A Demon's Desire (16 page)

Jeffrey used his shadows to fling Tristan
against the wall and keep him there as he had the day before. He
retrieved a bloodied knife from the ground near his feet and
approached Emma. Tristan drew a deep breath and did what his mother
said: he let go of what control he had of the darkness within him.
Warm and cool, dark and light … they mixed within him, overwhelming
him, until they became shadows that controlled his body.

He launched off the wall where he was pinned
and landed on top of Jeffrey. Darkness and fire consumed them, and
Tristan surrendered.

* * *

Emma heard them fighting. The inhuman sounds
were disturbing, but even they weren’t enough to keep her from
drifting closer and closer to passing out. A fuzzy face crossed her
vision. Repulsed, she tried to move away from Adam but couldn’t. He
had rolled to face her and stared at her before grimacing with
effort. She twisted her head to see what he was doing. One of his
hands was tugging at her bonds. Surprised, she watched as he worked
to free her.

“I’m s….sorry,” he stuttered.

“Sorry for what?”

“Everything,” he said. “I’ll make this
right.”

After a long moment, her left hand was free.
She stretched to her right hand and fumbled with the knot, crying
at the pain caused by putting her weight on her injured chest and
shoulder. Her hand came free and she took a deep breath before
sitting with effort. Her head swam but she focused on her right
foot. The sounds of the brothers fighting faded in and out of her
soupy thoughts. One foot was free, then the other. Lightheaded, she
rose with some difficulty and could think only of escaping the
hellhole that was the basement. She pushed herself away from the
altar, staggered, and careened into a wall.

Tristan.
She stopped, alarm making its
way through her unfocused mind.

“Go, now!” he shouted in response.

Her eyes found him and his twin, locked in
battle across the basement, shrouded by shadows. A shrill shriek
jarred her attention to the altar, and she saw Olivia charge across
the basement, knife raised over her head.

“Tristan!” she called.

Olivia dove into the shadows, stabbing at
anything that moved. The ground trembled, and the fissure grew by
another foot. A blast of heat knocked Emma back. She staggered to
her feet and moved toward the three battling, trying to distinguish
who was who among the flailing arms.

The decomposed figure that was Adam slid off
the table. On stiff legs he lumbered in the direction of the three,
tripped, and fell into the midst of the shadows. Another shriek,
and Adam emerged from the battle, Olivia clutched in his arms. She
clawed at him, screaming madly. Emma watched, horrified, as he
staggered to the fissure to Hell. Olivia’s screams took on an eerie
quality as she saw their destination. As they neared, demons from
within the fissure grabbed both figures and hauled them into its
depths.

Emma covered her ears at the sounds of demons
devouring their new prey. Her gaze returned to the twins, both of
whom lay still. The shadows were gone.

“Tristan!” She made her way across the
basement, shaking and avoiding the area between the altar and the
fissure.

She dropped to her knees between the two of
them, unable to tell them apart with her blurry gaze. One of them
reached for what looked like a large black marble.

“Tristan?”

“I told you to go,” the man to her left said.
“Leave it and go!”

“Toss it into Hell,” the man to the right
countered.

“No, Emma, he’s trying to confuse you. Give
it to me, before he gets it!”

“Emma, toss it into Hell.”

Thoroughly confused, she made out the blood
pooling around both of them from their own battle and Olivia’s
stabbing. They were locked in some sort of silent tug-of-war; both
lay prone, their faces furrowed with effort. Her gaze settled on
the marble. She grasped it. It felt hot, like Hell.

Throw it into Hell.
Tristan’s voice
said into her mind. She hesitated before pushing herself up and
moving as close as she dared to the fissure. Hands reached out at
her, and she stepped back. She threw it.

Good. Now run. I’m going to bring this place
down.

“Not without you, Tristan.”

“Run, Emma. I can’t control … them.” His
voice was broken and ragged, as if it took great effort for him to
say the words.
I’m a demon. I deserve Hell.

