Obsidian Souls (Soul Series) (11 page)

             
He turned his head toward the front of the apartment. “More are coming. I can hear them.”

He rushed at me and pulling me to my feet, dragging me behind him back to the living room. Knocking my plants out of the way, he opened the window and climbed onto the ledge.

             
“I can’t jump this! There’s a fire escape in the bedroom.”

            “We don’t have any time.”

             
“It might kill me!”

             
“It won’t, just climb on my back.”

             
“Won’t they be waiting down there too?”

             
“Yes, but it’s a better position, and it’s where the bike is. Once we get down there just stay toward the dead end of the alley. I’ll fight our way out but I don’t want them to be able to run with you.”

             
He climbed onto the sill, I jumped on his back, and he leapt to the ground. It was a surprisingly soft landing. He shrugged me off his back and behind him as the first two thugs ran at us. He knocked them out quite easily and had the bike out before any others had shown up. We got on and we were almost out of the alleyway when a third ran at us and punched me in the side trying to knock me off the back of the bike.  I only managed to stay on because Caden blocked me from falling with his arm and we were off.

             
“I heard a crack. You might have a broken rib. Don’t try to talk. We’ll back in a few minutes,” he yelled back to me.

             
I wanted to speak, but I was having hard enough time breathing. We fled down the streets and we were back in few minutes like promised.

             
He left the bike in the alley and swept me up into his arms. I would have preferred to walk, but I didn’t have the breath in me to fight with him.

             
“Do you have any idea how close they came to taking you tonight?” he asked the question but I was pretty sure it was rhetorical. “You’re lucky it wasn‘t worse. I shouldn‘t have agreed.”

             
“I would’ve just gone alone,” I said breathlessly.

             
When we got inside the bar, it was closed and there was a group of men waiting.

             
“Lexie, these are my guys. You already met Mike.”

             
I looked to Mike and he was all smiles, like everything was normal, that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. It might have been convincing too, if his body wasn’t so tense and telling an all together different story.

             
There were four more men standing around me. One I recognized from that first night in the bar but the others I’d never seen. He introduced me to each of them, Joey, Dave, Alex and Nick.

             
All of his guys were on the taller side. Joey, looking like he was the youngest of the group was muscular but not quite as filled out as the rest. Dave and Alex looked like brothers. They both had darker skin and hair. They looked like they’d lived on an exotic island beach and eyes so dark they appeared black. Their personalities seemed almost as dark as their eyes. Nick looked like the fun loving flirt of the group. He winked when he said hi. You might as well just hand over a business card with professional gigolo on it because he screamed womanizer.

             
“It’s not good Caden.” The one Caden had introduced as Dave said. “It’s causing more trouble than we are prepared for.”

             
I took “it,” to be a poorly disguised code for “me.”  Code might even have been giving it too much credit. A four year old could have cracked it. I guess it was better than the alternative of being blatantly rude and flat out pointing to me.

             
“He means the situation Lexie, not you,” Mike said as he came over and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry! It’s all good!”

Looking at Mike gave me hope. He wasn’t a monster. I wonder if he was only a smidge Druath, like an eighth or something. Maybe that is all I would be too.

             
Caden placed me gently down onto the booth being more careful about my ribs than I thought he was even capable. When he stood, I could see his whole being change, his muscles growing and bulging. Instead of being alarmed at why his muscles were bulging out, the vain and shallow part of me took over. I was more concerned that this would happen to me when I started changing. Not a good look for a girl, that was for certain. I’d never be able to show my face in a tank top again.

             
I was pulled from my distraction when I saw him step into Dave’s personal space. They looked like they were about to come to blows.

             
“It’s my call.” He spoke in the scariest tone I’d ever heard and punctuated it with a deep growling noise that sounded like it came from his chest. It was even scarier than the night in the alley with Carl. It wasn’t a sound that I had ever heard come from a human man. Another thing to add to my list of things I hoped I wouldn’t get, icky demon voice with growl. Between that and the muscles, I’d never get another date. At that point, I might as well turn green and move to the swamps.

             
“If they want her, let them have her! We were on the brink of peace! Now the place is crawling with them. We had to shut the bar down tonight because we were afraid of an all out brawl in here. And what about my wife Diana? Doesn’t she get any consideration in this? She’s human and more vulnerable than anyone here, and now, because of this girl, my wife is sitting in the middle of a hornet’s nest. I won’t have it.”

             
Diana, that must have been the blond girl he was in the booth with the first night I’d come here. I wouldn’t have blamed him for not wanting me here anyway, but I could understand him wanting to protect his wife. For the first time in my life I could be termed “nothing but trouble.” Hmmmm, that was kind of an interesting transition. I never thought I would be the one walking into a room of people and hear them whisper “stay away from that girl, she’s trouble.” It conjures up an image of tattoos and piercings. I guess a tattoo would flow with the whole demon girl thing if I ever decided to embrace the life. Maybe a crazy set of black wings spanning my back or something.

