Unbalanced (2 page)

Chapter 2

Addie knew she was dreaming. She had to be. Nothing else made a damn bit of sense. She walked through a world that didn’t exist, one where strange creatures roamed and multicolored lightning rent the sky. Nothing was real and yet if felt as if she were really there.

And she had amazing powers she didn’t understand.

She was a raven, flying over a vast forest, and then a panther with long claws and sharp teeth and a lust for blood.

It should have been terrifying, but she was utterly fascinated, almost as if she were sitting in a theater watching a movie in 3-D. A story began to emerge, one about a battle between the forces of good and evil. Warriors on one side fighting horrendous creatures on the other, but the warriors weren’t all that different from the bad guys.

No, the good guys appeared, in some cases, to be just as bad-assed as the ones they fought, and it came to her that sometimes the only way to fight evil was with something even worse. Something bad enough to scare the baddest of the bad.

Why that struck her as funny didn’t make any more sense than this amazing dream, but it did. She pulled herself back from the story she was trying to follow, wondering how it worked if the good guys were worse than the bad guys.

Who decided who was good and who was bad? Figuring that out was just going to make her headache worse, but she asked the question anyway. Out loud. In her dream. Yeah, she was definitely losing it.

“Okay, so if the really bad guys take care of all the wanna-be bad guys, who’s going to keep the winners in line?”

“You are.”

Between one heartbeat and the next, Addie was awake, alert, and scrambling back against the headboard of her bed with the blankets clutched to her chin. Blinking, gasping in shock, she stared at two of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen in her life—two almost identical men standing at the foot of her bed. One, dressed in all-black leather, had skin darker than midnight and ebony hair falling in long silky waves to his waist. The other man was fair, with silver hair hanging just as long, his beauty just as impossible.

“That’s where you come in,” the dark one said.

“You’re the fulcrum,” the light one said. “You keep the really bad guys in balance.”

“That would be us,” the dark one added. Then he smiled. His teeth cut a brilliant white slash against his ebony skin.

Still trapped in a state of utter disbelief, Addie blinked. “I’m not dreaming anymore, am I?”

Both men shook their heads. “No,” the dark one said. “I’m afraid you’re wide awake. I’m Jett.” Both men stepped around to the side of her bed and Jett held out his hand.

Feeling as if she still moved within a dream despite what he’d said, Addie stared stupidly at his fingers as he clasped her hand with his. His skin was warm, his grasp strong. They shook hands.

It was absolutely surreal.

“I’m Locan,” the fair one said, grasping her other hand.

Addie vehemently shook her head and pulled free from both men. “No. You can’t be here. You don’t exist. I locked my door and this is not happening.”

Locan shrugged. His silver hair rippled over broad, perfect shoulders clothed in what looked like soft white leather. “Actually, we are here and this
is
happening. I’m sorry, Addie. I think you must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. . . .”

“No.” Jett shook his head and stared at Locan. “Right place at the right time. Poor Leah.” He sighed. “She was too badly injured to continue, but she didn’t want to be here any longer, anyway. You know Leah’s wanted to go for years. It was her time. This one will do fine.” He glanced in Addie’s direction once again. His gaze traveled slowly from top to bottom.

Addie didn’t need to read minds to know what was on his.

She pressed her back against the headboard. “Do fine at what? What’s a fulcrum, and who is Leah? And who the hell are you and how did you get into my apartment?” She glanced at the phone lying next to the bed. They were too close. No way in hell could she call for help in time before they reached her.

“Relax, Addie. We won’t . . .”

“How do you know my name?” She glanced from Locan to Jett and back at Locan. “You’ve called me Addie twice now. How do you know who I am?”

“We know everything about you.”

Jett’s soft voice should have scared the crap out of her. Instead, it was oddly seductive. “How?”

“From Leah,” he said. “You found her in the park. She must have bitten you. She gave you the gift. . . .”

Addie’s hand flew to her throat. “There’s no mark. And she called it a curse, not a gift.”

Locan shrugged. “The bite heals immediately, but it’s enough to give you what you need, curse or gift. What we need.”

“Which is?” This was really freaking her out, but she couldn’t stop asking, couldn’t stop wondering why it all made such perfect sense.

“Immortality, to a point.” Jett glanced at Locan. “You explain it. I’ll just screw it up.”

Locan’s soft laughter was aimed at Jett, not her. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” He turned his attention to Addie. “Leah’s bite gave you the dream you dreamed tonight. What you saw is real. It’s happening. The battle is real, the one against demons and other creatures of the night, those trying to subjugate humans and tip the world into darkness.” He sighed. “Jett and I, for what it’s worth, are not much better. We were once among them, fighting with evil when we weren’t fighting each other.”

