He wouldn’t go back to Rockhaven.
So for the time being, they were stuck with each other.
He tightened the screws on the Jeep’s new New Jersey license plate, trying hard not to feel cheerful about that.
Lara tossed the plastic Walmart bags in back. Her eyes had widened when she saw him removing the plate from the Corol a five spaces down, but she hadn’t said a word in protest.
He grinned. His angel was adapting to al kinds of new experiences. Good and bad. Once she dropped her little bomb about the demons, she’d taken five minutes, tops, to throw on her clothes and clear the room. No fuss. No wasting time.
He’d crewed with guys who weren’t as steady in a crisis.
He watched her climb into the passenger’s side, her new jeans pul ing across the slender curve of her butt.
And they for damn sure didn’t have her ass.
He gave the screw head a final twist with the point of his knife and swung in beside her.
“Al set?” He put the key in the ignition, released the clutch.
She nodded, her face set and white. He was no good at relationships, but even he could tel something was bugging her.
They bounced out of the parking lot and under a bridge, fol owing the highway signs along narrow gray streets ful of dry cleaners and Chinese restaurants, drugstores and tattoo parlors. The lights went on in a coffee shop.
Even this early in the morning, traffic was picking up.
He didn’t know this town. He just hoped the demons were as lost as he was.
Lara stirred. “Do you know where we’re going?”
He slanted her a look. “North.”
He hoped. He looked for another highway sign. and nearly swiped the mirror off a delivery truck idling in a loading zone.
His heart rate jumped. He steadied the wheel and shot another glance at Lara’s pale, set face. “What?”
“I owe you an apology.”
Surprise almost made him smile. “Babe, most times
I spend the night with a beautiful woman, she doesn’t apologize in the morning.”
She turned pink. With anger or embarrassment? He hardly cared. Pink was better than pale and miserable. “It’s not that. Wel, not exactly. The thing is. ” She took a deep breath. “It’s my fault you almost burned in the shower.”
“Don’t say that. You warded the motel room, right?”
“I used the taw to seal the door and windows. But—”
“So they heated the pipes.” He had a flash of lugging buckets up a spiraling stone stair, of the demons using the hot springs under the sea lord’s castle to access the heart of the selkies’ Sanctuary. The brief vision made him dizzy.
He shook his head to clear it. “There wasn’t anything you could do to stop them.”
“They shouldn’t have been able to find us.”
He’d wondered about that. He shrugged. “Maybe they fol owed me from Walmart.”
“The children of fire do not hang out at Walmart.”
“How do you know? There were some pretty creepy characters in the electronics aisle.”
Her lips twitched before she pressed them together.
“Even if there were demons in the area, your shields should have prevented them from noticing you. And if they had found you, you would have been attacked before you reached the motel.”
“So if they didn’t see me, how did they track us down?”
She folded her hands in her lap. “Demons’ reference points are not entirely physical.”
“What the hel does that mean?”
“The children of fire are the only elementals to lack matter of their own. They have no physical presence beyond what they borrow. But they are aware of energy.
Attracted to it.”
She’d said something like that last night, he remembered.
“You mean magic? But we didn’t do any. At the motel.”
“No, but we. There’s a connection between us. When we joined, I felt a definite, powerful release of energy.”
“Babe, that wasn’t magic. You came.”
Her blush deepened. “Thank you. I’m aware of that. But we also broadcast power.”
She was serious.
“You’re tel ing me that when we have sex, it sends up some kind of flare? Like the Bat-Signal?”
“Not the Bat-Signal. But if the demons picked up on our combined energies. it’s my fault.”
He wasn’t big on assuming responsibility. But he couldn’t let her beat herself up because they’d made love.
“Not your fault,” he said firmly.
“My idea, then. I climbed into bed with you.”
“Not the second time.”
She flicked him a glance, measuring, uncertain.
“Of course, we could test your theory,” he continued, trying to provoke her smile. “Make love again and time how long before the bastards show up.”
Her sputter of laughter delighted him. But, “That’s not funny,”
she said.
He sobered abruptly. “No,” he agreed. “Because if you’re right, if the demons have some way to trace the two of us together, you’re safer if we split up.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
Her soft certainty dril ed a hole in his gut. He didn’t either.
Not because he needed her to find the merfolk, if they stil survived. Not because he was using her for sex.
He liked her, her loyalty, her tenacity, her determination to do the right thing whatever the cost. She gave him purpose and direction. In a world where everything was fluid, she was a beacon, clear and true.
None of which mattered compared to her safety. He couldn’t let his craving for her company jeopardize her life.
Better for them both, perhaps, if he left her now. It wasn’t like he had anything to offer her beyond this moment.
Besides sex.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said.
“There’s always a choice.”
He shot her another glance. Lara Rho would never go with the flow. She was a fighter. He wished he didn’t admire that about her.
“Okay. Give it to me.”
She met his gaze, her eyes vulnerable, and his heart tumbled at the look in her eyes. Not so certain after al. “The demons seem to respond to the connection between us.”
“Yeah, so?” he asked, seeing where this was going, not liking her direction at al.
“So.” She took a deep breath, released it slowly. “Al we have to do to lose them is not have sex again.”
The room stank of demon. Demon and sex.
Jude Zayin stood on the landing outside the open door of Room 230, his face impassive, his neck muscles tight.
Corner room, second floor, hard to access. He’d bet Mil er had chosen it for that reason.
Slippery son of a bitch.
Automatical y, Zayin scanned the room for unpleasant surprises.
Nothing. No threats. And no quarry.
He stepped inside.
“We can clean the room for you,” said the maid — dark, wide-hipped, hard-eyed — who had shown him upstairs.
“Five minutes.”
“I won’t be here that long.”
“But you paid for the room.”
So he could search it. Two beds, one barely disturbed.
The other. He laid his hand on the cold sheets. The other bed had been wel used.
Simon would not be pleased.
“You here alone?” the maid asked.
He glanced at her, registering the invitation in her posture and her eyes. Did she expect him to pay for more than the room? “I prefer it,” he said.
She shrugged. “Takes al kinds. Let me know if you change your mind.”