She heard the last words in her thoughts, his
own resignation to dying alongside the other half-demon. Emma
dropped beside the man who had been on her right and touched him.
His body burned with otherworldly fever.

“You’re coming with me, Tristan,” she said.
“Or we’re dying here together. I won’t leave you here.”

For a long moment, she didn’t think he’d
respond. He moved at last, pushing himself to his knees. His eyes
spun with flames like those beyond the fissure, and she drew back,
wondering if she’d guessed wrong. He closed his eyes then opened
them again. They went back to normal. He stood and pulled her up.
She felt the wave of power ripple through the world around them and
shake the house to its foundation.

Tristan lifted her with unexpected strength
and hurried to the stairwell as the walls shook around them. He ran
through the kitchen and hallway. The house collapsed around them.
Emma covered her head, and they burst into the light of early
morning. Relieved, she lost what will was keeping her out of
unconsciousness. She sagged against him.

“Emma?” His voice was still ragged. “Oh, god,
Emma!”

She closed her eyes, exhausted.

I’ll take care of you,
he
promised.

One week later

Tristan paced outside of the hospital room.
The bossy nurse that forbade a non-relative access had finally been
put in place by Amber after a phone call demanding to know why he
wasn’t there. He was so nervous, he’d forgotten flowers or a card,
despite his mother’s advice to bring both. He ran his fingers
through his hair, which now stood on end every time he got excited
or anxious.

Some of his newfound powers were irritating.
He’d found he couldn’t harness the darkness once he let it go.
Instead, it might accept his guidance or it might become
passive-aggressive and make his hair stand on end or his shoes melt
on his feet.

He had a lot to learn about living in peace
with his other half.

“You can come in.” The stern nurse left the
room with an irritated look in his direction.

His hands were sweaty, this time not from the
demon side of him but from the prospect of seeing her again.
Tristan entered the small room and closed the door behind him.

Emma was pale, the earthy color he loved
about her faded. She looked him over intently as he approached, no
doubt sensing the change in him. His mother had noticed it,
too.

Emma had spent two days in the ICU but looked
good despite the trauma. At the awkward silence, he drew up a chair
and sat beside her.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“A lot. I wondered …” She hesitated. “None of
that was a dream, was it?”

“No, Emma. It was all real.”

“Olivia and Adam?”

“Together forever, like she wanted, though
she won’t be happy where they are,” he said.

“Adam freed me,” she said, troubled. “What
happened to Jeffrey?”

“I’m not sure,” Tristan said. “Hell probably
got him, too. It’s what he wanted, though, to return to our
father.”

“I saw Amber yesterday. She said she’ll need
surgery eventually, but her back wasn’t as bad as they initially
thought. Witches, gateway to Hell, demons cutting brake lines …
God, what a story we’ll have to tell the grandkids!” she said with
a weak laugh. “Can you imagine?”

Grandkids.
He tried not to smile at
her sentence and felt relieved that she wasn’t driven away by what
she saw.

“You’re safe now, Emma, all of you,” he said
and took her hand. They were quiet for a moment.

“Now I owe you,” she said.

“No, Emma. If you sleep with me, I want it to
be because we’re more than clients,” he replied.

“You sleep with all your clients?”

“No.” He chuckled. She squeezed his hand.

“Mama and Amber are excited for you to come
over. Sissy can’t stop talking about you,” she went on. “You fit
right in.”

“And you? Are you excited to spend time with
me?” he asked, breath stilling. She looked up at him with a faint
smile.

“Maybe,” she said. “We had a rocky start. How
about we start over?” She offered him her hand. “My name is Emma.
I’m recovering from a run-in with a black witch who tried to throw
me into Hell because I stole her boyfriend two years ago.”

“Hi, Emma,” he said and shook her hand. “My
name is Tristan. I’m a half-demon, and my mother is a white witch
who cheats at slot machines. And, I like the idea of telling our
grandchildren stories about our adventures.”

“So do I,” she whispered, a warm smile
crossing her face.

