Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Daruka
Longest. Trip. Ever.
Possibly because every time I saw a decent-sized body of water, I’d pull over so I could take a dip. I didn’t really know a whole lot about the interior United States, and I was worried that there wouldn’t be much water.
Turned out, I had nothing to worry about.
Well, until day three, when I finally reached Texas.
Seriously, how was that even possible? One minute I was cruising through a state that was basically a swamp, and the next, it’s damn near a desert.
With bugs. And longhorns.
Big hair. Cowboy hats.
Holy shit, this place wasn’t a myth after all.
It was real.
And I had just crossed the Arrythmia city limits, which I could see only because I was some sort of paranormal being in need.
Interesting that a place visible only to paranormal beings was somehow hidden from the most legendary paranormal being there was.
No, not Dracula.
The devil.
Dad, remember?
Arrhythmia, Texas, according to my mother on her deathbed, was located south of Dallas, north of Houston, and west of both of them.
I’d know it when I got there, she’d said.
And then a coughing fit took over before she was finally able to answer my question.
“It’s a magical place, protected by wards so no one can find it except paranormal beings who really, really need it.
No humans can find it unless a supe helps them.
And your father has no clue it even exists.
This is why it’s the safest place you can be. ”
Curious that these wards kept out the devil and humans but no other paranormal beings.
Whatever. Avoiding Satan was all I cared about.
My mouth was no doubt hanging open as I slowly inched along Main Street, taking in huge red flowerpots filled with red and pink flowers, parked in front of every storefront on the street.
Plastic hearts hung from lampposts. Plate glass windows were decorated with images of Conversation Hearts.
Red garland and twinkle lights framed most of the windows and doorways.
Had I accidentally stumbled into Hell?
No, no, that wasn’t it. It was February. Today was Monday.
Valentine’s Day was on Saturday.
And apparently, this town took celebrating that overblown lovey-dovey holiday to extremes.
Lilith save me, I was going to hate it here.
Underneath the decorations were rectangular brick buildings lined up like soldiers for two blocks before the road just sort of ended in a whole lot of Texas-sized nothingness.
The bricks were bleached, whether by time or deliberate choice, and several buildings had signs hanging above the doors announcing what sort of business was inside, while the rest had a company name scrawled on the door.
People—rather, supernatural beings—wandered about, coming and going from a coffee shop, a bookstore, a wine tasting room—oh, I needed to check that out, even if I didn’t decide to stick around.
As my stolen fifteen-year-old Buick Lacrosse inched down the street, I studied the locals. I assumed they were local; Mom said this place wasn’t for everyone. In fact, she said it was more often than not the last resort for people like me. People who needed to hide. Or start over.
Or both.
I watched a tall, skinny guy slip out of the bookstore and jog down the block to the wine tasting room.
He wore black from head to toe, covering every inch of skin.
He wore a wide brimmed hat with a dark scarf hanging from it, draping to his shoulders; he somewhat resembled a beekeeper on his way to collect honey.
Definitely a vampire. Vamps were allergic to the sun. If so much as a fingernail were exposed, it would start sizzling and stinking like, well, cooking flesh.
Gross.
A very hairy couple strolled along the sidewalk, holding hands, a small dog—no, no, it was a lion cub—trotting along in front of them.
“Jeremiah,” the woman shrieked when the lion cub sat on its haunches next to a little bistro table in front of the coffee shop. “No begging!”
The lion cub slowly lowered himself to all four paws and turned to follow as the couple, who I presumed were his parents, walked past. The wraith seated at the table plucked a strip of bacon from their sandwich and tossed it at the lion cub, who neatly caught it, his entire demeanor perking up as he trotted away.
Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.
Mostly because all these creatures were openly wandering about, in their natural forms, without a care that a human might come along, realize what they were, and draw entirely unwanted attention to the fact that monsters walked among them.
While the human aspect was clearly taken care of, regarding the devil aspect, well, I was going to need a little more convinc—
“Hey, watch where you’re going!”
Impulsively, I pressed both feet to the brake and the Buick lurched to a stop.
Whipping my head around to face the windshield, I stared at a man with long, thick, luxurious dark hair.
Pale skin with a slight tan. Muscular, sharply defined, tatted up shoulders.
In fact, a great deal of ink. He wore a black leather vest with no shirt underneath.
The breeze caught his hair, lifting it for a moment to show me pointed ears.
I could have fun decorating those ears with piercings.
My second thought, which was far more important: this guy was a faery or an elf. Except his eyes, under those heavy dark brows and above cheekbones as sharp as glass, were purple. And glowing. Faeries and elves did not have glowing eyes.
Most shifters did, usually when they were excited.
Vampires. Mummies.
This guy was none of that.
He was the other being with glowing eyes.
A demon.
Shit.
Which was my best option for escape: running him over or shifting into reverse? Or should I get out and run?
Nope, definitely not running. This mermaid slash demon did not do running.
The moment the demon’s glowing purple orbs caught mine, I felt a thing zap between us.
