Save My Soul (A Paranormal Romance: Preternaturals Book 2) Read online

  He couldn’t touch her against her will, but she wondered if he could if she let him. He was still trying to hypnotize her, and she was still pushing him away. She worried what would happen if he broke through her mental defenses.

  Then again, she couldn’t lie; she was feeling pretty kickass right about now. She was going to have to buy some black leather pants. You couldn’t be kickass without black leather pants.

  “I have my orders,” he said.

  In the bright afternoon sun, red scorch marks glared against his skin from where she’d touched him. Anna couldn’t help smirking. She’d spent over a week alternately feeling safe and terrified, and now she was at least safe from everyone but Luc, who didn’t seem interested in hurting her. That’s right incubi of the world. Watch out.

  The temptation to abuse her new power a little more was too great. She turned and leaped at him, holding her hands out like claws. “Boo!”

  He jumped back, an annoyed look on his face. “I might not be able to touch you, but I have to follow you. Those are my orders. I’m Jackson, by the way.” He offered a hand as if to shake, then, remembering his new crispy critter look, pulled it back hurriedly.

  “You guys are all so very polite until you’re sucking the life out of some poor, starry-eyed girl. I don’t care what your name is. Who told you to follow me?” If it was Luc, she was going to be pissed. She didn’t need or want a bodyguard.

  “Cain.”

  Luc had mentioned Cain had minions. It was just that normally when one heard the word minion one thought of gross, sewer-dwelling creatures. Not potential underwear models.

  He was still eyeing her as if she were a sideshow freak. “I haven’t seen a woman marked by my kind in a long time. We don’t do it. Fucks with your mind. No one wants to fall for their food around here.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe Luc did it.”

  “He did it to protect me from Cain. And his minions.” She gave him a once-over. “How many of you are here?”

  “Just me and Cain. The rest are in our dimension. We don’t need an army for this.”

  Army for what? The word army put a damper on her superpower excitement, but she kept moving.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to church. I don’t know where you’re going,” Anna said.

  He visibly flinched at that. Interesting. Holy items had no effect, but the church itself might be a different story.

  When they arrived, Jackson didn’t follow her inside. “Allergic?” she asked.

  His eyes glowed in irritation. “Churches are consecrated ground. A sanctuary. It’s like a mirror of Heaven, a place we cannot enter.”

  “Okay, well bye now." She smiled brightly at him and disappeared inside the building before he could regale her with more fascinating demon history.

  Within moments of shutting the door, her mood shifted. The church was too quiet. It was only a few hours before Friday night mass; someone must be there.

  “Father Jeffries?” She hurried down the empty hall, trying not to be spooked by the sound of her shoes echoing in the silence. Shadows danced along the walls in flickering candlelight. The demon was outside, so why was she so uncomfortable being inside?

  “Hello?”

  She found him in his office and mentally berated herself for not checking there first.

  He looked up from a disorganized pile of papers on his desk and removed a pair of reading glasses. “Anna. Have you decided?”

  “I’m not here about the scar.”

  The priest looked troubled but nodded for her to go on.

  “I was just wondering how you kill a demon.”

  “You can’t.”

  “What do you mean you can’t? There has to be a way. Nothing’s immortal.”

  “Everything’s immortal,” he said. “Your soul. Mine. We aren’t immortal in our current forms, but we are immortal. A demon has been cast out of Heaven. He’s at the end of the line so to speak. And we are in Hell, Anna. This is their domain, their playground, even if they have other dimensions to go to.”

  “But . . . ”

  “This isn’t a movie. They can’t be killed. Sometimes immortal really does mean immortal. You’re in danger. You know it or you wouldn’t have come back here. We must do the ritual immediately to keep you safe.” He scooted his chair back and started toward her.

  “No. I didn’t come here for that.”

  Father Jeffries pursued her as she backed herself against his office door; his pale blue eyes seemed to look into her. “I spoke with a seer. The demon will have your soul if you don’t do the ritual. I know you don’t want that. You have to know what’s between you isn’t real.”

  “Stop it!” She was falling for Luc. She’d tried to keep her distance, but it didn’t matter. She wanted him to love her.

  She fumbled for the doorknob. When it turned, Anna almost fell out into the hallway, then took off in a dead run. The irony of running from a priest and toward a demon was not lost on her. She’d wanted to know how to kill the others in case they started trying to hurt her friends, not how to break the bond with Luc.

  The priest gave chase. For an old guy he could book it, and she wondered if he was endowed with superpowers of his own. On an ordinary day she would have checked herself in to the nearest mental health facility for even thinking something so odd, but she couldn’t unsee the things she’d seen.

  When she reached the awning outside the church she leaned forward, her hands braced against her knees. Father Jeffries spotted Jackson standing there growling, and backed into the shadows of the church.

  Anna took a few deep lungfuls of precious oxygen. When she’d gotten her breath back, she started the trek home, knowing the priest wouldn’t follow with a demon there.

  Jackson kept pace beside her. What was it with demons? They were the most tenacious . . .

  “Are we going back to your house now?”

  “What are you? My pedestrian chauffeur? Shut up.”

