Demon's Hunger (15 page)

The scratch on Vivien's arm.

The odd way she'd acted when he'd asked her about it.

The fact that she hadn't answered his question about her leaving the loft.

The demon in her basement. The
hybrids
watching her house.

Scrubbing his hand over his jaw, he tried to figure out exactly where his thoughts were leading him. Damn, he'd always liked riddles, puzzles. So why did he really hate this one?

What the hell was he thinking? That she was a demon?

Not possible. She'd sat in his SUV surrounded by three sorcerers, and not one of them had sensed demon aura. He had the Solitary's charred bone and the fact that it dulled his perceptions as an excuse, but what about the others?

"Ciarran," he said, and the other sorcerer turned toward him. "You sense anything about Vivien Cairn? Anything unusual?"

Given his demon parasite, Ciarran was particularly adept at recognizing demons. Like called to like.

He narrowed his eyes at Dain, shrugged. "A blighted seed."

Dain stared at him, stunned. He'd been plastered all over Vivien not an hour past, and he hadn't sensed a thing. The aftereffects of carrying around the scorched demon bone were stronger than he'd thought.

"A blighted seed," he repeated. Some humans had a spark of magic at their core. They called it a sixth sense. Sorcerers named it a blighted seed. And Ciarran thought Vivien had that spark.

It meant that somewhere back in her family tree, one of Vivien's ancestors had mated with a magical being—a sorcerer, because demons couldn't procreate.

So where the hell was all this leading him other than a big, convoluted circle? What was he thinking? That Vivien had slipped out of his apartment and offed Rick Strasser?

In her fuzzy green slippers?

There had to be a simple explanation for the scratch on her arm. Maybe she'd had it all day, hurt herself as they ran from her burning house.

Maybe he just hadn't noticed it.

Yeah.

"And pigs fly," he muttered.

Morning sun streamed through the massive windows of Dain's loft, bright against the blond hardwood floor. Vivien leaned her elbows on the granite kitchen counter and glared at the sky, thinking it ought to be cloudy, stormy, gray, and miserable. Just like her. She wasn't completely certain why she felt so angry. She only knew that she
was
. Angry. Embarrassed. Mortified.

But it was deeper than that, uglier. He'd left her. Dain had left her. Just like everyone else.

She took a slow breath, blew it out.

God, what was she thinking? It wasn't like they were in some kind of deep relationship and he'd decimated her trust by walking away. She barely knew the guy… only, she felt like she did, like she knew the depths of his heart and the secret pain of his soul. Why did she think that?

And why did she feel a terrible deep fear that he wasn't coming back, that she'd hear tomorrow or the next day that they'd found his body, or maybe just his charred remains… God. She needed to get a grip.

It was really very simple. Her mood was sour because Dain had chosen not to return to the penthouse last night. And she'd wanted him to. Wanted it so badly it had been a physical ache.
Physical
. Not emotional. She had to stop blurring the line in her mind between the two concepts.

After the way he'd kissed her, touched her, she'd thought he would come back to her. She'd waited for him, worried about him, the hours ticking by while she flipped channels between decorating shows and late-night news and scarfed down an entire container of Chunky Monkey. She'd have felt guilty about that if there weren't still two containers left.

Wouldn't you know that the guy would stock his freezer with her favorite flavor? At this rate, she was going to put on a pound a day.

Finally, as she'd lain on the couch, drowsing, she'd gotten a curt phone call. She didn't want to look too closely at the emotions she'd felt when she'd heard him tell her to stay in the loft with the doors locked and bolted. Telling her to stay safe.

Just like he'd strong-armed her into the SUV and locked her in.

Male chauvinist jerk.

Except he wasn't. She thought of the way he'd listened to her when she'd explained the difference between the male and female infra-pubic angle, the expression on his face. He respected her.

So what was it with the alpha-male routine?

And the worst of it was, a part of her liked it, liked that he wanted to protect her, keep her safe. Maybe it was because no one had ever bothered to think about her that way before. She couldn't explain the psychology of that, didn't even want to try. It was probably something dark and deep and ingrained in her psyche.

She let out a groan. She needed to get away from here, away from
Dain
. Needed to start organizing her crazy, upside-down life.

She needed to walk away. Before he did.

Let yourself care about people and they leave. Or die. Same difference.

