Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (47 page)

She sucked in some air, and this time kept her eyes closed. “I was looking forward to my four-month appointment. I was getting an ultrasound. An ultrasound would assuage my paranoia.”

“Paranoia about what?” he asked.

Momma chuckled and shuffled past, hauling a half-bushel of potatoes. She dropped them near John’s feet and handed him a paring knife.

He groaned. “Damn. Again?”

“She’s been watching too many old science fiction flicks," Momma said, ignoring John’s distress. “I’m not sure what she thinks is going to come out of her. The baby is more than half human, isn’t she, Charles?”

He blinked and dragged his gaze from Marion to Momma. His jaw tensed at the hinges, and Marion figured he wasn’t going to answer.

Typical.

“More than half. Yes.”

“So what comprises the rest?” Marion hooked her thumbs beneath her bathrobe tie and rocked on her heels. “I think I have the right to know.”

“You’re asking how human I am?”

“Yep.”

“I can’t give you a finite answer.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“For heaven’s sake, it’s not important,” Momma said.

“No, no.” He put up his hands. “It’s fine that she asks, but I’m certain that no matter what answer I give, it won’t be the one she wants to hear.”

“How about trying honesty for a change?” Marion said.

“If you’d like.” He bowed sarcastically and swept an arm toward the hallway. “We can use the bedroom, and I can give you all the honesty you can stomach.”

“Nope.” Marion shook her head rapidly. “How about right here?”

“You’re being difficult.”

She shrugged.

Maybe she was being difficult, but she knew one thing for sure. Every time she was alone in a room with the man, they either fought or she got mind-fucked. Sometimes both. She didn’t have the energy for either at the moment. And also, she wasn’t completely sure she’d stop him if he tried to seduce her. She wanted to believe she was stronger than that, but the man obviously had some magic over her. She knew what his touch would do to her, yet somehow she didn’t fear it. She missed it, though she’d only had it for a day.

“Marion, please. You’re making this more difficult than it has to be.”

He had to be out of his mind.
She
was the one making it difficult? Maybe he needed to clean out his ears, or what was between them.

“Is there a precedent for this? Most women don’t get knocked up by incubi and then get told they can’t leave their grandmothers’ houses because scary people want to turn her into a pile of ash.”

“We could get a midwife to—”

“To come tend to me here. Right. I get that, and that’s just hunky-dory for super-baby, but where are you going to be while I’m serving my time here in this inadequate little house?”

“I’ll pretend not to be offended,” Momma muttered from the sink.

Marion felt like shit for saying it, but she couldn’t hold it in anymore. It wasn’t Momma’s fault they’d been poor, but this wasn’t how Marion pictured her future home life. Living in cramped quarters with her sister and grandmother and soon-to-be brother-in-law with various supernatural beings using the place as a rest stop? She’d been more comfortable living in her truck.

“I’m trying to take care of you,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I don’t want to be taken care of. I can take care of myself and always have. You want to do me a favor? Conscript me an angel like Mark to follow me around if it’ll make you feel better.”

“That’s not possible, sweetheart.”

She rolled her eyes at the pet name. How fucking dare he? She crossed her arms over her nauseated belly and swallowed. “We don’t really have anything to talk about if you can’t do anything for me. Why don’t you just go? You always seem to have better things to do, anyway. The baby’s going to grow up thinking your name is Bye-bye.”

She expected her sharp barbs to propel him across the room, but she didn’t expect that no one would stop him. She thought Momma or John would get between them, but neither did. Charles got close, maybe three inches from her face. He was close enough for her to inhale his musk and salt air scent.

She’d know that smell anywhere, and even then craved it. She wanted to press her palms to his chest and lay her cheek against him, feeling him, inhaling him. Being held by him.

Snapping brought her back to reality, and her vision focused on Momma’s fingers popping in front of her face, between her and Charles.

“Quit it, you two. If y’all can’t communicate face to face, try sending text messages like the rest of young America does. As ridiculous as the idea is, maybe reading would be better than talking.”

Marion swallowed and willed herself not to fall into the trance cast by those ocean blue eyes.

Why was he looking at her like that? So softly, as if he wanted her—even after everything.

