“I don’t know.”
He stood, went to her, lifted her chin so she was forced to look at him. “I want that Isabelle back. Fight for her.”
“I don’t know if I can. I’m afraid, Dalton. I’ve never been afraid before, and I hate this feeling. What if I lose myself? What if I hurt someone?”
“I won’t let it happen.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
He could do more than she thought. “No, I can’t, but I can help you if you let me. I won’t let them get to you. I won’t let the demon inside you take over. I won’t lose you.”
She grasped his arms, laid her forehead against his chest. “I don’t want to lose you, either. I’ve never allowed myself to care about anyone before.” She tilted her head back and looked at him, her eyes clear and guileless. “I care about you. I have all these feelings rolling around inside me, and they’re all centered around you. I think that scares me most of all.”
He sucked in a breath and held it. This was the worst thing that could have happened. He shouldn’t want Isabelle to care for him. But he did. Because he had feelings for her, too. Feelings he had no business having. Not with what needed to happen between them.
Talk about lousy timing. The cosmos had a warped sense of humor sometimes. He tilted his head back and stared up into the heavens, wondering if after all this time he’d found love, only to have to make the biggest sacrifice of all.
He looked down at Isabelle, and everything else went away. He didn’t care that they stood in the middle of the swamp, that it was night, that he should get them both back to the house.
“I don’t ever want you to be afraid to care about me.” He pulled her against him and pressed his lips to hers.
She let out a soft sigh, her lips opening under his. He tasted mud, and smiled against her mouth as he pressed more firmly, sliding his tongue inside to lick against hers. He wanted—no, demanded that she be his. He wouldn’t take anything less.
Something about Isabelle always called to the more dominant, darker side of himself. He stopped questioning it, stopped fighting it, and let it take over.
This bayou, where secrets hid and darkness lived, was the perfect place. He held her and dropped down on the mossy bank, pulling her on top of him, needing to feel the full length of her body stretched out over his. She moaned against him, splayed her hands over his chest as she wriggled into position on top of him, then pulled her mouth from his to stare down at him.
She had the face of an angel, and when her lips curled, the smile of the devil himself. Wicked, tempting him to want things he knew he shouldn’t.
He wanted them anyway.
“I’m covered in mud,” she said, rocking her pelvis against his cock.
“I don’t care. Undress.”
She cocked a brow. “Demanding, aren’t you?”
He tightened his fingers around her hips. “Not much patience. Do it.”
She pushed up into a sitting position, smiling down at him. “You sure change personalities in a hurry, Dalton.” She teased him by taking her time, reaching for the bottom of her tank top and slowly baring her stomach as she lifted it. “Sweet and oh, so gentle one minute, harsh and gruff the next.”
His fingers bit into the fabric of her shorts as he waited, fast losing tolerance. “You gonna do it or am I going to have to do it for you?”
She had started to lift the shirt, but she paused. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like it slower, more like a strip tease?”
“I’m warning you, Isabelle.”
She laughed, the darkness of it so erotic he felt it in his balls, tightening them as if she had squeezed them with her hands. He lifted, arching up against her.
Her eyes darkened. “Okay then, faster it is.”
She pulled off her top and tossed it onto the hill. Her breasts were bare and he reached for them, sliding his palms over her nipples. The feel of the metal piercing her nipples never failed to excite him. Her nipples were hot to the touch and already hard as she leaned into his hands and whimpered.
“Yes. More. I want more of that. Touch me.”
Her words didn’t help his patience. Nor did her hands as they crept over his body, lifting his shirt and smoothing over the bare expanse of his stomach and chest, claiming him in ways that defied explanation. Even with mud clinging to her skin and hair, she was beautiful, his angel with the devil inside. He arched up and pulled her down to him, needing the touch of her lips against his, the smoky fire that churned inside him whenever they connected mouth to mouth.
He pushed at her shorts, wanting her naked, no barriers between them. She wriggled out of them, stretching flat over his body as she kicked them off, then set to work unsnapping his pants and pulling them down his legs while he drew his shirt off. When she spread her body over his again, he hissed at the heated contact of skin to skin. Her body was always hot, as if she had a fever.
“You’re nothing like a demon. Demons are cold to the touch. You’re like fire.”
Her eyes glazed with a golden shimmer as she took a deep breath, her breasts pillowed against his chest. She pushed against him, sliding her sex along his shaft. “You make me melt inside. Feel me.”
She grasped him with her hand, guiding his cock inside her wet sheath, surrounding him with that molten heat that threatened to make him explode all too soon. He fought the sensation, gritting his teeth as she gripped him in a tight vise of pleasure, then began to rock against him.
His world narrowed to just this woman. It didn’t matter where they were. They could be in a lush bed, sunlight streaming in on their bodies, or this dark marsh, covered in mud, and he still would see only Isabelle, her body over him, her breasts moving as she rode him, her thighs clamped tightly to his, her head tilted back as she sought her own pleasure and gave him the greatest he’d ever experienced.
