Along Came a Demon (26 page)

As slow, as sweet, he came into me, a hot, smooth heat fiercer than his skin. Supporting himself with one arm, he slipped the other around my hips and lifted them from the bed, and held me to him as we rocked. My muscles joyfully tightened on him, my thighs clasped his hips, my hands his shoulder blades. Until pleasure was a hair away from pain and eclipsed as something divine. My back arched, I cried out.

He stilled. Breathing in the spice of his skin and hair, liquid, knowing I would dissolve and melt away if he let me go, I hung in his arms. And he moved again, just so, and he was right… .

… .right t
here.
Staccato gasps and bubbles of laughter mingled in my throat, until the throb, the pulse, coalesced in my groin and spiraled deliciously through my body, and became too exquisite to be named. My nails dug in his skin as I looked into eyes which blazed copper. He grinned fiercely as his body strained, tensed, went rigid, but only a whispering sigh came from his mouth.

Christ!
a distant part of my mind said.
I could die of this.

Epi
logue

Royal and I lounged on recliners in my backyard, doing what regular people do during an all too brief Indian summer, catching the last afternoon rays of a fading year. Head back, eyes closed, hair loose and spread in a glittering fan, he nursed a beer. I held open the pages of a book I did not read.

Mel and Jack ogled us from the kitchen door. I had to tell Royal about them soon. I don’t know if they watched while Royal and I bounced the bed that first time; it was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t ask and they didn’t tell. But we did have a long and spirited conversation. Spirited - get it? Actually, I threatened them. If they tried to watch me and Royal when … when I didn’t want them to, no newspapers, no talk of the outside world, absolutely no socializing. I would totally ignore them. I could do it. For Royal’s oh-so delightful company, I could do it.

They sulked for a full day, but caved just the same.

So the Peeping Tom aspect was taken care of, I hoped. But Royal being here so often made life awkward. I couldn’t talk to them and had to watch myself lest I react to anything they said or did. And they made the most of that by acting up, and about drove me out of my mind at times.

“
How’s Lawrence doing?” I asked.

“
Taking it in stride.” Royal chuckled. “I think his advisors have a handful. He is already asserting his authority. He sent two aides for Mayberry’s double-fudge chocolate ice-cream last week.”

“
Mayberry’s here in Clarion?”

He nodded lazily.

“
Will he bring peace to Bel-Athaer?”

“
I do not doubt he will eventually. Gorge smuggled him inside the High House and only his advisors and personal aides know he is there. He’s secluded in one wing of the House, where he will go through a good deal of training and tutoring. He’ll be presented to the court in a month or two, then word will spread. Everyone in Bel-Athaer will feel him when he comes into his full power.”

“
When will that be?”

“
Five years. Ten. We cannot be sure. If we can keep him safe till then, he will bring the rebel Houses to their knees.”

So Lawrence was still in danger. Poor kid.

“
Tiff, I’ve been thinking.”

He sounded serious. “You better watch that,” I remarked.

He opened eyes which sparked with enthusiasm. “We could open our own agency.”

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the seat. “Like in private eyes?” Our own agency.
Wow!
I grinned, then lost it. “Isn’t moonlighting against precinct policy?”

“
I’ll resign.”

He couldn’t
mean it. “But you’ve been a cop forever. How can you up and quit just like that?”

“
I would rather work with you.”

Hm.

My brow puckered as my suspicious mind thought it through. “I know you’re strong on serve and protect - you wouldn’t be suggesting we partner up so you can transfer your allegiance to me, would you?”

His face took on a neutral expression.

I bristled. “You are. You think I can’t take care of myself.”

He sat up, swung his legs and faced me. He took my book from me, laid it on the grass and held my hand. “Is caring for your safety wrong? Call it a demon thing if you like - we cherish our womenfolk.”

I looked in his solemn, deep-copper eyes and knew he meant every word. I felt all mushy.
Damn.

“
But that has nothing to do with my suggestion. We’ll make a great team, Tiff. Think of the advantages we’d bring to a partnership. With my experience and your talent … our own agency is the next logical step. “

“
I’ll think about it,” I said.

As I ate my spicy chicken noodles and tried to read, Mel and Jack decided to go all girlfriend on me. “Are you in love with him?” Mel asked in a dreamy tone.

It was a question I refused to ask myself. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t forget the lessons life taught me, what happens when you lower your defenses and unconditionally give yourself to another person. Yet a certain look from his eyes and I all but dissolved. His hands sent delicious sensation clean through me. His heat and scent were as familiar as my own body. I let him slip through barriers no other had breached.

“
As if she’d tell us,” Jack told Mel. “Asking her is a waste of breath.”

“
Like we have plenty of that to waste,” Mel said, then they went into a fit of giggles.

I looked up from my book. “Can’t I just plain enjoy being with a guy?”

“
Aw, honey,” Mel said, reaching to give me a consoling pat on the shoulder and changing her mind. “You take no notice of us. No reason a girl can’t indulge herself with a passionate man who treats her like the center of his universe.”

The center of his universe.
He did act that way sometimes.

Could he, one day, be the center of mine?

My nosy roommates gave up on the subject. “Are you going to open an agency?” Jack asked.

I wanted to. Royal and I could go anywhere the client required, as long as they paid the expenses. A smart detective with the advantage of strength, speed and sensitive hearing, and a fast learner with an edge all her own; sounded like a win-win situation to me. I doubted we’d be swamped with murder cases, but my ability could still be helpful. The dead are all around us and they’re always watching. They can do nothing else. They whisper to me.

