Chapter 51: Chapter Two

Stephanie

Going out and hunting for Demon ended up being a bigger pain in my ass than I realized.

First of all, the leader—if you could even call him that—wasn’t at his normal hangout, meaning I had to basically bar hop all the way through Belltown asking Demon if they’d seen him.

Most of the Demons shied away from me.

Most of them were too smart to do anything like piss me off.

But there was always that outlier, the one individual who didn’t play by the rules and thought his own crap didn’t stink.

Meet Jefferson.

“Go away.” I shooed him with my hand and turned my back to him, ordering another glass of white wine.

“You smell like….” His voice was raspy and suggestive as he leaned close, inhaling from my airspace. “…sin.”

“Wow.” I took two large unladylike gulps of the wine and turned to face him for the third time.

He wasn’t awful looking, if you favored blond curly hair and chocolate eyes.

But I knew deep down what he was, a social climbing idiot who’d most likely try to kill me in my sleep just so he could steal some of the angel blood for himself and hope to gain more power.

“Ah, you’re warming to me.” He winked.

I nodded, then placed both hands on his shoulders, raising my knee to his balls in an effortless strike that had him collapsing to the floor in agony.

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure.”

“You bitch!” He wailed from the ground. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“You were pissing me off.” I kneeled down next to him and tugged his black shirt so it almost ripped in my hands. “Now, where’s your boss?”

“Busy.” He spat in my face.

I punched him in the jaw.

“Damn it.” Black blood oozed from his nose. “Would it kill you to give a guy a shot?”

“Yes. Yes it would.” I released him. “Now stop wasting my time. My feet hurt. I’ve been out all night tracking…” I waved my hand into the air. “…smelly little street rats.”

He let out a low hiss.

“Just tell me where he is.”

Jeffrey paled and gulped all at once while a voice said near my ear in a harsh whisper.

“Behind you.”

Every hair on my body stood on edge. Yes. Their leader was about an inch from my neck. Demon bites hurt like hell, and if I moved any more, his teeth would graze my soft skin.

Though, in the back of my head, I remembered I was a Dark One, right? So maybe I had more power in this situation than I thought.

Quickly, I turned.

“Timber.” I put my hands on my hips. “About time you showed up.”

“Well…” He rocked back on his heels and lifted his hand in the air. A beer made its way across the bar. He picked it up and took a long swig, the muscles in his neck constricting as he swallowed.

Most humans would find him gorgeous. I just found him irritating and an abomination, but who was I to talk? “When a beautiful woman seeks me out…” He set the beer down and winked one of his baby blues.

I rolled my eyes. “Numbers, what are they?”

“Straight to business? No pleasure?” He eyed me up and down, his blue eyes flashing red before going back to normal.

“No.”

“You…” His eyebrows knit together as he leaned forward. “You smell… strange.”

I backed up. “New perfume.”

His eyes flashed even redder than before. “No, no, I don’t think that’s it.”

It was like his body grew before my very eyes. He was transitioning into what a Demon really looked like—which was something out of a first grader’s nightmare.

Horns would pop up on his head, his teeth would elongate to fangs, and his face would hollow out revealing nothing but skull.

“Jeffrey,” he barked. “Tell me, what do you smell?”

Not good. Definitely not good and as a council member it wasn’t like I had backup or some sort of immortal mojo that would keep me from getting myself into trouble.

I was a peacekeeper, I didn’t fight. Not that I didn’t know how, but now that the glamour of being a Siren was all but worn off, all I could do was feed off of others' emotions.

And since Cassius had abandoned me I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

A syrupy sweet scent started filling the air.

Arousal.

I clenched my fists as I felt my body temperature drop. It wasn’t on purpose—or controllable. It was like my body was getting ready to defend its angel blood if that was the last thing I did.

“Angel,” Jeffrey whispered in a gleeful voice, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he licked his lips and adjusted himself.

Gross.

“A baby one…” Timber tilted his head, taking a predatory stance in front of me, his body continuing to grow. “Maybe we should continue this in one of the back rooms.”

“Actually…” I stepped to the side. “If you just give me your numbers, I’ll get going. It’s late and you know how the council is…”

“Our numbers are growing… to epic proportions. That is all you need to know.” Timber reached out to grab me. I jerked away so fast I lost my footing.

And fell directly against a muscled chest.

Strong hands wrapped around my shoulders. “Is this… thing, bothering you?”

The voice sounded familiar yet vaguely different. As if someone had… added warmth to it. My body responded to the warmth with an uncontrollable shiver.

“Yes.” I leaned back into the warm body like it was my lifeline. Whoever the human was—he was ridiculously built. The warmth of his body gave new life to mine—making the cold not feel so cold, so… lonely.

“Pitiful human,” Timber hissed under his breath.

But he knew he was stuck. Immortal rule number one was never to reveal yourself to humans.

And Timber knew if he did, Cassius would rain hell on the entire Demon population, wiping out every last one.

“Jeffrey,” Timber snapped his fingers. “We should be going.”

“Sure thing…” Jeffrey sniffed again in my direction and grinned.

I flipped him off.

He tried to charge toward me but Timber held him back. “Till we meet again… Angel.”

“Not your Angel.”

“Tell that to your blood.” He licked his lips and pushed Jeffrey through the crowds. The scent of cinder stayed with me for a few minutes. I’d almost forgotten I was still in my rescuer’s arms—until he gave them a squeeze.

“Oh.” I stumbled forward then turned around, embarrassed that I’d been hanging all over him like a lovesick human. “I’m so sorry, thanks for the save though—you really—”

My voice left me.

“I really… what?” He asked, folding his arms across his broad chest. I followed the motion with greedy eyes. He was huge, built, tall, and gorgeous. Slowly I raised my eyes to meet his and nearly passed out.

“Cassius?”

“Sort of.”

“But you’re—”

“Human.”