Addie glanced from one to the other. “You fought each other? But if you were both on the same side. . . ?”

Jett chuckled. “Demons don’t play well together.” He cast a sharp glance at Locan. “If you can’t fuck it or eat it, it has little value to a demon.”

Addie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, even more aware of the fact she was alone in her apartment with two very strange, sexy, scary men. “What made you change?”

“One like Leah,” Jett said. “Like you. A woman strong enough to pull us out of the darkness a long time ago. She showed us what we could be, what we could accomplish if we could hold it together, but we fight a constant desire to return.” He shrugged, as if the outcome were neither here nor there. “The lure of the dark side is stronger than the light. Our fate—”

“Our penance,” Locan said, interrupting.

Jett laughed. “Our fate,” he repeated, emphasizing the word, “is to fight those we once fought beside, but we need the fulcrum, the one who balances our natural instinct to kill one another. . . .”

“The one,” Locan interrupted, “who forces us to fight on the side of good despite our nature. The one who diffuses the tension that turns us to the dark side. She who vanquished us, the one who turned us to the light, is long gone. Leah came after. She has held us in line for centuries, but something happened tonight and she was killed.”

He glanced at Jett. “I will miss her, but you’re right. She was ready to go. I noticed the change in her, as did you.”

Jett nodded. “It was too obvious to ignore. She was more than ready. Leah was never cut out for this task. We were a burden to her. A chore, not a responsibility she wanted.”

Locan stared at Jett a moment. Frowning, he nodded. “I’d not thought of her that way. You’re right.” He folded his arms across his chest and focused once again on Addie. “Before she died, Leah passed her abilities to you. That’s how we found you. We were searching for Leah. Our search brought us here.”

“We’re hoping you got her memories as well.” Jett turned away from his spot beside her bed and paced across the room. He stopped in front of the window, pulled the curtain aside and stared into the darkness. “We don’t have any idea what the creature was that killed Leah. We’re hoping you can tell us.”

Addie’s head spun as if she’d added a few tequila shooters to the margaritas she’d polished off at Paddy’s. None of this made any sense.

No. That wasn’t true. All of it made sense. The dream, the strange echo of unfamiliar memories, of urges and feelings she couldn’t identify. A powerful emotional—even physical—connection to two very strange men. The mysterious Leah’s? But how?

Then Leah’s final words slipped into Addie’s thoughts. “She said to tell you she was sorry. That she wasn’t strong enough to fight the creature. Then she said to beware, that it was more powerful than anything you’d ever seen.”

Jett turned away from the window. “Did she say what it was?”

Addie shook her head. “No. She didn’t know, but she said to be careful, that it was hunting all of you.”

“Shit.”

Locan shoved his hair back from his face and glared at her. His brilliant blue eyes sparkled, and Addie thought of the blue fire she’d seen in Leah’s.

“She said that? She specifically said it’s hunting us?”

Addie nodded. “Yeah. She said, ‘It’s hunting us all.’ Why?”

“Because they don’t usually hunt us. They come here, avoid us, do their damage to humankind and move on until we kill them, but they’re fairly mindless. They never hunt anyone in particular.” He turned and stared at Jett. “I didn’t get a good look at it. The damned thing moved too fast.”

“Sharp teeth, long claws, a couple of extra arms.” Jett’s laughter carried absolutely no humor. “Stinks like the devil himself.”

Locan shook his head. “Well, not really like the devil. No sulfur stench. More like rotting meat.”

Jett frowned as he nodded. “You’re right. Definitely smelled like death.” He turned to Addie. “Are you ready?”

She glanced from Jett to Locan. Back to Jett. “For what?”

“It’s time to go hunting.”

“Hunting for what?” This was so not funny. Two gorgeous guys show up in her bedroom, but they’re both nuts. They had to be, with a story like this. Addie realized she still hugged herself as if she were cold. No, not cold. Just scared shitless.

“For whatever killed Leah,” Locan said. “For the thing that tried to kill us. Like we said, you’re the new fulcrum. Hunting demonkind is part of the job.”

Okay. This was truly way past bizarre and into totally freaky. “I see,” she said. “I’m supposed to hunt something that killed the last one with my job. Great. Now why don’t you tell me what the other parts of this promising career entail?”

Jett shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. You hunt demons with us and keep us from killing each other.” He shot a quick grin at Locan. “We have some, uh . . .”

“Compatibility issues?” Locan folded his arms across his broad chest.

“Yeah,” Jett said. “Compatibility issues.”

