Only Human (30 page)

Cora and I went upstairs to get her settled in, and I was cleaning out a few drawers when Lauren heard us talking and came running out of the bathroom with her robe on to give Cora a giant hug.

Smokey was never terribly sure about Cora. He realized she wasn’t a threat so he didn’t treat her like one, but he also followed her around and never took his eyes off her. I wondered how he’d feel about her sleeping in my bed.

I’d forgotten to ask Aaron how to handle the bodyguard situation while I was with Master James tomorrow. No way in hell was Nathan going to be close enough to bodyguard — not with his hearing. I called Aaron and told him, “I need Tyler or Ranger to guard me while I’m with James tomorrow.”

“Sorry Bug, as good as Tyler and Ranger are, they aren’t good enough for this threat.”

It seemed anytime someone mentioned the fact I’m submissive, Nathan treated me as
less than
, and since he’s supposedly a Dom, it made me respect him less. I only submit to people I’ve agreed to a power exchange with, and I had the feeling he expected me to submit to him just because he’s a Dom. It pissed me off, which in turn ticked him off, and it was pretty much impossible for us to get along. In recent weeks we’d at least found a way to work together without taking constant pot-shots at each other.

I didn’t go through all that with Aaron, though, I merely said, “Anyone besides Nathan. He’s a misogynistic asshole and the last thing I need is for him to hear me having a scene with James. Like you said earlier, Nathan and I are at a nice truce and I don’t want to screw it up.”

Aaron sighed. “He’s only a misogynistic asshole to you, Bug. Patrick is out of town on assignment and won’t return until Thursday. I’ll put him onto your rotation once he’s back, and he’ll be able to go with you next week if you still need guards by then. I’m sorry, but it’s either me, Nathan, or Cora tomorrow.”

I sighed. I’d
really
been looking forward to being beaten to multiple orgasms. My best chance at keeping things slow with Abbott was making sure I was as sexually fulfilled as possible. However, no way would I force Aaron to listen, and Nathan was out, and if Cora was going to be sleeping with me then she didn’t need to hear, either. “Okay, I’ll tell James I won’t be able to see him tomorrow, then.”

“What will you tell him?”

“The truth, I can’t lie to him. I’ll let him know my life is in danger, I have bodyguards on me, and I don’t want to endanger him. Plus it would be awkward to scene in front of a bodyguard who’s supposed to be protecting me.”

“Okay. Sleep well.”

I texted James with a Y and he called back a few minutes later.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but I have to cancel our plans tomorrow. My life is apparently in danger, and I have a bodyguard with me, which would make things a little awkward for a scene.”

I could hear the concern in his voice as he asked, “Has there been an actual attempt on you, or is this a precaution? You know you’re more than welcome to one of the cabins, if you need to hide out a while.”

“Thanks for the offer, but you know my feelings about running and hiding.”

“I also know this is the third time your patients have put you in a tight spot. If it’s the same patient then it’s time to get rid of him or her, and if not, maybe you can screen better? The patient confidentiality laws should go out the window if one of them puts your life in danger.”

He sounded genuinely upset, but I didn’t correct his assumptions. I tried to never lie to him, as I considered the trust between us to be sacrosanct, but I also needed to protect him from all things supernatural.

“I’ll be fine, Sir, though I could’ve really used the stress relief of a good beating tomorrow. I’ll miss you.”

“And I, you, dear one. I’m always a phone call away, let me know if you need to talk, or need moral support. I’m here as a mentor however I can help, and you know if things get serious with someone it won’t hurt my feelings for the two of us to back off, if you need time with just him. The end game is for you to find a relationship and walk away from me, and if I ever find out you’re avoiding other men because I’m in your life, our arrangement will end.”

“I
know
, Master James. This has nothing to do with the new guy. You know I’m always upfront with you about my love life when there’s someone in it, and I’m still not sure I want to pursue things with Abbott. He’s nice, and seems to know what he’s doing as a Dom, but something about him sets me on edge. I mean, flying to Chicago for a play on our first real date? Isn’t that a bit much?”

