Love and Demons (2 page)

"It appears you are
all alone, my little alley cat," he added with sarcasm that put her teeth
on edge, and had her fighting the urge to squeeze the trigger of her Glock and
shut him up.

"Where is my team?"
She ground the words out between clenched teeth, never dropping her aim at
Forest's head. If they planned to take her out, she sure as hell planned to
take him with her.

Movement to either side of
the three men caught her attention, and her heart skipped a beat, though she
managed to keep a stone-like exterior. It was quite a feat, since damn near every
member of her team now flanked their suspect with all their weapons pointed at
her. "I had thought to invite you to join my little army, but Tigrate
believes you would simply refuse."

James Tigrate spat on the
ground before shooting her a crooked grin. "Sorry, Kat, but money talks
and Forest knows how to do a lot of talking."

She regarded him and the
others for a long moment, attempting to determine what the best course of
action would be. Ultimately, all scenarios ended badly for her. The only change
was how much damage she did before they put her down.

"Where are Phillips
and Riley?" she asked her former comrades, though she feared she already
knew the answer.

"They didn't want to
be part of the team, so I slit their throats," Drake said with an air of
pride that made her sick to her stomach. She'd always hated the guy, but never
really had a reason until now. At least she would feel bad about killing him.

Tossing her weapon to the
side, Kat cracked her neck with a twist of her head before motioning with her
fingers for her former teammates to come forward. "All right, assholes,
let's see what you got." Smiling wickedly, she watched as one by one they
discarded their own firepower and stepped her way.

Kat had sparred with members
of her team on several occasions and knew his or her weaknesses as well as they
knew hers. Hell, they'd all trained together nearly every day for the past year.
Hours of kickboxing, hand-to-hand combat, and
Taekwondo
made
them a well-oiled machine. Too bad that machine had thrown a rod. She did have
one advantage they lacked — she was fighting for her life.

She didn't know if they
would take up the gauntlet she so blatantly threw at their feet, so she stood
waiting like a groom at the wedding altar, nervous and uncertain. They could
easily fill her full of lead; she just hoped her taunt would play upon their
pride and perhaps give her a chance to take one or two of them out before they
managed to put her down.

****

Barak stood on the rooftop,
watching the scene unfold below him. He'd caught the scent of the woman earlier
that day and obsessed about her ever since. Traditionally drawn to a mate first
by scent, his species possessed some sort of code born into their being so they
could locate their life mate. He had never expected that to be true here among
the mortal world as well.

Seated one minute at a
little open-air café enjoying a glass of sweet tea and munching chicken wings,
the next he found himself rock hard, racing after some stranger on the street. Barak
knew at that moment he'd found the female destined to be his and his alone. Now
all he had to do was catch up with her and convince her she was supposed to be
with him, which might not be so difficult if he weren't from another realm and regularly
sported a set of horns. Nevertheless, he was certain, even without seeing the
mark of the Zi on her flesh, they were meant to be together.

Right now he merely had
stubs where his horns usually displayed. He'd traded one to the witch who
operated the portal between the two worlds. The other he would need to secure their
passage back. Luckily, the witch considered Zironet horns valuable. For a
single alabaster trinket, she readily agreed to transport him and the three
other males who accompanied him. What she planned to do with it was a mystery.

He'd shadowed his female down
the street until she disappeared through the rear door of the local police
station, leaving him to find a place to wait out her reappearance. In the hours
that followed, he managed to reach Adrik back at the hotel they were staying at
during their visit to outworld. The other male had joined him only minutes
before the woman exited the building. Unfortunately, she climbed straight into
a dark van with over half a dozen well-armed officers.

"You mean to tell me
your female is a cop?" Adrik grumbled, shaking his head. They were not
accustomed to females taking on such occupations. The women of his clan had always
been very submissive in regards to nearly everything. They quickly discovered
the females here in outerplane were not nearly as accommodating. Adrik had
already received more than one solid slap across the face for suggestive
comments.

"Now
what?"
A
gleam in his eye said he already knew the answer.

"We follow. I want
to ensure she remains safe, and I would at least like to see her face," Barak
said with a heavy sigh. They would not have any trouble following, but with the
sun not yet set fully in the sky, it did make it a bit more complicated. It wasn't
easy to jump a full twenty stories to the top of a building in the daylight
without a few witnesses.

"Well then,"
the other male responded, looking around at the various small clusters of
possible witnesses moving about the street, "looks as if we hoof it up the
steps, then follow."

Even then, it took only
five minutes or so to locate and catch up to the van carrying his mate. They
had both taken up locations on the high rooftops, hidden by the darkness that
finally descended upon the city. From his vantage point he could not identify
her shape hiding among the alley shadows, which pleased him. It was good to
know she could camouflage herself among her surroundings. It was a handy
talent, especially for his homelands.

With his superb night
sight and sense of hearing he could determine where the other members of her
team were, even those outside the window of his sight. Though he was not too
familiar with police strategies, he knew that something was definitely off here.
Two of the group that arrived in the van appeared to be stalking several of
their own members, a third man actually met with a strange male outside the
door Barak thought the group had been watching. The two had discussed something
about money and a cat. What one of the fuzzy creatures that made bizarre
humming noises when stroked had to do with anything, he was not sure.

With the life forces of
the two males extinguished by what was supposed to be their teammates, Adrik
looked at him with confusion and concern. They did not need to be from here, or
have knowledge of these humans, to know a conspiracy when they saw it. The
whole situation left him with a bad feeling in regards to the safety of the
female below — his female. Barak may not have laid claim to her yet, but still
it was his duty to see that no one threatened her, human or inworlder.