This wasn’t making any sense at all. “Okay. And how do I deal with your so-called compatibility issues?”

“Sex.” Jett and Locan answered together, looked at each other and cracked up.

Addie wasn’t laughing. In spite of herself, she was imagining getting naked with two of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen, and for whatever reason, she wasn’t at all put off by the idea. She swallowed, searching for sanity. “Sex,” she said, when she finally found her voice. “I see. With you?”

She was looking at Locan. Jett answered. “With both of us.”

“You’re the fulcrum.” Locan shrugged as he said it, as if his explanation made perfect sense.

“You’re the one who’ll keep us in balance,” Jett added.

No. Absolutely not.
What was she thinking? They’d just taken this entire episode from bizarre to unreal. As in,
this is not really happening.
Addie carefully slipped out from beneath the covers and stood beside the bed. She looked from Jett to Locan. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “When I come back out, I expect both of you to be gone. And my doors locked, the way they were before you broke in.”

She turned away from the two of them and walked toward the bathroom. None of this was happening—she was merely losing her mind. That was the only explanation. Addie didn’t have two gorgeous men in her room. There was no talk of hunting demons, not to mention sex with both men. No. That was like combining the world’s greatest nightmare with her ultimate fantasy.

It wasn’t happening at all.

A shower would clear her mind. It had to.

She closed the bathroom door and locked it. Pulled a drawer open to block the door so no one could pick the lock and shove it open. As much as she wanted to believe they weren’t real, she wasn’t about to play stupid. Then she turned on the shower, stripped out of her flannel nightgown and got under the spray.

A nice, warm shower and she’d relax. And then, when she went back into her room her imaginary visitors would be gone and she’d be able to get a good night’s sleep.

This was so far past bizarre, Addie figured she’d be laughing about it in the morning.

Laughing, or hunting for a good therapist.

Chapter 3

Locan folded his arms across his chest and cocked an eyebrow in Jett’s direction. “Well, that went well, don’t you think? Mayhap we should resort to charm?”

“Fuck off.” Jett stared at the closed bathroom door. Hell, even Leah hadn’t been this hard to convince. Of course, he and Locan had snatched her from a roving band of Pequot natives who’d kidnapped her from a Connecticut colony back in 1637—a couple of reformed demons had probably looked like the lesser of two evils to the innocent young girl.

No, Leah had been easy compared to this one, but she hadn’t caught his attention quite as powerfully. She’d been their partner, had done what they asked and kept the two of them from each other’s throats, but Jett knew Leah’s heart wasn’t in it. It never had been. He sensed that Addie could do more for them. She was stronger, more aware of her own power as a woman.

More in tune with her own sensuality, her needs.

Lights in the room blinked. Jett spun and stared at the door, sensed the pressure building. He directed a sharp glance at Locan. “There’s no time to woo her, my friend.”

Locan’s head jerked in a quick nod of agreement and he disappeared. Jett winked out just as abruptly. The two of them materialized inside the steamy bathroom just as Addie stepped out of the shower.

***

Addie rubbed the towel over her wet hair, bent at the waist and wrapped it tightly in a knot, and then straightened up. “Holy shit!” Reacting on instinct, she grabbed the towel Jett tossed at her and quickly wrapped it around herself. “What the fuck are you doing in here? How. . . ?”

She glanced at the closed door and the open drawer still blocking it. Her heart pounded and it was hard to get enough air. She didn’t realize she’d backed up until her warm butt hit the cold tile counter.

“There’s no time for this,” Jett said. “Whatever killed Leah is out there right now, in the hallway outside your front door. Locks won’t stop it, not any more than they stopped us. It could already be inside your apartment. We need to get out of here; go somewhere safe until we come up with a plan.”

“But . . .” She glanced wildly from one man to the other. “I’m naked. I don’t have any clothes.”

Locan shot a quick look at Jett and disappeared. Addie blinked. No, he was definitely gone. She heard a thump on the other side of the door, a low snarl and a curse. Jett held up one hand for silence. Addie kept her mouth shut, but her heart pounded loud enough to echo in the bathroom.

She was almost sure she heard heavy breathing, and it wasn’t hers, but there was something else, a
sense
of something out there that didn’t belong. Almost as if she listened with a new level of hearing, as if her brain was interpreting things in a unique fashion she’d not been capable of before.

Then Locan was back, appearing as suddenly as he’d gone. “Here. Put these on,” he whispered. “It’s out there. We don’t have much time.” He handed her a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater, socks, boots, panties and a bra.

