Demon Marked

There was a time and a place for strip clubs. That time was not eleven thirty in the morning, when he was stone-cold sober. That place was not some Southie dive where the girls swaying listlessly on the miniature stages looked like they were about to pass out or throw up from whatever combo of demon drugs they’d sniffed, swallowed, or injected before starting their shifts.

The madly pink walls—covered with black velvet paintings of rock stars from the 1980s that glowed neon yellow and orange in the dim light—only made the strippers look more tired and worn. They also gave Andre a splitting headache. That particular shade of pink should never be used for anything. Ever. It was an aggressive, testosterone-killing color. It made it hard to imagine any man had gotten a boner in this room in the past ten years, no matter how up close and personal the girls at Boudreaux’s were alleged to get.

But then, he was a little pickier than the average Southie client. There were only a couple of men slouched in the black, wrinkled, faux-leather chairs crowding the space, but if they were anything to judge by, the patrons here weren’t any more sober than the women who danced for them. They were probably so high they couldn’t even see the walls.

He didn’t doubt that the manager here was dealing demon drugs and probably bribing law enforcement officials to keep them from raiding the club. If he didn’t, this place would have closed down years ago.

What he didn’t know was whether that made Jeremiah a suitable source of energy. Now that Andre believed Emma, the reality of what she was churned in his gut. She killed people. Bad people, yes, but what was her definition of bad? And did any definition or any code make it okay for her to stand judge, jury, and executioner to other people?

All he knew was that he was falling for her, fast, and needed to believe there was an alternative to more death. There had to be a safer way for her to feed. Or had he been wrong when he assumed their lovemaking hadn’t harmed him? For all he knew, he could be ready to drop dead on the damned stairs up to Jeremiah’s office.

Still, he was willing to risk it. For her. No matter how angry he was, or how hurt by her assumption that he was as evil as every other bastard she’d ever laid her glowing hands on.

Speaking of evil bastards ... he wondered when Little Francis would get around to returning his message. Despite Emma’s veto vote, Andre had left Francis a quick voice message while he was paying their admission to the club, telling him they’d been delayed because Emma wasn’t feeling well. He’d assured his cousin they were in a safe place and would be back soon, but that wouldn’t appease him for long. Andre had to figure out what to do about his turncoat cousin ... as soon as he made sure Emma was going to live to see the sun set on this shitty day.

“I don’t know if I can make it up the stairs,” Emma said as he stuffed his wallet back in his coat and fetched her from the faded couch by the door. She leaned heavily against him, her skin sparkling even in the dim light.

But the man he’d paid for their admission didn’t blink an eye, only grunted that Jeremiah’s office was at the top of the stairs, past the bathrooms.

“No, it’s too narrow. I’ll get up there somehow. It will be easier if I’m alone.” The way her fingers trembled made his throat tighten. He hated to see her like this, so fragile, poisoned by the drugs rushing through her system. If he hadn’t run after her, she would have been too weak to defend herself from the Striker demons. They would have eaten her alive.

It upset him that she’d run. No matter how damning her vision, she shouldn’t have doubted him after all they’d been through together in the past few hours. It terrified him that her safety already meant so much to him, that his stupid heart was so eager to make excuses for her behavior. In the short time it had taken them to reach Boudreaux’s, he’d found at least a dozen reasons to give Emma another chance.

Could he blame a woman who’d been through everything Emma had been through for having trust issues? He should have expected that her first instinct was to run away and anticipated her need for more reassurance than the average person. He should have believed her about her demon mark sooner. He should have talked more and teased less, he should have, should have, should have, blah, blah, blah, until he wanted to scream.

In less than a day, Emma had him thinking like a man in love. Worse, she had him thinking like a woman in love, second-guessing himself to the point that he’d let her talk him into coming to this cesspit to kill a man.

He knew that’s why she wanted to be alone. She didn’t want him to see what she’d do to the man at the top of the stairs. The thought made his stomach roil. He couldn’t do it, not even if the alternative might mean risking his own life.

But would she agree to what he had in mind? Probably not. So maybe he’d pull an Emma and refrain from telling her the entire truth until it was too late for her to protest. ...

“It’s perfectly safe.” She nodded to the tall, dark shadows skulking in the corners of the room. “There are three bouncers down here to protect you.”

“No,” he said, his tone clipped and final, refusing to acknowledge her attempt at humor. “Let me help you walk up, or I’m going to carry you up. End of discussion.”

