Demon Moon (23 page)

He couldn't answer. Astonished, he stared up at her. Demons had complete recall, but they'd been angels once, their minds different from humans' and halflings'. And in two centuries, though he'd heard of such, he'd never met a human with the ability. Nor any Guardians or vampires; transformation drastically improved memory, but couldn't make it perfect.

If it did, Colin wouldn't have possessed a gallery of self-portraits.

In sudden realization, he drew in a sharp breath; she would never forget his face. Never let him fade into a dream.

“Don't look at me like that.” Her lips firmed, her hands clenched. “It makes me feel like a monkey. ‘Savi, what a neat trick. Do it again. Tell me what you had for lunch on November third, 1989.'”

Bitterness filled her voice; little wonder, if that was the type of response she usually got. What a fucking ridiculous question. “My sweet Savitri, I'm simply astounded by the revelation that I'm being chased by a vampire sporting the horror of a mullet.” The same manner of hairstyle worn by the partner of the female Colin had slain. Bloody hell.

The tightness around her mouth eased. “Do you remember it all?”

Colin belatedly recalled the phone in his hand. Castleford probably grew impatient. “Yes. Four-A-V-X-seven-eight-five?” Different vehicles.

“Yes. Tell him I'll do a search on it tomorrow. Unless you need the info tonight?”

He shook his head, forced himself to speak evenly. “It'll wait.” As long as Auntie was safe, the rest could be pursued after he'd had Savi, and bound her to him with pleasure.

Even more important that he did so now.

“You've rebuilt your shields. Have you reconsidered your decision to leave with me?”

“No.” Her dark gaze searched his for a moment, and the uncertainty there prevented his relief from overwhelming him. “I wasn't trying to be nosy when I asked you why you wanted me to look. I have to focus on a few details or there's too much to see. You wouldn't want to be in my head when I'm narrowing down to that point—and the strongest emotion I use as my connection to the memory lingers for a few minutes. That's why I'm blocking now; I'll let them down again when it goes away.”

His brows rose, and amusement curled his lips. “You can let them down now. There's nothing in you that can shock me, my sweet Savitri. There's very little I haven't experienced.”

“I know. I imagine you know what this feels like all too well.” She wrapped her arms around her middle; her fingers were trembling. How long had they been so? He'd only been attending to her facial expressions.

His throat closed with sudden dread. His teeth clenched together in denial, but he knew what she'd say next.

“My memory in the car centers around you. To get there, it's like walking along the threads of a web, from one memory of you to another.” She released a shaky breath. “And my strongest link to you is what you gave to me in Caelum.”

Terror. Despair. His chest constricted; a painful, leaden weight settled in his gut.

She'd never forget that, either.

She'd apparently picked up a dramatic flair from Lilith, but what she really needed to learn was when to stop.

At the front counter, Savi bit her lip and cast another glance at Colin. He stared unblinkingly out the window, his jaw set. He'd only looked up once, just after she'd lowered her shields.

He'd turned to her with a disbelieving arch of his brow, and then resumed his brooding.

“You're acting just like Hugh,” she said softly.

His head jerked around, and his offended stare pinned her to her seat. For two men who had vows of protection and loyalty between them, there also ran a mutual antagonism. Entertaining at times, and useful.

Her eyes narrowed. “It's true. He used to mope around, ‘Woe is me! I've done something terrible to the woman I want to screw!' It's stupid.”

“Are you talking to yourself,
naatin
?”

Savi's mouth snapped closed, and she flushed. Colin turned to look out the window again, but his hand came up to cover his lips.

Nani's exacting gaze traveled over the front counter, and she straightened and arranged items to her satisfaction.

“I was just thinking that Mr. Ames-Beaumont has waited long enough to take me home. It's all closed here up front.” Savi waved toward the dining room, the chairs she'd turned upside down on the tabletops, the swept floors.

Her grandmother's lips pursed, but she nodded. “You shouldn't take advantage of him this way, Savitri. I would have driven you home.”

“It's out of your way. He's going to see Lilith and Hugh anyway, and I thought I'd find out if he knows of anyone suitable at Ramsdell Pharmaceuticals. There should be lots of doctors and researchers.” Her cheeks were hot; thankfully Nani was still checking to make certain everything was in its place.

It wasn't the first time she'd lied to her grandmother about her activities—and it was better Nani didn't know—but it was the first time someone had witnessed her doing it.

How humiliating that Colin would see that she had to explain her decisions and gain approval. He surely couldn't know that according to Nani and her friends, no matter a woman's age, she wouldn't be considered responsible or her decisions given any credence until she was married and had produced a few children. Or grandchildren.

