Defying Instinct (Demon Instinct Series) (35 page)

The
wave I got from her as Rowan put his arm around my waist, and the rest of our council
grabbed hold, preparing for the jump, was scary.  Not because she was angry. 
Not because she was conniving some sinister plot. 

But
because there was approval and—I recoiled, a sick sense of dread twisting my
stomach—motherly pride as she said, “Goodbye for now, Daughter mine.”

******

That
night, Rowan and I made love in a modest hotel room in downtown St. Louis.  We
held each other for hours after, both so worn out, yet so relieved, we couldn’t
manage much else but keeping our bodies wrapped up together.  We fell asleep entangled.

I
don’t think I’ve ever slept so soundly.

The
next morning, I cried on the phone with Benn while Rowan held my hand.  At first,
I didn’t understand why talking to my best friend made me so sad.  All I had
planned to do was tell him the gist of what happened, and that we were all
okay. 

And
that Camille was now under my Scion protection.  I thought he’d get a good
laugh out of that one.

I
hadn’t realized until awhile later what some part of me must have known then. 
Nothing was ever going to be the same.  Going to our demon defense class. 
Drinking coffee and eating Indian food while watching movies on lazy Sundays. 
Those days were gone. 

And
I hadn’t even had the sense of self to fully enjoy them when they were here.

How
I wished I could have spent my life feeling like I did now, knowing what the
ones I loved meant to me.  Appreciating every second I could.

The
conversation with my dad didn’t go much better.  I called him in the afternoon,
when I knew he would be out of class.  Of course, I should have known he had
heard about The Bookstore exploding.  He yelled at me for ten minutes, saying I
should have called him the moment it happened, told him I was still alive.

When
he was through, I hung up the phone, feeling irritated, but also glad.  With
everything that had changed, and with my position in the demon world, Victor
Cole could still make me feel like a child.

There
was something strangely comforting about that.

It
wasn’t until the next evening that Rowan and I were able to abandon the nest
we’d made in the hotel room.  I had to find a place to live.  We had to figure out
the next step.  What the next task we had to tackle was. 

And
spending our time in a room with a bed was entirely counterproductive.

As
we stepped off the elevator, hand in hand, I took in the lobby and realized
what kind of hotel this was. 

Even
naked, I’d slept on the bed sheets without any discomfort.  I wondered if all
the beds had Underrealm sheets, or if they were provided only for us.

I
smiled up at Rowan, feeling like I should have known this was a demon hotel.  My
Razer half understood without question.  Even exhausted as we’d been when
arriving here two nights ago, Rowan knew this place was safe.  All the demons
around were a good first line of defense. 

My
demon half, not for the first time, wholly approved of Rowan.

Demons
worked the front desk, brought the towels, and laundered the sheets.  Most of
them were Reapers, Hammers, and fully-glamoured Mischief demons.  The
lower-castes.

Somehow,
some word had gotten out to them.

More
than a few telepathed an image of their unglamoured selves to me, that image
bowing as Rowan and I passed by.  But on the outside, they went about their
business, acknowledging us like they would any other couple. 

Collectively,
demonkind came up with a way to show me their allegiance, but not make me
uncomfortable. 

For
each and every one of them, I unlatched the control on my projections so they
could feel the sincerity of my gratitude and respect as strongly as if it were
their own emotions. 

The
waves of feeling they gave off were so strong after my projections, filled with
so much reverence and astonishment, I didn’t really understand what it all
meant.

Rowan
chuckled, reading my confusion as a little demon’s eyes grew misty as we
passed, and I let her feel my admiration at her covert allegiance.

What
are they doing?
I telepathed to
Rowan. 
Why do they seem so shocked?

He
smiled that smile that stunned me every time. 
Another wouldn’t notice them,
wouldn’t acknowledge them.  And certainly wouldn’t let them know their feelings
so openly.
 
They’re in awe of you, Savannah.

He
squeezed my hand when he saw I was still confused. 
You’ve been accepted.

Demonkind
could accept or deny a new Royal.  Grayson told me that.  I should have been
worried.  If Iliana found out… 

“But
that would just be for the Royal, right?”

Rowan
pulled the front door aside for me.  “Does their acceptance mean less because
they don’t have to give it?”

I
walked through the doorway, and waited for him to join me.  The frigid night
air hit my face, whipping my hair around.  The familiar sensations made me
smile.

“No,”
I said when he was by my side again. 
It means more.

As
we stepped into the winter evening air, Rowan put his arm around my shoulders,
pulling me close.  With fully-healed arms wrapped tightly around his waist, my
skin sang against the heat of him.  When he smiled again, my pulse sped up as
if my heart knew it belonged to him. 

The
cold couldn’t touch us.