And as she tilted her head forward and her gaze met his, he realized that with Isabelle it was different because it was much more than physical. He felt her in so many more ways than just being inside her. He was with her, feeling her; he knew her like he’d never known another woman. With her it was easy like it had never been easy before, as if he’d been created to be with this one woman. Where she was dark, he was light. Where he was midnight, she was his dawn.
She smiled down at him, smoothed her hand over his face and hair. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Glowing.”
He stilled, frowned, not knowing how to stop it. Not when he had all these feelings pouring out of him.
“Don’t.” She caressed his bottom lip with her fingers, then bent down to slide her lips across his. She whispered against his mouth. “Don’t make it stop.” She clenched her fingers against his shoulders and lifted, then slid down his shaft in a way that made him forget about the light pouring from him, made him forget everything but making love to her, taking her to that place where she’d forget, too. He gripped her hips and lifted her, set the rhythm as madness took over.
Isabelle gasped as he held her tight against him and lifted into her with a hard thrust. She rocked back and forth, clutched his arms, and whimpered, her sheath tightening around him. He watched as she came apart and then he couldn’t hold back, going with her. And then he saw it, too: light bursting all around them as he poured forth everything he had. He lifted up to wrap his arms around Isabelle, taking her mouth in a kiss that spoke of everything he wanted to say, but couldn’t.
He held her like that for a long time, both of them sitting up, wrapped around each other. It seemed like neither of them wanted to let go, but he knew they had to.
“We need to get back,” he said, murmuring against her neck, kissing the soft column of her throat. He was still inside her, still throbbing with the aftereffects, and more than ready for round two.
“I don’t want to go back.”
“You going to live out here as a marsh rat?”
She giggled. “Maybe. I do know how to fish.”
??
?So do the alligators.”
She shuddered. “Dirty trick. Now we’ll have to get dressed and leave.”
“Hot shower. Food. Warm bed,” he said.
“Oh, now you’re upping the ante. That’s not fair.”
“Just stating the facts, babe.”
She sighed. “Okay. I guess we have to.”
They untangled themselves and dressed, then walked back to the cabin where the hot shower felt pretty damn good, especially since this time they took it together. And it took a long time to finish that shower, since washing each other led to touching, and touching led to tasting.
By the time they fell into bed, the sun had started to peek up over the horizon. Dalton growled, rose from the bed, and yanked down the shades. They needed at least a little bit of sleep.
“Dalton,” Isabelle said, snuggling against him.
“Yeah.”
“We need to talk. About you.”
He inhaled. “Okay. We’ll sleep for a while. Then we’ll talk first thing tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she said with a yawn. “I’m holding you to that. Tomorrow.”
He had to think. What was he going to tell her? Or rather, not tell her?
Things were changing between Isabelle and him. He wasn’t sure all those changes were for the better.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mandy looked through the glass at James—the demon. He—it—looked so human, so normal, lying on the table like that. Who knew that inside lurked a demon? No one would know if they hadn’t seen what Mandy and Michael had seen.
“Why wouldn’t freezing have worked to save Lou?” she asked, turning to Michael who had walked up beside her.
“Huh?”
“That demon can’t do a thing in the cold room. Couldn’t we have done the same thing to Lou? And to Isabelle? Frozen them until we figured out what to do to … fix them?”
Michael shook his head. “This demon is a unique species, Mandy. It would be like trying to treat a human and a shark the same way. Even demons can be biologically distinct from one another. This demon is nothing like the demon that was inside Lou, or Isabelle. Just like half demons and hybrid demons are different from one another. And like the Sons of Darkness are different from every other demon.”
She scratched her nose and frowned. “Genetics and evolution?”
“Yes. They’re constantly changing the demons, mixing up genetics and producing something new. And we have to keep up with them so we know how to fight them. Because every demon species is unique. How we treat them, how we fight them, is unique.”
“So freezing Lou like we freeze this demon would have done no good.”
She saw the sadness in his eyes. “No. It wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”
She had to ask. She had to know if there was some way that Lou could have been saved. She should have known there wasn’t.
She followed Michael into the weapons room. “So do we really get to battle it?”
The Realm scientists had run tests on the demon for two days now, while Mandy had paced and waited, biding her time, keeping watch over James to see how it reacted, what it did. It did nothing but stare at the walls, at the glass, as if it knew she was on the other side, watching.
Maybe it was waiting for its opportunity to do battle with her. She hoped so.
“We’re going to test it, see what it reacts to,” Michael said. “We know from Ryder battling the disappearing-in-the-mist type of demon that anything silver makes it dematerialize. Assuming that this is the same type of demon, we don’t want it heading back to the Sons of Darkness to report on where it’s been. And we don’t know if the silver just weakens it enough to make it disappear with its tail between its legs, or if the silver can kill it.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“Which means we’re going to have to try out different methods under a more controlled atmosphere. We’ll test several silver weapons.”