Panties and a bra? She flashed him a quick look but he was at the door, listening to whatever sounded as if it was just on the other side. Addie dropped the towel, uncaring if either guy copped a quick look. They didn’t. She dressed quickly and slipped on the sturdy hiking boots. Laced them up and realized she didn’t have her cell phone.

“My phone’s in the other room,” she whispered.

Jett shook his head. “You won’t need it where we’re going.”
Can you hear me?

Holy shit. I can. You’re in my head. But how?

Locan smiled and took her right hand. Jett grabbed her left.
Hold on,
he said.

She did. She glanced up and saw the three of them reflected in the mirror. Her mouth fell open. Jett was on her left, Locan on her right. She held on as tight as she could and stared at the stranger standing between the two men.

Her normally dark brown hair—hair she wore in a fairly short, spiky cut—was now the same silver as Locan’s. The dark streak fanning back from a spot over her left eye was every bit as black as Jett’s. She couldn’t stop staring at herself—at her hair—even as the brightly lit bathroom suddenly swirled into shades of black and gray. Then her stomach did an odd little flip as she felt her feet leave the ground. Her knees buckled slightly as she jerked to a landing.

In the park. The same park where Leah had died.

“We can’t stay here for long,” Jett said, “but your apartment wasn’t safe.” He looked over her head at Locan. “It must have followed her home.”

“What followed me home?” She really didn’t like the sound of this.

“The thing that killed Leah,” Locan said. “It was in your living room when I went after your clothes.”

“Could you tell what it was?” Jett was scanning their surroundings. Addie decided she really didn’t want to know what he was looking for.

Locan shrugged. “I think it’s demonkind; not like anything we’ve fought before. More like a demon on steroids. Bigger, definitely smarter. It watched me, but it didn’t attack. I think it knew you guys were close, that I’d have help if it came after me.”

“Not that much help. Not nearly enough. We can’t even think of confronting it, much less going after it until Addie’s had some training. She’s not ready.” Jett glanced at her.

She didn’t say a word. What could she say?
Impossible
didn’t work anymore. She could no longer deny something strange was happening, that Jett and Locan truly existed, that she’d been dragged out of her own reality into one that was obviously theirs—and a hell of a lot scarier than the one she’d left.

She didn’t like the sound of anything either one of them was saying. In fact, there wasn’t much about this that Addie liked at all, but it didn’t appear she had all that much choice.

“I’ve got an idea.” Locan avoided Addie’s questioning glance and spoke directly to Jett.

Jett looked past her when he answered. “For once I agree. Now?”

Locan nodded.

And once again, Addie’s world spun out of control.

And just kept spinning—at least, until it stopped.

This time she was more prepared for the landing, but not at all prepared for where they landed.

Somewhere that couldn’t possibly exist.

Blinking, Addie clung to both men until the ground finally stood still and she didn’t feel like she was going to hurl. When she opened her eyes, throwing up was the last thing on her mind.

She’d landed inside her dream. The weird colors, the strange lightning, the quick flashes of impossible creatures moving in and out of her field of vision. “What the hell?”

She held even tighter to both men. Part of her brain—the logical office-worker part—told her that hanging on to two complete strangers capable of flashing in and out of existence really didn’t make sense, but the other part, the terrified little girl part, trusted them. She figured they were definitely better than what she’d glimpsed in the unbelievable vicinity.

Taking a deep breath, Addie glanced up, her gaze shifting quickly from one man to the other. “Where are we?”

“Another dimension.” Locan shrugged as if it were no big deal.

“We’re home,” Jett added. “Training starts now.”

***

“I can’t.”

Addie glared at him like a petulant five-year-old, and if this weren’t a life-or-death situation, Jett might have laughed.

But it was, and he didn’t, and if Addie wanted to survive, she had to learn. He wanted her to survive—wanted it on a deep, totally unfamiliar, surprisingly emotional level. Something he’d have to deal with at some point. Later.

“You can. Look at the top branch on the tree, imagine yourself as a raven landing on the branch. I promise you will not fall out of the sky.”

“Unless she suddenly thinks she’s a dog.” Locan chuckled in spite of the look Jett flashed him. “Dog’s are lousy flyers.”

“So are women. See?” Addie waved her arms. “No wings.”

“Because you’re not thinking wings.” Jett clenched his jaw, angrier at Locan than he was at Addie. She’d been thrown into this without warning. Locan knew better. Time was short and the danger grew by the second. They’d been here at what they considered home base for almost a week now, and Addie still didn’t get it. What was even worse—Jett’s ability to control his visceral reaction to Locan was weakening by the minute. He glared at Locan and then flipped him off.

