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Chapter 9
Imade it five steps outside the police station before Mrak’s presence cocooned around me again, his ethereal tendrils wrapping around my body. It stopped me from walking for a moment. Where I may not have reacted before, my tense muscles tightened further. All because of Leif’s words and concern, and all the new information he’d unknowingly given me.
A shadow demon. A monster.
That’s what shadow demons do. They manipulate. They seduce. And they destroy.
I bit my lip as Leif’s words swirled in my mind. I’d been so confident when facing him down. But as soon as Mrak’s presence had been around me again, that confidence began to crack.
“They warded against me again,”Mrak said near my ear.“These humans are either very clever or have interesting luck with wards they do not understand.”
“It’s intentional.” I began walking again. The downtown police station wasn’t all that far from my workshop and studio apartment. The late afternoon sun felt amazing on my cool skin. It’d been so damn cold in that interview room.
I could feel the question in Mrak’s silence. When he didn’t ask it, I supplied, “Leif, the man who commissioned that rune sword is also a police officer. He’s the one who brought me in. He also warned me about you.”
Mrak’s ethereal tendrils tightened around my body—not painfully, though. More in a protective manner than anything else, I thought.
“And what did he say?”Mrak’s tone was tight, every syllable weighted. Like a man guilty of something about to be uncovered.
I hated the way I’d read that so easily. I hated even more that I might’ve seen all along that Mrak was an entity that wasn’t quite “good.” He’d always been good tome. And while I wanted to hear his side of things, I was quickly realizing I wasn’t sure how much I should share about what Leif had said—and everything he’d insinuated.
I kept walking. “Leif didn’t say much, to be honest. He’s of the opinion you should be warded against. That I may be in danger. But you and I both know that you saved me from therealdanger. So I see no point in worrying.”
“He knows a lot for a police officer.”
“A bit much for a general demon hunter, too.”
“I wasn’t aware the average demon hunter could create wards this powerful.”
“What makes this ward against you so different?” I asked, hoping to get Mrak to admit to being as powerful as Leif had insinuated.
Mrak caressed my cheek. His ethereal lips brushed my ear.“Because I’m no simple supernatural, Aisling. I think we can both admit you’ve already figured that out.”
I swallowed hard and stole into an alleyway for some privacy. There were many people milling about, heading out for dinner, or shopping, or simply leaving work for the day. I must have looked a little bit crazy talking to myself without a phone in sight.
“No, I suppose a simple supernatural couldn’t find a way to erase evidence tapes while being a wispy shadow at the edge of existence.” I hadn’t intended for my words to sound so sarcastic, and yet they’d come out that way anyway. “That’s what Leif called you. A shadow demon.”
Mrak hissed.“‘Demon’ is such a primitive word.”
“It’s true, then?”
“Yes.”
I nodded and kept slowly pacing the alleyway. “That explains your form.”
“My form?”
My cheeks heated. “When I, um, came earlier… I saw you. All of you. Just for a moment.”
Mrak’s lips brushed my neck and, for the first time, it wasn’t tendrils I felt along my body, but claws that moved sharply over the skin of my chest and sides. Idly. Seductively. “And were you afraid?”
That gave me pause. Was I?
“I was shocked,” I admitted. “I… knew you weren’t as human as I’d sometimes seen before. That you couldn’tbehuman. What you look like doesn’t matter to me. It never has.”
The feel of his claws, still invisible as they were, moving down my stomach and closer to my thighs had my breath hitching.
“What aboutwhatI am? Does that bother you?”
