Realm Walker

Realm Walker - 1

by

Kathleen Collins

This one’s for my parents because they always said yes when I asked if I could have just one more book. Thanks for always believing in me.

Acknowledgments

This book was such an endeavor and there are so many people to thank there is no way I could possibly name them all. Hopefully, I’ll hit all the major ones.

First and foremost, thank you to my husband and my kids for putting up with the many hours I spent working on it in one form or another. Also for the many times you could have complained about the frozen pizza or fast food and didn’t. Love you guys.

Next, thank you to everyone that read the book in one form or another and offered feedback or encouragement. Most importantly thank you to my crit partners at various stages: Denise, Trisha, Julie, Sara, Sarah, Alta, Michael, Terri, Shannon, and Gretchen. You all read it or part of it and/or gave me invaluable advice. Thank you for your time and help. You helped make it the book it is today.

Thank you to my editor Krista Stroever who took a good book and helped me make it something great. Thanks for all your hard work. We make a good team.

And lastly, a huge shout-out to my girls who kept me sane through the whole process. You know who you are and you know I couldn’t have done it without you because I’ve told you that many, many times.

Chapter One

Juliana Norris didn’t want to die in the cold Canadian snow. Of course, she hadn’t wanted to die on the rain-slicked streets of Bern, the cool sheets of her freshly made bed or the backwoods of Alabama either, but that hadn’t stopped it from happening just the same.

Despite her grim thoughts, the odds of actually freezing to death were low. The troll would kill her before she lasted that long. She let out a laugh that sounded more like a snort. Gods, she was such a pessimist. She blamed the weather.

Her breath formed a cloud around her face and ice crystals in her nose. Her eyes burned, her fingers ached. For hours, she’d been hunting the troll. Hours she was supposed to have been spending in the warm Fiji sun drinking a Mai Tai and walking barefoot in the sand at a mermaid coronation. The Agency called to tell her about the reassignment just as she’d been ready to walk out the door. Damn, stupid flea-bitten troll.

Her only consolation was that she wasn’t here alone. She’d conned her mentor at the Agency into coming with her by reminding him that he still owed her for tracking down a band of feral pixies the month before. Nathaniel West was a 150-year-old werewolf with an immunity to silver and a wicked sense of humor. He’d taken her under his furry paw when the Agency recruited her and he’d been looking after her ever since. Last she’d seen, he’d been in full wolf form as he followed the troll’s path into the trees. All that fur probably kept him warmer than she was at the moment.

She thrust her hands out in an angry gesture and thought of fire. Flames sprang up before her in a thin line. Her spell, mediocre at best, was enough to melt the foot-deep snow and harden the ground beneath when it threatened to turn to mud. The warmth soaked through her jeans, thawing her briefly before it disappeared, leaving the cold to seep into her skin right to her bones. A brief thought of the idiot the Agency sent to Fiji in her place had her gritting her teeth. She didn’t even know who it was, but she doubted they deserved the sun and the sand more than she did. She always pulled the crap assignments. Maybe if she quit being so cursed good at her job they’d quit calling her.

Juliana needed to find her prey. She couldn’t go home until she did and she didn’t intend to spend the night in the wilderness. The beast had been making supper of the locals’ prize steers for months. Game wardens had been looking for the troll with no success. After losing four cows in a fortnight, the farmers complained to the right people and the Agency was called in.

Once her target entered the heavily forested area, it followed a well-worn game trail. The troll kept meandering off into the trees, but she wasn’t even tempted to follow the three-toed tracks. She left that to Nathaniel and his nose. Filling her lungs with crisp air, she forced herself to relax and let her gift flare to life. Neon bands of color immediately shrouded the landscape showing her the path of any creature recently in the area. Apparently, there were a lot of gnomes in Eastern Canada. Who knew?

Every being had a signature. A color uniquely theirs. Juliana didn’t know anyone else who could see them. Which was why she hunted the troll. It could cover its tracks all it wanted, but there was no way it could hide from her.

As she followed the main path, she kept her eyes locked on the landscape around her, searching for the troll’s earthy brown signature or Nathaniel’s vibrant mix of yellow, brown and red that marked him as a shifter. For a while she’d seen both paths intersecting as her friend followed the trail laid by the beast, but she’d seen neither for some time.

Her line of sight shrank as the ground dropped away over the edge of a hill. She paused and sucked in several deep breaths, wanting to be in top form before she went farther. After a moment, she eased forward again. Trolls were lethal opponents. If it snuck up on her, she’d be in more trouble than a knight at a dragon rally. When she reached the top of the hill, a clearing came into view below her. So did the troll.

She bit back a curse and swept aside the edge of her heavy leather duster as she sank into a crouch. All of her training couldn’t keep her heart from pounding, her pulse from racing. She wanted to avoid a confrontation until she sized up the situation. Just because she followed one troll didn’t mean it hadn’t led her back to its pod. Not all trolls were solitary creatures.

She scanned the clearing and the surrounding area, including the tops of the trees. No other signatures lit her vision except a few birds nestled in the branches above them. There was no sign of Nathaniel. Where was he?

Her eyes started to ache and a shard of pain drove itself into her brain. That was her indicator, her warning that she’d used her gift too much. She shut it down and the pain receded. If she were lucky, it wouldn’t revisit in the form of a killer headache later.

Juliana’s eyes darted around the perimeter as she planned her approach. Making her way to the troll without alerting it of her presence would prove tricky. The snow had been mostly cleaned away in the clearing below and the troll sat in front of a roaring fire burning away in the middle. She squashed the brief yearning for warmth that crept up. Her prey faced the fire, its back to her. Its grey-white fur, already thick and shaggy in late September, blended perfectly with the environment.

“Night is coming. Can you feel it?” Its voice—rough as an old washboard—told her nothing of its sex.

She forced a breath into her now tight chest. Downwind and quiet, she shouldn’t have been detected. Certainly not this quick. At least she assumed the troll talked to her. There was no one else around. There were plenty of trees, but she didn’t think they were sentient. Not that she checked that closely.

She wondered what answer it expected. All Altered knew when night approached. An instinct born from millennia of living in the dark didn’t disappear just because they were suddenly thrust into the light. Magic thrived in the shadows, in the blackness away from the sun. It was that way until the atom bombs of World War II brought high doses of radiation and with them, the Rending. The old magics didn’t mix well with even the low radiation from the sun. The bombs stripped away the protection the night offered and the Altered finally found themselves unable to hide. Now they didn’t want to.

The troll cocked its head to the side as if listening for her response. Evidently, her silence wasn’t going to convince it she wasn’t there.

“I feel it,” she answered. “Not that I’m complaining, but is there a reason you stopped?” She bit her tongue to keep from asking it about Nathaniel.

It chuckled. “I grow tired of playing with you. You would have caught me eventually at any rate. You’re much better than the others. Maybe it’s because you’re female. You are, aren’t you?”

A smile curved the edge of her mouth. She was beginning to like the troll in spite of herself. “Last time I checked.”

“Thought so. Cursed hard to tell with your kind sometimes.”

Juliana tried not to be offended but she’d never been confused for a man before. At least, not in the daylight. At night when she was kicking the crap out of something, well...mistakes were understandable.

“If you’re waiting for your friend, I’m afraid he won’t be joining us,” the troll said.

Adrenaline spiked through her making her pulse race and her heart pound. “What did you do to him?”

A low chuckle answered. “I merely delayed him. He’ll find his way out eventually.”

She breathed in relief and started planning her approach again. She’d worry about finding Nathaniel later. Right now, she needed to concentrate on herself and getting the troll relocated. Though the element of surprise was no longer on her side, she still held the high ground. If she intended to kill the beast, that would have been great. Since she wanted it alive, it didn’t mean crap.

“I suppose that means you aren’t going to cooperate then?” she asked, unable to quash the thin thread of hope that took up residence in her brain even though she knew better.

The troll snorted. “You are correct. I’m just saving my energy for our confrontation.”

Just lovely. “You do realize I’m not taking you in for anything. I’m only here to relocate you.”

It twisted its torso and snarled, flashing sharp teeth. Her heart skipped a beat at the primal display. No longer the predator, she was now the prey. At least she was smart enough to realize it.

The troll’s eyes flickered red in the fading light. A male then—the females had blue eyes. “Why should I go anywhere? This is my land. My home.”

Juliana sighed. She agreed with him in theory, but in practice, she was a Realm Walker. An officer of the Agency. The International Law Enforcement Agency created by the UN in their first official act after the Rending to deal with the Altered threat. As society realized that the Altered as a whole had no grand plans to take over the world, the goal of the Agency changed. But her sworn duty remained pretty much the same as it was then. To neutralize the threat posed by Altered that failed to conform.

Such as a troll poaching from the nearby civilizations.

She preferred the part of her job that involved hunting down the real threats to civilization. The jobs that helped her save humanity, such as it was. Relocation was crap work, but it paid just the same. “You’ve been warned numerous times about the livestock raids. I’m not even going to get into the pets that have been reported missing.”

The troll rose to his full seven-foot height, all arms and legs with a compact body in between. Her eyes locked on the arms that hung just short of touching of the ground. Wicked talons decorated each crooked finger. The best way to handle trolls was to stay the hell away from them. When that wasn’t possible, Juliana got as close as she could, making it difficult for the beast to get its claws into her. Gods, she hated trolls. Trolls and pixies. Both vicious bastards in their own way.

“I was here long before they came. This is my territory and everything in it belongs to me.” He thrust his chin forward, daring her to argue.

If it were up to her, she’d just go home and say she never found him. It wasn’t as if the troll killed anyone. Not that they knew of anyway. But that wasn’t how it worked. They’d keep sending agents out until the troll relocated or died. “Look. The government says this is their territory and the land belongs to the people living on it. You’re stealing. They want you gone. You’re going to a marked troll reserve. There are no people there. No one to bother you.” For now anyway. The reserves never stayed protected for long.

“And if I refuse to go?” The troll’s voice was quiet, almost sad.

She stood and drew the Taser from the holster where she normally kept her gun. “They didn’t send me because of my charming personality.”

“Come, then. Let’s end this.” He rolled his shoulders and shifted his stance so his weight rested forward on his toes.

This was going to hurt. She just knew it. After taking off the pack she carried on her back, she took off her duster and tossed it aside, afraid it would impede her movement. The troll watched, waiting for her to come down the hill. She lit a trail of fire to ease her way, causing the few birds she noted earlier to take flight. There would be no witness to the battle.

Her feet barely touched the ground at the bottom of the hill when the beast lunged for her, swinging one of its massive arms like a scythe. Ducking under the arm, she rolled to the right before coming quickly to her feet. She danced around the fire looking for an opening to close the distance between them. Her goal was to get close enough to use the Taser without getting her head taken off in the process.

Electricity was the easiest and most reliable way to kill a troll. The others were very messy and, in all likelihood, she’d be killed in the process as well. Juliana used a modified Taser that enabled her to control the duration and frequency of the charge. It was up to her whether she wanted to subdue or terminate. As such, the Tasers that shot probes wouldn’t work. They were too unreliable and could only be used once before needing to be reloaded. She was going to have to get much closer.

Without warning, the troll leaped over the fire, his arms spread straight out to the sides. His feet dragged through the flames, singing the fur. She managed to jam the Taser into his ribcage just before he engulfed her in a ferocious grip. He squeezed, pressing her face into his rancid fur. The smell of old blood and pure troll invaded her nostrils. Death, mold and dirt all rolled into one. Not a pleasant combination.

She squeezed off a two-second jolt, feeling only a slight tingle herself, though electricity coursed through her captor’s body. It wasn’t enough to make him let go. She twisted, jammed the Taser into his underarm and squeezed again. Longer this time. The arms twitched and then released her. She staggered back, sucking in mouthfuls of untainted air and blinking tears from her eyes.

Juliana realized she hadn’t put enough distance between herself and the troll about the time he snapped his head forward and sank his teeth into her left shoulder. Pure, white-hot agony flared through her chest and down her arm. “Son of a rotten corpse!” Panic rolled through her in waves. If she didn’t get this bastard subdued, he was going to kill her. And one of these days, that was going to be a permanent condition. Like the day a troll took her cursed head clean off her shoulders.

The troll picked her up with nothing more than his teeth in her shoulder and shook her like a hellhound with a chew toy. She clenched her jaw in pain and let out a terrible keening groan as muscle and tendon ripped. She fought her base instinct to struggle, to squirm away from the source of the pain. If she did, she’d only injure herself further. Blood poured from the wound, staining the ground a horrible, vibrant crimson.

A growl tore through the clearing seconds before a brown blur flew through the air and landed on the troll’s back. Nathaniel. They all rocked forward with the impact and fresh pain lanced through her shoulder. The troll roared in anger, releasing Juliana’s shoulder by default and she dropped to the ground. She backed away, eyeing the two of them warily. The troll reached over his back, trying to grab Nathaniel who still had his teeth and claws dug deep into the beast. The wolf snarled, growled and shook his head as the troll danced around the clearing trying to get a grip on his attacker.

Juliana’s arm hung limp and worthless by her side. Pain burned through the wound and nausea rose in waves. Her head swam. She swallowed the acid down, sucked in crisp, cool air. She used her right hand to wrap her left arm around her waist in an effort to keep the shoulder from moving any more than necessary.

“Nathaniel,” she yelled as the troll ran backward into the trees.

He slammed his back with Nathaniel still attached into the trunk of a large oak tree once, twice, three times. The blows stunned Nathaniel enough that the troll was finally able to snatch the wolf and hurl him across the clearing. Her friend lay unmoving on the ground.

The troll locked crimson eyes on her and stalked across the clearing. She fought every impulse inside of her that told her to run and waited for him to come. One taloned hand wrapped around her throat and picked her up. Pulling her close, the troll roared in fury once they were almost nose to nose. She wrapped her legs around his waist to take the pressure off her throat. Juliana raised the Taser and jammed it into his ear. Not caring anymore if she fried his brain, she squeezed and held the trigger. His roar changed to one of agony.

He released her throat and raised both hands to his head. He stumbled backward in an effort to get away from her but her legs stayed clamped around his waist. She continued to pour electricity into him until he dropped to his knees. Only then did she put her feet on the ground and back away.

Her opponent stayed on all fours, shaking his head, trying to clear it. The air hung heavy with the scent of burnt fur and troll. As he rose to a kneeling position, she adjusted her grip on the weapon. From the corner of her eye she saw Nathaniel stagger to his feet.

The troll held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “No more, Walker. I will go where you ask. Wherever you ask.”

Relief eased the tightness in her chest. She wasn’t sure she was up for another round of Taze the Troll. She ran her thumb along the side of her ring preparing to use it to call the portal tied to it. Then the troll began to laugh. A low sound at first, it quickly grew to a volume that made her ears ache. Great. She had fried his brain and now she had a crazy troll to deal with.

After putting more distance between them, she put her Taser away and drew her sword. It left the sheath with a ring of steel. She adjusted her hand on the grip. Nathaniel came to stand beside her, leaning his weight into her leg to let her know he was near. “You okay there, Mr. Troll?”

He opened his blazing red eyes and looked at her. “I’ve had your blood, Juliana Norris. It tells me things.” Apparently it told him her name, because she’d never given it.

Her prisoner wasn’t crazy, then. He was blood drunk. It happened to vamps as well, depending what brand of Altered they munched on.

She ran her thumb along the stone in the ring, summoning the portal. It opened to the left of them and bathed the clearing in blue light. The Agency’s extensive use of the portal mages was what had earned them the name Realm Walkers.

The beast staggered to his feet. “He is coming, Juliana Norris. He is coming and he will bring your death. There is nothing you can do to stop it.”

If there was one thing Juliana hated more than trolls, it was prophecies. She had yet to come across one that wasn’t intentionally vague enough to leave people arguing over its meaning for years or centuries even. What was wrong with saying “Bob will kill you on the fourth of November with a poorly cast stone spell”?

The troll took a step toward the portal before turning and lunging at her. She ran her blade clean through his middle, gritting her teeth against the agony that tore through her shoulder with the movement. He looked down in confusion at the sword protruding from his gut and then back up.

“I had it in my hand. Did you really think I wouldn’t use it?” She pushed him back and Nathaniel launched himself at the troll’s chest. He struck the beast firmly with all four paws then bounced back to land on precisely the same patch of ground he’d leaped from. The blow shoved the troll off her blade and he fell backward through the portal. It snapped shut behind him as it had been programmed to do. The injury she’d dealt wasn’t lethal, not for a troll, but it would hurt like a bitch for a while. Not that he deserved any less.

Despite the gore on the blade, she slid it back into the sheath, which, thankfully, was charmed to stay clean. She staggered to the edge of the clearing and dropped onto a boulder. Her shoulder throbbed in rhythm with her heart. Blood still ran from the wound. The clearing remained peaceful, quiet. The only indications of the previous battle were the marks on the ground and the blood in the snow.

Nathaniel nuzzled her hand and she scratched behind his ears. “Stuff’s at the top of the hill,” she told him and he trotted off.

Juliana stayed where she was, waiting for him to return. She kept her head down and stared at the snow at her feet. The toes to a pair of black army boots appeared in her line of sight and she grunted a greeting.

“How are you?” Nathaniel asked, his voice rough from his recent change.

“I hurt and we just removed a creature from the only home it’s ever known. How do you think I am?”

“It’s part of the job, pup.” He crouched in front of her to inspect her shoulder.

“Well, sometimes this job sucks.” She hissed when he peeled her shirt away from the wound.

He let out a low whistle. “Bet that smarts.” She glowered at him and he responded with a grin.

“What happened to you anyway?”

He growled and dug in the pack that had housed his clothes and still held a med kit. Pulling out a stack of bandages, he placed them against the bite. “Press on that. The damnable troll led me into a game pit. I had to go into a half-shift and climb out with my claws.”

Nathaniel’s half form tended to drain his energy so he avoided it unless absolutely necessary. “Game pit?”

“Yeah, you know, he dug a hole in the ground and covered it. I didn’t see the damned thing until I was already falling.”

“Guess I’ll forgive you for being late then.”

“Gee, thanks. I’ll clean this up and we’ll get out of here.” He draped her coat around her shoulders and then moved to the center of the clearing to put out the fire. She watched his heavily muscled frame move with all the grace of the predator he was. Piles of snow managed to douse the flames of the troll’s bonfire. Juliana burned the bloody snow with a gesture, making Nathaniel jump. There was a lot of magic in blood. It wasn’t something to leave around if it could be helped.

“All right, let’s get you home.” He helped her up from her spot as he pulled out his phone and called the Agency to send a portal. The ring would have to be recharged before she could use it again. A familiar blue glow lit the air beside them. As they stepped through toward home, she tried not to let the troll’s dire prediction bother her. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t died before.

Chapter Two

The Den of Iniquity made it easier to forget the outside world. Juliana belonged in that little hole-in-the-wall bar at the edge of downtown New Hope. Everyone accepted her and, if not, they at least left her alone to wallow in her misery.

She sat at her favorite table in the darkest corner nursing a smooth scotch, her wounded pride and a troll-bitten shoulder. It could have been worse. She knew that, but she didn’t like having her ass handed to her. The scar on her shoulder would be a lasting reminder that she let the troll get too close. She had a lot of reminders like that. Obviously, she didn’t pay them much attention or she’d find a new line of work.

It was Wednesday so she knew everyone in the bar, by sight if not by name. All three of them, five if you counted employees. A gnome named Chester sat by the jukebox with his sister Charlene. Chester would play dwarf ballads on the machine next to him until threatened with bodily harm, usually by Juliana. He got up to select another song and she narrowed her eyes. They ended up listening to the Bee Gees instead. It wasn’t much of an improvement.

An ogre sat at the bar, his shoulders perpetually hunched against the world. She didn’t know much about him except he came in almost as often as she did. That and he had a wicked right hook. He was the reason all the tables were now bolted to the floor. Apparently, no matter how calm their normal demeanor, Ambrosia-drunk ogres got rather hostile when goaded by a selkie and three nymphs. The Den closed for a week to recover and Juliana was on light duty for the duration. She tried not to hold it against the ogre; it wasn’t really his fault, but they kept their distance from each other regardless.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her nerves still hummed from the fight, but she hoped with time and alcohol, they’d calm down. If they didn’t, she was going to have a long, sleepless night. The bar normally smelled like old sweat and stale beer, but tonight the heavy scent of lemon permeated the air. She assumed the odor was the remnant of a recent cleaning, but the bar looked just as dingy and dirty as ever. Nothing short of blowing the place up would fix that.

She pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. Not only was she trying to stave off the headache she felt creeping up, she was checking her temperature. Trolls weren’t the most diligent species when it came to oral hygiene. It would be just her luck to survive the attack only to succumb to some stupid infection because the thing didn’t floss.

The air stirred beside Juliana. She looked up to meet Tony’s dark eyes. They were a startling contrast to his platinum blond hair, but both suited him. He managed the Den and seemed to think that looking after her was part of the job. “You okay, Jules?”

She leaned back in her chair and searing pain flared through her shoulder. She hissed in a breath and froze, not daring to move until the sensation eased a little. It was her own cursed fault for not taking any of the pain meds the medic offered, but she didn’t like what drugs did to her head. Never had. When she could talk again, she answered through clenched teeth. “Troll bite. You know how they are.”

He blinked a couple of times. “Um...no. Actually I don’t. Not all of us run about playing with the animals.”

She didn’t respond to his comment. Most of the people Tony called friend were more uncivilized than the troll ever thought about being. She should know, she’d grown up amongst many of them. Seen them at their absolute worst.

“Did you see the doctor?” he asked, concern threading his voice.

“Medic. She did what she could, but it’s deep and burns worse than pixie venom. It’ll be all right in a couple of days.” She swirled the amber liquid in her glass, not meeting his eyes. “This is good, but I could use something with a bit more bite if you don’t mind.” It was a bad pun, but she was easily amused. She tried to keep the tension, the anticipation, off her face and out of her voice. If Tony refused her, she didn’t know what she would do. She was in more pain than she wanted to let on, and she really didn’t care to lose the use of the arm while it healed.

Needing it so much made the request feel like begging. She hated it and didn’t want to have to ask again. But she would. She’d ask him a hundred times if she had to. And if he still said no, there were other sources. Other places she could go. Gods, she felt like an addict and maybe in a way she was. Addicted to the quick fix. To not feeling the pain. She shoved the thought away.

He glanced around, though Juliana had no idea who exactly he thought might be watching. He snatched the glass from her and hurried through a door behind the bar. A few minutes later, he returned her drink.

She sipped her scotch, closing her eyes to savor the coppery-sweet tang of vampire blood mixed with it. An acquired taste, she’d grown to like it over the years. Crave it, even. She gave Tony a nod of thanks and he went back to his work.

The buying and selling of vampire blood was illegal, but no laws limited its consumption. The vampire Council however kept a tight rein on distribution. Juliana didn’t think they’d get irate over the little amounts Tony gave a Walker here and there, but it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. All the major groups of Altered had similar systems of oversight. It was the only way so many powerful control-freaks could co-exist without killing each other. Their leaders made sure they stayed in line, and took care of it when they didn’t. The things that slipped by their notice were the jobs that were picked up by the Agency.

As the governing body over the vampires, it was well known the power had long ago gone to Council’s heads. They could be irrational and petty at times. Growing up in a coven gave Juliana more insight into them than any outsider should possess.

It’s why the presence of outsiders was usually forbidden in the covens. They had a strict vampires-only policy, but her would-be savior had been powerful enough, and old enough, to do as he pleased. The Council, of course, being what they were, acted as if it were a fine idea to have a half-dark fae, half-mage in the middle of one of the most powerful covens in the country. When they couldn’t get their way, they acted as if it was what they wanted all along.

Halfway through her drink, liquid warmth flowed into her shoulder to replace the pain. A trembling sigh of relief escaped her. She had no idea how old Tony was, but his blood was sweet, potent. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head over the back of her seat. Tension flowed from her, untying the knots of stress that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her shoulders.

Then, the phone rang. Every head in the bar turned toward the sound. Juliana always assumed the Den had a phone, but she’d never heard it before. Even Tony hesitated a moment before answering. His eyes shot up to meet Juliana’s before he looked quickly away. She glanced to her phone on the table. It was charged with full service bars. As if it would be anything but—it was charmed. Not a call for her then, but about her. Either someone was asking questions or Tony was up to something he didn’t want a Walker to know about.

Her jaw clenched. She didn’t like either option. Apparently, no one else in the bar did either. They stood, almost in unison, threw some money down and hustled up the short flight of stairs to the door. Juliana didn’t want to bust Tony, and she wanted him selling her out even less.

Tony put down the phone and spoke in a low tone to the bartender before hustling through the door behind him. She stretched the muscles in her neck, marveling at how quickly the knots had reformed. The bartender Miguel had grown up in the coven with her. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Tony was gone. Turning back, he met her eyes and jerked his head toward the exit. She didn’t hesitate. Tony had crossed her one way or another.

Juliana’s chest ached and she ignored the sharp pain that tried to remind her she’d just been betrayed by one of her closest friends. One of the few people she trusted. She should have known better. She’d mourn the loss later. Right now she had to worry about saving her own skin. She fired up her gift causing her eyes to glow much brighter than their normal emerald. Many beings could cloak their presence from the casual observer, but she’d yet to meet one that could hide from her. Miguel smiled as she pulled a pair of dark glasses from her pocket and slid them on. They hid her eyes from view but were charmed not to interfere with her vision. Despite the near impenetrable darkness of the lenses, to her it was like looking through glass.

She didn’t intend to hang around and wait for whoever called to show up. If she could get out of the Den before they got there, she could conceal herself in the night, memorize their signature and hunt them down when she was more prepared. Tony came out of the back room just as she passed the bar. Seeing her, he shot a narrow-eyed look at Miguel.

Her former friend rounded the bar in a flash and snared her arm in his cool grip. Tony’s palm was damp as he started to steer her back to her table. “You can’t leave yet, Jules. You haven’t finished your drink.”

She planted her feet, resisting when he tugged. “I’m not thirsty. Besides, I think it’s about time for me to head home.”

He released her and stood with his arms at his sides, palms out in a pleading gesture. “I really think you should stay.” Sweat beaded his forehead, the skin around his eyes stretched tight with worry. Either he feared her, or whoever was about to walk through the door scared the crap out of him. Maybe there was more to this than she’d thought. A thread of worry for her friend snaked its way through her.

“What is this, Tony?” She crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted to believe he’d been manipulated or coerced, but she wasn’t ready to trust him just yet. “If you’re in some kind of trouble, I can help. Whatever they’ve got on you can’t top me. You know I’ll kick your ass if you cross me.”

Hurt flashed through his eyes. “I’d never harm you, Jules. You’re family. You know that.”

“Then what in the name of all the dark gods is going on?” She maintained her stance, waiting for him to answer.

He opened his mouth and froze, eyes locked on a point over her shoulder. His already pale skin blanched to a new shade of white. She reached for her gun. At the same time, a warm breeze caressed her neck like a lover’s tease. Her breath caught. Her pulse raced. She stayed her hand though part of her still ached to palm the weapon. She shut down her gift but left the glasses on. She knew this enemy.

“Juliana.” The word, a whisper, floated down the stairs and wrapped around her, willed her to turn. She swallowed a sob of despair and answered its call. She turned slowly, hoping she was wrong, but knowing who she’d find behind her. Only one man had ever affected her this way.

Thomas Kendrick stood at the top of the stairs, looking as gorgeous as she remembered. His dark hair fell in soft waves to his shoulders. His brilliant topaz eyes looked her over from head to toe and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. She forced her feet to stay flat on the floor, fought her desire to go to him, cursing the part of her that wanted him even as she hated him. The gods knew she’d tried to stop loving him. She’d even thought she’d succeeded until about thirty seconds ago.

He walked down the steps, eyes locked on her. Her mouth went dry; her palms grew moist. She took a deep breath, raised her chin and waited for him to reach her. His smile widened and his dimples flashed. Moisture pooled in her eyes. She clenched her hands into fists, nails digging into the tender skin of her palms. The pain grounded her, kept the tears from falling. Still she was grateful for the glasses. She wondered briefly if he could see past them. He always seemed to be able to, especially when it was the last thing she wanted.

He stopped just beyond her reach. She kept her gaze trained on his forehead, unwilling to meet his eyes. They stood like that for a long time—him smiling down at her and her resisting the urge to throw herself into his arms.

“You cut your hair,” he said finally.

She ran a hand through the maintenance-free cut. When he’d last seen her, it had been halfway down her back, now it barely brushed the bottom of her neck. Less for the bad guys to grab onto.

He tugged one short strand. “The streaks are new, too.” At the moment, they were cardinal red hiding amongst her usual black. He grinned at her. “I like it. It suits you.”

She hated the need, the yearning, the grin and the compliment sparked in her. Clearing her throat, she ignored the expectant look in his eye. “I have to go.” She thanked every god she could think of that her voice was sure and strong.

The smile faltered then disappeared completely as a muscle in his jaw twitched. “That’s it? After seven years, you have to go?”

She ignored the ire in his voice and found her own. Finally getting the nerve to meet his eyes, she whipped off the glasses and shoved them in her pocket. “Seven years isn’t my fault, Thomas. I’m not the one that left. That was you. Remember? Because I do. Vividly.”

His eyes shifted away before coming back to hers. “You asked for time. I gave it to you.”

Her heart constricted at the words. She closed her eyes and forced the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm her back down into the little corner of her soul where she usually kept it. Anger took its place as she thought of all the pain that could have been avoided if he hadn’t gone off to nurse his cursed wounded pride. She opened her eyes, met his with a blazing fury. “You call disappearing from my life giving me time? Seven years and you can’t pick up a phone, send flowers, a postcard, anything? And now you want me to be happy you’re here? Keep waiting.”

Thomas scowled, his eyes cold.

Juliana shrugged and pain tore through her shoulder, making her wish she’d finished the scotch. Thomas froze, his body possessing the stillness only the elder Altered could achieve.

“You are injured,” he said, his voice low, soft.

He always hated to see her hurt. She laughed at the irony, cringing at the bitter sound that escaped her.

The skin around his eyes tightened. He leaned forward. “Let me see.”

She shook her head. “I’m not your responsibility anymore. Haven’t been for a long time. I take care of myself.”

His brow furrowed and he reached for her. She took a step back. His hand fell away. “I understood you would be upset by my arrival, but I did not expect this level of...”

“Hatred?” she finished for him.

He laughed, an echo of her earlier bitter sound. “I was going to say hostility. You cannot possibly hate me, Joya.” Determination flashed in his eyes. “Was seven years not long enough? Perhaps you wanted more time? I’m tired of waiting. Your time ends now.”

Clenching her jaw, she ignored the nickname and the fact he was right. She didn’t hate him and she did want more time. She’d spent so long waiting for him to come back. When he didn’t, she resigned herself to the fact it was never going to happen. But now here he was, just as infuriating and magnetic as she remembered him. She wasn’t ready for this.

He seemed so unaffected by her, by her anger. She needed him to suffer the way she did. “I think you’re imagining more between us than there was, Thomas. It was just one night.”

His eyes swirled black in anger. Finally, the reaction she yearned for. One night didn’t even begin to cover their history. She’d given herself to him, but he only wanted what she had to offer if she gave it all to him. Everything she was. So they were United—a metaphysical pairing which joined them forever, no matter how much she might regret it now. The next morning he started talking about her role in the coven and announcing their union to the Council. Her head spinning with the enormity of it all, she’d asked for time before they told anyone. He took it as a rejection and not only left the room, he left California completely.

“You can tell yourself any lie you want. But don’t try it with me. It won’t work.” His eyes were still dark, but his stance relaxed.

She ignored him. “See you, Tony. Miguel.” She stepped around Thomas and headed for the door, not daring to breathe until she was safely past his reach.

He remained silent until she reached the top of the stairs. “This isn’t over, Juliana. Not even close.”

Chapter Three

Did she think to be rid of him so easily? His little bride, as aggravating and enticing as always. Thomas narrowed his eyes at the door that stood between him and his mate. She thought to reduce their history to one night? He tried to read her, to see if she meant her words, but the shield she erected against him in her mind was impenetrable. Their union should give them access to each other’s emotions, even their thoughts if she let it.

But she threw the wall up right after he left, and only on rare occasions had he been able to get through her mental shields. He hoped lessening the distance between them would make it easier for him to gain access, but he was wrong. If anything, his appearance only made her strengthen the barrier. Seven years he’d been anticipating their reunion and nothing thus far had gone as he envisioned.

He thought once he explained why he left, she’d understand, be grateful even, but she never gave him the chance. The corner of his mouth curled into a reluctant smile as he remembered their volatile exchange. He’d always enjoyed their sparring matches. No one else dared speak to him that way. No one else had in nearly a thousand years and lived. No one but his Juliana.

She always had a sharp tongue and a quick temper, even as a child. Her complete disregard for the danger he represented was the reason he took her off the streets in the first place. Well, that and his sister’s begging. Sara had been as instantly snared by Juliana as he was. She’d never feared him, never questioned her belief that he wouldn’t harm her. She reminded him of his humanity.

And she’d been completely unwilling to admit that she needed help. She’d been taking care of herself for months when Sara came across her in the park and they became instant friends. Twelve years old with no memory of where she came from or who she was beyond her name. Of course, her age was an estimate done by the same doctors that had done the tests to determine her heritage. She’d built a new life with them in their coven. And then another life after he left.

His smile faded into a frown. Despite the familiarity of her anger, she wasn’t the same woman he left behind. She’d changed. Changes that went beyond her red-streaked hair and the lean muscle that now graced her body from head to toe. She’d lost the playful edge she used to have. The twinkle that lit her eye as she antagonized him. She was harder, rougher around the edges.

But it was the injury she wouldn’t let him examine that stayed in the forefront of his mind. He knew she worked for the Agency, knew she was a Walker even, but never imagined she would be in a high-risk position. There were many who bore the title Realm Walker and never left the walls of the Agency as their skills were not suited for the field. Curse it, what had that girl been up to?

“You told her I was coming?” He kept his eyes locked on the door, some part him waiting for her to walk back through and finish their fight.

“No. Of course not, my lord,” the underling behind him stammered.

Thomas hadn’t actually thought the man had, but he’d learned long ago never to make assumptions. The manager of the Den had been one of his best informants over the past seven years. Juliana was in the bar almost as much as she was home. But Tony hadn’t told him everything. Thomas wasn’t foolish enough to think he happened along the first night she’d been hurt and Tony had never mentioned any injuries. The man would answer for his omission later.

Thomas should let her go. Should find her again later when she’d had time to absorb his return. He knew this but he found himself flashing back to the vivid daydream he’d allowed himself on the flight home. Juliana, happy to see him, had thrown herself into his arms. Unable to wait another moment before he claimed her, he emptied the bar and took her on the nearest table. The image was enough to make him follow her into the night.

Juliana was just climbing on her Ducati when he opened the door. A tendril of power snaked away from him to wrap around her, caress her. It was a physical manifestation of their bond, one that went beyond their union. He could control it if he chose, keep his power contained, but what was the point? No, better to remind his bride that he was there. And that she better get used to it.

The limo he brought from the airport drove up and he slid into the back seat just as Juliana pulled out of the parking lot. He shut the door and the driver glanced back at him. Michael Bishop, the only one he’d trust with his life and, more importantly, Juliana’s.

Michael arched his brows. “What do you want to do?”

“Follow her. Make sure she gets home all right.”

“She won’t like it,” he said, but put the car in gear and followed in her wake.

Fifteen minutes after Juliana left the Den, she pulled into the short drive next to a small well-kept house.

“What is this?” Thomas asked. He assumed Juliana would head straight home.

Michael coughed into his hand, but Thomas had already seen the smirk. “This is her house.”

Thomas ran his eyes over the hovel before him. It was what a real estate agent would have called “cozy”—which translated to “tiny.” He’d be astounded if there was more than one bedroom. Glancing down the length of the street he saw the only working light was directly across from her and it flickered on and off. “That is not a house. That is a hut.”

Juliana flipped him off and shut the door behind her. After a moment, he motioned for Michael to drive on. She was doubtless tucked in safe behind multiple wards and enchantments. At least, she better be in this neighborhood. He had antagonized her enough for one evening. “Why did you not tell me she was living in such conditions?”

Michael shook his head. “She’s happy there and she’s done a lot of good for the people in the neighborhood. Leave her be.”

In the past several years, Michael had taken a very protective stance when it came to Juliana. It was a trait Thomas usually liked in his second, but not now. She didn’t need protection from him. It was everyone else Michael needed to worry about. Thomas mentally counted to ten. If he didn’t value his second so much, he’d remind him exactly what his place was, but he didn’t want to lose him. Not over this. Juliana belonged to Thomas, regardless what anyone else might think, including the woman herself.

He let his mind wander as Michael drove him to the house. There was no reason for Juliana to be living as she was. Everything he possessed was hers. She had a home, money and she turned her back on all of it to live like a pauper. He ground his teeth. The cursed girl stripped his nerves bare and stomped all over them. She always had.

Michael’s phone rang. The timing was too coincidental for it to be anyone but his bride. She’d want to know why her lover hadn’t informed her that her husband was back in town. Thomas allowed himself a bitter smile. Oh, he knew the moment his bride had fallen into bed with his most trusted associate. In a way, it was what he wanted when he left and he supposed that Michael was a better choice than most. He would protect Juliana with his life.

Thomas also knew that if Michael were aware of their union he never would have slept with her in the first place. “Answer it,” Thomas said after the third ring.

“I’m driving.”

“I wasn’t asking.” Thomas met Michael’s eyes in the mirror.

Michael swallowed whatever argument he’d been about to make and answered. “I didn’t know,” he said, confirming it was Juliana on the line. “He said he had some business and left on an errand out of town. He’s moving home. You aren’t getting rid of him.”

“Super.” Her voice drifted to where Thomas sat in the back. Sometimes he was more grateful for his superior hearing than others. “Where are you?”

Michael shifted in his seat. “I have some business to finish up. I’ll be around in a day or two at most.” Not a lie, but skirting the edge of truth.

“Call me when you get here. I want to see you.” Thomas clenched his teeth. She should be saying those words to him. No one else.

Michael glanced at him for the barest of moments. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? I hope you don’t think you get to disappear just because Thomas shows back up.” Thomas dropped his chin against his chest unwilling to let Michael see the pain the conversation brought with it.

Michael cleared his throat. “You know why not. You’re his whether you want to admit it or not. You always have been.”

“I don’t belong to anyone, Michael. Especially him.”

“I’ve got to go. We’ll talk when I get there.”

Thomas kept his head down as his second hung up the phone.

“I can explain,” Michael said after a moment, his voice low.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m aware of more than you imagine.”

* * *

Juliana tossed her phone on the table, knowing it wasn’t broken despite the satisfying crack it made. The cursed thing was impossible to break. She’d tried many, many times. Curse Michael for not being more concerned about Thomas’s sudden decision to move home. And curse Thomas for making her care. She shouldn’t give a crap what he did. Shouldn’t care where he lived or why. But she did. She couldn’t shut down that elated part of her that was jumping around like a demifae on crack.

That this was the first Michael heard of Thomas’s move bothered her. Thomas didn’t go around announcing his plans, but he rarely kept them from Michael. Shit.

Michael was Thomas’s second, the one that would take over his territory should anything happen to him. Once upon a time, she thought nothing could separate them. Then the vampire Thomas put in charge of the coven when he left attacked her, drained her and left her for dead. It was her first death. At the time, she also wished it had been her last.

When Raoul and his cronies realized she survived, they fled the territory. Thomas sent Michael to find out why. Instead, he found her in a hospital bed with Thomas’s sister Sara holding her hand. Sara had been too afraid of her brother’s wrath to call and give him the news. Michael told her not to and sent her home.

Thomas reclaimed the coven, ruling it from afar and Michael stayed with Juliana for a year. After he helped her heal, he helped her hunt the bastards down. They’d found them all except for Raoul. They still chased down the occasional lead, but always came up empty handed. When Michael returned to Thomas, he didn’t breathe a word of what had transpired.

At the time, Juliana thought he had and Thomas just hadn’t cared. Michael told her it wasn’t his story to share. She believed him. He’d never lied to her before and she didn’t see why he’d suddenly start. She hadn’t thought about the attack in months and she hated Thomas for bringing it to the forefront of her mind again. Hated him for stirring up emotions she buried a long time ago.

She picked up the phone and dialed Sara’s number.

“Thomas is back,” Juliana said.

There was a long silence on the line. “Well, crap.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Of course not.” Relief flooded through Juliana. “He may be my brother, but I wouldn’t let him surprise you like that. Although...”

“What?” she asked, already knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It should tell you something that he came looking for you before seeing me and Rachel.”

Juliana ran a hand down her face. “He was probably just checking on the Den,” she said even though she knew it was a lie. “It would figure the person I least want to see owns my favorite bar.”

“If you recall, that is precisely why it was your favorite bar once upon a time.”

Juliana grimaced at the reminder. “That was a long time ago. Now I like it because everyone leaves me alone.”

“Have you talked to Michael?”

She clenched her teeth. “He says he didn’t know anything about it?”

There was silence for a moment. “You believe him?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I am starting to regret not letting James give me those mage lessons he offered, however. A fireball spell wouldn’t be remiss right now.”

Sara snorted a laugh. “That is unfortunate. My husband would have greatly enjoyed teaching you how to bespell my brother’s ass. Not that you haven’t done it in your own way already.”

“Yeah, that’s enough of that conversation. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

She tossed the phone on the table and rolled to her feet. She peered through the slit at the edge of the curtain. Her eyes ran up and down the length of the street looking for any sign of Thomas or the car. They skipped over a shape in the lot opposite her house then snapped back when her brain realized it didn’t belong. A figure stood with hands stuffed in his pockets. The streetlight at his back kept his face in shadow.

