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ILSA
Ray had been glancing at me as we worked our way around to a place from which we could observe the club, and I know she was dying to know what my plan was.
There was no way to tell her I didn’t have one.
Because I was well out of my depth.
I was a soldier. I went where I was told, did the job, and left. I could make tactical decisions on the ground—gather intel, know the terrain and territory, then make a decision. Planning ahead too far didn’t work because you could never really know what the next few minutes held. Ray looked at me as though I were a detective or a cop like she had lumped all authority figures together in the same basket, assuming we all had the same skill set.
I’m not stupid. I could’ve progressed through the ranks, but I didn’t want to. This was something else my father had seen as a weakness, but I saw only as control over my own life. I didn’t want to be the one sitting in an office giving commands. I needed to be there, on the field, to see the innocent people and have the constant reminder shoved in my face of why I was doing what I did. Because if I didn’t have that, if the people were reduced to nothing but words and numbers on a screen, and if I could tell someone to pull a trigger rather than doing it myself, then I might lose my humanity.
Like he had.
So, I had no real plan. This was my terrain now, though. I had cased the building and knew enough about what went on inside to know these people were either a threat or a very useful source of information. I had also put faith in the fact that between Ray and me, if shit went down, we were strong enough to get ourselves out of the situation.
Observation was necessary. It may not be the mile-a-minute thrill ride Ray was hoping, judging by her constant fidgeting and twitching, but it was needed.
It grated against me that I hadn’t considered the person trying to kill us could be in the club when we had started walking there. They could’ve recognized us as soon as we walked through the damn door. Whoever they were, they, of course, knew what Ray looked like, even if they didn’t know her name because simply seeing us together was enough for them to turn on me.
What seemed so fucking obvious now slid past my thought process because of her. She had infiltrated my mind, and I could barely concentrate just looking into those golden eyes of hers, let alone when her body heat was pressed against mine.
We were here too early. I knew there wouldn’t be anything going on at this time of day, but I couldn’t stay in the apartment with Ray—she was too much of a temptation.
Christ, and here I thought the girls I went for before were bad girls.
A fucking demon.
Shaking my head, I still couldn’t get my mind fully around it. Every nerve in my body was on edge, and every now and then she’d cast me a glance, her eyes wide and hopeful. Ray had a strange innocence about her, discovering a world and still learning the consequences. I didn’t know what she wanted from me. Reassurance? A more stable plan? A teenage make-out session?
To fuck in the street?
Barely catching the shudder before it ran down my spine, I managed to stay still. Much too much of a temptation. How could a demon be cheeky and sweet and funny and still be… a demon?
Glancing at her at the same time she looked at me, we locked eyes for a moment. I couldn’t pull my gaze from hers, and she certainly wasn’t going to be the first to look away. There was a world of questions swimming in my mind which I could be using this time to ask her. Questions about the universe and life which she’d know the answers to. Questions about places that I hoped I’d never see, about Heaven and Hell and the way everything worked and fit together. In this world where humanity was ignorant of everything that existed outside our immediate lives, she held the truth that none of us ever thought we’d get close to until it was too late to tell anyone.
But I couldn’t.
Because asking her, hearing her talk about those things, would make this all the more real, and as weak as it made me feel, I genuinely didn’t think I could take it. Maybe it wasn’t weakness. Maybe it was simply humanity. Were we meant to know the answers to the big questions?
Ray and I had become tangled up together when all I had wanted to do was save people from getting hurt or killed through collateral damage to whatever mission she was on. But now, her safety and mine were on the same line, and we had to figure this out together—demon or not.
She was still staring at me.
Beyond all that—as if it could get any worse—was my undeniable attraction to her. An animalistic lust I’ve never experienced before. Ray assured me those feelings were driven purely by my desire for her, originating from inside me and not because she was using some demon tricks to make me feel this way. Could she do that? Make the warmth spread between my legs and have my clit throb with need whenever she looked at me? But I had to tell myself Ray must be lying because that’s what demons do, right? Because I couldn’t accept these feelings were anything other than the weakness of the flesh giving in to a power and instinct I’d never understand.
But still, I kept remembering the feel of her on me, of my fingers inside her, and her coming around me.
Intoxicating.
Biting my bottom lip, I was about to tear my eyes from hers when she growled.
Low and menacing, building from the back of her throat and rumbling through those perfect lips. The growl kept going, and she bared her teeth as a flash of yellow passed across her eyes.
My eyes widened, and Ray looked hastily at the ground, but her shoulders were trembling.
Was she crying?
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Do you have a stomachache from eating instant coffee grounds?”
“Quiet.”
I leaned away from her at the command. The voice wasn’t her own. It was scratchy and grating like it was spoken in two octaves at the same time. It was partially the voice I knew—her human voice—and something else.
Something I didn’t want to know about.
“Ray—” My words were cut off with a gasp when she raised her head. Her eyes were a blazing yellow with those black slits for pupils darting madly around before settling on me.
“Stop saying my name!” she screeched, and I scrambled to move away from her. Her skin was changing as though her veins were once again filled with the black ink I had witnessed the first time I saw her. Every vein darkened and widened before the inky color would spill out. Uneven patches of black formed and spread, sending it around underneath her skin in cobwebs that tangled together when they reached each other.
What would happen when the black took over all her skin?
