Demon’s Seduction
Lisa Renee Jones
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter One
Darius Alexander stood in the depths of the shadowy woods. His supernatural hearing allowed him to pick up the muffled laughter of the two cowboys walking down the front steps of the Brownsville Country Bar, reluctantly departing at last call. The source of their laughter was a female telling the tale of the Matamoros Beasts—demons who ripped the souls from humans and killed them. He wanted to laugh as well, but not at the female, at the men. Because no one knew better than he did just how real those beasts were; three hundred years before, he’d been one of those humans, bitten by a beast, his soul ripped from his chest. But neither death nor a demonic existence had been his destiny. An angel had saved him—recruited him to be a hunter of demons, an immortal Knight of White.
The sound of a distant motorcycle touched his ears, and Darius shifted position, easing through the woods and then exiting into a dark corner of the alley behind the bar. Silent, unnaturally still, he watched as a Harley pulled to a stop several hundred feet away, a small pickup truck following in its wake. A male dismounted the bike: Max, a Knight he had once considered a brother-in-arms, and the reason he’d agreed to this meeting. Whoever was in the truck hadn’t been a part of that agreement.
He watched closely as the truck’s doors opened, surprised to see that they weren’t the hunters Max usually traveled with, but two females. The first was an attractive blonde; Darius quickly sensed her link to Max—his new mate, Sarah. Dismissing her as a concern, he focused on the second female—the unknown—and felt a swift, intense reaction. Awareness rushed over him, a reaction so fierce it punched him in the gut, demanded notice. And though she was pretty—petite, brunette with a chin-length bob, curves in all the right places—his reaction reached beyond her appearance to the essence beneath, to the magic burning a path through her veins. He could almost smell it, damn near tasted it. Not only was she born into magic, but she was human, as he had once been, untouched by the immortal world of demons or angels.
The sound of Max’s boots scraping the gravel drew Darius’s attention. Darius stepped forward and the two men met under a single streetlight, facing one another for the first time in years—Max with two long sabers strapped to his jean-clad hips, Darius with his magic.
And that difference represented the wall dividing the two immortals, who were so alike, but so different. Darius respected the death a sword represented for demons and immortals alike, but he himself could kill with nothing more than his magic, his ability to harness the energy of any living creature and turn it against them. A skill that had labeled him the Destroyer.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” Max said.
“That makes two of us,” Darius said, being honest where honesty was deserved. Like all Knights, he had no known past, no last name. But Max had earned his trust. Max was honest. He was direct. He was also a Harley-riding badass who’d once saved Darius’s life from atop that bike, decapitating his attacker without so much as a wheel wobble. That’s what Knights did—looked out for each other. But that had been another lifetime, another world, long gone for Darius.
Which brought him to another truth: “If I didn’t want to know how you found me, I probably wouldn’t have.” Darius’s magic enabled him to weave a spell that made him virtually invisible to those who hunted him, yet somehow Max had found him.
“My mate, Sarah,” he explained. “She has a special gift. Dead people talk to her.” He shrugged and stuffed his fingers in his pockets, as if letting Darius know that he’d decided to trust him. “Apparently, you can’t make yourself invisible to the other side.”
“I didn’t know I needed to,” he said dryly. And he’d make damn sure he did from now on. He didn’t question Sarah’s gift. Why would he? Over three hundred years of magic running through his veins had made for a wild, unpredictable ride.
His gaze drifted to the woman, to the petite brunette with Sarah, the scent of magic and female was unsettling in a primal, uncontrollable way—like magic hunting magic—and he lusted for more.
He snapped his gaze back to Max, impatient to get this over with. “Since when do the Knights include humans in their inner circle?” he challenged, slowly returning all of his attention to Max. “Who is she and why is she here?”
“Cathy Baker. She’s part of the paranormal investigation team that Sarah operates, and has been since before our mating. They’re good together, highly sought after and often called in when something can’t be explained. Besides, Cathy needs protection. She’s recently discovered she has—”
“Magic in her blood,” he said. “I get that. She’s dangerous, Max, and if you were smart, you’d remember that. Magic corrupts. The more she uses it, the more power it has over her.”
“Like it has over you?” His voice was low.
Darius balled his fists by his sides, anger and magic building, like a ball starting down a hill and picking up speed. Who the hell was Max to judge him? Max—one of the few lucky Knights who’d found his mate—that one woman who could destroy the stain a demon bite had left on his soul. The same kind of stain every Knight bore from the moment of their creation.
After three hundred years of hunting, Darius had no mate, and now it was too late. No human could endure the intensity of his magic, nor could one save his soul. If anything, he’d damn them to hell with him. Magic burned around the taint of his soul; his powers overflowed into the physical world—the light above them flickering with the impact.
The women rushed forward toward the men, but Darius waved a hand, throwing an invisible barrier between the females and them. Max didn’t move, his hands still in his pockets, his expression unaffected.