It wasn’t Thomas. The figure was too short, too lean to be her vampire. She eased away from the window, careful not to disturb the curtain.

Grabbing her gun, she fired up her gift as she opened her door and stepped out onto the front stoop. Cold cement against her feet reminded her she wasn’t dressed for a pursuit. Scanning the area, she picked up no signature, nothing at all. Not even the residual signature she should have gotten if someone had just left. There was no sign anyone had been there at all. Her blood chilled. The key was not to freak out. The cursed troll had probably given her a brain infection and she was imagining the whole thing.

She slipped back inside the house, locking the door behind her. For an hour, she moved from window to window searching for another glimpse, another sign she wasn’t crazy. Nothing. Of course not, why would there be? That would mean she could relax and quit freaking out. Eventually she crawled back onto the couch. She placed her gun within easy reach on the table beside her and she fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

The phone vibrated and shimmied across the tabletop, knocking against the wood as it went. She opened one eye to scowl at it, but it continued to buzz instead of going to voicemail. The Agency provided her phone, which meant they could charm it and she couldn’t say a word. The charm that gave her full service bars and a battery that never died she loved. The one that caused the phone to continue to ring until she answered when the call was work related? Not so much.

She glanced at the clock and groaned. Fewer than four hours of sleep. She groped along the scarred wood, feeling a flash of triumph as her fingers closed around the cool plastic. This had better not be another bullshit relocation or she was going to shove the phone up someone’s ass.

“Norris.”

“It’s me,” answered a low, smooth voice.

Jeremiah Grace was Juliana’s screener with the Agency. All Walkers had one as there were a lot of cases and a relatively small number of Walkers. The screeners went in, assessed the situation and decided whether the Walker needed to be called at all or if it could be handled by the lower level agents. In her case, it was precisely why Jeremiah was the first point of contact. Juliana had a tendency to think no one else could do the job and take on everything herself. He was objective enough to know when that was true and when it wasn’t. Not that she couldn’t take a case on if she wanted to anyway, but she rarely overruled Jeremiah. There was no quicker way to piss off a screener than to constantly ignore their opinion on cases.

“Give me a second.” She put the phone down and swung her feet off the couch. Once she was in a sitting position, she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, struggling to wake up. When she thought she could have a coherent conversation, she grabbed the phone. “Talk to me.”

“Fresh victim. Warehouse six at the pier.” His voice pulled her back to the present. “Have you eaten?”

She looked at the clock again. “It’s 4:30 in the morning. What do you think?”

“Don’t,” he said and hung up without waiting for a response.

Chapter Four

Juliana slid to a smooth stop outside warehouse six as a cold rain began to spit from the sky. Each icy drop stung like a needle prick against her skin. The crisp morning air tingled in her lungs. The scent of diesel was already mixing with the brine of the ocean as traffic on the waterway increased. She climbed off her bike and nodded a greeting to the familiar faces that patrolled the perimeter of the building.

She turned in a slow circle, taking in the surroundings. Darkness reigned except for the periodic orange glow from an unbroken streetlight. Warehouses and office buildings comprised most of the pier’s real estate.

Cameras hung outside a couple of buildings, but even if they worked, none of them pointed at the warehouse. Regardless, the tapes might show something and she made a mental note to have them pulled. Unable to delay any longer, she walked to the door, took a deep breath and swung it open.

Immediately blinded by the incessant glare of the techs’ work lights, she stood still to give her eyes a chance to adjust. As she did, the acrid scent of cinders and ashes filled her nostrils. A demon. The only Altered without a signature, the only being she couldn’t track her normal way. The techs working the scene wore masks, but she doubted it was due to the demon stench. Only a few Altered could detect the smell. She was one of them. Lucky her.

Jeremiah appeared beside her, offering her a mask of her own. She waved him away. The odor had already permeated every cell in her nose. The mask wouldn’t help now. Besides, it covered up the more mundane aromas of death. She’d take cinder and ashes over blood, sweat and urine any day.

“You know I can’t track demons,” she said. She looked past him into the room, keeping her eyes diverted from the victim for the time being.

“That’s not true,” he argued. “You just can’t see them. Until now, we were only guessing that’s what the perp was.” He sounded so sure in her ability that she studied him from the corner of her eye. At six-foot three he stood a good six inches taller than she did. His red skin was unblemished and his eyes were as black as a raging vampire’s. He looked straight ahead waiting for her to take the lead, to do what he’d called her there for.

They stood at the edge of an empty room with a few boxes scattered around and a small office off to one side. Judging from the grime and cobwebs the building hadn’t been in use for some time. She settled her eyes on the body. Demons rarely killed clean and this victim was no exception. Thankfully, she listened to Jeremiah and hadn’t grabbed a bite to eat on the way out the door.

A mound of flesh, indiscernible as male or female, lay in a pool of congealing blood in the middle of the floor. Arterial spray decorated the area surrounding it along with bloody chunks she could only assume were once part of the poor bastard in front of her. The body had been literally ripped apart. She could only hope for the victim’s sake that it was after he was already dead. The amount of blood told her that probably wasn’t the case, but she’d let the M.E. decide.

One lone drop fell from the ceiling to add to the gore below. She glanced up to see something wet dangling from one of the beams above her head. She smacked Jeremiah on the arm with the back of her hand and gestured toward her find.

He looked up and grunted before yelling to one of the techs.

The tech frowned, hands on his hips. “How, by all the gods, am I supposed to retrieve that?”

“Not my problem,” Jeremiah said with a small smile as he shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He fell into step beside Juliana as she moved farther into the room. She crouched at the edge of the blood, careful to keep her boots out of it. Agency standard issue, they were enchanted to avoid crime scene contamination. They would leave nothing behind, not even a print, and they wouldn’t pick anything up either. That didn’t mean she relished the thought of standing around in body fluids.

A tech dangled a pair of gloves in front of her face. She snatched them away and put them on, snapping them into place. “Is he done?” She gestured to the photographer standing at the perimeter of the room.

When Jeremiah nodded, she began cataloguing what she saw. From this distance, the gender became easier to determine. “Based on the clothes and hairstyle, I’m guessing the victim is male.” Jeremiah recorded every word so there was no need for her to write anything down. “There’s not enough left of either the chest or the face to make a determination based on physical attributes and I’m not checking anywhere else.”

A stifled laugh came from her left. The corner of Jeremiah’s mouth twitched as he tried not to smile.

“Victim is approximately five-foot seven and lean. Has...” She reached forward and grasped a chunk of hair, twisting it in the light to ascertain the color. “Blond hair. Dressed in ripped jeans and black sneakers. Also wearing a T-shirt, appears black but with the amount of blood I can’t be sure. Denim jacket.”

She had a brief flash of someone watching her house, someone without a signature and she shook her head to chase the thought away.

“What is it?” Jeremiah asked.

She started to explain, then shook her head again. “Nothing.”

“It’s never nothing with you. Talk.”

“I thought someone was watching my house earlier, but when I went outside to find them, they weren’t there.” She looked up and met his eyes. “No signature, nothing.”

His eyes widened. “Was it our vic?”

“I didn’t get a good look and I’m not sure there’s enough left to identify even if I did,” she said.

“So what made you think of it?”

“I’m not sure. The signature thing maybe. My innate paranoia most likely.” There was no reason for a demon to be watching her house. None at all. She clung to that and focused on what she knew; she had a dead body that had been killed by a demon.

Peeling off her gloves, she stood and stepped away from the body, wanting some distance. She put on her glasses and opened her mind, letting her gift flare to life. The body had no signature, but nothing truly dead did, so that wasn’t a surprise. Her gaze darted around the room, searching, seeking. She picked up a signature that didn’t belong to anyone in the room. It was faint, but there. “Any dark fae been in here?”

He frowned in thought. “No one besides you.”

“Either the victim was one or the demon jumped from the victim into the dark fae. Either way one was involved. I’ve got the signature.”

Demons preferred to stay with one host as long as possible, but they could jump from host to host as often as necessary to avoid detection or capture. Unfortunately, their hosts sometimes ended up looking as bad as the victims did.

Despite her conjecture that the victim was demon-ridden at some point, it was possible he left the trail after the demon jumped. Unlikely, but it was important to examine every possibility. The fae would have to possess a large amount of power for the signature still to be visible. The demon wouldn’t voluntarily leave a host with that much power. Unless it found something better.

Even if the demon had jumped into the dark fae, knowing it wouldn’t help them much. Dark fae were as varied in their appearance as the beasts of the animal kingdom. Some had teeth and claws, wings or antennae and others looked as human as Juliana. And there was no less variety when it came to abilities and power. Some could barely summon a light orb to see in the dark and others had nearly toppled kingdoms.

Unless they cleaned up after themselves, it wouldn’t take long for someone to come across the summoning circle. That would be when they’d get their best information, their best leads. If she could figure out who summoned the demon and why, she’d be able to find it. “Find out what the vic is for sure. If he’s not fae, start canvassing for the new host.”

Jeremiah ran a hand over his bald head. He was a fire elemental and the natural heat of his body kept hair from growing anywhere on it. He didn’t even have eyelashes. “It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

“I told you, I’m no good with demons.”

“You’ve got the best record against them of anyone in the Agency.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” She’d faced exactly two demons. The past incident hadn’t ended well for her or the host.

He grinned and white teeth flashed against red skin.

She shook her head. “Not that you need me telling you how to do your job, but I assume you have underlings out looking for witnesses?”

“Not that you need me telling you how to do yours, but you should have asked that as soon as you arrived,” he chastised. “And yes. They’re out. For all the good it will do. We’re in the middle of a commercial and industrial area. No one ever sees anything anyway.”

“I’m going home. Let me know when there’s something to hunt.” She stepped out of the warehouse and into the rain. More mist than drops now, it made her shiver when it hit her skin. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and let the moisture coat her face. It’d been a hell of a night.

For the moment she’d done all she could by identifying the perp as a demon and naming a possible species for the current host. If anything else turned up, Jeremiah would let her know. The skin at the base of her spine tingled. Someone was watching. She ran a hand over her face and flung the moisture away before straddling her bike. After a discreet adjustment of the mirrors, she could look behind her without being obvious. A small figure crouched at the edge of a roof. Her gift was still on but she saw no signature, not even a faint one. “Great fricking canvas, guys.”

She pulled out her phone and called Jeremiah. “Stroll out here and have a word with me for a moment.” She kept one eye on the figure in the mirror as she slipped the phone back into her pocket. It didn’t take long for Jeremiah to step outside, his shoulders hunched against the cold mist.

He hurried over, keeping his head down.

“We’ve got company,” she said. “Behind me to the right. On the roof.”

“Spectator?”

“Think I’d call you out here for that? Unless it’s got an extremely weak signature I can’t pick up from here, I’d say it’s our demon.”

He frowned. “Why is it still here? Kill’s done. What does it want?”

“Why don’t I go ask it? You know the drill. I’ll go up, make contact. You get a perimeter set up on the ground.”

He pressed something into her palm before stepping away. She glanced down to find a clip in her hand. “Blessed ammo,” he said with a crooked grin.

She patted the side of the bike. “Drop me off at the alley.”

The Ducati purred to life beneath her. After making a slow u-turn, it sped down the street stopping at the opening of the narrow alley between the buildings so she could hop off. The bike disappeared from view, and she found herself wishing she was still on the back of it. She’d see it at home later. The darkness enveloped her as she made her way for the door at the far end of the alley. Leaning against the wall beside it, she replaced the clip in her gun.

Regardless of what she’d told Jeremiah, she hoped to find a gawker with a weak signature. Then she could go home and go back to bed. Without her blade, she was ill equipped to handle anything but a low-level demon. Unfortunately, she left it in the armory when she returned from the troll hunt, too tired to clean and sharpen it herself as she usually did. She sincerely hoped her laziness didn’t come back to bite her in the ass.

The small door didn’t budge when she tugged on the handle. She ran her fingers over the lock. “Open.”

The click of the mechanism echoed through the alleyway. She eased the door open and stepped inside. Soft lights illuminated the hallway, giving her just enough light to see and casting just enough shadow for something sinister to hide in. She listened for any sound to indicate she wasn’t alone. Nothing.

Stairs ascended into the darkness at the end of the hallway. She kept her back to the wall as she eased toward them, checking doors as she passed. All locked. She wasn’t going to take the time to unlock and search rooms. Her target would vanish from the roof long before she arrived if she stopped to check every office on the way up. She continued to scan for signatures with her gift.

She reached the stairs and started up, ignoring the paranoia that swamped her at leaving her back exposed to the blackness below. She was too old to be afraid of the dark, or at least too old to admit to it. At every landing, she paused to listen for any sound. Nothing but her own breathing reached her ears. When she reached the access door for the roof, she ran her fingers over the lock, willed it to let her pass.

She opened the door trying to make as little noise as possible and quickly realized she needn’t have bothered.

An insect-like fae with skin the color of moss sat cross-legged in the middle of the roof watching the door. Small in stature, almost the size of a child, the fae possessed a set of four emerald green wings. It lacked any sort of signature.

The door shut behind Juliana and she took a deep breath. Cinder and ashes. Fear settled in her belly like a lead weight.

“Hello, Hound,” the fae said in a tinny, high-pitched voice. Their prey often called them hounds, stripping the respect the title Walker commanded. The creature smiled, flashing sharp teeth. Definitely dark fae.

“Demon,” she returned the greeting, wishing her nerves were as calm as her voice. She kept the gun pointed at the fae’s head. “Don’t suppose you want to come out of there? Go back to where you came from?”

The demon laughed, deep and rich, a sound at complete odds with the voice. “You’re funny. I like you.”

“Oh, goody.” She shifted her aim from the head to the torso. They always tried to save the host, but usually couldn’t keep from injuring them in some manner. Acceptable collateral damage according to the Agency. If she inflicted enough pain maybe she could get the demon to leave the host. She fired three shots without warning. Only the first hit the target. The rest sliced through empty air as the demon jumped to the roof of the next building.

She bit back a curse as she followed, dropping to her knees with a grunt when she hit. Scrambling to her feet, she regained her aim on the demon.

It moved to the ledge on the far side of the roof. Green blood dripped from the bullet wound in its chest. It grinned, flashing pointed teeth. “Very good, Juliana Norris. You may prove a worthy opponent after all. But you really should learn to pay more attention.”

A blur of motion shot toward her from the right and she swung her weapon in that direction. Flames of pain burned through her arm as massive claws struck it, ripping into flesh and the muscle beneath. With a yell, she fell to her knees. She dropped her gun into her left hand, twisted, and fired off the rest of her clip in the direction of the blur.

Dull thuds told her several of the bullets hit their target. A howl cut through the air and made her hair stand on end. A werewolf bounded over to stand beside the fae. A werewolf that looked familiar aside from his complete lack of signature. Nathaniel. Her chest tightened and her stomach dropped. Two demons working together and one of them rode her friend. Her night just kept getting better.

The fae moved toward her, but froze when a door opened on the roof of the building behind her. Footsteps pounded against asphalt.

“Halt,” Jeremiah said. He didn’t agree with Juliana’s shoot first policy.

The fae’s lips twitched in the semblance of a smile. “Be seein’ you, Hound.” Both hosts leaped off the side of the building to the street five stories below, probably breaking several bones in the process. The demons could heal anything short of death, however, and the hosts would be up and gone in a matter of moments.

Jeremiah started barking orders into his radio, telling the units below where the suspects had gone.

“No!” Juliana took a breath and reined in the panic in her voice. “Tell them to follow, but not to engage.”

“What? Why?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “They’re both demon-ridden and that wasn’t just any wolf. That was Nathaniel.”

Jeremiah’s eyes widened as he radioed her instructions.

Nathaniel in the control of a demon. She never thought she’d know a host. Never thought she’d feel this weight of responsibility to save him if she could. And if she couldn’t...well, that didn’t bear thinking about. She had no choice. There was no alternative.

On her side, Nathaniel was cursed hard to kill. She counted on that fact to keep him alive until she figured out how to get the demon out of him.

Chapter Five

Juliana and Jeremiah met back up at street-level in front of the buildings. He gestured to her arm. “You okay?”

She clenched her teeth, ignoring the blazing pain and her blood dripping onto the pavement. “Wonderful.”

Another agent ran up to them. “We lost them, sir.”

She hadn’t really expected them to be able to keep up with the demons, but she’d hoped they might at least get a good idea where they headed. “What about the harpies?”

The Agency used harpies for air surveillance. Jeremiah laid a hand against his earpiece. Juliana didn’t wear one. She couldn’t tune out the constant barrage of chatter from everyone working a case. If anyone needed to get hold of her, she had her phone and Jeremiah was usually within shouting distance.

Jeremiah shook his head. “They trailed them to a building several blocks from here. Ground search turned up nothing.”

Of course it did. Juliana closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, gripping the ends. She tugged slightly, the pain helping her focus. Scenarios ran through her head of how the situation could pan out. None of them good.

“Um...ma’am?”

She cracked open one eye to glance at the agent who looked like he was about twelve years old. She flashed her gift on long enough to read his signature, ignoring the stab of pain it brought with it. Selkie. That explained the youthful appearance. “Yes?”

“You’re bleeding.”

She arched a brow. “That’s very astute of you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Astute. Means observant.”

“Just because you’re upset about our wolf doesn’t mean you get to pick on the rookies,” Jeremiah chastised.

He was right, not that she was willing to admit it. “Whatever.” She blew out her breath in frustration. Stretching her head to the sides, she attempted to loosen up the muscles in her neck.

The medic approached and she held out her arm. She didn’t have time for this, but it was a necessity. It wouldn’t do any good for her to walk around leaking blood wherever she went.

They needed to find Nathaniel before something else happened to him. Something more permanent than being demon-ridden. And they needed to find the demons before they got further into their rampage. And they would, they always did.

Ignoring the medic while he worked made it easier for her to pretend it didn’t hurt. That’s precisely what she did until he lifted a large needle from his bag. She jerked her arm away, grimacing when pain ran straight up to the base of her skull. “What, by all the dark gods, is that for?” she asked, pointing at the syringe.

The medic frowned. “This? It’ll numb your arm so it won’t hurt while you heal.”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I need it to be able to function.”

“Why?” Jeremiah asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

She blinked. “We’re going to Nathaniel’s apartment.”

He studied her for a moment before nodding to the medic. “Put it away. But give her something for the pain. Something that won’t affect her mobility.”

Irritation slithered up her spine. “Seriously? You don’t get to make the decisions for my medical treatment.”

Jeremiah grinned. “Actually, I do. Ben gave orders.”

It sounded like something their boss would do. She looked at the selkie and medic standing side by side. They both nodded. First Thomas, now Ben. Cursed overprotective men always trying to take control of her life. “Just give me a couple of low-grade pain meds,” she instructed. “I need to keep my wits about me.”

Jeremiah nodded again and she growled. The rookie turned his laugh into a cough and stopped completely the instant she turned her glare on him. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Um...yes, ma’am,” he stammered and hurried off.

The medic finished wrapping her arm and handed her two pills. “You’ll be okay for a bit, but that really needs to be examined at the Agency. The pills should take the edge off the pain, but shouldn’t make you tired.”

Yeah, she’d see about that. Nothing ever affected her the way it was supposed to. She popped the tablets in her mouth and swallowed them dry.

Jeremiah cringed. “I hate when you do that. They’ve got water, you know.”

She shrugged. “Get us a portal.”

He called for one with his earpiece and moments later the blue glow appeared. They stepped through, emerging in front of Nathaniel’s apartment building. Fourteen stories of cold glass and concrete. Juliana had always hated the complete lack of character.

A dozen agents stood in front of the doors. “We’ll be doing a door-to-door sweep. Two per floor, two floors per pair. It’s early, so hopefully we’ll catch people at home,” Juliana told them. “We need to know about anything odd or out of place in the past twelve hours. Ask if they know Walker West and how well. Also find out the most recent time they saw him and where.”

The front door required no code or key, so she walked in leaving the others to trail behind. Her head spun and she honestly wasn’t sure if it was the pills they’d given her or if anxiety was taking its toll. They were so close to Nathaniel’s home. To some possible answers. If luck were with them they’d find something that would tell them why the demons were summoned and how they could get rid of them. Otherwise, they weren’t any better off than when she first saw the demon on the roof.

A lone guard sat at a small desk in a lobby just as plain as the exterior of the building. His thick glasses and pudgy frame didn’t give Juliana much confidence in his abilities. She showed him her ID. He at least examined it thoroughly before handing it back.

“We need access to Nathaniel West’s apartment.” She gestured behind her. “These agents will be doing a sweep of the building.”

The guard peered over his glasses. “I suppose that’s okay provided they don’t harass any of the tenants, but I’ll need a warrant for the apartment.”

Jeremiah pulled out his phone. She put a hand on his arm to stop him and motioned the other agents to start their search. “I’m listed to have full access to his apartment in case of emergencies, if you’d check. Trust me, this is an emergency.”

The guard frowned for a moment, then turned and typed something in his computer. His moustache twitched as he studied the screen. “Juliana Norris, yeah, got it right here. I’ll get the key from the super.”

She nodded and leaned on the edge of the desk while they waited for him to return.

“Why didn’t he just give you a key?” Jeremiah asked.

She wiggled her fingers. “Don’t need one, remember? Figured we better keep this all above board as possible.”

The scuff of a shoe sounded behind her and she looked over her shoulder. The guard was back, key in hand. They followed him around the corner to the elevator. Juliana would have preferred to take the stairs, but wasn’t sure their escort could make it without needing to stop every flight. When the doors opened, they stepped inside. The scent of old urine enveloped them, causing her to eye a stain in the corner suspiciously. Classy place Nathaniel lived in. She didn’t remember it being this bad last time she was there.

She stood in the corner opposite the stain as they rode up the six floors in silence. When the elevator arrived at their destination, they went down the hall to their left. The guard stopped at Nathaniel’s apartment and unlocked it. Juliana stopped him before he opened the door. “Thank you. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

He looked between the two of them for a moment then shrugged and pocketed the key. She watched him amble back down the hall.

Jeremiah drew his gun and she followed suit. Pain twitched in her palm, complaining at the grip on the weapon. The gun jerked. She shifted it to her left hand and cradled her throbbing right arm against her chest.

Jeremiah frowned but turned the knob and pushed the door open when she nodded. Warm light spilled into the hall. At least they didn’t have to worry about anything jumping out of the dark at them. They stepped into the apartment and she froze. There was no sign of any altercation, nothing out of place. The giddy sense of anticipation that had been with her since she stepped through the portal vanished faster than an imp in a rainstorm.

Despite her certainty they wouldn’t find anything, they still had to search the apartment. She fired up her gift and pain lanced from ear to ear. She shoved the discomfort aside and got to work. The kitchen was right inside the door to the left and the living room opened before them. A short hallway with three doors ran off to the left.

The first door they came to led into the bathroom. A quick inspection behind the shower curtain and in the linen closet revealed the room to be empty. She exited and nodded at Jeremiah. He opened the door directly across the hall. Nathaniel’s office. Jeremiah stepped inside and she headed to the bedroom at the end of the hall. She checked under the bed and in the closet. She put her gun away and turned off her gift. Nathaniel wasn’t here, and neither was anything else.

“Have you seen this?” Jeremiah’s voice drifted down the hall.

Juliana wandered out and found him still in the office. His weapon holstered, he stood with his hands on his hips gaping at one of several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Nathaniel was a book freak. His entire office, including the closet, overflowed with them. Every available area was crammed full of volumes of various sizes, formats and subjects. About the only thing they had in common was they all bore heavily creased spines. He not only read them, he read them and reread them, over and over again. He said the magic was all in the way the words flowed across the page, the dance they made to tell the story. Knowing the ending didn’t ruin that. Seeing his treasures, her heart ached. She had to get him back.

She inhaled deeply. A blend of sandalwood and cedar invaded her nostrils. Nathaniel’s favorite scent. No acrid aroma of cinder and ashes tainted it. The demon hadn’t been here.

She clenched her jaw and swallowed the tears she felt building. Nathaniel would be pissed if she cried for him. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe. “Totally blows the image you had of Nathaniel out of your mind, doesn’t it?”

Jeremiah nodded but kept his eyes on the collection before him. “Shakespeare, Austen, the original Grimm’s, Verne... the boy’s got some of the greatest works of literature here and they’ve all been read. Every one of them.”

Nathaniel had an inane theory that women didn’t like well-read men. Juliana thought only stupid women didn’t like well-read men, but he’d never asked her opinion so she hadn’t given it. Nathaniel would think what he wanted so very few people saw this side of him. In fact, he kept no books in the living room or in the main part of his bedroom. It was silly, but she understood the level of trust he had in her that he’d shared his secret. She’d revealed it to no one until now.

“You can’t tell anyone,” she said. “He’d be heartbroken if his image was ruined.”

Jeremiah shook his head and faced her.

“What about the stuff on his desk? Was he working on anything?” she asked, stepping over to the desk. Other than the laptop, it was bare. She pressed a couple of buttons but the monitor stayed dark. She shoved down her disappointment, uncertain of what she’d been expecting. It wasn’t like she was going to find a document titled How I Became Demon-ridden by Nathaniel West. It would have been nice to get some sort of clue, though.

She headed back to the living room. All the electronics were off. A foray into the kitchen revealed a plate with a few crumbs in the sink. A glass with milk residue sat beside it.

Juliana scanned the room looking for anything out of place, anything that caught her attention. Her arm still throbbed, but she did her best to ignore it. She gestured with her good hand to the tennis shoes on the mat by the door. “His shoes are still here. His boots are in the closet, too.”

He only owned the two pairs of shoes that she knew of, so wherever he’d gone, it was somewhere close. Most likely in the building. Her brow furrowed in thought. There was only one place she could think of.

She’d kept him company while he washed his clothes more than once. She went back down the hall to the bedroom. His hamper and detergent were gone from the closet. Jeremiah waited for her in the living room and she gestured for him to follow as she left the apartment. She shut the door and ran her fingers over the lock. She wasn’t leaving Nathaniel’s apartment open for whoever just happened to wander by. It wouldn’t take anything much for her to open it again if she needed to anyway.

They got on the elevator and Juliana pressed the button for the basement. The apartment had a hookup for a washer and dryer, but Nathaniel had never bothered to get them. He said he just hadn’t found a set he liked. More likely, he didn’t want to take the space away from the books.

“Not that I wouldn’t follow wherever you chose to lead, but where are we going?” Jeremiah finally asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

The corner of her mouth curled in a smile. “Sorry. Laundry room.”

The elevator dinged and they stepped off into a well-lit basement corridor. The laundry room stood in front of them. Juliana walked through the door and the aromas of fabric softener and mold immediately assailed her. Chairs ran back-to-back down the center of the room. Washers and dryers alternated the length of the two side walls. A bottle of detergent sat on top of one of the machines. Directly across from it a book lay open on a chair, the pages face down. She picked it up.

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” She turned the cover so Jeremiah could see the illustration. “Why does that seem particularly fitting right now?”

He leaned against the doorframe, his dark eyes watching her.

She ran her hand over the cover. “This is Nathaniel’s favorite book. He says there’s been a whole study of whether Stevenson was a shifter. A lot of people think he wrote the book about himself.”

“I didn’t know that.” Jeremiah’s voice broke her from her reverie. It was no time to be maudlin.

She walked over to the dryer and laid the book next to the detergent. She opened the door and pulled out a sock. The clothes were still wet. Whatever happened occurred before he even had time to start the machine. She tossed the sock back in and frowned at Jeremiah. “Unless he got a phone call telling him to go somewhere else, whatever we’re looking for is down here.”

He pressed the earpiece. “The two teams closest to the basement report there immediately.”

She moved past him and out of the room. There were four more doors in the short hallway. The first door on the left opened onto a rather dingy bathroom and she made a mental note to go upstairs if she needed to use the facilities. The other door in that direction bore a padlock and a large yellow sign proclaiming Danger. Probably the boiler room. She left it for now; she could always go back if she needed to.

Jeremiah leaned against the wall next to the laundry room waiting for the agents to emerge from the elevator. Just beyond him was a marked stair access. The remaining door stood at the end of the hall—Storage emblazoned on it in thick black letters. Trepidation dogged her steps as she approached the room.

The smell hit her when she was still a foot away. Cinder and ashes mixed with blood and death. An aroma she’d smelled too much of that morning. The elevator announced the arrival of the other agents with a ding as she drew her gun.

“Get some techs down here,” she said to no one in particular. She twisted the knob—locked. She looked over her shoulder at the other agents. “Go to the other end and check out those rooms.”

As soon as their backs were turned, she ran her fingers over the lock. There was no reason for everyone to know doors weren’t always unlocked like she stated in her reports. A glance back showed Jeremiah purposely looking away from her. He couldn’t comment on what he didn’t see.

She already knew she wasn’t going to like whatever awaited her in the room. She took a deep breath in through her mouth and swung the door open. The full impact of the odor was like an ogre punch to the gut. She snapped her head to the side as she gagged. Her eyes watered. She coughed as she holstered her weapon and covered her nose with the neck of her shirt. It didn’t help much. Her eyes flicked around the room taking in the whole scene, but avoiding the details for the moment.

Two bodies, a summoning circle, candles, blood...lots of blood. The shreds of a shirt to the side indicated where Nathaniel shifted into his half-form. Juliana fired up her gift and the room swam in the black of the summoning magic mixed with the orange-yellow of the spell caster. A witch.

“Gods damn it.” She spat the words.

“What?” Jeremiah asked as he moved up behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder to find him smearing vapor rub under his nostrils. He held it out to her and she snatched it gratefully from his hand. It didn’t completely obliterate the smell, but it helped. She jerked a thumb in the direction of the circle. “Would-be mages.”

His forehead creased. “Witches summoned a demon? Idiots.”

She nodded her agreement. More witches died trying to do magic beyond their ability than anything else. Humans with some magic ability were witches; they could be male or female. Mages, however, were Altered and their signatures leaned toward reds or pinks. Witches scanned orange and the weaker their magic, the more toward human-yellow the color.

She stepped into the room to get a better look at the circle. Drawn on the floor in thick, charcoal black strokes, it took up most of the room. Several symbols around the perimeter—four larger than the others—caught her eye. Icy fingers of fear crawled up her spine and dampened her palms. This was dark magic they played with, even for a summoning. She stepped into the center of the circle and spun, viewing the room as the demon would have when it answered the summons.

It was times like this that she wished she’d undergone formal training for her mage abilities. She’d picked up a trick or two along the way, but not enough to be of any real help. She had studied enough about magic, both for her job and just out of sheer curiosity, to know what she was looking at, however. She pointed on the symbol on the floor between her and Jeremiah. “Master.” She spun clockwise pointing to each of the larger symbols in turn. “Witness. Summoner. Sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice? How did they get someone to agree to that?”

She eyed the body near the symbol, the wash of color protecting her from the grisly details of his demise. “Most likely they didn’t tell him. The Master may not have told anyone.”

He scratched his head. “Wouldn’t the Summoner be in charge?”

Crouching to get a better look at one of the symbols, she shook her head. “Not necessarily. Have you looked at our vics? They’re young.”

“So?”

Standing, she brushed her hands off on her jeans. “This is old magic. Fae magic. They shouldn’t have known the spell, let alone attempted to perform it.”

She gestured to the symbol for Master again. “Masters don’t become hosts. They give the commands, they don’t take them. The Summoner would have called the demon, the Master would have told the demon the reason he had it summoned and the Sacrifice would have tied the demon to the Master. Either of them might have killed the Sacrifice depending on the nature of their agreement.”

“And why exactly do you suppose it was called?”

“Why are they ever called? Either someone was stupid enough to think the demon could grant a wish, or to think the demon would give him power, or smart and sadistic enough to know precisely what the demon would really do.” She shook her head. “They summon them to go on killing sprees, to kill wives, to murder bosses, who knows. We obviously aren’t going to get any answers out of the practitioners.”

With a sigh she ran a hand through her hair. “I would assume once the Sacrifice was killed, that’s when the other one ran. Nathaniel must have heard something, came to investigate and ended up demon-ridden for his efforts.”

“Wrong place, wrong time?” Jeremiah asked. “Yeah, that sounds about right for Nathaniel.” As much as she didn’t want to agree with him, she had to. Nathaniel had a knack for getting himself into trouble. Unfortunately he wasn’t as skilled at getting himself out of it.

The summoning circle was complete, whole, except for a foot-long gap where the Master’s symbol stood. She tapped next to the opening with her foot. “Whoever wanted this demon called up is the one that broke the circle. He never planned on the other witches living. Or it’s possible he’s not even a practitioner, that he hired them to do the work. We need to get James over here to look at this.”

James, Thomas’s brother-in-law, was also an inkmage and the leader of the Gathering. The Gathering was the mage equivalent of the vampire Council, only much larger and more structured. The mages made the mafia look like amateurs. It was also what they called themselves as a whole. Mages were much more into the whole solidarity and unity thing than the vampires were. Community was very important to the mages, but Juliana had never been able to decide if she wanted to be a part of it or not. Hence, the reason she was still untrained despite James’s many offers to teach her.

“Look at this,” a voice said from the side of the room, drawing her attention. One of the agents—human from the looks of his signature—pointed at something on the far side of the room. A book with dark pages, a large tome of some sort, lay open on top of a box. Its pages fluttered in the breezeless room. Just the sight of it enraptured her, enthralled her. Too late, she noticed it had the same effect on the agent. He reached a gloved hand forward.

“Don’t touch—” The words were sucked from her throat along with the air from her lungs as one finger touched the page and power swamped the room in a wave. Colors blazed across her vision. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Wincing, she shut her gift down. Even without it, the room was lit in a putrid green light.

Arcs of power shot from the page and wrapped around the arm of the agent like lightning bolt snakes. A wind swept through the room howling as it went and bringing with it the smell of ozone and rain. It made it impossible to hear anything less than a scream. “Get everyone out,” she yelled at Jeremiah and moved toward the human.

“What are you doing?” Jeremiah shouted back, only to scream, “No!” as she threw herself at the other agent.

The power released its hold as contact was lost but the trap had already been sprung and the spell continued to rage around them. A crack of thunder boomed in the room making her ears ring. Cold rain began to fall from nowhere, the brutal wind turning each drop into a blade slicing into her skin. Jeremiah hurried over and she pushed the shell-shocked man into his arms. “Get him out of here.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “Not without you.”

Adrenaline and a giddy feeling of expectation pumped through her veins, helping her ignore the pain in her arm. This was the part of the job that she loved, that she was good at. She grinned at him. “I’ll be along in a moment, Dad. Go.” When he hesitated, she added, “That’s an order.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched, but he nodded once and did as instructed. Turning back to the book, Juliana squinted against the force of the wind and the rain. Another peal of thunder rolled through the room and an involuntary cringe had her hunching over in response. This was screwed up. And it was obliterating her evidence.

If she closed the book, there was a possibility the spell would terminate. Maybe. But closing the book without touching it, that would be the real trick. She studied it, deciding on her next move. Large bolts of lightning shot from the page to the ceiling with an electrical hiss. She was out of time. Hopefully no one was directly above this room.

If the summoning spell came from the book, then at least part of its magic was dark fae. Dark fae magic wouldn’t kill her. She hoped. “Screw it.” She dived for the book. Her hands wrapped around the edge of the covers as she tried to force it closed. It resisted with every ounce of its power. Shards of pain shot up her arm and fresh blood started to run from her wound.

Whips of lightning wrapped around her body and lifted her off the floor. Tongues of fire lapped her skin. Her heart sped and the soles of her feet tingled as she neared the ceiling. The floating didn’t worry her near as much as the landing.

Blood trickled down her arm and she twisted, trying to keep it from touching the book. Some spells were fed with blood and she didn’t want hers adding to the power if that was the case. Despite her struggles, the magic kept her bound to the tome in her hands. She watched helplessly as one red drop ran down her wrist and onto the page. Instead of fueling the spell as she’d feared, it had the opposite effect. The book slammed shut with a resounding bang.

She wrapped her arms around it to keep it closed. The force of the spell terminating tossed her backward through the air. Her head bounced off the wall. Stars flashed across her vision. Nausea welled.

Jeremiah’s face popped into view. “Juliana?”

“Don’t let anyone touch this book,” she heard herself say. Then everything went black.

Chapter Six

Thomas hung up the phone convinced his conversation with his fellow Council member Catalina had been a success. The Council would place a call to the Agency and suggest Juliana would be better suited for less dangerous work. She would never have to know he was behind it. And the gods help him if she ever found out.

The phone on the table beside him buzzed and he frowned. Michael had been most displeased when Thomas had taken possession of it. He supposed it had been a petty thing to do, taking away the easiest way for Juliana to contact her lover, but Thomas found himself unable to work up any guilt over his actions.

He snatched it from the table. The screen showed a text from Sara Piper. His sister.

J’s in the infirmary. Nothing serious. Just letting you know.

Thomas’s stomach tightened in aggravation and fear. There was no question in his mind that “J” was Juliana. And his sister was texting Michael about it instead of him. Even though she knew he was in town. He’d told her himself last night. His sister and he would have words later. But right now, he needed to check on his bride. He knew if she had a choice she would be anywhere other than the infirmary.

* * *

By all the dark gods, where was the infirmary? He’d been walking this cursed hallway forever. He could never remember where anything was in the Agency. He got turned around every time. Finally he came to a garishly decorated room with the sign Waiting Room hanging beside the door. The four people inside were clearly worried about someone.

“Where’s the infirmary?” he asked, the words coming out sharper than he’d intended. All four of them looked at him, the three men narrowing their eyes.

“Can we help you?” one of them asked. He was one of two younger men who had to be twins.

“I believe I already made that clear. Where is the infirmary?”

“Why do you want to know?” the other twin asked.

He did not have to answer to these men. But perhaps if he told them why he was here, they’d take pity on him and just give him directions. “It is my understanding that Juliana Norris was injured. I am here to check on her.”

“You’ll wait here like the rest of us then.” This came from the bald man with red skin. Undoubtedly a fire elemental of some sort.

Thomas fisted his hands at his sides to keep from clawing out the man’s throat. Who were they to keep him from Juliana? “You will tell me where she is.”

The twins stood in unison, one of them moving toward him. “Listen, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. You’re no more important than the rest of us. Either sit down or leave.”

Fury clouded his vision. The muscles in Thomas’s legs tightened in preparation to launch him at the infidel’s throat. A hand pressed against his chest, pushed him into the wall.

Confusion tore through the anger. He managed to corral his rage enough to realize Michael had intervened. His fury flared again, this time with a new target.

Michael leaned forward, stopping inches from Thomas’s face so he could see nothing but the man before him. “Enough. This is her family in all but blood. She’ll never forgive you,” he said in a voice pitched so only Thomas could hear.

Thomas looked beyond his second to the others in the room and his heart flooded with unwelcome sorrow. He’d been her family once. Her whole life. Now he wasn’t even welcome here. He pushed Michael’s hand away and straightened from the wall. Michael looked at him for a minute more and then turned and nodded to the family.

“Jeremiah, Anna, boys.”

Thomas clenched his teeth together so hard, his jaw ached. Michael knew them. Of course he did. Thomas turned and walked out of the room without uttering a word.

* * *

Juliana opened her eyes to find a depressingly familiar stain above her head.

“You know,” a voice said from beside her, “as much as you hate the infirmary, you’d think you’d try harder to avoid ending up here.”

She turned her head to find Dr. Oliver Daniels frowning at her as usual.

She sighed. “I’ll work on that, Doc. What’s the damage?”

“You somehow managed to avoid a concussion, but the power drain from that spell was massive. And your arm should have been treated here, not in the field.” He flipped through her chart, avoiding eye contact. He was keeping something from her.

Her right arm lay strapped against her chest so she pushed herself up with the left. The arm was blessedly numb. Juliana figured it was mostly healed already, but if Doc wanted to make sure she felt no pain, she wasn’t going to argue with him. She’d had enough of that for a few days. She swung her legs off the bed and sat on the edge to get her bearings.

“Take it easy. You aren’t fully recovered yet. You’ll be weak for a couple of days at least.”

He was overestimating her recovery time. At least she hoped he was. She healed fast. She ran a hand over her face in an attempt to wipe the weariness away, but it didn’t help. Fatigue penetrated to her very bones. No part of her wanted to move. She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them as wide as she could. Anything to feel more alert. A coffee IV wouldn’t have been remiss at that point. “Just how extensive was this power drain? And what can you give me to fix it?”

“Not everything has a quick fix,” he snapped at her. “That spell leached an enormous amount of energy off you. I’m surprised you’re even sitting here talking to me.” His voice turned quiet, reluctant. “The agent who triggered the spell died hours ago and his exposure was much shorter than yours.”

Her chest tightened at that bit of news. She didn’t even know the guy’s name but she’d done her best to save him. She never understood why humans wanted to work for the Agency. There was a time when they hadn’t been allowed, but an anti-discrimination lawsuit killed that policy. Now plain, ordinary humans were allowed to sign up and go through the program to become agents. Their life expectancy was decidedly short once they finished training.

“What about me? Did I die?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she glanced over her shoulder at him.

He studied her for a moment, his salt-and-pepper goatee twitching in agitation. “I’ve never understood how you can be so blasé about that.”

She shrugged one shoulder. It was better to pretend it didn’t bother her. If they knew the truth she’d be waiting on psych clearances more than she was in the field. “I’m resilient and that doesn’t answer my question.”

He ran a hand through his hair and tossed her chart on the table. “Not this time, but it was close. When they brought you in your heart rate was fifteen beats per minute. It remained steady until about an hour ago when it returned to normal.”

