Fallen Embers (Fallen Guardians #9)

Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

Nia settled the two newborn pups in a warm, blanket-lined basket. She’d found them a few days ago in a cardboard box in the alley behind the veterinarian clinic where she interned in the Quarter. The smaller one wasn’t feeding properly yet.

She stroked their soft, silky pelts. “It’s going to be all right,” she murmured, soothing their whines. “You’re not alone anymore.”

Soft whimpering and occasional yapping broke the silence from the few other animals sheltered in the clinic. As she rinsed the feeding syringes and left them in the rack by the sink, she glanced out the window at the busy street below.

Something moved in the gloom of the opposite building, and Nia stilled.

A slender, coatless figure detached from the shadows. He slanted his head up to where she stood, pale hair gleaming gold beneath the dim building light?—

Oh, shit! Him!

She leaped back from the window, blood thundering in her ears. The tension that had eased on her return to the clinic slammed back into her with the force of a ten-ton hammer. Before Kas burst into the clinic and caused chaos or, worse, hurt her boss, who was still there despite the late hour, she had to get out of there.

Nia dashed for the back room, scrambled out the window onto the fire escape of the two-story building, clambered down the metal steps, and leaped off the final rung. Her booted feet hit the concrete of the dingy, garbage-infused alley, the impact reverberating up her legs.

Nia took off, putting distance between herself and the clinic. She darted into another street illuminated with blinking neon lights and pushed through a sardine-packed crowd of merrymakers. After the horrible dinner with Nan and her cronies, she should have known life would screw her over again.

Her chest burned, demanding she slow down so it could get its oxygen intake. Panting hard, she ducked into the shadowed recess of a shop entrance locked down for the night. A sporty girl, she definitely wasn’t. Her heart pounded so loud against her sternum, it surprised her the organ didn’t jump out of her chest and signal her location to Kas.

Was this what her life amounted to—running for her life?

She’d completed high school a year early, spent four years as an undergraduate, then went to vet school, and finally, she had the internship she wanted. And now this.

Damn Kas to hell!

Nia pressed her spine against the bolted door, groaning at her stupidity. She’d met him one night at a coffeehouse while waiting for her friends and knew straight-up what he was. He’d been charming and asked to see her again. So, she’d agreed.

God . She shut her eyes. Just recalling what occurred, her terror resurfaced. He’d suggested a walk because the coffee date had ended too soon for him, then he’d grasped her hand and pulled her into a lane between two buildings.

“I cannot wait any longer. I’m dying to taste you.”

While she wasn’t the type to rush into anyone’s bed, she didn’t mind a kiss and had thought he really liked her, but the bastard had other interests. Namely, her blood!

He’d tried to hypnotize her. When that didn’t work, he grabbed her by her throat, his fangs gleaming in the moonlight. She’d kneed him hard in the balls and ran. Survival instinct was all that had kept her breathing.

He’d apologized through text after she ignored his call.

Give me a chance. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I am a blood demon.

She didn’t fucking care. He’d choked her! And she’d blocked him.

He went quiet for months, then last week… Like the Ghost of Christmas Past, or more like a bad spirit left behind after Halloween, he’d intercepted her on her way home. She’d threatened to set the hunters after him, and he backed off. She thought she’d scared him away until she noticed the shadowy figures watching her apartment.

And now he was watching her at work.

Christ, her stomach heaved as she scrubbed her hot face.

Vampires needed plasma to survive. She got that. But demons?

Kas just wanted the fucking high her human blood would give him. Yes, she knew all about the vile species’ proclivities through her best friend. Saia’s family were demon hunters—well, for evil demons, anyway, and Kas certainly belonged in that damn pack.

With another shaky inhale, she peered into the street, terrified to go home. He would find her, drain her dry, and burn her body to ash. She’d become another statistic on the missing persons list.

Grandmother would probably rejoice if that happened.

Footsteps shuffled closer. Her breath caught in her throat. If she didn’t flee, she’d end up trapped in the doorway.

