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I felt her presence before I saw her, and as Ray brushed past me, her face was clear as though the smoke didn’t bother her at all. With a heave, she lifted the oven off the trapped man, and I scrambled to help him out from underneath. Looping our arms around each other’s shoulders, we began to move out of the building, each limping on opposite legs.
Tutting, Ray came in front of us. I tried to scream at her to move, but smoke filled my mouth and lungs, and I began coughing again. Crouching, Ray lifted us each onto a shoulder and stomped out of the building acting like the only inconvenience to her wasn’t the weight of two adults on her shoulders but the interruption to her night.
Carrying us across the street, she dropped us together onto the pathway against the building opposite. Ray and I held each other’s gaze for a moment before she tilted her head, the approaching sirens her calling card to leave.
“I didn’t want to kill anyone,” Ray said, resignation heavy in her tone. She cast a sorrowful look at the man lying next to me, his injured leg, his face covered in ash and clothes burned, with eyes closed and breathing shallow.
When we locked eyes again, I frowned, trying to figure out what she was thinking. “Ray, you need to stop this.”
She bit her lip, looking between me and the empty street behind her. I knew she would run, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her. Saving this man’s life trumped chasing her. Besides, she had proven herself hard to pin down when she didn’t want to be, and I started to suspect I was out of my depth. Weren’t there people trained to do this? Demon bounty hunters or something? Where do I even find them? My internet search history would look like that of a crazy person soon if I weren’t careful.
Ray’s eyes were shimmering, and with a pang, I realized she was holding back tears. Why did she care so much about killing? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. My chest ached watching her fight through indecision like a child learning a harsh lesson.
All right, no bounty hunters then.
This was between her and me.
A different approach, perhaps?
I kept my voice quiet and gentle. “Ray—”
“Please,” she said. “Just leave me be, will you?” And with that, she turned and disappeared into the night once again.
I couldn’t get the look on her face out of my mind, not when the emergency services arrived, not when I indicated they needed to treat the man first, not when the police questioned me.
She was a demon.
So why should she care if she killed anyone?
RAY
Telling her to stay away from me, I couldn’t offer Ilsa the same courtesy.
A man had almost died, and it would’ve been my fault. What would I have done if Ilsa wasn’t there? I froze on the spot. I had been so sure of my motivations, of my actions, and when she had warned me about potential collateral damage, I was able to brush the warnings off without a second thought.
Not once in my entire—and considerable—lifetime had I questioned myself.
But I was all shades of questioning right now, and I didn’t like it. Not one little bit.
What the fuck was I even doing on Earth?
Was she right? I was no one to be deciding who was and wasn’t innocent.
But I wasn’t condemning anyone to death, I was simply setting back those who were doing the wrong thing—taking away their clubhouses, their labs, their places of dodgy business.
How could that be wrong?
A man hadalmostdied.
But the key point was hehadn’t.
But still,shehad gotten into my head, this tough army chick. What was in this for her anyway? Some self-appointed vigilante. I liked her occupying my mind even less than I liked questioning myself. Because when I’d kissed her, it had been for several reasons. Distracting her, obviously, and secondly, because damn, why the fuck not? She was gorgeous and resisting me at every turn, and lastly, I just plain wanted to.
Tormenting people was what I did best. It was all I knew. And kissing her tortured her because she knew what I was and because it turned her on as much as it had me. I could feel her arousal when I touched her flaring up under my fingers.
Then it tormented her more because she didn’t want to be turned on.
What I wasn’t counting on was the distraction it would cause me. Because I let the kiss drag on longer than it needed to for the purpose I had initially instigated it. Because I let her take control of the kiss, and I liked the feel of her arms splayed on my back. She tasted amazing, and I wanted more.
