Trinity Blue

Eve Silver

Prologue

Ten miles north of Fort Vancouver, Oregon Country, 1834.

Night settled, dark and wet, the air smelling of damp earth and blood and death. Daemon Alexander knelt in the dirt, a woman cradled in his arms. Her long hair fell across his sleeve and tumbled to the ground in a riot of guinea-gold waves. She shifted in his embrace as though trying to pull free of him, her breath rattling in her chest.

“Do you want to live for ever?” he whispered, wiping away the thin trickle of blood that slid from the corner of her mouth. Say yes. Ask me. Only say the words. He could do nothing if she did not say the words. Her gaze flicked to his, then away. He knew then that she could not bear to look at him now that she had seen the truth. Seen what he was. “Would you rather die?” Daemon rasped. He rested his fingers lightly on her throat and felt her pulse slow, the pace stuttering as her blood leaked out to pool beneath them.

“No ... I do not want ... to die,” she whispered, a tear tracing a path along the pale skin of her cheek. “But ... I cannot bear to live . . . not like . . . you.”

Not like him. A monster. A dark creature that played host to even darker creatures. He had no reassurance for her because he had no reassurance for himself. There was no name for the vile thing he was, at least, none that he knew. Basking in the illusion of their life together, he had forgotten that for a brief time.

“I love you.” His declaration hung in the air, pallid and weak. It meant nothing in the face of his betrayal. He had come to her as a man, made her believe he was a man. He had almost believed it himself. He had brought her here, to a place wild and untamed. Dangerous. The responsibility for the attack on her was his and his alone. “Let me save you, Alma. Only say it. Ask me. I beg you.”

She turned her head and looked at him then.

“I love you,” he whispered again, desperate.

“I despise you.” Her words were so faint he might have made himself believe he had misheard. But no. He would not allow himself that reprieve. He deserved her hate.

“I—” His arguments, his pleas locked in his throat as her chest deflated on a final breath. Too late. She was gone. And he was left with her broken shell in his arms.

All around him the shadows shifted, dark forms rising from the bodies of the men who had come here to steal and rape and kill. They were dead. His will had seen them ripped limb from limb. But he had come too late. They had done their vile deeds before he arrived and so she was dead as well. His love, his wife. Dead.

His fault.

Rising, he held his arms wide, calling home the trinity. Again the shadows moved and three raced towards him, sleek in the night. They wound about him and through him, less than substance, more than shadow. He let his pain feed them, his rage and agony. Together, they burst into clear blue flames that spread and grew until every body, every drop of blood in the clearing was burned away in an icy inferno of smokeless blue fire.

One

Freetown, New York, present day.

Jen Cassaday pushed aside her grandmother’s yellowed lace curtains and stared out at the stranger in her front yard. He stood, legs apart, arms hanging easy by his sides, head tipped back as he studied the house. Faded jeans, scuffed leather jacket over a dark brown T-shirt, dark hair, hanging in long, ragged layers. From this distance she could see great bone structure and a frown. Maybe it was the frown that kept him from being pretty. Or maybe it was the scar that ran across his chin, an angry white line against tanned skin. Either way, he was something to look at.

In one hand he held a newspaper, and the sight of it made Jen’s pulse twitch. He was not at all what she’d meant to attract when she placed an ad for a handyman. And with any luck, he wasn’t here about that.

“Make your own luck,” she muttered, automatically quoting one of her mother’s favourite phrases. Then she snorted. What else besides the promise of work would bring him all the way out here? She was miles from town.

Instinctively, she looked beyond him to the dark woods that flanked the field across the highway. Her skin tingled and her belly twisted in a tight little knot. The sensation had repeated itself over and over in the past few days, becoming stronger and more frequent. The sixth sense that was her legacy warned her: something bad was coming. She glanced back at the guy in her yard, watched him fold the newspaper and tuck it into his coat pocket, and wondered if he was the source of her unease.

With a sigh, she let the curtain fall back in place. Angling on her crutches, she headed down the stairs just as his knock sounded, hard and bold. She took her time. No sense rushing. It was haste that had landed her in this mess in the first place. She’d taken a tumble down the stairs and ended up with the terrible triad: two torn ligaments and a torn meniscus in her knee. And in Jen’s opinion, they were taking their sweet time about healing, though her specialist disagreed.

“Your recovery is remarkable, Jen. I’ve never seen damage like this heal without surgery. Certainly not this quickly. It’s something for the medical journals.” His comments had made her laugh. Her capacity to heal was nothing compared to some of her relatives.