She sighed and looped her arm around his shoulders. Andre could tell she didn’t like it, but that was fine. She didn’t have to like that he was looking out for her; he was still going to do it. Andre started up the stairs, pulling Emma beside him, praying harder than he’d prayed in a long time that he’d be able to help her. He wanted her to know that she didn’t have to spend the rest of her life looking for her next victim, that she could get what she needed in another way, from another man, if it came to that.

Damn. The thought made him physically ill. He didn’t want to think about Emma with another man. He couldn’t help remembering the look on her face after they’d made love, when she said she’d “like to try.” There had been something in her eyes, something amazing that made him pray even harder as they reached the top of the stairs and shuffled down the hall.

Mercifully, the walls on the second floor were a relatively innocuous light blue, but the stench was as aggressive as the decorating scheme downstairs. A thick, lurid odor hung in the air, a mix of unwashed flesh, sex, and ... meat. Barbecue chicken, to be specific. It was almost enough to make Andre gag, even when breathing through his mouth.

“God, it’s like ... I can taste that smell,” Emma said, echoing his thoughts. The gold shimmer of her spark did nothing to conceal the unhealthy green that tinged her skin. She was going to be sick if they stayed up here much longer.

Andre had nearly decided to screw Jeremiah’s rooms and seek out another private place when the man they were looking for stepped out of his office. Jeremiah Boudreaux was even more repellent than his stench. As the obese black man oozed out into the hall—the front of his gold T-shirt smeared with barbecue sauce and the close of his pants not quite zipped—it became clear he was the source of the stink in the hall.

Behind him, in his equally filthy office, two of his employees—still dressed in nothing but gold thongs and matching tassels—crouched on top of his desk, digging into a bucket of chicken as if they hadn’t eaten in days. And maybe they hadn’t. They were both as painfully thin as Jeremiah was fat, their ribs standing out clearly beneath their skin.

“Raymond said you wanted to see me?” Jeremiah bared a mouthful of even, white teeth that were at odds with the rest of his appearance.

“We need some antivenom for Hamma claws and heard you were the person to ask. We also need a room, and we need you to make sure no one knows we’re here, not even my family,” Andre said, feeling the man saunter up behind him. A glance over his shoulder revealed a giant bald guy with a stun gun on his hip standing at the top of the stairs.

He should have known Jeremiah wouldn’t talk to anyone without security. He was a shady, disgusting bastard, but he was a rich bastard with a prime piece of Southie real estate several people would kill to see back on the market.

“Emma, I’ll take care of this.” Andre shot her a pointed look, silently willing her to trust him. She pressed her lips together, then thought better of it and opened them again, the better to breathe through her mouth.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Conti. I believe that can be arranged.” Jeremiah drew the words out into a half dozen syllables. Whether real or affected, his Cajun drawl sounded like the genuine article. “I most certainly can help you. Tyrone.” He motioned to the man behind them with two thick fingers. “Take these fine people up to a sweat room, the best available. I’ll have that antivenom sent right up.”

Without another word, he turned and waddled back into his office, shutting the door behind him. Seconds later there came a grunt and a giggle from one of the women still inside. Tyrone strode past them on the right, continuing down the hall to another set of stairs, hopefully leading to a floor unaffected by Jeremiah’s profound personal odor.

“Then why are we going to the sweat room?” she whispered, pulling away when Andre tried to lead her down the hall. Clearly she was aware that the sweat rooms were where the strippers took clients who could afford a “private dance”—the kind where the thong came off and the customer had his turn to work up a sweat.

“Relax.” He reclaimed her arm, the very thought of “sweating” with Emma arousing him, despite the stench lingering in the hall and the knowledge that the room they were being led to was probably extremely unhygienic. “I told you we’d take care of you.”

“Andre, please.” Her eyes darted down the hall to where Tyrone waited for them at the bottom of the second set of stairs. Her next words were so soft he could barely hear her. “Listen, I thought I could ...” She paused, taking a deep breath through her mouth, fighting the effects of the venom. “I know Jeremiah’s done a lot of bad things to the girls here. I know he’d work, but I’m not sure about Tyrone. I don’t know if he’s done anything to deserve what I’d do to him.”

“Then what are we doing here? Why did you tell me all those things you told me in the ruins?” he hissed, anger flaring to life inside him once more.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d told a woman to shut up, or whether he’d ever. He’d been raised to treat women with respect, to consider them fragile and sensitive in ways that made them both finer than the male of the species and lesser at the same time. But Emma was different. She wasn’t nearly as delicate as she looked. She was tough, hard, strong—his equal in every way, including her nearly debilitating fear of trusting another person. He knew what she was going through, and he knew they could get past that fear. Together.