  It was bad enough he was following her around. She didn’t need streaming commentary the whole way. Jackson shrugged but shut up.

  She should have known Cain would be inside the house with Luc, yet seeing him caused a chill to go through her.

  “You’re right to be afraid of me,” Cain said, his eyes raising to hers.

  He was perched in a chair by the fireplace looking about as regal as an evil being could. It was clear from their body language that she’d interrupted some kind of argument between the two demons. Maybe she was paranoid, but she felt like they’d been fighting about her.

  “Anna, come here.” Luc held a hand out to her. Jackson was forgotten at her back as she went to him. He took her scarred hand in his, and for once she was glad he was doing some weird possessive demon-y thing. She could feel him sending her power through the bond, as if she were a battery being charged up.

  Cain laughed and shook his head. “I can’t believe you think you can protect her from me. Someone like Jackson, perhaps, but not me. I’m older and stronger than you.”

  Luc growled and held onto Anna’s hand tighter. She was relieved the harem wasn’t home. The last thing they needed was other people in the mix who could be used as pawns.

  Cain chuckled. “You’ll come back to the fold one way or another. Once you’re out of this house, things will be different. You’ll remember who and what you are.”

  “No,” Luc said.

  Cain’s eyes danced with amusement as he turned his attention to Anna. “Come here.”

  His mind pressed in on hers, and she felt the insane, maddening lust he’d created in her the first night in the kitchen. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to shake Luc’s hand off and follow the seductive voice whispering inside her head. Wicked thoughts of all the wonderful things he could do to her flitted through her mind, and a slutty little moan passed through her lips.

  Luc growled beside her, gripping her hand so tightly she thought he might break it. “Fight him.”

  She pushed
back, like she had with Jackson, only much harder. The pressure eased off her mind, and the lust she’d felt only seconds before was replaced with her usual disgust with regards to the other demon.

  His head whipped back from her effort, and he laughed. “Impressive. I can see why you marked her. I may not be able to make her come to me, but I can go to her.”

  Anna felt Luc’s muscles tense in response, ready to pounce. Cain crossed the floor in three easy strides and reached out, touching her arm. No barrier locked him out.

  His hand began sizzling as he fought to keep a grip on her, and her courage returned when she realized she still had a defense arsenal.

  She smiled. “Get your dirty hands off me, Cain.”

  He snarled, still holding on while the smoke rose off his flesh. “I can take it.” He gritted his teeth, unwilling to let a human woman best him.

  “Sure you can,” Anna taunted.

  “Leave,” Luc said. “I don’t need you or the clan anymore.”

  Cain looked almost hurt, then his face hardened. “Fine!” He withdrew his hand from Anna’s arm and stood. “But when she leaves and you lose your mind from marking her, know that we are your family. We’re all you’ve got.”

  The front door opened and in walked Tam and the harem. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to show up. Cain’s eyes lit with malice as he saw the scales tip in his favor.

  “Tam, get out of here!” Anna said.

  Cain smiled. “This one means something to you? Come to me.” He extended a hand toward Tam, arrogantly waiting for her to obey and fall into his arms like a cheesy romance heroine.

  “Um . . . no,” Tam said.

  “What?” He shook his arm like it was an electrical instrument that had a short in it. “Come here!” he demanded again.

  “I said no!” She crossed her arms over her chest, smirking at him.

  “Tam?” Anna said. “Luc thralled you. How . . . ?”

  “Oh, please. Yeah, I admit my guard was down that day, but seriously, fool me once . . . Well, you know . . . blah blah blah. Point is, I’ve got really good shields up now. Thanks for that heads up, by the way, Luc.”

  “Not a problem,” he said, grinning.

  Cain shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have to feed, I just want to hurt you.” He rushed toward her.

  Tam was eerily unconcerned. She hauled her hand back like she was going to throw a baseball, and then suddenly, she had something to throw. In her hand, she held what could only be described as a glowing purple ball of energy. She threw it and sent Cain flying across the room to land in a heap on the floor.

  He glowered up at her, sweeping a clump of hair out of his eyes, and growled. Tam arched a brow in challenge. “Wanna look stupid in front of your immortal pals again?”

  Cain got up and brushed himself off. He pushed past Tam and the harem, calling over his shoulder for Jackson to follow. Then to Luc, “Fuck it. I’m done. Don’t expect my help again.”

  “Are you all right?” Luc asked when the door slammed behind them. He ran his fingers over Anna’s hand gently, checking to see if he’d hurt her with his grip.

  She nodded.

  “So, yeah,” Tam said, “I took the harem to my place for awhile, and we put up a barrier spell. No one that isn’t invited can get in. I looked into doing the same thing here, but the original spell prevents a barrier from being put up. It’s this whole you can’t have two spells of similar nature on the same object thing. We’d have to break the spell currently on the house first.”

  After seeing Tam go super-witch on her, she had no other choice. They were going to have to put their witch issues aside for the greater good.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Something was different about Luc in this dream. It took a minute for Anna to notice the hunger was missing. In earlier dreams, it had blended so well into the background, she’d never paid it much attention. Now it was obvious by its absence.

  He was human.

