

“Do you remember when we were kids and I asked you to kiss me and you said you couldn’t until we were older because we’d have to be married and you’d probably have to like girls to do so?”

He nodded and, with a tilt of his head, chuckled softly. “You remember that? I’ve always respected women. My mother taught me that.”

“Yes, you are a kind man. But. Are we old enough to kiss now?”

Her finger wandered over his chin and followed the line of hairs below the center of his bottom lip. She traced lightly over his mouth. All the while his gaze was intent on hers. Desire smoldered in his deep dark eyes. And she could smell it on him, even though it was a scent that had usually offended her. Not so from Savin. He was a real man. Not a demon.

“Kiss me,” she whispered. She moved nearer until their noses were close enough to brush. He smelled like the brisk Paris air and fiery whiskey, with a rich earthy tang of man.

“Jett, I—”

“Yes?”

A hush of his breath played over her lips. “Are you sure?”

“I never ask for things I don’t want. That’s a waste of words.”

She ran her fingers along his cheek and back through his hair.

She would not kiss him. He must come to her. Otherwise, she would not know if he was merely doing as she asked or if he genuinely wanted to. But the heat of his body so close to hers was incredible. Tempting. And she felt dizzied, yet also emboldened by the alcohol. If he refused her request, it would crush her.

When his mouth met hers, the connection felt tentative for but a moment. Savin’s hand slipped along her neck, gentle but guiding, as he tilted her head to better receive the taste of his desire. He invaded her with his presence in a way she had never known. And she wanted to keep it. To know him as only adults could know each other.

His mustache brushed her upper lip, and their noses nudged. Eyes closed, she gripped at his wavy hair. Their intense connection rocketed up the delicious tingle that began at her mouth and coiled rapidly throughout her body. Jett slid a leg over his lap, her knee hitting the whiskey bottle, and straddled him. He slipped a hand along her back, not breaking the kiss, instead keeping her firmly in place upon him.

She wanted to taste him, to drink the whiskey from his tongue. That wish was granted as he dashed his tongue along the seam of her mouth. Such a spectacular sensation giddied up her spine. The man’s throaty groan clued her he enjoyed kissing her as much as she did him.

His tongue was hot and slick as he tasted her teeth, tongue and her lips. She copied his movements, daring him into a deep dance that ignited the coil of want in her belly, and lower. It was not a sensation she had known—too easy, too comfortable—and it alerted her for a few moments, but she would not let him know her caution rose. The width of his hand spanned her back as he gentled that sudden anxiety with the realization that he might only protect her and—if she was lucky—give her pleasure.

He must. She deserved it.

Bracketing his face with both palms, Jett tilted her head, seeking to devour his whiskey sweetness. When she brushed her hard nipples against his chest, again the man moaned. Yes, she liked his reaction. He was under her command now. And that empowered her.

Yet when he slipped out his tongue and kissed her mouth, then bowed his forehead to hers to end the kiss, she wanted to greedily pull him back for another. So she did. This time the clutch of his hand against her hip was more urgent. And his other hand slid over her derriere and squeezed.

She wanted to feel his body against hers, skin to skin, to know what his muscles felt like flexing with movement, melding against her body, and to own him.

But she was getting carried away.

Jett lashed her tongue along Savin’s lower lip, then met his gaze.

“Whew!” he said.

Exactly. And kneeling over him, firmly in his embrace, she could sense...something similar within him. The demoness he claimed had hitched a ride to this realm with his escape? The Other. Her presence was faint, barely a shimmer that traced the man’s veins. And yet she wanted Jett to know of her presence.

Oh, she was aware.

Jett thumbed Savin’s mouth. “I’ve never been kissed like that.”

His eyebrow quirked.

“Actually, I’ve never been kissed until now.”

“You’re—Really?”

She nodded. “Finally, that kiss you promised me when we were kids has been granted. And don’t think you have to stop giving them to me.”

“That was an intense kiss. A guy would never know you’d not done such before.” He looked aside. Were his thoughts going to places she didn’t want them to go?

Jett kissed him again. She would claim this man, body and soul. Because that was what she did to survive.


Chapter 6 (#u0811bce2-2f5c-5daa-9969-cb41021cab97)

There was only one way to be safe, and that would mean relinquishing the power Jett had gained since living in Daemonia. She felt sure she could accomplish the task. She would never return there. Not even if a sexy reckoner decided her time was up.

However, to let go of what she had gained would be a supreme sacrifice. She’d not yet dared to test those powers here in the mortal realm. Perhaps they were already diminished?

But first, she needed an answer to a question that had haunted her all through her absence. And the only way to do that was to locate her parents; one or both. Though she suspected her mother might be the best bet, according to what Savin had told her about her father moving on after her disappearance.

Her father. He could be the missing key. What did she really know about her father?

She’d asked Savin if he could ask his mother about her parents. Since they’d lived so close when they were children, and she remembered their mothers being friends, perhaps Madame Thorne could aid in her search. With luck, she would have an answer to her oft-wondered-about question soon.

