SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (166 page)

Then I slammed my fist through his chest.

“You—“ he started to say something, but then I yanked his heart out, so his final statement to the world ended in a burst of demon dust sparkling in the firelight.

I fell to the sand without the judge’s body beneath me and then I took a luxurious whole second to catch my breath. Then, brushing my hands off, I turned around to look at the people who’d walked into the lair with me.

Logan, Jasmine and Devlin were fine. A little battered, but still standing. There were only two demons left—the third either having been dusted or taken off for the hills—and they were tied up and sitting on the cold, damp sand. Smoke lifted and twisted in the heads around the two demons and they looked damn unhappy about the whole situation.

“What is in these bottles?” Logan asked nobody as he watched smoke rising and swirling in the wind. “Acid?”

Nobody answered him.

Jasmine gave me an imperious nod, like from Empress to peasant. “Nicely done.”

“What the
hell
is going on?” Logan demanded, shaking his head as if he still didn’t quite believe what he’d seen. “Where’d the judge go?”

He’d seen what happened. I know he had. But I figured by the time we’d walked out of the cave, he’d have come up with some weird ass explanation to cover up watching the judge burst into a puddle of instant soup mix. And hey, whatever helps you sleep at night, you know?

But, first things first.

“
Thea!”
I shouted and heard my voice echo weirdly through the caves, bouncing off walls and slamming back to me like a damn boomerang.

“MOM!”

I grinned and felt my heart kick start back into a normal rhythm. I kept a tight grip on my demon spray, just in case there were any other lurkers around, and headed down the tunnel to the right, following Thea’s furious voice with a smile on my face.

By the time I got her untied and on her feet, she was all talked out, complaining about Jett, demons, grownups and the fact that her new Juicy sweatshirt was probably ruined forever.

I hugged her hard, grateful as all hell to have her alive and complaining, then I slung one arm around her shoulder and walked back to where the others waited.

Logan gave her a big hug and Thea was glad enough to see us all that she hugged him back. Devlin came up to me and smiled. “Nice job.”

“Thanks.” I watched my daughter and her dad grin at each other, then looked at Jasmine and Devlin. “I’m pretty proud of myself, I guess.”

“Yes,” Jasmine said. “It was well done, but this is no time to relax your guard. The Judge has been defeated, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more demons out there.”

I just stared at her. “Do I get FIVE MINUTES to enjoy the thrill of victory?”

“There’s no time for complacency.”

I sighed. “Nag, nag...”

Logan led Thea back to me and said, “I still don’t see how the judge got past us. Pretty damn fast for an old guy. But when I get back to town, I’ll put out an APB on him.”

I shrugged. “If it makes you feel better.”

Logan was happiest with logic. Control. Apparently, I was happiest when things were wild and crazy. Because right then, I felt like a million bucks.

Thea came up to me, gave me a hug and said, “Jett told me there was a big party down here, so I thought, okay. I was going to call you, but I couldn’t find my phone and then Jett brought me here and then he just like...
left
me with that weird old guy.”

Smart of the little shit to ditch Thea’s phone. Smarter of him to get the hell outta Dodge before I could catch up to him. Otherwise, he’d be nothing but a dust bunny.

I hugged her back, then cupped her face in my hands and said, “So, mom was right about him after all.”

Thea’s mouth worked and her eyes rolled up white, but she finally blew out a breath and admitted, “Fine. You win this one. Jett was a creep demon.”

“God, I’m right
again!”
I shouted and loved the echo as Devlin laughed beside me. “This week just keeps getting better.”

We started out of the cave, the five of us, leaving the tied up, still smoking demons behind.

“What about them?” Thea asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

“Eh. I’ll come back tomorrow. If they’re still here, I’ll dust ‘em.” I was just too tired to worry about them at the moment, and besides, with their boss dead, I doubted they’d be too much trouble. They were just minions, after all, not the head cheese.

Logan and Jasmine were walking ahead of us and Thea was in between me and Devlin as we walked toward the sea and the beckoning moonlight. The tide was still rushing into the cave and our feet slapped through an inch or two of water.

