Revealed in Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights #9)(6)

After being in Cahal’s company every day for the last couple of months, I could read the subtle nuances in his blank stares. I’d just answered a question.

“Surely you knew that those rumors were about me,” I said, turning and heading toward the others. It had taken a while, but my elephant question had been answered. Time to get back to being pampered in luxury. Man, my life was dull.

I couldn’t even go annoy other vampires, even though this place was a sort of refuge for them. Usually they’d bring a whole host of humans and eat and bang and do whatever else vampires got up to when the boss wasn’t around. Since I was being hidden here, however, the campus was closed for “renovations,” something Darius did every few years anyway. It was just me, him, a druid who didn’t know staring was rude, and now my mage friends. That was it. None of them would run if I chased them. What kind of sport was that?

“I could really go for a shifter bar right about now,” I murmured.

Everything okay? Darius thought as I neared.

Since I had demon magic that could pluck thoughts out of people’s heads (unless they knew how to shield me), we could speak telepathically, one-way radio style. The bond between us also allowed the sharing of emotion, and that seemed to provide Darius with all the guidance he needed to guess my thoughts. With anyone else, that would have made me nervous.

“Yeah. Cahal was just telling me that he worried I’d get recruited by my dad, lose my mind, and try to kill his elephants. The guy is a real downer as far as those things go.”

Without further comment, Darius handed a straight whiskey in a plastic red cup over the mahogany bar. He could tell that I wasn’t in the mood for crystal and ice cubes and finery. I nodded in thanks, my gaze lingering on his beautiful hazel eyes, green specks floating within them, and felt my heart squish.

I was in this majestic hideout for a reason, yes. It just wasn’t the reason everyone thought.

On the surface, I had consented to this little getaway so I could learn and practice and stay away from the public eye. But in reality, I was allowing Darius to protect me in the best way he knew how. I was here for him, and for my friends, who would rush into danger to protect me. Who wouldn’t listen if I told them to run to safety.

Growing up, it had been just my mom and me. We only had each other, and because she’d always feared what would happen if I entered the larger magical world, I had contented myself with learning my magic and sticking to the woods or the tiny town where we bought supplies.

She’d died when I was nineteen, and I was so shocked and shaken by the loss that I’d continued to hide what I was out of practice. But that hadn’t stopped me from seeking magical work. I could’ve fudged the paperwork for a human job, or worked under the table somewhere. I could’ve earned money away from the magical world.

But instead I became a magical bounty hunter.

Hiding from danger wasn’t in my blood. It just wasn’t. I couldn’t stay in this place forever.

I loved Darius, though, with all my blackened heart. I loved my dual-mage friends Callie and Dizzy, though I would only admit it in drunken hug-fests, and I loved my natural dual-mage friends, who managed to visit me a few times a month even though they had a Mages’ Guild to help run and new recruits to train. I even strongly liked the prickly and incredibly closed-off druid who beat my ass on the regular. For them, I would stay here, out of harm’s way, and out of trouble.

At least until the screws in my noggin started to come loose.

I blew out a breath, vacating the bar so Cahal could grab a drink, and plopped down on the sunless sun chair next to Emery.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He glanced at my red cup. “You can take the girl out of the bad neighborhood…”

“Darius hasn’t figured out how to break me of my desire to slum it in this fine place.”

“You’re the challenge he never knew he needed.”

“Something like that.” I watched Cahal accept a sparkling glass of pink stuff in a crystal goblet. Pastel pink was the guy’s favorite color, but he hated pastel purple. I did not get it. At least he didn’t love yellow. That color made me want to punch things. “So what’s happening in the world at large?”

Emery heaved a deep breath and leaned back a little. “Demons. They’re cropping up—”

Darius was beside us in a moment, the speed with which he got there at odds with the slow, deliberate way he pulled a chair around, cognac gently swaying within the snifter he held.

“They’re cropping up all over the country,” Emery continued, and as if on a five-second delay, I felt a nasty spell hover in the air.

I grinned at the natural mage, a guy used to fighting for his life on the run. He wasn’t someone to spook, at any rate.

“You’re quick,” I said, “but he would’ve had you.”

“I have a bad habit of letting down my guard around him,” Emery murmured.

“You must know that I wouldn’t harm you,” Darius said, unperturbed, as he sat beside me. He took a sip of his drink, something he only allowed himself to do if he knew I would be on hand to give him blood should he need it.

I shivered with the memories of how pleasant it was to be his blood donor.

“There are never any certainties with a vampire,” Emery returned, and he had a point.