AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His gaze jerked to Jana’s. The whites of her eyes were blood-red. But Davey hadn’t looked at her. He didn’t even realize that she had her power. “I should have told you sooner. I should have trusted you sooner,” Zane told her, needing to say these words. Needing her to understand. “I love you.”
“Oh, that’s so fucking sweet,” Davey sneered. “My old man told me that my mother said the same crap before he slit her throat.” Davey’s claws came up to Jana’s throat. “Wanna tell him the same thing? Wanna tell him how much you love his demon self?”
Jana smiled at Zane.
Burn him. The whisper floated through his mind. He swallowed and pushed his power forward, wanting to be ready to attack with her.
Jana tossed back her hair and she said, “Fuck you.” Not words for Zane. The snarl was for Davey as she spun toward him. The demon’s claws slashed over her skin. Blood poured. “Go to hell!” Then the fire erupted. Her fire.
And Zane pushed all of his energy, all of his fire, at the demon, too.
Davey screamed. It was the last sound he ever made as the demon erupted in flames.
Chapter Nineteen
There wasn’t much left of Davey. Zane stood in the alley and stared at the flickering flames. No matter how much power the demon had stolen, he hadn’t been able to heal from an Ignitor’s blast, not delivered at point-blank range with a full charge.
That fire had burned so high. So wild.
Cops were coming. Firefighters, too. The EMTs would be there, but there wasn’t anything they could do to help Davey.
“Where is she?” Jude asked him, his voice gruff.
Zane glanced back. Jude had on a pair of jeans, nothing else. At least he was back in human form. “Gone,” he said, and the word felt hollow.
Jude’s eyes widened. “Aw, shit, man, the fire?—”
He laughed. “No, no, that fire didn’t touch her.” She’d been safely away from the flames. He’d run forward and pushed her back even more as he tried to make sure the bastard was gone.
No coming back from that. Davey had been strong, but not strong enough.
He’d turned back to face Jana just as he’d heard the shout of approaching cops, but she’d been gone.
“What do we tell the cops?” Jude asked him softly.
His gaze raked the area. He could still smell Jana. Her blood. Her scent. Rising over the smoke and ash. “We tell them that a killer confessed to us, then he torched himself.”
“There’ll be questions.”
“There always are.”
Cops hurried toward them. “Hands up!” one shouted.
He put his hands up, and then he looked past the uniforms and into the shadows. Her scent lingered so strongly in the air. Don’t leave me. The psychic order left him before he could stop it, because, hell, yes, he was desperate.
“We’re hunters,” Jude spoke quickly. “With Night Watch. We were tracking a killer.” He kept his hands up as he talked.
The cop who’d barked the order—an older, balding man—sniffed hard, and his face tightened. “What the hell is that smell? What’s burning?”
“That’d be our killer,” Zane replied, keeping his own hands up as his gaze swept from the cops to the darkened alley. “Or what’s left of him.”
The cops began to gag.
Softly, so softly, he heard the sound of retreating footsteps.
Jana.
He stepped forward, but the older cop had his gun ready, and Zane knew he wasn’t supposed to hurt humans. He couldn’t chase after her. Not yet.
