The Demon King (32 page)

Others just stood up and gave in to the
music with abandon. Lynnard Skynnard transitioned into the Sultans
of Swing, and Dahlia leaned over him, placing her hands on his
knees. “Come on cowboy. Don’t cops know how to dance?”

He smiled, flashing just
enough fang that only she could see. Then he grabbed her hands,
stood from the bar stool, and spun her around as if he’d been
taking dance lessons his whole life. Because in a way, he sort
of
had
. His
adoptive mother had basically been composed of rhythm, and she’d
taught him everything she’d known.

Dahlia squealed and a few of the men in the
bar whistled, cheering Laz on. He spun her out, drew her in, turned
her around, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against
him. She laughed, and he caught the whiff of cherry blossoms again.
He could hear her breathing heavy with excitement. He leaned over
her from behind, placing his lips beside her ear. But he didn’t say
anything. She could feel him there – and that was enough.

He grinned like the demon he was and spun
her back out once more. The music moved them there in that bar on a
lonely street some place just outside of Boston, and they lost
themselves to it as if they were the only two people remaining on
Earth.

All around them, couples drew together, men
and women who’d been through wars, who’d seen death and birth and
had stuck to each others’ sides for decades. They held hands, laid
heads on shoulders, and let themselves feel joy.

Chapter Forty-One

“
So… are you really afraid
of this cousin of yours?” Dahlia asked. She and Laz were leaning
against his car talking. They’d been at the bar for a little over
an hour now, and all in all, they seemed to have made their place
amongst the clientele. No one gave them so much as a second glance
any longer. They were simply there.

Laz shrugged. It was a good question. More
than anything, he felt a little overwhelmed… and admittedly
irritated. It was one thing to earn enemies, it was another to
inherit them. But to say he wasn’t a little afraid would be a lie.
“I don’t know. I certainly don’t trust him, but I don’t know him
well enough for anything else. This royalty business is pretty
messy.”

“
Tell me about it,” said
Dahlia, rolling her eyes. “Did you know that back in my world, my
mom and dad were the equivalent of a duke and duchess? Or something
like that.” She took a swig of the beer she’d ordered before they’d
come outside. “Violet and I just sort of wrote the whole thing off
when they died. We refused to play into the bloodline expectations.
It took more than a thousand years for people to accept it, but
eventually they did.”

Laz stared at her. The woman was royalty?
Literal royalty? On top of everything else? He shook his head and
laughed. “You learn something new every day,” he muttered.

“
Yeah
, you do,” Dahlia agreed. “Thank goodness. Life wouldn’t be
much fun otherwise.”

Speaking of learning something new. “You
know, you never told me what happened at the warehouse,” Laz
brooked.

“
You never
asked.”

“
I’m asking now,” he said.
“What was going on when I walked in?”

Dahlia’s expression became distant. She
shook her head. “I can’t be sure. But….” She squinted as she
remembered. “There was a man there with eyes like yours. In fact,
he looked a lot like you.”

Lazarus was getting an idea. “Go on.”

She took a deep breath and blew out a sigh.
“There were all these robed figures. They had drawn symbols on the
concrete with chalk or something. There was a circle, and in the
circle was a star. And somewhere between the two, there was an
Akyri.”

“
An Akyri?” he repeated,
his brow furrowing. “That would explain the magic I sensed when I
arrived. Was that all there was?” That hadn’t been the only thing
he’d sensed.

“
No. There was a beast in
the circle with her. He was furry and enormous. He looked a little
like a goblin from Damon Chroi’s realm.”

Now the idea he’d been developing
solidified. “A demon.”

She frowned. “A demon?
But…
you’re
a
demon. Right? That thing was more like an animated plushy with
teeth and horns.”

“
What does a mortal look
like?” he asked her.

She pursed her lips, no doubt realizing that
a mortal could look like anything from a single bacterium to a blue
whale. The same went for fae. And it most likely went for demons.
They came in all shapes and sizes.

