The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(18)

“I assure you that didn’t matter.” I gave a self-satisfied sigh. “He succumbed to my fifteen-year-old self’s wiles.”

Rohan straightened. “Which of my much older bandmates also succumbed, Lolita?”

“Please. You guys were only three years older.” I twisted a dark curl around my finger. “But pretty much of all of them.” I raked a pointed look over him. “The ones worth writing about.” He didn’t react. “Though succumbing is far more innocent than you’re imagining,” I admitted.

“I doubt you were ever innocent.”

That was highly insulting. Did he think I’d been born this way? Please. I’d worked hard to cultivate this level of sexual awesomeness. Totally offended here. And equally turned on because he’d said it in that low rumbly voice that made me want to roll onto my back, knees falling open. If he rubbed my belly or lower, all good.

I tossed my hair. “Excellent. Assume the worst.” Straightening my legs, I crossed one over the other. Forcing them to stay closed. Then I leaned back on my elbows and gave him my best smirk. “Now, what are you doing in my bedroom?”

I prayed he couldn’t hear how hard my heart was thumping.

“I’m your new CO.”

“My what?”

“Commanding Officer.” He picked up a porcelain Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together in their finery, from my shelf. “That means you have to do as I say.”

I leapt off the bed and snatched Fred and Ginger back. “Oh, hell no.”

Rohan raised an eyebrow. I petted my dancers’ ceramic heads and carefully put them back as I scrambled for a somewhat less mutinous excuse. “You’re full of shit. CO’s are only appointed on missions. Otherwise, Rabbi Abrams runs the local chapter.”

Even though not all Rasha were Jewish, when it came to running Demon Club, tracking and training the descendants, and performing rituals, David had only trusted a select group of Sanhedrin, the highest of High Rabbis. Rabbis still performed those duties today, despite the fact that the Brotherhood wasn’t technically a religious organization. Something about trade secrets and the magic involved. I suspected the Brotherhood just didn’t like change.

“Your brother talks too much.” Rohan’s voice was a silky threat.

I stormed over to him. “Leave Ari out of this.”

“Or what?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement.

I leaned in, letting my sideboob brush against his arm. “A girl can’t give away all her secrets,” I purred. My hair teased his shoulder blades. Bad idea. This close, I could smell him, a blend of musky cologne with an underbite of iron that had skyrocketed to being the sexiest scent I’d ever inhaled.

“That a challenge?” He tucked a strand behind my ear, his face tilted up to mine.

I refused to back down, no matter how I longed to brush my tingling skin and capture the sensation for a moment longer. This was all an act, albeit one that got results. Rohan’s player ways were the stuff of well-documented legend.

Maybe that’s how he killed demons. He hit them with the look and the grin and then, when they fell to their knees in a puddle of feels, ripped their hearts out.

I wasn’t going to fall quite so easily. “Nope. Wouldn’t want you to tax yourself, Rock Boy.”

His jaw tightened. Swinging his leg off the chair, he stood up abruptly, forcing me to scramble back to avoid being clipped on the underside of my chin.

I stared up at his good six inches on my five-foot-eight self.

“Tomorrow. 9AM at the chapter house,” he ordered. “Get Ari to drive you if you don’t know where it is.” Rohan sauntered over to the open window, all lethal elegance. “And Lolita? Don’t even think about blowing me off.” His smile was ruthless. “Remember, I know where you live.”

With that he jumped out the window and into the night.





5





Monday morning, I slammed back two chilled Diet Cokes, my surefire technique for bright-eyed, bushytailedness after a sleepless night. I’d applied a generous smear of fresh aloe under my cloth sports bra, and popped a couple of painkillers in preparation for the day to come. I’d even prepared a demon hunter kit: water bottle, trail mix, aloe fronds, a box of salt, a pen, and an unused Moleskine journal, all thrown into my messenger bag.

Dad drove me. He’d pulled chauffeur duty since I hadn’t had the heart to ask Ari. “Nervous?” he asked.

“Nope.” I adjusted the A/C vent. Events of the past twenty-four hours had coalesced into a hard ball of pissed off in my chest. “I am going to kick ass and take names.”

I adjusted the vent again because I couldn’t find the sweet spot of cool air. A stoplight turned yellow, then red in front of us, and I kept fumbling with the A/C. Take three’s the charm.

Dad reached over and stilled my hand. “Nava.”

“Okay, maybe I’m a bit nervous.”

“I think that’s a good sign. It means this matters.”

No, it means this might be my last day on earth. I gave my dad a weak smile.

The rest of the ride was silent except for his execrable musical choices. Every now and again, I wiped my sweaty palms, hoping Dad wouldn’t comment.

My imagination ran riot on what our local Demon Club chapter might look like. I’d gotten as far as a stone fortress with archers on the ramparts and boiling pitch down the walls, all of which would be unleashed at the sight of my estrogen-laden fineness, before I shut that shit down. It was just a house, right?