Chapter Eleven

Alice was suddenly completely fed up. Talking to ghosts always took a certain amount of mental energy, and throw on top of that learning that vampires really did exist—and meeting two of them!—being kidnapped and, if not drugged, at least hypnotized, and now add in dognapping… Well.

She was done.

“Put Charlie down,” she ordered the tall surfer-looking blond guy with the serious muscles. He was almost as hot as Hunter, Meara was supermodel-gorgeous, and the new woman in the room was absolutely lovely.

Had she fallen into some weird vampire cult of extreme beauty? Were all vampires beautiful, like in the movies?

Was all of this a hallucination, and she was still under the influence of whatever drugs Meara had foisted on her?

The blond guy, who’d just walked out of a magic mirror, stared at her. “Who’s Charlie?”

The woman who’d followed him out of the magic mirror, or portal, or whatever it was, put a hand on scary surfer guy’s arm. “Bane. I think she means the Minor demon.”

Hunter caught Alice by the hand when she started to rush over to the man holding Charlie. “Wait, please.”

Then he turned toward the woman next to the one called Bane—that wasn’t an ominous name, was it? “Ryan, why does the golden retriever look like a dog one moment and a giant lizard the next?”

The woman patted Charlie’s head. “He’s a Minor demon, Bane says. More dragon than lizard, really. I admit I don’t see it, either. I healed his shoulder, though.”

Alice stopped struggling and blinked at Ryan. “You healed my dog? Are you a vet?”

…

“You healed a demon?” Hunter asked. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around that one. An angel healing a demon.

“He’s not a demon!” Alice yanked her hand away from his and started toward Bane and Ryan, her face set in grim lines. “Okay, I’ve had enough of this. All of it. The magic movie special effects, the dramatic pronouncements, the nonsense about demons.”

She stopped for a moment, dug in her pocket, and then tossed Meara’s check on the floor. “No amount of money is worth this. Give me my dog. Now. Or my next step is to call the police.”

One of the blank-faced waiters, still under enthrallment, of course, picked that moment to walk up to Bane and hold out a tray. “Canapé?”

Bane snarled at the waiter, flashing fangs, and Alice missed a step but then kept right on going. Damn but she was brave as hell. Hunter caught up with her just before she reached Bane, who was still holding the dog.

Lizard.

Minor demon.

Whatever.

“Wait. Alice, please. Wait. Let’s at least find out—”

She shoved past him. “I will not wait. This poor traumatized animal has been through enough, and I won’t let him be part of whatever bizarre charade you’ve got going on here. Give him to me.”

Bane ignored her and looked at Hunter. “Easier to kill him, really. We can’t let him hurt your human or—worse—lead whoever he’s working for to her.”

“She’s not my human,” Hunter growled, wondering why the words tasted like dust in his mouth. Did he want her to be his human?

He glanced at Alice’s face, taking in the determination in her eyes and her trembling lips. She was a fighter, but this situation was too much, and now was not the time for fanciful thoughts about what he might or might not want.

“Tell me—us—about this. What is a Minor demon, and why do you think this poor dog is one?”

“Smell for yourself,” Bane said. “The trace of sulfur.”

Hunter sniffed, though he didn’t need the confirmation. He’d smelled the sulfur before and even wondered if Alice had been barbecuing. Still, it wasn’t much to go on.

“That’s it?” He shook his head, still holding Alice back from getting to the dog. “Maybe he was caught in a fire. Maybe he was near a barbecue or firepit. Maybe—”

“Maybe you’re all seriously disturbed individuals,” Alice shouted, finally giving in to frustration. She kicked Hunter in the leg and took advantage of his surprise to twist past him and get to Bane and the dog.

She’d kicked him hard. But he’d barely felt it.

It would have hurt just a few short weeks before, when he’d still been human. Vampires were stronger, tougher. Almost indestructible.

And here he was again, having irrelevant epiphanies about vampire life when he should be paying attention to the here and now.

Alice reached out for the dog, who whined furiously and strained to get to her. A dog didn’t have much chance to get away from a three-hundred-year-old master vampire who wasn’t in the mood to let him go, though.

Neither did a Minor demon, apparently.

“Bane,” Ryan said, looking worried. “Are you sure about this? He looks like a dog to me, too.”