This month, it’s my pleasure to
introduce you to yet another up-and-coming, brilliant indie writer,
paranormal romance and chick-lit novelist Heather Marie Adkins!
Heather is a friend as well as a colleague, and she’ll one day be
That Writer who went from obscurity to the front page of the
newspaper because of her strong writing. Heather can be reached at
her blog:

http://heather.bishoffs.com/

Please enjoy the synopsis and
exclusive peek at the first chapter of her book!

Abigail

Synopsis

When Abigail’s supposedly immortal
faery mother is found murdered, her human father sells her in to
slavery. Bought by a young and wealthy landowner named William, she
is whisked away to a Grecian island to play caretaker for his baby
sister.

However, the island has a deadly
secret connected to Abigail’s past. Her budding romance with
William is shattered by Abigail’s intimate, unwanted connection
with the island’s faery prince.  Meanwhile the faery king
plans revenge upon the family. Abigail must join forces with the
very race she’s sought to deny, to save the humans she has learned
to love.

Abigail
is available at
:

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Abigail-ebook/dp/B005F28PU0

BN:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abigail-Heather
Marie-adkins/1104560658
?

Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77230

Exclusive excerpt, copyright 2011 by Heather
Marie Adkins, used with permission

Abigail

Chapter 1

My father was selling me into slavery.

No manner of pressure could fix the
uncomfortable tick caused by the throbbing behind my closed
eyelids. I alternated between digging the palms of my hands into my
eyes and seeking solace from the earth.

Sliding my right hand behind me between my
back and the wall, I pressed it firmly to the moist stone. With
just a little mental push, I sent myself into the ground beyond,
feeling the worms crawl and the dirt shift. For a moment, I was
able to forget the dank cell and let the Mother’s arms wrap around
my shoulders, the earth’s strength seeping into my skin like a
much-cherished blanket.

A burst of girlish laughter brought me back
to myself, leaving me bereft. My skin was chilled beneath my thin,
muslin dress; a stark contrast to the way the earth had brought me
warmth. Bringing my hand back around, I pulled the shawl tighter
around my shoulders-- even though it was riddled with holes-- and
tucked my bare feet under my knees.

Perching on an old barrel that smelled of
stale wine and piss, I surveyed the scene around me feeling oddly
detached. It was the kind of dark that made one sluggish and
miserable, from where nightmares originated. There was not a single
window, or even a crack in the earthen walls to bring us comfort
from the outside world; we were lucky to have the pale yellow glow
of the oil lantern hanging by the only door.

We swam in the scent of feces, its source a
crude hole in the floor where we relieved ourselves. The stench
hung in the air like another entity, stagnant and unhealthy. From
where I sat, I could feel two women with illness creeping through
their bodies.

Fourteen women, some of them but children, in
a room barely big enough to house eight.

The little girl sitting to my right leaned
against the wall with her knees pulled up to a face so covered in
filth she looked like an animal. I caught her eye, a vivid green
shiny with unshed tears but hard with lessons learned much too
early. She couldn’t have been nine years old. I tried to give her a
comforting smile only to find the muscles in my face weren’t
responding.

How do you comfort innocence destroyed?

Matilda, the one person I counted friend in
my five weeks locked away, was in a puppy pile of teenagers in the
corner, telling stories she shouldn’t. I knew from previous
conversation that she had once belonged to an older aristocrat who
had raped and mutilated her in ways beyond imagination. How she
continued to exist day to day with the memories of such…even more
so that she told the tales so easily.

If I know anything now from my own
experiences, humans tend to practice selective memory.

I closed my eyes once more, attempting to
rein my thoughts. With nothing else to do-- no books to read, no
garden to plant-- my mind tends to run wild.

“You seem very calm today, Abigail.”

Pretty Matilda, finished traumatizing the
young ones, was settling beside me on an old wooden crate, tucking
her dingy blue dress around her knees. Her chestnut eyes were
sparkling with good humor in her pale, simple face. I gazed down at
her, and cocked my head in contemplation as I counted her freckles.
“To feel anything right now is redundant. What comes will come
despite thought or hope.”