Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series (72 page)

Wrapping her hair around his fist, he gave her head a pull backward and kissed her neck. “I believe that seals the deal,
ma reine
.”

“Mmm, more people should make bargains like that.” She smiled like that cat that got the cream as she rolled away from him.

“They can bargain all they want, as long as it’s not with you.”

“God, when you talk like that, you sound like my ex-husband.”

I’ll kill him
.

He closed his eyes again and ground his teeth, squeezing his hands into tight fists.

That was the demon in him talking—the part of him with no discipline. It was talking loud and clear now that the other part of him was but an empty well. Balancing his two parts had been a lifelong project, and he’d need his witch magic soon, or he’d risk hurting someone. Maybe even himself.

“I don’t wish to remind you of someone you dislike. I apologize.”

She sighed and sat up. “Me, too. I didn’t mean it. No one compares to him. I just don’t like being told what I’m not allowed to do.”

Leaning down, she pressed a gentle kiss on his forehead that sent tickling tendrils down his cheeks and straight to his core. The demon in him wanted to grab her, kiss her, and darken that broken heart of hers to leave her without will or motivation. The small part of him that was just
human
fought it back.

“Go,” he said, afraid to look at her. He kept his hands pressed against the bed. “Call me when you’re on the way back.”

“It’ll be late, and you should be resting.”

“I’ll be up.”

He’d stay up, because if she didn’t come back, he’d raise Hell itself if he had to. He was sure his mother would help. Not like she had anything better to do.

Having kitchen help during the busy happy hour period at the bar was nice, though not strictly legal. Clarissa had insisted, and since the woman apparently had problems with being idle for more than fifteen seconds at a time, Gail had relented.

While Clarissa peeled and washed lettuce for sandwiches, Sweetie paced in front of the open walk-in freezer, wringing her hands.

“What’s wrong, Sweets?” Gail set a couple of specials up on the pass-through counter and hit the bell for the bartender.

“Nothin’. Wolf thing.”

Clarissa sighed. “Oh, boy.”

“What do you know about wolves, Clarissa?” Gail lowered the basket into hot oil and set the timer. The bar sold jalapeño poppers two to one over French fries. That may have had something to do with Gail’s special batter. She wouldn’t tell her boss what was in it, and he didn’t push because the poppers kept folks drinking those overpriced national brand beers.

“I try to know a little bit about a lot of things. Before Calvin, I didn’t know any wolves personally, but since then I’ve made it my business to look some things up.”

“How do you even find out about that sort of thing?” Gail pulled a plate down from the warmer and tossed a buttered bun onto the grill. “Shape-shifters were a taboo topic in my community when I was growing up. Everything I thought I knew about them doesn’t seem to be true.”

“Oh, that’s how feuds work, dear. My guess is something happened between wolves and witches long ago that made them fall out, and now the witches have their own lore about why they should keep separate. Hardly anybody knows the truth anymore.”

“And you do?”

“Yep.” She slid a strainer full of lettuce across the prep table. Gail grabbed it before it could slip off the edge. “If you know where to look for information, it’s right there for the plucking. Claude would tell you the same thing.”

Gail rolled her eyes. That stubborn jackass. He’d made one last attempt to follow her to work, but barely made it to the front door.

Charles, who was about fifty percent further along in recovery than his big brother, had had to walk up the path and then push Claude back up the stairs.

He’d said it himself—no one would bother her in a public place, and she trusted that. Maybe it was just in his nature to be overcautious. She certainly preferred that over him being distant and hands-off.

“So, what happened? Between the witches and wolves, I mean.” She picked up a spatula and scooped up a bit of pickle-mayo.

“Arranged marriage went sour.”

“Bullshit.” She turned around to check Clarissa’s expression for signs of guile, but the other woman’s face was an absolute blank.

“It’s true. All the wolves know it, and we don’t talk about it, because it was our fault,” Sweetie said, still pacing. She dragged her forearm across her sweat-sheened forehead and let out a soft moan. She paused in front of the freezer and grabbed the hem of her shirt, flapping it up and down to cool herself. Her red cheeks and labored breathing made Gail set down her spatula.

“Are you all right?”

Sweetie waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll pass in a while.”

“Are you in heat or something?”