Meet the Author

Linda D. Welch was born in Hampshire, England, and lived in Idaho, California and New Mexico before settling in Utah. She now lives in a mountain valley, more or less half way up the mountainside, with her husband and two Scottish terriers. She is not tall and silver-haired and she does not see dead people. What she does see are moose, deer, fox, raccoon, skunk, wild turkey, a huge bird population and a ridiculous amount of snow. When not writing or working at her other job, and depending on the season, she is usually walking the Scotties, filling the bird feeders, futilely attacking the weeds in her garden or shoveling out after a snowstorm.

Look for Whisperings book two, The Demon Hunters, available from online bookstores.

If you enjoyed

Along Came A Demon

the next in the series is

The Demon Hunters

A missing Latino lover. Sword-wielding assassins. The nineteenth-century journal of a young girl in what was then Burma.
Very
strange clients… .

In The Demon Hunters, Tiff Banks meets two mysterious new clients. She doesn’t think they are human beings, and her suspicions are confirmed when the Gelpha High Lord calls them Dark Cousins. What are Dark Cousins? Tiff has no idea. Her partner knows, but won’t, or can’t, tell her. The Dark Cousin clients are not exactly informative; in fact, they withhold information Tiff thinks could be vital to solving their case. Lives are at risk, and so is her relationship with the one man she’s come to trust. Can Tiff’s spectral informers help her this time?

You bet.

Turn the page for Chapter One of
The Demon Hunters.

“
Are you sure?”

“
Of co … not bleeding sure … illy cow! All I said w … kitty box … effin … bin … food … Don’t y … isten stupid bi… .”

The big old green neon sign was on the fritz, and so was charming Freddie Conroy. As it spluttered and spat and frizzed on and off, so did Freddie. I could just make out what he said, although his voice came as a whisper and the Cockney accent didn’t help.

I did not linger in Fresno to bring Freddie’s killers to justice; I couldn’t care less about the disagreeable little man. Anyway, they had already been apprehended, and were doing time in California State Prison. I couldn’t do a thing for Freddy - not that I wanted to - but he could do plenty for me.

You would think he’d be glad to finally have someone to talk to after being stuck up there for years, but the Brit was as unpleasant in death as in life.

In May 2000, Freddie’s two business partners took him on the roof of the pharmacy and shot him in the back of the head. I doubt they meant to leave him there, but Freddie uncooperatively pitched over the side of the building and got hung up on the big neon sign, which is where Fresno PD found him the next morning.

Unknown to the residents and visitors to Fresno, as they walk the old district, Freddie’s still there, up above their heads, likely cussing them out.

My demon lover and I stopped in a downtown cafe on our way back to Utah, and overheard two elderly women at the next table. Their friend Gertrude Hackenbacher - seriously, that is her name - lost her best friend and companion of eleven years, her cat Pussywillow. Worse, Pussywillow didn’t just wander away from home, he was catnapped. My heart immediately went out to the woman. I’d be devastated if my black-brindle Scottish terrier MacKlutzy disappeared, and enraged to the point of committing murder if someone harmed him. Then the ladies mentioned the magic word: reward.

“
A cat?” Royal said as he stirred a ton of sugar in his little demitasse coffee cup. I ask you, why get a seriously potent espresso and make it glutinous with sugar?

“
I don’t care if it’s a cat. We’ve had two assignments since we opened the agency. A thousand bucks is a thousand bucks,” I reiterated.

Royal sounded bemused. “We use our powers of deductive reasoning to discover the whereabouts of a cat?”

I swallowed my mouthful of muffin. “I don’t mean we spend days here. I just thought, since this Hackenbacher woman lives nearby, we could take a walk about town, starting at her place, ask a few passersby if they saw anything suspicious.”

“
Sweetheart,” Royal said, reaching for my hand, “who would see anything suspicious in someone toting a cat kennel?”

Royal is the first and only person to call me sweetheart, ever. Royal is first with a lot of things. He’s the first and only demon I’ve ever dated, the first to pick me up in his arms like I weigh no more than a couple of pounds, my first partner in my first detective agency. I could go on and on… .

Need I mention he’s handsome? He’s one of those men to whom every woman’s eyes are drawn when he walks in the room, and
they
see him as a human male. I see him as he is. His copper and gold streaked hair reaches his shoulder blades when unbound, and when he’s excited it swirls and emits sparks, as if full of electricity. His eyes are deep copper-brown, like new pennies, and glint when he moves. He has a demon’s angular face and high cheekbones, his skin the palest copper, like a nice tan.

Royal is not human, but neither is he a demon. I just call him that, but not often to his face. I called his people demons long before I knew their true name. They are Gelpha, and they inhabit Bel-Athaer, a world parallel to ours, but only the Gelpha and a few people like me know. Getting my mind round the concept is all but impossible, so I think of Bel-Athaer as a foreign land, one I have never read about. Gelpha have shared our world for centuries, blending with the human population, running businesses, forming relationships, having half-Gelpha, half-human children.

I knew they existed, but a year ago I never thought to take one as partner and lover. Royal is an enforcer for the Gelpha High Lord. He keeps an eye on Gelpha activities here in my world, although he now spends more of his time keeping an eye on me. When I met Royal, I thought he was my enemy, but he turned out to be the best friend I ever had.

I didn’t hold out much hope of tracking down the cat, but it was worth a try. Royal had plenty of money, but I insisted on paying my share, and I could no longer help pay for advertising, which so far didn’t seem to be doing us any good, anyway.

We could take a few hours to wander Fresno and still get back to Clarion in good time. The catnappers stuffed Pussywillow in the bright-pink, kitten-sized carrier they found on Gertrude’s porch. Pussywillow fit it long ago, but grew into a massive, overweight, orange ball of long hair.

I rubbed my thumb over the knuckles of Royal’s hand, grinning at him. “Well, no, a cat in a carrier wouldn’t stand out, but maybe a pink kitty carrier with the orange fur of a fat enraged cat poking out might grab the attention.”