Darius ground his teeth, leveling his old friend in a demanding stare. “Why are we playing the reunion game, Max?”
“Talleous,” Max said, naming the deadliest sorcerer walking the face of the earth—at least in human form.
Just hearing that name set Darius’s nerves further on edge, and his muscles twitched with the readiness of a warrior about to face battle. “What of him?”
“Cathy says her meditation has allowed her to decode a magical trail, patterns of—”
“Weather and events,” Darius interrupted. “I know. Move on.”
“Bottom line,” Max said, appearing unaffected by Darius’s abruptness. “Two names came up that I don’t like hearing in the same sentence. Talleous and Adrian.”
“Adrian,” he repeated the Demon Master’s name, the leader of the Darkland Beasts. Instantly on alert, his mind prickled with his own magical decoding of what he’d seen in his meditations and had been trying to find and destroy—a spell so powerful it would threaten all of humankind, a spell that required two powerful sorcerers, one human and one demonic.
Darius lifted his hand and dropped the shield that was holding the women back, then fixed his attention on Cathy. Their eyes locked, an electric current crackling around them as their magic connected. His body reacted to the magic, to the woman; sensual heat rushed through him in a hot flash of pure, white-hot lust, like nothing Darius had ever experienced. Wild and out of control—something dangerous for a sorcerer who used control to keep the demon inside him at bay.
He drew a heavy breath and let it out. “Tell me what you saw in your meditations, Cathy,” he ordered, his tone abrupt, meant to intimidate,
to keep her at a distance. Because one thing Darius knew without a doubt: he had to find out what this woman knew and then get the hell away from her before it was too late—too late for what, he didn’t know.
Chapter Two
Cathy lifted her chin and walked toward the immortal they called the Destroyer, a man far more demon than any of the Knights she’d met—the depths of his amber eyes flickering with demon-red, with danger.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, stopping in front of him. And she wasn’t afraid. She should have been. Had every reason to be. She’d grown up around magic long before she’d learned she was born with a gift, beyond a learned craft. She’d seen magic corrupt, seen it destroy. But she’d seen this immortal in her meditations, sensed he would never hurt her. Foreseen that they were destined to face a great evil together. That everything in her life to this point had led her here, to this day, to this meeting.
“Then you are a fool,” he said. His sensual lips were thin, hard; they formed the hint of an evil smile, and she felt the same spike of awareness she’d felt that first moment his eyes had settled on her. No. She was not scared of Darius Alexander. But she was scared of her reaction to him. Scared of the way he made her shake inside out, but not with fear—with a charge of magic that stroked her nerve endings with sensuality, with fire.
He radiated power and energy, and spoke with command. “Tell me now what you saw in your code.”
“Are you going to help us?” she asked, not sure she wanted to reveal what she knew. Not until she knew he wouldn’t take what she gave him and leave them with nothing.
“Tell me what you saw,” he repeated, and the light above them crackled, sparking as if it might blow.
“You can’t bully me with magic.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Who says I want to?”
“Then why the fancy light show?”
“That’s not my doing, sweetheart. Not this time. It’s us, together. The convergence of two magics meeting.”
That took her off guard because she wasn’t sure it was true. She had long practiced the craft of Wicca, but only since joining the Knights had she learned of her natural-born magic. “Is that normal?”
“No,” he said, making it clear he intended to say no more. “What did you see that made you find me, Cathy?”
She was rattled, and done trying to manipulate the outcome of this encounter. “I don’t understand what I saw. A Black Line forming. Power. Talleous and Adrian somehow attached to that Black Line.”
His eyes narrowed, hardened. “You’re telling me that you saw the Black Line.” It was more a statement of disbelief than a question.
“What is a Black Line?” Max asked.
Darius didn’t take his eyes from Cathy, and she struggled with the heat from that connection prickling her skin. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. He held her there, but whether by magic or simply entrancement, she did not know.
“A trail of magic,” he finally said, replying to Max, but with his eyes so fixed on Cathy that she couldn’t look away, couldn’t force herself to break that link. “The trail runs between the two powers—one demonic and one human—and it controls whatever they have spelled in between them, be it a person, a place, an object. Whatever it is, it is controlled completely. A volcano could be made to erupt. A person could be made to kill, to steal, or to manipulate a world event, if they were…say, the president of a country.”
Max cursed, and Sarah gasped. Darius didn’t seem to notice, speaking again to Cathy. “Answer my question. Did you actually see the Black Line or just see code references to its formation?”
Discomfort swelled within her at the sudden spiked intensity about him. “I—I don’t know. I don’t understand what I saw.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do. Did you see the Line?”
She drew a painful breath. “Yes. Yes, I saw it. Like a line of power.”
His gaze shifted swiftly back to Max. “She’s lying. She’s not powerful enough to see a Black Line.”
Her rebuttal was instant, insistent. “I saw the Line!”
He turned to her, stepped closer, so close their toes all but touched. “Why are you lying?”
