Lure of a Demon

Ray withdrew one arm from around me long enough to angrily swipe away at the moisture on her cheeks. As she hugged me again, I sighed into her touch as she began tracing her fingers up and down my spine.

“I understand now,” Ray repeated, and I nodded against her neck. The concerns I had expressed to her, why I had tried to get her to stop what she was doing all along, she understood. Because when you cause destruction, innocents get caught in the crossfire. People in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Collateral damage.

A term that sounded too official and cold for what it truly meant.

I never would’ve thought I’d connect with another human on this level.

And I certainly never thought I could connect with a demon.

But apparently, we were exactly what we needed for each other.

How the fuck did that happen?

Strapping a few spare blades to my torso, I pulled my t-shirt down over the bandages. If I got patted down again, there’d be no way they would miss the arsenal of weapons I carried, but something told me this wasn’t going to be the same setup Emrick had.

Ray apparently agreed by the way she kept the blades strapped to the outside of her leather pants.

It looked fucking hot.

Danger and sex appeal.

I was well beyond wondering what must be wrong with me to consider being with someone like her, knowing what she was. It wasn’t news my taste in partners was fucked-up, and usually resulted in destructive relationships that benefited no one.

Except the sex—that was generally amazing.

Although nothing like it was with Ray. She was something else, absolute next-level.

When she caught my eye, she grinned as if she could tell exactly what I was thinking. Which—remembering she had heightened senses and could read my arousal so well I might as well be holding a flashing sign—she probably could.

Horny. Horny. Horny.

“Keep your mind on the job at hand, soldier,” she purred.

A shudder ran down my spine at her use of the nickname. In a matter of days, she had managed to shift the meaning of the word soldier from the warzone into my bedroom, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

Because those memories in the bedroom are the ones I’d much rather hang on to anyway.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

“What’s his name again?”

I checked the slip of paper. “Earl.”

“No surname?”

“None, why?”

Ray bit her bottom lip again. “It has occurred to me…” she started, seemingly carefully choosing her words, “… that he might be like me.”

“What makes you think that?”

There was something going on in her mind, something she wasn’t telling me, and it struck me like a blow to the head that I had been thinking of Ray as an anomaly. But I had researched this. There were reports from people all over the city from both ends of this towering metropolis, all of which had claimed to have seen or known demons. The place crawled with them, and it made sense the worst of them would be hiding in this part of the city, the darkest part where there was so much to exploit.

Hell, I had seen those eyes in one of the men who had attacked me, so it stood to reason whoever they worked for was a demon too.

I’d been so focused on Ray I forgot to consider the other demons.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“I can handle it,” she said, searching my face. “But take a silver knife, just in case.”

Pulling a face, I checked my kitchen drawers, unsure if I had any left.

I had one, and I pocketed it.

“Ray?” She hummed, looking up from tightening the straps on her legs. “Why even go through all this? Couldn’t you go home or find another city?”

Straightening, she studied me while I got lost in those golden eyes of hers, wondering what she was thinking. “Demons are territorial,” she offered. “I came here, now I have a stake in this area, and…” Her gaze swept my body. “It would feel wrong to simply leave. It goes against my instinct.”

“Why do demons come to Earth at all?” I asked.

Her slightly sharpened teeth glinted in the light from the small bulb in the kitchen. “Fun, mostly. Some stay because they like it here. While our duties coincide with our instincts, sometimes we need to be… freer. But freedom here means other rules… work, money, all that human shit.”

“You’re a strange bunch.”

She giggled. “You have no idea.”