Setting the rubber tips of her crutches, she leaned her weight forwards and dragged open the front door. The sun was at her visitor’s back, and for a second Jen blinked against the glare. Then her eyes adjusted and she raised her head to meet his gaze. She was 5 feet 10 inches and she had to tip her head back to look in his face. It was an unfamiliar experience. Up close, she saw the dangerous edge to him. It was in the way he held himself, the tightness at the corners of his mouth, the way his eyes - a blue so clear and bright she’d never seen the like - took in every nuance of his surroundings in a glance.

“You here about the job?” she asked, wanting him to say no, knowing he’d say . . .

“Yes. Name’s Daemon Alexander.” He offered his hand.

“Jen Cassaday.” She didn’t see a way around it, so she shook briefly. His palm was callused, his grip pleasantly firm. Something inside her yawned and stretched, an unwanted awareness of him as a man. As though in silent response, his grip tightened ever so slightly. She pulled her hand away as quickly as she could without seeming rude.

For weeks she’d had that ad in the paper and he was the first person to apply. No surprise there. Everyone in town whispered about the haunted Cassaday place, and they were halfway right, only the elements that haunted these walls weren’t the spirits of the dead, but a different power.

Daemon Alexander either hadn’t heard the talk of hauntings, or he didn’t care. He wasn’t from town; she’d have recognized him if he was. In a place this small, you got to know faces if not names, particularly a face like his. He was a stranger passing through, most likely in need of cash. Her gaze slid to the rusted-out clunker in the driveway. Cars weren’t her thing, but she guessed it for something American-built and decades old.

“You have painting experience?” she asked.

“I do.”

“It’s an old house. Some of the walls need repair and I’d like to go with plaster to match the original rather than drywall. I don’t suppose you have experience with plastering old houses?”

“I do,” he said again. “I like old things.” He sounded amused.

She wasn’t getting any sense that he was evil, and she knew that if he were she’d spot it. She always spotted it. Her built-in early warning system had never failed her.

“I have references,” he offered, angling his body so that she’d catch his arm in the door if she decided to slam it, as though he sensed her hesitation and wanted to hedge his bets. But he didn’t infringe on her space, didn’t step inside. She caught the faint scents of leather and citrus shaving cream. They lured her to lean a little closer, breathe a little deeper. “I spruced up Mrs Bailey’s porch last week. And Doc Hamilton had me paint his office the week before that. You can give them a call.”

“How long have you been in town?”

“Two weeks.”

“How long you planning to stay?”

His eyes narrowed. “Till the job’s done.”

For a second, she had the odd thought that he wasn’t referring to a job working for her. He was talking about something else entirely. The air between them crackled, an electric sizzle, and she let her senses reach for him. Not sight or smell, but her inner senses, the ones that knew things most people didn’t.

She came up empty. There was no good reason for her to turn him down. She wasn’t getting any sort of bad vibe from him. He had references and she desperately needed the help, especially with her knee torn up. Still, she almost told him no.

“Eight tomorrow morning,” she said at last. “If your references check out, you can start then. If not—” she shrugged “you can head back the way you came, Mr Alexander.”

“Daemon,” he said, softly. “Call me Daemon.” He studied her with those clear, lake-blue eyes, and something hot flared in their depths. She felt the lure of that heat, and already regretted her offer. The last thing she needed was a to-die-for handyman hanging around and turning on the charm.

Either he sensed her preference that he not look at her like he wanted to take a taste, or he had similar thoughts to hers about mixing business with pleasure, because his gaze shuttered and he stepped away.

“See you at eight.”

Jen hobbled out onto the porch as he walked to his car and drove away. Even then, she didn’t go back inside. An odd sense of expectation held her in place. The air felt . . . wrong. Deep inside, restlessness stirred, an edginess that coiled tight and left her feeling that something was trying to crawl to the surface. Her every sense tingled as she looked again to the thick forest that banded the flat field across the road.

The sun was warm and bright, but a chill slithered through her. Because there was someone out there, in the woods. Watching.

Three days later, Daemon was up on a step stool in the parlour, putting blue paint up the wall to the ceiling, when the stumping of Jen’s crutches announced her arrival. The air hummed with an electric charge, a zing of power that ramped up a notch the closer she got. He knew that hum. It heralded magic, and right now it was purring like a stroked cat.

