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“Because I need to watch over you.”
She scoffed. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t kidnapped by a psychotic killer until you and Jace barged into Frankie’s pack. Before that I was fine.”
He winced. He knew it was his fault. He knew that before he and Jace had shown up at K9’s, the club run by Frankie Amato, Rochester werewolf packmaster and Jace’s girlfriend, Allsún had just been hanging out with the werewolves. He had brought Robert into her life. She didn’t need to point that out to him. “Yeah, I know it was my fault, but that’s all the more reason I need to keep you protected now. I know you’ve always been capable, but give yourself at least a few days to recover from what you’ve been through, Allsún. Allow me to watch over you.”
She tried to move around him, but whatever way she turned, he blocked her path. “I don’t need you to watch over me. Robert’s dead, right? If I remember correctly, Jace killed him.”
David nodded. “Yeah, Jace killed him.”
The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed. “Good. Then, as far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly safe.”
Without warning, she ducked underneath his arm and started to walk out of his life yet again.
“A few days ago a demon possessed your psychiatrist.”
Allsún froze. She lingered in the doorway for a moment as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to leave or not. Finally she turned around. “You have my attention now,” she said.
Relief washed over David. Maybe he could actually convince her to stay. “I went after that demon tonight.”
Allsún wrapped her arms around her body as if she was trying to hold herself together while she listened to him speak. “And?”
His face hardened at the thought of that demonic piece of shit threatening Allsún. “And I killed him.”
“Good,” she said. She turned to leave again.
“But it knew about you, Allie. It knew you’re the last Fae outside the Isle of Apples.”
Allsún turned back toward him. He could see in her eyes that she realized the ramifications of the news he’d just told her. If that demon had told even one other demon about her—and according to the doctor, it had told far more than one—the word would spread amongst them.
As the natural enemy of the demons, the Fae had been engaged in a constant war with them for centuries. But not long before David and Allsún separated, there had been a mass movement of Fae back to the Isle of Apples, an alternate dimension inhabited exclusively by the Fae, a completely different world. Since then David had done plenty of searching, and as far as he could tell, all the full-blooded Fae were gone, and Allsún was the only remaining half-breed outside the Isle. When she stopped hunting, she had gone undetected by the demons. Now that the demons knew she was still here, they would all be gunning for her.
A slight note of panic crept into her voice. “B-but I’m only a half-breed. He must have realized that I—”
“Allie,” he said, cutting her off before she could get herself worked into a tizzy, “you know that doesn’t make a difference to demons. You’re a faerie all the same. You’re still their enemy. Plus, you don’t think it’s strange that on all the nights you could have woken up, this was the one? I don’t know about you, but that’s a little too coincidental for my tastes.”
“Shite.” Allsún swore under her breath. The slightest bit of her mother’s Irish accent crept into her voice. That always happened when she was upset. “What do I do now?”
He stepped forward again. He was barely a foot away from her. He towered over her small frame and scanned the length of her body. She was hardly covered in the hospital gown, and being this close to her still electrified him. His desire for her came rushing back, though he was certain it had never truly left. God, how he’d missed her.
“Stay with me. Allow me to protect you.” He said the words as if the situation were only temporary, only until they could find a way to get her off the demons’ radar again, but deep down he wanted so much more. Being so near her when he knew she didn’t want him anymore was the sweetest form of torture—painful and divine all at once.
She shook her head. “You know I can’t do that, David.”
“Why not?”
She glanced at the floor, refusing to meet his gaze. “Because forgive me if I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t want to spend time with my ex-fiancé.”
Damn. That stung. His face remained calm on the surface, but inside he wanted to scream in agony. He was tormented by so many emotions he couldn’t let out. He wanted to say that he didn’t have to be an ex-fiancé, that nothing in the world would make him happier than getting back together with her again, but instead he settled for, “You know it’s necessary, at least for a few days until you’re back to normal again and can fight off demons on your own.”
“Fine,” she said. “But I want to make it clear that this is not a chance to mend things between us.”
A sharp pain hit him straight in the heart, but he held on to his poker face.
