Page 30 of Demon Unleashed

“You were using me! Why would I waste a thought on you once you’re dead?”

“I’m not blind. I’ve seen you fight, Enya. Not just tonight, but many times before. At the cosplay event, you massacred my subjects. You’re fearless, you’re skilled, you’re strong.” He opened his arms wide. “Yet here I am, still alive, where you could have killed me several times by now. I laid down my weapon. I’m defenseless. But you can’t kill me.” His lips curved into a smile. “Because you care about the man you made love to. You care about me. Just like I care about you.”

She pressed the knife harder against his throat and broke the skin. A few drops of green blood stained the blade. “A demon cares about nobody. And you’re a demon! A demon!”

“Funny, how you focus on a demon’s inability to feel, when you could have just told me you didn’t care about me.” He slowly put his hands on her shoulders, cupping them gently. “You didn’t deny it. You do care about me. Because there’s something between us that defies everything, even the fact that we’re archenemies.”

She pushed him back with such force that he landed on the bed. She couldn’t take any more of this. “You know nothing.” Enya spun on her heel.

“I know one thing: the next time we fuck, you’ll be screaming my real name when you come.”

She charged through the door and hurried out of his place, making herself invisible in the process. Moments later, she was outside his building, the cool night air enveloping her heated body. She braced her hands on her knees. Damn it, she should have killed him, should have done what was her duty as a Stealth Guardian. But she hadn’t. Instead, she stood here, doubts and disappointment colliding within her, while her stomach growled in protest.

Nausea rose and hit her out of nowhere. Since she hadn’t eaten since lunch, she threw up only bile. It should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. Tears welled up in her eyes. She didn’t have the strength to stop them. But they couldn’t wash away the pain of having lost something she’d never hoped to find in the first place.

~ ~ ~

Zoltan sat on the edge of his bed, in the dark, his head in his hands, replaying the confrontation with Enya in his mind. How could this have happened? He’d been so careful, so why hadn’t he put new contact lenses in before he’d gone to bed, knowing the old ones would dissolve from the secretion of his eyes while he slept?

Why the fuck had Enya even shown up in the middle of the night? Something had sparked her suspicion, but she hadn’t told him what. Had he been too efficient in killing his own demons? It didn’t matter now. The damage was done. His original plan was destroyed, his location compromised, his assumed name worthless. He should leave now, hightail it out of Baltimore and find another hiding place in the human world, before the Stealth Guardians raided his condo and finished what Enya couldn’t.

Tonight changed everything, and everything changed tonight.

Enya had called him disgusting. The word cut deeper than the dagger at his throat had. Still, he couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t accept what had happened. He had to salvage what could be salvaged. So what if his original plan was shot? It didn’t change anything about the fact that he wanted Enya in his bed—and he’d take her any which way he could.

Still naked, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and pressed the programmed number. It went straight to voicemail. He wasn’t surprised. Why would she take his call?

“It’s Enya. Leave a message.”

“Enya, it’s me.” He didn’t want to say his name in case one of the other Stealth Guardians heard the message. “Listen, we need to talk. I’m sorry for what happened… for how it happened.” He infused his voice with a pleading tone, a tone men used when they groveled. Women seemed to respond to it and were more inclined to forgive a man who used that tone. Of course, he had no actual experience in this, had only observed it in others. After all, he was the Great One. And the Great One didn’t grovel. “I can’t change what I am. But for you, I can change. I can be who you need me to be. Please, give me a chance to explain.”

He disconnected the call and sighed. What now? He couldn’t just sit here and wait for the second shoe to drop. He had to do something. Perhaps he could find out where she’d gone. Back to her compound? Somehow he doubted that. How would she explain to her comrades that she’d discovered where the Great One was hiding, and at the same time admit that she hadn’t been able to kill him because she had scruples? No, Enya wouldn’t put herself in that kind of situation with her brethren. She was a warrior like the men in her group. She didn’t want to come across as a weak female. Admitting that she couldn’t kill Zoltan because she’d slept with him would cost her the respect she’d worked so hard to earn.

In a hurry, Zoltan got dressed, put colored lenses over his green irises, and left the condo. To save time, he cast a vortex behind his building and transported to an apartment building in a rather decent part of the city. There, he looked at the names on the doorbells and found the one he was looking for. He rang three times. When there was no reply after thirty seconds, he pressed the doorbell again repeatedly.

Finally, an annoyed voice came through the crackling intercom. “What the fuck?”

“It’s Eric. I need you to do something for me.”

“In the middle of the fucking night? Come back tomorrow.” The intercom went silent.

But Zoltan couldn’t give up. Not now. He pressed the doorbell and held it down, until after an eternity, the buzzer sounded. “Well, was that so hard?” he grumbled to himself.

He pushed the door open and entered. The apartment was on the fourth floor. By the time Zoltan reached it, the door was already open, and Mick was waiting for him, a shabby bathrobe thrown over his pajama bottoms.

“You’ll be paying double,” Mick said, and walked back into his apartment.

Zoltan followed and closed the door behind him. “I thought you computer guys are up all night.”

“Yeah, right,” Mick said. “What do you need?”

“I need you to find somebody for me.” And Mick was the only person Zoltan could trust with this job, because Mick was human and had no idea who or what Zoltan was. All he knew was that Zoltan always paid, and he paid well for the services Mick provided. Even if there were a demon with Mick’s computer skills or equipment, he couldn’t trust a demon, not with this.

“Who’s the lady?”

Zoltan snapped his head to Mick and narrowed his eyes. “How do you know it’s a woman I’m looking for?”

Mick did an eye-roll. “Oh please, you’re not the first guy showing up here after midnight wanting me to trace his girlfriend who just walked out on him.”