Clarissa picked up a flexible plastic cutting board and wafted it back and forth near Sweetie’s face. “I wouldn’t call it that, exactly.”

Already, Sweetie started to settle. “It’s an energy thing. Wolves don’t take mates because of the need to conceive offspring, although there is certainly a pull for that, but because half the month we’re more or less energy vampires. It’s all governed by moon phases. The cycle doesn’t wreck you so bad when you’re young, but the older you get, you really gotta deal with it or your hormones go out of whack and you turn into one grumpy-ass wolf.”

“So, what do you need? Cuddle time?”

“All right, smart ass. I’d tell you yes just to fuck with you, but you can’t give me enough of what I need. There aren’t too many folks calibrated the right way.” Sweetie sat, and put her head between her legs.

Clarissa kept fanning.

The rise and fall of Sweetie’s back slowed.

Gail hit the deep fryer timer and cranked the basket up to drain the poppers.
Enough of what I need
, Sweetie had said.

Gail turned to see Clarissa twisting Sweetie’s damp ponytail off her neck into a bun.

“So … Clarissa’s energy is right?”

Sweetie grumbled against her legs.

“Me and all the boys,” Clarissa said.

All the boys?
Just how had Sweetie found out that bit of information? Maybe the wolf meant well, but suddenly, the idea of her getting close enough to Claude to siphon off a bit of his juice made her teeth grate.

Deep down, she knew her jealousy was insane. How many women would a two-hundred-and-fifteen-year-old incubus have slept with? Probably too many to keep count, and the idea simultaneously revolted and bolstered her.

Perhaps many had come before, but she’d damn sure be the last. She wasn’t a disposable trick, contrary to how Shaun had behaved. Wanting Claude was completely irrational, but she believed Mark. They may not have been a couple as such, but they were a pair. She liked the idea of them being a couple. Any witch in her right mind would.

“And Marion,” Sweetie said. “But not Ariel for some reason.”

“Ariel’s a psychic null. She was born as we hoped—perfectly normal. We’d hoped the same would be true for Marion, but it looks like she got it from both sides.”

“Yay, magic.”

Gail dished the poppers, set the chicken sandwich onto the plate, and slammed her palm against the bell. “Order up,” she shouted to the bar attendant.

When she turned around again, Clarissa had bridged the gap between them with unusual stealth, and stood with her hands on her hips.

Gail jumped, clutching her chest. “What?”

“Your eyes are red.”

“I’m standing over a deep-fryer. It’s an occupational hazard.”

“No, dear. The whites aren’t red. Your irises are.”

“What?” Gail picked up a large metal spoon and held the back up to her face. Red.
Huh.
She stared, a bit cross-eyed, until the red bled away for her irises’ usual brown.

“What’d Claude do to you before you left the house?”

“Nothing.” She swallowed and shifted her weight. “Nothing” was a lie. He’d stirred her into an unsatisfying peak, only to deny her a resolution. Some incubus.

No, some
man
! Most men wanted to get their jollies off at any cost, and she’d been right there, time-starved but more or less willing, and he’d given her a pat on the bottom and let her go.

Asshole. She’d show him. The very next time he came sniffing for a little action, she’d let him know what that thrum of sexual frustration felt like.

Clarissa narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. She backed away, picked her cutting board up once more, and resumed her fanning of Sweetie.

The bartender slipped a couple of order slips through the window, jarring Gail from her thoughts. She slapped her hand down atop them and sighed, wondering what Claude was doing at the moment.

Was he asleep? Or maybe he was up, plotting with his brothers? Was he thinking of her?

“Shit.” She patted her back pockets and found her phone. She shouldn’t have been so concerned with Claude when she’d forgotten to check in with Ellery. Eight o’clock. Ellery should have been at the hospital.

Gail tapped in a text message while Clarissa peered at the order slips.

“What’s a Loose Lady?”

“Barbecue sandwich. White bun, cole slaw, pulled pork with Cheerwine-infused barbecue sauce.”

“Ugh, Lexington barbecue.” Clarissa shuddered like a dog shaking off water. “I’ll get it.”

“I’m not a fan of it, either. I grew up in Manteo. We liked our pork shredded and doused in vinegar, not this soupy red sauce. Folks around here like it, though.”