I’ve
heard people say some stories write themselves.  The characters in
Defying
Instinct
actually wrote the story for me.  The book you just finished was
not what I outlined.  One example?  Savannah’s male lead was supposed to be
Grayson.  But she wouldn’t have it.  As I wrote, she chose the demon who let
her make mistakes, let her stand on her own even if it wasn’t always easy for
him.  He let her choose
him
.  After her lifetime of being forced to live
one way, she refused to do what was expected of her.  Even on the page. 
Stone-headed woman!  She wants what she wants the way she wants it.  My kinda
girl. 

Thank
you for your interest in the worlds that exist in my mind.  I promise to keep
‘em comin’.  Please check out the excerpt from
Craved
, book one of my
Magic Sways series, on the next page!

And
Survival Instinct
is on
the way!

Then I felt the surge of energy,
the density of the air shift, the heavy sense of something that shouldn’t be
there igniting a familiar twinge of panic in my stomach.

A man walked in, way too tall and
way too muscled to be a normal guy.  Regular people didn’t look like him. 
Defined muscles bulging everywhere.  Looks only found in airbrushed magazine
photos.  He was attractive kind of like predators in the wild were.  Beastly. 
Alpha.  Utterly masculine.

But big men didn’t scare me. 
Nothing to be panicked about so far.

Behind the beast was a shorter man,
less muscular and dominant than the first, but way more breathtaking. 
Perfectly put together.  Not a hair out of place.  I couldn’t breathe as I
scanned him up and down, even through my bruises and the nosebleed and the
bullseye of pain on my face.  His honey-colored eyes met mine for a few moments
and my rational brain melted.

I think I actually felt my eyes
dilate.

But gorgeous men didn’t scare me
either.  Still no reason for my panic.

“Are you the witch who killed one
of the Sinclair sisters?” the huge man said. 

I looked away from the too gorgeous
for his own good one back to the beastly one, and it took me a few heartbeats
before I processed any part of what he’d said.

Did he ask if I was a witch?  My
stomach churned.

I thought about Myra, her cold eyes
and bony, black tipped fingers.  I thought about Lorna, her long, raven hair
and cat-like sneer.  My nose leaked blood, and it ached.

“I’m not a witch,” I said, and
hated the tremble in my voice.  My mouth and chin were all sticky now, covered
with blood, dripping freely onto the white sheets of my brand new, state of the
art gurney.

My chest clenched as realization
struck me.  Why the air felt different.  Why my body was brutally shaking, my
heart galloping, my injuries shrieking.

Magic
.

The big guy was casting a spell on
the nurse.  My panic belonged here.  It was a Sway spell.  The Sisters used it
often.  I knew the feel of it on my skin, knew the churning deep inside.

Screw control.  Fuck dignity.  I
screamed.

I was trapped on this hospital bed,
rigged up to this bizarre metal contraption unable to run, unable to fight
back.  I wanted to get away from the magic, and I could feel it surrounding me,
sliding down my throat, creeping into my pores, suffocating every inch of me. 

“Hush,” the beautiful man said, and
my scream was cut off.  Another spell I knew well.  Only air flowed from my
throat.  But I didn’t stop. 

Couldn’t stop. 

My panic went supernova.

I had to get away.  I couldn’t be
trapped like this.  Couldn’t let myself be taken. 
Again
.  Imprisoned. 
Again
. 
Squirming sent jets of agony through me and didn’t do any good whatsoever, but
I didn’t have control.

I wanted to go home, though I had
no real home anymore.  I wanted to be eight again curled up under my blankets,
hiding from the monsters in the shadows that
weren’t
there.  I wanted to
be safe in my old life where magic never touched me.

“I’m going to heal you, Daniella
Walker,” the way too handsome man whispered, smooth like custard.  Soothing
like hot chocolate.  Or he meant it to be.  It should have been.  I couldn’t
detect any Sway behind his words, but it didn’t matter.  They were all out to
get me.

Then, a little late again, I
realized what he said.

Please don’t
, I thought. 
Even though no words came out, the gorgeous one hesitated.

Take stock of yourself, little
girl,
the rational part of my brain said. 
Deep, infected gashes down
the left side of your back.  Destroyed left arm, leg, pelvis.  Torn rotator
cuff, six broken ribs on the left side, and one on the right.  Swelling, scrapes,
and bruising everywhere.  Spontaneously bleeding nose faucet.  All magically
induced.  All magically sustained. 

“You won’t walk out of here without
this,” the handsome man’s hot chocolate voice was calm, even, collected and
unaffected.  How dare he be so relaxed?  Anger made my eyes slit at him for a
second.

He was right though.  I knew he
was.  I should be reasonable.  A man of otherworldly good looks wanted to put
his hands on me, take the pain away, make me feel all better.

But the crawling, the terror, was
everywhere.  My rational brain understood the necessity of his hands, of this
spell, but the rest of me couldn’t stand the thought of more magic.

