Warrior (Relentless #4)(157)

Instead of riding our bikes, the three of us took one of the Escalades parked in the driveway. Wayne drove us to a tall glass apartment building in West Hollywood.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked him when we entered the pink marble lobby.

Before he could answer, a human security guard called to us from behind a desk. “What’s your business here?”

“We’re here to see Draegan,” I said in a voice that dared him to object.

He looked us over warily and nodded. “Top floor. Apartment 3010.”

An unhappy tagg demon opened the door to Draegan’s apartment as we approached it. The bald, red-skinned demon glared at us over his large nose and waved us inside.

“This night just keeps getting better,” he grumbled as he shut the door and followed us down a short hallway.

The first thing I noticed about the place was it was almost completely white, reminding me of a clean room. It was also trashed. It looked like someone had thrown a party that had gotten out of hand. Way out of hand if the dead ranc demon and two dead gulaks on the floor were any indication.

Down another hallway someone was shouting, but the words were muffled. Based on the deep guttural tone, it was the gulak we had come to see.

Aside from Draegan and the tagg demon, the place appeared to be empty. It looked like Draegan’s guests had taken off when the killing started. The question was, who had done the killing? A rival demon perhaps? Gulaks didn’t have many friends, and they were often engaged in turf wars.

“What happened to his horns?” Chris asked, drawing my attention to the ranc demon that had charred nubs where his horns should be.

“The short one did it.” The tagg demon scowled and bent to pick up an overturned chair. “I knew I smelled something off about her.”

Chris frowned. “Was it another demon?”

The tagg demon snorted. “More like a pair of hellions. But I guess you already knew that or you wouldn’t be here.”

Before I could ask what he meant by his remark, a bellow came from the other end of the apartment.

“Wilhem, you worthless piece of shit! You better not have let anyone else in here tonight or I’m going to wring your fat neck.”

Wilhelm swallowed fearfully. “I-I’m sorry, Draegan. I didn’t have any choice.”

“Like you had no choice when you let those two bitches in here?” Draegan growled. “They killed Crak and Lorne and cheated me. Cheated me! No one steals from me and gets away with it. When I find those two, they’ll wish they’d never heard my name.”

“Um, Draegan,” Wilhelm stammered, glancing nervously at us. “You have guests. You might want to –”

“Get rid of them,” the gulak roared, his voice coming closer. “I’m busy. Do you know how much I could have gotten for that blood contract? That little bitch owes me big.”

Something that sounded like a fist slammed into a wall, and then the gulak thundered into the room. Ignoring us, he picked up a curved blade from a table and strapped it to his waist.

A gravelly laugh rumbled from him. “I can’t wait to get my hands on her. She’ll pay me back every cent in my bed. And when I’m done with her, I’ll sell her to Rhys. He prefers humans, but he won’t pass up a chance to sample some young Mohiri flesh.”

Blood began to roar in my ears as a growl tore from my throat. Someone said my name, but it sounded far off. All I could see and hear was the gulak demon who would dare touch my mate. I was going to rip the forked tongue from his mouth for the things he’d said about her.

Draegan stared at me with a mix of anger and surprise. “Who the hell are you?”

The tagg demon said something that made Draegan’s scaly face turn a sickly gray. He snatched up a long curved sword and bared his teeth at me.

“That bitch…girl came in here and tore up my place,” he yelled, backing into the living room. “I didn’t touch a hair on her head. Tell him, Wilhelm.”

I stalked him. Wilhelm said something, but I’d blocked out everything except the gulak. His words about what he’d planned to do to Sara were stuck on replay in my head, and each time I heard them my body shook from the rage threatening to consume me.

Draegan’s legs hit the couch, and he maneuvered around it, never taking his lizard-like eyes from me as I advanced on him. I noticed vaguely that my vision had turned the white room the color of watered-down blood.

Metal flashed. I didn’t remember drawing my own sword, but it rose to meet Draegan’s blade in a shower of sparks.

He staggered backward from the blow, pain flashing across his face. He might be stronger than every other demon he knew, but brute force would not save him this time.

I struck before he could recover, stripping the scales from his left arm.

He bellowed and swung wildly at me. I deflected it easily and nicked his thigh, then his chest, then his ear. Each cut drew another roar of pain from him and sent droplets of black demon blood across the once pristine room.

He panted heavily, but I pushed him relentlessly, wanting him to suffer for every vile thought he’d had about Sara, wanting him to know exactly who was going to end him.

“I have money, jewels, weapons. Take them all,” he cried desperately as his strength began to wane. “I was angry about my men. I never meant to hurt the girl. I swear.”