Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) (16 page)

I threw a wad of bills on the counter and, after snatching up the whiskey bottle, I grabbed Lana’s hand. I felt her grip tighten around mine as I pulled her out into the crowded street. She wove a little, too, clearly more tipsy than she let on. She better be, considering how much alcohol I’d fed her.

Thanks to Louisiana’s open container law, I could walk right down the center of Bourbon Street swigging my bottle of Jack like a sailor. Half the crowd carried Styrofoam “go cups” from the countless lit-up bars and strip clubs lining the street for blocks. Like Disneyland for adults.

The thought triggered a memory. Disneyland on Joy’s second birthday.

Instantly, my mood soured.

I washed it down with another swig from the bottle. No one even gave me a second glance.

But oh, they gave Lana second glances. Plenty of them.

Sashaying next to me in her skintight jumpsuit, her eyes a luminous blue-violet and her long hair breezing unnaturally behind her, she had the attention of every guy on Bourbon Street. A whole crowd of douchebags parted around us, eyeing her up and down and whistling.

Their catcalls grated my nerves. But unlike the guy I glared at earlier, they were too drunk to heed my stare telling them to back the fuck off.

“Let’s see some titties!” one of them hollered, dancing in front of her, a dozen necklaces of glittery beads clanking around his neck.

Lana had halted, momentarily mesmerized by the rainbow colors.

“I’ll give you my best beads . . .” he continued, “this one right here if you show us your tits . . .” He fumbled to get one off.

Nuh-uh. I was
not
in
the mood for this crap.

All night, I’d kept it on lockdown. But seeing this little twerp, seeing his crap plastic beads jingling over his fraternity hoodie, seeing him yelling and shaking his beads in Lana’s face, I cracked.

I tried to keep my cool, but I couldn’t.

Rage flared under my skin, and my fingers clamped into fists.

I tossed the bottle aside, grabbed the guy by the collar, and shoved him up against a nearby arch. “Mardi Gras’s in February,” I growled. “So take your beads and get the fuck out of my way.”

He shoved me back. “It’s
always
Mardi Gras where I go.” His breath reeked of beer. “That your girl? ’Cause she was eyeing my beads like she wanted some.”

My eyes fell to his clinking jewelry. I lifted up the strands of his cheap plastic beads. “You think a girl like
that
—” I jerked my head toward Lana, “is going to show her tits to a little shit like you for crap beads like this?” I flung them in his face. “You know what, give them to me. All of them. You’re done.” I pried them over his head and stumbled away with a fistful of plastic necklaces.

Smirking, I turned around, and one of his frat brothers punched me in the face and laid me out on the curb. The blow rang in my ears.

The other douchebags danced away, shouting, “Dude, you beaned him!”

Yep, had to get drunk and pick a fight with six frat boys, huh, Asher?

Not my proudest moment.

Rubbing my jaw, I rose slowly, seeing red. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

I tackled the guy into a nearby oyster shack, bowling over a table and scattering the screaming patrons. Already cocked back, my fist slammed into his face. His nose sprayed blood. Nice.

I was going to go to jail for this.

For defending Lana.

Fuck.

I landed one more punch before his friend dragged me off, arm clamped around my neck.

Tonight was just not my night.

I got my feet under me and thrust us backward. Through sheer dumb luck, I managed to ram him into the archway, earning a grunt. Bits of plaster flaked off above us. Grabbing his arm, I heaved him over my shoulder and slammed him onto his back, knocking the wind out of him. Wheezing, he raised his palms at my cocked fist, and I backed off.

Breathing heavily, I turned back to the other four and wiped my bloody lip. “Anyone else think it’s Mardi Gras?”

They looked drunk enough to attack me, too. Probably thought they could take me six versus one.

“Bro, bro, he’s got a gun!” Catching sight of my holster, the guys grabbed their buddies and stumbled backward, tripping on their heels.

I called after them, “Come at me,
bros
! I want some more beads!”

But they were gone.

Idiots. I wasn’t even carrying concealed, and it took them that long to notice.

I looked around at the rest of the onlookers—half the street had paused to watch—and they ducked their heads and continued on their way, like I was going to shoot them or something.

“Humans are weird.” Lana frowned, clearly still trying to figure out what had happened. “What was that even about?”

I picked up the beads, and led her away by the elbow. “Told you you’d get into trouble.”

“That was
you
who got into trouble,” she said. “He was just being nice and trying to give me some beads . . . and can I at least
have
one? Or do I have to beat you up and steal them from you now? Is that how the bead game works?”

