Chapter 13

From the corner of my eye I saw him scuttle off and breathed a weary, bone-deep sigh and shifted back to my normal form. I hated being mean, but to stay around me another second with a dissatisfied Lust was probably not a good idea.

I curled my lips, still not able to find my stupid shirt, and decided it wasn’t even worth it. I wasn’t going to dig through the trash bin for it. Forget it. I had bent to retrieve my trench coat when I heard him return.

“What now?” I groaned. I felt the cold press of a blade against my spine a second before I smelled the familiar scent of sandalwood. I went still, not daring to breath or move.

“Was it good?” A hard voice whispered in my ear, and then an even harder body pressed against my own, pinning me to the brick wall, the knife no longer between us.

I shivered, recognizing the voice I’d been dying to hear ever since the night he’d stepped into my crazy world. My heart twisted painfully in my chest, slid to my knees. I turned—half expecting him to punch me for my audacity—and stared into a pair of brown eyes that were at the moment sparking with rage. 

My breasts smashed against the hard muscle of his chest, and my nipples tightened into painful peaks, stabbing him through the thin layer of cotton he wore.

His delectable mouth was turned into a tight sneer, disgust clear on his arrogant face. I licked my lips, his eyes glued to the movement. My skin tingled, flushed with need and desire so hard it was nearly pain.

Billy planted his hand over my head, his body moving off mine enough to give him room to study me. It was a long, slow perusal. Whatever thoughts went on behind those lidded eyes of his I couldn’t tell. But wherever his gaze touched, it was like being branded with heat. He stopped for a second to study my zipper that was still unzipped, as if trying to determine if I was commando. 

I was.

Then his eyes hit my navel, my breasts, and lingered for a long, hot second. It didn’t take a Neph possessed by Lust to figure out that look. Then he glanced at my face, and the heat was gone. All that remained was a killing frost.

In that moment, in that second, I didn’t care if Billy slapped me, screwed me, or gutted me. All I wanted was his hands on my body any way I could take it. 

“You disgust me.” His voice was cool silk, deep and throaty. Made my knees weak and my temper flare, banking the fire spreading through my blood.

I shoved him. Hard. He leered with that arrogance that made me want to scream. I nearly ripped the sleeves off my coat as I shoved my arms through them, then belted it shut. 

“Ohh, as if that hurts?” I snapped back at him. “Do you think I give a crap what you think?”

He bit his bottom lip, and I swear I almost came. I bit back a groan, hating him, hating myself and wishing like Dante’s Inferno there were some way I could reach into my boot, grab the ring, and stick it on him without alerting him to the fact.

“If you didn’t care, Neph, then why throw the coat around yourself like it was a shield?”

I narrowed my eyes, planting my hands on my hips. “Don’t call me that.” All I could think to say.

The knife was back in his hands before I could even blink. What the hell? Where had it come from? It was like he was pulling stuff from air. He toyed with the tip, staring at it and not at me, for a long enough second that I debated whether or not to go for the ring.

“Why are you following me?” I should have gone for the ring, but my curiosity had, yet again, overridden any common sense I had.

He looked at me then, letting me feel the full weight of his anger. It pressed in on me like a tangible thing, made me feel like I couldn’t take a deep enough breath to satisfy my need for oxygen. He said nothing.

I fisted my hands, taking a step closer. I’d expected him to back off, but he didn’t. Billy was an immovable wall of muscle and hard steel. Panic fluttered like moth wings in my throat; I fought the need to retreat from his burning, deep chocolate gaze .

“If you think your little knife display is gonna scare me, think again. I’m not some blushing maiden who can’t handle her weapons.” Double entendre intended, thank you very much. 

His lip curled. “I should kill you.”

My breath caught, but I rolled my eyes. “Yawn. I’ve heard that before, now haven’t I?” 

He stepped so close I couldn’t breathe. He took up all the space around us, his presence the only thing I was aware of. His big hands were on my jacket. He shoved it open. I gasped the second the cold air touched my nipples. The pleasure of hot and cold played like a symphony on my sensitized flesh. Liquid heat crashed between my thighs, and Lust didn’t simply wake up; she roared to life. 

