Chapter Nine
Emily
Zelus was far more of a gentleman than his appearance initially suggested. His gallantry wasn’t obnoxious either. The way he did it didn’t demean me the way the men at the office did. It gave the impression of utter respect.
I didn’t give him much over the meal. He’d asked a lot of questions about what brought me to the city and played the part of an interested party when I deigned a reason to answer, but I still sensed something off about him.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my lawyer senses were tingling. They only did that when I picked up on empty truths and evasive measures to redirect conversation—which was exactly what he did anytime I asked about him.
Over the time it took to order and eat, the light outside had greyed. The air chilled. And just before we walked out, the sky rumbled. I clicked my tongue and peered down at my phone, the traitor still claiming clear skies all day. I didn’t have a jacket, and we’d walked here.
Sighing, I prepared myself for a trek in the rain, but weight came down on my shoulders. I peered at it to find Zelus’s jacket. He pulled the door open and gestured for me to go ahead.
“You know this is about as helpful as my purse,” I remarked sardonically, noting the leather jacket didn’t have a hood and all it’d do was keep the rain off my shirt.
Chin lifted, I left the café with a semblance of my prior determination to end this little thing between us before it started.
Whatever was off about him, I didn’t want any part of it.
I didn’t need a damaged bad boy to fill out my schedule.
I had shit to reimagine for my life. I couldn’t fall into distraction, no matter how attractive and smooth and desperately good at sex that distraction was.
I needed to put a clean end to this.
“So—”
“It—”
We’d both started and been cut off in the same breath.
I glared at him and tried to ignore how cute the singer’s smile was when he turned to peer down at me, but it faded before his eyes reached mine.
It was only a flicker, but the reptilian slits made a staggering reappearance.
Then, as if none of it happened, his smirk was back.
I’d come to terms with the fact that I was seeing things that didn’t make sense, but I refused to call attention to it.
It was likely a mental breakdown from quitting my job at the law firm and having almost no plan for what I wanted to do next.
I really couldn’t account for anything else that might’ve brought it on, aside from my best friend’s departure from singledom.
I was self-aware enough to admit it made me the teeniest bit lonely to watch her meet her knight in shining leather.
Zelus’s grin bedazzled on sight. “At least it’ll keep a bit of the rain off you, and now you won’t be cold,” he said, referring to his jacket. “I’m told I run hot,” he murmured, his eyes sliding from mine to peer around us in a searching sweep.
He’d slid back into his flirtatious airs, but his posture gave the impression of a snake coiled and ready to strike. Just like when he came strolling toward me after I’d been approached by Blue Eyes.
I couldn’t figure out what caused it, only that he hadn’t thought I noticed. Guess this giant wasn’t used to women who paid attention to anything other than how hot he was and what that mouth could do.
Being a lawyer demanded attention to details others missed, and that included body language. His was hostile as fuck. Not with me, but with whatever was out there in the street I hadn’t caught sight of.
I let my eyes wander around the area, seeing nothing and no one to warrant the change in his behavior. Everyone was just trying their best to get out of the rain.
“I do actually have things I need to do,” I started, attempting to shrug off the jacket he’d forced on me, but his arm came down around my shoulders to keep it in place.
His gaze slid back to mine, the muscles in his neck strained. “Let me escort you. I’ve got nothing but time today.”
I rolled my eyes and shrugged off his arm. “Good for you.”
After I yanked his heavy jacket from my shoulders, I offered it to him. He folded his arms, his jaw firmly set to deny me, all the impression of a toddler digging their heels in.
Stubborn jerk.
“I don’t need your jacket. I’m fine.”
“Take it, Emily. I’ll have it back soon enough,” was all he said before he stormed off the way his eyes seemed to keep going. His massive frame ate up all the space in front of me for nearly a minute before he disappeared around the corner. I watched him go with a huff of resignation.
He’d fought so hard to get me out here, but all it took was me saying no to his escort to get rid of him now? Whatever. I didn’t want him around. I wasn’t disappointed to see him go. If anything, it was a pang of relief that hit my gut.
I swallowed and slipped my arms into his jacket.
Like promised, it was a hot embrace on my tinier frame.
It roused those forbidden memories of just how hot he could get.
How dangerous it was when that heat was all over me.
How consuming. Being with him was nothing like any guy I’d been with before, and honestly, that was what made me most uncomfortable.
I sucked in a sharp breath and opened my eyes, having not realized I’d closed them in the first place. Then I set off the other direction.
I didn’t want to miss opening hours or get caught in the rain on my way home, so I hurried off to the clinic with a pharmacy attached. Thankfully, they did walk-ins. It’d take weeks to get my primary doctor to sign off a quick prescription.
It only took an hour to procure the pills I needed—both Plan B and birth control, because I didn’t trust myself not to slip up. After gulping down the solution to my possible problems, I did a quick test to find any new tagalongs I’d gotten from the asshole upstairs.
The doctor warned me to take a pregnancy test even if I got my period and to come back if necessary, and I made a promise I’d get an IUD the first chance I got.
Asha would’ve kicked my ass if she found out I forgot for months to make the appointment and been too busy to refill my birth control. Again.
By the time I stepped out of the clinic, the sky rumbled and flashed ominously.
I didn’t love the idea of getting struck by a stray bolt of lightning, but my apartment was only a few blocks away.