“I … I’m done. I don’t have anything to say to him.” She pushed away from the counter and hurried toward the bathroom or bedroom or
anywhere
with a door that locked. She needed some space.

No—she needed to get out of this place. If she did that, even for a day, she could show that she could take care of herself, demons or no demons. Except for that one time back in Idaho, her street smarts had never steered her wrong.

She didn’t need some demon to take care of her. Especially not when he was the cause of half her problems in the first place.

Not what I had in mind
.

Marion had watched and plotted for three months, yearning for a small taste of freedom, even through her fears of what was out there. She’d vacillated between wanting to stay put at Momma’s, and spreading her wings. Scared as she was, she’d had to get out. At least for a little while. She’d had to recruit some accomplices to make it happen, and now she wondered why she’d bothered. She regretted dragging Ariel and Julia into this.

Marion wriggled her bare toes against the sandy deck flooring and sighed as the waiter set down yet another plate of fried clam strips. She hadn’t thought she was hungry, given her stomach was located somewhere around her knees, but her appetite came back in full force once Ariel dropped the menu onto her lap.

Fifty shades of greasy, and all-you-can-eat.
Hello
.

It should have been a day filled with happy chattering, but Marion couldn’t help but notice how Ariel couldn’t stop scanning the area for trouble.

Julia, however, seemed perfectly calm. She dragged a clam strip through her trough of cocktail sauce as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe she was too glad to be out and about herself to feel tentative about it.

Marion sighed and reached for a lemon wedge. “Your agitation is affecting my digestion, sis. Mellow out. We’re at the beach.”

A lump moved down Ariel’s throat and her eyes bulged. “Call me a punk if you’d like, but I only tagged along because if anything happened to you I wouldn’t forgive myself. Just to be clear, I’m not condoning this outing.”

“I’m beginning not to myself.”

“Shit. Two years ago, I didn’t know anything about demons and witches and whatnot. I was in the dark until I—” Her eyes went wide as she pressed her lips together in a flat line.

Marion pushed her bowl of hush puppies back, chuckling. “I heard the story from Agatha. You picked up a hitchhiker and brought him home to Momma.”

“It’s not exactly sane and reasonable behavior for an upright woman, so I tell most folks I met him on one of those online dating sites.”

Marion huffed. Now, that was an idea. A dating website for the supernatural? Beneath the profile pictures in addition to height, body type, and eye color, would there be a listing for paranormal gifts? Charles’s would probably be panty-dropping.

She yelped at the painful pinch to her right arm and glowered at Julia. “What?”

Julia blinked. “You were growling. I’m married to a werewolf, and I know you’re not one, so what’s buggin’ ya all of a sudden?”

Marion tracked her gaze back to her sister. As if she’d touch that question with a ten-foot pole. “Picking up a hitchhiking incubus isn’t worse than what I did. I’m usually more discriminating.”

Ariel leaned her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Would you want him if he wasn’t what he is?”

Marion opened her mouth to say
no
, but somehow squashed the reflex. Looking down at the dregs of her chowder, she counted pepper specks and tried to ignore the sudden thickness in her throat.

“Look,” Ariel said in a soft voice. “He’s worried about you, and he should be. The demons give me a wide berth now because Mark’s tuned into my well being, but I’m ashamed to admit that when Big Daddy G grabbed me last year, I didn’t respond well. I could barely muster up the sense to fight back, and by the time I did, I couldn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t rescue myself. In the end, John bartered for me, Mark whisked me away, and Momma put the freeze on Gulielmus. I was weak and powerless. I wasn’t equipped to fight back, and if it were to happen now, I probably still wouldn’t be able to because the boys coddle me so much. Maybe you’d be different.” She reached across the table and nudged Marion’s hand. “Maybe you could fight them because you’ve got Momma’s spunk, but it’s not worth the risk to you or the baby. I know being rescued by a man is kind of out of style right now, but even if I did have the guts, John wouldn’t let me so much as swat a fly on my own.”