Which made no sense, because Jen Cassaday wasn’t a sorcerer or a demon or anything in between. She was a human woman. An incredibly attractive one with her long runner’s legs and her pretty brown eyes, her sleek, dark hair that hung to her shoulders in a heavy curtain and the freckles that dusted across her pert nose. He had an urge to kiss those freckles, to peel her white T-shirt over her head to see if they sprinkled her chest and the tops of her breasts. And those thoughts were way off limits.

“Hey,” she said. “Lunch is ready.”

Then she headed for the kitchen, the air around her crackling. That was a mystery, because a human woman couldn’t cause the slightest twitch in the current of magic that crossed dimensions. He knew that sorcerers called it the continuum or dragon current. Personally, he didn’t bother to name it, though in the beginning, he’d called it his own personal hell.

His gaze slid to the window and the forest beyond. Maybe it wasn’t Jen that affected the current. Maybe it was something else. A demon, here in this small, pretty town?

That was exactly what he was here to find out. He’d tracked the thing to Liberty and then lost it. His gut was telling him it had come here.

He wrapped his brushes to keep them from drying out and tidied his work area, then washed his hands and face before joining Jen in the kitchen. She’d made him a turkey sandwich on a bun with Boston lettuce and some sort of sprouts.

“Thank you,” he said as he took a seat. He enjoyed having meals with her, talking to her. Hers was an easy sort of companionship.

“I didn’t know if you preferred mayo or mustard, so I took a chance on both. I suppose I should have asked.”

“I’m fine with both,” he said, taking the top off the bun and carefully scraping the sprouts onto the plate. He looked up to find her watching him with a faint smile. He shrugged. “Some things a man—” or a creature that was more monster than man “—isn’t meant to eat.”

She laughed. “I feel that way about tomatoes.”

“Do you? I have a fondness for tomatoes on a turkey sandwich.”

“I’ll remember that.” She took a bite of her own sandwich. They chatted about easy things. Light things. The weather. The progress of his work for her. Then she mentioned that her grandmother had loved the wallpaper in the bedroom under the eaves, and she wished there was a way to save it.

“This house. It was your grandmother’s?”

“And my mother’s and mine.”

The wistfulness in her voice reminded him just how short human lives could be.

“You miss them.” He knew about that, knew what it was like to miss loved ones from his past. It was hard for an immortal to form friendships with humans, hard to watch them age or sicken and die. He almost asked her how they had died, but ancient, ingrained manners from a time long past prevented him from prying. Some instinct made him reach across and close his hand over hers. “They never leave us, the people we love. They come to us in dreams and memories that keep them alive as long as we’re alive.”

He let more pain leak into those words than he had meant to.

Her gaze shot to his and, for a frozen moment, they just stared at each other. Then she pulled her hand from beneath his and glanced at the window. “Looks like something’s coming this way.”

Following her eyes, he saw the storm clouds - the horizon. But it was something else that made him wary - a wrongness, a foulness that oozed towards them like an oil slick. Premonition slithered through his limbs and set the dark creatures that were part of him quivering with excitement. Beneath his skin, the trinity stirred, restless.

Yeah, something was coining — a storm that had nothing to do with the weather.

Two

Over the next two weeks, Jen watched her house bloom as Daemon worked at the repairs. Problem was, she hadn’t expected to be so drawn to him. He was there, in her space, tall and broad and distracting. She caught herself glancing at him again and again, watching the play of muscle under smooth tanned skin, asking him questions just to hear him speak in that low, sexy voice.

She could hear him now, whistling as he worked in the bedroom under the eaves, the one that had been her grandmother’s favourite. The sun had set at least an hour past and creeping shadows darkened the hall. Pausing, she flipped the light switch, and gave a hiss of frustration as she realized the bulb must be burned out.

She made it to the base of the stairs when her insides knotted up tight. Breathing through the cramp, she rested her weight on the crutches, waiting for the twisting coil of pain to pass. Her body was changing, fighting for life. A new life. The one she needed to pass through an agony of fire to achieve. She sighed, wishing there was an easier way. For weeks, the pain inside her had flared and peaked at random times. She’d come to think that it was a good thing that she was on crutches. At least the sudden shards of agony didn’t send her to her knees. But as the pain passed and she contemplated the darkened stairs, she decided that, at the moment, her crutches were a hindrance. They made climbing the steps to talk to Daemon a bother, so she called his name.

