Demon Girl (21 page)

“We had an agreement. You broke it.”

“If I came back here before they had shown me
what they needed to they would have found and killed you,” I said
harshly. “I wouldn’t have been able to stop them.”

“Stop them?” There was a trace of surprise in
his tone. His dark eyes narrowed.

I met him stare for stare. “Like you said, we
had an agreement. I promised to hear you out and a safe dark
place.”

“I saved your life and you repay me with
disrespect.”

“I’ve kept my end of the deal. I’m here
aren’t I? I’m sorry I am late, but it was unavoidable and y’know
what, ditto. I saved your life too, you ungrateful ass. How long
would you survive in the sunlight against a fairy or two?”

He was disquieted. I could tell this from the
way his face and body became motionless. The pulsing dark that
surrounded him thickened, and it was like I could almost hear it
humming. It extended in curling wreathes and drifted forward to
settle over me. It was not a restraining blanket of fear this time,
but gentle welcoming. We were silent for a long while, taking
comfort in each other’s presence. It was strange. Now the dark had
embraced me it was like I could perceive Tomas. He was no longer a
scary vampire-boy, but a boy who just happened to be more than
human. The balance had shifted between us, stepped into something
unknown. Curling my wounded arm into my side, already flaring up
and healing, I pulled my sleeve down to cover my wrist. Tomas
helped me stand and straightened my clothes. I wiped at the blood
smeared across his mouth, looking at it made me queasy and if I saw
him lick it up I may be forced to try running away again. His skin
was icy and slick.

“Breandan can never know,” I said and stepped
away.

“This Breandan is who?” he asked curiously
then stiffened. His voice was dark and angry, yet still, it stroked
me from the inside out. He stepped closer and sniffed at my hair.
Then he dipped his head and slid his mouth along the side of my
neck, lips cold and smooth. “He is the fairy I smell on you.”

“He’ll kill you.”

I checked my forearm. It had healed and I
fingered the two crescents now permanently scarring my skin. Good
thing I wore my hooded jumper with its sloppy sleeves like a second
skin.

“I have no plans to talk to this fairy. He
will never know, not that it would be the first thing I would say
should we meet.”

“What would be the first thing?”

“Nothing. We would fight and one of us would
die, of course.” He sounded as if it were a simple, common thing.
“And now we talk, the night calls to me.” I waited silently, like a
good girl, but he paused. Rather, he hesitated. “Rae–”

We locked eyes and the blackness enveloped
me. There was no more space between us, nothing to stop us coming
together. He reached out, clasped my hip and pulled me into him. As
my body molded to his, his lips nudged my head back and he tangled
his other hand in my hair. The scent of him was inexplicably
appealing. He still smelt like a vampire, but it was no longer
repellent. He smelt like Tomas, a blend of minerals and wet grass.
His face was no longer shadowed and ugly, but mysterious, and full
of character. His skin was icy to touch. He teased my lips open
with his as my teeth nipped his bottom lip. He growled, and I
responded with ferocity to equal his. I stood on my tip-toes to
reach his mouth, press myself against him. Sliding his hands
beneath my thighs he hoisted me up and pushed me against the wall.
It was then my glamour dropped and my wings spread and curled down
as I sought his mouth again. His cold tongue slipped between my
lips and stroked mine. Then his fangs ran out and sliced by bottom
lip open. He jerked back, but it healed almost instantly.

I ran my tongue over my lips and smirked.
“I’m not as breakable as I look.” I said.

He chuckled darkly. I found myself not
afraid, but intrigued and I licked the sharp tips of his fangs. He
groaned. Was it me? The feral and demanding girl with her legs
locked round a vampire-boy’s waist, digging my hands into his
shoulders, dragging him closer.

The kiss deepened and I clung onto him, one
hand fisted in his hair and the other roving across the nape of his
neck. Tomas pushed forward, securing me into his solid frame, and
ran his hands down my sides. My skin was on fire, my blood boiling.
He broke away to trail kisses down my neck then was still, holding
me. Both our chests heaved. I realized he was hot, hard and had his
mouth at my throat.

He swallowed loudly then slowly, deliberately
kissed my wildly jumping pulse, and leaned away.