“You know,” Thea said, “just because you were right about Jett doesn’t mean I’ll always
listen
to you or anything.”

I wrapped one arm around her waist and gave her another hug. “Honey,” I said, glancing up at Devlin, “I so know that. Just remember, if you want to date demons, you’ve got to be prepared to do a little dusting sometimes.”

“You dust, I’ll date,” she said and leaned her head on my shoulder.

Devlin winked at me in the shadowy darkness and ooh, I felt that rush right down to my hoo-hah again. Apparently, Thea wouldn’t be the only Burke woman dating demons.

As we walked out onto the beach and felt the cold, ocean air whip into our faces, I realized that complicated or not, my life was pretty damn interesting. And that wasn’t such a bad thing, right?

Sex, dusting and demons.

Had to be safer than sex, drugs and rock and roll.

More than Fiends: Epilogue

A whole week with no Dusting.

God, it felt great having my world nearly normal. Not to mention my
arm.
Apparently Duster strength includes quick healing, because the damage Judge Jenks did to it only hurt for a day or so. Of course, there were big write ups in the newspaper about the disappearance of Judge Jenks. But no one seemed to miss him much. I certainly didn’t. I admit I had a couple of nightmares, where those red eyes were spitting hate at me, but since that was all he could do now, I could handle that.

I spent my mornings training with Jasmine, my days cleaning, my afternoons with Thea, enjoying having my girl safe and sound and my nights with either Logan or Devlin hanging out at the house. I was sticking close to home since I wasn’t ready to leave Thea alone just yet, not even for an exciting night of orgasms.

Both of the men in my life were doing a lot of hovering—avoiding each other somehow—guy radar? But how many women are going to complain about two gorgeous men hanging around?

Not me.

Still, it was nice to have a night to myself. Thea was across the street with Zoe, and Sugar was on the floor at my feet, waiting for me to toss her some pretzels. I had a glass of cold white wine on the table in front of me, a Buffy DVD playing (my favorite episode, about the love spell), and cotton balls between my toes as I slapped on the last coat of OPI Nantucket Mist nail polish.

When the doorbell rang, I actually groaned. When it rang
again,
I shouted. “What am I, deaf? Give me a minute.”

I hobbled to the front door, walking on my heels so my freshly painted toes wouldn’t pick up any stray dog hair off the floor and, still muttering curses on the head of whoever was interrupting my ‘me’ night, yanked open the door.

And stood there, with my mouth open. Apparently there had been a big break down in the Guy Radar Network.

“I brought pizza,” Logan said, waving a pepperoni scented box from Tully’s On the Pier.

“I brought flowers,” Devlin said, extending an amazing, mixed flower bouquet that looked bigger than Thea.

“Um...” I looked from one to the other of them and didn’t have a clue what to do.

They were glaring at each other and each of them giving me looks that clearly said I should be choosing
him.

Who to welcome? Who to send away?

Logan’s blue eyes warmed me and Devlin’s dark gaze intrigued me. Both men pulled at different corners of my heart. Both men attracted me on
way
too many levels. And both men were waiting for me to say something.

So I did the only thing I could think of at the moment. I took Devlin’s flowers, then snatched the pizza box from Logan.

Grinning like a loon, I said, “Thanks, guys,” and closed the door on their hopeful expressions.

Cassidy Burke, master of postponing decisions.

THE END

Dear Reader,

MORE THAN FIENDS is a funny paranormal romance about a woman whose life is just a mess.

This I can identify with and I think a lot of us can—things get crazy and then crazier. Although, with Cassidy, just as the crazier gets going, something happens that makes her old life look calm and relaxing.

She finds out on her 32
nd
birthday that she is an hereditary Demon Duster, destined to rid the world of demons. But Cass isn’t interested in destiny—not when she has a business to run and a teenage genius daughter to raise.

But life in La Sombra is changed forever now—because the demons know that her powers have awakened and whether she wants it or not, Cassidy is drawn into the middle of demon central.

