Demon Inside

“No.”

Tears threatened, but she blinked them back. “Okay,” she said. “But I want another drink first.”

Chapter 11

This, at least, looked like the lair of a demon. The crimson walls of Orion Maldon’s basement changed from blazing red by the flaming torches to deep and shadowy—the color of blood—between them.

In an odd way, the color, and the ornately carved gilded furniture, had a calming effect on Megan. It would have been utterly bizarre to make a blood sacrifice in the comfy earth-tone living room in front of the plasma-screen TV. The basement felt like a movie set, filming about to begin on a scene in a biopic that grew increasingly more bizarre by the day.

Girded by several more drinks, Megan allowed Greyson to lead her into the corner and set her in a surprisingly comfortable armchair. She’d barely settled in it when Maldon advanced, holding a wicked-looking knife.

“You asked for blood and you’ll get it,” Greyson said, stepping in front of her, effectively blocking her from sight. “You didn’t ask to cut her.”

“It was implied.”

“It wasn’t agreed to.”

Silence reigned for a moment while Megan pictured the two men staring each other down. Then Maldon stepped back and stabbed the knife forward.

Megan gasped, but Greyson caught it before it touched him. “Now, now,” he murmured, and turned back to Megan.

Tension laced her muscles, her entire body, as he knelt on the black-tiled floor at her feet.

“Give me your hand.”

It wasn’t the thought of the pain that made her nervous. Pain she could take, and it would most likely be fleeting anyway. Greyson’s healing abilities were excellent, and she doubted he’d let her walk out the door with a bleeding cut, especially in a house full of blood demons—at least, she assumed they were all blood demons.

But then, she’d assumed Greyson’s Meegra was all fire demons and she’d apparently been wrong.

She’d never asked. She’d never asked a lot of things and had ignored Greyson’s casual attempts to teach her. Now it was biting her on the ass—or to be more precise, it was about to slice into her skin with a sharp silver blade.

No, it wasn’t the thought of being cut making her heart pound in her chest. It was the thought of bleeding. It was the memory of the overcooked steak that was in fact perfectly done, of Greyson’s blood on the white marble floor, of the time he nicked himself shaving and she’d been about to lick the wound before she caught herself.

If she asked him about it, he would probably know what was happening to her.

She just couldn’t bring herself to admit anything was, and until she was ready, it was her secret to keep.

His eyes searched her face. “Are you okay?”

She nodded.

Instead of the bowl she’d been expecting, Maldon placed an ordinary crystal wineglass on the floor by Greyson’s knee, then said, in his booming voice, “Kre-nagr hin alishta caercaeris.”

Greyson’s face darkened as footsteps sounded on the stairs, and he glared at Maldon. “You’re not sharing anything.”

“I can share the moment,” Maldon replied. “I can have witnesses.”

“What’s—” she started, leaning forward, but Greyson shook his head.

“Let’s just do this.”

Megan had no idea where in the house all these demons lived, but in a matter of seconds the basement went from a dank underground temple to a kinky convention room, full of demons in various states of undress. A few of them had the high pompadour hairdos Megan had come to associate with demons hiding horn stumps; a few more had sgaegas like Greyson’s down their backs, or third nipples, or odd bony protrusions on their shoulders. All of them looked very pleased with themselves. Sweat trickled down her back.

Greyson picked up her left hand and stared at it for a moment. Megan closed her eyes. Best not to look. Bad enough to be taken with crazy vampire urges when it was the blood of someone with whom you enthusiastically shared other bodily fluids whenever you got the chance, but when it was your own…that was just weird.

Unlike everything else about this situation, which was perfectly normal if you ignored the basement, the torches, the furniture, the knife, the demons, and the goblet. Just an ordinary small-town evening, in an ordinary small town.

Which was apparently run by Orion Maldon, who supposedly knew her father…

The touch of Greyson’s lips on her palm stopped her thought before it had a chance to form. He hadn’t kissed her yet, not once this whole night. The gesture was possessive, romantic even, but the icy touch of his anger and the expectant air of the room told her something was wrong.

The room went silent. Something rustled. Greyson’s fingers tightened around hers, and the blade sliced into her palm, so sharp and fast she didn’t realize it had cut her until she heard the knife clatter on the floor and felt her blood run down her hand.

He turned her wrist and pressed the glass against her palm for a moment, the rim cool and smooth against her skin. It took only a second longer for the stinging to start, and only another before the glass was removed and something soft shoved into her hand instead, her fingers closed over it with a little more force than she would have expected.

Megan forced her eyes open, squinting into the dim room, afraid to see too much. Greyson’s handkerchief was balled up in her palm. She bent her elbow, trying to ignore the pain now radiating from the wound as she used her other hand to apply pressure. Cool in a crisis, that’s what she was. She glanced at Greyson, hoping for a smile, a look, some sort of reassurance, but his face was turned away, as if he were studying the floor.

To her right Maldon lifted the goblet—the goblet now filled about a quarter of the way with her blood. “Caercaeris bochylem!”

Nope, didn’t want to see that. She closed her eyes again while great waves of red and black undulated behind her eyelids. Heat radiated from Greyson’s body against her legs, but he did not touch her, leaving her alone to deal with this. Ordinarily that would have pleased her, as she didn’t particularly enjoy being vulnerable in front of him. But this was too much. She reached out, pressing her injured hand with its wadded-up cloth against her thigh and groping for him, hitting his shoulder feebly until finally his fingers closed around hers so tightly it hurt.

He moved, the scent of his cologne and the smoky fragrance of his skin filling her nostrils, his lips tickling her ear and his voice cold as his energy against her. “Come on, Meg. Let’s go.” He started to lift her from her chair. “Let’s go. We’re done.”

“I wanted to ask him about—”

“Another time.”

Was there going to be another time? She didn’t ever want to come back here.

“Oh come now, Grey, there’s no need to rush off like that, is there?”

Megan opened her eyes. Maldon was smiling, the empty glass still clutched in his hand. Jesus, had he licked it clean?

“You got what you wanted, Orion.”

“Oh yes, I did.”

His laughter followed them up the stairs.

Her healed hand still tingled a little, an irritating itch under the skin she couldn’t scratch, as she lay in bed later with Greyson’s chest against her back and his strong arms encircling her body. The bulky forms of Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud rested in front of the window, horned silhouettes against the curtains.

Her father was dead.

Fu

But in those dim, long-forgotten years of her early childhood, he’d been someone special and so had she. He’d taken her out for long rides in the car. He’d carried her on his shoulders to watch the Fourth of July parade in the center of town. He’d bought ice cream and candy and smiled and laughed. He’d called her his little girl.