Lure of a Demon

RAY

Blood was painfully surging through me, my demon screaming to get out, and it was taking almost all my strength and concentration to keep it at bay. I could see Ilsa’s throat working against the knife as she swallowed, and my vision switched between the clarity of my demon to human. I didn’t care what he did to me, but Ilsa, she was an innocent.

Collateral damage.

“You can’t kill her, Emrick, you’re bound by the same rules I am.” My voice was shaking, and I hated the weakness it portrayed.

His laughter rang out throughout the room. Two of the bouncers, still standing behind where Emrick previously sat, smirked, their shoulders shaking with some joke I didn’t understand.

The knife pressed against Ilsa’s throat shifted, a thin trail of blood dripping down her collarbone.

My eyes widened—he was really going to do it.

All because of me and my stupid games since I was too inexperienced to figure out a better way to control my demon on Earth. I thought I had it all figured out. I knew nothing and had so much left to learn.

Ilsa’s expression hadn’t shifted, and I hated to think this wasn’t the first time she had been in this situation.

Life or death. Her life in the hands of others.

She trusted me.

“Emrick, please, you can’t kill her.”

“There’s nothing stopping me from taking this human’s life, nothing except you.”

“Please. You can’t, the rules…”

The rules I was clinging on to were apparently useless as Emrick continued to laugh at the emotion tumbling through my voice.

What did he want from me?

Was he going to make me beg for her life?

“I’m a fallen angel, Ray. What the fuck else is He going to do to me?”

Silence.

“You fell?” My voice was small.

I didn’t know. Of course, I felt he was an angel, but I didn’t even consider he might be fallen.

That would explain the darkness behind his power.

Fuck.

He had no boundaries now.

Ilsa’s eyes found mine, and beyond the confusion and fear was accusation. “You knew he wasn’t human?”

“I didn’t want to freak you out.”

Ilsa scoffed, and her expression flared with rage as the knife against her throat was forgotten in the moment when betrayal pushed everything else out of sight. “Oh, yeah, right. This would be the thing to tip me over the edge, not you being a fucking demon. Not fucking a demon.”

“I don’t really think this is the time,” I mumbled. The ability for her to ignore the pressure of the knife against her throat as it increased with Emrick’s impatience because we were having a domestic floored me.

Ilsa’s reply was strangled from her throat when Emrick closed his hand around the side of her neck, pressing the tip of the blade into her jugular. “Fucking women, Christ. Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, fuck you, Emrick,” I spat.

“You’re not in a position to be speaking with such disrespect, bitch.”

“What do you want?” I asked desperately.

“You.” He slapped his hand lightly against Ilsa’s cheek when she went to protest. “You, Ray. I want you. I want your skills, your strength, and your complete disregard for territory and respect. You will work for me.”

“The hell she will,” Ilsa cried.

“She will if she wants you to live.” He eyed me. “I’ll pay you handsomely, and you can stay on Earth, giving in to all your instincts and desires. I’ll protect you, so you won’t come to harm. You’ll have money, power, protection, and anything you want. All you have to do is aim that strength and those fists at the people I tell you to.”

Like a guided missile.

“There’s no way—”

Emrick shifted his hand until he was fisting Ilsa’s hair, tangling it around his fingers and yanking against her scalp, cutting her words off with a cry.

“Shh, human. Let the demon decide for herself.”

Ilsa’s eyes shot to my face, watering from the pain but filled with determination.

I looked away.

I couldn’t face her right now.

Because while she was so steadfast—black and white, right and wrong—I wasn’t so sure. Emrick wasn’t the good guy, but who was in this world? Was it still wrong to be working for one bad guy against another?

Why shouldn’t I work for Emrick?

He was right. I could unleash all my desires, stay here on Earth, earn an income, which otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do. I had so much fun taking down all his damn clubhouses, but when I thought I had it figured out, I had been going about it all wrong. What difference did it make to me who I was unleashing upon? Really, I’d be taking down the same people I had been aiming at before. If they were involved with Emrick, they were unlikely to be innocent people, so my conscience was clear on that front. The only difference would be I wouldn’t be harming anything of Emrick’s.

It’s everything I’d been doing since I got here, but with a wage, and I wouldn’t get shot up with silver bullets in the process because I didn’t know who owned what.

Bonus.

I wanted to tell myself I was doing it only for Ilsa in some selfless act, but it would be a lie. I had no qualms with lying, but what was the point? He made an enticing offer. Ilsa would be safe, I’d keep doing what I was doing, and all would be right as it were.

“All right.”