“Perhaps, but maybe not. Some men go all out on the first date to be sure they get a second one. Did he go overboard because he’s too cocky, or because he isn’t?”

“With Abbott, I’d say it’s the former, but you might have a point. He said he did it to show me I was special, not to impress me.”

“Then give him a chance, Dear One.”

When I finally disconnected with Master James, Cora was already in my bed, in shorts and a t-shirt, lying on the side closest to the window. She must’ve remembered I liked to sleep on the side nearest the door. Or, maybe she just looked at the nightstands and saw which held my tablet, Kindle, alarm clock, and jar of cashews.

I put my flannel pajamas on, remembering as a werewolf she got hot easier. “Do you need me to turn the heat down? Is it too hot for you?”

She shook her head, but I knew as a bodyguard she wasn’t supposed to disrupt our routine unless it was necessary for safety, and I made a mental note to turn it back a few degrees before we went to sleep.

I have a king sized bed so I crawled in and there was still plenty of room between us. I reached for the remote, turned the TV on, and flipped to the weather to see what to expect tomorrow.

When we’d gone through the forecast I asked if she wanted to watch anything, and turned it to a music station when she shook her head.

She brought up the current threat, and we talked everything over for a while, bouncing around ideas about how we might find the murderer. We didn’t come up with anything.

Chapter Nineteen

The next morning Cora walked outside with me as I left the house. Apparently, it wasn’t good enough for her to know Nathan was outside waiting to take over, she and Nathan had to actually
see
each other in order for me to be properly handed from one to the other.

I thought Nathan would follow me as I drove my car, but he informed me I’d be riding with him. He was in one of the Drake Security tricked out Renault Sherpas, and he took Lauren’s backpack from her and put it in the back seat — his way of letting me know nonverbally it wasn’t open for discussion.

He might be an ass to me, but he was always a perfect gentleman to Lauren and Xiaolan, and I watched as he helped the two of them into the back seat. I opened the hatch and motioned Smokey in before silently taking my place in the passenger seat. Nathan didn’t offer to help me into the vehicle, which was fine by me.

We dropped Lauren off and then made our way to my office. Xiaolan got her bike and left, and Nathan gave me a small remote barely an inch around with a big button on it to push if I needed him, and then parked himself in the lobby with his laptop. I have no idea what he told my assistant, but she didn’t mention him to me, so I didn’t comment, either.

By the time I was waiting for my last patient to arrive, I was thankful it’d been a short day with only a few appointments, and that none of my clients had a problem with Smokey. The security guard had questioned me that morning, but I’d pulled out the folder with all of Smokey’s certifications. The security guard hadn’t really known what to do, so he let us get on the elevator.

My last patient walked in and Smokey stood. My patient took a seat without closing the door, and Smokey moved to sit at my feet in front of me, gave me
that look
, and then turned back to face my patient. Something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t going to go off on this patient. I’d been his therapist for years and had no cause to sound an alarm.

Well, other than leaving the door open when he came in, and Smokey acting strange.

I gave Smokey the hand sign for
wait
so he’d stay put, and walked across the room to close the door. I rubbed Smokey’s head and scratched behind an ear as I took my seat again, releasing him from the
wait
command.

“Good morning, Jerry. How have you been?” This was a patient with a once a month appointment, so it’d been a while since I’d seen him.

“Mr. Nelson will not be joining us today Ms. O’Shea. Let me introduce myself. I am known as Xaephan.”

The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t immediately figure out where I’d heard it, as my mind was initially occupied with trying to figure out how he could be saying Jerry wouldn’t be here when he was sitting right in front of me.

But, the different tone of voice and odd almost-German accent clued me in that this wasn’t my patient speaking.

And then it hit me — the second level demon who zapped my laser. Xaephan. My heart missed a few beats as adrenaline flooded my system.

“Ah, I see you have deduced who I am,” he said.

What was it with supernaturals and contractions? Not using them made the jackasses sound so fucking formal. Or, maybe I was just pissed in general, feeling helpless, and striking out at whatever I could.

