Binding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys of the Underworld Book 3) (14 page)

Muriel stayed expressionless, but heat filled her face.

“Muriel works plenty hard,” defended Samuel.

Esmeralda said nothing, but her questioning raised eyebrow said it all. Somehow she knew about Muriel and Kier. Ever since she arrived at the base three weeks ago, she’d been making snide comments about them as a couple or implying that Muriel missed him.

Samuel wrote off the comments as Esmeralda being a bitch, but somehow she knew that the dynamic had changed between Muriel and Kier.

Muriel understood her anger. She would’ve reacted the same if their roles were reversed. They had bonded with their mutual hatred of Kier. Had drank and laughed together as they imagined him suffering and begging them for mercy. Begging them to release his soul.

Instead, Muriel drank even more of his blood and screwed him in broad daylight. She’d let Esmeralda down but had no way of explaining her behavior. If it didn’t make sense to her, how could she tell Esmeralda what she was feeling?

Ava was starting to listen to Esmeralda’s comments. Every time she threw out another line about Kier and Muriel knocking boots, Muriel would see Ava study her for a reaction. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before everyone knew exactly how close she had become with Kier in their short time together.

“Yeah, a true sign of laziness is when someone takes their day off to do something besides working,” she muttered. “What’s up?”

“We might’ve found something,” said Samuel. “A way for you to get into Hell without drinking any demon blood.”

Muriel’s interest was piqued, but she remained cautious. She and Samuel had spent the last four weeks arguing about the best way for her to get into Hell. She was convinced that she had to drink enough demon blood to turn her soul black, but Samuel was determined to find a way to save what was left of the thing.

“What do you mean?”

“We interrogated some demons tonight. One of them told us that he heard rumors of a human entering Hell a few centuries back and surviving.”

“Why would a human go to Hell voluntarily?” she asked.

“Rumor has it that he was trying to bring someone back.”

Muriel snorted. “I’m sure that worked out great for him. Did you happen to find out if he made it out alive?”

Samuel averted his gaze, telling her all she needed to know. “Let me guess. The demon didn’t survive the interrogation?”

“In Samuel’s defense, he deserved it,” said Esmeralda. “He started bragging about a mortal he seduced into killing three little girls. If Samuel hadn’t done it, I probably would have.”

“So a demon, who was a huge asshole, tells you that centuries ago a mortal
might
have entered Hell but he had no idea who this mortal was or how he got in?”

“The demon had a partner. He’s at a hot spot in Las Vegas right now. We’re heading out tomorrow to track him down. It’s gonna be a big bust and I’m going to need all hands on deck.”

The hellfire roared under her skin, just itching to be released. She did love a good fight.

Hot spots were buildings overrun by demons. They spontaneously arose across the world, but they never lasted for long. Because demon hunters were always quick to find and destroy the hot spots, they couldn’t last longer than a few weeks. Nine times out of ten, the hunters only arrived long after the demons left the husk of a building with dead mortals scattered around. They were feeding frenzies for the demons. It was a team effort to lure mass amounts of mortals into corrupt and depraved acts.

Humans were susceptible to peer pressure. If one man saw three others doing something, he was going to want to join in, no matter how wrong the act. Hot spots used that to their fullest advantage. With so much sin and depravity in one spot, only the mortals with the strongest wills could resist.

Due to their ever changing locations, the hot spots were near impossible to find. If Samuel had extracted good info, they had to act fast. It was too close to sunrise to go that night. With ten vampires on base, there weren’t many daylight raids. Even with the limitation, their super strength and speed made them invaluable as soldiers.

“Tomorrow at dusk?”

Samuel nodded. “Are you going to at least give this a chance?”

“Breaking into a hot spot, killing and torturing demons…even if we don’t find a magical way to get me into Hell, I’m not seeing a downside.”

“We will find a way to make this work,” he said with conviction that Muriel didn’t believe.

A sly glance to Esmeralda confirmed that the sorceress wasn’t convinced either.

It didn’t matter, though. Tonight she would work on controlling her hellfire abilities. Tomorrow she would be killing demons and protecting mortals.

She might not be an angel anymore, but she was doing what she was born to do.

Kier rested his forehead on the cold surface of the bar. The pounding in his head was relentless, and he didn’t think there was enough whiskey in the world to get rid of it.

It was probably counterintuitive to drink his pain away considering it was most likely the whiskey that caused his pounding headache to begin with.

Don’t care.
He started to pour out another shot before he gave up and brought the bottle straight to his lips. The liquid burned the entire way down, and for a moment Kier forgot the pain in his head.

The demon sitting to his right laughed at his suffering. “One of those nights?”

Kier looked over at him. His fair hair was carefully trimmed. His suit meticulously tailored.
One of those nights?
Try one of those decades. Kier thought the last five years had been hard, but they were nothing compared to the torture he had endured in the past four weeks.