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I assume that’s not what you’re going for here, but let’s both be adult enough to agree beforehand that dredging up our past is only going to make both of us miserable. So, if I stay with you for the next few days, just until I’m on my feet again and we’ve figured this situation out, we’ll agree to be just friends and nothing more, okay?”
She stuck out her hand to shake on it. He stared at her and couldn’t help but wonder how they’d gotten to this point. How had their relationship gone so wrong? They’d grown up together, been friends since they were young.
It was the summer in between David’s junior and senior years in high school that changed everything. Allsún had been away all summer in Ireland with her mother, while David had spent his free time acting like an idiot and getting into trouble with Jace, who was home for a brief summer break from training with the Execution Underground. Once Jace had shipped off again, the rest of David’s summer was spent watching too many bad cartoons. With Allsún not scheduled to return until the day before school began, David had anticipated the first day of class like a starving man staring at a juicy hamburger. He had never been a bookworm, much less enjoyed school, but Allsún had gotten him into reading, which was the extent of his interest in learning. His excitement for that first day of classes had been solely because of the chance to see Allsún again. He had counted down the days all summer long until he could tell her his thoughts on the books she had left him to read.
But all of that had been blown to hell as soon as he saw her.
The once gangly Allsún who wore glasses a little too large for her face and a retainer, and possessed an unruly amount of curly, slightly frizzy hair, had blossomed into the gorgeous girl who every guy in high school wanted. Over the summer she had filled out in all the right places. Her hips had widened, and her formerly nonexistent breasts had developed and then some. She’d ditched her retainer, giving her the perfect smile, and her mother had finally caved and bought her contacts. Even her once-crazy curls had now fallen in smooth, perfect ringlets without a hair out of place.
Whatever was in the water in Ireland, David was a major fan.
Really, he hadn’t been sure if he was seeing correctly at first. Hell, he’d always thought Allsún was beautiful, even despite all her geeky attributes, but she’d been transformed overnight from his best friend to the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Sure, even to this day he still felt a bit shallow that he wasn’t interested in Allsún romantically until her inside and outside matched in beauty, but he had been a teenage boy then, and he knew now, as a full-grown man, that even in her nerdlike state he would have fallen in love with her.
When she’d walked into the hallway of Brighton High School after that summer, he’d dropped the three textbooks he was carrying, just like a total idiot.
A smile had blossomed across her face at the sight of him, and she’d thrown her backpack to the ground and run down the hallway to launch herself into his arms. “Hey, jerk. I’ve missed you.”
It had taken him a minute to respond. He’d still been trying to process the fact that his best friend, someone he’d never been nervous around, was suddenly the one girl in school he wished he could take advantage of. Shit, that was so not good.
They’d danced back and forth in an overly flirtatious tango throughout the year. They would go from being comfortable with one another one minute to avoiding each other for days the next, because in some way the thought of wanting to kiss and touch the girl he had once considered to be like a sister made him sick to his stomach with anxiety. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, and he hadn’t wanted a romance between them to mess up the friendship they’d shared for so long. But that friendship had already changed as soon as his attraction to her had made itself evident. He’d been certain Allsún had noticed the different way he looked at her.
He wished he could say that he’d swept her off her feet on prom night or something equally cheesy, like Sixteen Candles or all those other ’80’s movies that she loved to watch. But he hadn’t shown up with a birthday cake at her house to declare his love, he hadn’t ridden a lawnmower across her front lawn, held a blaring boom box outside her window, or any of the other ridiculous things that Allsún fawned over in those films.
One night, when she was at his grandmother’s house for dinner and his grandmother had gone to bed, leaving the two of them alone, he’d just done it. Mid-sentence. Without any warning signs.
Allsún had been talking about how his grandmother had offered to teach her to cook, and before he knew what was happening, his hand had been on the back of her neck. He’d pulled her into his lap and was kissing her with so much force the world seemed to spin. She’d kissed him back, and that sealed the deal.
They’d never been “just friends” since.