Thank the gods. She hated when she died, especially when she didn’t remember it. So far the count was three. If she was limited to nine lives like a cat, she was going to be seriously screwed in a few years. She rubbed a hand across the back of her neck and sighed. “I’ve got to talk to Ben,” she said and stood. Her knees buckled as they took her weight and she caught herself on the table with her elbow.

Doc grabbed her other arm and pulled her upright. He kept his hand there until it was evident she wasn’t going to keel over. “You almost died, Juliana. Surely you can take a break for, oh I don’t know, ten minutes or so?” The bitterness in his voice surprised her and she studied him. He dropped his head and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but you have no idea how tired I am of patching you guys up only to have you back in here a day or two later. You just keep putting yourself in danger, damn the consequences.”

Her mouth curled in a smile. “It’s kind of our job. Besides, you haven’t lost me yet.”

“Yes, we have. More than once.” He shook his head. “And when you do recover, we don’t have anything to do with it. We just assess and treat, then stick you in a corner to see if you come around or not. I’ve tried to figure it out, to discover the science or the magic behind it and I can’t. It’s odd.”

Nothing made her day quite like having her oddities pointed out. It was time to go.

“Juliana,” he said, stopping her when she got to the door. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t like not knowing what’s going on with my patients.”

She thought for a moment, not wanting to make promises she couldn’t keep. “I’ll try to be careful, but I have to go after Nathaniel.”

She walked out of the room without waiting for a response. The cool tile under her feet reminded her she was barefoot and in scrubs. Juliana didn’t care as long as it wasn’t a gown. She and the doc had a rather loud discussion about it the first time he treated her. She’d woken up in scrubs ever since. She tried not to think too much about how she got into them or how much was on display in the process.

She would find Nathaniel and bring him back, of that she had no doubt. She just wasn’t sure the condition he would be in when she did. The odds were against her. Fewer than ten percent of hosts survived intact. Fewer than thirty percent survived at all. But she’d never been one to play the odds.

The waiting room for the infirmary lay on the path to Ben’s office. Not only would Jeremiah be there, so would his wife and both boys. Jeremiah might not look a day over thirty but he’d been married to Anna for seventy years. And his boys were in their fifties.

Hushed whispers drifted out of the room. She couldn’t make out the words, but she picked up the worried tone easy enough. She stepped into the doorway and leaned against the frame. They were so focused on each other they didn’t notice her. The boys sat at one of the pale blue tables playing cards while Jeremiah and Anna occupied two of the bright orange chairs lined up against the pea green wall. The color combination made her eyes hurt. The Agency really needed to hire new decorators.

Jeremiah slumped forward, his head cradled in his hands. Anna rubbed circles on his back with one thin hand. “She’ll be okay, my love. She always is.” Something about the way she said the words told Juliana it wasn’t the first time they’d passed Anna’s lips. A fist of regret lodged in Juliana’s breastbone.

She accepted the risks her job brought with it, the price she had to pay on occasion to bring in her target, but she hated what it did to those who loved her. While the list was small, the people on it were fiercely loyal and every time she hurt, so did they.

Jeremiah shook his head without looking up. “One time I’m going to get to her too late and she won’t be. It’s been over a day.”

Her jaw clenched at that bit of news. All kinds of unpleasantness had probably gone on while she took her extended nap. She wanted to argue with Jeremiah’s grim assessment of her future, but she couldn’t. He was right. Besides, he’d worn a lot of her blood. He’d earned the right to freak out a little when it came to her.

“Gods, Jeremiah. Don’t you ever sleep? You look like crap,” Juliana said.

All four of them locked gazes on her. There was a moment’s pause and then they swarmed her. “Easy,” she warned the brothers when they went to wrap her in their usual bear hugs. Despite their gentleness, pain coursed through her body with every jostle. She forced her face to remain relaxed, to let none of the discomfort show. They’d be devastated if they thought they’d hurt her.

The boys stepped back. Anna placed her hands on the sides of Juliana’s face and looked into her eyes. “All right then?”

“All right.”

Juliana pretended not to see the sheen of tears in Anna’s eyes as they hugged.

Jeremiah took her place when she moved away. He said nothing, just stood in front of Juliana and looked at her. She stepped forward to lay her head on his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. He was always so warm. All fire elementals were, for obvious reasons. He held her for a long moment with no one saying anything, but she felt the tremble in his hands.

Anna once told her that she was as much a part of the family as their own children. Juliana thought about how many times Jeremiah had brought her here hurting or half-dead and how many times these same four people were waiting for her when she woke up. Tears lodged in her throat and she swallowed them back down. She stepped back to keep from crying.

Jeremiah cleared his throat and handed over her phone. “I called Sara. Told her you were fine. Thanks for not making me a liar.”

She scrolled through the missed calls, frowning when she saw the same number over and over again. Thomas. It had to be. She cleared her calls and looked at the little family in front of her.

Anna was a head shorter than Jeremiah with flaming red hair and brilliant green eyes. She’d been a Celtic demigoddess of love once upon a time and she looked it. She’d given it up when she fell in love with a fire elemental from northern Africa. Not that one could ever quit being a demigod, but she’d retired from the responsibilities that had come with her former position. No more matchmaking for her. Unless it was Juliana or one of her sons, then the gods help them.

Their boys were both bigger than Jeremiah, broader through the shoulders. Their pure black hair was set off by the pale skin and green eyes they’d inherited from their mother. Twins. Gorgeous twins. Simon and Seamus would never be more than friends to her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the view. Especially when the gods were nice enough to give it to her twice.

“You had some other visitors, dear,” Anna said looking sheepish. “One of them ran off before we caught his name. The other one was Michael, but he was only here a moment. We told him we’d have you call when you woke up.”

“The other one was another vamp,” Seamus piped in. “He came in here acting like you were no one’s concern but his, but I’d never seen him before.”

Her heart sped. There was only one person it could be. She didn’t want to care that Thomas had been there. That he’d been possessive of her. But she did. She groaned as she realized how horribly disappointed she would have been if he hadn’t come by. Curse him.

“I was ready to escort him out when Michael showed up and they both left,” he finished.

She looked at Anna. “My vampire’s back in town. So far he hasn’t received the welcome he anticipated.”

Her eyebrows crawled into her hairline. “Well, you have had an interesting few days. We really must talk more often.” She kissed her husband’s cheek. “You better go talk to Ben. I’ll see you at home when you’re finished.”

Jeremiah put a hand on Juliana’s elbow and steered her from the room and down the hall. He kept a tighter grip than normal and she knew he was worried she wasn’t as steady on her feet as she appeared. “Your vampire?” he asked.

“Thomas Kendrick,” she answered and instantly wished she hadn’t.

He stopped, took both arms in his hands and turned her to face him. “You know Thomas Kendrick well enough to call him yours?”

She looked at him without saying anything. To explain, she’d have to tell him more than she was ready for. Even Anna didn’t know everything. Not only had Juliana been trying to pretend Thomas didn’t exist for the most part, she’d be painting a huge target on her back should word get out they were United. Particularly since they weren’t together. Thomas’s enemies could go through her to hurt him and wouldn’t have to get past him to do it. Even the Agency didn’t know about the union. Thomas hadn’t registered it. She’d checked. Unions were required disclosure. If the Agency found out about it they’d reprimand her at best. At worst, she’d be out of a job.

When it became obvious she wasn’t going to answer his question, Jeremiah released her and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

She patted his shoulder. “That’s probably a wise decision. Come on, let’s get this over with.”

She tapped lightly on Ben’s door and swung it open even as Jeremiah was asking the receptionist if he was in. Ben looked up when she entered. Dark circles ringed his eyes and she wondered how long it had been since he fed. He smiled when he saw her, flashing a bit of fang. Yeah, he was overdue.

“I was worried about you, Norris,” Ben said, his English accent heavier in his exhaustion. “All right?”

She nodded and lowered herself into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Jeremiah took the other chair and started talking. “Our vic at the warehouse was a witch. A woman in Nathaniel’s building opened the door to our agents assuming they were there about the sons she reported missing.”

“Sons...as in more than one?”

Ben nodded and looked at Jeremiah. “What was it you called them?”

“The Summoner and the Sacrifice. Positively identified. Visually for one, dental for the other.” Jeremiah ran a hand over his head. “Fifteen and seventeen. The Witness was fifteen, too. A friend of both the boys.”

Several deep breaths failed to ease the tightness in her chest. Babies. Nothing more than babies. And their mother had lost them both. For what? What did the Master want so badly that he’d sacrifice three teenagers to achieve it?

She cleared her throat. “How did they get involved in something like this? Did you get anything useful out of the mother?”

Ben tapped his fingers on the desk. “Not really, she was too distraught. They had to medicate her. The search didn’t turn up much either. None of the stuff we usually find when someone is learning how to summon demons in their spare time. The mother did say the eldest was an adept spell caster.”

“There was a new video game system and several unopened games in the brothers’ room,” Jeremiah said. “When we asked her, she claims the boys told her they were doing odd jobs for the neighbors to earn extra cash.”

“So they were hired, just like we’d figured. Money’s a big motivator for a kid.” It wasn’t until they got older that people realized some things just weren’t worth any amount of money. “And mom had no idea who it might have been?”

“Quite frankly, she seemed pretty clueless about what went on in her kids’ lives. She claims there was no one new around. We’ve got agents questioning all the neighbors,” Ben said.

“What about the book?” she asked, shifting in her seat.

Jeremiah shook his head. “Mother didn’t know anything about it, either. James has it in lockdown at the Apocryphan. He’ll let us know if he finds anything.”

All of the especially dangerous magical items they found went to the Gathering’s headquarters for safekeeping. They’d also study the object on a consultant basis for the Agency if asked. Gods forbid they do anything for free just to be helpful. Well, they’d do it for her, just not the Agency. Partly because she was a mage, but mostly because James and Sara claimed her as family. And since James was the Director of the Gathering they did what he said. Which generally included not pissing him off, and helping those he considered his.

James disliked the Agency both because he felt they tried to butt in where they weren’t welcome and because he didn’t like Juliana working for them. And because he couldn’t do anything about either of those situations, he exerted control where he could. Namely the assistance he provided to the Agency with magical artifacts. James told her more than once her employer could suck his balls before he’d do anything for them without sending a bill.

Juliana sighed. They had gotten absolutely nowhere in the investigation while she’d been out of it. “So the demon jumped from our victim to the fae. No question why there, that kind of power would be hard for a demon to pass up. Any word on the host yet? What about other victims?”

“No word on the fae,” Jeremiah answered. “There haven’t been any other victims that we know of.”

“Nothing since the pier?” That was odd. Maybe the demon had completed its task and returned to its realm. But if that was the case then where was Nathaniel?

“There’s been no sign of them at all,” Ben added. “I’ve got everyone I can spare out looking, even the trainees.”

She sat up straight in her chair. “Trainees? Are you nuts?”

He looked offended. “They’ve been ordered not to engage.”

“Oh. Well, that makes it okay then.” Sarcasm all but dripped from her voice.

Jeremiah coughed to cover his laugh. She took that to mean he’d had the same conversation with their boss while she was incapacitated. Nice to know everyone she worked with wasn’t a complete idiot.

“One thing I know—you’ve got two demons working together, behaving themselves in an effort to not be found. As long as they keep a lid on their violent tendencies, we aren’t going to find them,” she said. They sat in silence and absorbed the direness of their situation for a moment.

“What are we going to do about Nathaniel?” she finally asked.

Ben leaned back in his chair. “Obviously I can’t send anyone but a Walker after him. Anyone else is going to get killed. You’re sure he was demon-ridden and not just louped out?” Demons had been known to make shifters forget their human sides before.

“He usually lights up like a Christmas tree for me. He didn’t even register.”

He sighed. “You’re the logical choice to send after him. You’ve got the most experience with demons and I think you’d be the most likely to get him back in one piece.”

“But...” she said so he didn’t have to.

He shook his head. “There is no but. It’s got to be you.”

Jeremiah leaned forward in his chair, eyes wide. “Wait just a minute. You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“Because she just got out of the cursed infirmary. That’s why not.”

Juliana said nothing, just shifted her gaze between the two of them.

“And what would you propose, Agent Grace? Sending trainees after the demons for real?”

“I propose you call in Walkers from other territories and give her a chance to recover.”

She put a hand on Jeremiah’s arm to stop him from saying anything else. He shifted his glare to her. “As much as I appreciate you sticking up for me, I’ve got to agree with Ben on this one. I need to be out there. I don’t know about Nathaniel’s demon, but the other one is cognitive.”

“It spoke?” Ben asked, surprised. “You had a conversation with it?” Most of the demons encountered in their realm were low level grunters capable of little beyond simple words and base destruction.

Juliana nodded in answer.

“That means it’s at least seventh level,” Jeremiah said. There were ten levels of demons, with a first level demon being the most powerful and therefore most dangerous.

She pursed her lips. “I’d give it fifth, maybe even fourth if it’s hiding like this. That means it’s smart, thinking things through.”

Jeremiah slumped back in his chair, indignation no longer enough to keep his spine stiff.

“That’s not all,” she said. “It knew who I was.”

“You mean it knew you were a Walker?” Ben asked.

“No, I mean it called me by name.”

Their eyes widened and they blinked at her for several long moments. “Well, I have no idea what to make of that,” Jeremiah finally said.

“Thanks. That’s helpful.”

“On a not entirely unrelated note, I received a call from the Council.” Ben looked at her expectantly, but she said nothing. She knew of no reason for the vampire Council to call him. And even less reason why she should care they had. “They advised me you should be kept from the more dangerous assignments and you shouldn’t be permitted to return to work until you are completely healed. And they didn’t even mention the demon. They were hung up on the troll bite.”

She froze, fear slicing through her body like a dragon’s talon. “The Council has no authority over me.”

“They claim that since you were raised in a coven they do.”

This had to be a joke. She waited for him to get to the punch line.

“I informed them that whether that was true or not, the Agency superseded the Council’s authority when it came to you. They weren’t happy about that. I’m sure I’ll hear about it at my next coven meeting.”

“Sorry, Ben,” she told him. “But they don’t own me. They never have.”

He grinned, flashing fang again. “Figured you’d say that. Here’s the deal. You’re off duty until tomorrow. Hopefully that will appease the Council and Grace here. That should also give you time to heal enough to be in fighting form. And find out why the vampire Council is suddenly interested in what you do.”

She knew who to blame for the Council’s intervention without even asking. Thomas had sat on the Council for years. This was no doubt his way of trying to control her without her knowing who pulled the strings. Did he think she was a complete idiot?

“Go home. Get some rest.” Ben waved them out of his office.

“He forgot to eat again,” she said to Maria the receptionist as they passed her desk. She rolled her eyes and picked up the phone while mouthing a thank you.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Jeremiah stopped walking and leaned against the wall. “You didn’t seem horribly surprised by the Council’s intervention. What’s going on?”

She sighed and leaned against the wall opposite him. “I don’t talk about my past. You know that.”

“I’m waiting.”

Obviously he wasn’t going to let her get by with her normal evade and dodge technique. “You know I was raised in a coven, right?”

He nodded.

“Thomas Kendrick pulled me off the streets when I was twelve. He gave me a home and his protection, but I didn’t see much of him.” Not until she was older anyway. She smiled a little. “I might have neglected to mention that Sara’s maiden name is Kendrick. She’s Thomas’s little sister. Anyway, I’m assuming he’s using his sway with the Council to try to control me. He never cared for my independent streak.”

“That’s not everything,” he said after a moment.

“That’s all you’re getting.”

He shook his head as he straightened. “You’re never going to run out of secrets are you?”

“Gods I hope not. There’s stuff I really don’t want you to know.”

He laughed. She was glad he found her amusing but she wasn’t joking. The people that knew about her past were small in number for good reason. Safety being the primary one, but it was followed closely by embarrassment. While it was true she’d be a target for multiple people should her union with Thomas get out or certain aspects of her origin, Thomas walking out the morning after their union was beyond humiliating. It wasn’t something she was going to share unless she had to.

The Agency knew more than most because it was part of the application process, which meant that Ben knew because he was her boss. Sara knew most of it, which meant James knew. Anna knew some. But almost half of Juliana’s life was unknown even to her. And Thomas had tried to find out where she’d been those first twelve years, had hired detectives even, to no avail. That shit screwed with your head. And it made her keep the parts of her life that she did have that much closer. Her secrets were nobody’s business but her own.

She ran a hand down her face. “Go home to Anna. I’m going to pick up my blade and head out.”

He looked down at her. “Take care of yourself and don’t go after Nathaniel on your own. Promise me.”

“That’s an easy promise to make. I’m sick of seeing the inside of the infirmary.” Besides, with Michael in town, she had a ready and able partner. All she had to do was call.

His lips pursed. “Me, too.”

He walked around the bend toward the portal room and she headed to the armory. She wasn’t stepping foot out of the Agency without her blade in hand. The fact she couldn’t wield it at the moment was beside the point. There were two demons in town summoned by dark fae magic. And she just happened to possess a sword forged and blessed by one of the gods of the dark fae. She loved when she had an advantage, especially when the opposition knew nothing about it.

Chapter Seven

Juliana’s patience with her invalid status lasted almost as long as the daylight. Jeremiah’s patience with her ended long before that. The sun had just neared the horizon when she called for the last time.

“Juliana,” he said with a growl before she had a chance to say anything, “if there is anything to report, anything at all you need to know, I will call you.”

She sighed. “Sorry. I hate being out of commission.”

He laughed. “Everyone hates it when you can’t work. Trust me.” With that pronouncement he hung up. She should have been offended, but he was right. She made a nuisance of herself to everyone around her when she was on leave. Nothing made her feel more useless.

She paced the floor as night fell. There had to be something she could do. She’d tried to call Michael several times throughout the day only to have the call kick straight to voicemail. And she knew damn well he wasn’t sleeping. Despite Altereds’ preference for the dark, with very few exceptions, they weren’t limited to it. Not even the vampires. Michael in particular preferred to stalk the day. He was avoiding her. She’d let him for now.

James was a dead end as well. Though he had nothing to report on the book yet, he assured her some of his best mages were working on the problem. She knew better than to try to rush anything having to do with magic or the Gathering. They both took their own sweet time.

A knock sounded at her door and reverberated through the silence of her house. A glance through the peephole revealed Simon and Seamus Grace standing under her front porch light. Thank the gods, someone had come to save her from her own special blend of insanity. She swung open the door, looking between the two of them for explanation.

“Dad sent us to baby-sit,” Seamus said with a grin.

“And to keep you away from the phone,” Simon added.

“I should be irritated but I’m going stir-crazy,” she told them. “Get your asses in here.”

“We thought we’d head over to the Den. Get you drunk. Take advantage of you,” Seamus said as they stepped past her into the living room.

Simon smacked his brother on the back of the head. “Everything he said except for the taking advantage part. We’ll be on our best behavior.”

“Damn right, you will.” She headed into the office that housed her clothes closet. “Anna would geld you, sons or not.”

* * *

Thomas had spent the better part of an hour interrogating his staff about Juliana’s habits, what she did and who she did it with, but all of his questions had yielded little of any help. Whether it was an intentional unwillingness to share information about her or they really didn’t know, he had no idea. Mind reading was not one of his many abilities.

Of course, his bride should be the one exception, the one being he should be able to feel every nuance of emotion from and she continually denied him. Despite the wall she kept erected against his intrusion, he checked several times a day hoping she’d left a crack, an opening he could get through. He resisted the urge to run a hand through his hair in frustration. She pushed him to the edge of sanity, but he’d be banished to the bowels of the underworld before he’d let his underlings see it.

The door to the club opened and he looked up with a frown, knowing he’d locked it before he started talking to the employees. There she was, his irksome life mate. His fangs pressed against his gums as he took in the expanse of pale flesh not covered by her tight blue jeans and silver tank top. She’d always shattered his control, made him feel like a youngling just turned. Then his eyes went to her accessories. On each arm she had one of the matched set of troglodytes from the waiting room at the Agency.

He swallowed the growl that rose in his throat and clenched his teeth. He locked gazes with them, issuing a silent warning that the woman they were with was his. One of them understood, looked away with a slight nod. The other...well, the other was incredibly stupid or cared little for the longevity of his pathetic life. He not only didn’t drop his gaze, he smirked. Smirked as if he knew exactly how much Juliana touching his arm bothered Thomas and didn’t care. If Thomas didn’t know any better, he’d think he was being dared.

And there wasn’t a cursed thing he could do about it. Not now, not in front of her. She would never forgive him, and any progress he’d made since he returned would be lost. But she wouldn’t always be there. And with his resources Thomas could find anyone. It probably wouldn’t even be that hard. He gave into the smile that tugged his lips at the thought.

* * *

“Hello, everyone,” Juliana said to break the oppressive silence that descended when she stepped through the door of the Den, the twins in tow. She steered the boys across the floor, doing her best to ignore Thomas. He stood watching them, fury burning in his eyes. She squashed her initial impulse to drag her companions out the door and away from that fiery gaze. She’d tango with a troll before she let that man run her off. There was no way she’d give him the satisfaction.

Doing her best to ignore Thomas despite the weight of his gaze, she settled the twins at her favorite table and made her way to the DJ booth. Ricky grinned from ear to ear, his pointed teeth flashing. His aquamarine hair boasted purple tips this week. “Greetings, my favorite Walker.”

His normal greeting made her smile. She was the only Walker he knew. “How are you? It’s been a while,” she said.

“You haven’t been here in ages. I was starting to take it personal.”

She shrugged, but said nothing. He knew her absence on the weekends had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the crowds that swarmed to hear his set.

He eyed the group at the bar. “Don’t know that I like having the boss around. Other than that I can’t say you’ve missed much around here.” He studied her for a moment. “He made everyone come in early. All he’s done is interrogate us about you. I finally told him I had to get set up and ducked out.”

“And what exactly was it that Thomas Kendrick wanted to know about me?”

He pursed his lips. “You picked a good night to bring the twins, I’ll say that. He wanted a recitation of your habits, when you came in, what you drank. Who you drank it with.” His eyes watched her as he said the last.

Her jaw ached and she forced herself to unclench her teeth. So he asked about her. He’d been gone a long time, he was bound to be curious about her life. Of course, he could have asked her, but she supposed that would be too much trouble when he could pry the information out of his minions. “And what did everyone say?”

“The truth. That you came in when you felt like it, drank what you were in the mood for and drank it with whomever amused you most.”

Her laughter caught Thomas’s attention. Their eyes locked. After a moment she looked away and let her eyes run over him. She told herself it was anxiety that made her pulse race, her breath quicken. It was a lie. Thomas wore tight jeans with a black T-shirt. A sapphire-colored silk shirt hung open over the top of it. Amusement flashed through his eyes at her blatant appreciation. She shrugged and turned away. She never said he wasn’t pretty, she merely said she didn’t want him around.

Ricky’s lips twitched. “Maybe I should have told him you sit alone and pine for him every night over your scotch.”

“Very funny.” Pure panic shot through her at his words. If Thomas even suspected she missed him, she’d never get rid of him.

The bouncer unlocked the door to let in the crowd and Ricky smiled. “Showtime. Here, I’ll play the first one for you.”

“This is for our resident Walker,” he announced into the microphone. The familiar strains of a song about a wayward hunter blared from the system. She sashayed her way back to the table.

Seamus intercepted her when she went for a chair and pulled her into his lap. She giggled despite her efforts not to.

“The usual?” the waitress asked when she got to the table.

Juliana shook her head. “Simon here will have a rum and Coke, light on the rum. Seamus and I will have a very large pitcher of beer and a bottle of tequila. The good stuff. Salt and lime, please.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “I’ll put it on your tab.”

Normally, Juliana ordered scotch, rarely more than one glass and sometimes a beer. But tonight she was ready to forget. Forget about the arrogant vampire that broke her heart and watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking. And forget about her friend playing host to a demon. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go after Nathaniel. The fact that she’d get herself killed if she went after him without being fully healed was the only thing that stopped her. Besides, she promised Jeremiah she wouldn’t go after him by herself and there was no one she was willing to put at that kind of risk. At least no one that was answering their cursed phone.

The waitress came back empty handed, her cheeks red. “I’m sorry, Jules. Mr. Kendrick says you’re going to have to come pick the order up yourself and sign for it if you want it on your tab.”

She was proud of herself for not snickering at the Mr. Kendrick bit. Please. “No worries, not your fault.” She patted Seamus’s leg. “Come on. You’re going to have to help. I can’t carry that on my own.” She’d left the sling at home, but her arm still wasn’t strong. It hadn’t been vanity that made her leave it behind, it was self-preservation. Wounded animals were easy prey.

Seamus lifted her off his lap and set her on the floor. They wove through the crowd to where the order waited at the end of the bar. She signed the slip next to it. Warm fingers wrapped around her wrist when she reached for the tray. She ran her gaze up the line of the long, lean arm and found herself looking into Thomas’s pale blue eyes. “Can I help you?”

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

Of course he did. She thought about refusing. Thought about telling him where he could shove his conversation, but it wouldn’t do any good. He always got what he wanted in the end. She turned to Seamus. “Take this back to the table. I’ll be along in a minute.”

“You sure?” he asked, eyeing Thomas. When she nodded, he bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek before grabbing the tray and heading back to the table. She swore she heard him whistling as he walked away. She shook her head and turned back to Thomas to find him scowling.

“What is that?” He flicked a hand toward Seamus’s retreating form.

“That is a Seamus. But I gathered you already met.”

“If you could call it that.” His eyes narrowed. “He’s very protective of you.”

“Friends are like that. Besides, I think he was just offended by your arrogance. That tends to happen around you.”

“I am not arrogant.”

“You are exquisitely arrogant. Every movement of your body, every thought that crosses your mind screams that you will be obeyed by everyone below you. And that list includes the entire population of the planet and probably some of the outlying ones as well.”

He leaned toward her, his gaze intense. “You are mistaken, Joya. I never once thought you beneath me. Even when you were a child on the streets.”

He meant the words. She could tell and it made her uncomfortable, put her in a place where she wasn’t sure of her position. She handed him the slip for their order, leaned on the counter behind the bar and crossed her arms over her chest. He looked down. A muscle in his jaw twitched. She followed his gaze and saw Nathaniel’s claw marks a fresh, vivid pink against her pale skin. He stepped back and opened the little door behind him.

With a sigh, she walked into the storeroom. He followed and shut the door, locking it behind him before slipping the key in his pocket.

“That won’t work if you’re trying to keep me from leaving.”

He blinked at her. “It’s to keep them out, not you in.”

“What do you want, Thomas? My date is waiting.”

“Don’t call him that,” he snapped. He started pacing the floor. “A Walker, Juliana? Are you insane? What possibly could possess you to become a Walker?”

He wanted to talk about her profession? Fine. She could do that. She shrugged. “I’m good at it. Really good.” She might not have sought out her job, but the words were true. For the first time in her life, she’d found something she excelled at. Something that was hers.

He gestured to her arm with an upturned hand. “I can see that.”

He was so quick to tear her down. To assume she couldn’t do her job, that she wasn’t any good at it. He didn’t know anything about her and he was basing her ability on the one injury he could see. “I’d like to see how you fare against a demon-ridden werewolf.”

He turned to face her in slow motion. “A what?”

She stalked across the floor and stopped mere inches from him. “This is what I do, Thomas. Like it or not I don’t need your approval and I sure don’t need your permission.” She paused for a moment to let that sink in. “And setting your cursed Council on my ass won’t do anything except piss me off.”

Thomas grabbed her arms and pulled her against his chest, his mouth crushed into hers. His lips devoured her, demanding a response. Her body ignited, her will melting in the heat. As much as she hated herself for doing it, she leaned against him, opened her mouth, swept her tongue into his. He moaned, a guttural, primal sound and she couldn’t remember when she’d last heard anything so sweet. The kiss gentled as their tongues twined around each other in an intimate dance. One they still remembered all the steps to.

His hands slid from her arms and down her back, leaving a burning trail in their wake. With one swift motion, he grabbed her ass in both hands and pulled her against him. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Recalling how well they fit together, she rocked her hips against him. The pressure of his heavy heat against her core drew a gasp from her. Her face flamed but she was far from embarrassed.

At her sound of pleasure, the kiss became urgent once more. His long fingers dug into her backside, pressing her even tighter against him. The seam of her jeans rubbed against her, the pleasant pain making her want him that much more.

He released her lips to lay a trail of feather-light kisses from her mouth to her neck and played with the pulse point there. Teeth scraped skin and her heart skipped. He chuckled. “I’ve missed you so much, Joya. So very much.”

She started to tell him that she’d missed him too, to beg him never to leave her again. The thought reminded her why she was supposed to be resisting him. Why she didn’t want this no matter how much her body and her heart might argue with her. She twisted her head away, put her hands on his chest and pushed. He didn’t budge. “Let go.” She tried to sound firm, but didn’t know how convincing she could possibly be since she was still panting.

Her hands still lay flat against his chest, but she applied no pressure, waiting for him to do as she asked. After a moment, his hands fell away. She stepped back and turned from the confusion on his face. Her heart throbbed, begging her to return to her mate. Back to his arms where she belonged. Other parts of her were begging as well, but for reasons far less wholesome.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She shoved the churning emotions down, determined to ignore them. It wasn’t fair that she should feel guilty because of him. He was the one that left. “I can’t do this,” she said. “Not with you.”

* * *

“But you can with him?” Thomas hated the pain that threaded through his words. Never in his long life could he remember ever wishing he was anyone but himself. He’d wished it multiple times over the past few days. Every time she turned that smile on someone else, every time she laughed for them, every time he thought about her in someone else’s arms.

“Him?” she asked.

Were there so many she couldn’t narrow it down? “Yes, that giant whose lap you’ve been sitting on since you came in the door this evening.” And Michael. There was always the knowledge of Michael touching her, making her writhe with pleasure festering in the back of Thomas’s brain. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t hold it against them. That promise was becoming harder for him to keep the longer it took her to come back to him where she belonged.

She gripped the edge of a box, her back to him, her shoulders tight as she dropped her head. “You can’t just show up after seven years and step back into my life like you never left. It’s not fair.”

The fact she failed to answer the question didn’t escape his notice. “You have no idea how hard it was to walk away that day. To stay away.” Everything had been for her. So she could live the life she never could have tied to him. He may have hurt her when he left, but every day that went by without her reaching out to him had killed a little piece of him. He’d stayed away until he could bear it no longer and now that he’d returned she never ceased to remind him that she didn’t need him. Didn’t want him.

Finally she turned to face him and crossed her arms over her chest like a shield. “So why did you?”

“You wanted time. You asked for space. I gave it to you. I gave it to you in spades.” It had become a familiar refrain over the years and was far better than admitting the power she held over him. The power she could use against him.

“I was twenty years old. I hadn’t even had a day to adjust to the idea of us yet and you were talking about presenting me to the Council. About my new position in the coven. I was scared.”

Scared didn’t begin to cover it. She’d been terrified, the emotion so heavy in the air that day, it had been a palpable thing. That’s when he realized what he’d taken from her with his own selfish desire to have her tied to him for an eternity. When she asked for time, it gave him the opening he needed to give her a chance to live her life without him in it. Even if only temporarily.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath then looked at him again. “You left me. You took everything from me.”

“I left everything for you. My money, my home, my coven. It’s all yours. It always has been.” He pushed both hands through his hair. “I gave you what you wanted. As much as it killed me to do it, I gave it to you. I only wanted you to be happy.”

“Yeah, my life’s been a regular carnival.” She sighed. “You just left me, Thomas. You left all of us. They assumed I was no longer under your protection. I assumed that. You left me alone under the authority of a vampire who resented my connection to you from the moment you brought me into the coven. There was no protection there for me. No home.”

“Always with the damn secrets,” he snapped. He took a moment to tamp down his temper before continuing. “What happened, Joya? What aren’t you telling me?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Thomas. Not anymore. It’s done. And you weren’t there to stop it.”

Her words stabbed through his heart like a stake. He had failed her. He knew this now, but he didn’t know how to fix it. If he could fix it.

She stepped past him to the door and ran her fingers over the lock. “You abandoned me over some throwaway words. I can’t take the chance you’ll do it again.”

That wasn’t going to happen as he wasn’t ever leaving her again. “If I swore I wouldn’t?” When she didn’t respond, he placed his hand over hers on the knob. “Don’t answer me now. When you’re ready, we’ll talk. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’ve got to get back to my friends,” she said. He hesitated then dropped his hand. She opened the door and walked out.

When the door shut behind her, he slumped against the box behind him and ran a hand over his face. His mind tried to make sense of just how everything in his life had gone to absolute crap. A few days ago he thought he had it all under control, that his actions had all been for the best. That his mate would see that and understand.

If he could just get her to listen. Since they didn’t seem to be able to stay in the same room together for more than five minutes without fighting he didn’t see that happening any time soon. Fighting or shoving their tongues down each other’s throats, he amended. He much preferred the latter. He ran a fingertip over his lips, the feel of hers still lingering. She was his. Her heart knew it. Her body knew it. Now he just had to convince her mind. He smiled. This was going to be fun.

Chapter Eight

“I’m going to kill him.” Juliana growled and slammed her glass on the table. “I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to dump his twice dead corpse in the deepest darkest hole I can find.” Her drinking companions snapped around in their chairs to see what had set her off. Thomas pulled the storeroom door shut behind him. His hair was tousled, his black T-shirt half pulled out of his pants. He looked far less composed than he had when she left him minutes before.

He made a show of tucking in his shirt and running his hands through his hair to fix it. More than one bar patron glanced at her before leaning over to their companions and spreading the rumors. Why didn’t he just brand her and be done with it?

Simon arched a brow in disapproval but Seamus howled with laughter. She scowled at him but that only made him laugh harder. “Oh, he’s good. I’ll give him that.” She wanted to smack him, but gave him credit for knowing Thomas was playing the crowd.

“A gentleman would have put himself to rights in private,” Simon said.

“A gentleman wouldn’t get it on in the back room,” Seamus responded.

She glared at them. “Nothing happened. Not a damn thing.”

Simon suddenly stood and held out a hand with a grin. “Dance with me?”

She studied him a moment trying to remember the last time she danced. “Why not?” she said, taking the hand.

He pulled her out to the middle of the floor. They squeezed between sweaty bodies and tried to find a spot where they wouldn’t be trampled. Her head swam from the heat and the three shots of tequila she managed to down. He found a spot and turned her to face him.

Closing her eyes, she swung her hips to the music. She entwined her arms above her head, ignoring the twinge of pain that accompanied the motion. Hot hands ran up her arms, entangled fingers with hers. They pulled her arms down and wrapped them around her middle. Pulled back against a firm torso, she molded to the body behind her, knowing without looking it was Thomas.

“You called to me from across the room, Joya. I could not resist,” he said, his breath warm against her ear. A tremble ran through her as he began to rock with the music.

She opened her eyes to see Simon backing away with a nod and a crooked smile. He was abandoning her. Damn him. She tightened her fingers on Thomas’s and turned her head so their lips were a whisper away from each other. “Providing more fodder for the rumor mill?”

His lips twitched. “I can’t help myself. You bring out my possessive tendencies like no one else. I just want them all to be aware that you are unavailable.”

She tugged on his hands and he released her waist without argument. Her brain railed at her for not disagreeing with him. For not insisting she didn’t belong to him. Turning, she looked up at him and tried to make sense of the cacophony of emotions screaming for attention. The truth was she did belong to him. She always had. And how she hated it.

She shook her head, turned away and made her way back to the table where the twins waited. Exhaustion blindsided her. Too much emotional drainage for one day. It must have shown on her face because Simon piped up. “Let’s get you home.”

Home was the last place she wanted to go. There was no one to spend the night with but her own paranoia. The boys would sleep over if she asked, but she wasn’t ready for that level of humiliation. And Thomas...well, it would be better if she kept her thoughts—and her libido—from going down that path.

Thomas stepped in front of them, stopping them before they took two steps toward the door. She waited for him to say whatever it was he had to say. “My sister called me. She said you weren’t answering your phone and she has a...code four, I believe she called it.”

A code four meant Sara’s daughter Rachel was asking for a visit from Auntie J. As late as it was, the girl was probably still awake.

Seamus pulled Juliana’s phone from his pocket. He’d put it there for safe keeping after he confiscated it at the house. “Sorry,” he said with a shrug and handed it over.

She scrolled through her three missed calls. They were all from Sara.

While she was sure the twins wouldn’t mind accompanying her to Sara’s house, they’d done their duty for the night. “Take me home, I’ll ride my bike to Sara’s.”

Thomas arched one thin brow. “You’ve been drinking. And you’re injured.”

“I don’t like leaving you alone. Maybe Thomas should drive you,” Simon suggested.

She narrowed her eyes at him as Thomas said, “I’d be happy to take you. I need to see my sister anyway.”

Simon shook his head. “Don’t you look at me like that. You’re not fully recovered and you know it. And I’m sure the vampire would be better to have around than us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Seamus grumbled.

Despite his brother’s protest, Simon had a point. Thomas was a trained fighter with centuries of experience. Not bad backup to have on hand. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

Still glaring at him, she motioned for him to hand over the belongings she’d given him earlier. She might have been off duty, but she didn’t go anywhere without her badge and gun being close by. Her sword tended to draw more attention that she usually cared for in public when she wasn’t working. Besides, her arm still wasn’t in good enough shape to use it. She slid the badge over her neck and tucked the gun into the back of her pants after making sure the safety was on. It wasn’t her preferred way to wear the weapon, but it was better than waving it around the club.

She said goodbye to the boys then snagged a handful of Thomas’s shirt so she wouldn’t lose him in the crowd. Thomas reached back without breaking stride. He unwrapped her hand from his shirt and held it in his. When she tried to pull away, he stopped and tugged her against his side so he could talk next to her ear. “You’ll ruin the silk. It’s my hand or my belt loop, whichever you prefer.”

She didn’t think either was a particularly wise option, but kept hold of his hand and let him lead her out of the bar. He still refused to let go when they reached the parking lot. He grinned at her over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

She rolled her eyes and fired up her gift so nothing could sneak up on them in the dark. Pain flared through her skull with the action and she did her best to ignore it. A temporary pain was better than a permanent death. A glance at Thomas showed him bathed in a sheen of lavender and blue. He was brighter than he used to be, more powerful.

He let go of her hand when they got to the car and he noticeably dimmed. She frowned. It was a physical representation of their union. Just her touch made him more powerful. It was also a reminder of why she couldn’t trust a word he said.

When Thomas asked her to be his life mate, she said yes because she loved him. She asked for time because she wasn’t sure if he wanted her or the power she brought him. Something about the two of them being together made their abilities stronger. She’d first noticed it a year or so before their union. About the time Thomas started seeing her as more than a smart-assed pain in the neck. She was too smart to think the timing was entirely coincidental.

She reached out and touched his hand again and the signature flared. She repeated the experiment two more times with the same result. He flared brighter than he used to. Time had apparently made their effect on each other stronger or their union had increased their power more than she thought.

“Finished?” he asked, laughter in his voice.

Heat flooded her face. She grumbled and slid into the car while he held the door for her. He chuckled and went around to his own side. As soon as he started the car, she rolled down the window.

“You’re not sick, are you?” He cast a fearful glance around the interior of the car. No doubt he already regretted offering her a ride.

“Calm down. I had like three shots. I just don’t like being cooped up,” she told him. It was the reason she had a motorcycle. That and the ability it gave her to dodge traffic. Resting her head next to the window, she studied the darkness. Cold, sharp air stung her nose when she took a deep breath. Cooling relief flooded her lungs.

A flash of color at the edge of the parking lot stole her breath and straightened her spine. Purple-blue with swirls of black. A vampire tainted by dark magic. She hadn’t seen a signature like that in years. Seven to be exact.

Oblivious to her discovery, Thomas pulled out of the space and she lost sight of it.

“Stop the car!” She threw open the door as Thomas slammed on the brakes. Springing out, she looked back to the shadows where she’d seen the blaze of color. Nothing. She spun in a circle, searching. Still nothing.

She could have walked across the parking lot to where she’d seen the flash of color. She should have if for no other reason than to see if a trace of the signature remained. But she really didn’t want to know. The realization that she didn’t have the courage to move closer to investigate filled her with disgust. When had she become such a coward? Jumping at shadows, hiding from swaths of color in the night?

“What is it?” Thomas looked at her over the top of the car.

She hesitated a moment before shaking her head slowly. “I thought I saw something. I must be more tired than I thought. I couldn’t have seen what I thought I did.”

They got back in the car and sat in silence. She was sure Thomas wanted an explanation, but she had none to give him. Her hands began to tremble and she closed her eyes, forced herself to breathe. Thomas wrapped his hand around hers, helping her find her center.

She found it difficult to believe she’d imagined Raoul despite what she said to Thomas. Fate wasn’t that kind to her.

Raoul had been a black mage before his sire turned him into a vamp in medieval Spain. He was one of the last mages turned. Not that anyone had been brought over since the Rending. The Council forbade it. But the ban on mages came long before that. Mages lost most of their ability during the transition. More than one had gone mad when they found themselves with only a fraction of their former power. A feral vampire with magical abilities, no matter how minor, wasn’t something the Council wanted to deal with.

Raoul was the only vampire she’d ever met whose signature was tainted with black magic. It made no sense for him to be here now, though. Michael and she had been hunting him for years with no luck. He wouldn’t return now, not with Thomas here.

Even Raoul wasn’t that stupid.

Chapter Nine

They arrived at Sara’s house and Juliana climbed out before Thomas had a chance to go around and open her door. He bit back a curse and reminded himself she was capable of opening her own damn door. Even though she shouldn’t have to. He put his keys in his pocket and started up the front walk.

