Demon High (13 page)

I nodded. Laughter. “It’s coming from there.” I gestured to a place where the woods jutted out into the field. We veered left and entered the trees.

The woods are dense around Caldera. We instantly plunged into a jungle of brambles and vines.

More laughter, and the sound of leaves rustling.

“Doesn’t sound like she’s killing him,” Brittany muttered.

We picked our way along, following noises I didn’t want to analyze too carefully. Then the sounds stopped. We were hidden in a cluster of trees, a few feet further along they seemed to clear. The area was still wooded, but the underbrush wasn’t as thick and the trees were spaced a lot further apart. There also seemed to be some kind of a wall, an old foundation maybe. The noises had been coming from behind it.

Brittany placed a hand on my arm. “You think she’s…?”

I glanced back over my shoulder. We were a decent run from the cemetery or the circle and I was armed with nothing except an unbroken mirror. But it was my fault Nellie was here. If she was sacrificing Shane, I had to try and stop her.

I grabbed Brittany’s hand and squeezed. “You wait here,” I murmured. She’d saved me once. I owed her. Besides I was the demon wrangler. Nellie was my responsibility. Then, after a quick glance at Brittany to make sure she was going to do as told, I rushed out of hiding and charged toward the source of the noise. I had no real plan. My main goal was to startle Nellie, stop her from doing anything that would harm Shane permanently.

“Stop,” I yelled, unable to think of anything more dramatic. The woods around me were a blur, the entire experience surreal. I wasn’t even sure what I was charging toward; I just let adrenaline push me along.

About twenty feet into my dash, I stumbled, caught my foot on the remains of the low wall I’d noticed from the trees and fell. I landed face down on a half-naked Shane Bollock.

Panic washed over me. I wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead. He wasn’t moving and his skin was pale, what I could see of it, which was quite a bit. His shirt was off and his pants were unzipped. Parts of him were jutting out the opening that I had no desire to see. Swollen, excited parts.

Shocked and embarrassed, I scrambled backward. I immediately feeling guilty for letting my surprise and desire to get away overtake my initial plan to help. On hands and knees, I started back toward him.

“Kitten, you came. Poor Shane, he hasn’t yet.” Nellie crawled, like a cat, toward me. I realized she’d been sitting a few feet away, waiting.

I darted a glance at the unconscious wrestler. “What did you do to him?”

She laughed. “Nothing. Yet. I do have plans for him, but I have other commitments to fulfill first.” She had continued her crawl and sat next to Shane now. She traced a finger down his chest. Sighed. Then she looked up, and I could feel the full force of her attention on me, pulling at me.

I swallowed and tried to force my feet to shove my body backwards. She reached up and pulled a pin from her hair. It tumbled down around her shoulders. Golden and glistening. She shook her head. “Shane wanted help with his research paper. Wouldn’t you like some help? Aren’t you curious about the king’s whore?” She laughed again. Little tinkles that flowed over my body, made me tingle and flush.

My mind whirled. My body’s reaction…it didn’t make sense. She was a girl. I’d never, would never, but—.

“Leave her alone, Nellie.” Oscar Mullin stepped over the low wall, glanced down at Shane, then walked on past—past all of us. He stopped a few feet away with his back to us, his hands clasped behind him.

The pull, the attraction that had been so real, so confusing, vanished. The suddenness was shocking. It jolted me, as if I’d been hit by a bucket of icy water. Feeling naked and exposed, I wrapped my arms around my body and dropped my gaze to the ground.

“What are you doing here, Oscar? Worried that I’ll beat you to the payment? Or is being back home getting to you? Softening you? Don’t tell me you care.” Nellie tapped a finger against her lower lip, then pulled down, creating a perfect forties pinup pout. “Oh, that’s right. You
can’t
care, can you?”

Shane stirred, his eyelids quivering. Nellie stroked his chest, his belly, lower….

I jerked my gaze back to Oscar and felt heat warming my cheeks.

