Demon Girl (11 page)

“That boy we saw outside Demon Theory, how
long have you known him?” I looked away, stayed silent. “It was a
simple question.” He paused. “Boys from the slums can be
dangerous.” His voice held an undercurrent of humor that I didn’t
like. It was like he knew Breandan was not from the slums. Like he
knew he was…

I looked down at my shoes. “I’m not talking
about this.”

“May I ask why?”

There was that odd speech pattern again.
There were so many different dialects mixed in with the broken slum
speak, that it was difficult to determine someone’s roots just by
how they spoke unless they told you. I knew next to nothing about
Devlin, but his manner of speaking was familiar to me. Where had I
heard it before?

“Not your business,” I replied
succinctly.

His face darkened, as if he had guessed the
direction of my thoughts.

“What do you want, Devlin? Making good on a
bet to embarrass the misfit?” My cheeks got hot. “Why do you keep
trying to be friends with me and how did you know about–” I shut
up. I was meant to be pretending I didn’t know what he was talking
about when he said I had a vampire in my wardrobe. Scrunching my
brows, I shook my head. “I don’t know you, and you’re questioning
me? Being a fellow Disciple does not give you a hold over me.
Despite what you think I can talk to whoever I like. It’s my
business and I’m dealing, so stay out of it.”

His eyes lit with a shocking fierceness and I
jerked back. His constant intensity was disconcerting, but he
seemed to know nothing else to be a threat to me. Clearly, he’d
managed to catch a glimpse of Tomas, put the pale skin, fast
movement together and figured, vampire. But to
prove
it he
would first have to get someone to listen and believe him so that
he could be allowed into the Bayou, the girl’s dorms, to show them.
Would he risk his reputation on a whim like that? I was panicking
for no reason. He had nothing. I managed a polite smile. I stood up
and marched past him.

“Well, I’ll see you around.” He grabbed my
arm and I lashed out with a hard shove. “Why can’t you back
off?”

He staggered back and lowered his brows at my
rudeness. I pushed him so hard his blazer flapped back off his
shoulder and I saw a flash of green and gold swinging from his
neck, resting on his chest above his heart. He had a pendant like
mine. It explained why he was so interested in the one I wore. His
was different though, bigger and darker in colour. Huh, despite his
interesting taste in jewellery, I was still pissed at him. I was
raw and not fit for any other surprises. A girl can only handle so
much crazy. I’d told him to leave me alone, but he didn’t seem to
take subtle and even blatant hints. It was time to be rude. My
shaking hand pushed the hair from my eyes so I could glare
properly.

“Why do you keep popping up? Everywhere I go
there you are.” As I said the words I realized how true they were.
He was always nearby, lurking somewhere. I’d never seen it before
then.

“So what if I am following you?”

I scowled. He wasn’t even going to try and
deny it. “If you are then stop.”

“Of course, but I want you to give me
something first.”

The door swept open again. My heart skipped a
whole two thumps then pumped at double time. Because Breandan
stepped into the room, his bare feet silent on the stone floor. He
let the door of the library close with a dull click, and his gaze
flicked between us. If I could have picked
one
person to
never
join the conversation I was having with Devlin,
Breandan would be that person. Clearly the universe was out to get
me.

Irritation twisted Devlin’s expression before
it settled into overly pleasing handsome lines. His lips twitched
and his attention locked solely on me.

My head swung from one to the other unsure of
where to focus. As if one stupidly good-looking boy wasn’t hard
enough to deal with, I now had two messing with my mind. I sat down
heavily on the nearest bench I could find and put my head in my
hands. I was beginning to think it possible for your head to
explode from stress.

Breandan straddled the bench and settled
close by me. He sighed. “You can’t help but find trouble,” he
said.

My rude response caught in my throat. I
stared at his guarded face and wanted to scream at him. I wanted to
demand to know what he was doing exposing himself and
me
like this, and tell him to get lost.

All I whispered was, “You shouldn’t be
here.”

Something shifted in his expression, and told
me he knew how much I was freaking out, since he smiled.

He touched my cheek. “We are safe.”

“Am I interrupting?” Devlin asked icily.