We locked eyes again. I figured the look of
shock and confusion must have been mirrored on my face. I so had no
expected that. The biting, sure, that was bound to happen some time
or another, but a kiss that flooded every vein in my body with
fire? When did that become a possibility? Oh gods, what have I
done?

“That was–”

“Different,” I said and swallowed.

“This is not normal, Rae. My kind and your
kind do not mix.” His eyes travelled over my wings. He did not look
repulsed but intrigued.

“I didn’t expect… I mean, I’m sorry if I have
upset you.” He reached out and stroked my wingtip. I felt the
caress down to my toes. “Oh,” I breathed.

He nuzzled me and whispered in my ear, “I am
not upset.”

“I’m glad because I…” I blushed. “I liked
it.”

“You feel good to me too, but what shall we
do now?” My legs were still around his waist, and the wall
supported my back leaving his and my hands free. His wandered to
the edge of my jumper, then swiftly pulled it over my head.

My face felt hot. Never had I been kissed
like that before. Or treated like this. Breandan had been my first
kiss and it had felt wonderful. But my second from this vampire had
felt… oh, it hadn’t felt as nice as what his hands where doing now.
“That feels–” I sucked in a breath and my eyes fell to the body of
the Lady Cleric. All the blood left my face and my eyes twitched
back to his.

“Good?” he finished for me and raised an
eyebrow.

He raised his head to kiss my neck and I
couldn’t help it, I arced myself into him.

There was a gush of air as the door crashed
open. Splinters of woods flew like daggers and embedded into the
wall around us. Breandan thundered into the room and launched
himself at Tomas, knocking me to the side as he did so. They
smashed through the wall and were lost to my sight.

I was curled into a small ball and reality
was suspended. I found it hard to breathe right, my chest still
felt too tight from the emotions that had overwhelmed me during
Tomas’s embrace. I waited but the hole in the wall remained,
letting me see the night sky. I was feeling overwhelmed but it
helped centre me. It was all so much it made me step outside myself
and take control. The snarling, growling noises where getting
louder. I rolled up, darted forward and looked down, carefully
leaning on a patch of wall that looked solid.

Tomas and Breandan rolled around in the grass
like two fools, but two fools with dangerous weapons. Breandan
straddled Tomas, a shard of wood in his hand. The tendons on his
arm and neck were bulging, and the deadly point of the wood was a
mere jerk away from spearing Tomas in the chest. My vampire-boy was
on red alert. He looked menacing with his fangs fully on display
and his eyes glazed black; nostril’s flared. Snarling up a storm
his mouth snapped for Breandan’s neck.

I grabbed my jumper off the floor and dropped
through the hole. As I landed my already abused ankle twisted, and
I dropped like a stone. Why it had not healed?

My emotions were wide open, and wildness
seeped from Breandan’s nature to mine. It rubbed me up the wrong
way, and I found myself unable to stop the fight, because I was
battling the more carnal of my urges. It was telling me a threat, a
vampire was close and to attack. The conflicting feelings of hate
and lust I felt for Tomas had my stomach in knots.

“Calm down,” I said through my teeth, and
staggered up. “Breandan, look at me.”

He didn’t look, but his ears twitched and I
knew he was listening. First I was going to try and talk him out of
trying to stake my vampire then I was going to tear him apart.

I could hear voices around the corner. The
noise of them busting through a brick wall had been loud and messy.
We had woken the building up and it was only a matter of time
before confusion made way for ruthless order. Three floors up there
was a ragged hole in the side of my building leading into my room.
There was no way I’d even be able to hide it. It had
demon
stamped all over it. The Clerics were going to piece it all
together, and that would be it for me. The Clerics would come and
find us. In fact, Lord Cleric Tu was probably up there with the
body of his dead partner. He would know it was me in the forest. He
would know somehow I had gotten demons past the Wall, and into the
Temple. All of this passed through my mind in less than the time it
took me to glance up at the hole then glare at Breandan, since he
was still on Tomas like white on rice.

He turned his head to look at me, and his
expression was wary. Damn right it should be. I was beyond
pissed.