Her naivety made me smile. “Stop. Look at me.”

We paused on a street corner out of the way, those strangely beautiful eyes of hers fixed on me. God, she was innocent. Something protective reared up in me.

I draped all the beads around her neck. “There. Now they’re yours.”

The way her eyes lit up, you’d think she’d just learned Santa Claus was real. She ran her fingers reverently over the molded plastic balls, her expression wondrous.

I stared at her, unable to look away, suddenly bewitched by her. Like a moth being pulled toward a flame. Her allure was toxic. And I needed to get away from her before I did something I would regret.

But I didn’t edge away. Neither did she.

“Wait,” she said, “you won them, you should get some too.” She lifted off half the necklaces and stepped in close as she reached up to put them over my own head, so close I could smell her ashy scent, a scent I’d come to hate. A scent I was now reconsidering.

Her fingers brushed my chest, and my pulse spiked before her hand flinched back.

She’d felt it too, whatever that was.

Whatever
this
was.

I felt a tickle on my lip, still bleeding, and her eyes darted to it. I licked it away.

She wanted that blood.

Her gaze lifted shyly to mine. “Was that fight about me, Jame Asher?”

She was calling me out, and I had no answer. I shook my head, my heart thumping at the base of my throat.

“About how he was talking to me?”

And looking at you.

“Nah,” I said, running a hand through my hair, “I just didn’t like his punk attitude. Wasn’t about you.”

She knew I was lying, she could read it on my face.

I knew I should break the moment, snap out of it, ignore her and keep walking like I didn’t want to be here, but I couldn’t budge. In that instant, everything else faded away—the drunks swimming around us like fish, the chaos of Bourbon Street, the rhythm and blues thumping from nearby clubs. Maybe it was the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, maybe it was the odor of sex and desire in the air, maybe it was the way her eyes seemed to glow like blue-violet flames, but all I saw right then was her.

And for the barest of moments, it didn’t matter that I’d sworn to kill her kind, or that they were hunting me. All that mattered was that for the first time in a very long time, I felt something beyond grief and anger. Something light and good. And even though a part of me knew it was reckless, knew that I was that idiot moth about to get burned, for once I didn’t fucking care.

I cupped the side of Lana’s neck and I kissed her.

Chapter 13

Lana

Asher’s lips were
magic. Human magic, but magic nonetheless. They glided over mine, so much softer than I would have imagined. Each stroke of them felt like lightning, like gathering power in my veins.

Jame Asher is kissing me.

Jame Asher is
kissing
me.

And it feels
amazing
.

My lips moved against his, my arms draping themselves around his neck. Thank the gods for the alcohol that dulled my mind. Sober, I would’ve wondered about a whole slew of things, but right now all I could concentrate on was Asher’s touch and his taste and the odd things they were doing to me.

My fingers stroked the ends of his hair. I was playing with a man’s
hair
! How I’d imagined what this would feel like. How I imagined what being enveloped by a man would feel like.

It felt exquisite.

I savored the blood that still lingered on Asher’s lower lip. He bled defending me. Heat roared through my veins at the thought, and it was all I could do not to moan against his mouth.

His hand gripped my neck tighter as he held me close, his other arm going around my waist. Had his arm not anchored me to earth, I would’ve floated up and away.

This was too much. And yet . . . I leaned deeper into Asher, wanting
more
.

Instead, the kiss came to an end.

Asher pulled away slowly, his eyes lingering on my lips. I felt the heat of his breath against me. Reluctantly, my arms dropped from his neck. His gaze moved up then, meeting mine.

Damn this alcohol, I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking while he stared at me. Then, all at once, he startled, blinking as though he were waking from a dream.

He straightened, and the arm that had pressed against my back fell away.

My stomach still felt as though it were made of sunbeams and laughter. A shy grin spread across my face. Was this how mates felt when they found one another? I’d never been kissed, so I wouldn’t know.

Asher’s eyes returned to my mouth and I saw him swallow. He glanced away, his attention moving above us.

“We should get going—before I start another fight,” Asher said.

Another fight on my behalf.

I tried to suppress my smile, but failed. The look he gave me was a bit more troubled.

I should be troubled as well. Falling for the hunter would be bad for so many reasons. It didn’t matter, my heart couldn’t be reasoned with. Already it was fluttering at the memory of his lips on mine.