His hands were fisted both sides of him, and
his lips had a rigid set. Blazer hanging open, I glimpsed his
impressive physique as he turned his gaze to Breandan. Impressive
but odd, he didn’t have any marks. All boys had marks. Not as many
as Breandan, who had enough tattoos for three, but Devlin’s skin
was completely pure.

“Rae, aren’t you going to introduce us?” he
asked and stared at Breandan.

Without looking at him, Breandan replied as
he entwined his fingers with mine. “I’m no concern of yours.”

Fingers firm and warm rubbed against mine. I
was hyper aware of the touch. It reminded me of the last time I had
my hand in another’s, in a vampires. That thought pulled me up
short. The vampire had touched me and I’d
let
him. Wow. I
was seriously messed up. Years of being unable to interact with
others, and I let demons drape themselves all over me. I tugged my
hand away but it was a pitiful attempt. More for the sake of
telling myself I had resisted, rather than actually wanting him to
let me go.

“Interesting,” Devlin said. “I thought only
Disciples, Clerics or Priests were allowed at Temple. I’m new here,
but I’ve never seen you before. When did you enroll?”

They peered at each other warily. Backs
straightening and necks stiffening, they became silent.

A pressing need to defend Breandan had me
stuttering, “It’s no big, Devlin. He’s my, uh…guest.” I shrank back
as Devlin’s glare turned on me. The last thing I needed would be
for him to run and spill Breandan was on Temple grounds. I did tug
my hand away this time and fisted it on my lap. I felt annoyingly
bereft that he had released me. “I want him here,” I added in a
rush.

Breandan went still beside me, and I felt his
focus shift to my face.

It grew cold. The lights flickered and
ominous silence draped over me. A weird feeling crawled over my
skin, so I tensed. The lights blacked out. The room temperature hit
rock bottom, and an icy gust of air lapped at the back of my neck.
I clutched Breandan’s hand tight in mine again. Was it him doing
this? He needed to stop because he was making it a little too
obvious that he didn’t belong. I squeezed the hand I held. The
moisture in my eyes stung, and the pores on my skin shrank. Then
‘it’ passed and the lights came back up. The air warmed.

“Power outage,” I said tactfully.

My mind was not able to deal with the concept
of anything other than that. It was an easy lie. Breandan snorted
and rested an arm over my shoulder. He made soothing circles on my
wrist. It was nice, the lazy soft brushes against my skin.

“Rae,” Devlin said slickly, “Would you like
to come with me? Somewhere private.” He smiled, nice and slow. The
kind of smile that suggested not much talking would be going on
once he got me alone. “We could get to know one another some
more?”

Confused at his sudden suggestive undertone,
rejection was on the tip of my tongue. I had a vampire to get back
to, so my plan was to extract myself from this conversation as soon
as I could and leave. Who knew what Tomas would do if I was not
there when he woke up. All of this had passed through my mind in a
split second then flew out as quick. Breandan’s reaction to the
invitation was explosive. Snarling, he moved startlingly fast and
blurred into a dark streak, a shadow.

Chests heaving and eyes blazing the boys
faced off nose to nose.

I was confused and stared at the vacant spot
the fairy-boy was moments ago. My reactions caught up and I made a
noise of alarm. I jumped up to push Breandan back a few paces, with
difficulty since he packed a truck-load more muscle and height than
me. I tugged his chin down to look him in the face. Tense seconds
clicked by as I looked into the eyes of someone alien to me.
Breandan glared at me with traces of disgust and disbelief. I felt
bad and annoyed because I wanted answers from him, but I couldn’t
have him butting heads with other Disciples. If Devlin told a
Cleric I’d let a strange boy into Temple, I’d come under question.
Hell, if Devlin threw in he knew I was hiding a vampire in my
wardrobe, I would never see the light of day again. They would
probably lock me away for the rest of my life. Or kill me if they
could prove I was a demon and a threat.

“I think you should go,” I said wearily.

The horrible moment passed and Breandan’s
face gentled into exasperation and impatience. The shift was so
fast; I floundered, unable to account for the sudden change.
Chuckling to himself, his arm propelled me towards the door picking
up my bag as we went.

