Temptation, Chronicles of the Fallen, Book 3 (4 page)

He was…different. More.

But she couldn’t tell what that more was.

One corner of his mouth tilted upward, as if he’d somehow sensed or felt what she was doing. She slammed her shields closed. Well, as closed as she ever could, which was to say not quite entirely. Not nearly as tight as she’d like. She dropped her focus to the glass in her hand, and she traced a bead of condensation.

Clearing her throat, she sat up straighter and adopted an uninterested expression. “Well, he is kind of…cute. But it doesn’t matter. Brett and I went out on a date last Friday night, and I agreed to see him again tomorrow.”

That’s right
, she reminded herself.
Think of Brett. Harmless, normal, very human Brett.
As far removed from that other world as a man could be.

“You only agreed to go out with Brett because he nagged you into it,” Cecelia finally chimed in.

Cecelia was right. Brett, a lawyer, had worn her down, petitioning his case with dogged determination for three months. Even so, Maggie shot her a withering look. “Brett is perfectly fine.”

“More like perfectly boring,” Gail said, taking a drink as the other women in the group nodded and murmured agreement. “He is so not your type, Mags. You need someone with energy, someone with a…a zest for life. Someone who’s gonna shove you up against the wall and steal passionate kisses. Not someone so full of himself he can’t put anyone else first. Doesn’t Brett irritate you? My goodness! The few times I’ve spoken with him, I’ve felt like I was on trial!”

“He’s not like that,” Maggie insisted.
Well, not all of the time.

Okay! Okay, he
is
like that, some of the time.

“You should go over, say hi,” Molly prompted. She peeped over her shoulder at the guy by the bar, then turned back to Maggie with a wide smile. “He looks like he has some experience with wall sex. Make sure you give him your number.”

“I’m not going over. And I’m not giving a perfect stranger my phone number,” Maggie said, staring hard at the table in front of her, willing herself not to look at him again. Willing herself to ignore the unbidden images of the sexy blond pushing her up against a wall, just as Cecelia had suggested. She wouldn’t think of him like that. She wouldn’t think of him at all. Even if he was the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

Ever.

Attractive men were trouble. And out of her league.

This guy was so far out of her league he wasn’t even playing the same sport.

Besides, she didn’t like that she couldn’t get a read on him.

“Well, if you’re not going over,” Cecelia said, pushing her chair back and rising from the table, a siren on a mission, “I will.”

Maggie’s jaw dropped on a protest, but she quickly clamped her mouth closed. After all, she’d more or less just told the group she wasn’t interested. That she was seeing someone else. She didn’t have any right to cry foul now that Cecelia had called dibs.

Still, she couldn’t help but watch jealously as Cecelia sauntered across the bar, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she sidled up to Maggie’s sexy admirer. Much as it rubbed her raw, Maggie couldn’t look away while her friend spoke to the man. Cecelia then leaned close to him, revealing a generous amount of cleavage. She offered him a business card.

Only the man hadn’t taken his eyes off Maggie. Not once.

An odd sense of intimacy was blooming between them, and Maggie became flustered. She’d never experienced anything like this before and didn’t know what to do about it.

He subtly shifted away from Cecelia, intriguing Maggie despite herself. Seemingly with great effort, the man finally tore his gaze from Maggie long enough to smile at Cecelia. He said something, very brief and to the point. He refused Cecelia’s offered business card. And then his attention was back on Maggie. Implacable. Unwavering. Compelling.

She couldn’t quite squash the tiny thrill when Cecelia turned away, a disappointed sulk on her beautiful mouth. She returned to their table alone.

“Looks like it’s Maggie or nothing for Mr. Tall, Blond, and Sexy,” Cecelia grumbled. She picked up her drink and took a big, irritated gulp.

Maggie’s brows shot up, and her lips parted in shock, as did Gail’s and Molly’s. Cori, as she usually did whenever Cecelia didn’t get her way, simply smirked. Theirs was a strange friendship. They knocked each other all the time, but let someone else do the knocking and blood would spill.

Maggie shook her head. Someone had shot Cecelia down? Over her? Inconceivable. Cecelia was every man’s walking wet dream. No way would a healthy, red-blooded man pick Plain Jane Maggie over Blonde Bombshell Cecelia. There had to be something wrong with him.

