He moved to stand, and I grasped the chair.
There weren’t many beings on Earth I had to look up to, but Earl’s head almost scraped the low ceiling, the fluorescent lighting flickering obscenely behind him, creating a halo of sickly light around his head. He continued drumming his fingers on the table as he stood, and when he reached full height, his fingertips were only barely above the surface. Arms too long for his body, ready to sweep out and capture prey.
“One day…” he drawled and held my eye contact, “… I’ll be making enough on my own that I won’t need Frank’s payoffs.” Earl eyed me, his gaze increasing in intensity, and whatever whisper of a grin he had previously faded. “You’d be best to remind him of that. He’s a means to an end but has no power over me.”
“I’m not your messenger.”
“You’ll be wise to do what I ask of you,puer.”
My back stiffened as my demon crawled under my skin, andI lifted my lip in a sneer before turning to leave, grinding my teeth and hoping he didn’t follow me. Because I’m certain if his presence were behind me, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from attacking him.
Self-preservation tended to override logic with evil stalking at your back.
Smithy had a job for me, and the further I moved away from Earl’s, the more my mind cleared and allowed me to think. I had information, a single piece of information that could assist Nikki. The question now was, how to get it to her without her knowing it had come from me? Would she believe an anonymous tip? She’d spent years poking around and asking questions and had almost certainly made herself known with all the wrong people. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of reality that someone would have a guilty conscience and step forward to offer their assistance in the form of information.
Like me and my guilty conscience.
When this was over and Nikki had her answers, what was I expecting? Could I hide my nature from her forever? Wasforevereven something I was considering with a human? I wanted her in a way beyond the physical, although fucking her every day piqued something in me. She was mine, a possessive demonic nature that I couldn’t crush, as I acknowledged I could never be human.
Not that I wanted to be, but now there was part of me that wanted Nikki without the complication of my true nature and all this other bullshit that came with it.
There was no one I could talk to. Frank would scoff and tell me to simply fuck her and move on. I thought of talkingto Smithy—he certainly seemed the type to confide in. In my mind’s eye, I imagined him chuckling at my debacle, worrying over a woman. He’d scratch his slight beer gut through his work shirt and tell me I’d be better to ask his wife, Maria.
I bet when they were courting thirty-two years ago, they never had to worry about the things I did.
Hey, babe, I tortured your father, and now I may hold the secret to his death.
Fuck. This situation was too much.
If I wasn’t at home in Hell, and I wasn’t cut out to face issues on Earth, what did that make me? Less of a man, certainly no demon. I was a being without a home when all I wanted to do was set up and play house, and then every night drive my cock into Nikki’s pussy, falling asleep only when she was so exhausted she couldn’t move.
It sounded like heaven to me, though I had no point of comparison.
My skin started to crawl as I neared the corner of Smithy’s shop, and I growled. Without even knowing what, all I knew wassomethingwas wrong. My heart rate began to increase, a drum rhythm against the inside of my chest as I picked up the pace. My veins widened, and I had to take a few steadying breaths to keep my demon from coming to the surface.
Whatever the danger was, my senses were picking up on it. If I couldn’t handle it in my human form, only then would I let the demon out.
I found Smithy backed against the front counter, his fingers gripping the dented and paint-stained wood as a young woman was invading his space. Snarling when I entered the shop, she turned to face me, her eyes flashing with malice and teeth bared.
Like recognizes like.
Demon.
“What the fuck is going on?” There was no point in hiding theaggression in my tone. This wasn’t a friendly visit, and the sweat on Smithy’s head was evident in the bright lighting of the shop, his eyes wide and darting between us.
The young demon turned and flicked her long black hair over her shoulder as she faced me. “Nothing, nothing at all.” Keeping her in my peripheral vision, I watched Smithy as she left the shop. He said nothing but didn’t visibly relax until she was out the door.
I frowned, and Smithy opened his mouth to protest.
Launching after her, I caught up with her a few shops down, and she hissed at me as I grabbed her throat and held her against the warm bricks of the nearest building, her toes barely scraping the ground. “What the fuck do you want? Who are you?”
Her eyes flashed yellow, and I increased my grip on her neck. She was young, remarkably young, and if this came down to a matter of physical strength, she’d lose. I’m certain she could feel that, her pulse beating a rapid tune against my hand, slowly calming as she took a moment to compose herself. “I’m no one. I’m simply doing a job.”
“What job?” I growled out and shook her slightly when she went to open her mouth.“Don’t lie to me.”
“Smith was late on his protection payment. I was simply there to remind him.”
“What protection payment?”