She waited, looking up, and frowned. An odd blue light shimmered from the room under the eaves, the one Daemon was working in today. A spotlight of some sort? She meant to ask him about it when he stepped onto the landing, but her words died in her throat. For a long moment, she simply stared. She still hadn’t gotten used to the physical impact of seeing him in her home, especially not the way he looked right now. He was bathed in shadow, his dark hair tousled, his jeans slung low on his hips. A white tank top hugged his muscled torso, and she could see dark tattoos on his skin: a dragon on his left shoulder, another on his right biceps, the hint of a third on the bulge of his pectoral where the tank top dipped.

“You’re working late today,” she observed.

“Just want to finish this room.”

Her gaze flicked beyond him to the dark hallway. There was no sign of the blue light now. Odd.

“I’m heading out to do some grocery shopping. I want to make it to the Shop Rite before they close at nine. If you’re done before I get back, leave by the side door. It’ll lock behind you.” Turning away, she positioned her crutches to make her way to the door. “See you.”

“Jen.” His voice, low and rough, stopped her. The way he said her name made her shiver.

“Mm-hmm?” She glanced back over her shoulder. He’d hunkered down at the top of the stairs so he wouldn’t lose sight of her. God, he was gorgeous. And he wasn’t for her. No man was for her. Not right now. Not ever. A different future waited for her and it could never include a mortal man.

“It’s dark out. Do you . . .” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Do you want me to take you to town?”

Wow. Chivalrous. “Not necessary. I’m a big girl, Daemon. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. And, hey,” she laughed, “it isn’t as if I need to watch out for monsters.”

She was almost at the door before she heard the creak of the floorboard behind her. The air hummed a second before she felt Daemon’s hands on her, his long fingers closing around her upper arms. He steadied her, his body hard and hot at her back. Her pulse slammed into red line.

How had he made it down the stairs so quickly? How had she not heard his approach?

He stepped around to face her, his hands skimming the skin of her upper arms, as though he was loath to let her go. Her head fell back and she stared into his eyes, saw something there that made her shiver. Something primal.

“There are all sorts of monsters in this world, Jen,” he murmured, “and you do need to watch for them.”

Her breath came in a jagged gasp. She wet her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, hot, intent. She thought he would kiss her. A part of her wanted him to, wanted to know the feel and taste of him.

He smiled, a dark, feral baring of white teeth. “You need to watch out for things inside your home, too.”

For a second, she thought he meant himself, that he was telling her he was some sort of monster. Then he gestured to the ground and she looked over her shoulder at a dark lump: the rolled-up rug that usually ran the length of the hall. In the gloom, she hadn’t noticed it there.

“I moved the rug so I could get my supplies in and out easier,” he said. “You almost caught your crutches on it.”

And he’d saved her. So she’d been wrong. His actions were chivalrous and necessary, otherwise she’d be on the floor in a pained heap right now.

“Thanks.” She pressed her lips together, willed her pulse to settle. “My saviour.” She laughed.

He didn’t. “I’m no one’s saviour, Jen.” A heartbeat, two, then he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Drive safe.” His tone was nonchalant, as though he hadn’t just moved faster than he ought to, hadn’t held her close enough that she could smell the scent of his skin, hadn’t made her ache for his kiss.

A half-hour later, Jen used her hip to bump her cart as she hobbled along the aisle of the Shop Rite on Route 52. Mrs Hambly - an old friend of her grandmother’s - and the high school maths teacher, Gail Merchant, blocked the way.

“Terrible tragedy. Terrible. Things like that don’t happen here,” Mrs Hambly insisted. She plucked a grape from a bunch, popped it in her mouth, grimaced, then helped herself to another from a different bunch.

Jen wondered what tragedy had Mrs Hambly all worked up today. Last week it had been the kids lurking outside the variety store, and the week before that it was the lack of personal service at the ATM.

Planting her crutches, Jen added a head of lettuce and a couple of tomatoes to her cart. Ahead of her, Gail absently filled a bag with peaches, her attention on Mrs Hambly as she asked in hushed tones, “Does Sheriff Hale think she was killed there, or the body brought from somewhere else?”

“Didn’t say,” Mrs Hambly snorted. “Maybe he doesn’t want to give anything away. Maybe that’s part of the investigation.”

Jen stared at the two women in shock. “Killed?” she echoed. “Who? Where?”

“ Sheriff fished a woman - well, actually, parts of her - out of the stream that runs through the woods between your place and the Peteri’s this morning,” Mrs Hambly said bluntly. “Naked. Dead. You didn’t know?”