And Savi's continuing fascination with things Nani considered childish—video games, manga and anime, electronics—certainly hadn't helped any. Nor had her ever-changing interests.

A woman was steady, dependable. Savi was not.

Nani put her hands on her hips. “You didn't feed him anything,
naatin
. If he's to help find you a husband, you could at least have given him something to eat.”

Savi didn't dare glance his way for fear she'd begin giggling uncontrollably. “I'll make sure he eats after we leave.”

Nani waggled her head from side to side in assent and walked toward Colin's table. Savi left him to defend himself, slipping into the office to collect her coat and bag before returning to the front.

She stopped, and the swinging door bumped into the back of her shoulder. Colin danced around the tables with Nani in his arms, and he sang along with the Bollywood tune playing lightly through the speakers. Her sash trailed behind her, a brilliant flash of magenta.

Nani's face was suffused with delight, though she obviously tried to suppress it. Reluctant, breathless laughter punctuated her protest. “No,
beta
—you will make an old woman lose all sense.”

Colin winked at Savi over Nani's head, and then twirled. He moved effortlessly, gracefully; it was pure pleasure just to watch him. “Only if you cease calling yourself old; it makes me feel an ancient. Compared to me, you are but a blushing maiden.” He began singing again.

Savi leaned against the doorjamb, her knees weak, her heart pounding.

They danced past the kitchen door as the song came to an end. Colin paused, bent, and gently dipped Nani back over his arm. He dropped a loud kiss to her flushed cheek.

“
Beta!
You must stop this silliness!”

Colin unrepentantly pressed his lips to her other cheek. Then with a flourish, he set her back on her feet. “Do you think me a wicked scoundrel, Auntie?”

Nani dipped her chin as if to hide her enjoyment, and kept her hands busy rearranging her clothes, her hair. “Yes,” she finally said.

“Savitri likes me, even if I am a scoundrel.” Colin's eyes gleamed as he turned and met Savi's gaze. “But only because I'll give her a ride.”

“It is very kind of you to do so,” Nani said.

Savi choked and started toward the exit before she burst into laughter. “We should go. Bye, Nani!” The bell over the door rang as she slipped through. She leaned back against the plate-glass window as she waited for Colin to follow; he was probably more polite in his good-byes than she'd been.

He strolled out a moment later, his hands tucked into his pockets, his grin wide. His golden hair had been mussed by the dance, or he'd run his hands through it, but it still managed to look perfectly, artistically unkempt.

“You're terrible,” she said. Her breath puffed in the cold air.

“And what of you, teasing me? ‘I'll make sure he eats after we leave, Nani,'” he mimicked. Despite his amused tone, his gaze sizzled through her, lithium and water. He took her hand in his. “Come along, sweet. I'm hungry.”

Oh, god, she was too. Awareness burned from their linked hands to her body. Her nipples were sensitive and aching beneath her shirt, and desire pulsed low and heavy and wet. His stride lengthened as he turned down the alley beside the salon, pulling her through to the back lot. The slap of her flip-flops against her soles seemed incredibly loud in the darkness.

The streetlight glinted against his watch, and she looked down, catching her breath. His shirt cuff edged high on his wrist, exposing its lean, strong lines. He led her across an intersection, and the tendon in his inner wrist flexed; it should have looked soft, not powerful.

“How much farther?” She wasn't going to last more than a second when he finally touched her.

He threw her a heavy-lidded glance over his shoulder and led her into another narrow alley, cutting between the back of an apartment complex and the side of a convenience store. “To my car? Or my bed?”

Just the word from his lips made her crave smooth sheets and naked skin. But that could be for later, as could leisure. “Do we need a bed the first time?”

His steps faltered. “No.”

His mouth muffled her cry of surprise; he'd pressed her up against the shop's cold stucco wall before she'd registered his movement. His tongue dipped between her lips as he lifted her and wedged his hips into the tight cradle of her thighs.

Oh god
. Too much denim, too many clothes keeping her from that rigid, thick length. She rocked against him desperately and dropped her shields, hoping to urge him faster.

A shudder wracked his body, reverberated through hers. His lips closed over her tongue, and he began sucking on it with slow, excruciating tenderness.

“In me,” she gasped when he stiffened against her, raised his lips from hers. He'd come just from her kiss before—and a bit of blood. She wanted to go over with him this time.

“Wait, Savi…wait.” He was breathing hard, his chest pushing against her breasts with the rough rhythm of it. “I'm—” He broke off and shook his head, as if to clear it.