He’d thought that year of school had been pure unadulterated torture—wanting her but being completely unable to make his move—but that would be nothing compared to the torture of being around her now. Because now he knew her in every way he possibly could, wanted her more than anything, loved her more than anything, knew how great it was to be with her, and he knew how much he wanted to stop boxing all that up and allow himself to go back to the way things had been when they were together.
Back then he hadn’t known what he was missing, but now he knew exactly what he was missing—and the longing was going to kill him.
But he didn’t care.
He would torture himself every day if it meant he was able to see her.
With as much fake enthusiasm as he could muster, he forced a smile on to his face and stuck his hand out to meet hers. They shook.
“Friends?” she asked.
He gritted his teeth. “Friends,” he lied. “And nothing more.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FRIENDS? FRIENDS? WHY the hell did she have to label it like that? She had regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, and David’s willingness to agree had hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. She was fooling herself if she thought she could ever be “just friends” with David. She’d always cared for him, from the time she thought boys didn’t have cooties anymore until she was old enough to realize her true feelings: that she loved him.
She ran her eyes over his frame. Towering over her at a whopping six foot six, with muscles that put most of the male population to shame, he was quite literally tall, dark and handsome, sporting the bad-boy look to boot in his leather Harley gear. His deep brown eyes were so close to black she could almost drown in their darkness, and the feel of his large masculine hands holding her moments earlier was as divine as it had ever been. Heat rushed between her legs as she thought of all the things he could do with those hands.
No. She shook her head to shove the thoughts away as the handshake ended. She didn’t love him, not anymore. She had moved on from that chapter in her life, left all the memories, both the good and the bad, behind her. She did not love David. She didn’t even know David anymore. Until they’d recently met again, it had been years since they’d last seen each other for any extended period of time, much less spoken to one another. Her gaze traced over his sharply defined features, his prominent cheekbones and jawline. She was forced to admit to herself that David was like a fine bottle of top shelf whiskey that only got better and better with age.
A sudden feeling of self-conscious awareness hit her hard. She doubted he was thinking the same thing about her. She glanced down at herself, unable to ignore her appearance. A hospital gown wasn’t flattering on anyone, and from the lovely breeze she was getting back there, she was certain that her behind was bared for anyone’s viewing pleasure. And her curls probably hadn’t been combed through in ages.
But there she was, standing in front of David looking like something one of her cats had digested and then hacked up all over her brand new carpet. She knew she shouldn’t care, but somewhere a part of her still hoped that David was the same man she’d once planned to marry. The one who would take care of her when she had the flu or comfort her when she was sick, and tell her she was beautiful all the same. He thought he’d been seeing her at her worst then, but damn if she wasn’t vain enough to have put on just a touch of makeup every time before he’d come over.
Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, David began to text a message. “Let’s get you to my place and cleaned up as soon as possible.”
“Who are you texting?” she asked.
“Jace. He’s been blowing up my phone with calls for the last twenty minutes, probably wondering why you weren’t at the hospital when he showed up, and someone needs to watch over you while I finish up here. He can take you back to my apartment.”
“Wait a second. I agreed to stay with you, not to be kept under lock and key.”
“I don’t want you to get another look at what’s down in that basement.”
She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t some fragile china doll that was easily broken, and he knew that. “It’s dead bodies, David. I’ve seen them before.”
“You didn’t see what was around the other corner, and believe me, Allie, you don’t want to see it.”
She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen some pretty gruesome things over the years, David, and you know it. I doubt there could be anything down there that I haven’t seen worse. Remember when that Imp decided to prey on teenage girls?”
A grim look crossed his face. “It’s worse than that.”
Allsún’s eyes widened. She wasn’t certain she could imagine anything worse. She wasn’t weak, but she couldn’t detach herself from the victims the way David could. She had spent hours crying once that case was over with. It didn’t matter that they’d earned justice for the victims. The pain of the victims’ loved ones and their horribly unfair deaths was still with her.