“You could say that,” he mumbled into the now empty whiskey bottle. He pushed it away from him. The glass tumbled over the edge of the bar and shattered. No one would care. He wasn’t certain, but he was pretty sure the bartender was dead.

Demons had taken over the apartment building about a week ago and had torn it to pieces. Most of the corrupting was happening downstairs, but Kier didn’t want anything to do with it. Why didn’t he want it? He wanted to want it. He wanted his old life back. He wanted to go out to consume some souls, throw back a few drinks with fellow demons. He wanted to have fun.

That wasn’t possible anymore. Even adultery was too much for him now. A week ago, he had a smoking hot trophy wife eating out of the palm of his hand. She was a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who never stopped taking care of her body. Her skirt had been short enough for him to clearly see she wasn’t wearing panties while her low-cut shirt left nothing to the imagination.

What had his cock done? Nothing. Bastard had just acted as if Kier was reading a newspaper. Kier ended the evening telling the woman to go back to her husband as he stalked furiously into the night.

Muriel had crippled him, leaving him no way to devour souls.

At the thought of her, he was automatically at semi-arousal, as if his own penis mocked him.

What was she doing now? He knew she was still alive. He could feel her presence in the back of his mind. The constant reminder of how fundamentally screwed he was.

The kill order was still out on her. Even though she was still in danger, he never sensed any fear coming from her. Sometimes frustration and sometimes exhilaration, but never fear.

He had a feeling he knew what the exhilaration was from. Killing demons. He remembered the look on her face in her bedroom after they killed Forrester’s men. He remembered the taste of her kiss as they celebrated together. Still enemies for the most part but bound through the battle they shared.

A fight broke out downstairs, but he ignored it. Wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t taking any of the souls being corrupted here anyway. He had no desire for souls anymore. He hadn’t fed since before Muriel trapped him. Even if his body would’ve cooperated, he hadn’t been hungry. No cramping or headaches related to the hunger.

Headaches related to whiskey were another matter. A gunshot rang out from below him.
Maybe this was more than a simple fight.

Suddenly he felt her. Her excitement rushed through him.
Funny.
She must’ve been fighting somewhere right now. Did she imagine she was killing him as the blood pooled at her feet?

He heard men shouting from below him as he grabbed another bottle of whiskey and plopped back in his seat.

The demon who spoke earlier was the only one besides him in this apartment. “I’m probably going to head out,” he said, obviously spooked by the sounds of combat getting closer and closer.

“Run if you want.” Kier twisted the cap off the bottle.

Apparently that hurt the demon’s pride because he stayed right where he was, following Kier’s lead and pouring himself another drink.

Fool.
They should probably both be running. Kier didn’t know why he wasn’t. Did he not care anymore?

The door behind him crashed open, and his bar mate was immediately shot with four bullets. Kier watched the man fall to the floor in pain and waited for more bullets to be fired into his own back.

Five seconds passed; the only noise was the gasping and pained breaths of the injured demon.

Kier cautiously opened his eyes to see the demon’s eyes wide in fear as he crawled as far away from the door as possible until he backed himself into a corner.
Why didn’t he just transport away?

He felt it then. The temperature around him shot up as the warm glow from a fire lit the room from behind him. He carefully turned around to face the fire.

She was here. In front of him. And, apparently, on fire.

“Having some trouble there?” he asked, as if seeing her didn’t cause his heart to kick into warp speed.

Her glare showed frustration, but he could hear her own heartbeat start to race in her chest. She was happy to see him too.

She looked amazing. Her long dark hair was pulled tightly back, and her black pants and black leather jacket were chosen to allow her to fight efficiently while carrying all the weapons she would need.

At her feet was a steaming pile of liquid iron. She must have melted her gun with the hellfire.
Where did a fallen angel get hellfire from?

Footsteps sounded down the hall. Kier ran to the door, head only slightly swimming from the whiskey. He usually hated that it took so much alcohol to get a demon drunk, but now he thanked his luck.

He pushed the now broken door shut and tipped over a bookcase to barricade any demons from entry.

Muriel watched him as he moved but said nothing. He wanted to hear her voice, to have its dark, sultry tone wrap around him.
Why was she here? Was she looking for him? Did she think about him half as much as he thought about her? Did she realize how much he craved her?

He leaned against the fallen bookcase and their eyes met. He didn’t even care about the fire. He wanted to go to her, pull her to him and kiss her hard enough to convince her that she should never leave him again.

But she hadn’t left him. He left her. Naked. In the desert. Right after screwing her hard. He was pretty lucky she hadn’t killed him yet.

She was still on fire. He frowned.
Why hadn’t she turned it off?
It didn’t seem as if she was about to shoot it at anything.

She could tell what he was thinking. “I can’t control it,” she said, obviously hating that she couldn’t turn it off. “It just happens.”

Kier approached her slowly and she took a step back. “You don’t want to get burned,” she warned.

At least she doesn’t want me dead.
“When did this start?”