She tugged on his shoulders, tried to pull his mouth to hers again. “The bloodlust? Don't stop because of that…it's kind of the point tonight, isn't it?”

He inhaled deeply, turned his head to look down the alley. The tension in his body heightened.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Wyrmwolf,” he said quietly, but he sounded uncertain. After a frozen moment, he relaxed and glanced down at her. “I don't sense it now. Likely a false association with the taste of you—from the night at Polidori's.”

“You can
taste
me?” She stared up at him; shadows hid most of his expression, but with his enhanced vision he would not mistake the arousal on hers. “When you said that before…I didn't realize you meant it literally.”

“I did.”

“Just my mouth? Or everything?”

His lids lowered. “That's what I intend to discover, my sweet Savitri.” He bent his head, and she instinctively arched her neck toward him as his tongue ran up the length of her throat. Her core seemed to melt, hot as liquid copper. “Yes,” he breathed as he reached her jaw. “Your skin, a light flavor. Your lips, like sweet nectar.” His hands pulled her hips tightly against him, and her inner muscles fluttered and grasped for fulfillment—but she remained empty. So empty. “What shall we find here, I wonder? I may decide to drink from you in every possible way when I taste you here.”

She should have been frightened or disgusted, she realized dimly. But the thought of his fangs piercing her so intimately pushed her beyond reason—as did the knowledge that she was the only one he could taste. Two, three days from now, when he had another…she would not give him what Savi had.

And she should have been ashamed of the depth of her triumph. It was impossible to hide it from him; her emotions were wide open for him to read.

He laughed softly and nipped at her bottom lip. “It's not so easy, is it? But I'll not think you an ass for it.”

Chagrined, she raised her shields. Better to keep them up until she controlled her stupid—

His head snapped back, his eyes wide. His skin drew taut over his cheekbones.

“How quickly can you run now, Savi?”

Colin's softly voiced question frightened her more than the deep growl echoing down the alleyway. She unwrapped her legs from around his hips, set her feet on the ground. Remembering the speed with which he'd moved at Polidori's, she said, “Not fast enough.”

He nodded tightly as he turned his head, his gaze locking on whatever he saw there. She knew what it must be, but was too afraid to look.

A wyrmwolf.

“Do you have anything in your reticule? A knife, a gun? A garrote?” Colin's body still pressed hers into the wall; protection instead of passion now.

“No weapons. I'm sorry.”

A feral snarl ripped through the air, shivered down her spine. Why did it wait? Was it uncertain, confused by the two of them there?

Though he didn't look at her, his lips tilted in a quick smile. “Don't apologize, sweet. Just brace yourself, and hold on. It's a short distance to my car, but it'll chase us.” He pushed a pair of keys into her palm, then slowly bent and slid his forearm behind her knees. “If I fall, get inside and use the symbols.”

Her heart thundered, a protest rose in her throat, but she didn't let it out. She wound her arm around the back of his neck and tucked her chin down.

Even with that precaution, the rotation and acceleration whipped her head against his shoulder, made the world swim sickeningly around her.

She forced herself to stay conscious, though she couldn't breathe, though her chest felt weighted by a boulder. G-forces? The rear end of the Bentley rushed toward them with startling speed. Oh, god, how would he stop in time?

He didn't. They were suddenly airborne, and the world spun again as Colin twisted, lifted her arm from his neck, and curled himself around her. She had a brief glimpse of the wyrmwolf directly behind them, its jaws wide open and slavering.

They crashed through the wide rear window; Colin took the brunt of the impact on his back, but it still slammed through her. Lights exploded behind her eyelids. She barely felt it when he tossed her over the headrests and she landed in the front seats. She bit back the gasp of pain as her stomach jarred into the console.

She had no air for it, anyway.

Growls filled the car, Colin's and the wyrmwolf's. Tiny cubes of glass lay on the seat beside her; with shaking fingers, she picked one up and sliced the edge across her palm in a jagged line.

She held her hand over the symbols on the dashboard, and turned to look, waiting.

The wyrmwolf's head and shoulders were through the shattered window; Colin was ripping at the backseat, while trying to hold it off with his other hand. He didn't make a sound when it clamped its jaws around his wrist, but used his trapped arm to batter the thing's head against broken glass and metal trim. The roof dented with the force of it.

It whimpered and let go; Colin pivoted on the seat and slammed his foot against the side of its jaw. It fell back, outside the car.

Savi activated the symbols.

The wyrmwolf smashed soundlessly into the back window as if the glass had been intact. The Bentley rocked beneath the impact, but the spell held.