  He crouched behind a cluster of bushes at the mouth of a dark forest. Rage and desperation curled inside him, waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed.

  A carriage was on its way around a corner. The horses slowed, sensing danger, and Luc attacked. He held a knife in his hand as he ripped the carriage door off its hinges and peered inside. Two women, one older, one younger sat together, wedged against the back corner.

  Pretty, he thought. He hadn’t decided on a plan, but he could practically smell the wealth coming off these women, and it made him angry. How easy and pampered their lives were. The least he intended to do was relieve them of some of their money.

  “Please, don’t hurt us. We have money. Just take it and go,” the younger one said, holding out a bundle of fabric that must contain coins.

  Luc leaned into the carriage and brushed a hand against the young one’s cheek. “I wager you wish you’d stayed home today, eh?”

  The woman flinched, and he laughed. “Just take the money . . . please.”

  Anna wanted to shut her eyes. He was hungry and cold and tired and enjoying scaring someone of better means than himself. She wondered how far he’d take it before he stopped, and if she could ever forgive him for whatever he did.

  Moments later, he flew backward and landed on his ass. The driver of the carriage was the last thing he saw as strong hands gripped his head and twisted.

  The scene shifted, and Luc was in an ornate room made almost entirely of gold. A short, balding man in a nondescript cream-colored robe stood behind a gilded podium reading from a scroll.

  All at once, Anna was ambushed by Luc’s past memories. She struggled to hold herself together as image after image assaulted her, memories from other lives merging into one, blending and overlapping. Stealing. Murder. Betrayal. Over and over the patterns replayed showing her the kind of man Luc had been with alarming consistency.

  A male voice rose suddenly above the din, as if he were repeating himself.

  “Do you understand the charges against you, Lucien?”

  She was torn between sympathy for Luc and anger at what he’d been. Had he really had a chance with the lives he’d lived? And yet all sorts of people were faced with all kinds of life challenges and didn’t become monsters.

  “Lucien!” the man shouted.

  “Yes?” Luc was jolted from the memory dump as he looked up at the little man. Though his stature wasn’t the least bit intimidating, the man seemed to hold the power of existence itself in his hands.

  “Do you understand the charges?”

  “Yes.” He wasn’t about to show this man fear.

  “You’ve been given multiple chances to change your path, and yet you refuse. You are weak and inhuman. You feel no remorse for your crimes. You’ve behaved as an animal. From here on you will exist as one.”

  It wasn’t true. Luc did have remorse. Anna could feel it. It was small, but it was there. Surely there was something in him worth saving. But he didn’t speak to defend himself, and the self-important balding man seemed ill-prepared to listen to an alternate perspective.

  “You’ll spend the remainder of eternity back in Hell and whatever other dimensions you can manage to slither through. You’ll have no further chances to get it right.”

  Then there was a flash of light, and he was on the ground in a town he didn’t recognize, surrounded by people and noise.

  The hunger gnawed at him, making his senses narrow to the desperate need to touch someone, to connect, to feed. He saw a beautiful woman and moved toward her. She screamed and ran when she saw him. He chased, tackling her to the ground. But he couldn’t feed this way.

  Realization dawned immediately, as if new instincts had been transplanted into his brain to match his new form. They had to want him or he couldn’t satisfy the hunger.

  He looked down. His skin was a brownish red and scaled, like the monsters people in small villages often spoke about. Where fingernails once grew, he had long, black talons. He could only imagine what the rest of him must look l
ike.

  For once he didn’t care about image or if he appeared weak to someone. He was so tired of everything. Life, the never-ending struggle only to have more shit. He fell to the ground and sobbed, allowing the girl to run away in a hysterical fit.

  “And they call us animals.”

  Anna recognized the voice right away. Cain. Luc looked up. For a moment she thought the demon had found her in the dream and was using the thrall. She was noticing how indescribably beautiful he was. Then she realized the feelings weren’t sexual. They were Luc’s thoughts when he’d seen the other incubus for the first time.

  “I’m Cain,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m what you are.”

  Luc looked at his claws and then at Cain, his brow knitting in confusion at their disparate appearance. He wondered if the man was only teasing him.

  “We’re shapeshifters,” Cain said. “I’ll teach you to find the form that will be most pleasing to help you catch prey, and I’ll teach you how to hunt and feed. You’re a demon now. You’ll learn very soon how freeing it is to live without consequences. The old man at the gate did you a favor . . .

  ***

  Anna hated the idea of witches, probably because it was a witch that had created the Luc problem in the first place. She had a hard time understanding how not one witch, but several, were going to fix anything. But seeing Tam in action the previous night had left her no alternative.

  “You look like hell,” Tam said.

  Four strange women were seated around the kitchen table. The harem was in the living room watching a horror movie marathon and squealing like teenagers.

  “Thank you,” Anna said.

  Luc, as always, was right there, pressing a glass of juice into her hand and urging her to have some breakfast. “Are you all right after last night?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened. Did he know what she’d dreamed about? She felt almost embarrassed at having witnessed such ugly and weak moments, knowing he’d never want her to see him like that.

  Then she realized he wasn’t talking about dreams but about Cain and his less-than-disgusting minion. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten.