Demon's Hunger (25 page)

Dain breathed in the scent of Vivien's skin as she accepted his hand and climbed from the car to the curb outside the coffee shop. She smelled like his soap, his shampoo, and herself—kind of like vanilla and… sex. The combination was acutely erotic.

"Thanks." She shot him a sexy little side glance.

He stared down at her, at the wisps of dark hair framing her face in spiky disarray, at her sweet little nose and her huge hazel-green eyes, so keenly intelligent. Emotion swelled, a deep pool, and he barely stopped himself from hauling her against him and kissing her, branding her as his. But he'd already done that last night and look where it had gotten him, cranked right into the danger zone on so many different levels.

Yeah, he'd given her whatever he could of his body and his magic. And he'd given her something else, something he had shared with no one before her. He had offered Vivien a view of the deepest part of himself, had told her about Moria and Ciel, had let her walk right past his defenses and see the secret pain in his heart.

That sharing had tempered it, not made it less but made it bearable. Because he had shared it with her.

What the hell was he thinking? Vivien might not have a clue what she was, but he did. He knew. She was a succubus, the female equivalent of a demon. His sworn enemy.

Only, he knew for a fact that demons could choose, that good and evil weren't preordained. Ciarran had chosen to bury the evil that infested him. From everything he'd seen, Vivien didn't have a sliver of darkness in her.

Fuck. He scraped his hand through his hair.
Fuck
.

He stared down at her and felt an overpowering urge to drag her close and kiss her and protect her. From herself. From the knowledge of what she was.

He wanted to keep her safe from the whole Compact of Sorcerers. And from himself.

A faint frown marred her brow, and she reached out, laying her palm against his cheek and running the pad of her thumb lightly over the skin under his eye.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I kept you up so late."

She had. And he'd loved every second of it.

"And then you kept yourself up even later with my photos." She smiled, stroking her fingers down his cheek, along his jaw. "Thank you. I can't tell you what that means to me, Dain. God, you're amazing."

She was looking at him like he'd given her pearls. Diamonds. Like he'd given her the world, instead of a handful of damaged photos.

"My pleasure." He meant it. It gave him pleasure to please her.

"You didn't use magic," she said. "You cleaned each one by hand."

He'd considered using magic to make the photos whole, make them as they had been before the fire, but somehow, that had just felt wrong.

"I wanted it to mean something. To show you—" He felt naked, barren, as though she saw right to his core. "I needed it to mean something."

Dragging his gaze from hers, he closed the passenger door, then leaned his butt against it.

His eyes felt like he'd rubbed sand in them, and his limbs were heavy. Man, he was tired. Bone weary. Drained. Maybe that explained the way he was feeling. Edgy. Restless. Horny.

What the hell was up with that? He'd made love with Vivien how many times last night? And still he wanted her, stronger, more keenly. And he knew it had nothing to do with her succubus powers and everything to do with her. Just her.

He felt connected to her. From the way she'd looked at him just now—the expression on her face a window to her thoughts, her eyes shadowed with worry as she stroked his jaw—he was left with no doubts that she cared about him a whole hell of a lot. He found that damned appealing. He liked it that she cared.

And equal to that liking was a sense of despair. Where the hell was this thing between them heading except right over a cliff? It was dangerous.
She
was dangerous to him.

Right now, he was running on empty.

Scraping his hand along his jaw, he watched her walk away, all bundled up in his oversized shearling coat.

She'd almost reached the door of the coffee shop when she paused, turned, walked back the way she'd come. She stared up at him, her eyes shimmering.

"Dain, go home," she said softly, laying her fingers across his lips. "You look so tired, and I feel terrible for dragging you out. Please, go home. I'll take a cab back. It's broad daylight. What could happen?"

What could happen
? Far more than she could ever imagine.

He was touched by the way she looked at him, concern manifested in her expression, her movements, her words. Christ, how long since he'd had anyone care about him? Worry about him?

It made him wary. And it made him warm. All nice and fuzzy warm, because he liked knowing she cared.

That left him feeling like a heel, because half the reason he was standing here with her was because he wanted to protect her, and the other half was because he wasn't certain if he needed to protect others
from
her. Protect
himself
from her.

She had no idea what she was. A succubus. And he had no idea what that entailed, other than the most amazing sex he'd ever had and a feeling of union through his magic the like of which he'd never known.

His head was as mixed up as a shake in a blender.

Vivien was… Vivien. No way was she dark. Evil.

But what about the fact that she was a succubus? She was an energy being that none of his comrades in the Compact had encountered in a millennium, and she just happened to show up when there was some kind of supernatural coup going on? Just happened to be around during a murder spree?

His comrades were trusting him to stay on the right side of the line, to hold true to their ideals and not be tempted into betrayal. He was trusting himself to choose the right path.

Jesus.

Was this how it started, with tiny steps that blurred the boundary? Was this how it had started with the Ancient? With uncertainty about exactly where the boundary lay?

What would he do if Vivien turned out to be dark, if she allied with the demons?

The thought left him cold. He couldn't make himself believe it. He hadn't seen one shred of evidence to suggest she was going that route, and he couldn't make himself judge her just for being a succubus.

Fuck, what the hell was he doing? Falling in love with his enemy?

The thought twisted him up. Love. He didn't want to love her. Love brought pain and loss. Only, try as he might, he couldn't seem to will it away, couldn't seem to find the wall of ice he'd built for centuries.

"Don't look at me like that," she whispered.

"Like what?"

"I don't know… so
fierce
."

Fierce
. Yeah, he could imagine his expression if it reflected the turmoil inside him.