“
You’ve made your point,”
she admitted softly.

“
I think the man you saw
was Apollyon.”

She considered that in silence, took a swig
of her beer, and then said, “That makes sense. My magic didn’t work
on him.”

Laz glanced over at her and a dark feeling
grabbed hold of his gut. His instincts were telling him something
he didn’t want to believe. “Now that’s interesting,” he said.
“Especially when you consider why he was there in the first
place.”

“
Why do you think that
was?”

That feeling he had grew
stronger, and now he just knew –
knew
– he was right. “In all
honesty? I think he was there to flush you out.” He was after
Dahlia. And who could blame him? If you were going to get revenge,
why not do it in the most pleasurable way possible? Taking Dahlia
would prevent Laz from having her, which would destroy him, and in
turn destroy his kingdom.

Fucking demon. Laz was going to rip his
lungs out and play them like bagpipes.

He turned his head, shocked
at his internal thoughts. He was stunned to find his fists had
clenched at his sides, and his gums had begun to ache with the need
to sink his fangs into something.
Christ,
he thought.
I’m ten seconds away from cutting someone’s heart
out with a plastic serrated knife.
His
birth mother had been right. And Laz was going to have to be very
careful with his knee-jerk reactions from now on. Lest they leave
someone with a massive cavity in their chest.

“
Well, that’s not at all
creepy,” Dahlia said.

Laz blinked at first, thinking she’d been
reading his thoughts. But then he realized she was referring to the
fact that Apollyon had been trying to find her and had set up the
situation in the warehouse just to draw her in.

He looked back over at her as she rolled her
eyes. It was the most adorable expression, and somehow,
miraculously, it took hold of Laz’s anger and shaved off all of its
rough edges. In fact, he suddenly felt like rolling his eyes
himself.

Dahlia Kellen was a blessing. He felt his
blood pressure lowering.

“
Anyway,” she said, giving
her almost empty bottle a shake and an irritated look. “Since we’re
speaking of learning – you never did answer my
question.”

“
What question?”

“
Well, I guess it wasn’t so
much a question. I just wanted you to tell me about Boston. You’ve
lived there your whole life, right?”

Laz smiled and turned his whole body toward
her, leaning on his side and sliding his hand into his jeans
pocket. She was damn good at changing the subject. And he welcomed
it.

A motorcycle pulled up, its engine rumbling
like thunder. The couple on the bike parked and got off, and the
woman riding in the back did something on her phone before sliding
it into the back pocket of her jeans. The couple nodded to Laz and
Dahlia as they entered the bar.

“
You really want to know
about Boston?”

“
I do. Well,” she gave it
some thought. “Maybe sum up a little. The city’s more than two
hundred years old.”

“
Okay... Boston is the home
of the Boston Tea Party of course – you probably know all about
that.” She nodded. “The Freedom Trail and Paul Revere’s house, and
so forth.” Again, she nodded. He smiled. “But if you want to step
out of the history books for a bit, you’ll get the
real
Boston. The North
End? Better pizza than Manhattan. And we have the best ice cream on
the planet.”

“
And donuts? I think I saw
two Dunkin’ Donuts on the same city block at one point.”

Laz laughed. “Yeah, we’ve got our donuts.
And when people think of donuts, they think of cops, which is
probably why you mentioned them to me.”

She shrugged innocently, but then smiled and
nodded.

“
But no one knows
why
,” he
said.

“
Something tells me you
do.”

His grin grew. “Dunkin’ Donuts started in
New England, and when they began filming cop shows, they filmed
them in New York City. A cop’s schedule is brutal. We’re up early
and we go home late. That requires fuel, and it requires a food
selling establishment that’s actually open during those crazy
hours. Hence, donuts. Since Dunkin’ Donuts was always open and
always available, cops were always there fueling up. We pretty much
keep those guys in business.” He chuckled, and realized a chocolate
glazed donut sounded really good right about then. But he was more
a fan of Krispy Kreme than Dunkin’ Donuts.

