Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (58 page)

Avon, Massachusetts

Copyright © 2014 by Holley Trent.
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Crimson Romance

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.crimsonromance.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-8243-2

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8243-1

eISBN 10: 1-4405-8242-4

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8242-4

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Cover art © 123RF/Rehan Qureshi

To my husband, who may or may not have lent his name to a certain hillbilly werewolf.

1. Title Page
   
2. Copyright Page
   
3. Dedication
   
4. CHAPTER ONE
   
5. CHAPTER TWO
   
6. CHAPTER THREE
   
7. CHAPTER FOUR
   
8. CHAPTER FIVE
   
9. CHAPTER SIX
   
10. CHAPTER SEVEN
    
11. CHAPTER EIGHT
    
12. CHAPTER NINE
    
13. CHAPTER TEN
    
14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
    
15. CHAPTER TWELVE
    
16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    
17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    
18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    
19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    
20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    
21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
    
22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
    
23. CHAPTER TWENTY
    
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
    
25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
    
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
    
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
    
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    
30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
    
31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
    
32. About the Author
    

If Claude Fortier had been a typical man, he wouldn’t have seen the punches and slaps coming.

A
typical man wouldn’t have lost count way back in the 1860s of how many fights he’d had to carefully extricate himself from. Fighting men was too easy.
Hurting
them was too easy, and he didn’t even have to use his magic to do it. He could probably put a fist through his opponent’s skull without too much effort.

He wasn’t fighting a man this time, though.

The angry witch boldly swinging at his head was very much a woman. To the best of his recollection, he’d never tussled with a woman. For that matter, he’d never come to blows in a country-western bar’s parking lot, either. He was far more likely to be found haunting one of North Carolina’s few strip clubs. The music tended to be much better than the “I love God, America, my truck, and beer (in that order)” tunes played at joints like Rooster’s. However, strip club patrons had a higher-than-average tendency to pick a fight when Claude suggested that they should, perhaps, keep their fucking hands to themselves. The dancers didn’t like being touched.

The irony wasn’t lost on him that it was the incubus in the audience cautioning restraint. Honor wasn’t a catalogued sex demon trait, but a few had consciences. Claude was one of those few.

He laughed and leaned back to avoid a wild punch. “Well, goddamn,
chéri
. You’re really trying to lay it on me, huh?”

She growled.

“Save it for the bedroom.”

She swung again, grunting as she missed. “You wish. How about you stand still and make it easier for me?”

“Not today.” He stepped sideways and narrowly avoided her sweeping kick, whistling low. “Damn. I bet you could have me black and blue in all the ways I like. Just ask nicely,
chéri
. Maybe I’ll oblige you.”

She froze, and the creases in her forehead deepened slightly. “What?”

Thirty
. She had to be around there. He’d been following her for weeks, from the time his prescient brother Charles had told him, “She’s back,” but this was the first time he’d seen her up close. Well, this
version
of her. The last time he’d known her, she’d been a young Creole woman named Laurette and they’d shared a home in 1843 New Orleans. Their love had been passionate, but far too short. He’d thought with her back that they had another chance—but this woman obviously wasn’t his Laurette. Sweet Laurette hadn’t been a witch, and she sure as shit hadn’t had a swing like a prizefighter.

Laurette hadn’t been a fighter of any sort, to tell the truth, and his inner caveman had liked that about her. This chick, though? She wouldn’t know sweet if it bit her on her well-apportioned ass.

Tuning back into the here and now, he shrugged in response. “I believe in being up front.” She didn’t look like his Laurette, but shit, the body she was in was
fine
. The way she pursed her full lips as she considered him made a certain neglected body part of his stand up and wave. He said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for steering him clear of the skinny jeans trend. His junk had already endured enough torture. Celibacy was a bitch.

“You crept up so you could make a crude pass at me?”

He tried to smooth his expression into a mask of trustworthiness. He’d had a lot of practice at that in the past two hundred-something years. Demons, or half-demons in his case, weren’t generally trustworthy sorts. Add his witch half to the mix, and he should have been born with a
Caution
blinker installed in his forehead. Instead, he’d gotten blue eyes that turned red when he drew on his magic. He was pretty sure they were blue at the moment. He hadn’t wanted to ensorcell her, just talk to her. That talking thing was going so well.

“I didn’t creep up on you. In fact, I very audibly said
excuse me
.” He leaned in and flicked at the small headphones dangling from her neck. He pulled his hand away before her swat could connect. Scrappy little—

He ground his teeth. “Maybe you shouldn’t walk into dark parking lots with your earbuds in. You should be able to hear what’s going on around you.”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “Maybe I wear them to discourage strangers from initiating unwelcome conversation. Some men just won’t take the hint. You think I haven’t noticed you’ve been here every night for weeks? Creepy.”

He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and stared at her. Apparently, his slow and gentle tactic had backfired. His plan was to reveal his witch magic to her gradually so she’d approach him, curious but comfortable. She seemed blind to it—or maybe she didn’t give a shit. He could take a hint.

“Okay,” he said, taking a step back in concession. He was growing weary of the whole exchange. Whatever curiosity he’d had about not-Laurette was waning by the second. She couldn’t possibly be his mate. Charles had gotten it wrong. “You don’t want to have a conversation? Suit yourself.”