Her eyes looked to the ground. “Right after we, um, you know,” she said sheepishly.

That confirmed his suspicions. He reached through the flames and touched her hand. He let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t lose his hand to the fire and pulled her closer to him.

“How?” she asked.

“It’s my magic. You can’t kill me with my own fire.” More footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. “Why are you here?”

Muriel looked to the door, where it was probably her own people looking for her.

Was she still with Samuel?

“There are rumors of some mortal who was able to sneak into Hell without bursting into flames for illegally entering. We’re trying to find out if it’s true and how it was done.”

Kier cursed. “You’re still planning on killing Azazel.”

Muriel rolled her eyes at him. Her flames slowly diminished as they talked. “I’m going to prevent him from interfering with destiny and killing billions of mortals who were not meant to die. So, you know, normal angel stuff.”

“Someone here is supposed to give you this information?”

She looked over at the bleeding demon in the corner, who stared at the two of them in shock. “We took out his partner last night. Apparently he knows something.”

“How exactly do you interrogate demons?”

“The usual. A few bullet holes and well-placed knife wounds washed clean with salt and holy water.”

“You don’t use the fire?”

Muriel looked down to her ruined gun. “Because I obviously have that under control,” she said sarcastically.

He tsked under his tongue. “For someone twice as old as me, you have a lot to learn.” He looked to the injured demon. “Why can’t he transport?”

“The bullets that melted with my gun were bespelled. As long as they stay in him, he can’t transport.”

“I assume this is the same witch who helped you with your handcuffs?”

“Sorceress,” she corrected. “She hates being called a witch.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to apologize the next time I see her. Right around the same time I thank her for making those nifty cuffs,” he said.

He grabbed her now fireless hand in his and led her to stand over the injured demon in the corner. “What’s your name?” Kier had been sitting alone in a bar with him for over an hour but never even bothered to find out the most basic information. He needed to get back on his game.

“John,” the demon gasped out, probably lying.

Kier looked to Muriel. “Ask him what you want.”

“Did you know Eblis?” She probably felt strange standing over him with no weapon. Her hands twitched with the need to wield a blade or gun. Something to make the demon fear her.

John shook his head in denial. “Never heard of him.”

Kier didn’t look convinced. “Would you tell me if I threaten to stab you and fill the wound with salt?”

John’s eyes widened. He didn’t expect his fellow demon to assist a fallen angel. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” he insisted.

Muriel gave Kier an
I told you so
look. “Watch this,” he said softly. He turned back to John. “Now I want you to tell me everything you know about Eblis before I burn you from the inside out.”

The reaction was immediate. John stood up and tried to run even though he had no hope of getting far. Muriel shot her leg out, kneeing him in the gut while throwing a powerful right hook that hit him as he crouched over his aching stomach.

Kier gripped the back of John’s expensive suit and slammed him into a wall. The demon crumbled to the floor.

Muriel gave him a brief second to catch his breath before she questioned him a second time. “Let’s try this again. Eblis. What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything. We used to run together. We got a few souls.”

Kier shot her a look saying
I told you I would get him talking
.

The eye roll she gave him said she wasn’t impressed. “He said you knew of a mortal who got into Hell. Tell me about that mortal.”

“It’s impossible for a living mortal to get into Hell,” said John. “Everyone knows that. Please don’t hurt me for telling the truth.”

Muriel looked to Kier, as if to ask him what he thought. She wanted his opinion. She really trusted him to help her.
I will make sure she doesn’t regret it
, he vowed to himself.

~~~~~

Kier started to move, slowly circling Muriel. Her eyes followed his every move; for the moment, she decided that between Kier and John, Kier was the bigger threat.

He had an intense look on his face. As if he was waging war and was deciding his next battle move. He approached her from behind. She didn’t turn but remained hyperaware of his position.

She had been hyperaware of him ever since she first stormed into the room, chasing after rumors of Eblis’s partner. Reports from the demons downstairs said he was holed up in one of the upstairs apartments, drinking the day away. Her senses kicked into high gear as soon as she comprehended Kier sat at the bar. Right in front of her. Just feet away.

She had gone up in flames, metaphorically and literally. Her arms burned up as her mind was immediately transported to her time alone with him. In the desert. In the shower. She remembered his lips on her neck as his hands roamed all over her body. She couldn’t banish the forbidden images from her mind.

Now he approached her. She felt his body heat first, burning into her back through her leather jacket. Then his breath on her neck as he bent his head close to the delicate skin where neck met shoulder and he took in her scent.

Unable to help herself, she leaned back into his strength. One of his big arms wrapped around her waist, holding her to him while the other hand came to rest at the top of her thigh. He wasn’t touching her anywhere indecent, but the feel of his big hand so close to her most sensitive area was overwhelming.

As much as she wanted him, they had an audience. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Teaching you how to use your fire,” he whispered into her ear before he gave her a quick bite on her sensitive earlobe.