God, she shut her eyes, wishing she could just transfer herself elsewhere like demons did. Voices drifted. Laughter erupted, and a group of club hoppers stopped in front of her.

“Which joint should we h-hit next?” one slurred.

“How ‘bout that one? The Cat’s M-m-moustache,” another hiccupped and chortled, and they all joined in the merriment.

Tourists.

Tipsy pain-in-the-asses, but she could have hugged them right then.

Nia slipped out of her hiding place and into the middle of the inebriated partygoers.

A dark-haired guy slung his arm around her shoulders, and she didn’t protest as they shuffled off toward the bar. “It’s called the Cat’s Meow,” she told him.

“Thanks, beautiful.” He grinned, giving her a hug and blasting her with his alcoholic fumes.

Enduring the walking brewery was a small price to pay to escape Kas. Nia furtively scanned the street for any sign of him.

As they neared the nightspot, she ducked under the man’s arm with a quick, “Thanks, man.”

He blinked, owl-like, at her, and she hightailed it to the busy main street and into a fusion of neon lights—pinks, turquoise, and yellows coloring the road and buildings—frantically searching for a cab.

One slowed a short distance from her, its taillights glowing like red demonic eyes as it stopped. She raced toward it, crashing into a hard body.

Strong hands grasped her upper arms.

No! Dread strangled her. With a muffled cry, she yanked free and sprinted for the idling cab. A passenger got out, and Nia scurried inside, slamming the door shut.

“Whoa, lady, I’m off duty,” the driver growled. “I ain’t going anywhere.” His heavy eyebrows pulled together in a fierce glower in the rearview mirror.

“Please, please,” she begged. “I have to get out of here.”

People strolled past. No one stopped or looked into the cab, but it didn’t mean shit. He was out there.

She glanced over her shoulder through the back window, searching for Kas’ blond hair.

A dark figure stood statue-still amidst the moving masses of people. Taller than the general mob, he was impossible to miss. He watched the cab.

Nia sank deeper into the darkness of the taxi, her heart jammed in her throat. Shadows hid the stranger’s features, but the cold moonlight gleamed off his hair, a perilous blood-red halo.

Another of Kas’ supernatural sycophants?

“Please?” she begged the driver, and she gave Saia’s address since Kas would never follow her there.

The cabbie frowned at her, then looked out the window and grunted. “You should be careful of the company you keep, girl.”

“Believe me, it’s not company I keep any longer. Just a date who won’t take no for an answer.”

“That’s what I mean.” He eased the cab forward, and soon, they were off Bourbon Street. “Nothing is what it seems at first, is it?”

Nia exhaled in sheer gratitude, slumping low in her seat, his words ringing in her head. Wasn’t it just so?

She rubbed her ear, fingering the row of tiny studs.

Soon, they entered the quieter part of the French Quarter, where Saia and Riley lived and the only place she knew she’d be safe.

Nia paid the driver, gave him the last of her cash for a tip, and dashed to the gated property. She thrust open the wrought-iron gates into the secluded, red-bricked courtyard for the adjoined colonial townhouses and sprinted to the door on her right.

Dark clouds hung low, but moonlight seeped free and silvered the branches of the tall, denuded shrubs that stretched out their skeletal boughs like ghostly limbs.

Her nape prickled, and ice slid down her spine.

Someone watched her.

“Saia, open up!” She pounded on her friend’s door, shooting another panicked look over her shoulder. “C’mon, c’mon, Sai !” She lifted her hand to hammer again.

The door opened, and a demon filled the entrance. Tall, handsome, and mate to her best friend, Riley’s sharp green eyes swept over her. He stood aside, waved her into the foyer of the townhouse drenched with the aroma of coffee, and shut the door behind him.

She’d met Riley two years ago, and she liked him—liked how he loved her friend unconditionally.

How the hell could two demons be worlds apart? She shuddered.

“Nia, what’s wrong?” Saia hurried across and wrapped an arm around her waist. “God, you’re freezing. And you only have on a thin lab coat?”

Her friend led her to the living room. A fire crackled in the hearth, its warmth enclosing her. Gratefully, Nia sank into the cream couch, a shaky breath escaping her.