“This way.” She gestured with her hand for him to follow and went around the side of the house. After a glance at the front door, he followed. She tapped lightly on a door and opened it. He was right behind her, but hesitated before crossing the threshold. It had been years since he’d been in his sister’s home. It was possible the wards would no longer accept him. There was only one way to find out. He took a deep breath and stepped into the house. Once he was sure he’d set nothing off, he exhaled in a quiet sigh.

Sara sat at the table, a coffee mug wrapped in her hands, her dark hair piled on top of her head. Her eyes widened at seeing Thomas and Juliana together.

“She’s in her room,” Sara said to Juliana. “She might have given up, but I doubt it. She’s persistent when it comes to you.” She shifted her gaze to him. “Can’t imagine where she gets that from.”

That was his sister, ever so helpful. He watched Juliana leave the room and waited until he heard her steps in the hall above before speaking. “I’d say we’re overdue for a long conversation, you and I.”

She nodded once and stood. “Let’s go to the living room. We might as well be comfortable while we yell at each other.”

Thomas smiled at that. He had no intention of shouting at his sister. She may be several hundred years younger than him, but she should know him well enough to know that he rarely lost his temper enough to yell. And when he did, it was normally at Juliana.

“Sit.” He gestured to the sofa and went to stand by the window.

He turned to face his sister. “Before we discuss anything else, you should know that Juliana and I are United.”

Her spine straightened and she twisted her hands in her lap. “When did this happen?”

“The night before I left.”

In the silence that followed his revelation, Thomas listened for sounds from above. Juliana was still in his niece’s room.

“I can’t believe neither of you told me, especially her,” she said, accusation in her voice, though he didn’t miss the hurt that colored her words as well. “Why doesn’t everyone know about this? It’s not like you to not publicly stake your claim.”

“The next morning she asked for time. I gave it to her.”

She snorted a laugh. “That’s why you left? You’re an idiot.”

He shook his head. “You know me better than that.”

“Then why did you leave? When I think about what she went through...”

He moved to sit beside her on the couch. “Tell me. You’re both keeping secrets. I need to know.”

Sara locked eyes with his. “Not until you tell me the real reason you left.”

He raked his hands through his hair. What to tell her? She wouldn’t believe any lie he came up with. Perhaps it was time to admit the truth. Sara wouldn’t see his actions as a weakness, and if she did, so be it. She wasn’t likely to use it against him.

“I did it for her,” he said, dropping his head into his hands. “She was so scared. Terrified. I could taste it in the air. Feel it through our connection. I didn’t know what to do. Then she asked for time and I realized that I’d had mine. Centuries of it, in fact. She was barely twenty and I’d tied her to me for an eternity. I was so incredibly selfish.”

He sighed and leaned against the back of the couch. “I knew I couldn’t give her permission to experience life without me. And I couldn’t stay here and watch her do it. The only way she was going to get that opportunity was for me to leave.”

His hands fisted where they rested on the cushions beside him. “And then I return and she wants nothing to do with me.”

“You’re here aren’t you?”

“I didn’t really give her a choice.”

Sara snorted a laugh. “Trust me. If she didn’t want to come with you, she wouldn’t have. Even you can’t make her do something she doesn’t want to.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

“Yes,” Sara said simply without further explanation.

Things had changed while he’d been gone if his sister truly thought his bride was a match for him. “I’ve come back for her. I’m tired of waiting to claim what’s mine.” He sounded like an overbearing asshole, but he couldn’t make himself care.

He was tired of playing, pretending he was okay with whatever Juliana wanted. And it was time she found that out for herself. As she no doubt was since she was listening from the stairwell. Did she really think a vampire as old as he wouldn’t know precisely where she was in the house at all times? Hopefully she would stay hidden until he got some information out of his sister.

Sara didn’t say anything for a long moment. She closed her eyes and shook her head before focusing on a picture of Rachel and Juliana that sat on the other side of the room. “She sat in your room for two days waiting for you to come back, call, anything. When you didn’t, she came here. I was at work. James was the one who let her in. She was like a zombie. He told me later it was one of the scariest things he’d ever seen, that blank look on her face. Like there wasn’t anything of Juliana left in her.”

Thomas frowned as his sister got up and began to pace. She stopped after a moment and looked out the window. Her voice softened. “She lay on that couch for a week. She didn’t move, didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. She didn’t do anything but leak red tears from her eyes. Finally, at the end of the week she broke down into these heart-wrenching sobs. I thought she was dying from grief, but it seemed to be the catalyst that brought her back.”

He knew she’d be hurt, confused even. Never did he imagine his departure would affect her so deeply. Then he realized what his sister had just told him. “Red tears? The dark fae cry red tears when—”

“Their hearts are broken,” she finished and turned to look at him. “That’s what you did to her when you left, Thomas. You didn’t give her a chance to live her life without you, you forced her to live it without you and I think she’s hated every second of it.”

“There’s something else. Something you aren’t telling me. Either of you.” His voice was quiet as he leaned forward on the couch to study his sister.

“There’s a lot I’m not telling you. If I’d known you were United, I might have, but I can’t now. You’re back. She’ll have to tell you herself when she’s ready.”

Damn it. They were running out of time. He wasn’t sure how far Juliana would let this go and the moment his sister realized they had an eavesdropper the conversation would be over. “I need to know, Sara. If she won’t tell me, you have to. What am I missing?”

“I swore I wouldn’t tell you. I was so angry with you for so long, it was an easy promise to keep. I blamed you for most of it, thought about telling you just to hurt you the way she’d been hurt. Lately though...” She turned back to the window.

“For what it’s worth, I came back.”

“And how’s that working out for you?” she asked with a smile.

He grunted. No doubt she already knew the answer to that question, but he answered anyway. “Not well. She is not the Juliana I left behind. She’s changed.”

“Dying will do that to a person.”

Thomas’s heart literally stopped in his chest. “Dying?” His voice cracked.

“Yeah. Twice that I know of, but she keeps things from me so I won’t worry.” She said it so nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t really that important at all.

Juliana stepped from the shadows at the bottom of the stairs. “Three times actually,” she said with the shrug of one shoulder.

A strangled noise came from the back of his throat. Again with the acting like it was no big deal. What was wrong with the women in his life? “Three times?” He looked at the fresh scars on her arm. “Don’t you think you should be in a hospital somewhere? Or at least in bed?”

She frowned. “I didn’t die yesterday. Just almost.”

Almost. Yes, that was so much better. She just almost died. He laughed, realizing he sounded half-crazed but unable to help himself.

Juliana shook her head then turned to his sister. “No worries. Rachel was asleep. I heard everything. I would have stopped you if I didn’t want him to know. He’s got to earn the rest though.”

Relief smoothed the lines around Sara’s eyes and she nodded. Getting caught spilling secrets had spooked her. Thomas wouldn’t get anything else out of her.

“It’s time for me to go home,” Juliana said and opened the front door.

“Wait,” he and his sister said almost in unison. Juliana ignored them and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her.

“I need to go after her,” Thomas said. “Thank you for telling me what you did. It’s more than I knew.”

“You knew she was there, didn’t you?” his sister asked.

“I knew, but I needed to hear it and so did she. Neither of us are very good at talking to each other.”

Sara studied him for a moment. “At least you know it, I guess. Go after her.”

He opened the door.

“Thomas,” she said stopping him.

He looked over his shoulder.

“Take care of her this time.”

* * *

Perhaps it was stupid of her to wander out into the dark by herself considering everything that was going on, but she didn’t care. She would rather face both demons by herself again than spend one more moment in that house. She had to get away. She couldn’t face the questions Thomas would have. Not right then.

If he was sincere with his sister about the reason he left, she had some thinking to do. Not that it excused him leaving without explaining, or asking her what she wanted.

Part of her regretted letting Sara tell Thomas how much she grieved when he left. She’d hoped he would realize she never intended for him to leave completely. She never wanted that, but his temper and ego got the best of him. Or so she’d thought. His words were playing on an endless loop in her head. Had he really left to give her freedom? She’d never known Thomas to do anything that didn’t benefit him in the end. She couldn’t see how this did.

The night wind wrapped around her as she walked toward home. Goosebumps rose on her arms, reminding her that she didn’t have a jacket, or even sleeves for that matter. She rubbed her arms roughly with her hands in an attempt to warm herself. After a few moments she gave up, letting the cold sink into her skin and numb her.

A car approached and she willed herself to blend in with the shadows. To not be seen. It had never worked in any of her twenty-seven years, but there was a first time for everything.

The car slid to a smooth stop a short distance in front of her and the passenger door opened. She arched a brow thinking of how many bad horror movies she’d seen that started just like this—the kind vampire pulling over to pick up the lonely hitchhiker. It always ended badly for one party or the other. She considered ignoring the car and walking past, despite the welcoming warmth that seeped from its interior.

“Please.” Thomas’s voice was low, with no demand in it. Just a plea. She couldn’t deny him. She slid into the car and shut the door. “Thank you,” he said but didn’t look at her as he pulled away from the curb.

She kept her eyes locked on the scenery passing her window and let herself stay lost in her thoughts. A dull ache formed in her chest and she rubbed it with her hand as she wondered for a moment if she was going to cry. Then she realized the feeling wasn’t hers. She glanced at Thomas. His eyes stayed locked on the road in front of them, his knuckles white where he gripped the wheel. Every muscle in his body was tight. She could almost hear his teeth creak as he gnashed them together.

Picking up each other’s emotions was just one of the many joys of being United. Her shields were iron tight, and usually so were his. Evidently he’d let them slip. “Thomas.” That was all she said. Just his name.

The car jerked to a stop. Slowly, by degrees, the depression faded.

His hands still gripped the wheel and he looked straight ahead. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She let the silence stretch, uncertain if he was talking about the sorrow he’d transmitted or something else.

“I shouldn’t have come back. Not without talking to you first.”

“That might have proven difficult, as I would have just hung up on you.”

He ignored her attempt to lighten the mood and started driving again. When he stopped in front of her house, she didn’t move. After a while he said, “I never dreamed my leaving would bring you such pain. I knew you’d be upset, but not heartbroken. I hoped only that you would realize that you desired me, wanted me as much as I did you. That we were meant to be together. It never occurred to me that you could already be in love with me.”

“Did you really think I agreed to be tied to you for the rest of my life because I wanted to get laid?” She tried but couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

He reached out his hand but pulled back before he touched her. “I reacted without thinking. I did what I thought was best for the both of us. I thought if I left you’d experience life and come around to the idea of us faster. But I never heard from you. I finally resolved to swallow my pride and come back whether you wanted me or not.”

She stared at him, her jaw slack with disbelief. “Thomas, I called you. Over and over again, I called.”

He went utterly still.

“Every day,” she said, not believing he didn’t know. He had to know. “I called all day, every day for a week. Someone else always answered. The last day I was informed in no uncertain terms that regardless of what I fancied myself to be to you, you did not wish to speak to me and it would be better for everyone involved if I just gave up.” She left out a few of the other things the female stated, mostly because she had no desire to know if they were true. “That was when I broke down on Sara’s couch and vowed never to call you again. No matter how much I might want to. I figured you’d call me if they were wrong. You never did.”

He turned to her, eyes pure black with rage. “Who was it that told you this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some girl. Does it matter?”

“It shall matter very much to them if I ever find out.”

“Surely something you said or did must have given them the idea you were through with me,” she insisted.

He shook his head. “No, I was wallowing in self-pity. They were told not to disturb me except for items of the utmost importance. Namely you.”

She sighed. “And why would they think I was important?” She hadn’t so why would they? He’d never understood just how disliked she was by a good portion of the coven. She was an outsider, an invader. For the most part that changed when she killed Raoul’s lackeys. Oddly enough, it proved she was worthy to be among them. Or some crap like that. She didn’t really care anymore.

“They knew how I felt about you. I made it very clear.”

“And most of them resented my existence. They are vampires, Thomas. You know as well as I that unless you specifically told them to put my calls through, they weren’t going to do it.”

“I did,” he yelled and she cringed from the sound. If that was true, gods help whoever it was if he ever found out. No one disobeyed a direct order from Thomas Kendrick. Well, except her. And Sara. Thomas slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

She sat for several moments without moving or speaking. She spent years convincing herself that she hated him for leaving her. For abandoning her to the monsters. He broke her heart, but the remaining pieces still loved him. As much as that sucked, she couldn’t help it.

He turned dark eyes on her. “What else aren’t you telling me? What secrets are you keeping?”

“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?”

He snarled, revealing fully extended fangs. “You and my sister think it’s so amusing to play with me. To push me to my limits. You always have. I need an answer, Juliana.”

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath before answering. “And I need you to remember that it’s not me you’re pissed at right now. Get yourself under control and maybe we’ll talk. Good night, Thomas.”

* * *

She swung her legs out of the car and her feet thudded against the pavement in the quiet of the night. She took a deep breath as she stood. A piercing, mournful howl cut through the dark causing a cold chill to run up her spine. It was a distant sound, well faded by the time it reached her ears, but her eyes searched for its source out of habit. That’s when she noticed two things.

First, the spot where her bike usually stood was empty. There was no sign of it anywhere. Second, no light shone inside or outside the house. She glanced across the street behind her. Even the lone street light that offered relief from the darkness on her block was out. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Kids were always busting it with rocks or bullets depending on their level of criminal maturity. Combined with the events of the week and the utter lack of illumination from her house however, it was disconcerting to say the least. She wrapped a hand around her gun and readied it.

Chapter Ten

Juliana took a couple of steps toward the house and paused, searching the shadows for any movement.

“What is it?” Thomas asked from just behind her.

“The house is dark,” she answered. “It’s never dark.” The porch had a dusk-to-dawn light and one of the lamps in the living room was on a timer. Never mind the nightlights in the hallway and bathroom. Growing up in a vampire coven had cultivated a paranoid dislike of the dark in her. She wasn’t afraid of it per se, just of what it might be hiding.

“The breaker?” Thomas asked, ever the voice of reason.

It was too coincidental that it would trip when she wasn’t home. She didn’t believe in coincidences. “Anything’s possible, but the streetlight’s not attached to my power supply and it’s out, too.”

Thomas glanced at the light in question. Tension tightened his shoulders. He turned back and gave her a small nod.

She rolled her shoulder and flexed her arm, testing her injuries. Not healed but good enough.

“I will be accompanying you to the door, Juliana. I will brook no argument on the matter.” His voice was hard. She had no doubt he would have ordered her to stay in the car if he thought it would do any good.

She shook her head. “You’re not accompanying me anywhere. You’re going around and coming in the back.”

He rested a hand on her spine and placed a chaste kiss on the back of her neck. “Be careful,” he said in her ear and then he was gone.

She fired up her gift but saw nothing other than the signatures of a couple of small animals. Most likely rats knowing the neighborhood. She crouched down, moving low to the ground. When she reached the door, she stood to one side and tried the knob. Locked. A twitch of her fingers and it gave way. She threw open the door.

Peeking around the doorframe she saw nothing except one bright lavender-blue signature down the hall by the back door that hung crookedly from one hinge. Thomas. He tilted his head in question.

“Door to your left. The box is on the back wall,” she told him.

He moved so fast his signature was a blur of color. Seconds later the nightlights flared to life and she shut down her gift. She didn’t need it to see the disaster that used to be her home. She flipped the switch on the wall next to her.

Thomas appeared back in the hallway, the lines at the corners of his eyes drawn tight with worry as he looked around at the destruction. “Were they looking for something?”

She grunted. “Yeah. Me.” Her house hadn’t been searched, it had been demolished. Claws shredded her couch, tore into the walls. Large claws. She was going to be hard pressed to find anything salvageable. She walked through the living room, stepping over things in her way and doing a mental inventory of everything that would need to be replaced. The tally made her head spin and she wondered how much she could get the Agency to pick up. Surely this would count as work-related destruction.

She laid a hand against the burning pit of her stomach. The sanctity of her home had been violated. This was her space, her life. It wasn’t much but it was hers. No, not someone, a demon. A demon powerful enough to tear through the wards that protected her home as if they were paper. She was so screwed.

A well-placed kick sent a speaker bouncing off the wall. It wasn’t as if anything would be in worse shape from her abuse. She might as well take the opportunity to vent some frustration.

Digging her fingers into her hair, she pressed them into her scalp as she ran them back and down to her neck. She huffed out a breath and dropped her hands then headed across the hall to her office. Her sword still hung above the front door and appeared to be the only thing untouched. She ran a finger along the length of it as she passed.

The office looked no better than the living room. In fact, it might have been worse. Every article of clothing she owned was destroyed, shredded. She didn’t look too closely at the clothes by the dresser, content in her ignorance of what had been done to her undergarments.

She went down the hall to the bathroom. Her mirror had been struck, leaving a spider web of cracks behind. Carved into the wall beside it was one word, Pup.

“Pup?” Thomas asked, appearing in the door behind her.

“Nathaniel.” She choked on the word. “They call us hounds, right? The first time they assigned me to work with Nathaniel, he was mad. Said I was more puppy than hound. Granted I was young and untried. I wouldn’t have been happy either in his shoes. When I proved myself to him, showed I wasn’t going to be a liability, he turned Pup into a nickname instead of an insult.”

“Nathaniel?”

“My demon-ridden werewolf.” Her heart froze for a beat and panic scrambled inside of her as she remembered the one thing Nathaniel knew that no one else did. She pushed Thomas aside. Running down the basement steps, she jumped the rail at the bottom. A bloodstained block was set in the wall behind the stairs. She laid her hand against it and closed her eyes. “Let me pass.”

The wall shifted, making a hole big enough for her to walk through. She held her breath and stepped into her sanctuary. She released it only when she saw that, at least here, nothing had been disturbed. Thomas walked up behind her but she didn’t look at him. She ran her eyes over everything, making sure all was in place. The wall to her left served as the armory. In front of her, there was a portable closet, her workbench and supplies. To her right stood the only bed in the house.

If Nathaniel was still strong enough to hide this place from the demon, there was hope she could get him through this. She started pulling things from the shelves to her left and piling them on the workbench.

* * *

Thomas watched her move around the room. He arched a brow at the impressive arsenal. Perhaps that was why she lived in this hovel—she spent all of her money on weaponry. “Not that I can fault you for making sure you are well protected, but if you accessed my accounts you could have had a nice home, as well. In a better neighborhood. Where people don’t break in and destroy your house.”

She flicked her hair out of her face and glared at him. “I live here because I choose to. If I wanted to live somewhere else, I could. Without any help from you.” She picked up a knife and looked it over before tossing it on the bed. “And my house is heavily warded. Nothing should have been able to get in here without my permission.”

“I felt no warding.” He’d have to make sure his personal wardsmiths came over to set new ones once her house was put to rights. Obviously the ones she could afford weren’t up to the task.

“Because it stripped them all.”

Which it wouldn’t have been able to do if the wards were set properly. There was no point in discussing it further with her. He didn’t need her permission to see she was taken care of. He eyed the bed where she was laying out her belongings. “This is where you sleep?”

“Not unless I have to. That’s what the couch is for.”

He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. Anything to deny him. Her bed in his home was dressed in silks and satin and she would rather sleep on a couch. “And your werewolf? He knows about this room? How to get in?”

She nodded.

Never once did she stop gathering her things. “You can’t stay here.” It was obvious she was planning on going somewhere but he had to say it. Had to be sure she wasn’t that stubborn.

She grabbed a small silver flask from a drawer and proceeded to fill it with a bottle of Irish whiskey sitting along the back edge of the table.

“What are you doing?”

“Blessed flask.”

He blinked at her. “Aren’t those intended for water?”

“Yep.” She grabbed two more flasks from a different drawer, pocketing one and handing him the other.

She snatched a duffel out of the bottom of the closet and loaded the weapons into it. When she finished she tossed fresh clothes from the closet onto the bed. “I need to change.”

He studied her for moment, thought about telling her it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before and wouldn’t see again. But his bride deserved better of him. He faced the wall. “You aren’t going after him tonight. You need rest.”

She stepped past him and out of the room. Black adorned her from head to foot. In one hand she carried her bag and in the other a leather trench coat. It was warm for the duster, but one never knew when a weather mage might conjure up a cold snap.

The wall shut behind them. She dropped her things at the top of the stairs and retrieved a sword from above the door. It was a beautiful piece of weaponry. Thomas couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen its equal.

“I’ve got to call this in. And I am going to look for Nathaniel. You can argue or you can come with me. Your choice.” She grabbed her bag and headed out the back door.

Thomas took a deep breath. His bride was not hunting a demon-ridden werewolf. Especially while she was still recovering from an injury. He was also certain that she hadn’t stopped for a moment to absorb what had happened since she walked in the house. He followed her to the back porch and turned her to face him. He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Breathe, Joya. Just breathe. Calm yourself.”

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened them, his heart clenched at the plea he saw there. “Please.”

That’s all she said. One word. He didn’t even know what she was asking, but she asked. Unable to deny her, he said, “I’m here. Whatever it is you wish.”

She nodded once then turned her head so he was forced to let go. Stepping away from him, she pulled out her phone. A scowl marred her features and she reached back in the house and flipped the light on. Several dark shapes dotted the lawn. It took him a moment to realize they were pieces of her motorcycle.

* * *

“Cursed demon,” she muttered and turned the light back off so she wouldn’t have to look at the destruction any longer. She turned on her gift so she could see if anything tried to sneak up on them. Not that it would be any help with the demon, but it made her feel more secure.

She called Ben’s cell phone. “It trashed my house.”

“Wasn’t it warded?”

“Of course, it was warded. It was warded up the ass. If they went off, they didn’t do anything to deter them. I think the demons shut them down.”

“You better come in. I’ll tell Doc to get a bed ready for you.”

“Find somewhere else.”

“I’m not sure there is anywhere else.” His tone was distracted and she knew he was running through a mental list of all the beds in the Agency.

“It doesn’t matter.” She waved a hand through the air in impatience. “Figure something out. The bike’s in pieces, too. I’ll call when I need a portal.”

“I’ll send one now.”

“Not yet. I’m going after Nathaniel.”

“Damn it, Norris.” Ben paused, probably calming himself so he didn’t scream. “I’ve already got enough people crawling all over me because of you. Come in and get some rest. You said you wouldn’t go after him for twenty-four hours. Actually I believed I ordered you not to.”

All the more reason to do it. “I’m fine. Besides, I’m not alone.” She hung up. The phone began to vibrate. She ignored it and looked at Thomas, daring him to deny her.

He opened the passenger door with a bow. “Your carriage awaits.”

Chapter Eleven

Thomas started the car and looked at Juliana for direction.

“Just drive,” she told him. Since it wouldn’t help her find Nathaniel, she shut down her gift. She’d already used it much more than she should have in the past couple of days.

“Should I assume you have a plan, or is that too much to hope for?” Thomas asked after she directed him to turn for the fourth time.

“We’re driving around hoping to run across a demon. Is that a plan?”

He sighed. “No. That’s more of a vague idea.”

Her phone vibrated again. She pulled it out. Jeremiah. “Talk to me.”

“You promised you wouldn’t go after him alone.” His voice was tired, strained. She didn’t know if that was because Ben woke him up or if dealing with her wore him out.

“I have no idea where he is, Jeremiah. Not a clue. What good would it do to have half the Agency roaming around with me. I was going to call if I found anything. Besides, I’m not alone.”

“Ben said as much, but as I am at home and Nathaniel is...incapacitated, who are you with?”

She glanced at Thomas who tried to look like he wasn’t listening but failed. “My vampire.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile that quickly disappeared.

“Your...you are with Thomas Kendrick?”

“That would be the one, yes.” It wasn’t as if she went around claiming a lot of vampires.

There was a long silence. “Very well. The vampire will suffice. Just be careful. I had another reason for calling. Someone reported a 1062 in Devil’s End.”

That made her pause. “No one ever reports anything in the End.”

Thomas turned around and headed back in the direction they’d come from.

“That’s why I’m passing it along,” Jeremiah said. Devil’s End was the rundown and desperate part of town and it was far closer to her house than she liked to admit. She was going to have to move in a few years if the borders kept creeping out. She’d live near the End, but she wasn’t going to live in it.

“What’s a 1062?” She never could remember the codes.

“Rogue shifter,” Thomas and Jeremiah answered in unison.

She arched her brows at Thomas, wondering just how he came to possess that bit of knowledge. “Set up a perimeter around the area. Keep it wide and tight. Call in the locals if you have to. I don’t want to risk losing him again and I don’t want anyone going in there with guns blazing either. I’m the primary. Please advise them not to shoot the vampire either.” She hung up the phone and turned in her seat to study Thomas.

“What?” he asked when she just continued to look at him.

“Would you care to tell me how you know Agency code?”

He slid to a stop alongside a curb just outside the borders of the End. “I am a very old vampire, Joya. I know a great many things.” He climbed out of the car and stood beside it with the door open.

“That didn’t answer my question,” she grumbled. With a sigh, she followed him into the darkness.

She reached in the back, pulled out her bag and dropped it on the trunk. He scowled, but she ignored him and unzipped the bag. “What do you want?”

He reached under the driver’s seat and came up with a gun identical to hers. It wasn’t a coincidence. Thomas taught her to shoot and bought her her first gun. It was still the one she was most comfortable with. He also dropped something around his neck. Something that looked very much like a badge. She studied it more closely. Correction...something that looked exactly like a badge. A star with eight points, to be exact. He was a Warden of the High Order. The blood drained from her face. “Are you kidding me?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “No, Joya. I have been with the Order for a very long time. It will cause fewer problems for you if I am here in a somewhat official capacity, will it not?”

She nodded but was still stunned. The Wardens traced their origins back to Stonehenge. An intimate group whose purpose had always been to keep the Altered from discovery. After the Rending, that purpose had shifted to more closely mirror the Agency’s purpose without the government involvement. Freelancers with connections all over the globe, they worked with all branches of law enforcement and government, both human and Altered. Among the Altered, the Wardens were the ultimate authority though the humans still thought it was the Agency. And if it came down to a public dispute, the Agency did supersede the Order’s authority. Later, when no humans were watching, the Wardens would impose the Order’s justice.

Leave it to her vampire to be a Warden. Shaking her head, she turned back to her bag. She pulled out one clip of blessed ammo and one clip of silver ammo for each of them. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed his over. No matter the reasoning behind it, she was still outfitting them to hunt one of her friends. Sometimes she really hated her job.

She cleared her throat. “Don’t bother with the silver unless I tell you it’s not Nathaniel. He’s immune.”

Thomas’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “A werewolf immune to silver? How does that happen?”

She smiled. “Cursed.”

He paused for a moment. “You know the most interesting people.”

She slid her sword onto her back, adjusting it until it rested comfortably. After a quick check that she had everything, she zipped up the bag and tossed it back into the car.

“Where should we begin?”

She glanced around and drew her gun. No matter how skilled the person with the sword, a gun was still more intimidating to most people. “I don’t hear any screaming. I suppose that’s a good sign. Start walking. The person that called it in will find us, or we’ll find the shifter.”

Her gift brought searing pain with it this time. She ignored it and moved quickly down the street, Thomas right behind her. When they neared a cross street, she pressed against the corner of a building and leaned over to see around the edge. Halfway down the block a large hairy figure with no signature was leaning over something in the street. The distinctive sound of rending flesh had her swallowing the bile that burned its way up her throat.

Pulling her head back, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Her gift had served its purpose so she shut it down. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her courage. She could do this. She had to do this.

“What is it?” Thomas said next to her ear.

She opened her eyes. “Chewing. You hear it?”

He nodded once, his face grim.

She stepped out, raising her gun to point at the dark figure before her. “Walker. Stop what you’re doing and put your hands up.”

Nathaniel froze. Slowly he turned his torso to face her. His growl reverberated through the night making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Blood saturated the fur on his muzzle and chest and dripped in steady drops to the pavement below. Tissue clung to the teeth he bared as he snarled. There was nothing of her friend in the creature before her. She only hoped there was a little of him left inside.

The demon reached down, grasped something in its claws and lifted it. Though it was difficult to tell, she thought it was a length of intestine. The demon lifted it and shoved it into his mouth. His eyes never left hers as he started to chew.

“Okay. That’s just gross.”

The demon snapped its jaws at her and growled again. Thomas fired two shots from her left and hit Nathaniel in the chest. He rose to his full height. Arching his back, he howled in rage. He spun and jumped over the body. A couple of buildings down, he leaped up a fire escape before disappearing onto the roof. There was no way they were going to catch him. But she had to try.

“Damn it.” She slammed her gun back into the holster. She took off after her prey, keeping the spot where she’d last seen him in her sights. Just before they reached the fire escape, a figure stepped into view. It was gone just as quickly. It was probably the other demon, but if it was he’d found a new host. Just what she needed. She fired up her gift and stumbled a step when the pain tore through her brain.

Thomas caught her arm to steady her but she shook him off and went up the fire escape. The impact of her feet on the metal rang through the night air like a siren announcing her presence. The vibration of each step ran up her body and into her head, intensifying the pain. She was panting by the time they reached the top.

Thomas shoved her sideways before she even had a chance to get her bearings. If he’d been half a second slower, the headache wouldn’t have been a problem anymore. Bullets connected with the short brick wall behind them. He wrapped himself around her, protecting her. She strained to see around him, to get a glimpse of their assailant.

The shooting stopped, presumably so the gunman could reload. Thomas pulled her to her feet and hauled her behind a large air conditioning unit that offered more coverage. As they went, her eyes snagged on a patch of purple-blue smudged with black in the night. It couldn’t be. Thomas released her to ready his weapon and she scrambled out into the open.

Yes. There it was. She shut down her gift. In the half-second it took her eyes to adjust to the darkness again, he raised the gun. Raoul hesitated as their eyes met. It was the face she’d seen a million times in her nightmares. Only now, the entire right side was missing, melted off. When had that happened? And how?

“Juliana,” Thomas hissed and tugged her back against his side. He shook her. “Juliana! What is wrong with you? What is it?”

She shook her head. Here was her chance to finally get the man she’d been hunting for seven years and she was frozen like a fairy in a troll pod. She shoved down the fear that clawed at her insides looking for purchase. Pulling her gun out, she rolled to the side prepared to fire. He was gone.

No. No. No. She pushed herself to her feet and ran to where she’d last seen him. Nothing. She fired up her gift without thinking. Pain like an ice pick to the brain doubled her over. Liquid warmth flowed from her nose and she tasted the coppery tang of her blood. Through narrowed eyes she scanned the dark, but he was gone. She’d had her chance and she’d lost it.

She locked her gift down but the pain receded only enough to allow her to function. She swiped a hand across her face to get rid of the blood and turned on Thomas. “Why did you shoot him?”

* * *

Thomas eyed the blood smeared across her porcelain skin and trickling from her nose. “You can’t be serious. And why are you bleeding?”

She brushed aside his concern with a wave of her hand. “That’s not important. Why did you shoot him?”

His bride was an intelligent woman. She should already know the answer to that question. “He was eating someone.”

“It’s not like the guy was still alive. And now Nathaniel got away.”

She dug her phone out of her pocket.

His eyes narrowed and his teeth clenched. “He threatened you.”

“He was at least ten feet away.”

“And you really think it would be that difficult for any werewolf, let alone one hosting a demon to leap that distance before you could think of reacting?” She opened her mouth to protest and he shook his head. “Don’t. Just don’t. I will not justify my actions to anyone. Especially when it comes to your protection.”

“Jeremiah, it’s me. Any sign?” She paused for the answer. “Let me know.” She put the phone away and walked past him and back down the fire escape. He watched until she disappeared below the edge of the building. Damnable woman. He hurried after her. “And what was that on the roof? You nearly get your head shot off and you thrust it back into the line of fire. For what?”

“I thought I recognized the shooter,” she said as she hopped off at the bottom. She didn’t stop until she got back to the victim. He followed along behind her at a slower pace, mulling over her words, trying to remember if he’d gotten a glimpse of the person trying to kill them.

“And did you?” he asked when he reached her.

She glanced up but said nothing. It was answer enough. She did and she wasn’t going to share with him who it might be. “Talk to me, Juliana. What is going on? And why are you bleeding?”

A hand shot up to her nose and she seemed surprised to find the blood still trickling. He stepped closer to her and used the edge of his shirt to wipe the blood away. She looked at him a minute and then dropped her head, breaking the connection. “I’ve used my gift too much.”

He’d all but forgotten about that gift of hers. And he was an idiot for doing so. No wonder she was a full-blown Walker, risking her life in the field every day. They would never waste a talent like hers behind a desk.

Thomas shifted his attention to the body at their feet. It was a male. His throat gaped open in what was probably the killing blow and most of the stomach was gone. They always started with the stomach.

Juliana pulled out her phone which had no doubt vibrated to alert her to a call. “We’ll be right there,” she said after she listened a moment. “They found both demons. We’ve got to go.”

He put a hand on her arm to stop her. “There are two?”

“Yes. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No.” His lips were a tight line. “You’ve been rather single minded about your wolf.”

“The other one’s smart and communicative. At least fifth level.”

“And they are connected how?”

“They’re working together. It’s how Nathaniel got the jump on me.”

His eyes locked on her new scars. “So you were not injured because you were reluctant to hurt him?”

“I’m not an idiot.” Thomas refrained from commenting. His bride was a very intelligent woman, but her actions far from reflected it sometimes. “Was that the shooter?”

She shook her head and looked at him a long moment before answering. “It was Raoul.”

His blood chilled. “Why is Raoul trying to kill you?”

“Actually I have no idea. Usually it’s the other way around.”

This was the heart of her secret. But he didn’t have time to get into it now. The demons weren’t going to wait for them forever. “We should go.”

Chapter Twelve

Cold night air enveloped Juliana as she walked through the streets of downtown New Hope searching for their quarry. Her glasses hid the glow of her eyes as she used her gift. Demons weren’t the only things hiding in the night. She’d snagged a stack of gauze from a medic and kept it pressed under her nose. She was going to have to shut down soon or she’d fry something. Thomas searched the rooftops above her head. She left him to it. She had enough to worry about without double-checking his work.

As she scanned signatures, she looked for one in particular. If Raoul was smart he left town the moment he realized she’d seen him. Unfortunately, intelligence had never been one of his strengths. She still couldn’t figure out why he was here, what he wanted from her.

Their prey had been followed to this area but they’d been searching for half an hour with no luck. She’d just made up her mind to call Thomas to join her when a plaintive howl cut through the night. Her breath caught. Nathaniel. It had to be. She needed it to be.

She tried to pinpoint the sound, but the echo from the buildings made it impossible. Thomas joined her and gestured to the northwest. On the roof he hadn’t had the same problem with the echo so it was easier for him to target the source. They took off at a run.

Thomas looked surprised as she kept pace with him. She couldn’t maintain the speed for as long as he could, but for a while she could match him step for step. She grabbed his arm to pull him to a stop a few blocks later.

She sniffed the air. As Thomas watched her, his fangs slid out and his eyes darkened in anticipation of the fight. They crept forward, keeping to the shadows of buildings. They used her nose to track the demons, leaving her feeling a little like a bloodhound. A giggle floated from the upper reaches of a building across the street. Her gaze shot up to find two dark forms devoid of signatures crouching next to each other on the roof. She shut her gift down and wiped the blood away from under her nose again.

She pressed on her earpiece and conveyed their location.

“How should we go up?” Thomas asked, pitching his voice low.

She kept her eyes locked on the demons and shook her head. “We’re not going up. They’re coming down.”

The demons would know they were there without her announcing it, but she stepped into light anyway. She slid the sword from the sheath on her back.

For a moment, all was still and then they came. The small fae flew to land lightly on the ground while Nathaniel leaped from landing to landing on the fire escape. They stood twenty feet away, staring them down. Thomas stood motionless beside her and she forced herself to be patient. To wait for them to come. Her pulse raced and her breathing quickened in anticipation. This was the part of the job she lived for. The part she was good at.

“Hello again, Juliana Norris. I see you still live. How...fortunate. Your blood smells delicious,” the fae said.

Somehow she didn’t think “thank you” would be an appropriate response, so she said nothing.

“If you think I’m going to let you have her, you’re mistaken,” Thomas said.

“Very well, Thomas Kendrick. You will both die eventually anyway.” The fae smiled revealing rows of pointy teeth. Thomas ran forward to meet it as it charged. Nathaniel stood entranced by their battle. She took the opportunity to slip her sword back in its sheath so she wouldn’t be tempted to use it. She wanted to kill the demon, but she needed to keep her friend alive. What she needed to do now was get Nathaniel’s demon away from its more powerful counterpart. She took a deep breath and whistled to get the demon’s attention.

He glanced in her direction but quickly turned back to the fight. She whistled again and patted her thighs. “Come on, boy. Come on. Come get me.”

His head snapped in her direction. He snarled, drool dripping from his mouth to the ground. Instead of waiting for him to charge, she bolted down the alley to her right. Relief flooded through her when she heard paws padding against the pavement. She never thought she’d be happy to have a demon chasing her.

She pressed on her earpiece. “Is Kennedy High still in use?”

“I think so,” Jeremiah answered.

“Good. Have a squad meet us there. Don’t use portals. I don’t want to scare him off.”

Kennedy was built next to a multi-denominational worship house. When the school needed more room, they offered to buy some land. Someone on the board of the church realized they’d make more in the long run if they rented out the land instead of selling it outright. Part of that expansion included a pool. A pool that sat on holy ground that was resanctified weekly.

She’d tried to lure a demon there before. It hadn’t ended well for her or the host. It would be different this time. There was no alternative.

Someone screamed in frustration behind her, but she didn’t stop. Saving Nathaniel was too important. Besides, it had to be the fae that screamed. Thomas wasn’t the screaming type. She wove through streets and alleyways, always just steps ahead of the demon-ridden werewolf.

A weight hit her back just as Kennedy High came into view. She flew to the ground and slid across it from the momentum she’d built up. Thick claws dug into her back and she yelped in pain. She couldn’t let this happen. Couldn’t let the demon get the best of her. She bucked, trying to get out from under him, but he held on, refused to be moved.

“Get off me you cursed mutt!” She pushed against the ground with all her strength, twisting as she did so. He fell to the side as her movement knocked him off balance. They crouched, sizing each other up. She eased her hand to her belt and grasped the flask of holy water. She flipped the cap off with her thumb.

With a flick of her wrist, she splashed the contents onto Nathaniel. He fell back with a howl and she took off for the school again. It bought her enough time to get a small lead on him. When he started to chase her again, she was even more convinced Nathaniel’s demon was low-level.

Low-level demons worked on rage, thought only about what they wanted at that precise moment and what they needed to get it. They weren’t thinkers or planners. All the demon in her friend knew was that it wanted her, so it followed. It never crossed its mind that she might be leading it somewhere.

At the school she fumbled with the chain on the door, finally found the padlock and unlocked it. She let the chain fall to the ground as she yanked open the door of the school and ran inside with the demon right on her heels. Fortunately a werewolf in hybrid form looked like the wolfman from all the old horror movies so he had paws and claws, neither of which were good for traction on linoleum floors. She gained a little more ground, put a little more distance between them. The layout for the school was easy to recall and she headed straight for the pool.

She slid into the room and ran to the far wall. Bending over, she put her hands on her knees and panted while she tried to catch her breath. Her head throbbed, her vision blurred. Damn demon. Nails clicked in the hallway outside the room and she drew her blade. Pressing her back against the wall, she let all the fear she felt for Nathaniel, for Thomas, and even for herself come to the surface. The scent of it would bring the demon right to her.

It scrabbled into the room and slid to a stop when it saw her. It sniffed the air, then crept forward. She didn’t have to fake her yell when it launched itself at her. Heavy paws pinned her shoulders against the wall. Snorted breaths fanned the hair around her face. Her lip curled at the rancid smell. It pressed its full weight against her body and she suddenly knew a lot more about her friend’s anatomy than she cared to. The demon seemed to be hesitating and she wasn’t sure why, but she intended to use it to her full advantage.

“Sorry, Nathaniel.” She brought her knee up in one quick motion, putting all her strength and speed behind it. The demon howled and released her shoulders as it bent over in pain. Dropping her sword, she used both hands to push the demon toward the pool.

The creature was in the water before it even realized what happened. She arched her back and rocked forward on her toes to keep from following it into the water. Ignoring the howls and screams coming from her friend, she turned her back on the pool and pulled the other flask out of her pocket. As she filled her mouth with the whiskey, she walked back to the wall. She put the flask away and bent to retrieve her sword from the floor.

The horrible sounds stopped just as she turned to face the pool. Nathaniel, completely human again, was half out of the water with his back arched at an impossible angle. He opened his mouth as if to scream and black mist poured from his mouth. It collected in a cloud above his head, hanging in the air for a moment before sweeping toward her.

When it was a yard away, she spit the whiskey, spraying the cloud. A high-pitched keening filled the air and her blade flashed red as it sliced through the cloud. Once, twice, three times. “Go back to whatever dark god you came from,” she said with a growl that would have made Nathaniel proud if he was coherent enough to hear her.

The keening grew louder, higher pitched until pain lanced through her ears. She belatedly threw her hands up to cover them. The windows behind her imploded and she dropped to the ground, hunching her shoulders in an effort to protect her head. Tiny shards sliced her skin as they flew past. Finally, the cloud fell to the ground in a fine powder.

She stood, wincing at the pain that wracked her body and pierced her ears. Her equilibrium off, she stumbled to the side a bit. She pulled a flask of water from her pocket and used it to drench the ash. That wasn’t supposed to be necessary but there was nothing wrong with being cautious. The demon dealt with, she turned her attention to its former host. She found him floating face down in the water. Panic lodged in her chest and made it hard to breathe.

“Oh, hell no. I did not just save your ass from a demon so you could drown.” She dropped the sword and snatched the communicator out of her ear.

* * *

Thomas came through the door just as Juliana dove into the pool. The elemental was right behind him. Other agents surrounded the building. All the windows were shattered, the broken glass littering the floor crunched under his feet as he hurried to the side of the pool to help his mate with her friend. She looked surprised when Thomas lifted the wolf from her grip and passed him off to the elemental.