“Trust me, and keep quiet.” Andre hustled her up the stairs behind Tyrone and followed the large, silent man down a narrow hallway to the right.

Once again, Boudreaux’s underwent a dramatic shift in character from one floor to the next. Instead of bright pink or baby blue, the walls were covered in simple wood paneling interspersed with black, numbered doors. The music playing downstairs pumped through speakers in the ceiling, presumably to cover the sounds of the people busy in the sweat rooms to their right and left. At this early hour, the rooms all seemed empty, but Tyrone still led them down to the last door on the right, lucky number thirteen.

Outside the door, a girl in a green silk wrap thrown hastily over her stripper gear stood with a silver tray holding a cup of steaming liquid, a dish of silver powder, several small mixing bowls, and a hypodermic needle still in its plastic wrapping. Just looking at the needle made Andre’s skin crawl.

“She can take the powder in the tea or mix it with a little water and inject. Shooting will be faster, but it might make her sicker. If she starts having convulsions, stick the wooden mixer between her teeth so she doesn’t bite her tongue,” the girl said, swift and nonchalant with her instructions, as if she talked to people on the verge of overdose every day. She slipped into the room ahead of Tyrone, leaving her tray on a small table by a tidy, twin-sized bed.

The bed was made up all in white, with a simple comforter and sheets that smelled of bleach and cheap laundry detergent, topped with a red pillow like the cherry on a sundae. The floor was bare except for a thick brown and red shag rug, and the walls were painted a deep red with a swirling pattern in dark brown that swept from the floor to the ceiling.

On the whole, it was far nicer—and cleaner—than Andre had anticipated. It would make the testing of his latest hypothesis a whole lot more comfortable now that he and Emma could actually sit down somewhere without catching a venereal disease.

“You’ve got two hours,” Tyrone said as the girl in green left the room. “But if you take longer, it’s no big deal. We don’t get many people using the VIP room.”

She was getting weaker with every passing minute. If his plan didn’t work, he would have to take her down to Jeremiah’s office, no matter how the thought terrified him. He wasn’t going to let her die, not even if it meant being an accessory to murder.

“Credit card or cash deposit?” Tyrone asked, holding out one meaty hand. “It’s two grand for the room and another two for the antivenom.”

Emma gasped at the numbers, but Andre didn’t blink. Demon drugs themselves might be relatively cheap, but the antivenom went for ten times the price of an equal amount of Hamma claws. It was cheap to party. It was a lot more expensive to live.

“You can sign and pick it up at the front desk on your way out,” Tyrone said before turning and leaving the room without a backward glance, apparently unconcerned by the low moaning sound Emma made as she fell to her side on the bed.

But then, he’d probably seen worse. The bodies of the people who didn’t survive the antivenom didn’t get down all those stairs and dumped in some trash bin on the other side of Southie on their own. Someone had to carry them, and Tyrone was the biggest guy he’d seen around the club so far. He might suit Emma’s needs after all.

The thought comforted him. The more potential energy sources, the better, though he still hoped with everything in him that they wouldn’t need that sort of “food”—that Emma might not need that sort of food ever again.

Andre waited until Tyrone closed the door and then went to turn the two locks, ensuring them at least a few seconds’ notice if Tyrone or someone else with keys decided to interrupt. Andre didn’t anticipate interruption, however. From everything he’d heard about Boudreaux’s, the establishment was known for its discretion ... at least in everything except decorative choices for their first-floor showroom.

“Please, Andre,” Emma moaned, trying to sit up but failing. “Let’s just go. I’ll find someone else. We can go out the window, down the hall, and—”

“No more sneaking through windows. You’ve done enough of that for one day,” he said, crossing back to the bed and easing her onto her back, unable to keep from noticing how beautiful the spark could be.

Lying there, shimmering like some golden goddess, Emma looked too perfect to be real. Even with her hairline damp with sweat and her lips pressed together in pain, she was gorgeous. Katie had been gorgeous, too, but for the first time in years, thinking about Katie didn’t hurt quite as much.

“I understand.” He shrugged off his coat, letting it drop to the rug, making a mental note to burn this suit at the first opportunity. “You sucked the life out of a drug addict and it’s giving you a bad Hamma trip. You need something to counteract the venom.”