Saia tossed back her yard-long, ebony hair and sat close, worry etching her pretty face.

Unwanted tears welled.

“What is it?” Saia asked softly.

“Everything…” Her throat tightened around the words. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Saia glanced at her mate standing across from them, then back to her. She didn’t push; she simply waited until Nia had control of her emotions, and Nia loved that about her friend. Saia was always there for her, no matter what.

“Kas.”

“What?” Saia’s brow creased. “Didn’t you go out with him like months ago? I thought he was old news?”

She nodded. “But I didn’t tell you why I wouldn’t see him again…” She gently rubbed her neck. The memory of phantom fingers choking her froze the words on her tongue. Sleep had become a luxury since then. She jerked awake at every sound—a creaking floorboard, leaves rustling outside her window. God . She trembled.

Glasses tinkled, and Riley returned with a squat glass. “Drink this. It will help.”

“Th-thanks.” She accepted the brandy, sipped, and broke out in a spasm of coughing as the acrid liquor hit her throat and blazed a fiery trail down to her stomach.

With the glass gripped with both hands, Nia told them what had happened with Kas.

“He hurt you?” Saia demanded when Nia arrived at the choking and attempted biting.

Riley narrowed his eyes as he took the armchair nearby.

“He didn’t have a chance. I kneed him in the groin and ran.” She swallowed hard. “I was so stupid. He…he seemed nice.”

“A blood demon?” Riley’s tone grew sharp. “Those bastards don’t date. They kill.”

Another shudder rushed through Nia at her close call. “I didn’t know. I thought he was one of the local Otiums…” She pushed back the escaped strands from her loosened topknot. “He didn’t have the rank stench of sulfur.”

“Most know how to conceal their stench,” Riley muttered.

Wonderful. She sipped more of the throat-ruining brandy, coughed through the burn. “Now, he’s stalking me. He’s everywhere.”

“What’s his true name?” Riley rose, his expression as hard as his eyes. “Kas is not it.”

She set her glass down. “I don’t know any other.”

“Never mind. Description?”

“Tall, lanky, pale skin, with dirty blond hair and dark eyes. I’m sorry, that’s all I know—oh, and he smells like ashes and pine.”

Riley frowned as he walked around the coffee table. “While demons can use glamour to conceal their true selves, they can’t hide from me for long.” He rubbed his skull-trimmed hair. “He must be one of those straight from the Dark Realm. Still, I would have sensed him…”

His focus shifted to the window, his expression morphing to granite. “Saia, don’t answer the door until I get back.”

He shimmered and disappeared.

“Oh, shit, he followed me here, didn’t he?” Nia could barely get the words out, her throat like sandpaper. Her gaze fixed on the window, the night concealing any threats.

“That is all he can do. Otherworldly beings cannot enter here. The entire building is warded.” Saia clasped Nia’s icy hands in her warm ones. “Trust me, Riley won’t let him escape. Those asses know the rules they must follow if they want to live in our world, and still, they break them.”

“I’m so stupid?—”

“You’re not. Demons are experts at fooling people, using glamour to be more attractive, approachable, etc. A human doesn’t stand a chance. You can be sure the fiend won’t be breathing for long?—”

Nia’s cell vibrated against her thigh in her lab coat pocket. She fished it out, and her belly sank at the name there. Nan Cora.

God, she couldn’t deal with her grandmother right now. But with no choice, she responded. Better to get the apology out of the way. “Nan, I’m so sor?—”

“I don’t care for your apologies. Leaving in the middle of dinner was the height of rudeness,” Nan snapped.

“Why didn’t you come to my defense?” The words were out before she could stop them.

“Because it’s still the truth, isn’t it?”

Freak.

Her stomach twisted at her grandmother’s deprecation.

A few months after her parents’ death, she’d been barely eight and living with her grandmother. During a black-tie dinner, Nia had blurted that one of the guests was a demon.

