SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (155 page)

He sucked in air and his chest swelled to amazing proportions. The frown on his face was enough to terrify anybody else. But my daughter’s life was at stake here and it was going to take more than Mr. Scowly Face to scare me off.

Besides, he’d had a perfect opportunity to kill me—when he was laying on top of me—and he hadn’t taken it. I figured I was safe. At least for the moment.

Reaching out, he grabbed my upper arms and hauled me up close to him. Okay, maybe not safe, safe. Smoke lifted and twisted in the air between us as the spray came into contact with his body. But he didn’t seem to mind. If it was actually burning his skin, he had some great self control, because I couldn’t see a trace of pain in his eyes. Just pissed off male.

“I told you already. I
like
you,” he said, grinding each word out as if he were spitting bullets. “I’m working for the Judge. I’m not going to help him kidnap your daughter and I’m
not
going to let him kill you.”

I swallowed hard and damned if I didn’t feel tears at the backs of my eyes. How stupid was that? But for some damn reason, I really appreciated that little speech. I only hoped I could believe it.

“Thanks,” I said when I was pretty sure the tight knot in my throat had dissolved enough to allow for speech.

His gaze was still locked on me and I heard him hiss out a breath in exasperation. “You don’t believe me.”

I thought about that for a long minute. Sure he said he was on my side, but how did I know that? Take his word? The word of the demon who had the guy who’d crashed my car working for him? He hadn’t exactly fired him or anything. How did I know that Devlin wasn’t still working for the judge and just trying to keep me off guard?

How did I know that he was really a ‘good’ demon? For all I knew, he could have been plotting against me like crazy.

“I’d like to.”

“What’s stopping you?”

His hands on my arms were still tight. I could feel the imprint of his fingers on my skin, right through the fabric of my sweatshirt. And the twists of smoke were twining about our heads like misty wreaths.

“Just the demon thing,” I admitted.

Shaking his head, he said, “Guess I’ll just have to find a way to convince you I can be trusted, then.”

“Firing the guy who tried to run me down like a dog would be a good start,” I pointed out.

“Firing him wouldn’t help. I can’t keep an eye on him if he’s not here, now can I?”

True. But how did I know that he wasn’t keeping him around to make sure the demon’s
next
plan worked better? Oh, I had such a headache. I just wasn’t made for intrigue, you know? Give me a dirty house, and I’m your girl. Give me problems to solve and I had to go lay down for awhile.

“Fine then,” I said on a sigh, “if you won’t fire him, then how’re you going to convince me to trust you?” I pulled in a gulp of air when his hands left my upper arms and moved to cup my breasts. “Oh man...” I think I actually whimpered, but I really don’t want to admit that. “That is so not playing fair.”

His thumbs moved over my nipples and despite the sweatshirt and my bra, I swear I could feel his skin on mine. My hoo-hah trembled, clearly remembering the last time we’d been here with Devlin, my legs quaked and the edges of my vision blurred.

He smiled.

I think. Can’t be sure. Blurred, remember?

“I want you again,” he said, dipping his head to nibble at my earlobe. His teeth caught the edge of the silver hoop in my ear and gave it a tug.

Swear to God, felt that tug all the way down to my toes.

“I...um...I...” God.
Brilliant,
Cassidy. Is it any wonder you’re such a freaking demon magnet?

“You want me, too,” he whispered, his breath as hot as his mouth against my neck.

“Um...I...”
Somebody
help me.

“The spray won’t stop me,” he whispered, teeth nibbling at my jugular.

Jesus. He
was
just a demon, right? Not a vampire?

Did I care?

Not at the moment.

“Doesn’t it hurt at least?” I said on a soft moan as his tongue swept across my skin. “The spray, I mean?”

“Burns like hell,” he admitted and grabbed my breasts in a tight, firm grip, squeezing until I was whimpering my need for more.

Holy crap.

The slut puppy was
back.

Standing in a hallway of an exclusive sex club, I wanted Devlin to pull off my clothes and take me against the damn wall. Oh, boy...

“Devlin—“

“Cassidy...” Carmen called for me from down the hall and her voice was like a bucket of cold water dousing me from head to toe. I grabbed hold of Devlin’s wrist and oh, so reluctantly, pulled him off of me. Seriously, the Duster strength? Pretty impressive.

