“And the next?”
“Listen to me.”
She tried to keep her expression unreadable, but he cocked his head. “Why is it so hard for you to obey?”
She glared. “You ask that with a lot of arrogance for someone standing so far from his weapons.”
“Even when we kissed, you would not be still under my lips.”
“Excuse me,” she sputtered. That was one question she kept sliding away from. Why had she clung to him in the alley as if he were her last chance? She wished the answer were simple lust.
“It has been a while since I kissed—”
“Since the 1950s, apparently.”
He shook his head. “Longer than that, I think.”
“Probably never with that ‘obey’ crap.”
“Oh, I have loved.”
Even across the room, she felt the weight of his gaze on her mouth. Betrayed by the phantom sensation, she licked her lips. Could she blame the demon for that?
He closed his eyes. “You can’t let even the dying go quietly, but must point and give directions. Fate’s crossing guard.”
She stiffened. “You make me sound like a monster.”
He shook his head. “I’ve seen such monsters as feed on death. I don’t think you’re one of those.”
“Don’t think?” She gave a bitter laugh.
“Nothing is certain. Which is why your search for answers is doomed.”
His axe couldn’t have cut deeper. She walked to the kitchen area, washed her cup, dried her hands on a paper towel, and finally turned to face him. “Why are you trying so hard to convince me? Will it make this possession easier?”
He hadn’t moved. “No. But what comes after might not hurt so much.”
“I was told by one of my first patients that pain isn’t the purpose of life, just sometimes the price.”
His lips twisted in an unkind smile. “Too bad we couldn’t ask him for bonus insights after he died and went to the heaven I’m sure he deserved.”
“Her last postcard was from her third Caribbean cruise. The doctors called it a miraculous recovery.” She lifted her chin. “Or are you going to tell me there are no such things as miracles?”
When he didn’t answer, she wadded the paper towel and tossed it toward the garbage can. Two points. “If I’m stuck here, where’s the shower? I have demon guts in my hair.”
He waved her toward a glass-blocked corner of the loft . When he flicked a switch inside, the space glowed like a candle, lit from within. She eyed the translucent glass.
“Whatever,” she muttered, and marched forward.
Archer let out a long, slow breath to soothe the dangerous coiling inside him. Damn demons. Damn hers, damn his, and damn that crazed feralis, attacking in the waning daylight. Couldn’t keep its damn half-rat paws off her.
No more than Archer himself, apparently.
Damn.
The water came on. A whiff of hot wetness spiked with honeysuckle snagged his breathing again. He wheeled away. The message light on his phone blinked with ever greater urgency as the number of messages increased. At its present speed, it could cause seizures. Just as well he never left the ringer on.
He’d been too preoccupied with the limp weight in his arms. Calling on the demon had shorted her out.
Until that moment, though, she’d been magnificent. The image of her lunging at the feralis, her puny weapon brandished high, was shock-locked in his brain. She should be dead, of foolishness if nothing else.
If he’d been a kinder man, perhaps he’d have let her die.
Instead, he brought her home, wiped away the blood from the nick under her eye, and watched her sleep.
Now who was the fool?
He punched SPEED DIAL on the phone. “Quit leaving messages you know I’m not going to answer.”
Niall grunted. “We hauled the feralis off for de comp.” He hesitated. “Any other bodies we should know about?”
At the word “bodies,” Archer couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting to the shower. “Not yet.”
Niall let out a sigh. “I’d hate to lose her to a bad-luck encounter before her demon even had a chance to save her.”
“Yeah.” She’d shown no fear, no hesitation. Once she and the demon meshed, she’d be a formidable opponent.
Still no match for him, of course. Even the fierce and fearless fought to win, and that, in the bitter end, would fail against someone who fought to die.
Archer went to the dark window. “That feralis didn’t just stumble into the alley. It was tracking us. It wanted her bad.”
Niall was silent a moment. “Homing in on her demon?”
A lot of etheric energy had soaked the alley, and not all of it Sera’s. There’d certainly been enough wide-beam annihilation-class violence, thanks to that kiss, to warn off even a stupid feralis. “Maybe.”
Niall jumped on the note of reserve. “I told you this war is changing.”
As if he didn’t have enough to deal with. Archer cut him off. “You might also notice, I changed my security codes. Don’t send anyone here. Don’t contact me until this is over.”
Niall clicked his tongue. “I want updates. Bookie thought he’d record the last stages of an ascension.”
“Thinking and wanting just don’t have much place in what’s going down.” Archer’s breath fogged the win dowpane except where the print of her hand cleared the glass.
Wanting might still be a problem.
He scowled at the imprint. “I’ll call you when the possession is complete. Either way.”
“Good luck.” Niall’s soft voice barely registered down the line.
Archer hung up without answering.
The water cranked off. In the charged silence, he realized he’d invoked his demon-boosted perceptions. Listening for the last droplets to fall. Tasting the tang of warm, moist flesh. His heightened nerves prickled in anticipation, keen for the faintest pulse of air as she moved through space.
Cursing even more softly than Niall’s parting words, Archer clamped down on his control. He rifled through the armoire beside the bed for a fresh shirt.
He’d wait for his shower until she slept. God knew, those glass blocks barely hid a damn thing even from purely human eyes.
He stripped off his torn shirt. His twenty-four-hour dry cleaner had commented once that pinning a note over stains would ensure spots were properly treated. Archer just gave him everything in a duffel bag stenciled with the word “stained.” The man had blanched, but his daughter was a tidy seamstress who’d saved his trench coat more than once.
He turned sideways to the mirror, tracking the wound that curved around his shoulder. Only a little worse than the bloody nose. The demon was as efficient as his seamstress.
Sera’s gaze found his in the reflection. “That was definitely the feralis’s fault. I don’t have claws like that.”
He reached for his shirt. “Not seven in a row anyway.”
“Don’t you need to bandage it?”
“It won’t kill me.” He should be so lucky. “Let the demon earn its keep.”
She shook her head and marched back to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a soap-bubbled washcloth, a roll of gauze, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
She hefted the bottle. “This is all you have for first aid supplies?”
“I use it to soak out the worst of the stains.”
“Out of your skin?”
“Out of my clothes.” He waggled the shirt in his hand. “My dry cleaner has convinced himself I’m a butcher.” Archer started to slide into the shirt. “I guess he’s right.”
Sera plucked the shirt from his hands. “Not until you disinfect.”
He opened his mouth to tell her off, knowing the demon’s wariness of close quarters would lend its double-octave warning to keep her distance, to not distract them from its mission of atonement. But nothing came to him. He blinked. “Fine.”