Lure of a Demon

ILSA

Blood type: inconclusive.

Those words glared up at me from the report hanging limply in my hands. They’re the same words these reports always showed, and while I didn’t expect any different, there was still that persistent hope I’d get some answers.

Hope that was now dwindling, telling me I needed to find another way to solve this issue.

Clinical reports and tests didn’t offer me any information I didn’t already know or couldn’t figure out through my own investigation.

Kelly had slipped me a copy of this report over drinks last night. Drinks and stilted conversation while she tried desperately to rekindle some semblance of the relationship we had. Prior to my asking her for help over these past few weeks, we hadn’t seen each other since before my last deployment.

Kelly would say we were in a relationship back then.

My view was we were simply sleeping together.

That difference in opinion might be a clue as to why it didn’t work out.

Kelly was a medical examiner for the city and one of the few people on this planet I knew would believe me when I told her what I had seen—she was all star signs, crystals, and the alignment of the planets. I had taken a gamble on her willingness to accept things she could neither see nor prove would mean she’d believe me.

She did, without much question or the skeptical raised brow and smirk of amusement I’d get from most other people.

I guess I should be thankful to her for at least that, and then going above and beyond and putting her job and reputation at risk to get me copies of reports that shouldn’t reach civilian hands.

I had to tell someone. For while I’d seen a lot of fucked-up shit, this was hard for even me to swallow. From the poverty of the area I grew up in before my father worked his way through the army ranks, to the horrors I’d witnessed while on deployment myself, I’d absorbed it all.

But I still struggled to explain the incident a few months ago.

Perhaps that was part of the problem—I was trying to explain the unexplainable.

I wouldn’t say it was the worst thing I’d ever seen, but it was the only incident that occurred on home soil that haunted my dreams.

It was a little over two months ago, and I’d decided to drink away my sorrows for at least one night following the finality of my medical discharge from the military.

By the way, it didn’t help—the alcohol—and it’s not a path I’ve gone down since.

The last thing I needed on top of my already damaged body was alcohol poisoning or some other weak shit which would get me sent to a hospital again. I’d spent enough time within hospitals and rehabilitation centers to last a lifetime—several lifetimes in fact.

For all the good it did.

As if to remind me of the injury I was already overly aware of, a pang of sharp pain, gone as quickly as it had come, radiated from my leg.

Yes, I know I was weaker after the injury than before, and yes, I’ve been forcefully reminded of my humanity and limitations.

Thank you very much for the reminder, body.

But despite the alcohol and the anger-fueled thoughts that raged through my mind as I slammed empty glass after empty glass on the bar, the bartender continued to serve me when he probably shouldn’t.

When she walked into the bar, it was hard not to notice her.

Deep red hair was styled loosely around her shoulders in those waves I never understood how girls got to work, not that I’d ever been one of those girls to try too hard to get my hair to do anything other than whatever the hell it felt like. Tight leather pants and a corset to match sculpted her already toned body, and dark makeup shadowed her eyes, adding an extra layer of mystery.

And damn me, an extra layer of fuckability.

She might as well have had the word trouble stamped across her forehead.

But her eyes, I’d never seen eyes like hers before. Irises of gold and yellow shined with a promise of danger and sexual prowess. Although perhaps the last bit was only in my head.

I also hadn’t been laid since before my injury, and occasionally my body would get the better of my mind, and my usually otherwise trained thoughts would stray. With her, I blamed the haze of alcohol pushing its way through my veins, making me blink through the blur as I stared at her, mentally wandering my hands over her body.

Yeah, it was a pig move, and I never usually viewed women as purely sexual beings. I cared who they were inside. All aspects of their personality were much more important than what they looked like. But there was something about her which almost called for it like she knew exactly what everyone in the bar was thinking, and beyond that, she wanted them to think it.

But her eyes said keep your hands off.

Trouble.

Shooting me a look that would’ve had me staggering if I weren’t sitting down, she flawed me and set off a reaction of desire I’d rather forget.

Because I had more self-control than that.

The alcohol had provided me with just enough relaxation to create a light buzz in my mind, but not enough to stop me from defending myself if I needed to.

With her, I didn’t know if I’d need to defend myself or if I wanted to take her to bed.

Or both.

There was no shortage of women to seduce in the military. Women who whether or not they had come out or they were simply curious about being with another woman, and would’ve happily slept with me. But I didn’t really want anyone after my injury. There was in the deep recesses of my mind, the awareness I might not be able to move as gracefully in the bedroom as I had before, that my leg might give out or stunt my motion, and it might be a turn-off for women.

Weakness was certainly a turn-off for me, and I didn’t want a pity fuck.

In fact, I didn’t want anyone until I saw her move.

I’d love to say I witnessed her dancing, and that’s how I knew she could move so smoothly.

Instead, she had kicked the living shit out of almost everyone in the bar.

This woman was something else.

It turns out she was literally something else.

She started a fight at the bar, I had no idea why. But she’d proved to be more than capable of looking after herself.

Her strength was almost supernatural.

Funny about that.

I had considered getting involved but decided against it. I figured I’d done enough fighting for a while, and instead, I opted to simply leave her to whatever shit she was dealing with which made her start a bar fight in the first place. The fact she was outnumbered was her problem.

It turns out it wasn’t a problem.

My conscience would’ve kicked in if I believed her to be in danger of getting hurt—protect the innocent rang strong in me—and these men in their bikie vests, well, I doubted they were innocent. But she was barely cracking a sweat as she took down two of the larger men, so I shrugged and moved to leave. As I was making my way toward the front door, I glanced back at her, maybe for one last look, maybe because the horny part of me wanted something to think about when I collapsed in bed tonight, or maybe because she was magnetic and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her and her movements.

Her shoulders heaved with deep heavy breaths as she stood over her latest victim, and a wide grin plastered on her face exposed teeth slightly sharper than I’d have expected.

The part that really got my attention—swiveling her head to look back at me before I left, her eyes were yellow—no longer golden, but bright yellow with black slits for irises.

Maybe I could’ve played that alone off as a trick of the light. However, the veins on her neck and arms had grown so dark I could trace their pathways across her body, black lines filled with ink spilling out underneath her milky skin in random spots that seemed to take her over, changing the tone of her skin to a sickly gray before it became black in places. It was like she was being painted from the inside out into something not distinctly human.

I had seen a lot of things.

Her victim stirred, and she silenced him with a kick to the head before she stared back at me, her head snapping up with an unnatural speed, and I know she knew I had seen her.

Yet, she smiled.

Most other people would tell themselves they were crazy, and it couldn’t possibly be real. But I know what I saw.

I know what I saw.