Beside me Nellie laughed.

I hated that laugh.

I forced myself to look at her, to ignore the up and down movement of her hand. “Let him go, Nellie.”

Her hand stilled, but she didn’t pull back. “Or what, kitten? Are you jealous? How does it feel to discover a whole new side of yourself? Don’t you want to investigate?” Her free hand moved to her blouse; three buttons popped open. “I’d be happy to teach you anything you want to learn, and then maybe you’d do a teeny little favor for me.”

I jerked my gaze away again; I hated myself for letting her get to me.

“She isn’t interested in you.” Oscar had turned and was facing us. His gaze was steady but detached. He shifted his eyes to Nellie, then back to me. “She’s a succubus. You know that. Did you research them anymore? They hunt men, not women.”

Nellie stood and took a step toward him. Her shirt was still open; her breasts fell forward and bobbed as she walked. She didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she preferred it that way. “That doesn’t mean we can’t play a little.” Without warning, she turned back to me. “Want to play, kitten? It will be fun.”

And there it was again, the knee-bending attraction that made me want to throw myself at her feet and beg her to be with me. Luckily, I was already sitting. I dug my fingers into the dirt, clenched my thighs and thought of priests and puppies, and little children on their way to school.

“Oh, how sweet. Pure thoughts.” She stepped closer and held out her arms.

Beside me Shane’s eyes flew open and he sat up. He grabbed me by the arm and jerked me down onto his chest. His lips were on me, big and wet like caterpillars soaked by the rain. There was a time I’d dreamed of kissing Shane, of having him want me…but this…this was nothing like what I’d imagined, nothing.

Panic knocked aside any attraction I’d ever felt for Shane or the succubus. I jerked the compact from my pocket and smashed it against the remnants of the stone foundation. It didn’t break. I clung to the plastic disc and smashed down with it again. There was a crack; pieces of plastic fell through my fingers. Glass cut my skin. I ignored the pain, clawed through the grass for a piece big enough to fight with, to do some kind of damage.

“Stop it.” A foot shoved against me, rolling Shane, who clung to me, too. Then Shane was jerked up. His hands tore at my clothes as he went. I heard cloth rip and felt air under my arm.

Oscar stood above me, holding Shane by the neck and seat of his unzipped jeans. Shane leered down at me, his mouth open, tongue lolling and his dick swollen and exposed. It was hard to remember at that moment that I had liked him once, even had a bit of crush on him.

My hand closed around a shard of mirror. The sliver pierced my palm. The reality of what had almost happened crashed down around me hard. I rolled over and threw up in the grass.

I couldn’t move for a few moments. I lay there panting against the earth, sucking the smell of humus into my lungs and trying to forget the feel of Shane’s mouth on me, his fingers groping me.

Behind me, Nellie let out an impatient breath. “Why did Kobal send you here with me? I could have convinced her…or Shane could have. You don’t know the desires I see in her, the loneliness. She would be happy. Serving Kobal…” I could tell from the position of her voice that she’d moved. I assumed she was talking to Oscar.

My logical mind told me to lay still, that I needed to hear what they said, but a bigger part of me couldn’t lay there. I needed to leave, get home, shower and pretend this awful day had never happened. I rolled over and forced myself to a sitting position. With my knees pulled tight against my chest, I tried to hide my trembling.

Nellie sat six feet away; Shane was passed out across her lap.

“Kitten, you’re alive.” She started to push Shane away, but Oscar stepped between us.

“Give it up, Nellie. You failed. Leave her be. Go do what you really want to do, while you still can.”

Nellie pursed her lips. “You think you know me better than you do. Maybe I really want the little kitten.”

Oscar grabbed her chin in his hand and looked down at her. “Do you? Do you really want a kitten with tiny little claws? Or a lion who can make everyone run with just the ferocity of his roar?”

She stared at him with such intensity that for a second I thought she was going to strike him. Then she laughed. “You do know me, especially for one so young.” She sighed. “Too bad you haven’t earned your mane. It could be fun.”