“No.” Jen shook her head, horrified. The forest between her place and the Peteri’s stretched for miles, and somewhere in those miles a woman had died. Parts of her. Which meant that parts were still missing. She shuddered in horror, not willing to ask.

“He thinks she was in the water for about two weeks,” Gail added.

Two weeks. Memories drifted like smoke, coalescing into solid recollection of the afternoon that Daemon had first turned up on her doorstep. After he’d left her that day, she’d sensed something in the woods, watching her. Something dark and frightening.

There are all sorts of monsters in this world, Jen. His words reeled through her thoughts. For an instant, she’d been so certain that Daemon was talking about himself. But had he known about the dead woman?

“You hate tomatoes, Jen Cassaday. What’re you buying them for?” Mrs Hambly demanded, peering into Jen’s cart.

“They’re . . .” She shook her head, gathering her thoughts. “They’re for the handyman. He mentioned he has a fondness for tomatoes on his turkey sandwich.”

“Why doesn’t your handyman bring his own lunch?” Mrs Hambly questioned at the same time that Gail asked, “You have a handyman working for you? Is it wise to have a stranger in the house with . . . well, with a woman dead and all?”

Jen shrugged with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “He works hard. And he seems to understand old houses.”

“But you hired a stranger! You don’t know anything about him,” Gail exclaimed.

“He had references,” Jen replied softly. For what that was worth. They dated back two weeks, which was about how long Daemon Alexander had been working for her, the same amount of time that the Sheriff was guessing the dead body had been in the woods. What was she supposed to make of that?

The two women pegged her with identical “Are you crazy?” looks. But Jen knew she wasn’t. She’d had this built-in radar detector for trouble all her life. It would uncoil and flare hard and bright if ever she was in danger. It had never failed her, and she was counting on that now, because the only vibe she got off Daemon Alexander was a sizzle of hotter-than-hell chemistry.

And that was a whole other kind of dangerous.

Daemon moved through the dense woods, silent, quick. A little moonlight filtered through the heavy canopy of branches and leaves. That was fine. He didn’t need light.

He stopped beside the rotting trunk of a fallen oak. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and set the trinity free, sent the shadows out into the darkness. The three misty shapes rose from his skin, snaked around his limbs and through them, blending, adapting, taking form then dissipating.

“Hunt,” he said, sending them to their task. They darted away into the night, unseen, unheard. But there. A silent menace.

His resources no longer twined with theirs, he summoned his stores of magic, a surge of bright power. He could see in the dark. He could run for miles. He could hear the breath of the smallest creatures in their burrows.

And he could sense dark magic. It made the continuum writhe and twist at the insult.

Something other than him laid claim to these woods. And it had killed. Recently. He could smell human blood and brimstone, feel the surge of demon power in the air.

Following instinct, he ran, skirting trees and vaulting logs, his blood pumping through him, the wind clean and cold in his face.

He hunted. And he found them.

Hybrids. Brutish creatures that had been human once, but when faced with death, had chosen to allow demon will to overtake their souls. They were human no longer, serving only their own hungers and a monstrous master.

There were only two of them. A scouting party. Their hands were bloody which meant they had fed earlier. Daemon suppressed a shudder. Hybrids preferred their prey live, human and bloody.

The trinity sped to him, black shadows in the night.

“No,” he said, wanting this fight to be his, needing to know he was the one keeping her safe. Jen. He would keep her safe.

They came at him, one from each side, claws raking his flesh. He welcomed the pain, welcomed the burn of cold fury that burst from deep inside. With a snarl, he lunged, speed and power. Sweat dripped from him, and blood. His - red, theirs -black.

In the end, he stood, breathing heavily as their remains bubbled and hissed and disintegrated into sludge.

At his call, the trinity came to him - sinuous smoke, dark shadow - and for a moment, the night flared bright with cold blue flame.

Three

The following morning, Jen sat in the kitchen with Sheriff Hale, answering a whole mess of questions. Actually, it was more like he asked and she sat silent and frustrated because she didn’t have a shred of information to help him find that poor woman’s killer. What was she supposed to say? That two weeks ago she’d looked out at the woods and had the ugly sensation that something watched her with inhuman eyes? Yeah, that’d be a good move. Hale would think she’d lost her mind, and it wouldn’t bring him a step closer to the killer.

“So tell me about this handyman you have working for you,” Hale prodded.

“His name’s Daemon Alexander.”