Colin clawed at the seat back, leather and stuffing flying to the side. Trying to get to the trunk, she realized. He must have weapons inside. She could see the small leather loop that would allow him to pull the seat forward, and give him access—didn't he know it was there?

“Colin—”

“Don't talk!” he commanded hoarsely. The seatback tore from its fastenings with the rip of fabric and screech of metal. “Don't fucking move, and don't lower your shields.”

She bit her lip and nodded. Her palm burned, and she cupped it tightly over her knee to staunch the wound—but he must smell it. Shudders wracked her body, welling up from deep within.

Her blood, his blood. The pain of the wyrmwolf's attack. He had to be at the edge of his control.

She could hardly believe he had
any
control.

He leaned forward and withdrew two swords from the trunk before straightening up. He kneeled for a moment, his back rigid, his breathing harsh.

“Are you hurt?” he finally asked.

The wyrmwolf's grisly muzzle and glowing red eyes appeared in the window beside her face. She swallowed her scream, and whispered, “No.” Not critically.

The car shook. But the wyrmwolf outside the window hadn't—

“There are two,” she realized in horror.

“Yes,” he said grimly. “It's on the roof, waiting.” He turned his head, looked at her over his shoulder, his profile drawn in stark relief against the darkness of the empty window beyond. “I can't stay in here, Savi. You're bleeding.”

She forced the words past the ache in her throat. “You would have fed from me tonight anyway.”

His eyes closed. The blades rattled together before he separated them; he held them to his sides, one in each hand. “I don't know that I could stop, or make it pleasurable. I'm not at my best at this moment.” He dragged in a deep breath. “Auntie will shortly be leaving the restaurant.”

Oh, god. He'd danced with Nani, kissed her. If the wyrmwolves were attracted to his scent, they might abandon the protected car for easier prey only two blocks distant.

His face wavered in front of her. “Colin—”

“Don't cry, sweet; I've every intention of trouncing them soundly.” He sighed. “Though I must confess I didn't expect to make my heroic exit through the boot.”

She covered her face with her uninjured hand. How could she laugh at such a time? “At least your exit will be a beautiful one,” she said, looking through her fingers. “Your assumption was correct; you are spectacular from this angle.”

His teeth flashed in a grin. “Consider yourself kissed senseless. I daren't do it in reality.”

He paused, held her gaze for a long second. Then he was gone in a blur of movement; the trunk lid swung up and thudded shut.

The wyrmwolf at her window disappeared.

Savi scrambled into the destroyed backseat, peering into the trunk cavity. There had to be something. She was useless with a sword, far too slow, but with a gun or a crossbow she could remain at a distance and offer him some help.

Blood spattered silently across the passenger side window.
Let it be theirs. Please let it be theirs
. She groped wildly, blindly around the trunk's interior.

Nothing. The car rattled, as if an earthquake shook the ground beneath. She rose up on her knees, her breath coming in desperate pants as she stared into the darkened parking lot.
Think, Savi
. But everything took too long, or would put her in a position that might divert his attention and endanger him.

A short, hysterical laugh fell from her lips. As if he could be in any more danger than he was.

Colin suddenly landed on the trunk, splayed on his back. He instantly flipped upright, and his feet danced across the gleaming surface before he leapt down. A wyrmwolf's underbelly—scales and glistening flesh—flashed into her view as it followed him. Only one…where was the other? Had he killed it?

Her fingers clenched into fists. She really fucking hoped so, and she wished she could have seen it happen.

At the far end of the lot, another four-legged beast streaked across the pavement, its canine form lit briefly by a security light.

Savi started forward in terror, ready to jump through the back window and alert Colin, but there was no need—halfway across the parking lot, it shifted into a familiar, horrifying form: a hellhound in its demonic state. As tall as Colin at its shoulder, three heads, and eyes that shone with hellfire.

Sir Pup.

Colin's blades caught the moonlight as he slashed at the wyrmwolf. It launched itself at Colin's head; he ducked, and Sir Pup caught the wyrmwolf mid-air. The middle pair of the hellhound's jaws clamped over the wyrmwolf's midsection, the others on its hindquarters and head.

Sir Pup made a single, jerking motion, and the wyrmwolf ripped into three pieces. He tilted back his heads and gulped them down.

Savi clapped her hand over her mouth, and was suddenly grateful for the symbols that disallowed sound to accompany sight.

Until Colin looked up at the sky, and the expression on his face told her he was laughing—she'd have loved to hear that. After a moment, he waved toward the car with one of his swords, and Sir Pup hopped eagerly in place, like a dog waiting for the toss of a Frisbee.