“Walk me out,” he said cheerfully, he even
had a spring in his step.

Wasn’t I doing a dandy job of extracting
myself from this situation? I was meant to be in my room by now,
waiting for my guest to wake up so I could answer his questions and
get rid of him. Instead, I was walking out a fairy that seemed
happy to be in mortal peril, for that was the situation for any
demon on Temple grounds.

“You have my word no harm will ever come to
you that will be of my making,” a voice said in my ear. I turned to
look Breandan in the eyes, sincere and warm. “I will always protect
you. Even when you don’t me to,” he added after a small pause.

“I’m not afraid,” I said tartly and took a
half step before drawing deep and taking another larger one. I
lowered my voice, “And I can take care of myself. By doing what you
did back there you’ve painted a big target on my back. I need to be
careful after what happened this morning and
you
are putting
me in danger by just being here, and throwing your weight around.
Devlin is a Disciple, a popular one at that. He could get me into
serious trouble. Besides, I think I’d be safer with him than I ever
would with you.”

He raised an eyebrow then became
thoughtful.

As we left Sanctuary, cool air blew into my
face and the speckles of ash that floated by were comforting,
familiar. It was tinged with smoke now the fires had been lit in
preparation for the night. The days were short so close to
winter.

Breandan moved ahead of me and took my hand.
Before long I heard a group of Disciples nearby, their high and
happy voices floating through the dark coming straight toward us.
He turned so we no longer walked on the path to the main gate but
out onto the lawn surrounding the Temple, into the darkness. Over
my shoulder I saw Devlin followed silently and he didn’t look
alarmed but rather annoyed. Rather than an all-dark figure, I made
out his angular features and the green of his eyes. With a start I
realized everything looked lighter, and then I saw why. Breandan’s
tattooed skin glowed in the dark. It was like he wanted to get
caught. Like he really didn’t care Devlin could name him as
demon.

Said boy pushed between us, and grabbed my
hand to pull me forward. My skin crawled. I tried to pull away but
he held on firmly. Breandan held on and stopped moving. I was stuck
between the two and Devlin was determined to keep going, so I
squeaked when my arms nearly yanked out of their sockets. Brendan
growled, literally hunched his back and bared his teeth. The sound
was a low rumble, but resonated loud enough to be taken as a
warning. Despite this display he had to let me go to avoid hurting
me, but he was not happy about it.

Devlin barely broke stride as he half turned
and smirked. Turning back to my puzzled face, he feigned innocence.
“Possessive isn’t he?”

I looked over my shoulder and sent Breandan a
wobbly smile. The reason known only to the complicated workings of
my heart, I wanted to reassure him that I was okay. Jaw working
soundlessly, he walked close behind us and kept his eyes locked on
Devlin’s long fingers wrapped around mine.

Devlin let my hand go and I sighed in relief,
we reached the Temple wall and I wondered what was coming next.
Breandan seemed quite unconcerned at how this was turning out, and
I was curious to see where this adventure was headed next.
Seriously, where was it headed? There was no way through the
barrier here unless you could jump higher than twenty feet like a
vampire, or scale smooth, seamless concrete.

“Rae, place your hands over your eyes” Devlin
said.

I planted my feet, ready to fight it out.
Whatever these boys were planning would not go down as easy as they
thought. “I will not close my eyes. Do you think I’m that
stupid?”

He blinked in shock; face dumbly surprised.
It was like he’d never been told ‘no’ before.

The side of Breandan’s mouth tugged up.
“Please close your eyes,” he simplified.

Breandan was asking me to do what Devlin
wanted? Why? I looked between them. Something else was going on in
front of me, wasn’t it? Thoughts swirled in front of my eyes.
Devlin had joined the Sect a month ago. The sightings of fairies at
the Wall by the Temple had increased in the last month. Breandan
had been looking for me and the vampire a month. Devlin had not
reacted to Breandan’s presence, or his strangeness with shock or
fear. The fairy-boy had done some freaky stuff, like strutting
around bare foot, glowing and growling. These were
not
human
traits. More than this, Breandan had revealed himself to Devlin,
even spoken to him.