“Where’s he from?”

Jen opened her mouth, then closed it. She had no idea.

“I’m from Oregon, originally.”

She caught the look of surprise on Hale’s face as they both turned. Daemon stood by the side door, leaning one shoulder against it. She hadn’t heard him come in and, from Hale’s sour expression, she gathered that neither had he.

“What about you, Sheriff Hale?” Daemon asked, his tone lazy and smooth. He shrugged out of his scuffed leather jacket and hung it on a peg behind the door. “Where’re you from?”

Hale’s face darkened to a dull red. “Right here. Born and bred.”

“How fortunate for you.” There was a wealth of the unspoken behind those words, an implication that strangers were a convenient scapegoat.

Jen watched Daemon cross the kitchen to the coffee pot and pour himself a cup. She frowned at the tattoo on his forearm. She could swear that it had been on his biceps last night.

“Jenny, you mind giving us a few minutes, man to man?” the sheriff asked.

For some inexplicable reason, she did mind, but had no reason to say so. Instead, she rose and collected her crutches. Daemon met her gaze and offered a tight smile. She realized that he wanted this, wanted to talk with Hale alone. She supposed he wanted to lay any suspicions to rest.

Seeing no option, she left them alone.

The sheriff’s voice drifted to her. “So where were you last night, Mr Alexander?”

“Last night?” Daemon’s tone was laced with perverse humour. “Why, I was right here, Sheriff. With Jen.”

She froze. He didn’t exactly lie. He had been here with her as night fell. But after that? Where had Daemon been then? And why did he only offer a partial truth?

“Why do you ask, Sheriff? Was there some problem last night?”

“Mrs Peteri says she saw someone lurking in the woods. Someone with a flashlight that has a blue bulb. A very powerful flashlight. That wouldn’t have been you, would it, Mr Alexander?”

Daemon laughed. “Come outside and search my car if you feel compelled, Sheriff Hale.”

“I just might do that,” the sheriff said. “Might like to look at where you live, too. You rent a room at Maybelle Tewksbury’s, don’t you?”

“I do. You’re welcome to look there, as well.” Daemon paused. “I don’t own a flashlight. Blue bulb or otherwise.”

But he did. If not a flashlight, then some other type of light. Jen had seen it leaking through the door of the room Daemon had been working in last night.

Not bothering with stealth, because her crutches made that hopeless, she headed up the stairs to the room under the eaves. Heart racing, she pushed open the door. The walls that had been covered with her grandmother’s floral paper were now a soft cappuccino colour. She hobbled into the room. Paint tins were neatly placed on a folded drop cloth, roller trays washed and stacked. And there was a high-power light in the corner, switched to “Off, but still plugged into the outlet. Plugged in. Which meant it needed electricity to work. This couldn’t be the blue light Lina Peteri had seen in the woods.

With a sigh of relief, Jen turned back towards the bedroom door. Her heart twitched and stopped.

The wall was still covered in her grandmother’s paper, but it looked fresh and new. No dirt, smears or tears. Somehow Daemon had cleaned and restored it. Moving closer, she placed her hand on the wall, feeling her world tip and tilt. What sort of man did something like this? Something so selflessly kind?

From outside came the slam of a car door, the roar of an engine, and a moment later Daemon was there, framed in the doorway, his dark hair falling across his brow. His lips curved in a small smile.

“Sheriff Hale left?” Jen asked, feeling inexplicably awkward.

“Yeah.” Daemon closed the space between them. “Do you like it? The paper?”

“I love it.” I could love you, if I let myself. Oh God, where had that thought come from? This man was not for her. He could never be for her. She had known for her whole life that she was different, that no man could be her future. And for the first time, that reality made her unbearably sad.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save it all, but I managed to strip away enough bits from the three most damaged walls and use them to patch the fourth. Then I restored it with an eraser and a little brush—” he gestured at a couple of small paint tins “—after I matched the colour of the flowers.”

Again, her world tilted. The amount of work he’d done. For her. He’d done this for her.

“Thank you. You have no idea—”

“But I do. That’s why I did it.”

His blue eyes were bright and clear against the fringe of dark lashes. They were beautiful, deep, and glittering with something she was afraid to acknowledge. She felt the heat of him as he stepped closer. Catching her wrist, he drew her hand to his face, turning to rest his jaw against her palm. He drew a shallow breath and held very still, careful, cautious, as though it had been a long while since anyone had touched him this way.