“
I like Krispy Kreme
better,” said Dahlia.

Laz stared at her. She stared back. Then he
shook his head.

“
What?” she asked, eyes
huge.

“
Nothing.”

She considered him a moment, then said.
“Okay. So go on.”

“
Boston’s beautiful at
sunset. If you’re standing in just the right place, you see the sun
shine off the gold dome of the state house, and you could swear
it’s visible from Saturn. We have the oldest restaurant in the
country. And we have parks with swans.”

“
And ducks, I
hear.”

“
Yeah, Bostonians are crazy
about ducks… and I still don’t understand that one, despite the
fact that ‘Make Way for Ducks’ was one of my childhood books.” He
shook his head and thought about the city he both loved and hated.
“We have crazy, insane traffic and we’ve spent more money on
traffic projects than you can imagine. We have crappy roads even
though our tolls make four billion dollars a year. And there’s no
where to park in town…. But,” he smiled. “Boston Common was the
site of Connor McLeod’s famous duel in The Highlander.”

Dahlia slowly grinned. “So it was!”

He chuckled. “I apologize for calling your
wife a bloated warthog –”

“
And I bid you good day!”
they finished together.

When their laughter died down a bit, he
continued. “No one does fall like Boston. Every year when it comes
around, I swear it’s where autumn was invented. The Emerald
Necklace becomes one of ruby, gold and every shade in-between.”

He blinked when he recalled
his
fondest
Boston memory though, and in a voice filled with the tone of
that recollection, he said, “And I was actually there in the
stadium when the Boston Red Sox ended
The
Curse of the Bambino
to win the World
Series in 2004.” He looked up at her, wondering if she could sense
what he was feeling. “There’s magic in Boston,” he told her. “If
you know where to look.”

Dahlia had fallen silent beside him, and now
her eyes seemed to look right through him and into his soul. They
had drawn closer as he’d spoken. They were mere inches apart.

“
So there is,” she said
softly.

Laz could almost taste her. In that moment,
in that parking lot with the sound of Credence muted in the
background and the scent of night blooms on the wind, Laz realized
that ever since he’d walked into that warehouse in Boston, ever
since he’d wrapped his arms around Dahlia and whisked her away…
ever since he’d met the woman before him, he hadn’t felt lost or
confused. Not like before.

She was the calm in his storm. She was the
port in a fury that rocked the seas and cracked open the skies. She
was his anchor when the tornado came calling. He’d been changing,
and he’d been terrified of that change. But now with her before him
and that green in her eyes, he was ready for whatever might come.
She was the half of him he hadn’t even known he was missing. Laz
could not possibly imagine what he would be without her.

Maybe instead of killing Apollyon, he would
thank him.

At once, like fury itself, Laz wrapped his
arm around her waist, pulled her to him, and claimed her lips with
his own. It was a sigh of fate that sounded like a roar in his
head, felt like an earthquake in his heart, and tilted the entire
world on its side. Her lips were petal soft, as pliable as
marshmallows, and tasted like something secret and sweet.

Dahlia had no time to react. But the moment
his lips covered hers, she melted into him, allowing him the access
he demanded to delve deeper and taste more. There was no breath,
there was no passage of time. There was only the delicious
surrender of her mouth, the clutching of her hands at his biceps,
and his fingers in her hair… gods, her hair. It was like priceless
Chinese silk, running cool and soft against his palm, the very
sensation of beauty held in the grip of his demonic hands. He
clutched it tight, tilting her head to deepen his kiss, and she
made a soft sound against him. He swallowed the sound, feeling his
entire body go rigid with mounting need.

“
Ninetails! There’s a
Ninetails!”

Laz heard the commotion as if it were far
off. He was lost in the flower he held against him.