A jolt. A surge of energy that sped up my heartbeat and sent my pulse into the stratosphere and increased my already-high body temperature by approximately a thousand degrees. Hellfire and damnation, I was sweating.
Neither demons nor mermaids sweated. Not normally.
Oh, double shit.
This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill demon. This guy was a lust demon.
And elf?
What a fucked-up combination, although I bet the process of creating him had been hella enthralling.
Which was not the point. A lust demon was the kind of demon no one, and I did mean no one, could resist. Lust demons messed up people’s heads. Convinced them that all they wanted was sex, all the time. Lust demons were worse than succubi. Probably because they created succubi.
Damn, Dad was playing dirty. This was way worse than gunfire.
And I needed to get the hell out of Dodge, or Arrythmia, as it were.
I did not need to sit here in this old lady Buick and watch as a lust demon strolled around the hood to the driver’s side door.
A lust demon with incredibly muscular legs wrapped in tight leather pants.
And that vest did little to hide the plains and valleys of his finely cut chest. There were so many tattoos on his arms, they looked like sleeves.
My gaze was drawn to the leather cuffs on his wrists. They had silver buckles.
Were they for sex play?
Gah! This was insane. I wasn’t even that into sex, normally. I’d tried it, found it lacking, and rarely felt revved up enough to want to do it again.
Now, suddenly, all I wanted to do was strip naked and beg him to have his lusty way with me. Repeatedly.
Not cool.
I was here for a purpose. To hide from my father.
It wasn’t a permanent solution, though. Small towns weren’t my thing.
As cool as it was that monsters could live their lives out in the open with no fear of discovery, I preferred the hustle and bustle of highly populated areas.
Places where there was always something to do, day or night.
Go ahead, call me the heroine from a Hallmark movie. I’d own it. Give me a big city any day.
Sure, until now I’d always ended up in coastal areas, but they weren’t tiny fishing villages. They were metropolitan areas where hundreds of thousands of people lived and yet stayed the hell out of my business.
Pretty much the antithesis of small-town living.
Which meant I would eventually need to work out a plan B. Or was it plan Z at this point?
Whatever. My point was, I needed a permanent solution to my family issues. As soon as I figured out what that was, Arrythmia would be in my rearview mirror.
That meant there was no time to get freaky with Mr. Hottie Demon Guy. I knew what happened when women fell for overly good-looking men. That’s what happened to my mom.
She hadn’t known who or what my dad was—he was a master at camouflaging himself. Big surprise there—when she fell for him. And he hadn’t been smart enough to wrap himself up when he seduced her. Hence my appearance in the world.
I remembered overhearing them arguing when I was fourteen. Mom said, “But, Lucifer, she isn’t even a full-blooded demon. Why would you want her in the business?”
“That’s exactly why, sweet Marissa. She’s more than a demon.”
At the time, I’d thought being more than a demon was a good thing. Until Mom told me, “He’s just sugarcoating to make the idea sound alluring. He knew you were listening.”
And then Mom had gone into an entirely too detailed description of Hell—he’d taken her there, once—and, yeah, I’d lost interest in the idea of helping with the family business pretty quickly.
If only dear old dad would tire of trying to force me into joining his team, we’d all be happy.
I felt the demon’s presence before I dared glance at the open side window to see that he was now standing outside my vehicle, his hands clasped over his groin, which was pretty much at eye level.
The word amor was tattooed across his knuckles.
Amor was another word for cherub, which were these adorable little angelic flying toddlers, so I had to believe he’d chosen that tattoo sardonically.
“Welcome to Arrythmia,” a silky smooth, rich, velvety voice said. The timbre of that voice curled around my body like a silk negligee. I shivered before I could stop myself.
“I’m Asmoday,” he added.
Gah. Even his name was sexy.
“Uh…” I couldn’t form words. My brain wasn’t working. Actually, it was working just fine. It was busy documenting all the various sexual positions Asmoday and I could try, which, for the record, was not at all helpful.
“Generally, the next step would be for you to offer up your name,” Asmoday said, ever so helpfully and with a definite teasing lilt to his voice.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I finally managed.
“I’m not that kind of demon. I’m not going to invoke your name.”
“I know what kind of demon you are.” I ground my teeth and clutched the steering wheel, willing myself to shift the vehicle into reverse and get the hell out of town.
While I wasn’t in any hurry to deal with Dad’s gun-toting demons, I was reasonably confident I could handle them far better than I could handle this guy.
Actually, I was willing to bet I could handle this guy really well.
“Gah!”
He blinked those glowing purple eyes, his heavy brows furrowing. “Something wrong?”
“J-just step away, would you?” I wiped sweat from my brow. Even though I was somewhere in the middle of Texas, it was still February, so it was definitely not wipe-sweat-from-your-brow weather. And yet, I was perspiring like it was mid-July.
Those beautiful eyes suddenly widened. “Wait.”
He canted his head.
I waited.
“Are you attracted to me?” he demanded.
Hellfire and damnation.
I definitely should have taken my chances with the gun-toting demons.