Bane’s entire expression lightened when he turned to Ryan. “Yes, my love. Vampire eyes can see through a Minor demon’s glamour. Evidently Nephilim eyes can’t, or you just haven’t learned the trick yet.”

Hunter put an arm around Alice’s waist to pull her back. He didn’t want her in contact with any demon, Minor or otherwise. That said, he didn’t see it. He shook his head. “Bane, I don’t see it, either. I only see a terrified golden retriever. Is it possible you’re wrong on this one?”

“Look again,” Bane advised.

“Really look. With your mind, not just your eyes,” said Meara, who’d come up next to him and was holding a glass of wine in one hand and what looked an awful lot like a dagger in the other. “Do we need to salt the grave like we do with warlocks?”

“That’s it,” Alice shouted, and the dog started howling.

“I see it now,” Ryan whispered. “Wow.”

Hunter tried to ignore everything else and focus on the struggling creature in Bane’s arms. At first, nothing changed. But then, all at once, the golden fur disappeared, and the truth was revealed. Bane was holding what looked like a tiny, perfectly formed dragon.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, and Alice froze at the sound of the awe in his voice.

“What? What are you saying?”

He pointed at the dragon. Demon. Whatever.

“It’s beautiful.”

The dragon’s head snapped up, and it fixed its large golden eyes on Hunter’s face. He blinked at the sight of the vertical pupils but then had to smile with the pure joy of seeing a creature that had stepped right out of mythology and into his new life.

“Beautiful things can be dangerous,” Ryan said, her eyes sad. “Maybe—”

“Maybe what? You kill him just in case he might be dangerous? No,” Alice said, no longer shouting, her voice as cold as the ghost ice that had spread through the room earlier. “I don’t see what you see, but I can tell from Hunter’s expression that there really is something. So you let me and my dog—demon—go home, and we’re out of your way. No harm, no foul.”

“That’s not how it works, Alice,” Meara said gently. “We mostly try to protect your kind. Except for the occasional obnoxious tourist, but that’s more like a surcharge, really.”

Hunter had the horrible urge to laugh at the idea of tourist blood as a surcharge, but he knew Alice would never forgive him and, for some more and more powerful reason, that mattered to him.

Suddenly the dragon made a pained groaning noise, and its entire body slumped in Bane’s grasp. Then it shook once, twice, from head to tail and looked up at Alice.

When Alice gasped, Hunter realized the creature must have dropped its glamour, so now she saw the truth, too.

“But—but—” Alice raised a hand and then let it fall. “I don’t—how is this possible?”

Meara opened her mouth, but Ryan pointed at her. “Don’t say it. Nothing about Horatio.”

Meara pouted. “Shakespeare hater.”

Alice ignored the byplay, her gaze fixed on the dragon. “He is beautiful.” She reached out tentatively. “Charlie?”

The dragon, in one powerful wiggling, thrusting movement, pushed his feet against Bane’s chest and launched his little body at Alice, who caught him in her arms before Hunter could intervene.

“Alice!” He reached for the creature, but Alice backed away, and both of them—human and dragon—growled at him.

“He may be dangerous,” Hunter said quietly, using the same persuasive tone of voice that he’d used to coax people to climb out of windows when their homes were on fire.

“He’s not dangerous to me,” she insisted, tightening her arms around the dragon and backing away. “And I won’t let you kill him.”

Before Hunter could think of anything else to say, the dragon spoke up, shocking all of them.

“I am dangerous, but never to you, Lady. Never. Please don’t let them hurt me.”

…

Alice almost dropped her dog.

Dragon.

Talking dragon.

And then the room started to spin around her.

“I think I need to sit down now,” she told Hunter, realizing that, for no reason that made sense, he felt like safety. He caught her with one strong arm around her waist and helped her, still holding Charlie, to the long, low banquette seat that ran the length of the wall of windows.

She caught sight of the stunning river view through the glass but had nothing left in her to be appreciative. Scenery, no matter how gorgeous, couldn’t hold a candle to an evening of vampires, ghosts, and dragons.

“Dragon,” she murmured, ignoring for the moment both the vampires gathered around her with varying expressions of concern and disapproval on their faces and the waiter who offered her a glass of wine.