It’d be ridiculous to get an Uber for that short of a distance.
By the time someone showed up, I could be home.
If I hurried, maybe my luck would hold out. For once.
It was still at the back of my head—the way Zelus walked away without so much as saying goodbye or hassling me for more time. I hadn’t known the asshole long, but it seemed out of character, like he’d been on the hunt for something.
Maybe he saw another conquest and worried about a messy conflict. That seemed relatively likely with a playboy as pretty as he was.
I pulled the jacket tighter around me, the waft of his intoxicating cologne hitting me in a rush. Fuck, the asshole was a lot of things, but at least he smelled good. Like lick and drive my nose into his neck any chance I got good.
Hating myself a bit more every time I caved into my attraction for him, I sighed and started to trek the way home. If I cut through a few side streets, I could shave a few minutes off my walk, so I hurried to take the first street I came on.
It was a narrow walk for the first part, but it’d open up before I had to make a right. My footsteps felt oddly loud in my ears as I turned the corner and made for the next street, a block from mine.
Lightning cracked overhead, giving my heart a start, and I stopped without meaning to.
Mist sprayed with a gust of wind, hitting me directly in the face.
I blinked it away, only to find I was no longer alone in the street.
A lone figure blocked my path. My hand instantly went to my phone, but the shadow-like figure faded and disappeared.
“What the fuck…?”
Was I actually losing my mind? Was I going to have to make a quick call to see a shrink despite pledging to never cave and spill my heart out to a stranger? That was what best friends with a penchant for punching first, asking questions later and meaningless sex were for.
God knows my fucked-up relationship with my parents would be forefront of that illuminating conversation—the therapist needling for more on how my dad, in his infinite wisdom, strutted me around his friends like a goddamn show horse and let them make uncomfortable comments about my body and how much I’d grown to be a woman.
Fucking gross.
Or how my mom, when not drugged to her absolute fucking ears, barely noticed she had a daughter.
Not until it was something she could exploit for her never-ending venture into society’s limelight.
The sycophant dreamed of the day when her face was splattered across headlines as being the woman of the hour. A real Kardashian.
Or that night. The night I lost faith in men as a whole.
But how could any of that possibly explain someone disappearing and sometimes seeing weird shit like reptilian eyes, scales, and fangs?
I whipped my head around, checking behind me, but no one was there. I looked back ahead. Still, no one. Great, so I was losing my mind. I’d gone full-blown crazy. A little overkill for a midlife crisis, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
My legs were a bit shakier as I slowly started to walk again. Another crack of lightning, and then rain poured down in a heavy sheet. I was soaked in an instant. Just what I needed. Crazy needed a look, and currently it was drowning-dog chic.
I growled and stomped ahead, shedding water like a cloak in my rage, but the figure I’d seen before appeared in front of me in a blink.
Surprised, my ankle caught under me. I lurched forward and took a direct hit to the knee in my fall.
Agony spliced up my leg, but my pain was overshadowed by the eerie creature who’d appeared in front of me.
The figure had taken to crouching, close enough to see nothing but a glowing set of red-orange eyes. Nothing else stood out—no mouth or nose, no distinguishing anything. It was just a black silhouette with a humanoid shape.
Its shadowy hand reached out and took strong hold of my face. Its touch seared flesh on contact, and I cringed back, but the thing was too strong. I couldn’t move. Then its hand was around my throat, squeezing, making the reality of what this was more real with every solid touch.
My chest hitched on a gasp, too stunned, too confused, to even think of screaming or running. I was frozen by fear, throat burning where it had a hold on me.
“He always gets what he wants, Emily,” a hissing voice whispered, echoing across my mind as if the sound was put right inside it. “And not even a Horseman can stop him.”
Horseman? What the fuck was this thing talking about?
Water poured down my face as I opened my mouth, bent on saying something saucy but choking on the words. I couldn’t form a response or gather my wits long enough to understand what the fuck was happening.
But I didn’t have to.
Out of nowhere, the figure was lofted straight across the street, nearly a hundred feet from me. The minute its body made impact with the asphalt, it was pinned under a familiar boot. Scales rippled across the newcomer’s colorful flesh as the huge man swept back rain-soaked red hair and snarled.
“For fuck’s sake…” The guttural rumble of his voice wasn’t anything I’d ever heard on him before. “Now you lot have gone and ruined bloody everything. Cheers for that.”
The creature trapped under his boot hissed something I couldn’t make out, but the tautness of his jaw and clenching of every visible muscle suggested whatever it said had pissed him off. The tattoos and muscles that composed his body swelled with fury.
I couldn’t do anything but watch as the same guy whose jacket I wore lifted a clawed hand and decapitated my shadowy attacker. In a single moment, every part of him was inhuman. A beast like the thing pinned under his foot. A nightmare. But whatever that nightmare was, it’d come to save me.
The blackness that formed the creature’s body blasted out like a wispy explosion before fading away.
Too much had occurred in those few heart-stopping minutes to blame on a trick of light or the storm overhead.
What I’d seen wasn’t reality; it was a show only Hollywood could compose. A supernatural alt-verse.
A surprised whimper lodged itself in my throat, fear climbing through my veins and wreaking havoc on my pulse. “Zelus?”
Zelus cast his reptilian gaze my direction, the color ignited brighter than the lightning in the sky, shimmering ethereal otherworldliness. “Hello, Viper.”