“That dopey werewolf of mine is like that.” Julia looked off toward the breaking waves and spun her wedding ring round and round. Her voice was tender, and she wore a little smile. “He’d prefer it if I just stayed home, but when he’s on the road with the team, I get lonely in the house by myself. Some of the members of the wolf pack come by and try to entertain me, but it’s not the same as going out somewhere and letting my hair down. I’ve been lucky so far. Gulielmus hasn’t caught up to me yet, but a few weeks ago a demon scout got really close.”

“A what?” Marion asked. She’d heard the boys mention them in passing, but she had no idea what they were.

“A scout. They’re like the hunting dogs of the demon world. My father directs them to find us when we don’t respond to telepathic summonses or when he can’t hone in on us to teleport to where we are. They run in grids and pass off information to each other. Sometimes you don’t know they’re nearby until they get up close. Anyhow, I’d taken off the protective charms Claude gave me last year. They help to keep me shielded above and beyond my own power. They magnify it. I’d rubbed against a patch of poison ivy near the cabin, and hated having the necklace on while the rash healed. Like a dummy, I went to the store without bothering to put my usual mental shields up. I’d gotten so used to wearing the charms, you know? Careless. I saw that thing sniffing around by my truck. I had to take the groceries to the customer service counter and tell them to hold them until I got back. And then I had to—”

She swallowed and fiddled the end of her long blond braid.

“What, Julia?”

Ariel cleared her throat. “Julia’s the kind of person who’d cry if she saw a mouse in a trap. The boys taught her how to deal with the scouts, but it’s not exactly the same thing as killing a chicken to eat.”

“But you’re here—out with us. You talked Ariel into it,” Marion said softly.

“I’m like you, Marion. I spent most of my life on a short tether, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my years hiding. I take calculated risks sometimes. Most of the time, I don’t regret them. But … I don’t know. Maybe I was wrong this time.”

“I wish you had let me bring Mark,” Ariel said. She dumped the remnants of her meal into a takeaway box and fastened the flaps. “He wouldn’t have snitched, and I always feel safer when he’s around.”

Julia sniffed. “Thanks, sissy.”

Ariel reached over and squeezed her hands. “You know what I mean. You’re still a novice in the scheme of things, and taking care of us is a lot of responsibility to put on one person. Mark and Big Daddy G are pretty evenly matched, given they’re the same age and equally equipped.”

The waitress came by with the bill, and Ariel tucked her debit card into the leather portfolio.

Marion pushed her bare feet back into her sandals. “I do appreciate you breaking me out, though,” she said to Julia. “I’m used to taking care of myself, and I don’t like feeling like I’m a burden to everyone.”

“I felt that guilt too, for a while,” Ariel said, “but Momma told me that I should never be remorseful about loving someone, especially when he loves you back.”

“Who said anything about love?” Marion let her gaze fall to her belly and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Guilt, she had plenty of. Being confined to her grandmother’s property, she’d had too much time on her hands to think and fret. Maybe they were in this situation because she couldn’t say no—couldn’t resist a man. She’d always been proud of the fact that she didn’t need a man to complete her and she could do things on her own. She still didn’t need a man to complete her, but being claimed so ardently by someone had felt nice. Charles had made her feel like the only woman in the world worth consorting with. He’d made her feel beautiful when she’d tried so hard to hide that part of herself away.

He was an incubus. This is what they did—they wrapped women up in their charms and made them forget about their own strength and agencies. They stripped women of their wills and replaced their abilities to reason with lust.

“Fair enough.” Julia pushed back from the table and stood. She pushed her cute orange-rimmed sunglasses up her nose and stretched her arms over her head. “I wish love for all of my brothers. You may not believe it, but I know Charles almost as well as I know John. He says you’re his, and I believe him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was right about Calvin. That’s why we call Charles Cupid. I don’t know how it works.” Her voice took on a dreamy quality and she smiled. “It’s a trait he inherited from his mother. I guess he can pick couples the way some people sense a change in the weather in their bones. I thought he was insane, especially after I met that doofus husband of mine, but … he was right. We both had something the other needed.”

“That sounds crazy,” Marion said, but she wanted to believe it. She was so hung up on him being an incubus and everything that meant, but he did try to be good, didn’t he? Just like Julia was good. Julia was a woman so full of love, that she seemed to have tamped down that demon part of her—snuffed it out so it didn’t exist.