Scraping her teeth over her bottom lip, she glanced up beneath lowered lashes. He’d shifted his weight to the other foot, and he had a bottle of beer in his hand now. But he still watched their table, watched her, causing a strange insidious warmth to spread through her body, at once making her feel both edgy with attraction, and yet protected. As if he was a sentinel standing guard over her.

Baffling.

Frowning, she struggled to focus on the conversation that had resumed around her, making what she hoped would pass for appropriate sounds when necessary. She didn’t look his way again, no matter how badly she wanted to, and he never approached the table. But she could feel the weight of that amber stare like a physical caress. Once her friends decided to call it a night, while Maggie gathered up her own purse and jacket, she finally risked a glance, unable to stop herself.

He was gone.

Disappointment slid through her. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. She was dating somebody else already. And Brett was fine.

Perfectly fine.

Right?

Yet, she couldn’t quite shake the memory of that entrancing amber stare.

Chapter Two

Gideon sucked in a cool breath of night air as he faded into the shadows across the street from a swank little nightclub nestled in the heart of Portland, Oregon aptly named Angel’s Fall. His gaze lingered on the door as he waited for Maggie Michaels to exit the building. He’d found her at the middle school where she taught, per Sebastian’s intel. He’d then followed her home, to a little bungalow style house in the suburbs. And then he’d followed her here.

He’d slipped inside to keep a better eye on her. At first, he hadn’t meant for her to see him. But then he figured,
what the hell?
He was going to have to get the cuff in his pocket locked on her wrist, wasn’t he? Sooner or later she was going to have to see him.

Might as well make it sooner.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she appeared to be cautious of strangers. Oh no, quite the opposite, in fact. Everybody was her bloody friend, as far as he could tell. On her convoluted route to Angel’s Fall, he’d watched as she’d dropped off a couple boxes of groceries at a shelter for battered women. She’d walked around the shelter for nearly an hour, touching this person or that, holding babies and playing with kids, leaving calm, smiling people in her wake.

He’d also witnessed her giving money to three different homeless men on the street. Homeless men, he might add, with whom she seemed perfectly comfortable enjoying idle conversation. It was the do-gooder angel blood in her, he supposed with a disgusted shake of his head. How the hell was he supposed to ensure the safety of someone who petted every stray and fed every homeless person she came across with no regard for her own safety?

Once she’d arrived at Angel’s Fall, she’d sat at a table of women with whom she laughed and seemed to have a good time. At least, she had until she’d realized he was watching her. After that she’d been subdued, her captivating smile rarely making another appearance. He’d caught her sneaking a covert glance his way now and again. He wouldn’t let himself think about those pretty, innocent eyes of hers. They would only make him want. And wanting led to bitterness, bitterness to anger, and anger unleashed the beast within. Because no matter how badly he might want her, he could never have her.

Not that he’d allow himself to want her. She was a Halfling. And not just any Halfling. She was Michael’s daughter, by the love of all that was holy.

Michael’s daughter!

She had the same stubborn tilt to her chin with the same tiny indentation that her father had, though her jaw line was decidedly more feminine, softer. Her eye and hair color were the same. The patrician nose was similar, but the slash of her eyebrows and the angle of her cheeks were different from Michael’s, giving her a definite look all her own. Gentle. Alluring.

Confusion swirled in his gut. To be so attracted to her, to the Halfling, was wrong.

Michael’s daughter!
kept whispering through his head from the moment he’d first spotted her. Just from the look of her, there was no doubt anymore. And yet, the tug of unwanted attraction was still there. Unsettling.

She’d nursed the same cocktail all night while her friends had ordered drink after drink after drink. She’d politely declined an offer to dance with some polished creep in dress slacks and a dress shirt, sans the tie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Gideon didn’t like the guy on sight. Didn’t know why, didn’t care. Quite honestly, he entertained a brief fantasy that involved his fist and that guy’s gleaming white teeth. All on Michael’s behalf, he tried to assure himself.

Liar.

But just as quickly as it occurred to him to punch the guy out, he shot it down with a frustrated growl. That same curse that interfered with his ability to touch a woman also inhibited his ability to reach out and touch that bastard too, no matter how badly that bastard needed touching.

Then again, Gideon reflected, he hadn’t fed in quite some time. Feeding was the only way he could have physical contact with a human while in this form, his palm centered over a human’s chest as he sucked the soul from their body. Granted, that poor excuse for a sensation of touch wasn’t quite the same and lasted a matter of minutes, but it was all he’d had for longer than he liked to think about.