Nan had turned beet-red, staking Nia with a glacial stare, missing the brief flicker of red in the man’s narrowed eyes. He hadn’t felt nice like some of the demons she’d encountered, and she wanted Nan safe. But her grandmother had been furious. Soon after, he’d vanished, and Nan’s friends had blamed Nia for his disappearance.

Now that she was older, Nia knew he was doubtless killed by the hunters, and his body pulled back to Purgatory.

“I tried to train you to be normal,” Nan bit out, voice icy. “I thought that if you mingled with my friends, all upstanding members of our society, you could change. Now, I see I was mistaken. You are only capable of embarrassing me. I will see you next weekend at dinner.”

Nia shut her eyes, trying to push the pain of rejection deep into a place where it didn’t hurt so much. “Nan, you don’t want me there. Why?—”

“Because I say so.” The call dropped.

Blowing out an unsteady breath, Nia lowered her cell. Her parents had her in their later years, and though she often sensed they hadn’t known what to do with her, they had loved her. After their untimely death in a car crash, Nan Cora became her guardian. Life had never been the same again.

With her father’s estate tied to Nan’s philanthropic organization, she controlled the purse strings—controlled everything, even Nia—with an iron fist.

Working as a waitress or any menial job was off-limits, not when it tarnished the Deveraux name. Just remembering being dismissed from her first and only job when she started living on her own, because her employer wanted no trouble from her influential grandmother, humiliation gripped her by the throat.

No matter, once she graduated, she would never have to rely on Nan—on anyone—ever again.

“So the battle-axe is upset you left halfway through dinner?” Saia asked softly.

Nia fixed her burning stare on the twinkling Christmas tree near the fireplace. “Yes. My life in a nutshell. Trapped by one and hunted by another.”

“Don’t worry.” Saia stroked her arm. “You won’t be hunted for long, not if we have anything to do with it. Are you hungry?”

“I had an amused bouche ,” Nia murmured dryly. Saia blinked, and she burst out laughing, causing Nia’s lips to twist in a wry smile. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

“Okay then, c’mon, let me show you to your room. If you change your mind, go raid the kitchen.”

An hour later, after her shower, wearing a borrowed pair of PJs and feeling a little more like herself, Nia slid under the covers in the pale green guest room.

“Here, your fave drink.” Saia walked in and handed her a steaming cup of cocoa.

“Thank you.” Nia wrapped her palms around the warm mug. “Do you think they caught him?”

“I hope so.” Saia sat on the bed.

Nia sipped some of the hot chocolate, then expelled a troubled breath. “I’m sorry, Sai, for dumping myself on you. It’s been quite a night. I don’t think the planets are aligning right in my life anymore.”

She patted Nia’s knee. “It’s just a little blip, honey. I’m sure in a few days, all will be back to normal again. In the meantime, you’ll stay with us until that jerk is found and killed.”

The click of a door opening had Nia stiffening.

“It’s Riley.” Saia shot up and hurried out of the room. Nia set her mug on the nightstand, scrambled from the bed, and rushed out in her sock-covered feet, nearly sliding on the hallway’s polished wooden floor. She grabbed the living room doorjamb before she crashed into anyone like a bowling ball.

“What happened?” Saia asked. “Did you get him?”

Riley shook his head. “I searched the entire Quarter, met up with your brothers, and filled them in. We all hunted, but nothing. The bastard’s laying low for now.” He headed for the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Not for me,” Saia said, and Nia shook her head.

He got a mug and poured the steaming brew.

“Why does he want me ?” Nia pressed a hand to her heaving belly. “I mean, if he wanted blood, there are plenty of people out there he could easily feed from, right?”

“Yes. But demons become obsessed when the person they want rebuffs them. Or there’s something else about you that caught his attention.”

Hollow laughter escaped her. “Yay, me.”

Compassion flickered in his green eyes. Riley picked up the coffee and came back to the living room. “I can’t tell you to stop worrying, but I will find him.”

Nia dropped on the couch and rubbed her burning eyes, dread creeping through her again. She knew with bone-deep certainty that blood-sucking demon would be back. And next time, a knee to the groin might not save her.