Page 58 of Demon Unleashed

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Enya held on to Zoltan as the vortex seemed to swallow them. This was different from traveling in a Stealth Guardian portal. And very disorienting, not to mention nauseating.

She’s safe. Thank God she’s safe.

She knew instinctively that those were Zoltan’s words, though he hadn’t spoken. Which could mean only one thing: she could hear his thoughts.

Zoltan, I can feel what you’re thinking.

But there was no reply. Instead, more of his thoughts penetrated her mind.

I’ll kill whoever wants to harm her. I can’t lose her.

His words made her realize that Zoltan couldn’t hear her thoughts, even though she could hear his. And one other thing became clear despite her having a hard time believing it: his feelings for her ran deeper than she’d expected. Could it be possible? Was it possible that a demon could… love another being?

“We’re here,” Zoltan announced.

At the same time, the disorienting feeling subsided. Zoltan dropped one arm, but still held on to her with the other, then pulled her with him to step out of the vortex.

The vortex now behind her, Enya made herself visible and stared at a wall. She quickly oriented herself. They’d transported to the back of a building, where industrial-sized garbage containers stood next to a large metal garage door. They were at a loading dock. She glanced down to the opposite end of the alley and could see the gold-tipped rotunda of City Hall.

“This way.” She pointed in its direction and looked over her shoulder.

The vortex was collapsing into itself, and Zoltan reached into his inside pocket. For a fraction of a second, she wondered if he was reaching for his weapon, and her heart stopped. A moment later, he slipped dark sunglasses over his demon-green eyes, and Enya’s heart began to beat again.

He caught her gaze and tilted his head a little. “Enya, by now you should know that you’re safe with me.”

Feeling stupid, she put her arms around him and kissed him. “I’m sorry, but I just escaped the Underworld. Guess I’m still a little jumpy.”

“Yeah, you and me both. Let’s get off the street before they figure out that I helped you escape.” He took her hand in his.

She looked at their intertwined hands.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head. She’d never held hands with a man, not even in private. And now here she was, holding hands with a demon in daylight for everybody to see. “No, nothing is wrong. Nothing at all.”

They made their way out of the alley. Enya continued to scan the area, observing the pedestrians they encountered on the main street, prepared for an ambush. When nothing happened, she started to relax.

“I heard your thoughts in the vortex.”

Zoltan whipped his head to her, but she couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses. “You what? How?”

“I don’t know. But it gels with what some of my colleagues reported. When they were in one of your vortexes, they heard the demons’ thoughts. They always wondered whether you could hear them too.”

“I had no idea,” Zoltan said, genuinely surprised. “I never hear any thoughts of the other demons riding with me. And I didn’t hear yours. Of course, now that I know, I have to try to remember what I was thinking when we were traveling in the vortex.” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “Was it something along the lines of once we get out of this mess, we need to have sex?”

She chuckled softly at his attempt at levity. “I think you know very well what you were thinking of, and it wasn’t sex.”

He squeezed her hand. “We’ll talk about all that later.”

“Yes, after we find out who’s trying to kill us both,” Enya said, glad that they weren’t discussing their feelings in the middle of downtown Baltimore.

Once they were only a block away from their destination, Enya remembered something. “Oh, crap, we’re armed. We won’t get into City Hall. They’ve got metal detectors now.”

“Then make us invisible, and we’ll just sidestep them,” Zoltan suggested.

Enya looked around. “Too many people. I can’t just make us invisible in broad daylight.”