Gideon reserved the privilege of being his food for those truly deserving of such a gruesome and painful death. Murders, pedophiles, rapists, thieves. Those who would otherwise escape punishment for their crimes. He’d never preyed on the innocent. Not even now, after having finally given up the good fight, after losing his faith, would he stoop that low. That was a line his own honor wouldn’t let him cross, no matter the personal cost.

At least, he usually limited his feedings to those humans filled with such evil they deserved an expedited trip to Hell. But that guy who’d asked Maggie to dance had continued to watch her even after she’d declined. The only thing that stopped Gideon from luring him into the alley behind the nightclub was the fact that the bastard had turned his sights elsewhere.

As soon as Gideon saw Maggie and her friends gathering up their belongings, he’d beat feet outside, wanting to trail her without her knowledge. It’d be easier—though he wasn’t sure how he was going to go about it just yet—to get that cuff on her wrist while she was alone, not surrounded by a gaggle of women. One thing he’d learned early on while under Lucifer’s thumb? Gather as much intel as you could about your chosen target before you made your move. Learn their regular haunts, figure out their patterns. Surprise was often a risk you couldn’t afford. And Gideon, the strategist, was never taken by surprise.

The door opened again. Maggie’s group of friends began spilling outside. He scanned the pack, but he didn’t see her. His unease grew as he watched the women totter into waiting cabs and disperse.

And still no Maggie.

Where the hell is she?

“Damn it,” he hissed beneath his breath. He hadn’t sensed any demon presence inside Angel’s Fall. That didn’t mean one couldn’t have been there, concealing himself somehow.

Christ on a crutch
.

He’d let himself become distracted. By her. He knew better.

Gideon straightened from where he leaned against the brick wall, intent on crossing the street and storming back inside after her. The air just to the side of the nightclub’s doorway began to waver. Gideon darted back into the shadows. Three demons solidified. He couldn’t tell what species, given they were all in human form, but it didn’t matter much. Demon was demon. All that
did
matter was the fact they were standing between him and the Halfling he was supposed to be guarding.

Gideon licked his lips. Did he dare shimmer inside and risk someone seeing him? Did he risk leaving a shimmer trail?

Hell, what did a shimmer trail matter? The raw power the Halfling exuded would probably overwhelm it anyway. The moment he’d walked inside the bar, he’d known she was there. Had felt her power like a shower of electrical sparks over his skin. They would feel it too. The only thing a shimmer trail would do was speed their efforts to find her before someone else got their hands on her.

The demons were now entering the club. By their serious expressions, he’d be willing to bet they were there on a mission and not just out for a little action.

A mission named Maggie Michaels.

One of the demons paused, there on the threshold, his malevolent grin growing wide. Gideon would bet his guard stone encrusted Rolex the bastard had already sensed her.

Screw it. Centering his focus, he visualized the dark hallway that led to the restrooms. The shadows around him, the rough brick wall at his back, the filthy concrete beneath his boots, the cool night air blurred, faded away and were replaced by the scent of expensive booze, cloying perfume, sweating humans and cheap disinfectant cleaners. Hardwood beneath his boots steadied him. Corrugated steel walls appeared on either side of him, a long dark hallway that led to restrooms on one end, and a loud, packed dance floor on the other. No one screamed or shouted in alarm when he solidified. Aside from himself, the hallway was empty.

Gideon darted to the end of the hall nearest the dance floor, and scanned the bobbing heads, scanning faces in the crowd. As tall as he was, with the sunken dance floor, it wasn’t difficult to see the whole room at a glance. The group of demons stood near the front door, scanning the dance floor as well. On the plus side, they hadn’t found her yet either. On the other hand, where they were standing, they were far more likely to catch her first as she’d have to pass by them in order to leave the building.

He didn’t want to draw their attention, at least, not if he could help it. While he would relish the chance to wipe the floor with them, there were far too many innocents in the direct line of fire. He might have an acknowledged death wish, but that didn’t mean he was willing to take a bunch of unsuspecting, innocent humans with him.

He debated his best plan of action, his mind quickly and without conscious effort calculating the best odds for success in each scenario. Bottom line, he had to go out there, weave through the crowd without letting anyone realize they weren’t actually touching him, even though it looked as if they should be, and find her before those demons did. He cursed Sebastian to Hell and back for asking him to do this.

“Um, excuse me?” A soft, feminine voice drew his attention.