Thomas came back, grabbed her hands and lifted her out of the water. She staggered to the side and grunted in pain. The sweet scent of her blood flooded his senses. Even as his heart skipped a beat in worry for her, his mouth flooded with saliva. It had been a long time since he’d tasted her, so long.

Juliana turned to check on the wolf and Thomas caught a brief glimpse of her back. It was enough for him to see that was the source of most of the bleeding. The wolf coughed and Thomas glanced over to see the elemental had him rolled on his side. Given Juliana’s relaxed stance, he assumed she’d done what she’d intended and freed her friend of the demon.

His bride stumbled away from him. He reached out to help, but she righted herself before he reached her. She kept her back turned from them as she slid her sword into its sheath. As if she could hide an injury like that from him. Thomas clenched his jaw but forced himself to be patient. They would take a portal directly from here to the infirmary and she would be taken care of.

She bent to retrieve her blade and stumbled to the side again. “Are you okay?” he asked. Juliana didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge he had spoken. Instead, she was examining a dark smudge on the ground. “Juliana? Joya?” This wasn’t just her ignoring him, something was wrong.

The elemental called for a portal with the earpiece. “What’s wrong with her?”

Thomas shook his head and headed across the floor toward her. She turned as if sensing his approach. That was when he noticed the thin line of blood running from her ear. He reached out and wiped it away with his fingertips. Holding out his hand, he showed her the smear. She shrugged. His mate had obviously shattered her eardrums and she was shrugging. Gods grant him patience.

“Did you get the other one?” she asked at a volume just short of yelling.

No, he hadn’t. The damn thing had eluded him. Its single-minded fascination on escaping him to get to Juliana disturbed him. It had tried several times during the course of their battle. Of course, after he ripped one of its arms off, it had lost interest in her and focused on surviving. It took off in the opposite direction and he went after Juliana.

Given the fact that she most likely couldn’t hear any of that even if he was to explain it, he just shook his head. The portal opened and Thomas took her arm. She twisted out of his grip. Cursed woman. Fine. Let her fall on the wet cement and broken glass.

Three men came through the portal to assist with the wolf. Once they were cleared away Thomas and his bride moved to follow. When he was certain she wasn’t watching, he placed his fingers in his mouth. The exquisite nectar of her blood coated his tongue, entered his system, throbbed through his veins. It fed the blood magic that sustained all of his kind. It thrummed within him, making him stronger. One drop of her blood was like a liter of anyone else’s. He closed his eyes to savor the sensation.

“Gods, Thomas, get a move on,” his mate yelled and grabbed the front of his shirt to haul him through the portal.

Chapter Thirteen

Juliana sat on one of the beds in the infirmary, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Her head hurt so bad it made her teeth ache. One of the medics kept running disinfectant over the wounds on her back. If there were any germs left in there, they’d earned the right to stay at this point. Thomas, Jeremiah and Ben carried on a conversation of which she was not a part because she couldn’t hear a cursed thing they said. It was getting old and she was getting paranoid.

Doc was giving Nathaniel a complete workup on the other side of the room. He hadn’t woken up yet. She let the scrubs top she’d been holding up for the medic fall and hopped off the table. He must have protested because the men turned to frown at her. She grabbed Thomas’s arm and dragged him into a small room off to the side, slamming the door behind them.

She let go of his arm and moved farther into the room to put some space between them. “I can’t stand not being able to hear. It’s driving me nuts. I’m not yelling am I?”

He shook his head and stepped toward her.

“How long till I can hear?” she asked.

He held up two fingers, then three.

“Two or three hours?” That wasn’t so bad. She could handle a few hours. Maybe.

Thomas put a finger under her chin and lifted it so she focused on him. He shook his head.

It took her a moment to get what he was telling her. She gaped at him. “Two or three days?”

He put a finger to his lips and glanced at the door. She knew she’d been yelling. She thought she was entitled. There was no way she could go that long without her ears working. A high-level demon still lurked out there somewhere. Not to mention Raoul. She needed everything functioning the way it was supposed to if she was going to make it through this alive. She ran a hand through her hair.

“Fix it.” It was more a question than a statement. She’d beg if she had to.

His brow furrowed and he frowned, confused.

“Give me some blood. Just enough to fix it,” she pleaded. He started to shake his head but stopped when she added, “Please?”

After a moment of studying her, he walked to the door. Tears welled in her eyes and she hated herself for it. She didn’t want to ask this man for anything, let alone beg. Yet here she was doing just that and he ignored the sacrifice.

He flipped the lock on the door and turned back to her. Her pulse sped in anticipation when she realized he wasn’t abandoning her again. She swiped a hand across her eyes, removing any trace of tears. Putting his hands on her waist, Thomas lifted her to sit on the counter that ran around the edge of the room. She closed her eyes and savored the contact.

His warmth seeped into her skin, penetrating to the very core of her. She’d missed that more than anything else about him. The way he made her feel protected, the way he took care of her. She wanted to wrap herself in him and never leave the embrace of his arms. There were times like this when she was so utterly tired of being strong, of pretending that she could handle the world on her own that she became tempted to let him rescue her. He was the only one that ever cared enough to take care of her. That’s why it broke her heart when he left.

He laid a hand against her cheek and she looked at him. There was a question in his eyes and she shook her head. He didn’t need to know that she was feeling sorry for herself. After a moment more, he took a step back and pulled out a pocketknife. He opened it and handed it to her hilt first.

Seriously? He wanted her to cut him to get the blood? Nope, wasn’t going to happen. “Can’t you just put it in a glass like Tony does?”

Thomas’s features sharpened in anger and his eyes darkened. Grabbing her chin in his hand, he turned her head to the side. He leaned in and sniffed along the side of her neck. Her pulse sped and her breath hitched but it wasn’t from fear.

His tongue flicked out to taste her skin. A tremble wracked her body. Their eyes locked. Heat flashed in his, a mirror of her own desire. At least she wasn’t the only one affected.

He leaned his forehead against hers for a moment then stepped back to pull his T-shirt off. Taut muscles worked with the motion. Only with great effort did she manage to keep her mouth from falling open. He was perfect, just like she remembered. Just like she dreamed.

Closing the distance between them, he wrapped her hand in his. Before she could think about stopping him, he ran the knife across his chest. Blood welled in the two-inch wound. His free hand pulled her head toward the wound. She wrinkled her nose then told herself to stop being ridiculous. Her tongue lapped the blood from his skin. A shudder cascaded through him.

This was too much, too intimate. When she tried to pull away, he held her head tighter. She knew what he wanted. Truth was, she wanted it, too. With a sigh of surrender, she laid her mouth against the wound and sucked, pulling the blood directly from his body. A ripple of lust ran through her with the sensual act. As angry and frustrated as he made her on a regular basis, she still loved him. Would always love him. Would always crave this intimacy with him.

She ran her hand up the length of his back, relishing the play of muscles beneath the skin. He released her other hand and the knife clattered to the floor. She laid her hand against his chest, anxious to feel more of him, to touch as much of him as she could. He ran both hands through her hair in a feather-light caress then dug his fingers into her scalp, massaging it.

“Yes, Joya. Take what I offer my love,” he said, his voice husky. Suddenly it occurred to her lust fogged brain she could hear him and she pulled back.

* * *

Juliana licked her lips and his eyes followed the movement.

“I can hear you,” she whispered.

“And I you.” He ran a hand down the side of her neck where her pulse thrummed wildly.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Thomas took the opportunity to slip back into his shirt. She wasn’t going to like what he had to tell her. He cupped her face in his hand again and she opened her eyes. “How much blood has Tony given you?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might. Just answer the question.” He stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know. A little here, a little there. Only when I was really miserable. He wouldn’t let me have too much, too close together. Why? He’s not in trouble is he?”

Thomas ran his hand down his face. Yes, his underling was in trouble, but not for the reasons she feared. “You don’t smell like Tony. You smell like me,” he said.

“Um...huh?”

Had he actually made her speechless? He’d long since given up hope it was possible. He straightened his shoulders, prepared himself for the reaction his next words would bring. “Tony hasn’t been giving you his blood. He’s been giving you mine.”

“Okay.” She drew out the word and pursed her lips. “How is that possible? You haven’t been around for years.”

The last thing he felt like doing was educating his bride on the intricacies of vampire hierarchy but she wasn’t yelling at him. As long as she didn’t start, he’d explain whatever she liked. “When I left, I had no intention of leading the local coven, but it’s still in my territory of course. Ordinarily the members of a coven take a blood oath with their leader and he in turn does so with me. The plan was that the coven members would take an oath to Raoul and he to me. But then Sara called and told me he wasn’t controlling the vampires as he should.” Juliana shivered. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just cold. Go on.” There was a lie in her words, but he left it alone. For now.

“There was no one else to take Raoul’s place. No one with enough power. Michael could have done it, but he has no interest in leading a coven. I kept control from a distance, but the only way for me to enforce it without coming back was for the vampires to maintain their blood tie to me. They came periodically to renew the bond. Tony was given a supply of blood to keep on hand so new vamps could be tied to me temporarily until they made the trip to see me.”

“Thomas, that’s really gross.”

He grinned. “How is that any different than what you just did?”

Her cheeks turned red. “It just is. I can’t believe you let all those vamps just...” She waved a hand in his direction. Was that a thread of jealousy he heard?

“They don’t. I put it in a glass.”

She blinked at him. “You’re a real bastard sometimes, you know that?”

He chuckled. “The fresher the blood, the more potent. It loses potency even in the short trip from my body to the cup. Besides, I thought I should get something out of the process as well.”

“You mean other than my improved wellbeing, of course.” More than a touch of sarcasm colored her voice.

“Of course, Joya.” He held out a hand. She took it and hopped off the counter. Bending down, he retrieved his knife, wiping the blood off on his jeans before folding it and putting it away. Taking her hand in his once again, he started for the door. She pulled him to a stop.

“Wait a minute. We don’t have a blood tie now do we?”

He tugged her against his side and looked down at her, shaking his head. “You swore no oath to me, mate. If anything, we will simply be more aware of each other, but it pales in comparison to our union. It is why Tony would not let you drink too often. He feared I would figure out what he was up to.”

“Do you care that he gave me your blood?”

“Not in the way that you mean. I would have preferred if you were going to partake of me it would have been directly from the source so to speak, but that no longer matters. I refuse to dwell in the past any longer,” he said. “Make no mistake, my love, the bond we share is far more powerful than a mere blood tie. Together we could be extraordinarily powerful if you would but embrace it.”

* * *

There it was. The truth she had been avoiding since he stepped back into her life. He chose her for the power she could bring him. She chose him because she loved him. It was the reason whatever this was between them would never work. And once more, her heart shattered at the reminder. She closed her eyes and stepped away from him. She kept her head down waiting for him to open the door.

Hot tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe them away, fearing the movement would draw his attention to them. She prayed to every god she could think of that they weren’t red. Only when it came to her heart did she ever wish she were human. Their hearts could shatter with no outward sign, hers could barely crack and those damn red tears would give her away every time. She double checked that the mental shield between them was firmly in place. Why wasn’t he leaving? Couldn’t he see she just wanted to get back to the other room?

A hand touched the side of her face and she opened her eyes to see Thomas crouched down to look at her face. “What is this?”

She tried to turn her face away, but he ran a thumb across her skin, collecting one of the tears. He pulled his hand back to look at it. For once the gods had listened and the tears bore not even a tinge of red.

“What did I say, Joya? What did I do? Tell me so I can fix it.”

She sniffed and swiped the tears away, angry with herself for letting him get to her again. “Forget it. It’s not important. Let’s go.”

“No.”

Her eyebrows arched up to her hairline. Ordering her around wasn’t going to help his cause any, but it did dry up her lingering tears. She crossed her arms over her chest to wait for him to decide what he wanted to do. She wasn’t going to help him out.

He narrowed his eyes as he studied her face, doubtless looking for some clue to tell him where he went wrong. His eyes widened.

“You don’t think...” He looked at her a moment longer. “You do. You’ve thought it all along.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yes, you are.” She stepped past him and reached for the door.

He grasped her wrist and turned her, pressing her back against the wall. He put his hands on either side of her, boxing her in. His head dropped forward so their foreheads touched again. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of him. Cinnamon and cloves, he always smelled of cinnamon and cloves.

“What I feel for you has nothing to do with power. It never has.”

She laughed so she wouldn’t cry. “How am I supposed to believe that? How can I possibly believe that?”

“How can you not?”

“The morning after we were United, you started talking about presenting me to the Council, about me ruling the coven. It was all about your power. Your prestige.”

“I talked about these things because I wanted you by my side and I wanted everyone to know you were mine,” Thomas insisted.

She shook her head in denial. “You wanted them to know so they would fear you more than they already did. Than they already do.”

He sighed. “Sometimes I forget how very young you are.”

She would have jerked away if she had anywhere to go. She hated when he acted as if she couldn’t possibly understand something just because she wasn’t centuries old. She must have tensed anyway because he said, “Don’t be offended. I didn’t mean it that way.”

He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and stepped back so he could look in her eyes. “I am an incredibly old vampire, Juliana. I have only gotten that way by being ruthless and self-centered. If I only wanted you for the power our union gives me, I simply would have taken you. I could keep you locked up in a cell in the house, pulling you out only when I had use for you.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, so emotionless, that she didn’t doubt his words were true. Rather, she didn’t doubt he’d try to keep her locked up somewhere. “Good luck with that.”

He tightened his grip on her neck to make sure he had her attention. “Do not doubt what I tell you. If you proved difficult, I could keep you drugged. Your cooperation is not needed to increase my power, only your touch. The very fact that I left should prove to you that I care for you.” His eyes remained locked on hers. “Step back from the situation. Imagine me as every other vampire you know. What would they do to get what they wanted?”

She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “I’ll think about it and I’ll try to quit thinking the worst of you, okay?”

He smiled. “I couldn’t care less about me. You need to quit thinking the worst of yourself.”

She gasped. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Or you wouldn’t find it so difficult to believe I want you simply because you are you.” He dropped his hand from her neck. “We’ll leave this conversation for now as the others are waiting, but we will return to it.” He led her back into the infirmary.

* * *

As soon as they entered the room, her boss and the elemental straightened from where they leaned against the edge of a bed, scowls marring their features. Juliana’s face flamed red and she took a step away from him. He arched a brow wondering where her mind was taking her. No one would think they’d been having sex in the other room. For one thing, they weren’t gone long enough. For another, he hadn’t made her scream. A smile crossed his face at the thought.

“As we were discussing before you two disappeared, did you witness the extraction?” The man’s voice was short and he sounded tired. “Knowing Juliana, there wasn’t a lot of finesse involved. The doctor still can’t get Nathaniel to respond. The more he knows the better.”

She frowned. “I’d like to see how much finesse you manage to have when you’re dealing with a demon-ridden werewolf.”

He gaped at her having heard them, accusation written all over his face. He knew Thomas had given Juliana the blood she needed to heal.

Thomas took his bride’s hand and squeezed it in warning before he spoke. This vampire was beginning to be a nuisance. Thomas needed to see who his sire and coven leader were. If they couldn’t get him in line, Thomas would do the job himself. “Unless I am mistaken, and I am not, the Council has yet to ban the exchange of blood between bed partners.”

The fact that Juliana hadn’t shared his bed in years was irrelevant. She was his mate, and that overrode everything else. Unfortunately, she still didn’t seem to want to share that information with anyone, so he was forced to talk his way around it. He glanced at his bride to find her face an even darker shade of red. She wanted to be healed. This was the price she had to pay.

Her boss looked between them. Finally, he dropped his head forward. “My apologies, my lord.” It was about time the man started to show the proper respect.

He turned to Juliana. “Walker Norris, please explain the process by which you extracted the demon from Walker West.”

The unexpected formality made Thomas frown.

“Well, I shoved him into a pool filled with holy water. The demon poured out of his mouth in cloud form. Not a lot to it.” Irritation sizzled under the surface of his mate’s voice.

“And how did you dispose of the demon?” The words were clipped.

“I sprayed it with a mouthful of holy Irish whiskey then sliced it with my sword,” she said. “It was a screamer. That’s how my ears got busted.”

The lesser vampire was visibly stunned. “Holy Irish whiskey?”

“Don’t ask,” the elemental said with a shake of his head.

She shrugged. “Holy water tastes metallic to me. The whiskey? Not so much.”

Her boss licked his lips and arched his brows. “May I ask why you felt the need to put it in your mouth at all?”

“Because I get a better spray that way, cover more mass. It’s not exactly convenient to carry a squirt bottle around.”

He stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. He started to pace. “I don’t understand why Nathaniel won’t wake up. We can’t find many injuries. Certainly nothing major.”

“Maybe he’s just tired,” she suggested. “He’s been running around in his half form for days.”

“The drugs they’re giving him should override any natural fatigue his body would be feeling. The brain scans indicate that only the deepest parts of his mind are active.”

Thomas cared nothing about the wolf, save he was Juliana’s friend, but he wondered at the wisdom of this modern medicine. What was the harm in letting a patient sleep, letting his body recover at its own speed? Currently a doctor was examining a range of machinery while another took the wolf’s vitals manually. A third sat near his head and held his hand. It seemed a lot of activity for someone that probably just wanted to be left alone.

“He’s hiding,” Juliana said, her voice quiet.

“What?” her boss asked.

“He’s hiding,” she said again. “He probably retreated into his brain when the demon took over and now he either doesn’t realize it’s safe to come out or he’s having trouble making the trip.” She made her way over to the group surrounding her friend. “Hey, Doc? What do the case histories say on host recoveries? I know you’ll have read them all by now.”

The doctor looked up with a frown. He cupped Juliana’s face in his hand and turned her head, shining a light in her ears. “Can you hear already?”

Her face burned again and Thomas chuckled. Knowing his bride, she was cursing her fair complexion right about then.

“Yep. All better,” she said, not giving any further explanation.

“Turn around so I can see your back.”

She turned so the doctor could complete his examination. The man lifted her shirt and ran fingers over the now unmarred flesh.

“This is incredibly quick healing, even for you. And there’s not even a scar.” When he continued to run his fingers over the skin, looking for any imperfection, Thomas made his way quietly to the other side of the room.

“Is there some way I may be of assistance?” he asked, stepping in front of them.

Juliana bit her lip and he could see the amusement in her eyes. “He’s the doctor, Thomas.”

He arched a brow. “Indeed. I assure you that you will find no trace of injury, doctor. My blood is rather potent.”

The man’s hand quit moving. “Your blood? But I thought... Oh, I see.” Finally, he lowered her shirt and stepped back. “I was merely checking on the welfare of my patient.”

“Of course you were, Doc, and I appreciate it. Now case studies. What do you know?” Juliana asked.

“Not a lot unfortunately.” He tugged on his goatee and leaned against the wall. “You know most of the hosts don’t recover. I’ve found three where the host came around completely.” He gestured to large, cluttered desk at the side of the room.

* * *

Juliana moved over to Doc’s desk and snatched up the papers on top of the pile. Three hosts all fully recovered. The first was a selkie from Alaska. He’d plunged into the Arctic Ocean after the demon left him and immediately came to. The second was a light fae that had been in the middle of a fire when the demon fled. The heat and flames had apparently woken the host up. And last was a human that fell off a building. By the time he landed on the jump cushion the fire department had set up on the street, he was himself again.

“We’ve tried cooling him down and heating him up to no effect,” Dr. Daniels said.

She nodded absently and looked past him to her friend. What did the three survivors have in common? Her eyes snagged on the defibrillator next to the bed and a slow grin spread over her face.

“A shock, Doc,” she said. “He needs a jolt.”

He frowned at her, his brow furrowed. His face smoothed when understanding dawned. “Of course. The cold, the burns from the fire, the jump. Brilliant. But don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” she asked.

“If we use the defibrillator it could stop his heart. Let’s try something a little less extreme, huh?”

She scowled. She hadn’t been thinking about actually shocking him. Well, not really. At least not without permission. The doctor came back with a large syringe and Juliana moved to stand by Nathaniel’s bedside.

“A nice jolt of adrenaline should do the trick,” he said. “A very nice jolt.” He said the last so low that Juliana barely heard him.

She cringed as he injected the liquid into her friend, but the doctor didn’t look her way again. His attention was all on his patient. “Come on. Come on.”

Placing her hand on Nathaniel’s arm she leaned slightly over him, her eyes searching his face, looking for any sign of him returning to them. Suddenly, his eyes flew open and he sucked in a breath. “Nathaniel?”

“Walker West?” Doc said from the other side of the bed.

Nathaniel’s eyes darted around the room in a panic, not focusing on anything.

“It’s okay, Nathaniel. You’re all right,” she said, squeezing his arm. “Everything’s okay now. Everything—” Her words were swallowed when her friend sat upright in the bed, grabbed her head in both hands and planted a huge closed mouthed kiss right on her lips. Juliana tried to pull away but Nathaniel had a firm grip and wasn’t letting her go anywhere. She started to laugh and so did he. He was back.

Then a hand was between them and Nathaniel was pushed back several inches though he still had hold of her head. “Wolf, you will remove your lips from my...Juliana. Actually, I would prefer it if you quit touching her at all.”

“Who’s the vamp?” Nathaniel asked her, amusement coloring his words.

“Nathaniel West, meet Thomas Kendrick. Thomas, Nathaniel.”

Her friend jerked his hands away from her like she was diseased. “Sorry, no offense meant. Strictly platonic.”

“Hmm,” was all Thomas said before moving back across the room.

Juliana threw her arms around Nathaniel’s neck. “I’m so glad to have you back.” When he just continued to sit there, she added, “If you don’t hug me back I’m going to kick your ass.”

“But you don’t know the look I’m getting right now,” he said in her ear even as he did as she instructed.

“He’ll get over it.” She released him and leaned back, looking him over. “And so will you. Promise.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Jules.”

“It’s what I do.” Seeing a medic hopping around behind her, she stepped out of the way so the girl could launch herself at Nathaniel. If Juliana remembered correctly Nathaniel and the girl had been out once or twice.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” the medic said as she all but landed in Nathaniel’s lap.

He grinned at Juliana over the top of the girl’s head. She stepped away to give them some privacy and felt an uneasy pang of jealousy. Warmth appeared at her back.

“We could have that, if you’d let us,” Thomas said.

“We’ll never have what they have, Thomas. For one thing, I know Nathaniel would never threaten someone just for touching her.”

“He doesn’t deserve her then.”

Hardly the argument she expected, his words sent a thrill of excitement racing through her. She couldn’t stop the grin that crept up. Amusement shone in his eyes. Somehow she’d forgotten this side of him. The playful sense of humor. She missed it.

“Besides, that was a kiss, not a touch,” he argued, his irritation evident.

She snorted. “That was not a kiss.”

“Then what was it?”

“That was him saying hello.”

“Well, he needs to learn to use words like everyone else.”

Her snicker turned into an outright laugh at Thomas’s amused grin. Thomas making fun of himself was almost impossible to resist. Tamping that thought down, she looked at Ben. “Where am I staying?”

“You’ll stay with me and Anna,” Jeremiah said before anyone else had a chance to speak.

She nodded her thanks.

“Those Neanderthals don’t live there, do they?” Thomas said in her ear. Her elbow caught him in the gut, her reward a small grunt.

“What’s wrong with your place?” Nathaniel asked.

She balled her fists and started forward but Thomas took her arm and steered her toward Jeremiah. “Stupid werewolf,” he muttered.

“We all need to get some rest,” Thomas said. “We still have another demon to hunt.”

Chapter Fourteen

The next morning Juliana sat on Jeremiah’s back porch, coffee in hand. Early morning fog blanketed the world, making it hard to see anything past the perimeter of the yard. Knowing the wards and protections on the property, she wasn’t overly concerned about what might be lurking where she couldn’t see. Anna came out to sit beside her. The weight of her gaze made Juliana squirm in her chair.

“Jeremiah says your vampire was rather protective of you yesterday. It seems to me you’re getting rather cozy,” she said finally.

The corner of Juliana’s mouth curled up. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it, though I don’t know that I’d ever call a vampire cozy. They aren’t teddy bears. Well, teddy bears with teeth maybe but definitely not cozy.”

Anna snorted. “Teddy bears with teeth, indeed.” She paused for a moment. “What about your particular vampire?”

With anyone else, Juliana would have given the first smartass comment that came to mind. Anna was different. Besides, she didn’t tolerate flippancy when it came to topics she considered important. “Cozy is the last word I’d use to describe Thomas or our relationship. Dark, dangerous, screwed up, destructive. Any of those would be more fitting descriptors.”

“For him or your feelings for him?”

“Either. To paraphrase our relationship...we had this intense powerful thing. When I asked for time to get used to the idea, he disappeared. Now he’s back telling me the past seven years were just as hard on him as they were on me.”

“Maybe they were,” she said in a soft voice. She met Juliana’s eyes for a moment and then turned her head to look out over the yard. “I’m only saying you should keep an open mind. You don’t know that what he says isn’t true.”

Juliana shifted her gaze to the dissipating fog.

“What aren’t you telling me, child?” Her voice was soft, a thread of comfort woven into it. “Did he hurt you in some way?”

She smiled her half-smile again. “Other than abandoning me and breaking my heart? Not really. I just find it hard to separate him from all the other crap in my life sometimes. So much would have been different if he hadn’t left. I wouldn’t change it. Not all of it anyway, but it’s going to kill him when I finally get up the nerve to tell him. I don’t want anyone else hurt by what happened. It’s over.”

“Does he have to know?”

Juliana gaped in surprise. Anna was the biggest crusader she knew for complete honesty in a relationship. She gave Anna the courtesy of thinking about her answer before giving it. “Yes. As much as I hate it, he has to know. It’s too big a part of who I am now.”

Anna’s smile brightened her whole face. “You love him then.”

She blinked, then remembered just who Anna was. A Celtic demi-goddess of love. “I’ve always loved him. From the moment I first saw him,” she answered truthfully.

Anna patted her knee. “All will be well. You’ll see.”

Juliana didn’t ask if that was a prophecy or a prediction. She preferred not to know.

Her friend moved to go back in the house, pausing when she opened the sliding door. “I’ll send Jeremiah out when he’s ready. You’ve got a lot of work to do.” She stepped inside leaving Juliana with the uneasy feeling she wasn’t talking about demon hunting.

Half an hour later, Juliana’s phone buzzed while she stood beside Jeremiah’s car, waiting for him to unlock the door. James. Maybe the Gathering had information on the book.

“What’s up?”

“I need you. Now.” His voice was sharp, hurried.

Fear straightened her spine. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve got an inkmage spiking spells off in a dozen different directions. He’s already knocked three of my best off the playing field.” He sighed. “That’s not all. I know this kid. I know his family. They play with forbidden magics. I’d have eliminated them long ago but I’ve never had any proof. I’m getting it today.”

“Where are you?”

She snapped her phone shut and rattled off the address to Jeremiah. It was smack dab in the middle of mage territory, the area surrounding the Apocryphan. The Apocryphan was the Gathering’s center of power for the entire region. And right at the top of all of it sat James. Because of various laws, regulations and treaties, the Agency couldn’t get involved in any mage business in that area unless asked for help or there was a threat to the general populace. And knowing James he had that place locked down tighter than a dragon’s horde. Which meant no portals in or out. As Jeremiah peeled away from the curb she filled him in on the details. “If James can’t stop him, what does he expect you to do?” he asked.

“He’s hoping the mage won’t be able to sense me since I’m not one. Not a practicing one anyway. Then he’ll distract the bastard while I put a bullet through his brain.”

Jeremiah’s mouth sat in a grim line. “Your rifle’s in the trunk.”

“It usually is.” She hadn’t worried about it because James would have one waiting for her. When her own weapon was available she preferred to use it, but she wasn’t picky.

Thomas awaited them as they pulled up to the perimeter set by James and his men. She wasn’t even surprised to see him. In fact, she was grateful he was here. She needed someone she could trust to watch her back. Not that Jeremiah couldn’t be trusted, but she spent as much time worrying about him as she did completing the assignment when he was with her. Thomas could take care of himself.

A misty green glow hovered in the air, a visual representation of the containment spell set by the Gathering. She pulled out her phone and dialed James. “Yeah?” The ragged voice that answered didn’t belong to her best friend’s husband.

“It’s Juliana. Who’s this?”

“Rickert.” One of James’s personal guard. “Boss is keeping him busy. Shield will let you through. Vampire, too.”

Rickert never wasted words. “Kendrick?”

A grunt was the reply.

“I’ve got a fire elemental with me, too.”

“Didn’t know about him. Can’t fix it now, no time. Leave him there.” After that pronouncement, he hung up.

She put her phone away and looked at Jeremiah. “Pop the trunk. You’re going to have to stay here. The shield will fry you. It’s only set to accept me and Thomas.”

Jeremiah didn’t look pleased but he merely nodded.

“How large is the perimeter?” she asked.

“About two square miles. Agency’s taking up position around it as we speak.”

James rarely shut down that much area at once. Things must be bad. She grabbed the rifle out of the trunk, loaded it and handed the extra ammunition to Thomas. “Let’s go.”

They stepped through the green and into the unknown beyond.

* * *

Thomas glanced at his bride. This was taking some getting used to, the idea that he didn’t have to protect her from every danger. That instead he could head into battle with her by his side. He’d seen her fight, and knew she was more than competent. It didn’t mean he wasn’t going crazy with fear at the thought that something could happen to her. But he knew her, knew if he insisted on keeping her locked up safe from the world, he’d lose her.

So he fell into step beside her, and let her take the lead. He kept his hands behind his back as they strode through the streets to help curb the desire to take the weapon from her. They approached an intersection and a mage stepped out of the shadows by a fire escape and gestured upward.

Juliana nodded once and headed up, keeping her footfalls as soft as possible. He stayed right behind her. She crouched low when she reached the top and hurried to the far side of the roof. After a peek over the wall, she glanced at him. “You’re being unusually quiet,” she said in a low voice as she prepared her weapon.

He watched the movement for a moment. “It is because I am afraid if I open my mouth the only words that will come out are ‘stop,’ ‘don’t,’ or ‘go home.’”

The corner of her mouth curved into a smile. “Guess it’s a good thing you’re not talking then, huh?”

He grunted but couldn’t help returning the smile.

“All right,” she said, rising to her knees. “Let’s just hope he never knows we’re here.”

She should really know better than to say things like that. As soon as they both looked over the wall to the scene below, the demon turned his head and locked eyes with Juliana. A feral smile split the man’s face and Thomas felt her shiver beside him. “Hello, Hound.”

She huffed out a breath. “It would appear our demon has taken over an inkmage.”

Thomas eyed the mage. Dark tattoos covered much of his visible skin. They shimmered with the unmistakable glimmer of magic. Another mage attempted to approach from behind and the demon muttered a word and gestured over his shoulder, casting the spell without even looking at the target. The would-be hero froze into a solid block of ice.

“Damn fool. I told everyone to stay back,” James said as he came up behind them. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “Glad you two are here. None of our spells are working. We’ve tried just about everything.”

Thomas glanced at his brother-in-law. Like most inkmages, tattoos covered the majority of his body. He even shaved his head to accommodate the tail of a massive dragon tattoo that covered his back. The same ice blue as his eyes, it was also a powerful protective ward. He was a good man to have on your side in a fight. “I would guess that’s because he’s not human. Not entirely anyway.”

“Demon,” Juliana added to clear up any confusion.

“You can’t be serious,” James said.

“Juliana Norris, come down and play with me,” the demon yelled from below them. The blood turned to ice in Thomas’s veins. Not only did it threaten his mate, it called her by name. He’d noticed it when they faced it before, but he’d thought in an aberration. A way for the demon to taunt them before the forthcoming battle. But here there were many targets, many places it could set its sights, and still it called to her. The situation was more dangerous than he’d originally thought.

A grimace flashed across her face and was just as quickly replaced with a cool mask of calm. She took aim, steadied the gun on the wall and fired. The shot pierced the demon through the shoulder.

It howled in fury and turned coal-black eyes on her.

“Vacate the host or I’ll shoot again,” she yelled.

The demon stretched both arms to the side, palms out. It began to rattle off a spell in a language that Thomas was certain predated even him.

“Shoot him. Now. And don’t miss this time.” Panic laced James’s every word.

* * *

Juliana glanced back at her friend, not liking the tone of his voice. Fear shone in his eyes. She quickly took aim again, sighting the demon through the scope of the rifle. The demon, not the inkmage. She couldn’t see the host, only the creature within, or she’d never be able to do this. A burning heat started up in her belly, like someone had set a hot pan on it. Ignoring it, she squeezed the trigger. The bullet passed straight through its mouth and out the back of its head.

It stood there stunned for a moment and then dropped to its knees before falling forward onto the street. The burning faded. She stood, shifted the rifle in her hand so she had a more comfortable grip on it. “I didn’t miss the first time. I was trying to save the host.”

“That’s very noble of you,” James said, “but if I call you in to help, it’s because something needs killing. Remember that next time please.”

“Juliana.” Thomas’s voice was tight, angry.

She looked at him in surprise, unable to think of anything she’d done recently to earn his ire. He pointed to the street below. The inkmage pushed himself up and staggered to his feet. Terror slammed through her body. The gods help her, the demon was inhabiting a dead host. She’d heard rumors of it being possible amongst the highest tier of demons but she’d never seen it. And she hoped never to see it again. Cold, dead eyes stared up at her and a rasping laugh came from the distorted mouth. Dark, thick blood coursed down the chin. Oh, gods.

“You don’t know it, Hound, but you just did me a favor. See ya,” it said, more gurgle than actual speech. She caught a glimpse of daylight through the open mouth before the demon turned and ran down the street and through an alley faster than an inkmage had any right to move.

Thomas was over the wall and in pursuit before she could even tell him to follow.

“Did I just watch a demon animate a corpse?” James asked.

She looked at him but said nothing. It wasn’t really a question that required an answer anyway. The sound of breaking glass filled the air and she turned to watch the green haze marking the perimeter come down in a million little pieces. James’s tight lips and pale countenance told her that wasn’t supposed to happen either.

It was ten minutes later when Thomas appeared in the street below, the corpse of the inkmage draped over his shoulder. By that time, Jeremiah had joined them. They went down to meet him.

“I found him a few alleys outside of the perimeter. There was no sign of anyone else.” He dropped the inkmage at her feet.

Jeremiah pressed on the radio in his ear. “Fan out. Start looking for anyone acting odd or anything out of place. The new host couldn’t have gotten far.”

The new host could be halfway across the city by now, but she didn’t bother correcting him. She ran a hand down her face and rubbed her nose trying to rid it of the smell of cinder and ashes. The corpse still reeked of demon.

“Can you search for it with your gift?” James asked.

“Demons don’t have signatures, so I could leave my gift on and look for anyone not glowing. In theory,” she said. “Problem is I fried myself yesterday. I’m not sure I could call it up today even if I was stupid enough to try.”

James sighed. “I don’t like this, Juliana. That’s a first-level demon and he’s obviously interested in you for some reason.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“What was the spell?” she asked to change the subject.

“What?”

“The spell that had you ordering her to blow his head off before he could finish it,” Thomas answered, his voice clipped.

He shifted his weight. “It’s a forbidden spell. It’s not supposed to be used except in times of war and then only with my express permission. To do otherwise is an automatic death sentence.”

“That must be some spell,” Jeremiah said.

James pursed his lips. “You could say that. It incinerates the target from the inside out.”

“Like spontaneous combustion?” Heat flared through her stomach in an echo of the earlier sensation.

James looked at her, a bitter smile on his face. “Something like that. Only this spell takes about six hours to come to completion and there is no counterspell. Hence the reason it’s forbidden.”

A shudder ran through her. There’d be no coming back after slowly burning to death from the inside out. And that was almost her fate, would have been if she hadn’t killed the host. Right now, she’d be lying in the infirmary with her insides melting as she burned to death and they tried to find a way to fix her. Her head felt light and she took a deep breath hoping the air would help. It didn’t.

“While you’re here, I’d like to get your opinion on the book,” James said, giving her a new topic to focus on.

“I think it’s dangerous.”

“That’s not what I meant. I want you to come into the vault with me.”

She studied him until he frowned.

“You’ll be fine, I promise. You deactivated the spell when you shut the book,” he told her.

That book was full of dark magic she had no desire to encounter again. She ran a million excuses through her head, but knew none of them were good enough. She sighed. “All right, let’s get this over with.”

* * *

James led Thomas and Juliana down a hallway deep below the Apocryphan. Jeremiah stayed behind to oversee the search for the new host. They came to a door with two large battle mages on either side of it. They nodded in greeting. James stepped past them to a small pad and placed his palm on it. The technology was a paranoid’s wet dream. Not only was it a palm reader, the door wouldn’t unlock unless the power signature fed into it matched the palm print.

The door swung open with a hiss. They all stepped into the dark little room, the first of three chambers. From this point forward the walls, ceiling and floors were all made of three-foot thick steel over reinforced concrete. The rooms really did resemble bank vaults.

Beams of light started at the ceiling and moved slowly to the floor as they scanned the group. All items of a magical nature had to be left in the outer chamber to keep them from interacting with anything in the other rooms. She put her gun and sword on the table before the alarm could beep at her. When they’d convinced the tech running the scanner that they had no contraband on them, he unsealed the next door.

The room was three times the size of the previous one. A large steel table sat in the middle of the floor while several smaller ones lined the walls. There was another door on the wall opposite them, but Juliana had never been through it. James told her there were rows and rows of mini vaults that they locked items up in until they were brought out for examination. There were also several vaults that could not be opened, the items in them so dangerous they’d been sealed away forever.

The book lay open in the middle of the large table. Again, she felt it beckoning her. This time it was more a gentle prodding than an overwhelming, undeniable need. Thomas cleared his throat. She glanced at him and realized the men stood at the table waiting for her to join them. She picked up her feet one step at a time, forcing herself to move forward.

“It’s just a book, Juliana,” Thomas said with a sneer.

A sliver of hurt stabbed through her and she frowned. “Let the damn thing throw you across a room and see if you feel that way.”

She looked at James. “What have you found out so far?”

“Not much, unfortunately. Though I did find your summoning spell.” He gestured to the page open before him.

“How do you know it’s the spell they used?” Thomas asked.

James grinned. “It wasn’t hard. It’s the only spell that’s translated. At least we assume that’s the one they used. We haven’t been able to decipher the rest of it to determine if there are any more summoning spells. It seems to be some archaic derivative of the dark fae language.”

She glanced at the book. A pencil had been used to write the translation above the original lines of the spell. She could read every word of both. “The translation’s wrong. He put Beacon instead of Sacrifice. Can’t help but think that was done on purpose. There’s also a couple of other minor errors that were probably mistakes. Obviously it didn’t matter. The demons got here just fine.”

James stared at her with wide eyes.

“What?”

“When I said we hadn’t been able to decipher the rest of the spells, I didn’t mean we hadn’t had the time. I meant I literally hadn’t found anyone that could read them.”

Curse it. She should have picked up on that. Now he was going to want her to translate the whole thing. “Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you’ve got for me?”

She shrugged. “What do you want me to say, James? It’s dark fae. I’m dark fae.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t work this time, Jules. I’ve had other dark fae in here. None of them could read it.”

She pressed her lips together and he growled in frustration.

“We’ve been researching its origins, but haven’t had much luck. And I can’t get its power to respond to any of the people that have looked at it. Have either of you seen it before?”

They both shook their head, but the book looked familiar to Thomas. He knew he’d seen it somewhere before, that he should remember where it came from, but the information eluded his grasp. He clenched his teeth making a muscle in his jaw twitch. A millennium of having a near perfect memory and he couldn’t recall this. Somehow it must be Juliana’s fault. His bride had his head so twisted his brain wasn’t even working right.

Juliana reached out her hand and the book pulsed with purple light. She snatched her hand back, crossed her arms over her chest and buried her hands tight against her body.

“What did you do?” Thomas asked.

“And can you do it again?” Excitement lit James’s voice. Thomas resisted the urge to say that he’d prefer if she didn’t. He had no way to protect her from magic.

“I reached for it.”

“There has to be something else,” James insisted. “Were you thinking of something specific?”

She shook her head. She reached out again and held her hand over the book without touching it. Again, the purple light pulsed. It stayed lit longer because she didn’t remove her hand, but eventually the light faded.

“Remarkable,” James breathed.

“There’s nothing remarkable about it.” She crossed her arms over her chest again. “I already told you it’s old dark fae magic.”

“And again, what makes you different from every other dark fae I’ve had in here?” James asked.

She looked at him without saying anything.

“Is that why the demon is targeting you? Does it have something to do with your ability to read this book?” he asked, his voice sharp, his eyes searching.

Her shoulders slumped as she sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all.” She raked a hand through her hair. “I knew it called me by name. It did the same to Thomas, I thought it was a game it was playing. Didn’t it use any of your names today?”

James shook his head. “Just yours. Of all the names it had access to, it only used yours. And it homed in on you the moment you arrived, like it was waiting for you to get here.”

She looked at Thomas. “You have anything to say about all this?”

“Why should I have an opinion on it?” he asked.

“Because you have an opinion on everything,” his brother-in-law answered for her.

Irritation spiked through him. He shrugged and went over to lean against the wall by the door.

James turned back to the book. “You’ll have to begin the translation immediately.”

“I’ll translate it because I need to find the demon, James, but I’m not giving your people access to those spells. I’m only telling you what you need to know.”

“You can’t be serious.”

She leaned forward on the table and looked him in the eye. “That book scares me.”

It must terrify her for her to admit that. James studied her for a moment before nodding once. “All right.”

Juliana straightened and shifted on her feet. She ran her fingernails across her palms and hunched her shoulders. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she said. Ignoring James’s protests she hurried out the door.