“I do not intend to cause harm to Mr. Nelson’s body,” Xaephan told me. “When I am done with it I will return it to him, and will leave him with a memory of coming to see you and feeling much better after talking with you. I know you want to kill me, but you don’t want to kill Mr. Nelson’s body, do you?” He sounded nice, but I could tell he was placating me. I sat still and didn’t try to speak as I drew energy into my body as quickly as possible. He kept talking. “I merely want to talk, a conversation, and then I will leave and will return this body to its owner.”

Fuck
. He was right. I couldn’t do anything to him or I’d hurt Jerry, or rather, Jerry’s body, which Jerry kind of needed. But I couldn’t just sit here and have a conversation with a demon. Could I? And Mordecai had said I couldn’t just kill them anymore without a good reason. Maybe Xaephan just wanted to confirm that Mordecai had passed on the message about me sending demons back and not killing them. Crap, I needed to get Eileen out of here in case everything went to shit. I knew Nathan should be able to hear our conversation, and the fact he was staying out had me worried.

Working on getting Eileen safe and me some help, I said, “While I may want to kill you, I’ve agreed not to kill anything else coming from your plane of existence unless I have good reason, and it doesn’t appear you’ve given me a reason.
Yet
. I’m going to pick up the phone and ask my assistant to send Nathan in, and tell her she can go home for the day. I’ll ask Nathan to sit and do nothing, but I’d like to have him in here with us, if you don’t mind.”

He cocked his head to the side and said nothing, which I decided to take as a ‘
sure
.’ I was lifting the phone when Nathan opened the door and came in, looking as relaxed as always. “I sent her home. Pretend I’m not here.”

I’m normally calm and easygoing when working, and don’t get ticked even when people are trying to piss me off. Somehow, though, Nathan can just walk into a room and anger me.

Feeling the need to say something to him, I explained, “Nathan, this body belongs to one of my long time patients, and I’d really like it if his body stays intact and uninjured. It’s currently being occupied by Xaephan, the second level demon we ran into the other night. Xaephan assures me he’s just here to talk.”

Nathan looked at me, his face clearly telling me he’d heard every word from the lobby, though he opened his hand to show me a throwing knife. It was below the armrest, so Xaephan wouldn’t be able to see from his angle.

I turned my head from him to keep from shaking it to try to keep him from killing my patient. Smokey was still sitting in front of me, and I told him to lay down, which he did with a grumble to let me know he wasn’t happy about doing so.

I slid my foot from my shoe and rubbed his hip as a thank you for doing as I’d asked. I left it there for moral support — I didn’t know if he needed it, but I sure did.

I gave Xaephan as steady a look as I could manage and said, “So talk.”

“You said you’d agreed to not kill us without good reason. Who did you make this agreement with?”

“Myself, after having a conversation with someone about how I put spiders outside instead of killing them, while…” I paused as I realized I didn’t want to let him know I had family, and hoped it wasn’t noticeable as I continued with, “a friend is terrified of them and insists on killing them instead of putting them outside, since they might just come back in.”

“You killed my people because you were afraid of them?”

“Yes, mostly. You have to know humans are taught that demons are worse than bad. We’re taught you’re evil. Someone who’s bad might have a reason for doing bad things, but evil people and beings do bad things just because they hate good. It’s hard to explain, but humans are taught that evil must be killed, so I killed things that came from the demon plane. Now, I understand most of those things were called here and probably didn’t decide to come. Still, once they were here they were doing bad things, which takes me back to the whole evil for the sake of being evil thing.”

He contemplated me a few seconds, but he held his head kind of like an insect and it was fucking creepy. Jerry was somewhat attractive when he was himself, but with Xaephan possessing his body, it was as if the evil leaked through and made him… not ugly, but no longer the beautiful soul I knew Jerry to be.

“And now you are starting to think in terms of yin and yang, is that it?” Xaephan asked.

“Maybe. Do you know who is killing people using a metaphysical weapon?”

“Yes, and I can give you that information. For a price.”

Nathan jerked a little, but even without his feedback I wouldn’t have agreed. “Sorry,” I told Xaephan, “I’m not making any deals with you. If you want to give me the information because you’re glad I seem to be seeing things your way without you having to take the time to convince me, then great. However, I won’t agree to anything in order to get information from you.”