A rumble vibrated through his throat. Somehow, I wound up with my back pressed against the brick face again, my wrists pinned above my head by one of his large hands. “Is this what you like?” he snarled.

My heart pounded. My pulse thrummed with crystal resonance. I wanted to wrap one of my legs around his waist and beg him to take the fever away, but I couldn’t move. Every hard line of his body was pressed against mine. My head swam with visions of his beautiful lips working between my legs, my hands running through his hair. I whimpered. Lust was going to eat me alive. I writhed, which only made things worse. My whole body grew enflamed, engulfed by desire. My brain was muddied by thoughts of him, sex, and nothing else. 

The man made me feel like a slut. What was worse, he was right. Lust loved it. “I hate you.” My words dripped like venom from my tongue, and I wiggled my toes, trying to figure out a way to push him off me and get to the ring. 

He laughed, and the sound shivered down my spine in an erotic caress. I moaned, closed my eyes, and arched into him, feeling the brush of something thick, long, and hard against my thigh. 

He traced his nose along the length of my neck much like Luc does, though not to scent out a lie. This touch burned. Made the demon slither and slink through my skin, crawl with malevolent intent to harm and possess.

“I hate you, Priest,” I snapped, my voice echoing with the sound of another. My fingers twitched as my nails grew long and longer still, extending out into claws as the anger gripped me. But his hold on my wrists was absolute and crushing. I couldn’t move them. 

I jerked, but he slammed me back hard. “Don’t move,” he growled.

Power pulsed through my veins; my body bristled with the need to take action. But as mine grew, so did his. 

Then the knife was in his hand again, this time a dagger. I’m not into knife play, but the way he trailed it down my throat and across my chest was almost as good as a caress. I twitched, every nerve ending raw and exposed. Then the knife traced the thick scar above my chest. I gasped. Suddenly this wasn’t fun. This wasn’t good. 

Billy stared at the scar, not with lust or pity, but with curiosity, as if he were trying to figure out what or who had made it, done it. I ground my molars until they ached, vulnerable and exposed. 

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper. His actions weren’t making any sense. He was a walking contradiction of lust and death and other things I couldn’t name. 

He looked at me then. “My reasons are my own.” Sexual attraction was gone, replaced by cold, hard, and deadly intent. 

I swallowed. “Let me go.” 

His lips twitched. “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know that twice now I’ve seen you. I also know that both times you haven’t even tried to kill me.”

He narrowed his eyes, and I felt the air charge, thicken with the promise of violence. My skin tingled, but I didn’t stop, too angry to care.

“You’ve been following me. Either A, you get some kind of sick jollies out of toying with me, or B, you have no intention of killing me. So which is it, Billy the Kid?” I spat, mocking the name I knew wasn’t really his. I heaved for air.

The second the words left my mouth I knew I’d pushed him too far. I felt the cold shiver of displaced air against my cheek a second before he stabbed me. I screamed as the blade sank deep into my collarbone, snapping it with a muffled pop. My stomach churned. 

He shoved his face close, his nose pressed to mine. The mint of his breath tickled my lips as he said, “It would be a grave mistake for you to ever underestimate me again.”

Then he pulled the knife out, and blood poured from the wound. He shoved away from me, and I hissed as pain lanced through the left side of my chest. He stood there, bloody knife gripped in his hand, looking like some avenging angel of death. I had two choices, stand here and die or do something about it.

He advanced. 

I knelt and frantically yanked on the sack in my boot, my left arm was useless, my fingers numb and cold. I couldn’t get it. Panic nearly consumed me. 

A shiver of parasite pulsed across my skin like magnetic flame. But this wasn’t a low buzz of frequency, this was off-the-charts-haywire crazy. Billy blocked my view of whatever it was that had suddenly materialized behind us. All I could make out was a twirl of gray. My heart thumped. I shot to my feet, saw Billy turn. A look flashed across his face so fast I barely had time to register it. Then in a blink, he was gone. Vanished into the night.

What could make a priest run that way? was all I had time to think before I saw it too.