Sweetie sat up, gasping. “Something’s wrong with y’all. That junk y’all eat is like licking pennies. Lexington-style all the way.”

Gail chuckled, shaking her head. She typed:

Thanks again for driving way out to the coast to check on the guys. I’m at the bar with Clarissa and Sweetie. I put in my notice. My boss wasn’t happy, but then he saw the ring and asked if it was because I was getting married. I lied and said yes. He calmed down. I guess that’s an okay lie. Are you clocked in at work?

While waiting for Ellery’s response, she pulled down a couple of plates and scooped some hushpuppies out of the warmer.

“No wonder cooking for that lot back at my place is easy for you,” Clarissa said. “You do it every night.”

“That’s actually easier.” Gail stared at her phone display, and when it didn’t light up, she tucked the device into her back pocket. Maybe Ell was making her rounds and had turned her phone off.

No. That didn’t sound like Ell. Ell always checked in.

Gail’s stomach churned with an apprehension bordering on panic, and that was unusual for her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who’d jump to conclusions without having good evidence first. Ellery not answering an epic-length text message within ninety seconds wasn’t a cause for alarm.

She squirted the special sauce into a couple of disposable cups and nestled them onto the plates. The bartender was at the window, waiting for the orders, and she passed them through without a word.

Ninety seconds was
not
cause for alarm—but maybe two minutes was?

She wrested the phone out of her pocket again, but before she could pull up the appropriate screen, the kitchen lights flickered and the shutters between the kitchen and bar snapped closed.

“Clarissa?”

Gail spun and found Clarissa in front of her, holding her left harm out as if to hold Gail back. In her right hand, she gripped an athame pointed toward the corner Sweetie was growling at.

There was nothing there, just a baker’s rack piled high with industrial-sized cans of boiled potatoes and the string beans no one ever ordered.

Sweetie’s growl grew louder, its burrs sending shivers down Gail’s spine. A noise like that shouldn’t come out of a woman that pretty.

Gail cleared her throat, and whispered, “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Before Clarissa could answer, two large men materialized in front of that baker’s rack.

Gail didn’t think, just acted. She nudged Clarissa aside and targeted a burst of electricity at the men, the same way she had when she’d encountered Claude days ago.

Only this time, it worked. Lightning flashed across the room, and the smaller of the two men was thrown into the baker’s rack. Cans rained down on him, and the smell of charred cloth filled the kitchen.

“Oh shit!” Gail pulled her hands tight to her body as Sweetie snapped and growled at the dark-haired man scrambling back to his feet. What had just come out of her?

He groaned beneath the mountain of cans, obviously alive.

Obviously not
human
. No normal man could survive a lightning strike at such close range. Hell, how had she even survived producing it? She couldn’t imagine her body being a conduit for that.

The other man, a giant well over seven feet tall who leaned on a deadly-looking, red-glowing sword as if it were a cane, turned his blond head slowly toward the women at the grill. “Nice welcome.”

The shutters rattled, banged, as the bartender jiggled the knobs. “Gail? What’s going on back there?”

“Don’t you take one step toward her,” Sweetie snapped. Her tongue had gone lazy, probably due to her fangs extending and muzzle stretching. Her green eyes had taken on a canine appearance, and Gail worried they wouldn’t be able to call the wolf back if she went all the way. She and Ellery hadn’t managed it back at summer camp all those years ago, and they hadn’t improved their knowledge on wolves since then.

Could Sweetie think like a human when she was wolf, or would they all have to wait it out until she worked the animal’s aggression out of her system? If her hormonal state was any indicator, they might all be in for a wild ride.

They needed to de-escalate this situation—whatever it was—and fast.

“Call off your bitch,” the blond man said in the same sort of flat tone a man giving his secretary would use. Stressed? Nope. Not him. He looked like he did shit like this every day, popping into country-western bar kitchens and scaring the living daylights out of underpaid cooks.

“I’ll show you a bitch, demon,” Sweetie said. “Don’t think I won’t try to fuck you up. I don’t care whose daddy you are. You touch my friend, and you’ll be soaking that sweet ass of yours in a brimstone bath for a week to make the hurtin’ stop. Oh, and I’ll make it hurt in a way you won’t like.” She snapped her teeth, and the brown-haired man cringed. Blue eyes. Exact same ones as Claude, Charles, Julia, and John.