“David, whatever it is, after everything with Robert, I’m sure I can handle it.” No matter her feelings, she wasn’t about to let him baby her. The sooner she could prove to him that she was strong, fully recovered both mentally and physically, the better. She needed to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
David shook his head. “Allie, I know you, and believe me when I say you can’t handle this one. We both know you’re one tough chick, so you don’t need to prove it to me. Not this time.”
“Fine. If you’re not going to let me help and just plan to keep me...keep me prisoner, then I’m leaving.”
She needed to get out of here and away from him anyway. She shifted to move past him, but he grabbed hold of her wrist. Another wave of electric power shot through her, straight to her heart and the growing warmth between her legs. The energy that flew between them just from his touch was mind-blowing and sexy and a massive reminder of everything they’d once shared. She could have sworn that from the brief look of shock in David’s eyes that he felt it, too.
She forced herself to pull her wrist away and fixed him with a stern glare—the same stern look that had always let him know that he was pushing the envelope with her, and if he kept it up, he would regret it when her anger peaked.
They both knew that hell hath no fury like a pixie pissed off. The last thing she needed was the heartache he still brought her, even all these years later.
David let out a long sigh and tried to renegotiate. “The point is that you shouldn’t be here. You need to be resting. You need to be healing.”
“I’ve been healing for a month, David. I feel fine now that the drugs are wearing off. All my injuries from Robert are gone.” She cringed a little as she said his name. The thought of what Robert had done to her still haunted her. “Besides, I want to get to the bottom of all this, too. I want to know why I was drawn here.”
The pain in his face pierced through her. She saw the guilt he felt written all over him.
He pressed his lips together until they formed a thin line before he sighed. “If you want to stay, then fine, but you’re not leaving my sight. I’m not letting anything happen to you. Not again.”
* * *
DAVID STARED DOWN at Allsún with resolve in his eyes. He had agreed to let her stay with him, but he still didn’t want her to see the atrocities in the basement. After all she’d been through, she didn’t need something like that seared into her memory.
The buzz of his phone interrupted their argument. She turned away from him as he pulled out his cell. Jace’s name flashed across the screen.
He hit the talk button. “Yeah?”
“So I have something to tell you that you’re not gonna be happy to hear.” Jace delivered the words slowly, as if he wasn’t certain he wanted to say them. “Frankie and I are at the hospital, and...Allsún’s not here.”
David eyed Allsún as she paced anxiously around the foyer. “Yeah, I know, J. She showed up here—at the crime scene.”
A string of profanities sounded from the other line. “And you couldn’t have fucking called to tell me that? Frankie and I were scared shitless that a demon had gotten to her before we did. I’ve been calling you repeatedly.”
“Sorry. She just now showed up.”
“Well, that’s a fucking relief. Aside from that, did you find anything?” Jace asked.
David bit his lower lip. He’d found something, all right. Something not fit for human eyes, something so evil it made his stomach churn and his heart hurt. “Yeah, I found something. I’ll tell you about it at the meeting.”
Silence answered from the other end of the line. David could tell Jace was waiting for an explanation.
“J, I’m sorry, man. I can’t even... This is just so evil. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
The images of what lay one level beneath his boots flashed through his mind. Those poor people.
“I’ll see you at the meeting, then. Get the job done, David. For their sake.”
David nodded. “Yeah.”
With a small click, the line went dead.
Allsún stopped pacing and faced him again, arms crossed over her chest. “So, are you going to tell me what else is down there or keep me in the dark?”
“You don’t want to know what’s down there, Allsún.”
“If I’m going to help you, I—”
He held up a hand. “Who said anything about you helping me?”
With a frown, she pointed to herself. “I did. If you refuse to let me leave your side, then you’re going to let me work the case with you.”
“I can’t let you do that. This is different than usual.”
“How different can it be, David?”
He shook his head. He knew Allsún, and he understood completely why she wanted to be a part of this. Back in the day, she had been amazing at hunting demons. They’d partnered together and had been damn near unstoppable, between her Fae power and his exorcist abilities, but that had been before he was a member of the Execution Underground, before Allsún decided she didn’t want to live a hunter’s lifestyle anymore. “Allsún, the demon massacred this family. You know that’s not typical.”