Both he and Adrik leaned
down to better see and hear the commotion taking place some feet below them. The
female, positioned in the center of the alley, was now in what appeared to be
some sort of standoff with the males who had exited the building around the
corner, and those who had came in the van with her. "I believe your female
intends to take them all on, alone," Adrik whispered with surprise.

"We cannot allow
them to harm her." Barak said it more to himself than his comrade, while he
fidgeted along his perch. He needed to be down there protecting his mate, not
up here on this damn sullied rooftop worrying about how to do just that without
exposing himself. The last thing they needed was people running around the city
with stories about large males dropping down from rooftops and ripping men
apart. Cloaked in glamour that disguised the blue hue of their skin and made
their eyes more humanlike, they hid among the humans, but he doubted they would
be able to hold those images in a battle. Therefore, he watched as she took up
a fighting stance and prepared to battle those who stalked toward her.

The small area below them
burst into a flurry of movement. His female weaved and ducked the onslaught of punches
and kicks they threw her way.
Even as on-edge as the
situation had him, Barak could not help but be impressed.
The woman met
each attack with one of her own, dropping two of her assailants within moments.
Her movements were a fluid dance of deadly motion that connected more often than
it missed. Unfortunately, her enemy also realized that, even outnumbered, she
had the upper hand, so they would not waste much more time in this form of
encounter.

Rage washed through him
at the sight of the weapons. He leapt to the street below, Adrik close at his
heels, bellowing from the knowledge that he could not place himself between her
and the projectile in time. The sound of the discharge echoed through the
narrow space as he landed on the street before the humans, helpless to do much
more than watch as the shot propelled her backward into some forgotten box-covered
pallets.

Chapter Two

The sudden, forceful
impact pushed the air from Kat's lungs and tossed her backward with as little
effort as swatting a fly. Her ears rang from the sound of the discharge but
still she thought she could hear what sounded like a roar. The noise confused
her. She'd expected someone to move in and deliver the kill shot, or at least
check she was dead from the first. Instead she heard a fist striking skin and
the angry shouts of rage and battle.

Her chest was on fire and
every breath was a labor. As if she'd preconceived what would happen, Kat had
put on her ballistics vest before leaving the station, something she rarely did.
It undoubtedly saved her life, though the impact most likely fractured a rib or
two. She felt a warm, wet sensation running down her right arm where she had
struck a broken bottle upon landing. Taking that, a massive headache, and a
burning sensation across her right shoulder into consideration, she had —so far—
come out of this better than expected.

While Kat lay there,
attempting to gather the strength to climb out of the heap of trash, the alleyway
grew eerily silent.

"You alive, female?"
a deep voice asked, its thick, sensual tone washing over her, leaving a million
tiny goose-bumps in its wake.

"You need to call
911," she told him, trying in vain to pull herself into a seated position.
She would have liked to say she did so because she needed to check for possible
leads on where to locate the renegade members of her now annihilated team. However,
the truth was, she wanted to get a look at the owner of that sexy voice.

With her head swimming,
Katrina peered about the dark passageway, illuminated only by the glow of the
full moon and the thin casting of a street light at the alley's far end. She
was surprised to find herself flanked not by one, but two males. Both were
remarkably large, standing at least seven feet tall, with bulging biceps she could
make out even in this lack of lighting. One stood watching toward the far end
where the ally met the street, the tension rolling off him. It was easy to tell
from his stance that he scouted for any returning assailants. The other stared
down at her like he was eyeing up his next meal.

She gazed at him for a
long moment, trying to remember if she had seen him anywhere near the area over
the past few days. "Do you have a phone?" Kat
asked,
her agitation with his continued staring obvious in her biting tone. "Hello!
Are you deaf or something?" Her tone had gone from irritated to seething
on the brink of anger in a blink of an eye. Still he did not answer, but
crouched low to peer at her square in the face.

The instant she made eye
contact with the large male who regarded her so intently Kat felt as if she
were free falling into the smoldering depths of his eyes. The need to press her
lips tight to his and taste the warmth of his mouth pulled her, and she found
herself leaning closer to him. "Just get her and let us get back to the
suite," the other male said over his shoulder, breaking the strange
sensation that had her moving in to kiss a complete stranger.

"What did you say?"
she asked, attempting to make sense of what was going on.

Instead of repeating himself,
the male who was serving as lookout instead again addressed his companion, "Barak,
if you are planning on doing this, you need to get on with it before we get
more company!"

****

Barak had gone into rage
mode the moment he realized they shot the female. Dropping from the building
top, he seized the male who fired the shot. With minimal effort he tossed the
man backward a distance of at least fifty feet, where he landed with a loud
thud against a half-empty dumpster. The response of the other humans was instantaneous.
In a flurry of punches and kicks they began to strike out at the new opponents,
which was all the better to him. He wanted them all to pay for harming his
female. He wanted blood.

Now, as he crouched
before her, his heartbeat thundered. She was wondrous. With frail features,
long dark hair woven into some sort of braid, and eyes the color of the dark
waters of inworld, she was perfect. The only thing that perplexed him was how
she had managed so much force and energy during the battle he witnessed. She
was like a storm — beautiful and deceptively dangerous all at once. But the
best thing was that she was his. The only problem left was how to make her accept
it as well.