             
“Dave, if you thought we were ever going to have any kind of long lived peace you’ve been deluding yourself. They’ve already infiltrated the police department and have people in the mayor’s office. Every day they are encroaching into our territory a little step further. What would you like me to do? Roll over? Let them have whatever they want until we are living on the scraps they leave behind? Should I call them and tell them to come and get her too? We don’t even know what she is. We don’t know what kind of edge she could give them.”

             
Dave turned in my direction and with a look that said clearer than any words that he didn’t believe there was a shot in hell I was going to give them an edge.

             
“Hey! I could turn out to be one kick ass Drauth!” I tried to say it with some force but it was hard with the cracked rib and all. Not that I really wanted to be a kick ass demon, but it still hurt my feelings to think I’d be a lame one. Nobody wants to be the loser of the group, even if it is a group of monsters.

             
“She stays. If you’ve got a problem with that then you can leave,” Caden punctuated it with a finger poke to Dave’s chest. I inwardly cringed. Nothing is worse than the finger poke. You could scream and rant and rave but a finger poke meant business.

             
“So, you are going to pick her over me? You would jeopardize Diana’s safety for someone you just met. We’ve been together for hundreds of years and that’s how quick you kick me to the curb?”

             
Hundreds? What the hell? Oops, I might have to remove that phrase from my vocabulary. It carried a distinctly different tone under my new set of circumstances. I knew they lived a long time, but damn they aged well. Oh no, I had better stop using the word damn too. This was really going to affect my whole vocabulary.

             
I looked at Caden’s face. Dave had struck a nerve. His entire frame seemed to relax a bit, and he let out a long exhale which had the exact opposite effect on me. I felt a lump in my throat form, as I wondered if I was about to be thrown out on the street.

             
“Dave, you are a brother to me. I don’t want you to leave, but you can’t ask me to throw her to the wolves.”

             
“There are other places you can send her. She doesn’t have to be here.”

“This is the best place and you know that.”

             
We all watched Dave intently, waiting for a reaction. He finally shook his head and threw up his hands in surrender. The tension was immediately broken, and I sighed in relief. Caden slapped him on the back. He leaned next to him and said something privately that made them both smile and laugh.

             
“So how are we going to handle this situation?” Nick asked.

             
“We go day by day like we’ve been doing. I’m going to reach out to the council. If they can help get this back under control, then good, but otherwise we start handling things on our own and the council can go fuck themselves.”

             
“What about the bar?” Joey asked.

             
“Closed for renovations until further notice,” Caden said. “Things are too messy right now. I don’t want to take the chance of civilian casualties. Until things calm down, everyone needs to watch their backs.”

Chapter Thirteen

             
He carried me down to the elevator and put me down on the couch once we got to his apartment.  He sat next to me and helped me gently take off the heavy leather jacket.

             
“They can’t get in here,” he said to me in a reassuring voice. He must have seen some residual fear left in my eyes.

             
“I want to check your ribs.”

             
I nodded my head and his hands slowly ran along my side. My breath caught in my throat when his fingers grazed the underside of my breast.

             
“Did that hurt?” he asked, mistaking my irregular breathing.

             
“It just hurts to breath.” I wasn’t actually lying this time. It did hurt to breath.

             
“That’s normal. I think there just bruised. They feel intact. They’ll heal, but you’re going to have to take it easy for a couple of days. I’ll get you something for the pain.”

             
“No, I don’t want anything. I hate pain medication. It makes my head foggy.”

             
“Okay, how about some whiskey?”

             
“A whiskey I’ll take,” I agreed gratefully.

             
He came back and handed me a glass. We sat in silence for a while.

             
“I can’t go back to work with them coming after me,” I said it aloud, but I wasn’t expecting him to give me the solution.

             
“No, you can’t, at least not for a while.”

             
I knew he was right and even though I had so many other huge problems, I couldn’t help but panic wondering how I would pay my bills.

             
“Don’t worry.”

             
“Hmmm?” I looked up at him having lost myself in my own concerns.

             
“Money isn’t an issue. Everything will be taken care of.”

             
“I can’t take your money. It’s bad enough that I’ve moved into your home.”

             
“You didn’t impose. I moved you here. It’s easier for me if you don’t go back to work. I’d have to have someone with you all the time.”

             
“I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

             
“It’s not necessary. I’ve got more money than I could possibly need. It’s one of the perks of living a long life.”

             
“I’m still going to pay you back.”

             
“We’ll work it out. Let’s not worry about it for now, okay?”

             
“Okay.”

             
“Let me help you into your room.”

             
“I’ve got it,” I said but he helped me up anyway.

             
“Do you want me to help you change?” I looked at him standing there in his open shirt and rolled up sleeves, standing oh so gorgeous next to my bed. He looked like sex. He smelled like sex too. And now he was being all sorts of nice to me. I couldn’t get involved with this man. I didn’t need any more complications. My life was already in a complete upheaval.