Thomas straightened and followed her without hesitation. He watched while she reequipped her weapons. Her movements were agitated, hurried. Stepping forward, he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck. Her head dropped forward when he began to knead the muscles.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She turned to face him.

James stood looking between the two of them. “Finally claiming her then?”

“If she’ll let me.”

James snorted. “Good luck with that. Don’t screw it up this time.”

Thomas hesitated a moment before shaking the offered hand. “I shall endeavor not to.”

Chapter Fifteen

Thomas and his bride stepped out into the glare of the midday sun. Juliana stood in front of him, eyes squinted, blocking the flow of traffic. Hands in his pockets, he watched her, suddenly wondering how his life had become so wrapped up in hers. Why he found himself unable to make a move without knowing what she intended to do first.

Irritation crawled under his skin when she continued to just stand in the doorway. “They’ll be expecting you to make your report,” he said, careful to keep his annoyance from his voice.

She glanced around as if just realizing she hadn’t bothered to move since stepping outside. She headed down the steps and he stayed right behind her. A hand shaded her eyes as she looked up at him. “You’re right, I need to go report in. And then I guess Ben will have me out demon hunting again. James is arranging to have the book delivered to the Agency so I can start digging through it.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “There are other agents, other Walkers, are there not? It is not necessary for you to be the one to do everything.” He hailed a cab.

She shook her head as he opened the door for her. “There are others, but I can’t expect them to work while I sit around and do nothing. It’s not how I’m made and neither are you. Go look for the demon. Watching me give my report isn’t going to help anything. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

He slammed the door shut and watched the taxi drive away. Damnable woman. She could give whatever excuse she wanted, but she was running away from him just like she had been since he came back. If he was smart, he’d let her go. Let her get herself into trouble she couldn’t get out of and then he’d be rid of her.

He raked a hand through his hair. What was wrong with him? What was he thinking? He pulled out his phone to call for a portal to meet her at the Agency. It rang as he began to punch in the number. “Yes?”

“The package you’ve been waiting for is here,” answered one of the underlings who resided at his house.

Any thought of following his bride rushed from his thoughts. He placed the call for the portal, but this time to take him home.

* * *

“Are you paying attention, Juliana?” Ben asked for the fifth time in the two hours she’d been there.

She sighed. “Not really. What’s the point?”

“You have to make sure the report is accurate.”

She glanced at the agent that would write the actual report. He recorded the conversation and made notes while Ben debriefed her. She’d read it and sign it. Worked for her, she hated paperwork.

She focused on her boss. “I could have done the report myself by now. We’ve been over everything three times. If I haven’t mentioned it, it either didn’t happen or I’ve forgotten it completely.”

Ben dismissed the other agent with a nod of his head. “What’s wrong? You’re in a worse mood than usual.”

He really couldn’t be expecting her to answer that question. She’d spent the past several days getting the crap kicked out of her and chasing demons. That would put anyone in a bad mood. Instead of answering she just shook her head.

“There’s no point sending you out until we get a call. You’re better off staying here, where we can get a hold of you immediately and you can take a portal. Why don’t you go to your office and see if you can get some research done? Maybe you’ll come up with something to help us find this thing.”

After running a hand down her face in a failed effort to wipe away her fatigue, she nodded. Somehow she found her way to her little-used office without the aid of a map.

In the middle of her desk sat a cloth-bound package from James. The book. The seal on it prohibited it from being opened by anyone but her. Taking a deep breath she ran her hand lightly over the surface. Power tingled over her skin like a thousand needle pricks. She pushed the book to the side to be examined later, booted up her computer and punched in the password. She pulled up the internal database and typed “first-level demon” in the search box. Eighty-five results. The item at the top read Agency Policy and Protocol for First-level Demons. She’d never been very good at remembering the rules. She opened the link.

First-level demons are to be approached and handled with utmost caution. While it is your duty as an agent or Realm Walker to preserve life whenever possible, the priority must be on the society as a whole, not the host. If the demon proves to be violent, an immediate kill order will be issued to preserve the lives of the public.

She scrolled down farther. It said nothing about what to do if you killed the host and the demon reanimated it. Policy and protocol sucked.

She scanned through the other results of the search, hoping to find something more helpful. Part of her hoped the demon had returned to its realm, but every one of her instincts screamed that this wasn’t over yet. She’d learned long ago to listen to them; they usually ended up being smarter than her.

Every link she clicked on did nothing but fuel her paranoia. Massacres, holocausts, killing sprees all confirmed or thought to be the work of first-level demons. Now they had one that was tame by comparison, biding its time. One that was interested in her. She was so screwed. She needed to talk to the Librarian.

The Librarian was ancient, predating most of the creatures that worked for the Agency. Officially she was the records keeper, unofficially she hoarded books of all shapes, sizes and topics. If there was going to be anyone that could tell Juliana why the demon seemed focused on her, it would be the Librarian.

Juliana called for a portal and stepped through to the library, her arms wrapped tightly around the spell book. Books stood in rickety stacks along both sides of a narrow walkway. “Hello?” she called, walking sideways in an effort not to bring any of the towers crashing down. As it was, the vibrations from her movement caused some of them to rock perilously.

“A visitor? I haven’t had a visitor in so long. Where are you, dear?” The voice was as cracked as a dragon’s hide.

“Librarian?” Juliana called again. “I’m over here.”

A hunched form appeared at the end of the aisle, the stereotypical grandmother figure with the grey bun and flowered dress. Juliana knew better than to trust appearances. The Librarian shuffled toward Juliana. “Did you bring me a present?”

She wrapped her arms tighter around the book and shook her head. “I need help. There’s a first-level demon on the loose. It seems to be particularly interested in me. I want to find out why.”

The old woman rubbed her frail hands together. “Research? Yes, I can research. Come along.”

Juliana followed her to a large table. She gestured to a chair and Juliana lowered herself into it. The Librarian started to hum and darted off with lightning quick steps. Juliana’s eyes watered as she followed the blur of movement. Thud followed thud as books were stacked in front of her. After a small pile had been gathered, the old lady stopped next to Juliana and flipped through pages as quickly as she’d gathered the tomes.

“Yes. Yes.” She said absently as she scanned the words before her. When she finished with one book she’d shove it out of the way and grab another. When she finished with the last one, she looked at Juliana. “Either you did something to draw the demon’s interest after it was summoned, or you are the reason it was summoned.”

“If I showed you the spell, would you know?”

The Librarian clicked the tips of her fingernails together. “Perhaps. Show it to me.” A thin line of drool ran from her mouth to the floor.

Juliana ran her finger under the seal on James’s package. Power flared with white light and the seal broke as it recognized her as having permission to open the bundle. She unwrapped the book and cracked it open to the appropriate page.

The Librarian craned her neck to the side as she read. “This one was called for you, child. But they had to have something of yours to do it. What did they have?”

Unease crawled up Juliana’s spine. “Nothing that I know of.”

The old woman cackled. “Then there must be something you don’t know of.” Her skin had turned a dark purple-grey color.

Juliana closed the cover of the spell book and pulled it toward her chest. Her heart thudded against it. “Thank you for your help, Librarian.” She took out her phone as she stood and dialed the portal mages. “I need a portal out of the library to my office. Coded for me only. Stat.” Coding the portal specifically for her would take time but she didn’t like what was happening here. She’d heard the Librarian never left her den. Now she wondered if that was because the woman wasn’t allowed to. Juliana wrapped her hand more tightly around the book, her knuckles white, and watched with wide eyes as the old woman doubled in size.

The Librarian tilted her neck from side to side. It crackled and creaked. Then quick as a genie granting a wish, the beast transformed. Half female, half spider, all grotesque. She cackled again, the sound far more sinister this time as she clicked her mandibles together with the gesture. “I want that book. I need it. It must be added to the collection, dear one.”

“Fan-freaking-tastic,” Juliana muttered and backed away from the creature. She kept her arm wrapped around the spell book pressed against her chest. This was just what she needed. Spinning, she took off down the closest aisle. No longer caring if she made a mess or not, she bumped into the books on purpose and sent them toppling. The spider-beast screeched in outrage

Juliana wove between weaving towers, not daring to look behind her. A stirring of air told her the creature was close, so close. She put on a fresh burst of speed just as a blue disk shimmered in the air in front of her. She spilled through into her office. The portal snapped shut behind her, taking the tip of a spider leg with it. Juliana wondered which part of the anatomy that translated to and hoped like hell it wouldn’t turn back.

She dropped the book on her desk and leaned against it panting for several long moments. When she was breathing more or less normally, she picked up the leg remnant with two fingers and dropped it in the trashcan. She scrubbed her hand clean on her jeans as she plopped into her chair. Digging through the pile on her desk, she found her copy of the file of the scene from Nathaniel’s apartment building. She flipped to the evidence list and went through the item-by-item inventory. Nothing there was hers. At least nothing she recognized.

As she read through it again she punched Ben’s number in on her desk phone. “Nichols,” he answered.

“Hey, it’s me. Thought I’d let you know the Librarian just tried to take off my head.”

“That’s odd.” He sounded distracted. “We haven’t had a report in over six months. I thought she was calming down. You weren’t foolish enough to try to take one of her books were you?”

Juliana glanced at the spell book. “No, but I took one in with me.”

Ben laughed. “Never take a book into the Library you intend to keep, Norris. You should know that. You are lucky you didn’t lose your head. I’ll send a team in to check on her.” He sighed. “Now, while I’ve got you, I need a favor. A pain in the ass lady keeps calling. I’ve tried putting her off but she’s not going to go away. Give her a call, see what the problem is.”

The last thing she felt like doing was dealing with a pain in the ass that thought her problems were more important than everyone else’s. But Ben was her boss and occasionally she had to do what he told her. “All right, it beats sitting around twiddling my thumbs anyway.”

“Thanks. If she doesn’t call back, I’ll owe you.”

She disconnected with Ben then picked up the receiver and dialed the number he’d given her. “This is Walker Norris, I understand you have a problem. How may I help you?”

“Are you going to help me or just brush me off like everyone else?” The woman’s voice grated on her nerves like a banshee screech.

“Let’s see what I can do. What’s the problem?”

“I want you to arrest my neighbor. He’s a werewolf.”

She swallowed a laugh. “Is that so? And has he threatened you in any way?”

“Why should I have to wait until he threatens me? His existence is a threat. I’ve lived in the neighborhood for forty years and never had to worry about keeping inside during a full moon before. Those things just aren’t natural.” She paused, no doubt waiting for Juliana to agree.

She didn’t know what kind of people this lady thought they had working at the Agency but she could guarantee anyone she sent over would scare the old woman a lot worse than the neighbor did.

“Well, ma’am...” She heard whistling coming down the hallway. She recognized that whistle. “What’s your address? We’ll send someone right out.”

“1346 Rose Lane. Just under the bridge.”

Juliana jotted down the address and hung up as Nathaniel stepped into view.

“They told me you were around,” he said and perched on the edge of her desk.

“What are you doing here?” She leaned back in her chair and propped her feet on the edge of the desk.

He gave her a sad smile and tapped his temple. “Appointment with the shrink. I’m not allowed out until the quacks clear me. Post-traumatic stress and all that. How I’m supposed to be stressed by something I don’t remember, I have no idea.” He narrowed his eyes and looked her over. “What I want to know is since when does a badass vampire like Thomas Kendrick get so protective of a pup like you?”

She gave him a little shrug. Her relationship with Thomas was complicated at best. She wasn’t sure she could explain it in a way that made sense to anyone else. She wasn’t sure it even made sense to her.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? I’ll go ask Ben. You know he’ll have it all wrong. Up to you.”

“Go ask him. He won’t tell you anything. I think he’s afraid of Thomas.”

“Everyone is afraid of Kendrick.”

“It’s not like he’s a sociopath, he’s just Thomas.”

Nathaniel looked at her for a moment. “You really aren’t scared of him at all, are you?”

“Why should I be?” Thomas might have ripped her apart emotionally, but he’d never harm her physically.

He shook his head. “Never mind, crazy lady. You just go hang out with your vampire and leave the rest of us lowly minions to quiver in fear.”

“Speaking of minions...”

He sighed. “What do you want?”

“Ben gave me a call. Want to go? I promise I won’t tell.” She gave him her best puppy dog eyes. He might not be allowed out until he got a psych clearance, but he was like her, the waiting drove him nuts. Talking to an old lady wasn’t going to hurt him any and it would give him something to do. Besides, she needed to go back to the summoning scene and make sure nothing had been missed. Something of hers had been used to summon the demon and she needed to find out what it was.

When he held out his hand, she handed him the slip of paper with the address.

“I’m only doing this because I feel guilty about trashing your house,” he said, lest she assume he was only being helpful. He stood and gave her a little salute before heading down the hallway. She took the opportunity to hit him square in the ass with a rubber band.

* * *

After she and Jeremiah scoured every inch of the summoning scene and came up with nothing, she dropped the book back off at the Apocryphan for safekeeping. Then she spent the rest of the evening combing the town, looking for the demon. Alone. She’d tried to call Thomas several times, but his phone kept rolling to voicemail. It was well after two when she finally made it to her couch and it was almost dawn when her phone rang, awakening her from her much-needed slumber. If she ever woke up on her own again, she’d consider it a miracle. Cursed phone.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got another one.” Jeremiah sounded as tired as she felt.

“Hold on.” She grunted as she shoved herself into a sitting position. “All right. What do I need to know?”

“Single victim. Male. He’s one of ours but they haven’t identified him yet.”

Her spine straightened, panic racing along it like imps to a fire. “Then how do we know he’s ours?”

“The demon left a message.” He sounded sick. “You better just come down here.”

“Where am I headed?”

“1346 Rose Lane.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest and she sucked in a painful breath. “Just under the bridge?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

Nathaniel was dead and it was all her fault. The mantra kept repeating in her head as she waited for the portal. As she stepped through to the yard of a little blue house surrounded by chaos and a white picket fence. As she shoved her way past techs and agents, ignoring those that called her name.

She stumbled across the threshold and ran into someone. Hands grasped her upper arms, shook, demanded her attention. She looked up to find Jeremiah frowning at her. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Where?” she breathed. “Where is he?”

His brow furrowed and his frown deepened. He stepped to the side giving her an unobstructed view of the living room. The air froze in her lungs. Her heart slammed to a stop.She closed her eyes, put her hands on her legs and bent forward. She sucked in a tortured breath. Slowly, she raised her head, forced herself to face the massacre before her. There was no other word to describe it.

A shattered, ragged form hung on the far wall, a fireplace poker shoved through the mangled remains of his face to hold him in place. Nothing recognizable remained. No wonder they hadn’t identified the remains yet. A large patch of semi-congealed blood colored the wall behind him and pooled on the floor. Splatters decorated the furniture. But it wasn’t the body that made it hard to breathe, that made her rub her sternum with her knuckles hoping to ease the ache that had taken up permanent residence.

Foot high letters carved into the plaster covered the wall to the right. “Where’s my Walker?” She read the words aloud. Her. It wanted her. Her lips trembled and a sheen of tears blurred her vision. She pushed Jeremiah aside and tripped out the door. Acid boiled in her stomach and burned her throat as she vomited into the bushes. She kept going until there was nothing but dry heaves.

She stood up and wiped her mouth with the back of a shaking hand.

“Who is it?” Jeremiah asked from behind her.

“Nathaniel.” She turned to him. “It was supposed to be me.”

“Don’t think like that. It could have been anyone.”

She shook her head. “You don’t get it. This was my call. I got him to take it for me so I could go home and crash.”

“So this was a trap?” His voice was cold, hard.

It took her a minute to understand what he was saying. Her eyes widened.

“Who told you to come here? Who sent you?”

“I did.” Ben’s voice breaking into their conversation made her jump. “But the woman asked for her.”

“You didn’t tell me that.” She furrowed her brow. “You made it sound like I was doing you a favor.”

He looked pale, uncomfortable. “She didn’t ask for you by name. She asked for a Walker. ‘Maybe that one that saved the mayor last year,’ she said.” He shrugged. “And since you weren’t doing anything, I figured why not.”

She ran a hand across her forehead. She’d managed to keep the mayor from being devoured by a succubus he picked up at a sex club on New Year’s Eve. It got her more publicity than she wanted and the scandal got the mayor fired. He probably wished she’d just minded her own business. Some days, so did she.

“Did you trace the call?” Jeremiah asked.

Ben shook his head. “Didn’t realize there was a reason to until right now. I’ll get someone on it.” She watched him walk off with his hands shoved into his pockets.

“You believe him?” Jeremiah spoke close to her ear so only she could hear him.

“I don’t know. I find it hard to believe my boss is working with the demon trying to kill me. I know I’m a pain, but there are simpler ways to get rid of me.”

“Why don’t you go home? We can handle this.”

“I can’t. You know that.” She turned and walked back into the house.

Chapter Sixteen

When she walked in the door later that morning, she fell backwards onto the couch and lay still for several long minutes. She’d saved Nathaniel only to have him killed by the demon anyway. The investigation at the house had yielded few clues. According to the neighbors, the couple that owned the house was on their honeymoon and would be for several more days. Bloody handprints on a sofa where the demon sat to observe his work were the only helpful clue in the whole mess. The only advantage they’d gained from her friend’s death was the knowledge that the new host was humanoid.

She rolled off the couch and plodded to the bathroom. She’d taken a scalding shower when she got home the night before but she needed another one. After adjusting the temperature of the water, she climbed in. Closing her eyes, she shoved her head under the water. She held it there, images of Nathaniel flashing through her brain. Salt coated her lips as hot tears combined with the water running down her face. Sobs wracked her body and she sank to the floor. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she leaned her head against the wall.

Finally, her tears dried, her shaking breaths slowed. And she did something she swore she would never do. She dropped the shielding she wore around her mind like a cloak and reached out for her mate. She tried to call Thomas again while she was still at the scene, but he didn’t answer. Hadn’t answered any of her calls since then. And now when she attempted the only form of contact left to her, she found nothing. Just black emptiness where their connection should be.

He had shut her out. Just as completely and thoroughly as she’d been doing to him for years. Damn him. Couldn’t he pick a more convenient time to throw his hissy fit? Anger chased away the fog of grief enough that she could get back on her feet. As she scrubbed her face with her hands, she put her own shields back in place. She turned off the shower. Water sprayed as she shook her head to get rid of the excess. She stepped out into a cloud of steam and dried herself off. Then she ran the towel down the mirror to clean a section. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her face was drawn and pale.

This case was kicking her ass. With a sigh, she dropped the towel on the floor and headed down the hall to get dressed. Soon she wore her normal work wear of dark jeans, a sleeveless top and army boots. Then she raided the weapons.

On her right thigh she strapped a twelve-inch knife, on her left went two sterling silver stakes. Most Walkers carried wood. She preferred silver because they did double duty on vamps and shifters. A stake through the heart wouldn’t kill a vampire, but it would keep most of the younger ones pinned in place for a time. Her gun, badge and sword completed the ensemble. She slid on a pair of regular sunglasses before stepping out of the house and locking the door behind her. She hoped it stayed secure because she wasn’t coming back until she’d hunted this damn thing down and destroyed it.

She called for a portal to take her to where Thomas had found the corpse the day before. The area had been thoroughly swept but maybe she could find something they’d overlooked.

Once again Juliana found herself on the outskirts of the End. If there was anywhere a demon should feel at home, she guessed it would be Devil’s End. She started walking the streets, unsure of where she was heading, but too keyed up to sit around waiting for a lead.

Briefly she thought about knocking on doors as she passed, but it would be a waste of time. For one, the street patrols would have already done it and for another, no one around here saw anything even if it happened a foot from their face. That’s just the way things worked in the End.

The End was her territory. Whenever the Agency needed to send a representative, they sent her. She wasn’t sure if it was because of her proximity or because they thought she blended in with the locals. Unfortunately, the second option seemed most likely. Even as familiar a face as she was in the area, it was unlikely she would get any more information than the patrols had. Especially when it became known a demon was involved. No one wanted to cross a demon.

A couple of blocks down, at the end of a dark alley, stood a nondescript door with a red rune of a double-armed cross blazing above it. She smiled. That was Michael’s mark. He told her once he’d taken it from the Holy Order of Inquisitioners. She didn’t ask why, there were some things she didn’t want to know about her friends. At least she wouldn’t have any trouble getting information from anyone here. If they knew, they’d tell her.

She knocked on the door. A Neanderthal-looking vampire with one eyebrow answered the door, filling the opening entirely. She didn’t recognize him.

He frowned down at her. “What do you want?”

“Here to see the boss,” she answered.

That one eyebrow rose and he looked her over. “Leave your weapons or you stay here.”

“I stay here then. You go fetch.”

He growled and narrowed his eyes before stepping back and slamming the door. She waited for a ten count and then followed after him.

“Someone’s here to see you, boss. Left her outside,” the Neanderthal said as she crested the stairs. A tall, gaunt blond male with waist-length hair drew two blades and pointed them at her throat. A petite brunette pointed her gun at Juliana’s chest and the Neanderthal flexed his hands into fists as he turned to face her.

At the desk beyond them sat a vampire with brown hair and eyes so dark they were almost black even when he wasn’t in a rage. As usual, he needed a shave. Michael.

“You never call, you never write,” she said, looking at him, but watching the others from the corner of her eyes.

“Leave us.” His eyes never left hers.

The others hesitated only a moment then put weapons away and headed down the stairs.

“What are you doing here?” he asked once they were alone. His voice was odd, remote.

She clenched her teeth. Her anger, already riled by the fact he hadn’t contacted her, flared at the thought he didn’t want her there. Thomas may toss her world upside down, but she’d be damned if she was going to lose one of her best friends because her mate snapped his fingers.

In a blink Michael was around his desk, pushing her body against the wall. He placed his hands on either side of her head, boxing her in. He studied her for a moment before leaning forward. He sniffed her neck, causing her pulse to race more than it already was.

“You smell like Thomas. You’ve had his blood, yet you’ve come to me.” He spoke in her ear. “Why are you here, my friend, when you are truly his again?”

“I don’t see what one has to do with the other. I tried to call you. Important things have been happening.”

He dropped his arms and stepped back. “If they were so important you should have left a message.”

“Some things you don’t leave on voicemail.”

He frowned. “Such as?”

She paused, debating how much to tell him and in what order. “This may take a while.”

“In that case, can I get you a drink?”

“Why not?” She followed him over to his desk and dropped into one of the chairs in front of it. He poured drinks at the bar on the far side of the room.

He handed hers over before sitting with his own. “Talk.”

She swirled her drink and took a sip. “I’ve been demon hunting.”

He sat up straight in his chair. “What kind?”

“If you’re asking what its affiliation is, I have no idea. It could belong to any of the dark gods. I can tell you it’s first-level though.”

“A first-level demon is wandering around in our realm? Are you certain?”

“It reanimated a corpse, talked to me and ran away. Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure.” She suppressed a shudder as an image of the dead inkmage flickered through her brain.

“And you’re positive the host was dead?”

She laughed, a hollow little sound. “I blew out the back of his head. Trust me, he was dead.”

He paused for a moment. “Have you asked your father about this?”

Michael was the only person in her life who knew who her father was. The reasons for this were simple. Number one, she knew he wouldn’t try to kill her simply because her father was one of the gods of the dark fae. Number two, Michael had been sitting beside her hospital bed when her father came calling with her sword strapped across his back. They’d hit it off immediately.

She shook her head. “Didn’t see the point. It’s not his.” Gods only had control over their own demons. Against another god’s they didn’t have any more advantage than she did.

“How do you know?”

“He doesn’t keep demons, doesn’t like them.”

“Well, so much for that plan.” Michael tapped his fingers on the desk. “What else have you got?”

“I was kind of hoping you might have something for me. Anyone see anything odd yesterday after the Gathering perimeter dropped?”

“I should have known James would involve you in that. No one mentioned anything to me, but I will make inquiries.”

“There’s something else.” She hesitated before she told him the rest. “Raoul took potshots at Thomas and me on a roof when we were chasing the demon.”

He leaned forward, his eyes hard. “Are you sure it was him?”

“If you don’t quit asking me if I’m sure about everything, I’m going to kick your ass. And yes, I’m sure. I even double-checked his signature. He’s been damaged though. The entire side of his face was melted. There’s no other word for it.”

“What the hell is he doing here with Thomas around?”

She arched a brow. “That’s the question, isn’t it? And just how coincidental is it that he would arrive in town the same time as a demon?”

He grunted. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Yeah, especially since according to the Librarian, it was summoned for me.”

Michael went still, his eyes studying her. “Does Thomas know this?”

“I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.” She pushed herself to her feet. “I better go.”

He stood suddenly and grinned when she took an automatic step backward. As used to it as she was, his super-fast movements still made her uneasy. “I’m going with you.”

He held up a hand to quiet her before she could say anything. “This isn’t up for discussion. You have no business going after a demon by yourself. You’re going to end up dead for good.”

Striding around the desk, he went past her and down the hall. She followed. When they reached his bedroom, she leaned against the doorframe to watch him gather his things.

He strapped on his weapons, most of them in plain sight. She held up a hand, stopping him when he moved to leave the room. “You can’t go out like that.”

He stepped back and made a show of looking her over from head to toe.

She pointed to her badge. “I have one piece of hardware that you lack. It lets me get away with a lot more.”

He went to the table beside his bed, opened the drawer and pulled out a badge similar to hers.

She frowned. “Where did you get that?”

He grinned. “It’s possible I found it laying around someplace and picked it up.”

“I’m going to pretend we didn’t have this conversation, so I can feign ignorance later.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Where to, boss?” Michael asked as they stood at the end of the alley.

She smiled when a familiar figure came into view. Travesty, the local dealer, stood at his favorite corner. It had obviously been too long since she paid this part of town a visit.

He glanced in her direction and went back to scanning the neighborhood. Then he froze before turning his head slowly back to her. She had the satisfaction of watching him turn several shades lighter than his normal pale. He stepped away from the wall, turning toward her as she approached. He held up his hands in feigned innocence.

“Now, Juliana, I was just resting here. Waiting for my ride. I ain’t got nothin’ on me.” Travesty stuttered when he was nervous and the sentence took him three times longer to get through than it should have.

“Hand it over, Trav,” she told him and held out a hand, flicking her fingers impatiently.

His eyes darted between Michael and her but they both maintained their silence. Finally, Travesty caved. “Shit,” he said with a sigh. He pulled a small bag out of his pocket with two fingers and handed it over. He dropped it in her palm and then turned to the wall, putting palms flat against it, waiting to be frisked and arrested. She popped open the bag and sniffed. Ice.

Michael leaned against the wall watching the scene unfold before him with a wry twist of the lips. She smacked Travesty on the back of the head. “What are you doing dealing this stuff?” She slipped the bag into her pocket and frisked him. Ice got its name not only from its pale blue color, but from the effect it had on the user. This particular combo of drugs and magic literally made the blood run cold. The user detached from reality as the synapses in his brain numbed and shut down. Those who got a bad batch or overindulged had been known to freeze to death in hundred-degree weather.

“Turn around,” she said, stepping back. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to bust you. I need some information.”

Hope blossomed on his face, making her smile. Very rarely she let him off the hook if he proved to be useful. Today she just didn’t want to mess with him. She had a demon to find. “You see anything yesterday?”

“You mean when the mages had everything shut down?”

She nodded.

“Maybe. Just what was I supposed to be noticing?”

“Demon.”

He scratched his chin. “One of my customers was talking about zombies. I told him that was nuts, we ain’t got no zombies around here. Haven’t had for ages. But someone fighting a demon compulsion might look like one from a distance, I guess.”

She decided not to mention that the gaping hole in the host’s head probably contributed to the misidentification. She wanted to talk to the customer, but knew Travesty wouldn’t give her a name. “Anything else?”

He shook his head. “Not really. You know how things are around here.”

“All right, Trav. I guess it’s good enough for today. Quit dealing this crap would you? You’re too smart for that.”

“Whatever you say.” He took a couple of steps away and then turned back. “There’s something else but you probably already know. That zombie, or whatever it was, was carrying around a body. My client said it looked like something had been eating it.”

She stared after him as he walked away, her chest feeling like it’d been stepped on. Her mind tried to process the information it had just been handed. The host was carrying a corpse that looked like it had been gnawed on. A body with a gaping hole in its head maybe? The demon hadn’t carried a body when it left her. But Thomas had carried one back. Oh, gods.

Michael placed a warm hand on her back. “What is it? Breathe.”

She held her hands out slightly to the side and shook them as she gulped air. “Oh, no...no, no, no.”

She didn’t answer him. Didn’t want to put voice to her fears. It couldn’t be true. This was so bad, so extraordinarily, horribly bad. Her fingers fumbled in her pocket as she struggled to get her phone out. With trembling fingers she called James. “Take Sara and Rachel and go to the Apocryphan. Stay there until I call you.”

“What’s going on? Do you need any help?”

She glanced at Michael. “I have plenty. Just take care of our girls.”

Next she typed out a text to Thomas, having to retype several of the letters. She read it over and hit send:

I know what you are.

Moments later, the phone rang—Thomas. She put him on speaker.

“Hello, Juliana.” His low voice wrapped around her like always.

“I’ve been trying to call.”

There was a long pause. “I’ve been...busy.”

“Busy doing what exactly?”

“And why should I share that information with you? You have no authority over me.” His tone was short, clipped.

“I know I don’t.” She kept her voice calm, sweet, betraying none of her inner turmoil. “I was just curious. Don’t be mad.”

He sighed. “I’m not mad. I’m just tired.”

That sounded like Thomas and it made her pause. She couldn’t be wrong about this, could she? “I want to see you. Where are you?”

“Why is it that you are suddenly so concerned about my whereabouts and what I’m up to?”

“Just thought I’d come pick you up so we could go demon hunting.” A noise in the background made her breath catch. She looked at Michael. He shook his head, evidently not hearing what she had. “Was that a scream?” she asked.

“The game is over so soon? How disappointing. Come find me then, Hound. I’ll be waiting.” Then there was the familiar click of a disconnected call.

She snapped her phone shut and headed back down Michael’s alley. “Where’s your car?”

Michael furrowed his brow. “What?”

She gripped his arms in her hands and shook once to get his attention. “Your car.”

“Here. It’s here.” He went over to pound on a large double door set a few feet from the one she’d used earlier. The Neanderthal opened it a crack until he saw Michael. Both doors swung open wide. As usual, Michael owned some low-slung little red sports car she couldn’t identify.

She walked to the driver’s side. “Keys?”

“In the ignition.”

“Where’s he staying?” she asked as she slid behind the wheel.

“At the house.” Michael got in on the other side.

Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be? She floored the accelerator and flew backward down the alley and into the street. Michael gripped the dashboard, his knuckles white. He closed his eyes as she shifted into first and floored it again.

“I’d forgotten about your driving.” He sounded ill. He cursed when she darted between a couple of midsized sedans. She turned on the highway away from the maze of side streets. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth together.

“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

She nodded.

“Shit.” He sat there for a moment. She wasn’t sure if he was done talking or bracing himself to see if she was going to stop for the snarl of traffic in front of them. She didn’t. She jerked the wheel to the right and drove half on the shoulder, half on the grass until she got to their exit.

Once she was back on the pavement, he took a deep breath and said, “So we have a master vampire playing host to a first-level demon. What are we going to do about it?”

“Find him.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but she didn’t know what else to say. Nathaniel was already dead and based on the scream she heard over the phone, the demon was adding to the body count. Fear and desperation dug their claws into her heart, each fighting for dominance over the other.

Her mate was infested, demon-ridden. And with a host like Thomas, the demon would be near impossible to stop. Her only hope lay in the thought that perhaps Thomas was strong enough to fight the demon. That he could maintain enough control to prohibit the invader from going on a rampage. The more people he killed, the harder it was going to be to keep him alive.

* * *

Thomas didn’t know what happened or when. His awareness came only in small intervals and never stayed for very long. Something was horribly wrong. He thought back, searching his memory.

He’d been with Juliana at the Apocryphan. He’d been with her and then...Then what?

Oh, yes. The records.

And then everything had gone black.

When he’d next come around there had been blood. So much blood. And bodies. So many dead that had trusted him. That had depended on him to protect them.

When the blackness came again, he’d welcomed it.

Now, he fought against it. Struggled to maintain some control over his body. This thing inside him was after his bride. “The thing” he called it, but it must be the demon. Had to be, for there was nothing else that could override his control this way.

“I will not let you harm her,” Thomas said. “She is mine and you cannot have her.”

“Wrong, vampire. She is mine. Go back to sleep.”

And the darkness overcame him again.

* * *

Michael and Juliana were silent as they pulled up in front of the gate at the house. It stood undisturbed, no movement, no sound. She climbed out of the car, went over to the keypad and punched in the code she hadn’t used in seven years. The gates slid open, inviting them in and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her ability to open locks only worked on the old-fashioned kind. Anything requiring any kind of technology was beyond her magical skill. If her code worked here, it should still work in the house as well. She would have access to anything. Of course, Michael probably did, too.

They drew their guns and walked through the gates following the driveway to the house. Several cars sat scattered along its length, but there was still no sign of anyone. Her stomach stretched tight with dread. She had to remind herself to breathe. This house was never silent. It was Thomas’s house, but it was also the gathering place for the local coven. At any given time, members of the coven, guests and staff occupied a variety of its twenty-seven rooms. Where was everybody?

Michael reached for the keypad by the front door. She put a hand on his arm to stop him. A smear of blood colored the door near the knob. She pointed it out to him.

He nodded and entered his code then used his fingertips to turn the knob. The foyer was empty, the house silent. Dim light filtered through the curtain, but there were no lamps on. They stepped into the house and shut the door behind them. She sniffed the air. The scent was there but faint. Cinder and ashes.

“He was here, but it’s been a while.”

“How do you know?” Michael glanced at her over his shoulder.

“I can smell him.”

He arched a brow but said nothing.

The entry was a sea of cherry hardwood and cream marble. Papers lay scattered across the floor and up the gently curving staircase. She picked a sheet up and her eyes scanned the typewritten print. She read it twice before she realized what she held in her hand. Grief weighed her down, made it hard to breathe. The page crumpled as she put her hands on her knees and bent forward. This was so much worse than she imagined. That stupid, stupid man. What had he done?

“What is it?” Worry laced Michael’s voice.

She closed her eyes, took a trembling breath and wished she could make things anything but what they were. “It’s my records from the hospital.” The gods only knew how he’d gotten them. Probably one of his minions worked there. She was sure a payment had been made as well. She ran a hand down her face before forcing herself to straighten.

Thomas now knew what happened when he left and he’d found out in the worst possible way. There was the chance he wouldn’t remember any of it when this was over, but she doubted it. He was too stubborn to let the demon take over completely.

She started up the stairs, stepping on more sheets of paper as she went. She followed the trail to the left down the hall to Thomas’s room. Their room. The room she couldn’t bear to return to after she left the hospital. This was the first time she’d even been in the house in seven years.

The door hung loosely on one hinge, resting diagonally across the opening. She holstered her gun and grasped the door in both hands. With a tug, she pulled it loose and set it against the wall to the side. Her gasp was the only sound as the room came fully into view. It was almost unrecognizable.

The destruction centered on the bed and radiated out from there. The mattress, ripped apart, leaked stuffing onto the floor. Shreds of sheets clung to the remains. Splinters of wood surrounded the broken, cracked bed. The bulk of her file was here as well, the pages tossed haphazardly. Everywhere she looked destruction reigned. Cracks spider-webbed across the mirror above the dresser. Drawers were pulled out, emptied, thrown across the room. There was nothing here but misery.

Michael whistled through his teeth when he came up behind her. “This was all Thomas. The demon might have fueled him, but this was him.”

She knew he was right. The demon had no reason to care what happened to her. Her mate did. At least he was still partly in control, or had been. “Where is everybody? I heard screaming over the phone. I know I did.”

He shrugged. “You said he hadn’t been here in a while. Maybe that was after he left. Who knows what he’s been up to. Let’s get busy. There are a lot of rooms to get through.”

After one last look at the bedroom, she ignored the twisting in her gut and followed Michael down the hall. He paused at each door, listening before swinging it open. When they encountered a locked door, one of them used their code to open it. Room after room yawned empty before them. There were no signs of destruction, but there were also no signs of life.

“I don’t think I remember the place ever being this empty before,” Michael said as he opened the door onto their tenth empty room. “It’s eerie.”

At least she wasn’t alone in feeling like she’d been dropped into the middle of a twisted horror movie. “It wouldn’t be so bad if there was some indication that someone had been here. It’s like everyone just vanished.”

Michael swung open the next door. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

She stepped forward and he turned sideways so she could see past him. They still hadn’t found anyone, but they’d found blood. A lot of it. “Okay. That’s not exactly what I meant.”

They shut the door and backed away. Continuing their explorations, they found more blood in another bedroom as well as the kitchen. She wasn’t sure whether to be thankful there were no bodies to go with the blood or not. It was almost worse that there weren’t any. There was no release for the anticipation that had been building since she walked through the front door. Adrenaline pounded through her veins making her heart race. What the hell happened here? And, more importantly, when?

They circled back to the foyer. “There’s one more place to check.” His face was drawn, distant. She followed him to the library. They’d come through the room earlier, but it was empty like the others. As they stepped into the room, a glass case to one side caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed it before. She had a vague memory of it from when she lived in the house, but she’d never spent much time in the library. That was Thomas’s domain.

She walked over and placed one hand on the glass. The case was empty. “What was in here?”

Michael looked over, distracted. She let the topic drop as he pulled a bookcase away from the wall and slid it to the side to reveal a hidden door. Blood coated the keypad beside it.

“Guess that answers the question of where he went,” she said. Blood on the bookcase caught her eye now that she knew where to look. She’d glanced right past it the first time through. She moved to Michael’s side. “I didn’t know this was here.”

“You weren’t supposed to. This is the one place your code won’t work.” He punched in his and pulled the door open to reveal stairs descending into darkness.

“What’s down there?”

“The part of himself Thomas doesn’t want you to see.”

Chapter Eighteen

Someone pounding on the front door stopped them before they could step through into the darkness. Michael and Juliana frowned and stepped back into the foyer. He held a finger to her lips. As if she didn’t know the folly of revealing themselves before they knew who was there. She tilted her head trying to hear what was happening on the other side of the door.

“This is the Agency. We are in possession of a kill order for one Thomas Kendrick. Open the door.”

Michael’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline and a heavy weight settled in her stomach. This was what she’d been dreading. What she tried to avoid thinking about since she discovered the demon was in her mate. She doubted the Agency was aware Thomas was playing host. There was nothing to connect him to Nathaniel’s death though that was surely the work of the demon and it had been in Thomas at the time. What had the demon done to get the kill order issued?

Her phone vibrated. She stepped away from the door before answering so the noise wouldn’t carry over the line. “Norris.”

“Where are you?” A whisper, it was impossible to place the speaker.

She glanced at the phone. “Jeremiah?”

“No, it’s Anna.”

“What’s wrong?” Anna hardly ever called her and the whispering worried her.

“They’re going after your vampire.”

Yeah, no crap.

The background noise died away and her voice was at a more normal volume when she said, “They don’t want you to know. They’re afraid you’ll interfere.”

“Who’s they?”

“The Agency. Ben. I don’t know exactly.”

She smiled. They certainly knew her well. “What happened?”

She heard nothing but Anna breathing.

“Tell me, Anna. I need to know.” She needed the information, but she didn’t want it. Didn’t want to know whatever horrific thing the demon had done in the guise of her mate. An image of Nathaniel pinned to the wall flashed through her brain. It couldn’t be any worse than that.

Finally, she sighed. “He crucified someone in front of St. Gabriel’s on Fourth.” She said the words quickly as if that would lessen the blow. “He’s turned. I’m sorry.”

Juliana ran a hand through her hair. Of all the horrible things she’d been imagining, crucifixion hadn’t even made the list. “I need to talk to Jeremiah.”

“He’ll be furious if he knows I called. They’re looking for you.”

“It’s important.” Silence answered her. “Please.”

She sighed again. “This better be worth it.”

The pounding continued on the front door, but she ignored it. Without a code, they weren’t getting in without a ward breaker. A couple of them probably. Thomas rarely used only one type of magic to protect his property.

Noise blossomed in the background on the phone again. After a moment, Jeremiah got on. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” she told him. “Do not yell at Anna. It’s good she called. There’s something you need to know.” She didn’t add that he should have been the one to call her. That he was her friend. That she was more important than a job he didn’t much like anyway. She wanted to say all of those things but she didn’t. They could argue about it later. Now she just needed him to listen.

He said nothing for a beat and the noise dropped away again. “She told me she was calling the boys. I should have known.”

“Listen to me. Thomas hasn’t turned.”

He interrupted before she could explain further. “I know you have some misplaced—”

“He’s demon-ridden,” she said over the top of him.

“What?”

“He’s the host.”

“Are you sure?”

“Would I say it if I wasn’t?” she asked.

“Maybe you’re just trying to buy him some time.”

The insinuation stung. Not so much that she’d lie but that she’d lie to him. “Is that really what you think?”

“No. But Ben will.” His voice had an edge to it. She wondered what conversations he’d had with their boss about her and Thomas.

“I don’t give a crap if he believes me or not. You’ve got to try. If those agents are going up against him armed only for vamps, people are going to get killed.” They would anyway, but at least this way maybe a few more would live. And he was right. She was hoping this would give Thomas some time. That the agents would be too scared to face him. That they’d do their best to avoid him.

“It may already be too late for that,” he said and hung up without explaining what he meant. She could only assume he referred to the agents on the doorstep. She put her phone away and looked for Michael. He was gone.