He dropped her chin. “I don’t have fun, Nellie. You know that.”

“True. So sad.” She sighed, then glanced at me. “Still, unlike you, brief visits aren’t my thing. If I secure the prize my reward will be worth my efforts.” She ran her fingers through Shane’s hair, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at me.

“But you didn’t. You pushed too hard. Take your toy and go.” Oscar propped his foot on the wall and stared over our heads. I got the feeling he’d forgotten any of us were there.

Nellie huffed out a breath, then grabbed Shane by the hand. “Come along. Let’s find somewhere else to play. The company here is
tres
depressing.” She stepped over the foundation, pulling at the leg of her pants as if she was wearing the finest evening gown, and like a dog, Shane followed her.

Watching them walk off, all I could feel was relief. I knew I should still be concerned about Shane, that he hadn’t attacked me on his own. He hadn’t even known he was attacking me, but it was still too fresh. His touch still in my mind, I shuddered.

“Here.” Oscar tossed a cloth onto my lap.

I stared at it for a second before remembering my hand, the mirror I’d gripped with plans of slashing Shane. I opened my fingers and dropped the bloody glass onto the earth.

Oscar picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. “You might not want to leave that laying around. Demons walk these woods, but you know that.”

Horror shot through me at my slip. I’d carelessly tossed aside something with a bit of me on it, and not just any bit of me, my blood. And now, Oscar, a demon had it.

But there was no way to ask for it back—or no way to force him to give it back. I
could
ask, though.

I held out my hand, the non-pulsing non-bloody one. “I’ll take that.”

Oscar slipped his hands in his pockets, but didn’t offer to return the mirror. I sat there for a second, hand out.

“Use the kerchief,” he said.

I folded my fingers back toward my palm and lowered my hand. Then I wrapped the cloth he’d given me around my wound.

“You can beat her, you know,” he said.

I jumped. He’d been so quiet, I’d thought he had forgotten me.

“Demons only have the power you give them,” he added.

I snorted. A very unprofessional, possibly stupid response, but I was tired. My guard was gone. “Yeah, well.” I pulled my feet under my body and used my good hand to push myself to a stand. “I’ll try to remember that next time hell is breaking loose.”

“You should.” His gaze was steady, still sad, but strong. Looked strange coming from a face so young.

But he wasn’t that young, I reminded myself.

The air around us thickened. I twisted one corner of his kerchief around my finger. “I need to go find Brittany. I asked her to wait for me, but she’s got to be getting concerned.”

“She isn’t.”

Same matter-of-fact response, but this time it bothered me. I glanced toward the woods and tried to hide my worry. “She will be. I better go.” I lifted my foot to step over the wall and with every intention of speed-walking back to where I’d left Brittany.

“She won’t, because only a few seconds have passed in her life.”

I clomped my foot down and stood straddling the wall. “What?”

“I’m a demon, Lucinda. There are some…extras that come with that.” He stepped closer. The smell of the woods intensified. I could feel the heat of his body. It was cool and damp in the trees, but I knew if I placed my hand on Oscar’s chest, he would be warm, that that warmth would flow from him to me, make me feel alive, even though
he
wasn’t. Not really.

I raised my hand. He stared at me, his eyes soft and dark. There was pain in them, so much pain. I wanted to touch him more than I had ever wanted anything, but I couldn’t. The emotion flowing over me was too intense. My body swaying, I closed my eyes. Then when I opened them I didn’t look back; I couldn’t. I looked to the woods where Brittany waited instead.

“But Brittany…” I murmured, more covering my discomfort than expressing concern for my friend.

He sighed and took a step back. “She’s fine. She wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t interfered. Did you really think Brittany would stay waiting in the woods? Let you walk out here alone?” He shook his head.

The obvious truth of what he had said made me feel like an idiot. The moment was over. My body went cold, then hot. Embarrassment followed.