Ugh. That meant the cold room again. “It’s going to be really hard to wield weapons in that arctic chamber.”
“I’m not going to chance it getting away. That’s a risk I’m unwilling to take. But we do have new weaponry. It would give us a chance to try it out on this demon.”
“And I’ll be the one to do that, right?”
He stopped, looked at her. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She cocked her head to the side and grinned. “Aww, Mike. You care about me. You really do.”
“Of course I do. You’re a valuable demon hunter. Losing you would put a huge hole in our team. Do you know how long it takes to find and train new hunters?”
She laughed. “I’m touched. Really. I’m near tears at the depth of your caring.”
He rolled his eyes. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I’ll be going in with you.”
She frowned. “That takes all the fun out of it.”
“I’m sorry you won’t be able to fight the demon on your own, but you need backup. And we’ll have our tech team on alert in case we need to take it down in any other way.”
“Meaning?”
“Knock it out if it gets out of control, or to a point where we both can’t handle the situation. The last thing I want is that demon getting past us, escaping and killing our techs and scientists, then dematerializing. Or worse, taking you with it to wherever the hell it goes.”
There was no point in objecting. Michael was right. They had to have fail-safes in place to protect everyone in the center. “Okay. But I still want to be the one to battle it.”
Michael’s lips curled in a wry smile. “I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.”
“So what do we have in the way of weapons?” she asked, turning to the toys laid out on the tables.
The weapons room was her favorite place. It was like the mall of her dreams. Racks of lasers, guns, swords, and all the high-tech weaponry and accessories she could ever want. Lots of new things, too, all spread out on a few tables in front of them.
“We’ve converted a few of the standard ultraviolet lasers that we’ve used in the past on the other demons.” He picked up one of the rifles that looked like the ones they used to fill with the blue liquid that shot out UV light and melted demons down to nothing but gelatinous matter. “Now, instead of UV light, this will inject bullets of liquid nitrogen.”
Mandy picked up the rifle, examining the cartridges filled with silver liquid instead of blue. “Wicked. So the bullet will explode inside the demon—and then what happens?”
“Freezes it from the inside out. Putting the ice in its bloodstream and attacking its internal organs with a shot of liquid nitrogen should stop it dead in its tracks.”
“But will that kill it?”
Michael shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s what we’ll have to find out.”
“Cool.”
“We also have coated swords with pure silver. We know stabbing demons makes them dematerialize, but we don’t know if that means they’re dead, or if they just disappear to go lick their wounds. However, we do know that beheading the Sons of Darkness is pretty effective.”
Mandy lifted the lightweight sword, standing back from Michael to swing it in a few wide arcs. “I like this. If you lop its head off, surely it won’t grow another one.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking that would probably do the job, too. But not handy on the street, so I’d like to keep that option as a last resort.”
“Good point. We can’t really walk around beheading people in the downtown business district, can we?”
“Uh, no.” He led her over to another table. “Similar to the rifles, these are more compact guns with the same kind of liquid nitrogen bullets. Easier to conceal inside a coat or jacket. You can choose any size and weight and we can manufacture bullets sized to accommodate the weapon, plus add a silencer.”
Mandy nodded. “This is really impressive.” She chose a forty-five caliber. “Got bullets made up for this one?”
“Already loaded up with an extra clip to the side. There
’s a holster next to it if you need it.”
“I won’t.”
She was admiring the weaponry when lights flashed and alarms sounded. She jerked, instantly on alert, and started grabbing weapons.
Michael picked up his comm, listened, then frowned.
“Drop the temp in the entire compound. Secure the area. Now!”
He turned to her. “Demon has escaped the cold room. Killed a tech and two guards.”
Mandy didn’t say a word, just tucked extra clips into the side pocket of her camos, then shouldered the rifle by the strap and ran like hell out of the room and down the hallway Michael right on her heels.
“You take the north. I’ll come around on the south side,” Michael said.
Mandy nodded, not even stopping in her dead run down the hall toward the room where the demon had been held.
When she got there, she grimaced at the bodies on the floor, the blood, the guards standing over them holding their weapons, then she was off around the corner, shivering at the rapid drop in temperature as the compound went to subzero in an effort to keep the demon from dematerializing.
That bastard was not going to get away.
She tried doors along her way. They were all secure, the compound having gone into lockdown as soon as the alarm was set off.
By the time she made a complete circle and ran into Michael, she was utterly out of breath, sucking in frozen oxygen and confused as hell. Where was the demon?
“Emergency exit door,” Michael said, turning on his heel. She followed right behind him, hitting the stairs two at a time as they punched through the exit door and up the stairs to the second level.
“What’s up here?” she whispered over Michael’s shoulder.
“Nothing. Storage. All the rooms should be secure.”
“I’ll take the south end.”
He nodded and she pivoted, lifting her weapon and moving as fast as she could despite the extreme chill making her shiver all over. But if the subzero temp slowed her down, it would slow the demon down, too.