The pounding ceased, but there were still voices on the other side of the door. She headed to the library, drawn back to that mysterious door and whatever it was Thomas didn’t want her to see. A light shone from the opening. She stood at the top of the stairs and looked into the basement. Her mouth went dry as moans drifted up from somewhere below. Moans from more than one person. She could see nothing past the stairs, as they were enclosed and veered off to the right at the bottom.

She shifted her grip on her gun and kept her back to the wall as she edged down the stairs. She said a silent prayer that Michael wasn’t one of the moaners. Her heart pounded in her chest and blood rushed through her ears making it harder to hear. At the bottom she peered around the corner. She sucked in a deep breath. So much blood. So many bodies. No demon-ridden vampire.

Michael stood in the middle of the floor, surrounded by carnage. She didn’t come any farther into the room. The bodies scattered about were vampires. Mostly. Several were still alive and she didn’t relish the idea of becoming a meal. Mixed in with the blood were bursts of ash and clumps of flesh. Dead vampires. It was impossible to tell how many.

Her eyes swept the room. She forced herself to look past the devastation. Breath vacated her lungs as she realized where she was. “Is this a dungeon?”

Michael turned to face her, his mouth tight. He nodded once.

“Like a real dungeon?”

He nodded again, his face pale, sweat beading his brow.

Her mate had a real, working dungeon beneath his house. And from the looks of the victims scattered throughout the room, he knew how to use every instrument of torture in his possession. Somehow, this didn’t surprise her as much as it probably should.

She took in the extent of the damage. One vampire lay strapped to a surgical table in the middle of the room. Her lip curled as she realized pieces of him were missing. Her eyes searched them out of their own accord. There. A finger. Below the table, another. An ear lay by itself against the wall.

She pulled her gaze away, moved on to the next tableau. Two vampires hung from shackles along the wall. They appeared unhurt but they weren’t moving. Another one was on what she thought was a rack. There was also one in the iron maiden if the pool of blood below it was any indication. Three or four more lay in heaps on the floor, too bloody to immediately see what was wrong with them. And she wasn’t getting any closer to investigate.

Michael looked worse for every second he spent in the room.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He closed his eyes, then hurried past her up the stairs. She took one last look over her shoulder before following him up. So much devastation and it all came back to her. One way or another that demon was focused on her and all those poor fools had just gotten caught in the middle.

Michael slumped in a chair beside the fireplace, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He looked up when she stepped into the room. “I called the Council. They’re sending a delegation to clean up.”

“How are they going to get past the agents out front?” she asked. The Council had a lot of pull but there was no way the Agency would let them in while its own representatives stayed outside.

He smiled. “The same way we are.”

A blue glow lit the room as a portal opened beside her.

Her surprise must have shown on her face because Michael laughed. “Did you think the Agency were the only ones to employ portal mages?”

She’d never really given it much thought. Portal mages were prohibitively expensive for most people to hire, particularly on a permanent basis. That would be no obstacle for the vampires.

The Agency wouldn’t be able to come in the same way. The wards protected the whole house and prohibited unauthorized entry by any means. The Council was apparently authorized. Of course, it was probably against Council edict to ban them from any coven property. The fact that she didn’t want the Council involved in this had nothing to do with anything but her personal prejudice. They had yet to do her any favors. And when they acted like they were, it usually came back around to screw her in some way.

Several vampires came through the portal and, at Michael’s indication, they headed down the stairs to the dungeon. The last figure through was a tall, thin woman of Spanish descent. Her dark hair fell in waves down her back framing her heart-shaped face. The sharpness of her features was the only thing that kept her from being stunning.

“Michael,” she said with a nod before turning her attention to Juliana. She arched one thin black brow. “You are what all the fuss is about?”

Juliana frowned. “Excuse me?”

“You are Juliana Norris, are you not?” The woman’s opinion of Juliana’s intelligence, or lack of it, was evident in her tone. Juliana knew that tone well. It was the same one that had answered call after call when Thomas left. It was the same voice that said Thomas was being well taken care of and Juliana didn’t need to bother checking on him anymore. And Juliana was suddenly sure that every word this woman said had been a lie.

She crossed her arms over her chest and wished she was wearing heels so she didn’t have to look up to meet the vampire’s eyes. “Yes, I am her, but I fail to see what that has to do with anything.”

“It was his fascination with you that began this mess. If not for you, he’d still be far away from here,” she spat. “And looking at you, I certainly don’t understand why. We have lost one of the greatest of our kind over a lover’s spat. Disgusting.”

The shrew certainly didn’t wear her jealousy well. “I’m sorry but I was under the impression Thomas being demon-ridden started all this,” Juliana said.

Her brow furrowed as she turned to Michael. “Our Thomas is demon-ridden?”

Thomas wasn’t her anything but Juliana didn’t think it would be beneficial to point that out. “What? You thought he just went crazy and decided to chop up a few vamps and cap it all off by crucifying someone?”

Michael shot her a look. She forgot that he hadn’t heard that last bit of information yet.

The vampire pursed her lips and scowled at Juliana. “It is not unheard of for vampires of his age to turn.”

Actually it wasn’t unheard of for vampires of any age to turn, but the Council didn’t like the general populace to know that. “And it’s normal for vampires to turn without showing any signs or indication of mental deterioration?”

She looked down her nose at Juliana, but didn’t answer the question. Her attitude was becoming tiresome.

“Who are you exactly?” Juliana asked.

“I am Catalina,” she said, a purr in her voice. “I am sure our Thomas has mentioned me.”

“Nope. Never heard of you.” It wasn’t even a lie.

Michael choked on a laugh. It died completely when the vampire turned her glare on him.

After a moment, she tore her eyes from him and looked at Juliana. “You will treat me with more respect, Walker.” Compulsion laced her voice. Vampire magic wouldn’t work on Juliana thanks to her union with Thomas, but let the woman try. It didn’t hurt Juliana any.

“You are not vampire, Walker, but Thomas trusts you so I shall as well.” She paused. If she was looking for a thank you, she was talking to the wrong girl. Juliana didn’t care if the Council or anyone on it trusted her or not. She was only tolerating this particular member because she might be useful. Apparently realizing Juliana wasn’t going to say anything, the woman continued. “If you find him, can you save him?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try.”

She thought about this for minute then nodded. “I will put out word that I am looking for Thomas. If I find out where he is, I will alert you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, child. If our Thomas is lost to us, I will hold you responsible.” With that she headed into the basement. Super. Now Juliana’s life depended on Thomas’s survival. Not that it didn’t already in a way, but the Council would have no qualms bringing about her final death if she displeased them.

Michael rocked back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. “What now?”

She ran a hand through her hair and shrugged. “I guess we’re off to see a crucifixion.”

Chapter Nineteen

The vampires provided the portal that Michael and Juliana used to travel to Fourth Street. People hovered about in a large crowd, barely room for air between them. She was surprised there were so many. Normally, the Agency kept their scenes quiet and if they couldn’t, they tried to dissipate the observers as quickly as possible. Their arrival went largely unnoticed as everyone stood gawking at the church across the street.

She assumed it was the church anyway. She couldn’t see through the press of people in front of her but the steeple towered over them. There was no way she could get through the crowd without drawing attention to herself so she might as well use her position to her advantage. Making sure her badge was visible, she stepped forward and tapped the man directly in front of her on the shoulder. He turned, frowning down at her.

“Excuse me.”

He started to say something and then her badge caught his eye. He nodded his head once before stepping to the side. His large hand landed on the shoulder of the lady in front of him. Again and again, the motion repeated until they finally stepped clear of the crowd.

Juliana put her hand over her mouth as she took in the scene before her. Oh, Thomas. What have you done? Even as she thought the words, she knew they weren’t fair. The demon did this, not Thomas. Not really.

Usually when someone reported a crucifixion, they meant someone had been killed and strapped to a cross. Not this time. A vampire she didn’t recognize hung suspended on the life-sized cross. Metal spikes impaled both wrists and one ran through both feet. An extra nail ran straight through his heart and into the wood beneath. She wondered how long it had taken him to bleed out and die.

“Eric,” Michael breathed from beside her, his eyes locked on the cross. She’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Who?”

His eyes shifted to her only briefly before finding their way back to the victim. “He’s a lackey. An errand boy Thomas put here years ago to keep an eye on you.”

He’d done a good job because she couldn’t recall ever seeing him before. She’d talk to Thomas about siccing a stalker on her later. She ran her gaze over the body again. “How old is he?”

Michael frowned. “Two hundred, give or take. Why?”

“He’s still here.” Vampires converted to their real age when they died. When their blood drained away, it took the power of the blood magic with it. At two hundred, there should have been nothing but dust and bones left. That meant magic. Probably a stasis spell keeping the body on display and from deteriorating in death. She looked around the area, noting the location of the agents before sliding her glasses on. Relief coursed through her when her gift fired up without any difficulty. Sometimes it could be days before she got full usage back when she overtaxed herself. She took another look at the corpse.

The black of the demon’s magic mixed with Thomas’s lavender in a spell that coated the victim. She crossed the street. Several agents noted her approach but none of them came near. She stopped at the foot of the cross, took a deep breath and ran her eyes up the length of him.

It wasn’t as bad like this, with the wounds hidden beneath the sheen of the spell. Made it easy to ignore the very dead vampire beneath. She reached out a hand to touch the spell, sometimes contact helped her figure out the magic. Nothing.

As she pulled her hand away, she watched the colors stretch from the vampire to her. The spell clung to her. She jerked backward and the magic followed, stuck to her skin. As soon as Eric was free of it, he exploded in a shower of dust like he should have done the moment he died.

She barely noticed, her attention fixated on the spell that still coated her skin. She held her hand away from her body, staring at it with wide eyes. Her lungs ached reminding her to breathe. Panicked gasps provided much needed air, but did nothing to calm her down. The color began to fade from her vision. She hoped the magic was dissipating as opposed to being absorbed by her body.

Someone cleared their throat beside her. She kept her eyes locked on her hand, waiting for the last of the signature to disappear.

“Norris?” Ben. Great, just what she needed.

“Hold on.” He could damn well wait until she got rid of the demon magic. Finally, the last of it faded away. She shut down her gift and turned to face her boss. She kept the glasses on. This conversation would go easier if he couldn’t see her eyes. They were too expressive.

“Okay there?” he asked.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, her voice innocent.

He blinked at her. After a moment he shook his head. “Forget it. What are you doing here?”

She glanced at the cross and raised an eyebrow. “Guess.”

“Don’t be a smartass. Who told you about it? The Agency ordered you to be kept out of it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he said the last. She couldn’t tell if he was angry because she knew or because the Agency didn’t want her to.

She narrowed her eyes. “How exactly did you propose to do that? It’s a crucifixion. We don’t live in a communist state. Seems like evening news material to me.”

“Don’t give me that, Juliana. You’re not here out of curiosity and we both know it. You can’t help him.”

“He’s demon-ridden. I told Jeremiah. I know he passed it along. What are you going to do about it?” She preferred Ben when he stayed behind his desk where he belonged. Out in the real world, he pissed her off.

He glanced around as if suddenly aware they might be overheard. He grabbed her arm and moved her farther away from the crowd. Probably didn’t want to cause a panic. Rumors of demon-ridden vampires would do that. “Jeremiah told me, but I don’t believe it. You’re too close to this. Besides, it doesn’t matter if he’s demon-ridden or turned, the result’s the same. The kill order stands. How did you find out anyway?”

“I had a conversation with him on the phone. And I’ve got a witness in the End.” She knew how it sounded; she wasn’t an idiot. But she had to try.

“Probably some doped out scum sucker who wouldn’t know a host from his own mother. I’ve told you before about the reliability of your witnesses. Have you seen Kendrick with your own eyes?”

She pursed her lips, thought briefly about lying then sighed. “No.”

“Then there’s no way you could know for sure that he’s demon-ridden. You’re guessing.” His smug tone was the final straw. He was going to believe what he wanted no matter what she said. She might not have seen Thomas, but she’d seen the spell.

“I am not guessing, Ben.”

“Listen to me. I let you get away with a lot because you’re good at your job and I like you. But you are not going to interfere.” He poked a finger in her chest. “If you see him, you will kill him on sight just like every other employee of the Agency. That’s an order.”

Her jaw ached from the pressure of her grinding teeth. There had to be something she could say that would get through to him. “What about the fact the demon is powerful enough to ride a corpse and will just jump to a new host?”

“We don’t have anyone’s word on that but yours either,” he snapped.

“And the Director of the Gathering and however many other mages were watching.”

“James Piper would say anything to protect his brother-in-law and the rest of them would say whatever he told them to.” The quickness of the response told her he’d already thought this out. That he would have an answer for every argument.

She twisted her neck to the side trying to loosen up the knots. “So in other words, you’re ignoring the fact this demon isn’t like any we’ve ever faced. You’re just going to follow procedure to the letter, screw the consequences. Nice use of your authority there, boss.”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward on his toes crowding her space. “If you aren’t willing to terminate, Norris, you’re of no use to me. Go home and stay the hell out of my way.”

He kept his eyes locked with hers for a moment then turned and walked away without once looking back.

Michael laid his hand on her shoulder, a slight stirring of the air the only warning before his sudden appearance. “Great boss you’ve got there, Jules. You okay?”

“Yeah,” she lied. There wasn’t anything about this that was okay. Her boss had turned into an overbearing jerk who no longer seemed to be on her side. And the Agency intended to hunt Thomas down and eliminate him. They wouldn’t stop until they’d succeeded.

“And now?” Michael asked.

She glanced at him. “We hope we find him first.”

* * *

“Another dead end,” she said to Michael as she slid back into the car. They’d been chasing leads from the Agency and the vamps all day. Either Thomas and his demon had toured the entire town or people were calling in every sighting of a dark-headed vamp with a bad attitude. Dark and brooding were vampire stereotypes for a reason. The description matched half the population and they’d spent the past four hours hunting them all down.

Michael had taken to waiting in the car while she ran in and looked things over. After all, she only had to sniff the air to know whether they dealt with a demon or not. He turned the car on and made a u-turn.

“Where are we headed now?” she asked.

“Catalina called. Someone saw Thomas entering an office building not far from here. She claims this source is more reliable than the others.”

“It’d be hard for them to be any less reliable. We’ve turned up nothing so far.” She shifted her gaze to the world outside the window. Every minute that passed made it more likely that someone else would find him first. That they’d be too late, that he would die. Then the demon would find a new host and they’d be right back where they started. Only she’d care a lot less about the outcome.

They pulled up in front of a rundown office building that skirted the line between downtown and the End. She fired up her gift as she stepped out of the car. Pain flared and throbbed behind her eyes. She’d scanned every place they investigated to make sure the call wasn’t a setup. As soon as she ascertained nothing lay in wait for them, she shut the gift down. The pain receded but didn’t leave completely. She was in serious need of an aspirin, but at least it still worked.

She entered a rather nondescript lobby with peeling paint, cracked floors and the large potted plants that were standard issue in offices all over town. She doubted any of the others boasted a body sprawled in front of the elevator bank, though. A deep breath filled her nose with the scent of cinder and ashes. Finally.

She signaled to Michael and he grabbed a rifle out of the trunk before hurrying in. She flipped the deadbolt behind him. It wouldn’t do any good if someone really wanted in as they could just break the glass, but it would slow the less criminally inclined.

Michael immediately crossed the floor to kneel by the prone form. “He’s alive.” A jolt of surprise accompanied his words. There wasn’t a single reason for the demon to incapacitate instead of kill. Especially given the bloody trail it had left behind so far.

“Drag him over there so he won’t be visible from the door. The longer it takes the Agency to come sniffing around the better.”

For once, he did as she asked without arguing, propping the body against the wall behind a plant. She drew her sword and strode across the floor as she sniffed the air. Passing the elevators, she headed for the stairs. The smell faded. Of course, the cursed thing would take the elevator, making it harder to track. Gods forbid anything just be simple.

One of the elevators dinged as it reached the lobby. They pressed their backs against the two thin sections of wall between the doors so they could cover all three elevators. The door between them slid open. Nothing or no one came out. It started to close and she stopped it with her hand. She peered around the corner. The car was empty.

She glanced at Michael and shrugged before stepping into the elevator. He followed. Her hand hovered over the panel trying to decide which button to press. There were too many options and not enough time. They rocked on their feet as they jerked into motion.

“Did you press a button?” he asked.

“Nope.” She moved to stand beside him at the back of the car, shifting her grip on the sword. The motion kept her focused on the here and now, kept her brain from imagining a million different scenarios of how this could all turn sour. The bell dinged on each floor marking their slow progression upward. When they reached the seventh floor, they came to a stop. The door opened to reveal a dimly lit room filled with rows of cubicles. Every shadow, every crevice was a new place for the demon to hide. Super.

She sniffed the air as they stepped out of the elevator. The odor was strong. Their prey was here or had been until recently. Michael tapped her arm and gestured behind her. The doors of the other two elevators had been jammed open making those units inoperable. Theirs had obviously been sent for them. Great. She immediately took another look around but saw nothing. Taking a cue from the demon, she took a moment to jam open the door on their unit as well. If anyone else wanted up, they were going to have to take the stairs.

She signaled to Michael that he should go left. He nodded once and headed in that direction. She tried to ignore the blood pulsing through her veins, her heart pounding in her chest. She looked down the length of the first row of cubicles on her side. The toe of a woman’s dress shoe was just visible past one of the walls. Making her way toward the shoe and the person wearing it, she looked in the cubes on either side of her as she hurried down the aisle.

The woman lay sprawled in her chair, arms and head thrown backward. Her chest moved up and down as she breathed. If her skirt were any shorter, Juliana would have had a lot more of a show than she wanted. Leaving the woman, Juliana continued down the aisle. Two more victims were in that row. One slumped over a keyboard and the other lay on the floor beside her. Both alive.

Like the man in the lobby, none of them had any visible injuries but something had knocked them out. Given that there wasn’t a mass of bodies clogging the exits, she suspected there’d been no warning. That they’d all passed out at once. She flashed her gift on only long enough to see the sheen of a spell laid across them. She left it alone for now as it kept them out of her way while she hunted the demon. That’s all she cared about.

When she stepped out of the aisle, she found Michael waiting for her at the end of his. He nodded to her and started down the next row of cubicles. It made her smile that he checked on her.

She made it no more than two steps down the next aisle before a heavy hand clamped over her mouth, covering her nose. At the same instant, her assailant’s other hand snared her wrist in a bruising grip. Her arm bent almost to the point of breaking and she was forced to drop her sword. It hit the carpet with a soft thud no louder than a misplaced footfall.

She clawed at the hand on her mouth, twisted her body but was no match for the strength of the man behind it. He yanked her back against his firm body and she recognized it instantly. Thomas. The demon found her first. Relief warred with anxiety. Thomas was alive, but she was at the demon’s mercy. It shifted its hand so her nose was free and she sucked in a greedy lungful of cinder and ash tainted air.

It dragged her into one of the offices that ringed the room. It spun her in one fluid motion and clamped a hand around her throat, instantly cutting off her ability for speech. With the other hand, the demon closed the door and flipped the lock. It pushed her backward until she hit the wall, lifting her off the floor by the hand still wrapped around her neck.

Wheezing breaths worked their way into her lungs, but it wasn’t enough to keep spots from clouding the edge of her vision. She gripped the arm with both hands trying to pull it away, to relieve some of the pressure. Suffocation was shaping up to be one of her least favorite ways to die. She was going to kick this demon’s rotted carcass straight back to its realm when she came back to life. Just when she thought she was going to pass out, it released her completely.

Her feet slammed against the floor and the rest of her would have followed if the hand hadn’t clamped around her neck again. The grip was looser this time. She could breathe, but only with effort. She’d take it. Any breath was better than none, even if the taint of the demon rode the air and coated her insides.

The demon leaned forward laying its face alongside hers. It inhaled and sighed in contentment. “Hello again, Hound.” It ran its tongue along her pulse point and she shivered. She wished she could say it was entirely from revulsion but the demon inhabited her mate’s body. And she had always responded to Thomas.

“You torment me, did you know that? I’ve been watching you since almost the first moment I appeared in this realm,” it said, its voice low but unmistakably Thomas. It wasn’t him, though. He was merely a puppet acting for his master. A vise grip squeezed her heart. Thomas was the strongest being she knew. If the demon bested him, what hope did the rest of them have? Then its words sank through the fog of panic. She had seen someone outside her house the night she fought the troll. And then later she’d seen him in the warehouse mutilated and destroyed and she’d never even realized it.

She closed her eyes listening for some sign of Michael. She heard nothing, but he’d be looking for her.

“The sole purpose of my summoning was to kill you, to make sure you died in such a way you couldn’t be resurrected.” The demon’s breath was warm against her skin. “But if I kill you, my master, my real master, will hold my life forfeit. You’re not worth dying over. But if I do not kill you, I can’t return to my realm. Decisions, decisions.”

She said nothing. She wasn’t sure she could have even if she wanted to. If the demon didn’t return to its realm, its power would begin to fade. Eventually it would die. So the choice seemed to be a slow death or a quick one. She knew which way she leaned but she didn’t think it wanted her opinion.

It stepped back to look in her eyes. “And this host retains more of its will than any I’ve ever experienced before. He is currently being most vocal about my treatment of you. It is...different.”

It loosened its grip slightly, running a thumb along her pulse point. “That scene at the house? All that destruction? That was him. Mostly anyway. He was most difficult to take over. His rage was the door that let me in. I fed it, fueled it, but I think he rather enjoyed it.”

She wanted to believe he was lying. That her mate had been nothing more than the weapon the murderer used. But she knew Thomas better than that. She was his and they hadn’t protected her. Regardless of the fact she came back, she’d died and someone was going to pay for it. Because Raoul wasn’t immediately available, he’d taken it out on the rest of the coven. She hoped Thomas would have been a little less bloody had he been in control but she couldn’t be sure of that.

She did know that every one of the people she encountered in the building who wasn’t dead owed his or her life to Thomas. The demon had no reason to keep them alive, but the vampire had no reason to kill them. The vampire had evidently won. It made her feel better for Thomas’s chances.

The demon inhaled deeply, its eyelids fluttering. Thomas’s eyes darkened and his fangs extended. Once again, it laid his face alongside hers to speak in her ear. “Should I suck the sweet blood from your veins? Should I drain every last drop from you until you fade into nothingness? It is why I am here and there is no release for me until I finish you.”

Teeth scraped her skin. Her pulse skipped and raced. Panic clawed at her insides. Images of Raoul flashed through her mind. Pinning her down, draining her, raping her. The demon knew this. It had read her file and was using it against her. Anger forced its way past the panic, helped her regain control.

The doorknob rattled and the demon spun to face it with a hiss.

“Michael,” she managed to force out of her damaged throat. It wasn’t loud, but she knew he could hear her.

“Juliana!” A thud reverberated through the room as Michael threw himself against the door.

The demon turned to her, fury contorting Thomas’s features into an unrecognizable mask. Metal groaned as Michael threw himself against the door again. She heard sirens on the street below.

“It seems the time has come for me to go,” it growled. “Come and find me, Hound.”

It released her and she fell to the ground, her hand cradling her throat. After kicking out the window, it stood on the sill and looked back at her. With a grin, it waved and launched itself through the opening just as Michael finally broke through the door.

He glanced at her and, once assured she still breathed, unshouldered the rifle and rushed to the window. An icy shard of panic pierced her chest. Michael could hit a coin dead center at three hundred paces. And he aimed to kill. She launched herself at his legs and knocked him off balance just as he fired. If he’d seen her coming, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Ever the professional, he ignored her and re-aimed. “Damn it, lost my shot,” he spat and lowered the rifle. “What the hell was that?”

She clenched her jaw and wrapped a hand around her throat. “You can’t kill him.” Every word felt like sandpaper rubbing against her throat. It didn’t sound much better than it felt.

He looked at her a moment, then sighed and knelt in front of her. He laid the gun on the floor beside them. “I have a feeling you may regret doing that,” he said as he wrapped his hand around hers and gently pulled it away from her throat. “I thought he bit you.”

“Wanted to. You interrupted.” Her voice sounded a little better with each word but it hurt like hell to talk. She needed to communicate as much as possible with as few words as she could.

He helped her to her feet. “He’s gone again. Jumped to the building across the street. I might make the jump, but I can’t guarantee the shape I’d be in after.”

They needed to trap him somewhere he couldn’t get away while she figured this out. She just needed time to think. The seeds of a new plan started to grow. She needed to run it by Michael, though there really wasn’t a point. He was going to hate it. He always hated her plans.

“Freeze,” a voice said from the doorway, chasing any other thought away.

“Well, this should be fun,” Michael said as he laced his fingers on top of his head.

Chapter Twenty

Thirty minutes later Juliana sat in the back of the ambulance while a medic tried to convince her to go to a hospital or at least check in at the Agency. She shook her head for the third time. He threw his hands up in exasperation and stormed off to find someone more cooperative to treat.

As soon as she stepped around Michael so the cop upstairs could see both their badges, he apologized and escorted them down. It hadn’t taken long for them to piece together what happened. Someone had seen Michael run into the building, rifle in hand, and called the cops. The police and the Agency had arrived almost simultaneously. Both of them wanted to know why they hadn’t called in the sighting of Thomas.

Michael made himself scarce as soon as he was able, claiming he needed to take care of something. He just didn’t want anyone looking at his credentials too closely. Her story was that she wasn’t certain Thomas was on the premises and until she was, she didn’t see the point calling in resources needed elsewhere.

For a moment, she was blissfully alone. She sat on the floor at the back of the ambulance, one leg swinging in the air below and the other knee drawn up so she could rest her elbow on it. She held an icepack to her throat, surprised at how much it helped. Closing her eyes, she dropped her head forward and just enjoyed the cool sensation on her tortured neck.

“Norris!” Ben’s voice boomed from across the street. Though she was sure he attracted the attention of everyone else in the area, she ignored him.

“Norris!” he yelled again, closer this time. Still not worth her attention. The conversation would be a repeat of their earlier one and she didn’t see the point. Nor did she have the patience.

“Don’t you ignore me, Walker,” he said. She kept her head down but opened her eyes to find herself looking at his dilapidated dress shoes. He’d worn the same pair every day since she first met him. Maybe she’d give him a gift card for Christmas.

“You let him go, didn’t you?” he demanded.

“No,” she lied without looking at him. The only person that knew she’d let Thomas escape was Michael and he wasn’t about to tell anyone, least of all her boss. Ben could bluster and scream all he wanted, but she wasn’t killing her mate. And neither was anyone else if she could help it.

“Don’t lie to me.”

She didn’t think she’d ever heard him this angry. About anything. He grabbed her shoulders and jerked her to her feet. The icepack fell to the ground. “This is why I didn’t want you involved. You let him go, I know you did.”

She clenched her hands at her sides reminding herself of all the reasons knocking him out would be a bad idea. She slowly raised her head to look him in the eyes. “I wasn’t exactly in control of the situation, sir,” she said with every ounce of disdain she felt for him at that moment. “But I am in control of this one. Get your damn hands off me.”

His eyes fell from hers to look at her throat, which was no doubt starting to show its bruises. He dropped his hands away from her shoulders and took a step back. “I see.”

She studied him for a moment, tried to understand what was going on in his head. “No, I don’t think you do,” she said after a moment. “He jumped out of a seventh-story window, and landed on a building across the street. Then he got up and ran away.”

“I already know that.” He shifted his weight on his feet and frowned at her.

“Then you also know he’s demon-ridden and you will report it as such. The gods help you if you don’t.”

A flush crept up his face. “Are you threatening me, Norris?”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact.” She closed the small distance between them and locked eyes with him. “Every officer and agent on this street saw what he did. It will be in their reports. My report will state that you were informed of Thomas’s status some time ago. Initial skepticism on your part is to be understood, even commended. But if you continue to ignore what’s right in front of your face because of some personal power trip, you’re going to be the one they hand over to the executioner when this is done. I’ll make sure of it.”

His face was now crimson with fury and she knew he was trying to find an argument, but there was none. Her words were true. He knew it and that probably pissed him off more than anything. She gave him one last long look then stepped around him and headed to the opposite side of the street where Michael waited in the car.

He pulled away from the curb as soon as she shut her door. “What was that about?”

“Just making sure my boss did the right thing and quit being an ass. We’ll see if it works. We might need some outside help on this one. As much as I hate to give them credit for anything, the Council is superb at this clandestine bullshit.”

* * *

It had almost killed her. The dark thing inside Thomas had wrapped his hand around his bride’s throat and nearly suffocated her. And there wasn’t a cursed thing Thomas had been able to do about it. He’d been most verbal about his dislike of the situation, but that was all. He’d tried to take his body back, to regain control, but it was hopeless.

It seemed the only part of his body he was still in sole ownership of was his mind. The demon continually attempted to access information, but Thomas only allowed it into certain areas. He was afraid without that small bit of defiance he would lose himself completely.

Even now the demon tortured, endlessly tormented those around him and there was nothing Thomas could do. Not that he tried. No, as much as he hated what the demon was doing, he needed to save his strength, use it to save Juliana if he could. He only hoped he would be able to when the time came.

“I think it’s time to invite the Walker to play,” the demon said, confusing its current victim. It pulled out Thomas’s phone and called Juliana. “Let’s end this, Hound. I’m at the Den of Iniquity. Come get me if you think you can.” The demon hung up before she even had time to respond.

A sensible woman would call the Agency for help. She would have the building surrounded and come in with a tactical team to destroy him and the demon with him. But his mate was not a sensible woman. She was headstrong and impulsive and entirely too self-sacrificing. If she died trying to save him, he’d never forgive her. Even if she did come back from the grave.

* * *

Michael and Juliana parked down the block from the Den. She called both the vampires and the Agency only to be told by both the bar was clean, that they’d checked it out and no one was there. They also said they weren’t going to waste any resources helping her out. Since the demon said he was there, she was fairly certain they didn’t know what they were talking about. Besides, it was odd that neither the vamps nor the Agency had felt the need to leave anyone here to watch the building. And they were absolutely vehement in their refusal of aid. The whole thing reeked of magic.

Michael looked at her. “This is a horrible idea. You know that right?”

“Yes.” She opened the door. “Just like I’ve known it the past four times you told me.”

He put a hand on her arm. “So let’s come up with a different one.”

“We’ve been through this. All the plans sucked. This one just sucked the least.” Michael didn’t like the plan because she was putting herself at risk. Since it was the plan most likely to keep Thomas alive, however, it was the one they went with.

Ben wasn’t going to like it either since it didn’t involve killing her mate. Michael was going to let her boss in on it in about ten minutes. That was if Catalina didn’t get to him first. The vampires had a plan, a marvelous, eleventh-hour plan they had their lawyers working overtime on to keep the Agency from killing Thomas. All this meant nothing if the demon wasn’t actually here.

“I’ll be fine,” she told Michael, hoping he didn’t pick up on the utter lack of confidence in her voice. She slid her glasses on and headed toward the bar as she fired up her gift. A hot shaft of pain jammed itself through the base of her skull and she was surprised when her nose didn’t start bleeding. When she finished this job she wasn’t using her cursed gift for a week.

She stopped directly across the street from the Den and studied the spell shimmering in the air in front of her. Black mixed with lavender-blue, just like at the crucifixion. Demon magic. She raised a hand to signal Michael so he’d know the demon was there. He pulled away in the car, heading to the Agency to take care of his part.

She took a deep breath and stuck her hand out, touching the spell. The thought that no one else was there, that she should just go away and look somewhere else, anywhere else, and never come back planted itself in her brain. It was so subtle that if she hadn’t seen the magic with her own eyes, she would have thought it her own.

Knowing the spell was there made it possible for her ignore. She stepped through. The moment she breached the barrier, hoarse masculine screams reached her ears. She drew her sword with one hand and her phone with the other.

She called Michael. “He’s not alone.”

“Like he has help?”

Another scream cut through the night. “I’m going to go with no.”

“Was that a scream?”

“Yes.”

“Why is it that your plans always involve screaming and death or destruction?”

“This isn’t part of my plan,” she told him. “I’m not even in the building yet.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Just have a medical team ready to send through once I’ve got it out of here.” She put the phone back in her pocket. She shut down her gift and put her glasses away.

She paused with one hand on the door of the Den and glanced down to make sure the ring she’d slipped on earlier was still in place. Taking a deep breath, she braced herself. She could do this. She had to do this.

She eased the door open and slipped inside. The sour metallic smell of blood hit her the moment she stepped over the threshold. She glanced around the club and grimaced. The bar was a slaughterhouse. Blood spared no surface. Pools of it covered the dance floor, arcs of it covered tables, chairs and walls. Even the six human employees sitting along the far wall had been sprayed. They seemed unaware that she had entered the bar. Either their eyes were closed or they were looking down at their laps trying to ignore the four figures in the middle of the room.

One of the bouncers, whose name escaped her, knelt on one side of the floor. His hands hung limply at his sides as he stared straight ahead at the massacre before him. Words poured from him in a mumble that were probably a prayer to whatever god he worshipped.

Lying across from him on the other side of the floor was a mutilated form. A body that was nothing more than bleeding, raw, exposed muscle. Her stomach protested and she forced herself to swallow the bile. It burned her throat and made her eyes water. The poor bastard was breathing. It had to be Altered to still be alive after torture like that. There were some distinct disadvantages to being harder to kill. She didn’t turn on her gift to see who it was. At the moment, she was better off not knowing.

Tony sat on a chair in the middle of the floor receiving the demon’s attentions. Neither he nor the bouncer were restrained in any way. The demon must have been using their bloodties to Thomas to keep them where he wanted them. It took a long thing blade and sliced a wide strip of flesh from Tony’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Master,” he screamed, a hoarse guttural sound interspersed with sobs. Her heart ached. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t look away. If Tony had to live it, she could watch it. His arms and most of his chest were nothing more than raw open wounds. She wondered how long this had been going on. From the looks of things, the demon had come here immediately after escaping the office building. He had to have if he’d taken the time to carve one strip at a time from the other victim the way he was doing Tony.

“What’s he sorry for?” she asked, making her way down the stairs.

The snarling demon spun to look at her, its face transforming into a smile when it saw her. The smile was worse. Out of place in the carnage. Thomas was fully vamped out with eyes black as pitch and fangs fully extended. Blood dripped from strands of his hair and ran down his face. He was barefoot and every movement left footprints in the crimson pool at his feet which were then slowly filled in by the ever-pooling blood. The front of his shirt and jeans were so soaked in the liquid, it looked like he’d bathed in it. “How nice of you to join us, Hound,” it said in Thomas’s voice. “I was beginning to think I was going to have to call that Spanish whore again and tell her to drag you here.”

The news that Catalina had gotten her intel from the demon directly and she hadn’t bothered to tell them pissed Juliana off, but it didn’t surprise her. Typical vampire bullshit. Thomas probably wouldn’t be so understanding when Juliana told him when this was over, though.

The demon walked over to a nearby table, grabbed a bag of blood, ripped the top off and handed it to Tony. “Drink.” Its voice was heavy with compulsion.

It was keeping Tony fed, making sure he didn’t lose enough blood to fade out. It explained why there was so much of it on the floor. It kept filling him up and he kept leaking it out. The demon kept its eyes locked on hers as it lifted the strip of flesh to its mouth, stuffed it in and then pulled it out slowly, sucking the blood from it. She clenched her jaw, willing herself not to get sick. Not to even show the revulsion she felt.

It slid the strip from its mouth with a slurping sound and tossed it onto a pile in the shadows. What she had dismissed earlier as a pile of rags was now evident as the discarded skin from its victims. Why didn’t Thomas stop this? If he kept the underlings alive at the office building, surely he could keep the demon from doing this. Maybe he was losing the little bit of control he had. She was running out of time.

She tore her eyes away from the gruesome pile and focused once more on the demon inhabiting her mate’s body. “Why is Tony sorry?” she asked again and took another step toward them.

It looked confused for a moment. “Tony?” It looked down. “Oh, you mean him. I’m not really sure. He started apologizing the moment the knife hit his tender flesh.”

She took another step forward as she slid her sword back into its sheath. Even with all the damage the demon had done, she couldn’t use her sword on him. Besides, if she killed Thomas it would just find another host in the room. Both of her hands were needed to implement her plan, anyway.

“Perhaps he’s apologizing for not keeping you safe,” the demon said cocking its head to the side.

“What are you talking about?” She eased forward another step.

“I believe that’s close enough until we’ve finished discussing some things.” And with those words it dropped all pretense of pretending to be Thomas. The voice was unnatural, cold, feral.

She preferred it that way. “Talk, demon.”

“Your file made for quite interesting reading,” the demon taunted. “Some of the things they did to you were quite creative.” It glanced down to look at the nails on Thomas’s right hand and began to clean them with the tip of the knife it still held. She wasn’t sure what good that was going to do given the amount of blood on the blade, but she said nothing. At least its actions were distracting her from its words.

“You said Tony was apologizing for not keeping me safe,” she said to change the subject. “How was that his responsibility? He was never told to protect me. And it’s not like Raoul announced his intentions.”

The demon shrugged. “I care not. I was merely guessing his reasons.”

While they talked she moved closer to her prey. Fire raced up her arm. Stupid her forgot to pay attention to the other vampires in the room and got too close to Tony. His fangs buried in the flesh of her wrist as he feasted. She gave an experimental tug but it was evident he wasn’t about to let go anytime soon.

The demon shoved her aside, her wrist ripping from Tony’s jaws. At the same time it swung that long, thin blade and sliced through her friend’s throat. Shock took over his features and then his head fell backward, attached with only a few tendons. A shudder ran through Juliana and she swallowed the scream that threatened to spill from her.

“My toy,” the demon said. It walked over to the table and laid the knife on it. Picking up a glass it took a long drink. Without taking the time to think her actions through, Juliana lunged at the demon and wrapped a hand around its arm. She used her thumb to twist the stone in the ring. A portal opened beside them and she fell into it, pulling the demon with her.

Chapter Twenty-One

Juliana landed on her back on the concrete floor of cell seven with the demon on top of her. The breath fled her lungs and she struggled to get it back. They were in one of nine cells located deep below the Agency that contained no window, no cameras and no witnesses. They were reserved for very special guests.

This cell in particular was designed with demons in mind. A mix of holy water and concrete coated the walls. Two feet of steel-reinforced concrete stood behind the coating on all sides except the front. The front consisted of bars made of blessed metal.

The demon leaped to its feet and spun, looking for the portal which had closed down the moment after they passed through. It turned back to her, a snarl on its face. In a lightning fast motion, it wrapped one thick hand around her neck and lifted her into the air. Not this again. “What have you done, Hound?”

She couldn’t have answered even if she wanted to. His grip was too tight on her throat. She wrapped both hands around its wrists to give herself some leverage and swung both legs forward hoping to hit something vital. She didn’t, or if she did, it didn’t affect her captor any.

“Drop her, demon.” Michael’s voice came from the front of the cell to her right. It was low and controlled but there was no mistaking the undercurrent of anger in it. It was the voice of a man used to being obeyed. Yeah, good luck with that.

The demon snapped its head to the side and focused on Michael. “Who are you?” The fact that Thomas kept that information from the demon made her laugh, though it came out sounding more like a pained gurgle. The demon turned back to her and loosened its grip a bit. The little black spots quit swimming before her eyes, but she wasn’t sure it was much of an improvement.

“Michael Bishop.”

It looked back at Michael with narrowed eyes. Then its mouth curled up into a wicked little smirk. “You want her? You can have her.”

She flew through the air and bounced off the thick metal bars that made up the front of the cell. The middle of her spine connected first and shards of pain shot up to her skull and across her shoulders. She lay where she fell, a crumpled pile on the floor. She didn’t move, didn’t think. She just hurt. A lot. A hand lay against her side and she realized Michael was saying her name. From the sounds of it, he’d said it several times without getting a response.

She tried to say “yes” but it came out as a groan instead.

“Juliana?” he said again.

She tilted her head so she could see him and tried to ignore the screaming pain the motion brought with it. Footsteps moved across the floor and Michael looked past her to the demon.

“Crap.” Her exclamation drew Michael’s attention. “Sprinklers,” she said.

“What?” he asked, rising with her as the demon picked her up with his arms behind her shoulders and her knees. It moved toward the lone piece of furniture in the cell, a cot bolted down in the middle of the floor.

She looked past Thomas’s shoulder to Michael. “Turn on the cursed sprinklers.”

Michael still looked confused, but he hurried to do as she said.

“The water will not harm me, Hound, regardless of what you may have heard about my kind and running water,” the demon said.

Since it had been raining the night she first encountered it, she kind of thought that was a given. She didn’t know anyone that believed the running water myth anymore and it usually referred to rivers anyway. Stupid demon. Its hold on her was gentle but she had a hard time believing he intended to lay her down and nurse her back to health.

“What to do with you, Juliana? I could snap your neck and be released from this realm. My master however would not take kindly to me causing you pain. And this host is being most verbal about his disapproval.”

“Well, you’re just all kinds of conflicted, aren’t you?”

Before it could answer, water began to spray from the sprinklers placed throughout the cell. The moment the first of the spray touched the demon, it howled and dropped her. For the third time, she hit the floor with a thud. She’d just as soon not do it again.

She lay there to get her bearings while the demon howled above her and waves of agony radiated through her with every movement. Finally, she managed to get on her hands and knees and half-crawled, half-scrabbled for the cell door. Michael waited on the other side, ready to unlock it the moment she reached it. The demon stayed frozen in place behind her, back arched in pain while it screamed in rage. When she got close enough, Michael flung open the door, grabbed her and pulled her through. He slammed the door and locked it.

She made it to the wall across from the cell and sat with her back against it. She panted through her pain while the demon writhed in his. Running water may not hurt the thing, but holy water sure did.

“Interesting set-up you got here,” Michael said, indicating the cell behind him.

