The colour drained from my face, as I tried to appear unfazed. Zachary wasn’t supposed to hear about Roland. This part of my past was insignificant and I wasn’t prepared to explain anything.
“I think you’re trying to make something out of nothing, Zachary,” I told him. Zach was digging for information, and I knew that this wasn’t about his own curiosity. Someone must have told him stuff about me, a foe not a friend. The only person that I was ever close to was Ricky. Friends came with responsibilities and I didn’t need that hassle.
“I don’t think so, Flower. You’re hiding your true self away from me, and I’m the kind of guy that wants all or nothing, and now it’s all,” he added with a flirtatious wink. At that moment his phone rang and he had to stop the car on the side road. I was so grateful that this conversation was over for now. The bottom line was that I was fiercely protective of my privacy. Ten minutes later he was back and he didn’t press me with further questions.
We arrived at the police station in Hackney forty minutes later. Zach headed straight to the guy at the desk, probably because he was outside his designated district.
“Where is the hooker that was brought in earlier on?” he asked, without any introductions. The guy had a superiority complex and no manners.
“Hold on a minute. I’ll check with the dispatcher,” said the officer at the desk. He disappeared for a good ten minutes. After that we were taken through the wide door, inside the building. The policeman that led us was short and fat. He was worried about the payment for his new car, and the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in years. I was wearing quite a revealing top today, and he kept staring down at my boobs. It was a boy school error, but I had no idea that I would be hanging around horny cops all night long. We stopped in front of what looked like an office door.
“Her name is Natasha. She reported her friend missing five minutes after we had a phone call about the body in the canals,” the cop said.
“Okay, thanks. We will take it from there,” Zach said. The cop unlocked the door and let us inside the interrogation room, but it was empty.
“I don’t understand. She was here. Hold on. Maybe someone moved her to another room,” the guy said, looking around, like he was expecting that the girl was hidden under the table. Zach exhaled sharply and I instantly felt sick. A demon was here not long ago. I smelled arsenic and blood. The girl was taken against her will; we had gotten here too late.
He vanished for about five minutes, but when he came back, his whole face was red, his hair was tangled.
“She’s gone, but that’s not possible. I locked the door and I wasn’t out for any more than five minutes,” he said.
Zachary was staring at me. He probably noticed that I’d gone slightly pale all of a sudden. Sweat ran down my temple and the sudden rush of energy was pushing my lunch up my throat. I didn’t like how I was feeling, and I was certain that the hooker had disappeared because the police had found the body of her friend down by the canals. The Watchers were on their way. I felt their presence outside.
“Show me her statement,” Zach demanded. “And her fingerprints. You did take her fingerprints, right?”
The guy started stuttering, saying that he was going to do it, but then he’d forgotten about it. Zach was fuming and he wanted to see all the CCTV footage from around the station. I couldn’t wait, hanging around humans when Watchers were sweeping the area. My past was complicated, and I had a lot that I needed to keep away from the whole demonic community. The demon had taken the girl, and the humans could look through that footage as long as they wanted, but they weren’t going to find anything there. She was most likely dead already.
I was hoping to head straight to Ricky’s to discuss what I found out so far. We also needed to go through previous evidence again. Zachary was busy, so I sneaked away half an hour later through the back entrance. I didn’t get very far, well, not unnoticed.
“Where are you going, Flower? We are not done here yet. Our witness is missing,” he shouted after me.
“I’m going home, Detective. It’s late and I need a strong drink,” I said.
“So you were just planning to leave without saying a proper goodbye?” Zach asked, catching up with me.
“I didn’t think you would miss me that much. I’m tired and tomorrow is a new day,” I complained, turning around to face him. Zachary was a man with his own set of priorities and it would be easier if I stayed away from him. Our worlds were poles apart.
“Oh yes, I would… very much so. Come on, I have a good bottle of tequila at home. Besides, you need a lift. You ain’t walking home alone in this shitty weather,” he said, winking at me.
I appreciated the fact that he was looking after me, but right now I didn’t need the company.
“The offer is tempting, but I can take care of myself,” I told him, then turned around and started walking towards the tube station. I took a couple of steps when I was lifted off the ground. Zach threw me over his shoulder and started carrying me through the car park.
“What the fuck? Put me down, caveman, or I swear to God I’ll kick your arse,” I shouted. He held me tightly and when I attempted to wiggle away, he slapped my arse hard.
“Shut up, Flower, you wanna drink, so let’s have a drink together,” he said hoarsely. For a moment I forgot that I was supposed to be a tough and independent kick-ass demon. Instead I felt kind of cared for, special, normal for once. It was stupid. Zach was acting like a total alpha male, but surprisingly I liked the fact that he wanted to take care of me. No one had ever done that for me, not even Arthur. We were together, but our relationship was initially based on sex. Later on it turned into love.
Several moments later we were back in his car and I was sitting in the passenger seat, feeling torn between what was right and wrong. The trouble was that I knew that Zach was looking for answers, and I was trying to hide them away. We could never be truly honest with each other.
He smiled at me and switched on the engine. When it started raining I was glad that I didn’t have to walk home. He drove for what felt like hours, before he parked the car in a private housing estate on the north side of the city.
