Valentine for the Doting Demon (Arrhythmia Texas Hearts #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Daruka

Running from Satan’s minions ranked down there with a Monday in the dead of winter—during an ice storm.

Which was kind of funny when one considered that Hell was hot as, well, Hell, and every day was a Monday in that place.

My point? I’d prefer neither option, thankyouverymuch.

While today was actually Friday—not even close, right?—I was—yet again—trying to dodge a couple of demons fresh out of Hell.

And it was cold as balls.

Which was a stupid phrase. Yet it flowed off the tongue in a weirdly satisfying way when one burst from their apartment in Annapolis, Maryland, on a frigid day in February, not even pausing to grab a coat.

“Hellfire and damnation, it’s cold as balls out here!”

See? It worked.

More importantly, why was I analyzing phrases said in frustration when two really ugly and really determined demons were chasing me?

“Get your head on straight, Daruka.”

I heard a muted pop, and then a chunk of the wall I was running past exploded, sending shards of brick and mortar everywhere. I ducked—nice after-the-fact reflexes there, Dar—and swore.

“Son of a bitch, they’re using guns? Are they seriously trying to kill me this time?”

Dad had been threatening as much for as long as he’d been sending his minions after me, but he’d never followed through.

Until now.

Shit. If he was actually trying to kill me, I didn’t stand a chance. It was one thing to constantly duck his demons when they tried to kidnap me and drag me to Hell; dodging bullets was out of my league.

Of course, feeling out of my league was reason number one why I kept refusing Dad’s “invitation” to join the family business.

“Time for a new plan,” I muttered as I slipped around the corner, into the alley between a fairly recently opened pot shop and a bakery. The ill will from the old lady who ran that bakery had lasted approximately as long as it took for her profits to double. Now, they happily coexisted.

Why couldn’t Dad and I happily coexist? Not a question I planned to ask now that his goons were shooting at me.

Since I was part demon, I was, generally, pretty hard to kill. But guns? If they got me in the head or the heart, they could definitely do the trick.

And I didn’t want to die.

At the end of the alley, I hung a left, ran behind the bakery, toward the parking lot, lifting the hood of my sweatshirt over my blue hair as I hurried along.

The thing with being part demon was, it helped dull one’s moral compass. I wanted to be good, but one-half of my being was too damn good at being bad.

Plus, I was being chased by two gun-toting demons.

Stealing a car for the win. Hopefully, it wasn’t the bakery owner’s car. She was a really sweet old lady, and I’d feel bad if she had to go to a doctor’s appointment later this morning and no longer had a ride.

Turning the wheel, I rolled the window down and deliberately drove past my pursuers, hanging my arm out the window and smugly flipping them the bird.

They started shooting again, and I slammed on the gas and squealed out of there, seriously not taking a breath until I was on the bridge, crossing the Severn River.

And then I rolled down the rest of the windows and breathed deeply of the salty air, tempted, as ever, to pull onto the shoulder and dive over the railing into that briny water below.

Did I mention I was part mermaid? Yeah, pining for water was also a thing with me.

Okay, time for a new game plan. Since this sort of scenario had happened to me before (minus the guns), I was used to being forced to recalculate midstream. That didn’t mean it didn’t suck that I had to leave behind my quaint apartment and my cool job as a body piercer.

The problem was, I’d been running since I turned twenty, which was when Dad decided I was old enough to join him in Hell. Eight years of constantly watching over my shoulder, of always being on alert. Hellfire and damnation, I just wanted to relax for once.

Now that Dad had upped the ante, had basically announced that he wasn’t toying with me anymore, the very last thing I could do was relax.

Unless I could figure out a place to hide where he’d never, ever find me.

As I headed north on MD2, I passed a sign for the BWI or, as the tourists called it, the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

I could get on a plane and go anywhere in the world. But where could I go that Dad would be least likely to find me?

I’d already tried hiding in Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Venice, Tokyo, the Florida Keys…shit, every place I’d ever attempted to escape to had been near water.

No wonder it was so easy for Dad to find me.

I needed to go someplace where there wasn’t any water. Like the Sahara Desert. No, no, I needed some water. I was half mermaid. No way could I survive in an actual desert.

Abruptly, my mom’s voice rang in my head as if she were sitting next to me, giving me advice.

I sharply glanced over at the passenger seat. Nope. No dead mermaid there.

Whew.

Still…

I should have told you about this a long time ago, Daruka. Considering a demon knocked me up and then left me to raise his offspring, I’d say I’m not very good at doing what I’m supposed to…

Shit. I hated the memories of Mom. Because that’s all they were. She was gone, and now I’d never get to make fresh, new memories with her. And that hurt like hell.

If he becomes too unbearable, if you don’t want to do what we both know he’s going to want you to do one of these days, there’s a place you can go where he won’t find you.

I mashed the heel of my hand into my eye in an attempt to stem the flow of tears as I cruised west on US50, knowing I would hit traffic before crossing into Washington DC. But once I cleared the city, it should be smooth sailing, er, driving.

Halfway across the country.

Was I really doing this? Was I finally taking Mom’s advice?

Was I moving to Arrhythmia, Texas?