“I have to go see what she needs,” I said, backing away while I still could. I made a mental note to buy Carmen a cinnamon roll when we were finished here. She really had called me just in the nick of time. Whether she knew it or not.

His eyes narrowed and he huffed out an impatient breath before stuffing his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Fine. We’ll continue this...discussion, another time.”

Oh, boy howdy. I swallowed hard, turned and walked quickly away. Frankly, I’m surprised my knees worked.

“Cass?” he said and I stopped, swiveling my head to look at him. “Don’t use the demon spray on the windows in here,” he said and gave me a half smile that jittered across every single nerve ending I had. “Some of my customers might not be as...forgiving about the scent as I am.”

“Right.” Then, the hereditary Demon Duster scurried for the safety of Carmen’s scowls.

* * *

Thea was at the mall with Zoe and I was in the back yard training with Jasmine. The late September air was cool and clouds were rolling in off the ocean in a thick, black bank that promised rain later. I was so damn grateful that the heat was gone, I wanted to hit my knees and thank the weather gods for the reprieve.

Unfortunately, I was a little too busy.

Jasmine’s sharp, dark gaze followed me as I jumped and lunged and stretched my way around the yard, feeling like an idiot. For God’s sake, did it matter how much I trained? Every one of the demons in La Sombra had been demons a hell of a lot longer than I’d been a Duster.

But then I thought about Judge Jenks and his threat against Thea and I knew that I’d have to train to be able to protect her. Unless Devlin did what he promised and set up a truce meeting with the judge.

Truce.

Was that even possible?

And did I even want a damn truce with a demon who was trying to hand my baby girl off as a sex slave? Nah. What I wanted was the old goat’s disintegrating heart in my hand. Hence the stupid training.

My head was pounding and it didn’t help hearing Jasmine shouting instructions in a Drill Sergeant voice completely at odds with her appearance. Then Sugar started barking and my headache blossomed into Brain Tumor Mode.

Just as I turned to shout at the damn dog though, a tall, thin woman with dark blond hair, bright red eyes and knife blade sharp fingernails about a mile long, leaped over the white picket fence and charged me.

“Whoa!” I shrieked. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. Hey, you face down a demented woman in a paisley wrap dress determined to gouge your face off and see if you can keep from screaming!

The bitch came at me like a freak in a horror film and shouted, “Die you cow!”

Cow?

Excuse me?

I grabbed the closest thing to hand—Sugar’s slobbery Frisbee and pitched it at the woman, hitting her square in the throat with enough strength to dent the Frisbee and make her pause long enough to catch her breath. She gagged a little and I used her distraction to jump
straight up
and over her. Like Wonder Woman or something, I’m leaping around the damn yard like I’ve got springs on my feet.

I heard the bitch snarl as she turned for a second go at me. She was bent over at the waist, running at me and I hit her stomach with my shoulder, lifting her up and over me like she was a grain of salt I was throwing for good luck.

Damn, I was getting good at this. Suddenly, I wished for a video camera to capture my greatness and show to doubting Logan so maybe he’d believe me when I told him demons were running rampant in his little town.

A second later though I was through thinking and trying to stay one step ahead of the demon woman. She had grass clinging to her upper lip from where she’d hit the yard on her fall. She spit it out, narrowed her gaze on me and made another lunge. I swung from the shoulder, my fist hit her chin and she flew back like somebody had a rope around her waist and gave her a good tug. Hell, my knuckles didn’t even hurt.

I was good.

“Stop playing with it and kill it,” Jasmine shouted from the sidelines. I shot her a look. Back seat Duster.

Demon woman hit the ground hard a second time and her ugly ass dress hitched up over her legs to show off thigh high nylons. And she was wearing sandals. For God’s sake, nobody had standards anymore.

She pushed herself up from the grass, wiped her hair out of her eyes with those dagger nails of hers and spit out another mouthful of grass.

“Ew,” I said. “Gross out.”

“You’re ruining everything!” The demon bitch spat the words at me. “He won’t look at me until you’re dead.”