“Yes, but the antivenom only made it worse last time.” Her brows drew together as she watched his fingers work open the two buttons left on his shirt, the ones she hadn’t popped off when she’d ripped it off of him earlier. “I promise you, I ...”

His shirt joined his suit coat on the floor, and his hands went to his belt, working the leather through the tight loops. Emma’s eyes grew large with understanding.

“You said you felt charged after we had sex. Right? So why don’t we see if I can help you out.” He pushed his pants to the ground along with his briefs, until he stood before her completely naked, his cock thickening at her soft inhalation. She might not feel her best at the moment, but she still wanted him. He could see it in the way her lips parted, in the way her fingers dug into the blanket beneath her. “Now, take off your clothes.”

“Fine. I’ll take them off for you.” He reached for the close of her belt. For a second, he thought she would fight him, but the look in his eyes must have made her think better of it.

Instead, she lay back, breath growing shallow as he unbelted and unbuckled and pulled her jeans and panties roughly down to her knees. For a second, he thought about taking off her boots so that he could finish stripping off her clothes, worried about making her more comfortable. But then he saw the look in her eyes and knew she couldn’t care less about comfort. She wanted to feel better, yes, but she wanted him to fuck her nearly as much. He’d seen that hooded look of desire on dozens of female faces, but it had never aroused him as much as it did right now.

“Roll over. Lift your hips,” he said, growing hotter, harder, as he realized he’d be balls deep in Emma Quinn in a matter of seconds.

“Andre, I—” Her words ended in a grunt as her gripped her hips and flipped her onto her stomach, then pulled her legs around until they dropped off the edge of the narrow bed. Her boots hit the floor with a thud Andre could barely hear over the pounding of his pulse. Emma’s new arrangement put her pussy in the perfect position, her slick opening pressed tight against the base of his cock. All he had to do was pull back and adjust himself the barest inch and he’d be inside of her, shoving into her heat, banishing the fear and hurt flooding his body in a frantic pleasure that just might kill him.

What if he was wrong about sex creating the energy she needed without hurting him? What if there was a heart attack in his immediate future? More important ... what if fucking didn’t give her enough fuel to fight the poison in her body? What if this was a potentially deadly waste of time for both of them?

“Please,” Emma whispered, her voice breathy and her body trembling lightly beneath the fingers he rested on her hips. “Don’t make me ...”

The same hole she’d ripped open when she’d described the last moment he’d seen Katie alive, the one she’d made even deeper when she’d run from him, having the nerve to suspect him of trying to steal that stupid book.

“No.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder, caramel eyes filled with such raw need that he felt the echo of it screaming across his skin. “Don’t make me hate myself any more than I already do. I don’t want to hurt you. ... I ...” Her voice broke and her fathomless eyes shone with unshed tears. “I think I love you.”

His anger slipped away, the string on a balloon escaping into the sky. “I love you, too.” His voice was so choked with emotion, it was hardly recognizable. What she made him feel ... it was more than he could handle, more than his mind could process with Emma bent over in front of him, vulnerable and yet still so far beyond his reach.

So he didn’t try to process or understand; he simply positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside, fear melting away as he sank deeper and deeper, until he was completely encased in her heat, her body, the core of her that was by far the most addictive place he’d ever been. But it wasn’t his addictive personality that gave him the control he needed to move slowly, to wait until Emma cried out in pleasure and lifted her hips before he quickened his thrusts, until he drove into her faster and faster with a force that made her groan and shove back against him, as hot and ready and desperate for the pleasure they would find together as he was.

It was love. It was love that made him hold back his own release, to keep driving when Emma’s back arched and she came with a long, low moan. It was love that urged him to thrust harder, faster, even when the blue glow came again, illuminating the curves of Emma’s pale flesh, highlighting her golden hair with streaks of sapphire.

Almost immediately he could see Emma’s vitality begin to return, but the light didn’t hurt him any more than it had the last time. If anything, it made the last few seconds before he lost himself even more intense. He was climbing to the top of the world with this woman, taking in the humbling beauty of creation from a pure, perfect place he’d never dreamed existed before toppling off the edge into wonder with Emma by his side. He’d never felt so free, never known making love could be as much a spiritual pleasure as a physical one.

Only with her, only with Emma, had he ever been liberated by desire rather than chained to its side. It made him love her even more, made him certain she was worth this risk, worth any risk. Her power might be the work of evil demons, but there was nothing wicked or bad in Emma Quinn. Despite the lies, he believed that with everything in him.