Dropping her gaze, she glared at her fuzzy green slippers. Not exactly appropriate footgear for heading out on a snowy winter's day. It was the only thing stopping her from storming out of here without a backward glance.

That, and the fact that she'd been hunted down in her own home by a demon. And now she no longer had a home.

Oh, and, yeah, the fact that she didn't have a coat and it
was freezing
out there.

And the fact that she'd put her clothes in the washer when she woke up this morning, unable to face wearing the same T-shirt and jeans and underwear for another day. Which left her wearing nothing more than a sheet, toga-style.

All good reasons not to go running off without a damn good plan.

Narrowing her eyes, she considered her options, then marched to the phone and snatched up the receiver. She'd call Amy, ask her to bring clothes… except Amy was away on an all-inclusive vacation in Mexico.

At the moment, Vivien wished she'd jumped all over Amy's invitation to join her.

There were other friends she could call, but should she? Did she really want to drag anyone else into this crazy mess?

That would be a definite no.

With a sigh, she set the receiver back in its cradle.

Coffee. That's what she needed. Nice, strong, black coffee. She headed into the kitchen and meticulously searched every cabinet and drawer. She even checked the freezer. Vanilla-bean tea. Chamomile tea. Black tea. Green tea. Orange pekoe tea. Every frigging color-of-the-rainbow tea, and not a single coffee bean in sight.

No beans. No packets. No tins. Not even a jar of instant.

Stay put. Stay safe.

She closed the cupboard door with precise and painstaking care, her blood boiling. What did Dain think she was, a five-year-old who didn't know better than to open the door to a stranger?

Only she was angry at herself as much as at him, because she almost appreciated his autocratic perspective.

Jerkily, she slammed the faucet to the "on" position, snatched up the kettle, and shoved the spout under the stream of water. It looked like preference or not, her beverage of the morning was tea.

What kind of person didn't have coffee anywhere in his home?

The kind who smelled so good she wanted to lick him.

God
. After Dain's call, she'd gone to his bed, climbed in, and slept naked between his sheets. They had smelled like him, citrus and spice and incredibly tantalizing. She hadn't showered yet this morning, so she smelled like his sheets. Which meant she smelled like him.

The thought sent heat stabbing through her.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to gently set the kettle on the counter. Boots or not, coat or not, as soon as her clothes were dry, she was out of here. She could make it the two blocks to Yonge Street, find a good hotel, check in—

Using what credit card?

Damn, damn, damn.

Her mother was at the Royal York. She could go there. Dear God, what a thought.

She turned on the range, lifted the kettle, set it on the burner. Stared at the clean stainless-steel lines. Even Dain's kettle was expensive. Elegant. Amazing.

She thought of his hands on the kettle, lean and strong, and then she thought of his hands on her, his fingers sliding into her…

Oh, she'd been bit so bad.

The following morning, Dain stood on the street outside his penthouse. Vivien was up there, in his home, likely in his bed since there was only one. He doubted she'd chosen to sleep on the couch.

He hoped she hadn't chosen to sleep on the couch.

He wanted her in his bed, preferably with him right there with her.

What the hell was wrong with him that he was thinking this way? After last night, he had his suspicions about Vivien Cairn, and he wasn't liking them very much.

Only, he still liked
her
, wanted her.

And his suspicions were just that. Suspicions. He wasn't even certain
what
he suspected. That she was a demon? Not bloody likely that he and Darqun and Ciarran would all have missed that little fact yesterday. Besides, there were no female demons, not precisely. But there
were
succubi, alluring female versions of their male demon counterparts, rare creatures that had surfaced only a handful of times since the Compact of Sorcerers' inception.

Dain had never encountered one, and he was having a hard time believing he'd encountered one now.

Problem was, he wasn't certain he could trust himself to see what he ought to rather than believe what he willed. He had made that exact mistake so recently with the Ancient. He'd suspected his mentor of betrayal and had chosen not to believe the evidence he unearthed. A poor choice, as it turned out.

Emotion had no place in such decisions.

At least he'd learned that lesson well, so he'd spent last night at Ciarran's, because he'd needed a little distance from Vivien and the nearly overwhelming urge to get her naked and flat on her back.