“I should have known,” he said to me. “I
smelt him on you, but I thought I was wrong.” I was going to have
to start taking many more showers if it was that easy to figure out
who’d I’d been with by a lingering smell. His eyes roamed the
space, for he could hear the voices too then came back to Tomas.
“You are mine, not a dead things snack,” he hissed.

He hadn’t seen the kiss. He thought Tomas was
about to bite me. Well, I didn’t know if I should tell him he had
it all wrong, or to leave it alone. Correcting him would bring up
questions as to why I was pressed up against the wall with the
vampire-boy all in my space with his fangs out.

Tomas didn’t say anything. He watched me. His
gaze felt heavy and as I looked into his eyes I whispered, “I want
him alive.” Breandan made a short noise of impatience and I raised
my voice. “Get off him. Now.”

“I do not know what he has done to make you
feel like you have to help him, but you must see he is–”

“You killed her!”

I spun round at the anguished yell.

Cleric Tu was red in the face and it looked
like he had been crying. He clutched a metal rod in his hand. I
remembered the drained body of the Lady Cleric and wondered how
close they had been. Had Tomas killed his love?

Breandan slid off Tomas and hauled him up
with one arm, moving so fast they both blurred. Tomas and Breandan
stared at each other, not a foot away. Tomas looked pointedly at Tu
and Breandan shook his head.

“We have no choice,” Tomas said curtly. “He’s
seen her.”

My head swung between them, trying to figure
it out what they were discussing. What choice was there to
make?

Cleric Tu lunged at Breandan. Tomas was
suddenly beside me, snarling. Eyes pitch black and fanged face
scary as death, but he wasn’t the reason fear gripped me hard and
had the breath whooshing from my lungs. Breandan was
losing
.
How such a thing was possible was beyond my comprehension, but his
movement was slow and his reactions sluggish. Each time the pole
came near him he shied away. Tu lunged forward again, thrusting
with the rod at Breandan’s torso. Instead of a thump to the stomach
the pole kept going, slicing through flesh, and burying itself in
Breandan’s stomach. Silence. Tu let go of the pole and staggered
back, face slack with shock.

Staring at the metal protruding from his
body, Breandan went pale and said, “Oh no.” Then he crumpled.

Tomas snarled, and stepped forward menacingly
toward the Cleric, who jumped then legged it back round the
building.

I scrambled over to Breandan, and fell to my
knees beside him. He was unconscious. I took a deep breath and let
my eyes roam down to collide with the stubby length of metal
sticking out of his abdomen. There was so much blood. Body propped
off the ground, the shard of metal had punched straight through
him.

“Rae, we must leave.” Disorientated by
intense dread, Tomas’s freaky silent vampire movement made me
jump.

“Say-so,” I said. “We leave, but I have to
help him first.”

“He is finished, I smell the iron.” He went
to place a hand on my shoulder, but I ducked from beneath his
touch.

“No,” I said and bared my teeth at him in a
snarl. He snarled back and it was a much more impressive showing
than mine. It shocked me out of it. I fixed my face, and pleaded
for understanding with my eyes instead. “I’m staying because, I
can’t… I can’t do this, Tomas. I cannot leave or watch him–” My
head swung from side to side jerkily. “We heal but it has to come
out.”

Placing my hand on the metal rod the instant
sting made me hiss. I snatched my hand back. Opening my palm the
flesh sizzled where glass had cut me open. Huh?

A cool hand landed on my shoulder. “Listen to
reason. I know you feel–”

“You don’t know shit,” I screeched. “Help me.
Help me, or get out my way.”

Gripping the pole again all my strength
zapped away. What? I just didn’t get it. Was there an enchantment
on it? The metal stung my hands until I had no choice but to
release it. Breandan’s hot blood trickled from his body, seeped
onto the ground in a growing puddle. Pooling around knees, it
soaked my jeans.

Tomas’s shoulder shunted me to the side.
“Give me room.”

Face grim, his fingers flitted over Breandan
and his nostrils flared. His inch long fangs were fully extended
and dangerous looking, telling me he was still hyped up;
bloodlusty, but his eyes had cleared to deep brown. A nasty gash
he’d gotten across his forehead when he’d crashed through the wall
had closed up to leave nothing but a smear of blood on his ashen
skin. “He needs healing. Heal him.”