Telling him where to find the other wyrmwolf, she supposed. And indeed, Sir Pup ran toward the car, paused briefly with his forelegs braced on the trunk to look at her, and clambered up. He dragged a carcass to the ground beside the car and began tearing at it.

Oh, no. “Wait!” Savi cried, but of course they couldn't hear her. She slid into the front seat, pushed open the door on the opposite side. “Wait, don't eat it!”

Colin stood near the trunk, watching the hellhound. “A little late, sweet.”

“Oh. Dammit. We might have been able to use traces of soil from its feet to determine where it came from.”

“Its head is here.” He nudged a lump on the ground with his foot, then glanced down at his shoe and grimaced. “Perhaps it ate a few things on the way, and you can pick bits of them from its teeth.”

She tried to cover her disgust with a smile; she could smell the odor of its blood now—rotten, sulphuric. “I can scour the missing pet notices. ‘Your cat, Fluffy, is missing? Yes, we've found his collar caught in a wyrmwolf's jaws. Do you have a portal to the Chaos realm in your basement?'”

Her smile failed as his jaw hardened, and he turned his face farther away from her.
Stop, Savi. Don't mention Chaos again
.

His sleeve was torn from the attack in the car, and a stain spread over his abdomen near the top of the inverted V formed by the unbuttoned bottom half of his jacket. She'd have gone to him to examine it more closely and would have tried to bandage it if not for the forbidding expression on his face.

“You were bitten.”

“And I'm not likely to forget it.” He tossed his swords through the shattered back window, and they clanged together as they landed on the seat. “You're still bleeding.”

She tucked her hand beneath her opposite arm. Blood soaked the denim over her knee—cold and wet, sticking to her skin. “Sir Pup will protect me.”

“And who will protect
me
from Sir Pup?” There was no amusement in his tone. “You shouldn't have come out.”

Her stomach twisted painfully. “I'm sorry. I didn't think.” She'd just trusted that all was well after she'd seen him laugh, that he'd regained control. And acted impulsively, to stop Sir Pup from devouring evidence.

“Ah, yes.” A sardonic smile thinned his lips. “
You didn't think
. I thought I taught you well; yet despite your playing the wronged little girl for eight months, and your insistence that you know better now, you haven't learned a bloody thing.”

The color drained from her face, left her features stiff. Her wide smile almost cracked her cheeks. “Excuse me.”

The car door was open; she only had to reach in and slip her cell phone from her bag. She couldn't look at Colin, and perhaps it was foolish to turn her back on him, but she did. She dialed the number for the taxi service from memory and walked to the front of the car as it rang.

Her legs shook with the need to run, but she forced herself to sit down on the concrete parking stop. She leaned her shoulder against the bumper, and began counting the tiny, pentagonal holes in the radiator grill.

She was at fifteen when the disinterested voice of the dispatcher answered. For a moment Savi couldn't recall her location, but it only took a second for it to pop into her head.

Sixty-five holes when she hung up. Fifteen minutes until the taxi would arrive. She could make it to two thousand holes by then.

Colin's cold laughter floated over the night air. “I must confess I'm shocked you didn't ring Castleford. Your knight in armor, come to defend your honor and save you from the evil vampire. Would he have been pleased he didn't have to pry you away from me this time? Or disappointed he didn't have a reason to exile me for another month? Or, God forbid, a reason to remove my head from my shoulders?”

That was why Colin had left for England? Because he'd been a danger to her?

One hundred and seventy.
Don't think, Savi
.

But it was impossible. She knew what he was doing; perhaps she should have been glad of it. He'd coated truth with cruelty at Polidori's, too—as his fucked-up method of protecting her from himself, and of putting distance between them.

But it didn't make sense. What kind of bastard protected someone by hurting them?

“Perhaps I should give him a reason,” Colin rasped into her ear. His knees rose alongside her waist, his chest hard against her back. He must be sitting on his heels directly behind her, like a hawk over its prey. Her teeth dug into her lip as his hands slid around to cup her breasts. “Why deny myself? You run now, when you should have run a week ago. You claimed you'd learned and yet you agreed to try friendship, then denied our mutual satisfaction like a tease. Did you think to hold off until I panted after you?” She shuddered when his fangs scraped the soft skin below her ear. His erection was thick against her bottom, his breathing harsh. “I felt your jealousy, little Savi. Did you intend to string me along until I was so mad for you that I'd beg and promise to forsake every other woman for a taste of you? Perhaps I should give you a repeat performance; you'll certainly learn then.
It can be just like Caelum
.”