After a quick detour out to the charred remains of Vivien's house, he had ended up sitting with Ciarran and Clea, and the biggest bowl of popcorn he'd ever seen, watching a twelve-hour marathon of
X Files
reruns. Ciarran and Clea were rabid for it. He figured they liked the dark undertone and the irony of the whole truth-is-out-there-trust-no-one mentality.

Yeah, he could understand that sentiment. Trust no one, not even his brothers in the Compact of Sorcerers. The Ancient, the one they should all have been able to count on, had switched to the dark side. So how was Dain supposed to trust anyone?

Only problem was, he felt that refusing to completely trust them was
his
failing.

Christ. His head was so messed up.

He was tired. That must be it. Sorcerers needed little sleep, a few hours once a week was usually enough, but he hadn't managed any shut-eye in the past thirteen days. An outside limit. Add to that the energy he had expended to heal his myriad wounds, and he was burning the candle at both ends with a blowtorch.

Dangerous, because periods of sleep were necessary to replenish depleted magic, and he definitely could use a reload.

Tonight, he needed to get some sleep or he might lose it.

The cell phone in his back pocket vibrated. He yanked it out and flipped it open. Technology still amazed him. It was no challenge for him to remember a time when the Compact of Sorcerers had communicated in a far less time-efficient manner. Mail coach and Pony Express.

"Yeah."

"Javier's got some information about your succubus theory that I think you might be interested in," Darqun said. Dain could hear the ever-present pump of the bass beat in the background. Darqun couldn't bear silence. "Why don't you swing by?"

A visit with his comrades held little appeal, which was exactly why he was going to meet with them. Because this wasn't a social visit. Duty over personal preference. They'd spoken on the phone last night, filling each other in on details, tossing out ideas. Javier had promised to investigate a few things, including the possibility that the killer wasn't a demon but a succubus.

The corpse's desiccated state had twigged something in Dain's thoughts, something he'd read in one of the Ancient's illuminated texts.

"Yo, Dain, you there?" Darqun asked. "You meeting us, or what?"

Dain paced three steps, turned, and paced back, thinking of Vivien in his loft and how badly he wanted to be there with her, picking up where he'd left off the night before. He wanted Vivien underneath him, her sleek body naked, her hands gripping his ass while he pumped into her.

Not gonna happen, not until he figured out what the hell was going on, because right now, he was so twisted up inside he could barely think straight.

He blew out a breath. "Yeah. I'm on my way."

"Head to Javier's place. We'll all meet there. Oh, and bring Dr. Cairn."

Of course. Bring Dr. Cairn to a gathering of sorcerers. Irritation and unease twitched through him. He'd done this to her, dragged her into a situation where he'd turned his suspicions on her, damned mistrustful bastard that he was.

Worse, he'd dragged her into the secret business of the Compact. When they were done with her, the bones identified, her role completed, one of them would wipe her memories. Likely Darqun; he was the most skilled at the process.

It would not be a nice thing. Not a nice thing at all.

Though it was an easy matter to remove a recollection of a fleeting glimpse, it was a much trickier endeavor to wipe away anything more significant than that, the risk increasing the more detailed and ingrained the memories.

Some human brains had a way of resisting when they were tampered with. He didn't want to find out if Vivien's was one of them.

Fury slicked through his veins, and with it came a protective urge that hummed like electricity zipping along a wire. In that instant, he came to a non-negotiable decision.

They weren't touching Vivien's mind.

Every thought, every memory, belonged to
her
. If Darqun thought that Dain would let him go poking around, he had a little surprise coming.

Dain wasn't going to let them make Vivien forget him.

But he couldn't trust her if he let her remember him. Who might she tell about the Compact? What form would betrayal take?

Last night, as a temporary measure, he had set a spell to make certain she didn't share any vital information with anyone she happened to phone while he'd left her alone, but that would only work in the short-term. The long-term was another matter entirely.

So he was back to the beginning, nursing his suspicions and paranoia like a piss-warm beer.

The Compact had a whole shitload of trouble to deal with: an unknown killer and a plot to bring over the Solitary that seemed to have something to do with the bizarre murders, with the gris-gris bags, and with Vivien Cairn.

He would be wise to stay the hell away from her until things got figured out.

Maybe the demons just wanted her for the same reason Dain had sought her out—because she was a bone specialist.

Yeah. And pigs fly.