I cave like that, it shows just how weak I still am. I hate that.”
“You’re not weak. You’re the kind of strong that inspires me to take on the world and make it a place that’s worthy of you.” Again his gaze snapped away from the screen to lock on hers. “Wait. What do you mean, squirming around in your head? Did that demon do something to you? Did it touch you?”
“No.” Reeling from the achingly sweet flood of emotion his admission unleashed, Ella tried not to get too swept away by focusing on the simple task of drawing the window’s sheers. “I told you, it didn’t even seem to know I was there until after its face started to change from the unscarred and perfect Lana, to the horror-show Lana I remembered. It is strange,” she added, her brow furling as she came to perch on the edge of the bed. “Richard Rainier and his evil sidekick gave me the impression that they’d wanted to blend in with the crowd and not make a fuss. Then without warning the demon went all slasher-flick nightmarish, and it caused a panic. Maybe it wanted to feed off of that negativity? That’s how spawns of hell are usually portrayed in just about every Halloween movie I’ve ever seen.”
“If we’re going to go by what Hollywood dreams up, we’re doomed.” After a few last decisive keystrokes, he abandoned the laptop to stand before her, arms crossed. “Do me a favor and tell me again exactly what happened, especially the part when you felt the demon inside your head.”
With a shrug she did so, unsure of what he was looking for. How could she? None of this was what she could call familiar territory. She’d left everything she’d known about the universe in the rearview mirror some time ago. It was a new world for her, an unfamiliar one where demons, angels and hybrid beings walked the earth. She couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, no matter how much she might want to. The only thing she could do was try to catch up.
By the time she was done, Nate looked puzzled. “Rainier called the demon by the name of the image of the dead woman it’s adopted?”
Ella nodded. “He called it darling, and they stood so close together it almost seemed like they wanted to share the same space. Maybe Richard doesn’t know the thing he’s traveling with is a demon.”
He shook his head. “Rainier sold his soul—the flash of red in his eyes is unmistakable. That means he made a deal, and since the only hell spawn around happens to be his travel buddy, I’m going to assume he made that deal with the demon.”
“What would Rainier have possibly bartered for?”
“I’m much more interested in how you could feel it messing around in your head. That’s something I wasn’t expecting.”
“Rainier seemed pretty passionate about his darling Lana,” she went on after a moment, more unsettled by the notion of a demonic mental invasion than she wanted to admit. “When all those cuts started showing up on her face, he seemed genuinely shaken. It makes me wonder if he knew the real Lana before Charles killed her.”
“The only person who’d know besides Richard himself would be his attorney Archibald. Considering he just fired me via email, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t welcome a chat with me.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Due to my ‘reckless accusations’ against Richard Rainier and his office in the so-called accidental deaths of Gabrielle Litte and Briella Fields. Or something like that.”
“You must be upset.”
“Oh, yeah. Totally torn up about it.”
She grinned at his indifferent tone and rested her hands on his hips, her fingers sliding through his belt loops. “Do you need to be consoled?”
The change in him was palpable. The edgy restlessness lurking in his expression dissolved as if it had never been. In its place rose a vivid, all-encompassing fire that lit his eyes with a hunger that seemed to border on insatiable. The sheer magnitude of it radiated from him like a heat wave, reaching out to engulf her even as his hand lifted to caress a lingering path along her cheek. “Definitely.”
Chapter Fourteen
He shouldn’t be doing this.
That was the one thought echoing through Nate’s brain as he stood between Ella’s knees and simply held her for a small eternity, bending over her so that he could bury his mouth into the lush softness of her dark hair. He should focus on figuring out how