“It has its uses,” she agreed. “Is all the blood off yet?” She’d prefer not to see her dead friend’s blood covering her mate from head to toe any longer than necessary.

Michael looked the demon over before turning back to her. “I think he’s as clean as he’s going to get.”

“All right. Turn them off.”

He went to the end of the hall and pushed a button. The water shut off, though a few drips still fell here and there.

The demon’s shoulders were rigid with tension when it turned to show her eyes pure black with rage. “You twisted, insignificant thing,” it spat, a guttural sound that had no place coming from her mate’s mouth.

“Sorry. Did that sting?” she asked. Michael sat beside her, took her arm and pulled it into his lap to examine her wrist. He was careful not to injure her further.

“You little whore.” The demon leaped across the cell. It wrapped its hands around the bars in front of her only to hiss and jerk them back. It frowned down at them, turning them as if looking for a defect.

“Blessed metal,” she enlightened him. “And the walls are set with mortar mixed with holy water. You’re just in your own little version of hell, aren’t you?”

Michael grabbed a first aid kit from somewhere and used its contents to dress the wound in her wrist. “This is not good, Juliana.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Just wrap it up.”

The demon began to pace in the small area directly in front of her. She kept her eyes locked on him, watching every movement. “Did Catalina do as I asked?” she spoke to Michael, but kept her eyes on the demon.

“It came through right before I got here,” he said. “You’re going to have problems with your boss over this one.”

She knew she would, she just didn’t care. Her job, which had seemed so important to her before was now just a tool she could use to help Thomas.

A muscle twitched in his jaw and the demon turned to her with a hiss. “You will release me.”

“You know how to get out.” The demon might not be able to leave the cell, but it could leave its host and then she’d be more than happy to send it home. Hopefully it would stay there.

“If you think to force me to leave this host, I will shred his mind on my way out. Vampire he may be, but I will make sure he will never be whole again. Now release me.”

She glanced down the hall when the door at the end swung open and a ghost stepped through. Nathaniel stood there looking whole and unharmed. As solid as he looked, she knew he couldn’t be real. She pushed herself up the wall and walked toward him.

He gave her a sheepish smile when she approached. “Jeremiah told me I better get down here and show you I was all right.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not dead?”

“Do I look dead?” he asked.

She reached out a hand and pushed against his chest causing him to rock back on his heels. “You’re not dead,” she said again, only this time it wasn’t a question. Her friend wasn’t dead, hadn’t been killed by the demon riding Thomas. Her fingers curled into the palm of her hand as she drew back her arm. Then she punched him in the stomach as hard as she could. “You selfish son of a bitch.”

Nathaniel grunted and curled around himself protectively. He gasped in a mouthful of air. “What the hell was that for?”

“You let me think you were dead.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he protested. “I told you they had me on psych leave. No one tells me anything.”

She clenched her jaw, not ready to forgive him yet. “Who was it?”

He straightened most of the way upright and ran a hand through his hair. “Some rookie that came by to check in. I was complaining about it and he was more than willing to go for me. I figured what the hell. If I’d known...”

If he’d known, he would have gone. And he’d be dead. While part of her grieved for the agent that had died in his place, she couldn’t squash the overwhelming relief she felt that he was alive. She punched him again, softer this time and in the shoulder. “Don’t you ever die on me again. I don’t like it.”

“You’re one to talk.”

She scowled at him and went back to her spot on the floor.

“Was that a dog joke?”

She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

“You called me a son of a bitch.”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head. Leave it to Nathaniel to find humor even in a situation like this.

He wandered over, hands in his pockets, eyes on the demon. “Why is Kendrick in the demon dungeon?”

“They really don’t tell you anything, do they?” she said. “He is our demon.”

His eyes widened. “Are you telling me that your master vampire is playing host to a first-level demon?”

“That would be an accurate assessment of the situation,” Michael answered.

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re still working on that.” She wasn’t about to admit that she had absolutely no plan. Well, she had a plan. It just wasn’t much of one. The fact that she had the only demon-slaying sword in residence would buy her some space, some respect amongst the parties involved. But they weren’t going to wait forever for her to fix this. Eventually they’d get tired of waiting for results and come in and take over. If they did that, Thomas was dead.

“You’ve got to destroy the host, Jules,” Nathaniel said, looking down at her.

“Can’t,” she said.

“Don’t be stupid, pup.” He bit out the words. “You risk us all by letting it continue to live in our world. If you can’t kill your boyfriend, I’ll do it for you.”

“Actually you won’t,” Michael said. “The Council has received a court order prohibiting the extermination of the vampire Thomas Kendrick for forty-eight hours, provided that he is contained and not a threat to the general populace.”

She glanced at him. “They did put in a clause for release if the demon’s gone, right?”

Michael nodded.

“Are you crazy?” Nathaniel said.

She turned back to him, her brows arched. “What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”

He blew out a breath. “Please, this has you written all over it. No wonder Ben’s pissed. You can’t save everyone, Jules. You just can’t.”

“I saved you and I’m going to save him.” She had no idea how, but that had never stopped her before.

The demon continued to pace but she knew it was listening to their conversation.

“Why are you doing this to yourself? Prolonging this is only going to make it worse in the end.”

She clenched her jaw. “If you can’t contribute, you can leave.”

“Be reasonable,” he pleaded.

“Leave,” Michael said.

“Excuse me?”

Michael turned to meet Nathaniel’s eyes. “Leave now or I will throw you in the cell with it and you can see how much damage you can do before it rips off your head and laps up the blood. Is that clear enough for you?”

Nathaniel paled. “I don’t think that was necessary.”

She sighed and ran a hand down her face. “Just go.”

He looked like he was going to protest, but he finally shook his head and went back through the door.

“Pity,” the demon said. “I would have enjoyed playing with him.”

“I think you and your pet played with Nathaniel enough, don’t you?”

The demon thought for a moment. “No, actually. So, Hound, will you do it? At the end of your forty-eight hours, will you destroy this host to be rid of me? I think not.”

She didn’t think so either. Her feelings for Thomas aside, he was a master vampire. In order to kill him, he had to be drained completely of blood. Somehow she didn’t think the demon was going to wait patiently while she did it.

The demon smiled when she didn’t answer. “If you won’t kill me, you might as well let me out. I’ll find a new host and leave this one.”

“Silence,” Michael ordered. He pulled out a small blade and began flipping it over his knuckles. Back and forth, back and forth. She’d seen him do it before, but never ceased to be amazed he didn’t cut himself in the process. Not that it would matter much if he did. He said he found the motion relaxing. It made her nervous.

She sat cross-legged and laid her injured arm in her lap. Blood seeped through the bandage in a couple of places. She looked up when the demon crouched in front of her. “Let me out or regret it forever.”

“What could you possibly do to me from in there?”

“I’m only in here for the moment.” It straightened slowly and frowned down at her. “And when I free myself from this cage, I will cause you pain in ways you cannot possibly imagine.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination.”

“It’s true. She does,” Michael added, making her smile.

“Speaking of,” she said and held her injured arm out to him. “Help me with this, would you?”

He furrowed his brow.

“Blood calls blood. It’s time for daddy to lend a helping hand.”

A wicked smile lit his face.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Michael took the blade he was playing with, sliced a neat line through the layers of Juliana’s bandage and peeled it off. He tossed it aside.

“Go kill the camera at the end of the hallway,” she told him.

He jogged to stand underneath it, jumped up and pulled it off the wall. He used his knife to slice through the wires.

She dropped her chin to her chest and took a deep breath before looking back up at him. “When I said ‘kill the camera’ I didn’t mean it literally. There’s a button on the control panel.”

He glanced at it, shrugged and threw the camera over his shoulder. She couldn’t imagine why her headache kept getting worse.

“Just make sure we’re not disturbed,” she told him. He leaned against the door.

She dipped her finger into her wound, wincing at the pain. Using her blood, she sketched an image on the floor of the hallway.

“What are you doing?” the demon asked, turning its head from side to side in an attempt to get a better view.

She ignored it and continued to draw until she had a rough representation of a rowan tree. It was a good thing the power behind the image depended on her intentions rather than her artistic ability. The rowan tree was a symbol of power for the fae. It featured in many of their myths and was even thought to have played a part in the creation of the first fae. It was a sacred symbol and she was using it to call one of the higher gods of the dark fae.

She flung a few droplets of blood across the image. “By blood I call blood. Aeron Rowantree, I summon thee.”

The air over the image began to simmer and then take shape. The man that stood in front of her was slightly taller than she was, but sported her raven hair and green eyes. He was all angles and edges, only his hair broke up the hardness. It was pulled back into a loose ponytail though on occasion he left it to flow in soft waves around his shoulders. He smiled when he saw her. “You have summoned me. What is it you desire?”

She lifted her chin to indicate the cell behind him. He turned and waved a hand through the air, freezing the demon and its host in place. “Why are you in my daughter’s mate?”

A peek at Michael showed his eyes widen briefly and his jaw set at the statement. Juliana rose to her feet when she realized her father had control of the demon. “I thought you couldn’t control demons that didn’t belong to you.”

“Yes, well...” Her father shifted on his feet.

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought you didn’t like demons. That you didn’t keep any because you didn’t have a use for them.” She’d summoned him hoping only that he would be able to identify who it belonged to.

“That might not have been the whole truth.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t see the point in telling you. You seemed to dislike them so much and it wasn’t like I thought you were ever going to meet one.”

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and struggled to retain her hold on her temper. “Did it tell you why it’s here?” she asked finally, knowing he could communicate with his minions telepathically.

He shook his head. “Not really. It appears to be beyond reason with fear.” His gaze fell on her arm and the symbol on which he still stood. “Did it hurt you?”

“Take care of the door before we get into this, would you?” she gestured to the end of the hall where Michael still stood.

Her dad absently waved a hand in that direction.

Michael jerked upright. “Hey, watch it.”

Aeron arched a brow in response. “I would think one as old as you would know to get out of the way when a god is casting spells.”

She waved her arm in front of them, reminding them of what they’d been discussing. “It didn’t do this, but it would have killed me if I hadn’t killed its host at the time. I guess now I understand why it kept telling me its master would kill it if it hurt me.”

Her father frowned and rubbed his chin with his hand. “You asked me not to tell anyone of our connection, as you feared the information getting into the wrong hands and I have not. I merely instructed my people to leave you and yours alone. I told them you were under my protection.”

“Gods, Dad. Why don’t you just give Pandora a box and tell her not to open it?”

His frown turned into a scowl. “I thought we’d agreed never to discuss that.”

“If you didn’t want it brought up, you shouldn’t have told me.”

“Yes, so you keep reminding me.”

“Can you fix this?” Michael interrupted.

Her father turned his scowl on her friend. “Yes, Michael. I can fix this.”

Michael wisely said nothing. As much as Aeron liked him, he wouldn’t tolerate disrespect from anyone.

“Someone summoned it to kill me,” she said.

His face darkened in fury. “Who?”

“I’m guessing Raoul, but I don’t know for sure.”

He pressed himself against the bars and laid a hand on top of Thomas’s head. She’d seen him do it before to shuffle through someone’s memories. After several long moments, he turned back to her with a sigh. “The spell that summoned him prevents him from revealing who it was. It also prevents him from leaving your realm even if we do manage to get him out of your mate.”

Michael leaned forward, cocking his head to the side. “Are you telling me that no matter what we do, we are stuck with a first-level demon in this realm?”

Her father shook his head. “There are two ways to return him to my lands. Only one is a viable option, but even it seems unlikely.”

When he said nothing further, she piped up. “Well, what are they?”

His mouth drawn in a tight line, deep furrows of worry creased his brow. “The first is that it completes the task for which it was summoned.”

“Yeah, I’m not okay with that. What’s option two?” she asked.

“If we knew the spell that summoned it, we may be able to discover the unbinding spell to release it from the summoning. There are hundreds of spells that could have been used.”

Her mouth curled into a satisfied smile. For once, something was going her way. “I not only know the spell. I have the whole book.”

She dialed James’s direct number at the Apocryphan.

“I need your help,” she said when he answered.

“What’s going on?”

“We found the demon, but we need the spell that summoned it. Can you send the book through a portal?”

“No. If you’re going to work with that book, you’re going to need my help.”

She glanced at her dad and Thomas who was still frozen. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“That’s the only way you’re getting the book without filling out the forms.”

Curse it. That would take days. “All right. But just you. No one else. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll send you a portal.” She snapped the phone shut.

Of course, he had his own portal mages, but they wouldn’t be able to open one in the Agency without authorization. Since her father was already in the building, he didn’t have that problem. That and the fact he’s a god.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. “Where are you at?”

“My office. I can be out front in five minutes.”

“Not necessary. Is Sara there?” She didn’t want her getting a glimpse of what was going on down here. She could be pissed at Juliana later for keeping her out of the way, but she wasn’t going to risk her getting hurt. Because if she knew her brother was demon-ridden, she would get involved whether anyone liked it or not.

“Not at the moment, but you can’t open a portal in the Apocryphan. No one can,” he answered.

Juliana nodded to her father and he waved his hand through the air. A portal opened just down the hall from them. James stepped through and it snapped shut behind him. He clutched the book to his chest as his eyes darted between them.

“James, this is my father Aeron Rowantree. Dad, this is James.”

James turned his gaze on her. “How did you do that? Your father? What...” He snapped his head back to her dad. “Did she say Rowantree? As in...”

Her dad smiled. “The dark fae god of death? Yes, that would be me.”

James blinked a few times, then turned back to her. “This explains so much.”

She frowned and held out her hands. “Book, please.”

“You’ll get blood on it.”

“Then give it to me,” her father said. James hesitated but a moment before giving him the book.

“Why isn’t Thomas moving?” James asked. “And why is he in the cell?”

“He’s our host,” Michael said.

James paled. “You can’t be serious.”

Her father flipped through the book and found the summoning spell. He rubbed the back of his hand against his chin as he read. “This translation is incorrect.”

“I know, but it obviously didn’t affect the spell,” she said with a shrug. “Is there a counter in the book or do we have to write one?”

“Only one way to find out,” he sat on the floor with the book in his lap and she sat beside him. They started to scan through the spells one at a time.

“You acted like you didn’t know why you could read that,” James said.

She shrugged. “What do you want me to do, James? Run around announcing to everyone I meet that my father is a god? While I’m at it, why don’t I just tell everyone Thomas and I are United? Then I can paint the target in neon colors and add flashing lights.”

“Don’t take it personal,” Michael said from where he leaned against the bars of the cell. “She keeps secrets from everyone. And gets pissy when we don’t like it.”

She dropped her head forward for a moment. “I don’t have time for this. If you can’t focus on saving Thomas, get out.”

“No,” her dad said. “We’re going to need them.” He turned the book so she could see the spell he found. They had to have a circle and four people just like the original spell. Of course they did. “Do we know what of yours they used for the summoning?”

“No, but as we’ve got all of me here, hopefully that will cover it. I’ll draw the circle. You translate the spell. Use the same translation as the original. We don’t want to screw anything up.” Really, she just didn’t want the word sacrifice showing up anywhere on the page. She was afraid James wouldn’t read the spell if he thought she might get hurt.

Her father nodded and mentally moved Thomas to the cot in the middle of the cell so he’d be out of her way. “Finished,” she said as soon as the circle and the symbols were complete.

“Give him the book,” she said to Aeron, pointing to James. “You’re the Summoner, James. Stand on the symbol at the back of the cell. Michael, you stand over there. You’re the Witness. Dad, you’re the Master, obviously. And I’m the Beacon.”

“Go ahead,” she told James as she took her place.

“Demon of the dark, we summon thee.” The moment he started talking, infusing his words with power, light shimmered around the perimeter of the circle. “We call you back from the task for which you were summoned.”

As he said the words, the demon sat up on the cot, no longer enthralled by her father. It looked only at her, ignoring the others.

“I, the Summoner, call you back and command your presence.”

The demon stood and walked to the edge of the circle directly in front of her. Trapped on the other side of the protective line, it extended Thomas’s fangs and his eyes turned black. It was obviously anticipating the sacrifice part much more than she was.

“The Witness observes, acknowledges the importance of the task and releases you from it,” James continued. She glanced around the circle. James’s attention was solely on the book. The other two were both looking between her and the demon. Aeron’s fists were clenched at his sides and Michael had drawn a lethal-looking blade.

“The Master requires no further duty from you in this realm and releases you to return to your own.”

She locked eyes with the demon. “And finally the Beacon,” James said. The demon curled its lip in disgust at the mistranslation. “The Beacon gives of herself to seal this spell, to confirm the sincerity of our words.”

She drew the knife on her right thigh and slashed it across her hand, wincing at the sharp pain. Eyes never leaving the demon, she squatted and laid her hand on the perimeter of the circle. She shot a thread of power into it and stood. “Blood and power are the only sacrifice you’re getting from me.”

The demon snarled.

“You have been released, Demon. Return to your realm and be gone.” James finished and shut the book. The demon just continued to stare at her and growl.

“What did we do wrong?” Michael asked.

“Nothing,” her father said. “It has been released from the task it was summoned for. It is powerful enough that it is not forced to answer our command to leave. It knows the fate that awaits it in my realm.”

The demon continued to ignore everyone but her.

Her father held out a hand. “Sword please.”

She put the knife away and drew the longer blade but held onto it. “Why?”

“Because the only way to assure the creature comes out without damaging your Mate’s mind is to use the sword. Once it is out, I will take control of it.”

She blinked. “You want to stab Thomas to chase the demon out? I don’t think so. Isn’t there any other way?”

“I can remove the demon from him without this step, but if the demon resists it could shred his mind. He would be a vegetable for the rest of his unnatural life.” His voice radiated with impatience and she felt like a schoolgirl failing a basic lesson. “Besides, he is Vampire. He will heal.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her father, but he was a god of death. She wasn’t letting him anywhere near Thomas with an enchanted blade.

“Do you want me to do it?” Michael asked, evidently understanding her hesitation.

She shook her head. “No. I’ll do it. Everyone else get out.”

James started to protest but Michael steered him toward the door. Her father stopped next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “I would do this for you, daughter. I know you care for him.”

She rewarded him with a small smile. “That’s why it’s got to be me. Besides as much as I might love my mate, I owe the demon.”

Once they’d all left the cell and shut the door behind them, she widened her stance. Sword ready, she nodded at her father. With a snap of his fingers, the summoning circle vanished and the demon leaped.

She sidestepped and brought the sword to slash across his back. The demon dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry, Thomas,” she whispered then ran the sword into his back, piercing just to the side of his spine. The blade burned with red light.

Thomas sagged to the floor as she slipped the blade out. The toxic black cloud that was the demon seeped out of the wound and rose toward the ceiling. She stepped back to make sure it didn’t come anywhere near her.

“Form,” her father said and the cloud coalesced into a dark form. For a split second, she saw familiar dark eyes looking at her from a Spanish complexion. Raoul. Then the demon shrank until it resembled a three-foot hunched-over old man. Her father snapped his fingers and a cage slightly larger than the demon enveloped it. It shrieked and then both demon and cage disappeared.

“What was that?” she asked, still gripping her sword.

“I commanded it to show you its summoner before I sent it home. There it will serve as an example to those that choose to disregard my word.” The chill in his voice sent a shiver up her spine.

* * *

Thomas stayed bent over, hands on the floor. His eyes were closed and he concentrated on breathing, on ignoring the pain that infiltrated every cell of his body.

She’d done it. His Juliana had saved him. And almost gotten killed in the process. Just like Raoul had killed her when he left her here alone and defenseless. What a fool he’d been. Grief flooded him as he remembered the details of the report he’d read before he’d gone into the mindless rage that allowed the demon to take control. He groaned.

His bride put a hand on his back. “Thomas?”

He wasn’t sure he could respond. Not yet.

“Thomas?” she repeated.

Michael crouched in front of him and held out a bag of blood that he’d torn open. Juliana’s hand slid away as she took a step back. He shot his hand up and grabbed her wrist before she could move any farther from him. Just her touch helped lessen the pain, the grief. She grounded him and he needed her. “Stay.” His voice was rough from the abuse his throat had taken from the demon. “I need you. I need to touch you.”

She shifted so she was sitting and let him keep hold of her wrist. He eased himself up so he was semi-upright, but still on his knees. He took the bag from Michael with his free hand and gulped down the blood. The blood fueled the magic that coursed through his veins and immediately his body began to repair itself. Sweet relief streamed through him. When the bag was empty, he held out his hand for another. They repeated this procedure with two more bags. Finally, though he was still covered in blood, he was healed.

He moved so he was sitting and pulled Juliana against his side.

“Sorry I stabbed you,” she told him.

He smiled at her apology. No doubt, she’d carry the guilt of doing what was necessary to save his life for some time. That’s just the way she was. “Hush,” he told her and hugged her tighter against him. “It was less than I deserve. I never should have left you unprotected. I never imagined...”

The tall fae cleared his throat and they both looked at him. He leaned against the bars on the inside of the cell with his arms crossed over his chest, watching them.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “Thomas, may I introduce my father, Aeron Rowantree? Dad, Thomas Kendrick, but you knew that.”

Her father was the dark fae god of death. After the initial bit of surprise, Thomas realized that made perfect sense. He also knew the man was the demon’s true master. The demon had gone into such a state of mindless panic when the fae appeared that Thomas hadn’t been able to gain enough control to keep track of what was going on. He’d only become aware again when the demon focused on Juliana with intense hatred. It had taken every morsel of his power to make it so Juliana could use her sword on him without being hurt.

Thomas nodded his head once at his father-in-law. “My lord.” There were few he would address as such, but a god deserved no less.

Juliana snickered and her father arched a disapproving brow as he straightened. “Daughter, I am pleased that I could be of assistance. You might call me more often when you are not in dire straits however. It would be nice to spend some quiet time with you.”

“You know where to find me,” she said. “Besides, at least I didn’t die this time.”

Her father froze. “Die?”

“Um, yeah. You know, quit breathing, flat line, three times. Ring any bells?”

Thomas clenched his jaw. While he realized it was a gift from the gods that his bride could cheat death, he didn’t like to be reminded of it.

Her father ran a hand across his forehead and he wondered if gods got headaches. “Technically you never died.”

“The doctors might disagree with you on that,” she said.

“I can’t bring you back to life, Juliana. I am a god of death. Not life.”

There was silence for a long moment before Michael spoke up. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to clarify this. I’ve seen it myself. How is it that she wasn’t dead?”

Michael had been there when she died and hadn’t mentioned it to Thomas. The knowledge angered him more than the fact they’d slept together. If his second had told him that Juliana was putting herself in danger, that she died for gods’ sakes, he would have come home long ago.

Her father sighed. “While it might have appeared she was deceased, her body was actually in stasis. I felt her nearing the veil that separates the living from the dead and simply refused to claim her. I healed her enough that she was able to remain on this side. If she were ever to cross over completely before I reached her, or if she was dying of something I couldn’t cure, she would be lost to us for good.” He looked Thomas in the eye. “Remember that, Vampire.”

Thomas would remember. He found it difficult to believe he’d ever be able to forget this conversation.

Someone pounded at the door at the end of the hall.

Her father looked at the door and back to James. “We really must go. They’ve been doing that for several minutes. I’ve been suppressing the sound, but they are getting more persistent.” He stepped forward and kissed the top of Juliana’s head.

With a flick of his hand, a portal sprang up in the middle of the cell. James stepped up to it and Thomas’s eyes fell on the book his brother-in-law carried. Now that the demon wasn’t muddling his thoughts, he knew where he’d seen it, couldn’t believe he’d ever forgotten, demon or no demon. “That book. Where is it from?”

Juliana looked at him. “We found it at the summoning.”

He glanced down at her, studied her expression. “You don’t recognize it?”

She shook her head. “Should I?”

Yes, she should. “It was the only thing you had when you moved in. You gave it to me and demanded I put it away, said you never wanted to see it again. It was missing from its case when I returned to the house. I assumed you’d taken it with you.”

She closed her eyes and tapped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “It was the book. That’s what they had of mine to tie the demon to me. The whole freaking spell. I still don’t remember anything before I came to the house and some of the early bits of that time are missing, too. I’m not surprised I didn’t remember it. Obviously I recognized it on some level though, I was still scared of it.”

Someone pounded on the door again, yelling to be let in.

“We must go,” the god said again.

James nodded. “I’ll see it gets back to the two of you,” he said and stepped through the portal. It closed behind him.

“I leave her in your capable hands, Vampire.” Her father stepped back and disappeared in a burst of ash and smoke.

She coughed and waved a hand in front of her face. “I hate when he does that.”

Michael ripped the top off another bag of blood and splashed the contents over the top of a roughly drawn design on the floor just before the door at the end of the hall burst open.

* * *

Thomas rearranged himself so his legs were out straight while he leaned against the wall and pulled her to sit sideways in his lap. He pressed her head against his chest. “Stay there,” he told her, his voice a whisper in her ear. Suddenly feeling very comfortable and very tired, she did as he asked. Besides, the longer she could avoid Ben the better.

Footsteps moved down the hall and stopped in front of the cell. “I assume since the door is hanging open and you two are in there that everything has been resolved?” Ben asked, bitterness tainting his words. “Are you okay, my lord?”

She snorted and Thomas squeezed her hip in warning. This “my lord” crap really had to stop. Uppity vamps and dark fae.

“Thanks to Juliana, I will be fine,” Thomas answered and his chest vibrated against her cheek.

“She’s good at that. How is she?” Jeremiah sounded concerned but not overly so. He apparently realized that Thomas would not be this calm if something were seriously wrong with her.

“Fine. Exhausted. I need to take her home.” If Thomas wanted to get her out of there, she wasn’t about to argue. She could be chewed out by Ben later.

“There’s a lot of blood out here,” Jeremiah pointed out.

“My fault,” Michael said. “I spilled a bag in my rush to get to Thomas.”

“Hmm.” She couldn’t tell if that was Ben or Jeremiah, but she was betting on the latter. Ben was probably too focused on her to worry about anything else.

“She’s not leaving with you until I’ve had a chance to talk to her.” Juliana knew he wanted to make sure they didn’t collaborate on their story.

“There are cameras in the hallway. Surely they showed you everything you needed to know.” She was glad the anger in Thomas’s voice wasn’t directed at her. She was also thankful her smile wasn’t visible.

“It was...destroyed. We caught nothing since shortly after Nathaniel left. And there are none in this cell or your bar.” Actually there were several cameras in the Den but she wasn’t about to enlighten him if Thomas wasn’t.

“Your lack of surveillance is your problem, not ours.”

She understood that Thomas was only trying to protect her and she appreciated the gesture, but she had a job to do. She rolled her head to the side so she could see her boss. “Ten minutes, Ben. You get ten minutes and then I’m going home.”

He studied her for a minute, his eyes flickering between her and Thomas. “Fifteen and you do your own reports.”

“Fine. Let’s get it over with.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Juliana started to stand and Thomas stopped her. “Wait,” he said. “I need a moment with her before you interrogate her.”

“It’s not an interrogation, it’s a debriefing and the whole point of talking to her now is to get to her before you do,” Ben argued.

“I have to heal her and you are not going to watch.” Thomas’s voice was glacial. “You will go down the hallway, out of sight but within hearing distance if you must. I am not asking.”

Ben hesitated for a moment, his jaw tight, and then he nodded once and led everyone down the hall.

“You don’t need to do this, Thomas,” she told him as soon as they were gone. “You must still be weak.”

He laid a hand along the side of her face and looked into her eyes. “You were injured because of me. I will do what I can to make it right.”

She had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about recent events. It wasn’t his job to fix her, but she wasn’t sure how to convince him of that. Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face.

He lowered his voice so only she could hear. “You are my responsibility, Joya, whether you like it or not. Not because you are my mate, or because my sister found you on the street and brought you home. You are mine because I want you to be and I intend to take care of you. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

A tear slid down her cheek and he wiped it away with his thumb. “We have much to discuss, but now is not the time.” He moved the hand from her face and bit into his wrist. He pressed the wound to her mouth and she held onto his arm while she drank from it. As soon as she felt the familiar tingle that told her it was working, she stopped.

“I need to go,” she told him after a moment. He nodded and didn’t stop her when she stood. She felt the heat of his eyes on her until she joined Ben out of sight of the cell.

He gestured for her to follow and led her out the door and around the corner. As she trailed after him through the halls, she thought about the revelation her father had made. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that she wasn’t limited in lives like a cat or terrified that any time she came close, her father might not reach her in time to save her. She was going to have to start being more concerned with her wellbeing. After years of thinking otherwise, it was a blow to discover she was only mortal. It was really going to hamper the way she did her job.

She followed Ben into a small room. He could call this a debriefing all he wanted, but he had taken her to one of the interrogation rooms. She took a seat with her back to the mirror and watched while he shut the door and took the seat across from her.

“What were you thinking?” His voice was low, but the fury in it was unmistakable.

“About what precisely?”

“Well, let’s start at the beginning, shall we? How about your decision to keep the information that Thomas Kendrick was in fact demon-ridden to yourself until after you went to his house? Or your subsequent decisions to pursue him with no backup? Pick one.”

No matter what answer she gave him, it wasn’t going to be good enough. He was angry. At her and at the Council that kept him from doing his job.

When she said nothing, he continued. “You deliberately disobeyed a direct order to terminate the vampire Thomas Kendrick. Not only did you disobey that order, you got the Council to aid you in your insubordination.”

“There was no reason to kill him. I saved him. Besides, if I had followed your orders, the demon would have just jumped to another host.” She hated having to explain herself to him. “It’s called using my brain instead of a cursed policy manual.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched as he clasped his hands together on the table. “And when you arrived at the Den and found him actively torturing someone, why didn’t you neutralize the threat?”

“Again, what was to keep the demon from jumping? Or worse, slaughtering everyone because I opened fire from the door?”

“The same way you kept it from jumping downstairs, I assume.”

She couldn’t tell him about the spell or her father. “We had the cell downstairs. We needed the demon contained to do what we did.”

“I will ask you again: when you saw the demon in control of Thomas Kendrick torturing others, why did you not follow protocol and destroy the host in an attempt to be rid of it?”

She was pretty sure she’d already answered that question. “You ever face a first-level demon, Ben? No, of course you haven’t. None of us had before this. I did the best I could with the knowledge I possessed. You know, like watching the cursed thing walk off in a corpse. What was to stop it from doing it again?”

“The fact that your sword is specifically enchanted against demons, perhaps?”

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. They weren’t going to come to an agreement on this so there was no point arguing with him.

“I’ll tell you what I think. I think you allowed your feelings for Kendrick to cloud your judgment. You allowed it to interfere with your job.”

“Bullshit.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to rein in her temper before speaking again. “The demon wasn’t rampaging or irrational. When it saw I was there, it stopped what it was doing and turned its attention to me.”

“Then why do we have a dead vampire?”

She sucked in a shaky breath. She’d forgotten about Tony. Well, not forgotten about him so much as pushed the sorrow to the back of her brain to deal with later. It had been easy when she had to focus on saving Thomas, but now there was nothing else she needed to do. Nothing else to take her attention. And what upset her more than anything else was Ben was right.

She’d made a decision and it had cost her friend his life. If she killed Thomas, Tony might still be here. She’d had to choose between the two of them and she’d made the selfish choice. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t do it again.

“That happened too fast to stop, and I was already in the process of getting the demon to the cell.” She’d lost some of her bravado with the memory of her friend’s final moments and her voice was quiet.

“And what if the demon had turned on the humans? Would you have killed it then?” He was baiting her. Trying to get her to react.

“It didn’t.”

He slammed his hands palm down on the table. “But what if he had? What if it had tied a human to a chair and cut off pieces? Would you have stood there and watched? Would you have stopped it then or would you still have looked for a way to save your lover?”

She resisted the urge to tell him Thomas was her mate, not her lover. That would shut him up for a couple of minutes anyway. She put her own hands on the table, stood and leaned toward him. “The demon didn’t go after the humans, and I am not going to speculate about what I may or may not have done. You know that it’s impossible to say what might have happened. We’re done.”

“No. We’re not.” He stood so they were looking each other in the eye. “That’s the point. Your feelings for Kendrick are interfering with your ability to do your job. You’re one of the best agents I have, but I won’t have you putting yourself and others at risk for one man no matter who he is. Do you understand me?”

She straightened. “Yeah. I understand. I understand the Council and I kept you from killing Thomas. Not one thing would be different if he died except your orders would have been followed. But they weren’t and you’re pissed and taking it out on me.”

His face burned red. “That’s it,” he said and held out a hand. “Give me your badge. You’re suspended. Three weeks, no pay.”

She stared at him in disbelief for half a second. “Fine.” She slipped the badge off her neck and slammed it down on the table. “Take the cursed thing and choke on it.”

“Juliana,” he said, stopping her at the door. She didn’t turn. “I’m doing this for your own good.”

“Don’t make this about me. This is all about you. Don’t think I don’t know it.” She stepped out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

Nathaniel, Jeremiah and the vampires were all waiting in the hall for her.

She turned to Jeremiah. “Tell Ben he can have his report in three weeks. I’m not doing it if I’m not getting paid.”

“He suspended you?” Nathaniel asked, his mouth dropping open.

“Got it in one.” She turned to Michael and Thomas. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

They took a portal back to Michael’s and he poured them all a drink. They sat silent for a while. Thomas watched while Juliana sat cross-legged on the floor and cleaned his blood off her sword. He had wanted to take Juliana home, but she’d insisted on coming here first at Michael’s invitation. He wasn’t about to let her go without him. “So your father is the dark fae god of death?” he said more to break the silence than anything.

His bride and his second shared a smile. “Yes, that’s my father. And before you ask, I still don’t know my mother. My father claims he couldn’t possibly be expected to remember who she was. He only found me when I died—nearly died—the first time.”

“You knew already,” he said to Michael. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

Thomas swirled the liquid in his glass. “When I first discovered that you two were sleeping together, it bothered me, infuriated me actually.” Juliana made a choked sound and he held up a hand to stave off her protest. She shook her head and Thomas waved a hand through the air in dismissal. “None of that. I’ve known since the beginning. My reasons for saying nothing about it are my own. But since I have returned I am finding that it is the incessant, never ending stream of secrets that bothers me the most.”

“If we’re going to talk secrets, exactly how long have you two been United?” Michael asked.

Good, Michael was just as irritated as he was. “Jealous?”

“Just wondering why it wasn’t mentioned.”

“It was none of your concern,” Thomas answered.

At the same time, Juliana said, “He left.”

“Things might have been different if I’d known,” Michael insisted, his voice quiet. Thomas’s little bride had gotten under his friend’s skin more than even the man himself was willing to admit. Or perhaps he didn’t know. But Thomas knew, could see all the signs. It was an affliction he suffered from himself.

“Not to change the subject,” Thomas said, meaning to do exactly that, “but why precisely did you get suspended?”

Blood rushed to her face and she looked down at the sword in her lap. “Not following protocol.”

Michael snorted. “You never follow protocol. What’s so special about this time?”

She shook her head. “Ben says I allowed my feelings for Thomas to cloud my judgment. Really, he’s pissed the Council interfered and he’s taking it out on me.”

“He’s right,” Thomas said. “You should have killed me.”

She frowned at him. “I would have done the same for Michael. Or Jeremiah. Or even Ben. That’s just how I operate.”

Fury spiked through him. “Did your father’s revelation that you are not immortal escape your notice?”

“No it didn’t but I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same things all over again.”

He should be furious with her, angry she put herself at risk, but he couldn’t help but wonder what it said about her feelings for him. He’d just about worked up the nerve to ask her when she yawned.

“Come. I’ll take you home,” he said instead.

* * *

“I can take her home later if she desires,” Michael said. He finished his drink and set his glass on the desk.

“What do you mean, ‘if she desires’?” Thomas said frowning.

“As we’ve already discussed, she’s stayed all night in my bed plenty of times before. I don’t see why that needs to change.”

Her eyes widened, but she kept her mouth shut. What the hell was Michael playing at? There was a game going on here that she didn’t understand at all.

A muscle twitched in Thomas’s jaw. “And as we’ve already discussed, she is my mate. You will not touch her again.”

“I don’t think that’s up to you,” Michael said. “I have sworn no oath to you. Or have you forgotten?”

Thomas studied him for a moment. “I have not forgotten, old friend. Nor will I forget this. Come along, Juliana.”

She glanced between them. “I need to speak to Michael. Call for a car and I’ll be down in a moment.”

The muscle twitched again. “As you wish.” He turned without another word, went down the stairs and out the door.

She rose and slid the sword back into its sheath. “‘She’s stayed in my bed plenty of times before’? Seriously? Are you trying to get yourself killed? We’ve never even kissed.”

Michael’s mouth twitched. “We know that, but he doesn’t. He’s thought we’ve been sleeping together for years.”

“And you knew this?”

“I’m the one that paid Eric to tell him.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why?”

“I thought a little competition might bring him home sooner, but apparently not. If I’d known you two were United, I might have dragged him back whether he wanted to come or not.” His voice was little more than a growl by the end.

“You know this ends now. I won’t have him thinking we slept together.”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, and to him it probably didn’t. “Up to you. I’ll go along with whatever you want. But it wouldn’t hurt him to think it for a while longer in my opinion. He’s already put a bounty on Raoul by the way.”

“What did he do? Make phone calls while Ben was interrogating me?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. Only Thomas would put a price on someone’s head while sitting in the middle of the Agency and not think anything of it.

“He’s long gone by now. You and I have pursued him, true enough, but it’s nothing like the hunt Thomas will mount.”

“Someone had to tell Raoul that Thomas was coming back,” she said. “They got here at almost the same time.”

“I’ve thought about that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know who it could be. Remember, Thomas didn’t even tell me he was returning until he’d done it.”

“That’s not much of an argument considering he thought you were screwing his mate.”

Michael laughed as she’d intended him to.

“I better go.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he merely nodded once. “Take care of him,” he said.

She went outside to find Thomas leaning against the side of a limo. Not exactly what she had in mind when she told him to call for a car. He held open the door for her and she scooted across the seat so he could slide in beside her. They were quiet until they turned onto her block.

“Do you love him?” he asked, his voice so low she barely heard him.

“Not like you mean, but yes, I love him.” She glanced over to find him looking out the window on the other side of the car.

“What does that mean?”

“That means if he were to suddenly disappear from my life, I would be most unhappy with you. He’s one of my best friends, Thomas. You can’t ask me to give him up just because you’re back.”

“You will not sleep with him again. That is not a request.”

She’d been about to tell him that she’d never made love to Michael. That the only time they’d shared a bed had been in some backwoods motel when they only had one room available and she’d made Michael sleep on top of the covers. Thomas’s demand and the tone he made it in had her snapping her mouth shut. Maybe Michael was right, maybe it wouldn’t hurt him to keep thinking more had gone on between them for a while.

“You don’t get to dictate to me, Thomas. You get to ask. Nicely. If I’m in a good mood I may agree.”

He nodded but still didn’t turn to look at her. “I’ll leave, Joya, if that is your wish. It was never my intention to bring you pain.”

She blew out her breath in frustration. “This isn’t an either/or situation. I’m not picking him over you. I’m telling you that you don’t get to tell me what to do. You get to ask. Or tell me what bothers you. Period. Besides, you swore.”

He turned to her, brow furrowed. “What?”

“You swore you weren’t going to leave again and I’m holding you to that.” Her chest was tight, her breaths shallow. She prayed to all the gods for the strength to do this. To give him another chance.

A flurry of emotions flew over his face until it settled into his familiar blank mask. “I find it hard to believe you wish me to remain after what I discovered.”

“As much as I would like to blame you for everything, the only thing you did was make a stupid decision. Followed by more stupid decisions.”

He arched a brow. “Thanks, I think.”

She ignored him. “You broke my heart, but I’m beginning to realize that might not have been intentional.”

Thomas shook his head and looked back out the window. “It was an unforgivable mistake.”

“Even you’re allowed a mistake or two, Thomas. Of course, you make a lot more than you admit to.” His jaw clenched but he didn’t take the bait. “Only when one’s actions are malicious and uncaring are they unforgivable.”

He looked at her. “That doesn’t sound like you. Who said it?”

“Jeremiah says it to excuse some of my more errant behavior. It’s true though. Look, I’m not saying all’s forgiven and forgotten. You’ve got a lot to make up for.”

“What are you saying?” His voice was tired, weary.

“I’m giving you a chance. One chance. But if you hurt me again, we’re done forever. United or not.” If he broke her heart again she would never recover. She couldn’t help but think she was stupid for even giving him the opportunity.

He studied her for a long time without saying anything as they pulled up in front of her house. “I understand. There are many things I have to do to set things to rights after all of this. I’m going to need some time.”

She nodded and, after giving him a peck on the cheek, stepped out of the car.

The irony of Thomas asking for time wasn’t lost on her. She went in her house, waving at him before she shut the door. Rubbing a hand along the back of her neck, she sat on the edge of the couch. In a few days her life had gone from routine to chaotic. Thomas was back in her life complete with all his complications. Raoul was still on the loose for the time being, but with Thomas hunting him, his days were numbered. Her father informed her she was merely mortal after all and she’d been suspended from her job for doing her best to save the people she loved. On the other hand, she got rid of not one, but two demons and, contrary to the troll’s prediction, no one had killed her in the process. She guessed there was always time for that tomorrow.

* * * * *

About the Author

Kathleen Collins has been writing since kindergarten. And while her ability has drastically improved, her stories are still about monsters and the people who play with them. When she’s not writing, she works as a clerk in the local prosecutor’s office. There, she sees all manner of things she doesn’t bother writing about because no one would believe any of it anyway. The rare instances that she actually finds some spare time, she spends it playing with her two boys. Three if you count her husband. She is currently hard at work on her next book.

Content

Realm Walker
Realm Walker - 1
by
Kathleen Collins

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Author