“On second thought,” she said, gesturing to the waiter. She took the glass of wine and drained half of it in one gulp. “That’s—actually, that’s amazing wine.”

Hunter crouched down next to her, his gaze on the dragon—still golden-retriever-sized—on her lap. “You can talk?”

The dragon’s ears, which had been pinned flat against his sleek, angular head, lifted an inch or so. He was absolutely, surreally beautiful. His scales lay with geometric precision on his body, ranging from dark red to a brilliant ruby. His eyes were a deep gold, with vertical pupils, like a cat’s. His tail, no longer furred but scaled, was maybe two feet long and ended in a clawed tip, probably to be used as a defensive weapon. His feet ended in talons, like an eagle’s, but he seemed to be taking care not to dig them into Alice’s legs.

And…he could talk.

She was holding a talking dragon in her lap in a room filled with vampires.

She started laughing, and there was a tinge of hysteria in it. The woman, Ryan, who’d arrived—

Alice refused to believe in magic portals right now. She’d already had her six impossible things, and she’d never even had breakfast. Or lunch, come to think of it.

The woman who’d arrived with Bane started toward her, but Alice shook her head. “Stay back, please, vampire. I need to think.”

Ryan shook her head. “I’m not a vampire. I just want to check your pulse. You are dangerously pale and a little diaphoretic.”

“Diaphoretic?” Alice blinked. “If you’re not a vampire, what are you?”

Ryan smiled. “I’m a doctor. We like to use big words, like diaphoretic for sweaty, to make ourselves feel good about all those student loan bills.”

Bane frowned. “I paid off those bills.”

“Yes, and we’re going to talk about that. Later,” Ryan said firmly, which, oddly enough, made Alice relax enough to allow the doctor to come closer.

“It’s just a lot,” she explained, almost apologetically, holding tight to Charlie.

Ryan’s quiet laughter was kind as she took Alice’s wrist in her hand. “Don’t I know it? I was first drunk and then having the worst hangover of my life when I found out that vampires exist. You’re handling all of this much better than I did, and I didn’t even have a talking Minor demon in the mix.”

“Dragon,” Alice murmured, stroking the little dragon’s head because he seemed to like it so much. He was making a small, contented sound that was a cross between a growl and a purr.

Ryan took a small flashlight from somewhere and shined it in Alice’s eyes. “Okay. You seem basically fine, but have you had anything to eat recently?”

“I…don’t think so.” Alice had to think about it. “Actually, not since some appetizers at the hotel yesterday evening. No wonder I feel lightheaded.”

Hunter took her hand in his when Ryan released it, and then he sat on the bench next to her, still holding her hand. Oddly enough, she didn’t mind the contact; it was reassuring, even.

His fingers tightened around hers as if he were loaning her some of his strength, and then he looked around the room. “Hey, excuse me,” he called out to one of the servers, who were all lined up against the wall chatting as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had been happening. “Can we get some food?”

“I hope you give them a really big tip,” she murmured, feeling a wave of hysterical laughter trying to escape her lips.

“Huge,” Meara said, smiling wryly. “Enormous. And I promise they’ll come to no harm, nor will they remember any of this. Not you, not us, not your demon.”

“Dragon,” Alice countered. Then she took a moment to think while Hunter, still holding her hand, quietly conferred with the waiter about getting her some dinner.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t have a fancy college education, but she was smart enough to ask for expert help when she needed it. She’d asked for help from Small Business Association mentors when she’d started Little Darlings, for example, and right now she was surrounded by experts on all things supernatural.

“I’d really, really like some food. And, if it’s okay, I’d like to learn more about vampires and…and demons. I can tell you about ghosts, if you like. Knowledge is power, right? Or at least it helps.”

She turned to see what Hunter thought, but her tentative smile died when she caught sight through the window of the man behind him.

The man who’d somehow appeared on the previously empty terrace and headed for the French doors.

“I—I—” She couldn’t force the words out, so she just pointed.

“That’s Edge. He’s one of us,” Meara said, and the man—who looked like a ghost himself, all dressed in black, with long white hair and silver eyes—shoved the door open and strode inside, holding something in one hand.

Edge’s gaze immediately snapped to Meara, then to Alice. “Who is the human, and why is she holding a Minor demon?”