“You have to let me—”

“No,” I cried, surprised the
gorgeous one’s Hush spell hadn’t stopped my words this time.  “No more magic. 
N-n-never. 
Never
any more magic.”

But he didn’t listen.  He rubbed
his bronze hands together.  The gorgeous man’s wrists were bruised, like he’d
been wearing handcuffs too tight.  I focused on the strangest things when I was
terrified—something I recently learned about myself. 

He came closer.  Big hands out
toward me.  Inches from me. 

I couldn’t move.  Couldn’t
breathe.  Couldn’t think.

Don’t touch.  Don’t touch. 
Don’t
touch.

Those big, bronze hands
disappeared. 

Myra’s long fingers, her pointy,
black nails cut the girl’s fevered skin like knives.  The witch smiled
wickedly, then placed her hand on the girl’s face, caressed her cheek with care
like a mother would.  The cuts she’d given were gone in seconds, healed so the
witch could torture her again, hear her screams of misery and desperate cries
again. 

I never escaped their basement.  I
was still there, right now, strapped down by invisible binds and held in place
by invisible chains to be tortured, beaten, used up until there was nothing
left of me.  Until they took everything from me.

Death should be quick.  Please. 
Please
kill me quickly.

Where the witch had caressed,
she slapped without mercy with impossible strength, and the girl spit blood as
her bottom lip split open.  The witch’s nails came at the girl again, knives on
fevered skin, and the witch laughed as the girl screamed.

I wanted to scream again, and I
did, but the sound was only inside my mind.  I felt my last grasp of reality
leave as I inhaled, and screamed silently again.  And again.  I screamed at
Myra, spitting blood at her porcelain face, the blood never reaching her
because she had powers that had no right existing in this world.

“What are you waiting for, Cam?  Do
it already.”

A man’s voice.  I heard the words. 
There were no men in the basement.  No men ever around Myra or her sister.

I shuddered, my teeth chattered,
lost all control of my body that continued to thrash and flail, but my mind was
back where I really was.  Not in the basement.  I tasted blood.  In the MICU,
in Chicago. 

“Lucas, shut up.  She’s freaking
out.”

The big man’s eyes were fixed on
me.  He was Swaying me to relax, and my body was responding now, no longer
futilely squirming.  He brought me back to this place.  But now I was trapped
with his mind. 

Couldn’t move.  Couldn’t stop him. 
Couldn’t keep the magic away.  But there was nothing I could do about it, for a
ridiculous amount of reasons.

“Do it.  Now.  I don’t know how
long I can hold them both.”

The grumpy night nurse was gone. 
When did she leave?  The big one must have Swayed her to go get a cup of coffee
or move onto the next patient.  I knew it was possible.  I didn’t know how it
worked.  Or its limits.  Or how long it lasted.

The handsome one caught my eye, and
I was able to watch him as he surveyed my wounds.  When he saw my eyes on him,
he hesitated again.  I think he may have even taken a step back, but I couldn’t
be sure considering the awkward angle I was laying in.  The Sway was only
keeping my body from struggling, keeping my mind here, in this room.  I was
still able to think what I wanted, look where I wanted.  I was still me.

At least this was one of the better
Sways I’d been under.

The handsome one shook his head a
few times, shot the big one a look that went unnoticed, then put his hands on
my stomach in a rush and held them there. 

I was trapped.  I was helpless.  I
was bleeding and broken and a basket case.  And when the handsome one’s Mend
spell started to swirl around me, under my skin, inside my guts, I gagged,
wanting to puke to get the magic out of me.

“She doesn’t have to be awake for
this,” I heard, but didn’t understand.

Magic felt like something,
something tangible I couldn’t describe.  It felt like something wasn’t right, a
feeling deep down that screamed it didn’t belong.  Usually, the screaming was
on the outside, in the air, on my skin, and I could keep it there.

“I’m not sure I can,” I heard, but
didn’t understand.

Mend got inside, to the deep place
that should be my own.  I felt violated.  I felt helpless, trapped, breathless
and worthless.  I was ashamed for my weakness.  But it came anyway.  Tears
joined the pool of blood at my chin on the stiff white sheets that were used
once, and now used up and had to be thrown away.

“You’re going to have to try,” I
heard, but didn’t understand.

Kind of like me.  Used once and
used up.  Tossed aside.  I was nothing.  I couldn’t stop any of it.  Never
stood a chance.

I’ll never be free again.

I couldn’t open my eyes anymore
through the pain, through the shame, through my tears as memories I’d kept at
bay tormented me, threatening to finally complete their task and break me.

“Sleep,” was the last thing I heard
before everything disappeared.

**

Craved
by Jaye A. Jones is
available for your purchasing and reading pleasure now on your Kindle device. 
Check out
Jaye’s
Author Page
or visit
www.jayeajones.com
for more.