I hope you enjoy the book and please visit me on FaceBook or at my website,
www.maureenchild.com

Happy Reading

Maureen

About the Author

Maureen Child

USA Today best seller Maureen Child is the author of more than 130 romance novels in several different genres including everything from dark paranormal to lighthearted contemporary romance. One of Maureen’s novels, A POCKETFUL OF PARADISE was made into a CBS-TV movie called The Soul Collector. A native Californian, Maureen always wanted to experience all four seasons. Recently she and her husband moved to the mountains of Utah where they’re learning how to live with snow! Keep up with Maureen at her website
www.maureenchild.com

or on
Facebook
or twitter
@maureenchild
.

Additional Books by
Maureen Child

BEDEVILED

BEGUILED

A FIEND IN NEED

Excerpt from
A FIEND IN NEED

My name is Cassidy Burke and I’m a Demon Duster.

Is there a twelve step program for that?

Anyway, about a month ago, I turned thirty-two, found out demons really exist, my daughter’s long lost father moved back to town, I had sex for the first time in way too long, my daughter got kidnapped by an evil demon and I found out I was a super hero or something.

A full month.

Oh, and did I mention the guy I actually had sex with turned out to be a demon, too? Yeah. Still getting used to that myself.

As a Demon Duster, I’m supposed to rid the world of demons by punching my hand through their chests and ripping out their hearts. I hear you. Ew. But I’m getting used to it. At least I thought I was. Up until the moment my darling daughter Thea turned to me and said, “Uh, Mom?”

Every mother in the world recognizes that those two words, said in that exact tone, were never followed by the statement,
I’ve got good news.

I grabbed a brown sugar and cinnamon Pop Tart, took a big bite and muttered, “What?”

“I was um, looking around on the internet to see if they had any more information about demon dusting.”

Thea was sitting at the kitchen table in a golden slice of sunlight that was spearing through the wide window behind her. Her long, black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes looked worried. Not a good thing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What’d you find?”

“This.” She leaned back in the chair, pointed to the screen of her laptop computer and waited for me to look.

Sugar, our elephant sized, black and white dog of indeterminate breed, was hiding under the table, hoping for crumbs. Me, I was just hoping that whatever Thea had found wasn’t going to make me nuts.

I looked at the screen, blinked and looked again. Stunned, I dropped my Pop Tart and Sugar made a lunge for it.
“What?”

“Guess that explains all the extra demons lately, huh?”

I didn’t even glance at Thea. I was too busy staring at the website she had found.
www.dollarstokilltheduster.com
Just perfect. I scanned the information quick, hoping it was all a big joke. No such luck. It was real. Somebody out there was posting a reward for killing me.

“They put it online?”

“Well, at least it’s a nice picture of you,” Thea said.

Actually, it wasn’t bad. My hair looked great in that picture, and thank God, I was wearing makeup. But that wasn’t the point. “Great. I look good on my Wanted Poster. Who’s doing this?”

“I don’t know,” Thea answered, though I really hadn’t been expecting an answer at all. “But maybe killing the judge last month pissed off the demons.”

I glanced at Thea, remembered how that bastard Judge Jenks had kidnapped her, with plans to sell her as a sex slave and only wished I could go back in time and dust the old demon all over again.

“How much are they offering for me?”

“Right now?” Thea punched a button, the screen scrolled down and numbers flashed in blinking red lights. $10,000, Dead or Alive but preferably Dead.

“That’s it?” Now I was offended. I’m the scourge of the demon community and all they could come up with was ten thousand lousy bucks? Where were their standards? I was worth at
least
fifty!

“Cheer up, Mom,” Thea pointed out as she disconnected and closed the computer lid. “Maybe it’ll go up.”

“Sure, sure.” I glanced at her as she got up and moved my foot when Sugar licked crumbs off my bare foot. “Where’re you going?”

“School,” she said. “Unless you want to give me the day off.”

“Nice try, but I don’t think so.” She didn’t even look disappointed. No big surprise there. Thea’s a math genius. I have no idea where she got it, but the girl’s amazing—plus, she actually likes school. Weird, but there you go.