The contact scorched her, made her ache and yearn.

Her crutches limited her movements and she cursed them silently. She wanted to rise up on her toes, press her mouth to his.

“Kiss me,” she whispered. It was both an order and a plea.

He slid his fingers to the base of her skull, threading them through the strands of her hair. Her eyes flew open, then fluttered closed as he kissed her, lips hard on hers. He wanted her and he let her know that, his kiss spinning through her, touching every part of her like a live wire. With a moan, she arched into him, her crutches clattering to the floor, her weight held in his arms.

Heat and need spiralled through her. She wanted him, needed him, here, now. She opened beneath his kiss, tongues twining, teeth scraping. With one hand, he slammed the bedroom door shut, then pressed her back against it, his mouth hungry on hers. He bulged against his jeans as she fumbled with the zipper, freeing him, closing her hand around his hot skin. Desire scoured her, leaving her panting.

One hand slid under her buttocks, his other hand curving under the splint that guarded her injured knee. With a moan, she let her head fall back against the door, and she gave herself over to him, to the promise that his tightly corded muscles could hold her there.

He kissed her, open-mouthed, deep. Sensation spiked, her hips rocking in time with his, her moans and cries swallowed by his kiss. He made a raw sound: hard-edged pleasure and animal lust. She unravelled, her body clenched tight around him. Ecstasy rode her senses, blurring her thoughts, her awareness.

Finally, panting, he dropped his head, nuzzling the curve of her neck, still holding her up against the door. She felt weightless, boneless. Wonderfully alive. Then he shifted her so she was cradled in his arms and he carried her to her bed. There, he stripped off her clothes and kissed her - her neck, her belly, her breasts - taking his time, teasing her. He took her again, driving them both over the edge.

“Sleep,” he whispered, cradling her in his arms. “Sleep, love.”

And she did, her lids drifting shut, her body replete.

When she woke, he was gone.

Daemon was sanding the patch he’d put on the wall in the dining room when he heard Jen behind him. Schooling his features, he sent her a welcoming smile and felt a shimmer of the continuum, a hint of magic. Not sorcerer, not demon, but maybe she was a blighted seed, a human who had a magical progenitor somewhere in her past. Such mortals usually tapped their limited power to become psychics or healers or energy workers. But Jen was none of those. He was certain she had no clue that magic, both light and dark, existed at the edges of her world, no idea that there really were monsters in the closet. She was an accountant.

An incredibly beautiful, sexy accountant that he was willing to break all his self-imposed rules for.

“Hey,” she said, sending him a glorious smile. No reservations. No regrets. Not his Jen. “Break time. I’ll make lunch.”

His Jen. What the hell was he thinking? That they’d set up house here in Freetown? Tend the garden? Walk in the park? And when he never got sick, never aged? When the trinity got restless and demanded release? What then? He knew how quickly love could shrivel in the face of the truth.

“Turkey sandwiches?” he asked, forcing a light tone.

She cocked her head to the side and studied him, a faint frown marking her brow, and he knew she sensed his tension. She saw too much, read him too well. It was like they’d known each other forever, rather than a few short weeks.

“Turkey it is. With tomatoes. And no sprouts,” she said. “Give me five minutes.”

He headed to his car and retrieved a package from the trunk. He left it in the front hallway and met her in the kitchen. “I, uh, bought you something.”

She shot him a look of surprise. “What you did with my grandmother’s wallpaper was more than enough. I don’t want you to ... that is ... I just . . .”

Her voice trailed away, and he almost laughed, realizing that she was worried about him spending his money on her. If she only knew. Finances were not an issue for him. Looking down at her upturned face, at the sweet spray of freckles and her sparkling eyes, he had the crazy urge to tell all, to share with her the knowledge of what he was. Yeah, like that was a plan. She was a mortal woman. She would live and die. He had no business dreaming about a life with her, buying her gifts. He hadn’t bought a gift for a woman in almost 200 years.

He led her into the hallway and gestured at the box.

She inhaled sharply and held her breath. “You bought me a motion-detector home alarm system?”

“With infra-red sensors.”

“Why?”

Because the hybrids he’d taken down were only scouts. Something more powerful was out there. A killer. He needed to do everything he could to ensure Jen was safe, that the killer stalking the shadows could not harm her.

Not her. Not Jen. His Jen.