He froze for a split second, then turned as the hint of cinnamon and vanilla wafted closer. His eyebrows shot up and he grinned wide. He couldn’t believe his luck.

“Oh, it’s you,” Maggie Michaels whispered, a becoming blush flooding her cheeks beneath the pulsing neon glow of the dance floor lights.

Despite the mad swirl of color and strobe of lights, a heavy dusting of freckles along the bridge of her nose and across the upper ridges of her cheeks was clearly visible. Her eyes were a blue-green, not quite one color, not quite the other, but a beautiful combination of the two. Like tropical waters. Crystal clear and alluring.

Her lips looked soft as the petals of a flower, and just as delicate. He could so easily see himself partaking of that mouth. Over and over. Imbibing until he was completely intoxicated with the taste of her. She was no tall, stick thin runway supermodel. No cool, touch-me-not waif. She was nose level with his sternum, though given his own height, that didn’t exactly make her short. And her curves were lush. Warm and inviting. And very, very womanly. His entire body seized with raw lust.

Her gaze dropped, and she cleared her throat. He realized he was staring. And that he hadn’t moved an inch. And that a jolt of lust had just sucker punched him in the gut, hard, catching him by surprise.

Holy hell!
He sucked in a sharp breath and dragged his gaze upward, staring blindly at the ceiling.

Michael’s daughter!

The reminder didn’t seem to be helping.

And the burning need in his gut seemed to be growing with every inhalation of her delicious scent.

She stepped to the side, nodding toward the front of the club. “Excuse me. I was just, um, going that way.”

But as she said the last, her gaze drifted past his arm, and a frown knitted her brow. She tilted her head, staring hard at something, at someone, out there in the crowd behind him. A surge of power shot from her. Much the same as the one he’d sensed earlier when she’d stared like that at him. What was she doing? He glanced over his shoulder before peering back down at her. Her brow furrowed deeper as the power surge coming from her ceased, though he could still sense a glimmer of it resonating around her. If he could sense her power, would those other three demons also feel it? The Halfling looked alarmed, and more than a little green around the gills.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Could she somehow sense the demons? Was that what the power surge was? Did her angelic blood somehow clue her in to what they were? And if so, why then couldn’t she realize he was as they were—demon? Why didn’t she seem to fear him?

“Ah, nothing.” She shook her head and offered him a very wide, obviously fake smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He didn’t need Xander the walking lie detector to tell him she was lying through her pearly whites. Xander, the Demon Slayer, had once described his curse as feeling like a thousand spiders were crawling over his skin when a lie was told, no matter how small or inconsequential. Creepy. Still not as bad as Gideon’s own curse, but creepy as hell all the same.

Her panic was palpable, her focus darting over the club walls, high up, stopping when she spied the glowing exit sign on the far side of the dance floor. Her expression fell as she glanced back toward the demons that’d now fanned out and were sweeping through the dancers. Squarely between her and all the exits. She looked like a cornered rabbit.

“I hate to call a lady a liar, but I’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb as a doorknob not to see something’s bothering you.”

She licked her bottom lip and then little white teeth began to gnaw on the plump pink flesh. His nostrils flared, and his brow drew together as his groin grew painfully tight in response.

“I, um…” She glanced over her shoulder. No exit there, either. “I just realized I need to go, I mean leave. I need to leave. Go home,” she stammered.

She searched his face then, assessing and shrewd. He could see the wheels grinding away in that pretty little head of hers. She glanced past him once more, then quickly stepped to the side so that his large frame effectively shielded her, blocking her from anyone who might look this way from the dance floor.

“And there’s somebody out there you don’t want to see when you leave.” He raised his voice just enough there at the end so she could take it as a statement or a question.

“Yes,” she admitted, smiling at him in a relieved sort of way.

“So who are we avoiding?” he asked, deliberately making them a team, hoping to build her trust by inserting himself into her situation as a coconspirator. Turning his head, he scanned the crowd as if he didn’t already know the answer.

“See that guy over by the Budweiser sign? The bald one with the denim jacket?” Gideon nodded. “And the one over by the exit sign? Blue hair and green ripped T-shirt?” She went on, her tone reluctant and embarrassed. Lifting a brow, Gideon turned his head to look at the second demon before nodding. She hesitated a moment longer before adding, “And the guy with the sunglasses and long blond hair, yellow shirt, by the front door?”