“This is where you live?” I asked, stretching my arms above my head.
“Yes, Flower, it’s not what you were probably expecting, but it’s home,” he smirked. “Plenty of women before you left satisfied.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not like other women,” I told him and then got out of the car. I followed him to his front door, asking myself if this was a good idea after all. Arthur had always managed to trick me into going away with him. At first I’d pretend that I didn’t see it, that he was simply polite and genuinely liked spending time with me. There was that instant connection between us, a spark that quickly turned into something more. After he made a move, I couldn’t stay away from him. Now I was in control of the situation with Zach, and I needed to remember that he wasn’t my prince, just some random human.
He unlocked the door to his semidetached house and gestured for me to come inside. When the lights came on, I was a little taken back by the natural decor and ordinary furniture. Maybe I was expecting something completely different from a man of his character.
“Make yourself at home, Flower,” he said, taking off his jacket. I walked into the small living room. I wasn’t used to normality. My dates with Arthur were crazy, and intense.
“Zach, I think I should go. This isn’t a very good idea,” I said, glancing around, hoping to find some picture of his family, something that could indicate that I wasn’t suited for his lifestyle, for him. He brought out the bottle of tequila and a shot glass.
“Why? Are you scared of me?” he asked, pouring some yellow liquid down.
“No, I’m not, but I know for a fact that I shouldn’t be here,” I mumbled, losing my cool. He pulled the bottle away from me when I tried to grab it.
“Not so fast. First I want some answers,” he said, suddenly sounding completely serious. “I have
seen enough weird shit in my life, so tell me—what kind of crap are you into?”
Suddenly he was broadcasting a lot of anger and frustration. I finally realised that he enticed me here for an interrogation, not because he wanted to seduce me. I should have known. After all, I had lost my grip on my usual control down at the canals. Why wouldn’t I have totally misread this situation?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said with a nervous chuckle, trying to relax.
“Your eyes glowed when you were leaning over that dead hooker, and you did something to Lori. She doesn’t listen to anyone and doesn’t just let go of a story, so tell me before I stop being a gentleman,” he snapped, moving closer.
Crap, so he had noticed my glowing eyes amongst other things. I didn’t think I had gone too far earlier on knowing that Zach was sensitive to my world. I had to turn this around somehow, but I didn’t want to use my abilities to make him believe that nothing happened and that I was a normal human.
“This has something to do with the death of your partner, right? You want to believe that it wasn’t a suicide?” I asked. His eyes were roaming over my face like two bright spotlights searching for the truth.
“According to the official reports she took her own life, but that’s a lie,” he said. “I knew her, and she had no reason to kill herself. Someone made it look like a suicide. She told me that someone had been following her for weeks, that she was in danger.”
I was trying to put my thoughts back together, send calming vibes to his erratic emotions.
“I don’t know anything about that case, Zach, and I can’t help you,” I explained. “I thought this was going to be a friendly conversation. You don’t have to tell me anything about what happened. Let’s just have a drink.”
He shook his head, but his eyes were wary, like he was waiting for me to do something out of the ordinary. It wasn’t like I was going to pull a bouquet out of my ass—David Copperfield I was not.
“You can take your clothes off, then we can get to know each other a little better,” he suggested. “But this ain’t going to happen until you tell me what you are.”
I knew then that someone else had used charms to keep him away from the truth. He showed the classic symptoms of paranoia. He was right: I was hiding stuff away from him, but he wasn’t ready to hear the truth, to know that his world wasn’t what it seemed.
“What am I?” I repeated, laughing. “I’m Maxine, the girl with a complicated past, but very simple future.”
I got up so I was standing close. A second later I smiled and stole his precious bottle of tequila, crossing the room. He was playing some kind of game with me and I needed to ease his anger somehow. The lust I had for him brewed deep inside me, as he approached me a moment later, still unsure if he could trust me.
“I have been working the street long enough to know that normality doesn’t exist. It’s just a shame that our path hadn’t crossed sooner. The missing prince, we both know that he is still in the city, that your kind has taken him.”
And then it hit me. I finally began to understand why Zach was behaving in such a way, why he wanted me away from this case. Someone must have been filling him with doubts, messing around with his thoughts. I still had no idea what exactly had happened to his partner, but I suspected that another demon was using him against me to steer me away from George. Zachary was used from very beginning.
“There isn’t such thing as ‘my kind’ Zachary,” I explained, furious with myself that I hadn’t figured this out sooner. The demon that took George must have known that I had an affair with Arthur and that was why Zachary was brought in to assist in the first place.
Then, before I could put all this back together and work out what was really going on here, Zachary did something that I truly wasn’t expecting. He pushed me against the wall and kissed me with a fierce passion. This whole thing happened so quickly that I completely forgot about the fact that I wasn’t supposed to trust him.
Chapter Fifteen
“I did not die, and yet I lost life’s breath” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
My knees threatened to give out, as he pushed his hard body closer. His mouth captured mine in a hard, demanding kiss. Over the past twelve months, I swore not to let this happen to me again, to endanger my life like this, but in that moment the heat sizzled my blood before my mind could grasp what I was doing. Zachary pushed his hips towards me, and I moaned, aware of the hard bulge pressing over the spot between my legs.