“Hey,” I countered, “I didn’t go into
your
backyard and call you a cow. I didn’t even say anything about that ugly ass dress or your tacky nylons.”

Her eyes went wider and hotter. Hard to believe, but they did. Like I said, I have this effect on people. Apparently, even on demons.

“With your death, I’ll have his attention again.”

“His?” I asked, crouching and watching her every move, trying to figure out how she was going to come at me before she did it. See? I can learn. “You mean the judge, right? He’s the one you want paying attention?”

“With you around,” she snarled—(and here, I mean actually snarled, not a pretty sound)—“he thinks of nothing but you.”

“Isn’t that nice?” Okay, that was enough. She was pissed and the trick, I thought, was to make her even madder, so she’d lose control and I could win fast. Shouldn’t be tough. I studied my fingernails with as much of a casual air as I could manage. “Gee, guess you’re just not demon enough to keep him interested, huh?”

She spit again and I made a mental note to hose down the yard. Demon cooties.

“I’ll kill you and he’ll reward me.”

“What? You’re doing this for credit?” I shouted, throwing both hands high, “I thought this was a demon jealousy thing.”

She choked a laugh.

“So you get brownie points for killing me?”

Jasmine shouted, “Stop talking and kill it!”

But this was just getting interesting.

Demon woman snorted and tossed her hair back. Pretty hair. Good highlights. “He’ll give me San Diego for this.”

I glanced at Jasmine. “They can have whole cities all to themselves?”

Jasmine only shouted, “Will you simply
kill
it?
Now.”

The demon charged again and this time, I remembered the demon spray on the patio table. I grabbed it, whirled around, dropping into a crouch as I moved. She sailed past me, landing right in front of Jasmine. The old woman kicked her dead in the face, tossing her back at me. She landed on her feet this time and was preparing another pounce when I gave her a long squirt of the bottle, the liquid splashing over her face and across the top of her head.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” I said, just before I slapped my hand through that ugly dress, ripped out her heart and watched her wide, surprised eyes as she poofed.

I was actually feeling pretty good.

Until I looked at Jasmine.

Her head was smoking.

More than Fiends: Chapter Fifteen

“No. Fucking. Way.”

Jasmine didn’t move. She just stood there, her head smoking, twists of gray spiraling in the cold, ocean wind, her gaze never leaving my face. Was she afraid to move? Afraid I might leap at her and rip out her heart? Damn it, a part of me
wanted
to.

She’d lied to me. Made me trust her as the one person with answers in my strange new world and now I find out she’s one of the monsters?

“You’re a
demon
.”

“Yes,” she said.

“That’s it? Just YES?” Why wasn’t she spilling her guts? Trying to explain away her lies? Keep me from killing her?

Because she knew I wouldn’t. A real pisser for somebody to know you that well. I tossed the demon spray at a nearby chair and yanked at my own hair in frustration. “For Chrissakes Jasmine, don’t you think I deserve a little more than that?” I was shouting by then and didn’t really give a damn who heard me. “Maybe an explanation? Something along the lines of ‘hey, did I forget to mention I’m from South Hell’?”

Her lips pursed. Serious lipstick lines. “You’re becoming agitated.”

“Boy howdy.”

“There is no need.”

“HAH!” I gave my hair another yank, then winced at the pain and told myself to knock it off. Being a demon duster was bad enough. Being a
bald
demon duster would just be ugly. So I walked off the mounting aggravation by stomping around my back yard until Sugar slinked away up to the porch and huddled next to the door. Great. Now I was scaring cowardly dogs.

I stopped, faced the little old lady who looked more like a woman ready for a hot night of Bingo than an ambassador from a hell dimension. “You can’t be a demon. That’s not how it works. I can handle Devlin being a demon because, well, I just can and the sex was pretty incredible—“

Jasmine shuddered.

“And hey, demon lovers are
acceptable
. It’s even been on TV and in the movies. But not
you.
You’re my
guide
. In the movies, you’re the wise old man who can read all the weird books written in a language nobody’s ever seen before! You can’t be a demon. That’s not how this is supposed to work. You’re supposed to be on
my
side.”

Jasmine sighed, pulled an embroidered hanky out of the cuff of her long sleeved gray shirt dress and wiped what was left of the demon spray off her forehead.