Four

Jen woke to afternoon sunlight peeking through the crack between her curtains. After lunch, Daemon had made love to her for hours, sweet and slow, taking his time, exploring every inch of her. But she was alone now and pain was tearing her in two. She breathed through the agony that swelled and ebbed. Bright shards spun through her, twisting her into a tight knot, doubling her over.

She had no idea how long she lay there, but when she came to herself, it was dark. Night had come. All around her, the air shimmered. Sparking filaments of light danced off her skin. Inside her, power uncoiled, stretched and laughed in delight. Her time had come. The sorcerer magic that should have blossomed at puberty had burgeoned at last.

Reaching down, she freed the Velcro straps of her splint and pulled it from her leg. The pain in her knee was gone. She rolled from the bed and half skipped to the bathroom for a quick shower, then dressed and crossed to the window. Pulling back the curtain, she noticed that Daemon’s car was gone. A flicker of disappointment touched her. She made her way downstairs and found a note in the kitchen.

Went to town to pick up dinner. Didn’t want to disturb you. Back soon.

-D.

Smiling, she set the note back on the table, then froze, her head jerking up, her every sense on high alert. Tension coiled through her. There was something out there. Something dark. She could feel the power, the oily slide of demon magic tainting the air, making the continuum shiver and twitch.

She knew then who had killed the woman and left her remains in the woods. Not human. No. The killer was far more dangerous than any human could be. Calling her newly awakened power, she eased out of the back door into the night. Not that she meant to confront it. Her magic was too new to her. She didn’t dare take on such a creature alone. No, she meant only to protect her property, to set wards and spells. To protect Daemon and keep him safe from the monsters in the night.

Daemon knew she was gone before he finished searching the house. The trinity twisted and writhed, feeling his fear, feeding on it and straining to tear free. Jen was out there somewhere. Alone. Unprotected. And the continuum writhed and twisted with dark magic, the aura of a powerful demon.

“Go,” he snarled, and the trinity tore free, rising into the moonless night, wraiths in the shadows, leading him to the one he sought. Jen. He ran flat out for the woods, knowing she was there. In the woods. With a demon.

He needed to get to her, protect her. He couldn’t lose her, not Jen. He couldn’t be too late.

The air felt wrong. Tasted wrong. There was a demon out there, and something else. A sorcerer? Perhaps.

Trees flew past in a blur. Daemon tore full tilt towards the thick miasma of dark magic that oozed through the forest, foreign and vile. Then he saw Jen, backed up against a tree, her face pale, her eyes wide. He took in every part of her at a glance. She appeared unharmed, but her splint was off and her crutches nowhere to be seen.

Not ten feet from her was a demon - grey, cracked hide stretched over its meaty frame, blackened lips peeled back from row upon row of jagged yellow teeth.

Everything inside Daemon rebelled. He would lose her. Either way, he would lose her. She would die at the hands of this monstrous, foul beast, or Daemon would summon the trinity and save her and she would see him then for exactly what he was.

I despise you. A condemnation from centuries past. He couldn’t bear to hear those words from Jen’s lips. But the alternative was worse. She would die.

The beast stepped towards her, and she drew herself up, closed her eyes, as though she could not bear to see the promise of her death in its obsidian eyes.

Stepping forwards, Daemon snarled. “Come to me.” His voice echoed through the trees, and the trinity came, swirling around him, through him, searing him to the bone and ramping his power to its highest level.

Jen’s gaze shot to him and for an instant everything around them ceased to be. She saw him for all he was and all he could never be. Not human. Not mortal.

I’m sorry, Jen.

She held his gaze and drew a deep breath, casting her arms wide. Her body jerked and froze. Glittering, sharp-edged filaments of light swelled around her, swaying and weaving until they reached the demon, curling about its limbs as it lunged for her, claws bared. She yet held his gaze as he sent the trinity to their task, his light and theirs spilling through hers in a tumult of energy until the demon began to crackle and fizz, and finally burned away in a curl of smoke. Then she slumped against the tree as though their victory had drained her.

“You are a sorcerer,” Daemon breathed as he caught her against him, holding her tight, desperate to feel the warmth of her skin, to know she lived and breathed still.

“With delayed maturity.” She gave a rueful laugh. “What—” A thousand questions raced across her features then disappeared as she shook her head.

He knew what she wanted to ask, waited for her condemnation. Waited for her to demand explanations when he had none. She was a sorcerer, but what was he? He had no idea. He had never encountered another like himself.

Then she smiled, dragged his head down until their lips touched, and whispered, “What did you bring for dinner?”