“Really?” She packed a shitload of incredulity into those two—no,
three
—flat syllables.

He barely managed to suppress his snort. The accents in North Carolina were so different from region to region. He’d heard a lot of them during his decades in the state, but he couldn’t quite peg hers beyond the fact she wasn’t from the mountains.

“Bullshit.” She reached into her purse, and all he needed was a glimpse of the plastic to know her intent. Shy of decapitation, she couldn’t do him any major harm, but if he were going to be forced to inhale chemicals, he’d at least like a nice contact buzz or nicotine hit. Pepper spray, unfortunately, wasn’t formulated to have that side effect.

She aimed it square at his face, and he feinted left, weaved right, grabbed her around the generous thighs he’d been ogling for the better part of the evening, and hauled her up to his left shoulder.

“I was going to walk away,
chéri
,” he said through clenched teeth. “I was going to go and let your attitude keep you company, but you need to learn to save the fighting for when it counts.”

“Pride wounded? Poor baby.” She brought her elbow down hard on his back.

The blow knocked the wind out of his lungs, and he stumbled as he gasped for air, but somehow managed not to drop her.

Grunting, he started toward the back of the country-western bar’s parking lot, swerving a bit with each step as she flailed atop him.

“Put me down, or so help me, God, I’ll—” She shifted on his shoulder again, but this time he anticipated the blow and tossed her onto the grassy strip between the deep ditch that acted as a barrier between the bar and the sorghum field next door, and the concrete of the parking lot.

She fell with an
oomph
, and scrambled onto all fours as he backed up, predicting the offensive strategy she’d take next. Sure enough, she jumped to her feet, swiped her hands through the, air and pushed magic at him.

It was probably meant to hurt, at least a little. He feigned a yawn, patting his mouth, as she groaned and tried that little trick again.

His skin tickled where her magic touched, and he should have been angry that her reflex had been to fight and not talk. She’d come after him like a wildcat on the offensive, and all this time he’d been trying to be a fucking gentleman. He’d given her space, hadn’t stalked her.

At least, not closely.

He wasn’t angry, though. He’d never stopped loving her, even after her death all those years ago. In fact, he’d never forgiven himself for how she’d died.

He’d been back in New Orleans after traveling for several weeks and as was her custom, she’d taken him to her bed to welcome him home. The next morning he’d stepped out, intending to fetch news and breakfast, and when he returned, her blood had turned the white featherbed red. His father, the demon Gulielmus, had been standing in the dark corner, wiping blood off the sword he’d had from his old angel days.

“Get back to work, Scout,” Papa had said in an even, calm voice before he disappeared, the way he was prone to.

He’d left Claude the mess to clean up, but Claude couldn’t. He’d sat there on the bed, moaning and rocking, his own clothes soaked through with his lover’s blood, until his mother arrived.

Maman had led him away, saying nothing, and then set fire to Laurette’s little house while the neighbors watched, waiting with buckets of water in case the fire tried to jump. The fire was part of the magic. What it was supposed to do, Claude didn’t know, and Maman had refused to say.

It was only after the embers stopped glowing and Claude had stopped raging and bellowing that his mother said in the French she adored so much, “People who die like this don’t always stay dead, boy.”

At the time, that hadn’t helped. The only woman he’d ever loved was dead, and he’d had no choice but to toe the line for his father. He’d seduce women and taint souls for Hell, because what choice did he really have? Who would Papa kill next to make his point?

Claude had enough guilt, and he didn’t want more.

“You should have felt that,” the woman in front of him said now, drawing his attention back to her. She stared down at her shaking hands and then up at Claude again. “That wasn’t just a warning shot.”

He shrugged again and, taking a few slow, cautious steps forward, he kept his gaze locked on her tormented face. She may have been trying to be brave, but the roundness of her dark eyes and her ragged breaths through parted lips projected her fear of him. There it was. He knew there had to be some vulnerability in there somewhere.

“Your magic won’t work against me,” he said. “I’m generally immune to it.”

Unfortunately for her, the reverse didn’t apply. He was too strong. He could shuck off most minor magic without thought. Now that she was up close, he had a better reading of her capabilities. She possessed quite a bit of power for a natural witch.

“You … you know about magic?” She swallowed and then pushed to standing. She moved sideways, keeping her front to Claude but moving away from him. “My grandmother told me this would happen one day. She warned me. Said there were people in the world who could kill me without even touching me, and I didn’t believe her. When I was a kid, I thought she was just trying to scare me and my sister into keeping our guards up. I never fell for it, but why do I get the sneaking suspicion now that you’re one of those people?”

His mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me? You don’t know a witch when you see one?” He’d been putting out subtle tendrils of magic for weeks, and she hadn’t noticed it? He felt hers. It seemed to crackle under her skin, compelling him to touch her—to
know
her. But that’d be a dangerous thing for a woman he had no intention of keeping. This woman may have had Laurette's soul, but she obviously wasn’t for him.

“Um, no. Kind of like I can’t tell whether someone’s straight or gay just by seeing them.” She kept moving, muttering her disbelief under her breath, but he didn’t follow. Her words had been seriously jarring. Like recognized like. She should have recognized the witches around her and felt magic coming off other paranormal types, too, even if she couldn’t categorize it at first.