Teasing her finger along the granite countertop in Savin’s kitchen, Jett marveled over the simple stone. Nothing like this in Daemonia. There the minerals and earth had been volatile and ever changing. One could never take a step without being certain one’s foot would land on a solid or moving surface. It was good to be home. Almost home. Would she ever call a place home again?

Savin wandered in from the bedroom. The man wore loose-fitted jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that struggled to contain his biceps. “I’m heading out for some groceries, and I just got a text from Ed, the corax demon I reckoned for yesterday. He was the one who sensed the gates to Daemonia were opening, and was there the night you came through. He isn’t sure Certainly’s spell to close the rift is holding.”

“And who or what is Certainly?”

“Certainly Jones is a man. A dark witch.”

Yet another person of whom she should remain wary. Witches never survived Daemonia. The dark ones did like to conjure from that source, and such invocations never seemed to go well. At least, not for the demon.

“I thought you were the reckoner,” Jett said. “How are you involved with wrangling demons? Do you hunt, as well?”

“Nope. Don’t like to hunt. Dead giveaway, too, because demons sense me as easily as I sense them. But I’m in on this whole keeping-the-rift-closed adventure, so I’ll help Ed and CJ any way I can. You going to be okay here by yourself for a while?”

“Of course. I’m a big girl.”

“That you are.” His eyes twinkled, and Jett remembered their kiss last night. She would take another from him soon, if she had her way. And she generally did. “Any requests for food?”

“No, but if you could call your mother, I’d be appreciative.”

“Right. I haven’t forgotten. I might stop by her place today. She lives in the sixteenth near the park now. Has a nice little apartment. She’s going to flip to hear you’re back.”

“Is that a good flip or a bad flip?”

“My mother knows about me and the demon stuff. She says she believes me, but I also know she can’t bring herself to label her son crazy, even though she suspects that could be a possibility.” He shrugged. “Such is life. I’m going to pick you up a phone while I’m out, too. Not that you need to start texting and taking selfies, but it’ll be a good way for us to keep in touch when I’m gone.”

“You are too generous, Savin. I feel as if I owe you so much already.”

“Don’t think like that. I’m glad I can offer you a place to stay. It’s nice having someone around to talk to.”

“And kiss,” she offered, following him to the front door.

“And kiss.” He turned and looked down at her. He was too tall and wouldn’t be able to get close enough for a kiss without bending his knees. But Jett waited anyway. For a few seconds they held gazes. He seemed...nervous. “Uh, I should go, then.”

“Kiss me first. I want to make up for lost time.”

He leaned down and his breath hushed against her ear as he spoke. “It’s impossible to get back time.”

“Time grows longer when you kiss me.”

His eyebrow quirked, followed by a slow smile that punctuated his cheeks with subtle dimples. Now, that was impossible to resist.

Jett initiated the kiss that lured her to her tiptoes and into the burly man’s embrace. His arms wrapped about her back, and her body tilted against his. Their connection grew lush and deep. She moaned against his mouth. Pleasurable vibrations sparkled in her chest and shimmered lower. Standing in Savin’s arms stirred her wanton instincts. This was a new feeling. Yet it teased at her darkness. How she wanted to push him against the wall and tear off his shirt—

“You sure do like my kisses,” Savin said as he pulled away. “Or else you’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I told you last night you are the first man I’ve kissed. I’m glad for that. And you tempt me to want to kiss you all day. Hurry back. I want to start up where we’re leaving off.”

“I like the way you think.” He winked, then opened the door. “See you in a bit.”

The door closed behind him and Jett felt the wards zap at her. Stepping back with a skip, she hissed at the intrusive repulsion. It was more an annoyance than anything. But now as she glanced about the kitchen and living room, she realized she was once again imprisoned. Even if she didn’t mind the prison so much this time around, she could not breach those wards without pain.

She had to find her own place. Her own identity. And yet she wanted to do that and keep Savin in her life. He fit her. It was as if they had never been separated.

This time her smile came easily as she spun into the kitchen.

Jett opened the fridge door and inspected the contents. Lots of sandwich meats, cheese wedges and bottled energy drinks in wild colors. She was a little hungry but had yet to figure out her appetite. She grabbed a bottle that boasted a protein-packed chocolate elixir and tested it.

“Not terrible.”

Drink in hand, she wandered about the place. It was cool and quiet. The skylights beamed in subtle sunlight. Nothing too bright. She suspected it would take a while to fully adjust to the daylight. But the part of her that took comfort from the darkness prodded at her. Stay in the dark, it nudged. Dark is safe. Dark is home.

Rubbing a palm over her upper arm, Jett winced. Yes, the darkness was a safe and tempting place. There was so much light here in the mortal realm. Had her decision to escape here been wise?

Standing in the center of the living area, she suddenly felt lost, abandoned. Like a nine-year-old child who had been thrust into the unknown. Her cries would never be heard or comforted. She needed safety. So she began to allow the sheen to dissolve—

“No!” Jett lifted her head and fisted a hand at her side. The fall of her sheen stopped. “I can do this. I will do this. I am human.”

And her dark half, defeated for the moment, slunk away into the shadows. But she would continue to lurch up closer and closer until Jett could no longer keep her back. How could she? That darkness was her reality.





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