Rising on her toes, she pressed her cheek to his, drew back. She put her hands in her pockets. Her brow furrowed. "Oops… small problem." She shot him a self-deprecating smile. "I'll take a cab if you lend me a twenty. I seem to have burned through my liquid assets."

She looked up at him with a gamine grin, and all he could think about was that he couldn't lose her, couldn't let anything happen to her.

"Um…
burned
through my assets—get it?"

What was she asking him? Man, he was so out of it. Her smile faltered as she studied his face.

"Ooookay," she said, her smile fading completely. "Guess it wasn't funny. So, yeah… I can walk back. It isn't that far."

"Sorry." He shook his head. "My mind wandered."

Then the realization hit him that, just like he'd forgotten that her clothes had been destroyed in the fire, he'd also forgotten that she didn't have a wallet or a dime to her name.

Oh, he was doing a fine job of taking care of her.

"No cab. I'll wait out here," he said tightly, frustrated with himself. "But take this."

He hauled out a wad of cash and shoved it into her hand.

Eyebrows raised, she peeled off a bill and handed the rest back to him.

"I'll pay you back."

He laughed shortly, not really amused. Unable to resist touching her, he caught her wrist and pulled her close, then ran his lips along her cheek. Her skin was soft, silky. He buried his face in her neck, traced his tongue along the underside of her jaw.

With a gasp, she jerked away, her gaze locked with his, her pupils huge and dark.

"Later," she whispered, "we'll finish what you just started, and then you're going to explain to me what's going on. With me. With my body." She paused. "With us."

Now there was a thought. Explain what was going on. Tell her that she was a succubus, that she needed sex to survive. That was going to be one hell of a conversation.

Looking down at her, the attraction was so strong, a fierce, gnawing need. He actually had to force his hands to his sides to keep from hauling her back against him. Was that a succubus thing?

He didn't think so.

He thought it was a Vivien/Dain thing.

Because, yeah, he'd been horny before, but this… well, this was right out of the ballpark. He didn't just want sex. He wanted
hen
Wanted to know the secret parts of her, her dreams, her wishes. Wanted to know everything about his smart, brave, sexy Vivien. Everything.

"None of that" she admonished, but her voice was shaky. She pressed her lips together and continued. "Dain, I know you're here to protect me, but how close do you need to be?" She gestured at the large plate-glass windows of the coffee shop. "Can you maybe stay in the car? Amy was pretty specific about wanting to see me alone, and I think it would hurt her to see you out here, glaring."

"She won't see me," Dain said.

"Does that mean you'll stay out here, or does it mean something else?" she asked warily, her eyes narrowed.

He shrugged, not feeling the need to explain that he'd be right beside her, refracting light, invisible for all intents and purposes.

Vivien studied him an instant longer, and then she smiled, pretty white teeth and a tiny dimple in her right cheek that he hadn't noticed before now.

He found that fascinating. It made him wonder what other little things he could discover about her.

Uh, yeah. Kibosh that. Finding out that the woman he was halfway in love with was a succubus—possibly a demon—was probably enough mysterious discovery to last a good long while.

Halfway in love with.

He stared down at her and thought,
Maybe not just halfway
.

Her gaze locked on his, and whatever she read there made her lips part and her eyes widen.

"Dain," she whispered, like his name was a song, a prayer. Like he mattered to her more than anything.

Christ. He dug deep and found the place he was most comfortable being, wrapped in ice, cool-headed, cold-hearted. Yeah, in his dreams.

"Go on," he said gently. "I'll be right there with you."

Dropping her gaze, she turned and made her way into the coffee shop.

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Dain watched as she wove between tables until she reached an isolated booth in the very back. A woman was sitting there wearing a heavy, black, down-filled coat; a black knitted hat pulled low on her forehead; and enormous dark sunglasses. Inside. Even though she wasn't in direct sunlight.

Instinct stirred deep in his gut, oozing through him in a greasy glide.

There was something familiar here, something in the woman's posture, the tilt of her head, the tiny spark of magic he sensed about her.

She'd been there yesterday.

She'd been in Starbucks, watching him, dusted by an aura of magic that wasn't quite light and wasn't quite dark. She was the person he'd sensed out on the street right before he'd gone tearing after Vivien into the abandoned building.

Opening himself to it, Dain tested the flow of magic, the river of the
continuum
. It was sullied, tainted by the presence of… what? Something strange.
Hybrids
. He could sense them nearby. Three, maybe four, of them a couple blocks away. Which came as no surprise. This area was a
hybrid
warren-like an anthill, with the
hybrids
as ants.

But there was something else, something far more powerful. Dark and not dark. Malevolent. Eerie.

A full-blooded demon?

Not like any he'd ever encountered.

Whatever the hell it was, it would have to come through him to get to Vivien. He didn't have a second's doubt that Vivien was its prey, which meant he needed to be a hell of a lot closer to her than he was right now.

Without remorse for her forfeited privacy, he closed his eyes, visualized the shadowed booth in the back of the coffee shop, visualized Vivien.

Damn. He'd already been drained by his wounds, and then sharing his magic with Vivien last night had dragged him pretty close to empty. His power should have replenished while he slept, only for some reason it hadn't. Usually he could catch the shimmering current of the
continuum
without effort, the process so ingrained it was as instinctual as breathing. But today he felt the cold touch of the plate-glass window as he filtered through, the sensation numbing and unpleasant. The sound of liquid hitting a cup burbled in his organs and cells as though
he
were being poured, the scent of coffee rich in his nostrils, the experience of transporting himself far slower, far more intense than usual.