Locan’s lip curled in a snarl. “Back off, Jett.” He straightened up from the stump he’d been leaning against. His eyes flashed, but it was his tone of voice that really grated on Jett’s last nerve.

“Fuck you, Locan.”

“Just try it, pretty boy. I fucked your pretty ass before. I can do it again.”

Locan stepped closer, shoving Addie out of the way. She stumbled. Jett ignored her. All he saw was Locan. The one he wanted to kill was Locan. Rage exploded, burying everything in a thick tide of crimson fury. He grabbed his blade. Steel flashed.

Addie screamed.

Locan’s blade was out and his body in motion as Jett lunged forward.

***

One second she was crouching low to avoid the sharp cut of Locan’s knife. The next she was hanging precariously from a broken branch high in a dead tree, flapping big black wings to maintain balance. She cursed, and the sound was the cry of an infuriated raven.

The men on the ground beneath her stopped in mid-strike. Both of them stared up, their battle obviously forgotten.

“I’ll be damned.” Locan shoved his silver hair out of his eyes.

“You are damned. Get over it.” Jett flashed a quick grin at Locan, as if they hadn’t just been trying to kill each other. Then he looked up and smiled at Addie. “Good job, Addie. I knew you’d figure it out.”

He bent over, slipped the big knife back into his boot, straightened and brushed his hands on his leather pants. “Now c’mon back down and we’ll work on some of your other skills.”

Addie wasn’t ready to leave her branch. Not yet. She’d done it. She had no idea how, but she was getting off on the fact she was a big black raven clinging to a tree branch, staring out over a landscape that could have been the set of some weird sci-fi movie. Movement in the distance hinted at other life, but it was hard to say what kind. There was no sign of a town, no power lines or roads or anything at all mechanical.

Not far from the devastated meadow where they’d first landed was the opening to the tunnel that led underground to a huge cavern. The same cavern where she’d slept—alone—the past five nights. Or days. She wasn’t sure yet how time worked here, wherever here was. There was light but no sun. No mountains—just tumbled rocks and dead trees, burned patches of scorched earth and putrid, swampy pools without a sign of life around them.

She’d asked where they were.

Jett had been the one to answer. He’d merely said they were
between
, in sort of a no-man’s-land in a dimension between what was and what wasn’t. As if that made sense.

Locan had told her they thought of it as their home, the place where they came to recover from wounds, to rest, to train.

Come down, Addie. You’ve done well.
Jett shoved the thick hair back from his face and flashed that beautiful grin at her.

Addie’s reaction to Jett’s rare smiles had grown by the hour, the same as her powerful attraction to Locan, but she couldn’t think about that. Not now, just as she wouldn’t allow herself to think about what she was doing hanging from a tree in the guise of a big black raven.

She merely leapt from the branch and spread her wings. A previously unknown instinct took over and she glided safely to the ground. As her claws touched the earth, she thought of herself as Addie, and she was. “How?” Shaking her head, she looked from one man to the other. “I don’t know how I did that.”

Locan shrugged. “Neither do I, but as long as you can do it again, it’s all good.” He looked her up and down and then shot a quick glance at Jett. “She needs weapons.”

Jett nodded. “I . . .” His head jerked around and he stared at Locan. “Grab her.”

Each man took one of her arms. Suddenly they were in motion—and then they weren’t. Addie barely had time to get her bearings before Locan pulled and Jett shoved until they all crouched behind a Dumpster on a dark street reeking of barf and urine and rotting meat.

It’s back. The creature we fought.

The one that killed Leah?
Addie glanced at Locan.

He nodded.

Where?

Open your senses,
Jett said.
It’s close. You should be able to feel it.

Or at least smell it,
Locan added.

Addie closed her eyes. Now that she knew she could become a raven merely by thinking it, she had a better idea what Jett meant when he told her to open her senses. She actually felt the demon’s presence.

It was almost as if she touched a whole new level of sensation, a part of her mind that could see beyond what she’d always considered her own little reality.

That reality now included two sexier-than-hell kinda good guys and one really nasty bad guy. Whatever that thing was, it was close enough that Addie realized the rotting-meat stink was not food gone bad. It was the disgusting creature moving slowly down the alley.

The one with four long arms, a scaled body and a head like a wild boar with sharp tusks and even sharper horns above its eyes . . . the one that appeared to be searching for them.

The one that, absurd as it seemed, looked vaguely familiar, but she’d worry about that later.
How can we fight that thing?
She glanced from Locan to Jett.

You’re not armed, so we’ll have to use you as bait.

Gee. Thanks.
She shivered.

Hopefully, if Locan and I work together, we should be able to overpower it. Last time it surprised us. We didn’t know what to expect.