I was losing my fucking mind. This human was obnoxious, paranoid and was a complete alpha, but whatever he was doing to me restarted my heart, bringing it thudding back to life. His hand reached out, smoothing down the lines of my hips, as his kiss grew harder, clouding my judgment. He slid his arms around me and grabbed my butt cheeks, lifting me up and carrying me across the room and pushing me down on the table.
My demonic soul unleashed sparks, my skin grew hotter, blood boiled as he began to thrust his body against mine, the delicious friction giving us a taste of what was to come, both of us breathing hard.
My hands busied themselves diving into his curls, tangling his hair as he covered my neck with his lips. His kisses pushed me further, consuming my mind with unexpected passion. I shut my eyes, as liquid heat filled every nook of my oversensitive weak body. Finally there were no flashbacks, no bad memories—in that one sweet moment there was just me, enjoying making out with this glorious male specimen.
He sucked on my bottom lip, moving his hand underneath my T-shirt, circling his rough fingers around my hardened nipple. The pressure between my legs grew with every passing moment. I wanted him to tear my clothes apart, to fuck me hard in his home, on this table. The consequences didn’t matter anymore. Our attraction was explosive and we needed to become one.
Then we both heard the loud knock and a second later the vase on the table crashed to the floor. Zachary pulled away; his eyes bored into mine intensely as he tried to catch his breath. It took me couple of seconds to pull myself back together, to actually remember that I was supposed to keep breathing. I held the heat from his lips that was now boiling in my veins, burning like hot coals on the soles of my feet. I couldn’t remember when I ever lost control like that before. Zachary brushed his finger over my cheek and then winked at me.
“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” he said, his voice hoarse.
My T-shirt was lifted, revealing my bare stomach, and my hair was a tangled mess when I jumped off the table and glanced at the mirror. A second ago, I thought that he was ready to kill me, and then the sudden anger transformed into passion, stealing away the arguments and his unexplained frustration. No, I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. I had failed myself once, and now I was pushing something that could never work.
“Hello, handsome. I know I meant to call, but I was in the area and I thought that I would just pop in.” I heard the feminine, seductive voice coming from the threshold. My heart hadn’t stopped pounding yet, and my oversensitive abilities alerted me that there were more than two horny people inside Zach’s house now.
A second later a very human woman entered the living room. She had bleached blond hair cut nicely in a trend bob, her beautiful face was made up immaculately, and she wore a very short skirt that barely covered her thighs. She raised her left eyebrow, eyeing me up and down from the short distance. Zachary was right behind her, his eyes still filled with brewing fire.
There was a slight pause as she opened her mouth then closed it. My tangled clothes gave away the fact that just a moment ago, I was lost in the swirl of a passionate embrace with the man of the house. It was easy to read that it wasn’t the first time the woman had been here. She was Zach’s regular.
“Oh sorry, darling, I had no idea that you had company,” she sang with a very annoying high-pitched tone of voice. At that point I was lucid enough to get the fuck out of there. I needed to regroup as soon as I could.
“No worries, I was just leaving actually,” I
said.
“Maxine, wait—”
“It was nice meeting you,” I cut him off, and rushed out before things got more awkward. Whatever he wanted to say, it didn’t matter. It was a spur of a moment lapse in judgment. We both lost control of our bodies. I flew through the door, aware that the woman in his living room was his usual fuck buddy. Her vibes were crystal clear and I didn’t want to stamp into that territory.
I had been played, possibly by someone that wanted to see me down or possibly by Rodriguez himself. Whoever was working against me knew about my affair with the prince. Rumours at the palace had circulated, as no one could explain why I left my post so suddenly.
Zach and his demons weren’t my problem. Missing Prince George was and I couldn’t afford to get distracted. I had broken the rules once, and I paid the price and suffered until this day. The factions were designed to keep demons under control so that would help to keep order on earth, and I had to protect my wounded past. My future was at stake, and the future of others.
I couldn’t afford to make another mistake like that, especially with another human, and especially with a man like Zachary Quinton. I headed through the dark estate, ready to get lost and never face another day like this again.
The next two days passed in a haze, and it seemed like I was stuck in my flat for a long seventy-two hours. My phone kept ringing, but I didn’t answer any calls. When I got home the night I made out with Zach, I sent Ricky a quick text message, telling him that I wasn’t going to be in the office on Saturday. At times we had an understanding. I mentioned that I was planning to work on our case on my own, that I needed some time alone.
I didn’t hear back from Zach and maybe that was for the best. He took away my focus. After the episode with the royal family things became complicated and I kept reminding myself that I had been happy before. Paul came to visit me and he even brought bottles filled with the magic elixir that was supposed to keep me sane for a while. When the sun went down and I was intoxicated enough, I wandered off, searching for new clues, talking to old contacts, hoping to find something that could lead me to the elusive missing Prince George. It was a productive weekend in terms of drinking and working, but no one was willing to talk. I didn’t play poker that weekend and it was a first for me.