Dammit, I was looking.
She turned her head and sent me a significant look and, yeah, I balked. Him? But I had no reason to doubt. Deacon, after all, was a demon, and though he wasn’t as pretty as this guy, Deacon was one hell of a lot sexier, with his sultry heat and piercing black eyes.
I shoved Deacon out of my mind and concentrated on my new mark, cutting in as Kiera backed away, laughing, to pass me off.
“Whoa,” the guy said. “What the fuck?”
She patted his cheek. “Not my type,” she said, then eased off into the morass of bodies.
“Is it so bad with me?” I asked, sliding my arms around his neck, and grinding against him with the music. He really didn’t have to answer my question. The answer was right there in his jeans. It was heady, the desire rolling off him, and the truth is, I was finding it hard to remember that he was the bad guy.
Was he the bad guy?
Kiera said so, but could I trust her? After all, she worked for Clarence. And what if she was setting me up to kill someone good? Someone human?
What if the whole smelling-demons thing was bullshit?
But why would it be? If Kiera’d been duped like I’d been, then she’d have no reason to lie. And even if she were playing a role like Clarence, she wouldn’t want me to figure out the game, right? She needed to build trust. And she couldn’t do that unless the supposed demon she pointed me to really did dissolve in a puddle of goo when I got it with my knife.
And, yeah, that would mean she was targeting her own allies, but Clarence and company didn’t want me absorbing good. They wanted me absorbing bad. Becoming bad.
Bad to the bone. That was me. Or it would be soon.
I raked my gaze over the crowd, finally finding Kiera in a clench with a pencil-thin brunette in hip-hugger jeans and a tight white T-shirt, damp with sweat and clinging to every curve of her breasts. I watched as they moved, every once in a while catching a glimpse of Kiera’s knife stuck in between her belt and her jeans and hidden by the short denim jacket she wore.
She must have felt my eyes on her because she turned to me, and I saw the tiniest of grins. Then she cupped her partner’s face, kissed her hard, and slowly eased her free hand down over the blade of her knife.
I turned away, my eyes going automatically for Rose. I found her, sitting at the booth just where she was supposed to be. And I found something else, too, only a few yards away. Watching her. Watching me. Deacon.
I felt the familiar tug in my gut, that tightness, that awareness, that I’d come to associate with him. I wanted to go to him, but I could hardly look like I was best buds with the boy. Not in front of Kiera. Still, I was thinking of him, and considering the way my dance partner was suddenly behaving—his hands skimming my ass, pulling me in tight, grinding hard against me—I think my inner incubus was showing.
“With me,” I said, leaning in close to whisper, and at the same time knotting my fist in the collar of his shirt. With one quick glance toward Kiera, who was still involved with femme-fatale demon, I eased my prey toward the door and out into the parking lot.
I had no idea what kind of demon he was, and I knew I shouldn’t wait. Shouldn’t wonder. Shouldn’t do anything but take him out. But I was curious, and I was turned on, and damned if I didn’t want to make the moment—the hunt—last as long as I could.
“What do you want?” I asked, brushing my lips over his ear.
“You.” His hand slid down to cup my crotch, the contact sending shivers through me despite the vileness of the hand that was touching me. I imagined it was Deacon, and shifted my stance, opening my legs wider, and moaning when he closed his hand over the hot denim of my jeans. “Give us a kiss,” he said, and I could hear it now, that voice that seemed to echo through my head. A voice that came not from the man but straight from hell.
He leaned in, his mouth open, and I leaned forward to meet him, battling his kiss with one of my own—fighting, hard, as he tried to draw out my soul. He jerked back, eyes open with fear. “What the fuck?”
“Sorry, buddy,” I said. “I like this body. I think I’m going to stay.”
“Bitch,” he said, his hands going for his back pocket and the knife he undoubtedly had hidden there.
He didn’t make it. I got to him first, drawing my blade in seconds and thrusting it forward even as he lunged. I got him in the gut, my blade piercing flesh and muscle to stab him deep in his liver before I sliced up, gutting his belly like a fish.
Death oozed out of him. Not blood, but the black goo that was the life force of demons. He fell backward, and as he melted into a puddle, I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by the flood of strength I’d gained from the kill, and the dark, sensual heat I’d absorbed from the demon. He was death. He was destruction. And that essence was in me, a low, needy buzz, desperate for satisfaction. For release. For the kill.