“I’m not lying,” she ground out through her teeth. “I saw it because you saw it.” His eyes narrowed, the lights crackling, popping above them as she continued, “I was in deep meditation and I saw you. I was you.” She whispered. “I saw the Line through your eyes.”
Suddenly, he moved, grabbing her and staring down into her eyes, at the same moment he threw up another shield to hold the others at a distance. He was big, powerful, fierce in the way he stared down at her. “I never saw Talleous in my meditations,” he said. “Who sent you? Who are you working for? Is it Talleous? Adrian?”
She tilted her chin up again. “I never said you saw Talleous. I said you saw the Black Line. And I know enough about magic to know that if it took a human and a demon to form that Black Line, it will take a human and a demon to destroy it. You are so close to demon right now, Darius, you qualify as that demon. And I’m the human. You need me, whether you like it or not.”
He laughed. “Even if I trusted you, which I don’t, you aren’t powerful enough to face Adrian and Talleous.”
“I am when I’m linked to you,” she whispered. His grip had loosened; but their legs, their hips melted into each other, as if it were automatic, as if nature called them to do so. Their eyes met and held; the implications of her words hung in the air. But she did not say what she had only dared think in her mind, what kept threading into her thoughts, her meditations—that she was his mate. It was there between them: a charge, a connection, a bond that was terrifyingly intense. No. They did not have to say it. They both knew. Both knew from the minute she’d exited that truck. She had no idea what that meant beyond his salvation, and that is all she had to know. Her role working on Sarah’s paranormal investigation team had brought her to live with the Knights. In the few months, she’d called their home her own, she had seen the way they fought to save humanity, the way the ones without mates struggled to stay sane. If she was this man’s mate, she would give him the peace he deserved; she would offer the bond he needed to survive, and ask nothing in return. “You need me to stop them and you know it,” she whispered.
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” he challenged.
She stared into those dark eyes flickering with demon red, and knew how close to losing his humanity he was—how close to losing hope of salvation. “Yes,” she finally whispered. “Yes, I am.”
The red faded in his eyes, disappeared completely, his expression softening for just a moment. Abruptly, though, the red reappeared, and his expression hardened. “Like I said,” he hissed. “You’re a fool.”
“Then I’m a fool,” she defiantly declared. “You need me to destroy the Black Line, but there is more to this than that, and we both know it. You need me to fight the demon trying to take control of the man inside you. Please. Darius. Let me help.”
He glared down at her. “Do you know why I left the Knights?”
“No.” But she wanted to.
“Because despite my vow to seek death before turning to a demon, I feared the day I would snap unexpectedly and kill one of them. Stay away from me, Cathy. Before you end up dead.” He released her, and a bright light surrounded him. A second later, he was gone and so was the barrier that had kept them from the others.
Sarah and Max rushed forward. “Are you okay?” they chimed in unison.
Cathy turned to Sarah. “Please. Find him again. Find him before it’s too late. He can’t stop Adrian and Talleous without me.”
Max and Sarah gave her a cautious look. “He’s dangerous, Cathy,” Max warned.
“He’s right,” Sarah agreed, brushing a long strand of blond hair behind one ear. “We need to think this through. Talk about why you feel you have to be involved. And I know this feels personal to you, but don’t let that impact your choices.”
The fight agai
nst Adrian had become personal. She didn’t deny that. Not long ago, the Demon Master had used Cathy’s mother to try and get to Cathy. “It’s not about the past,” she promised. “This is about stopping that Black Line from forming. The only way to destroy a spell created by the magic of a human and the magic of a demon is with the magic of a human and the magic of a demon. Darius needs me.”
“Surely, there are other humans with your gift,” Sarah argued. “Darius will know who they are. He’ll enlist their aid.”
Not if Darius fully turns demon and joins Adrian and Talleous rather than fights them. “It has to be me,” Cathy said. “It has to be me because I’m his mate.” And with those words, Cathy felt the world on her shoulders. Because that world was unknowingly counting on an immortal known as the Destroyer to save them, and Cathy was the only one who could transform the Destroyer into a Knight of White.
Chapter Three
Just past sunset, three days after Darius had heard Cathy’s claims of a Black Line, he’d followed a magic trail that had led him deep into the Mexico Mountains, and the home of the Darkland Beasts.
He still struggled to shake off the lingering effects of meeting Cathy—his destined mate. The moment Darius had touched Cathy, he’d felt the violent, primal burn to claim her. To sink his teeth into her shoulder and mark her as his mate, just as a Knight did with his woman. But he had also felt the demon in himself—felt it more powerfully than he had the man—and known without a doubt that he’d kill her before he could claim her, drain her of her blood, her life. It was too late for him, and if he were near Cathy, it would be for her as well.
He had to deal with this before that Black Line of magic was fully formed, because Cathy had been right; he’d need her help to destroy the Line if it formed. There were other humans with magic in their blood, but those known to him were corrupted by its power like Talleous had been. Yet there was no way he could be near her and keep her safe from himself.