I let him take my hand and lead me through the streets; he walked a step ahead of me the whole time. I found it a bit strange—the silence, the distance. I assumed natives talked about these things, but what did I know? Human customs were strange. So I settled instead on drinking in in the sculpted muscles of Asher’s back and the tousled hair that I
touched
only minutes ago. My stomach felt like all the cicadas we ran from were now trapped inside it. I let myself smile again, high on the feeling. And I let myself hope for the first time since we met that this might end well.

I glanced at our entwined hands and bit my lower lip.

It might end really, really well.

Asher

Back in my
room at Grandmaddox’s house, I paced in the tiny space between the bed and the French doors, furious with myself, then spun and kicked the bed frame. The whole house shuddered.

Come on, Asher.

What were you
thinking?

Kissing her? Are you insane?

I stormed back to the opposite wall, where hideous paintings of ghoulish demons leered down at me . . . judging me.

In that moment, everything had melted away. Me being a human, her being a demon. In that moment, she was just a beautiful girl, and I was a lonely, lonely man.

You idiot.

I’d never felt this way about a demon before. Attraction. Desire. Protectiveness.

How could I justify that when demons had cursed my family? When they fed off us like parasites? When their very existence meant humans must suffer? Demons were a vile pestilence that needed to be eradicated.

Yes, demons.

But not Lana.

In my brain, there was a category for demons like Azazel, Grandmaddox, the portal master. But Lana wasn’t in that category. She was in her own category, all by herself. A category for what . . .
innocent demons?
Please. It was an oxymoron. There was no such thing.

If I followed that logic, the portal master should go in that category, too. He wove portals, he didn’t kill. In fact, few demons killed willingly now that their civil war was over. It was their blood magic that killed, that cursed, that wreaked misfortune. She might be a healer, but Lana had culled human blood to do it. She had cursed humans unwittingly.

How many wrecked families were her doing? How many widows? How many fatherless children? How many weeping parents?

An innocent demon . . .

Evil wore all kinds of faces, a pretty one the most deadly of all.

But Lana wasn’t evil. She couldn’t be.

Guilty, but not evil.

But not innocent either.

No, she belonged in her own special category because she was a demon I could forgive.

And there it was. That was the difference. I could forgive her.

Maybe I already had.

The floorboards groaned under my boots. I stopped pacing and dragged my hand back through my hair, glaring down through the rotted gaps where I could see Grandmaddox shuffling about her dark kitchen. My room spun in dizzying circles. The alcohol was turning on me.

I’d been cold to Lana after the kiss. She didn’t deserve that.

Kissing her was my fault, my lapse in judgment, and she shouldn’t be made to suffer for it. I could at least apologize to her.

I opened the door to the haunted, creaking hallway, hoping to catch her before she went to bed.

Really, I just wanted to see her again.

Lana

I lay sprawled
across my bed, my eyes absently trained on the ceiling. I traced my lips with a finger.

Kissed!

I remembered the sensation of being caught up in Asher’s arms, his body dwarfing mine. That intense personality of his focused wholly on me.

What would it be like to always get to kiss him? To do more with him?

I felt my already flushed cheeks heat at the thought.

That cold human was not so cold when I was in his arms. The stories had gotten it wrong—Primus Dominus had gotten it wrong.

They are lying, calculating creatures,
he’d told me.
Disloyal to their core.

Asher was loyal to a fault. So loyal that he still avenged his wife and daughter, though their bodies were likely nothing more than bones beneath the earth.

My mind went to his wife and that photo he kept of her. To her lovely, pale hair and her wideset blue eyes.

I got up off the bed and approached an antique mirror propped up in the corner of the room, its silver edges blackened with age.

I frowned at my reflection. I looked nothing like her. Not my violet eyes, not my restless, glowing hair, not the shape of my face.

I closed my eyes, remembering exactly what his wife—what Nicole—looked like. Her face was wider than mine, and her eyes, thinner. She had cleverly arched eyebrows and a small, pert nose. And her smile . . . That alone would have made her beautiful. I pictured it all, and I didn’t even think when I drew on just enough of the blood culled from Clades for my face to subtly shift.

When I opened my eyes, my hair had shortened and lightened, my irises now cerulean blue.

I wore Nicole’s face, the face of a dead human woman.

And I envied her. I brushed the pads of my fingers over a cheekbone, then over that achingly sweet nose of hers. I smiled, just for the hell of it and felt a pang deep within my chest.

I can’t compete with this.

I ran my hands through my hair—her hair—humming a sad melody as I tilted my head from side to side.

I didn’t hear the door open, but I did hear the sharp intake of breath.

I swiveled around. And there, standing at the threshold of my room, staring at me like I just fulfilled every one of his deepest desires, was Jame Asher.