Scorched

you?”

Ashe made a tiny, rebellious noise. “You’re a monster.”

“Your point?”

The floor shook, a brief rumble. The tension between them was waking the house’s sentient magic.

Ashe hauled on his wrist, her fight coming back. “You won’t win. I’ve never lost yet!”

She bit him.

Alessandro ripped his hand away, swearing as the blood welled up. “Son of a whore!”

Ashe sprang off the other side of the bed and whipped a second stake out of her boot. “Hurts, doesn’t it, asshole? How do you think Holly felt when you bit her?”

Alessandro reached the end of his rope. With vampire speed, he hurled a pillow straight at her face. Reflexively, she stabbed, releasing a snowstorm of feathers. He used the moment to sail over the bed and grab her from behind, twisting her arms behind her back.

The house trembled again, this time rattling the blinds on the window. Soon it would become dangerous, but to which one of them? Both?

Ashe gave a bitter laugh. “You can kill me if you want, but that doesn’t make you a living man. You can’t be part of my sister’s life. You’re death.”

Her words sliced so deep, he didn’t feel the sting until a second had passed. Then it seared him to the marrow, too deep for any real response. He twisted the second stake out of her fingers, not caring if he hurt her. “I’m still better than the family she has. I wouldn’t send my child away to be raised by strangers.”

“I’m keeping my daughter safe from the likes of you.”

Alessandro bit back a profane retort. He had few options. He could kill Ashe, lock her in the basement, or toss her down the front steps. He dropped his voice to his coldest, cruelest tones. “How do you feel about family counseling?”

“Fuck you.”

His conscience was clear enough to introduce a final option.

“Then I have a very special place for you to go where you can kill all the monsters you want.”

“Pissed” didn’t begin to cover Mac’s mood.

He’d bought groceries, stuffed himself to bursting, and, suddenly exhausted, fallen asleep on the couch. He remembered getting up for a midnight snack that had involved another normal day’s supply of food. When he woke up midmorning, he was sure he’d changed even more. He felt like an ox. Maybe somebody out of Alice in Wonderland. It would have been funny if it had been happening to anybody else.

He was not amused.

That was just the physical stuff. The demon had put his aggression on high, something he’d noticed the second time he’d been forced out of the apartment to find clothes and food. He’d nearly attacked a guy who’d cut him off in the beef aisle in the supermarket. Yeah, Mac was pissed, and there was fear underneath the anger. At moments, he was hanging on to his self-control by the fingernails. The demon was taking over.

He tried to call Holly, but she wasn’t home. He’d hung up without leaving a message. He had a sixth sense that this was his problem to solve, anyway. Or maybe he’d listened to Lore too long and all that prophecy crap was curdling his brain.

He was hungry again. Mac piled sliced ham onto a bun, feeling like he spent his life at the fridge door.

There were only two things keeping him focused. One, he’d made a promise to Constance to rescue her son. Two, he needed answers—all kinds of them. He was determined not to let his brain slack off just because his body had gone into overdrive. The slip with Lore had been warning enough.

Mac bit into the sandwich and chewed while he split and buttered a second bun. Ham or beef on this one? Why not both?

His plan was simple: Get Sylvius. Interrogate Atreus. After that he’d find out what Lore was really up to. If the hounds had a clue about what was going on, he needed to know. The Castle had done something to him, and he needed it undone just as soon as he’d rescued Connie’s son. There had to be a way to get back to his life as a human. For one thing, he couldn’t afford his demon’s insane grocery bill.

After eating his third sandwich, Mac slung the charm Holly had sent him around his neck. The shirt he’d just bought already felt tight through the shoulders and chest.

Whatever was happening to him, it wasn’t over. The simple truth was, if he didn’t do something—take charge, act, focus—he would give in to the panic bubbling up inside him. It was hard to hide from the monster when it was the very flesh you lived in.

But turning into a monster didn’t mean he would go back on his word. He’d let the demon infection distract him long enough. It was time to go back to work.

He grabbed the sword he had taken from Bran from the umbrella rack, testing its balance. This body would know how to use it in a way his old one hadn’t, but he still took his semiautomatic—the holster’s seven-way comfort adjustments worked to their XXL limits—and all the ammo he had. No point in giving up the tried and true.

He dusted from his condo to the door of the Castle. The first challenge was finding out where the guardsmen kept their special prisoners. Constance’s advice might cut hours off his search. She’d been following Bran before. She would at least have an idea which corner of this cavernous Goth-o-rama to start with.

No doubt he could find her in the Summer Room, like a tiny, dark pearl in the safety of its oyster shell. He’d made her promise to stay out of trouble, but that didn’t cover the trouble she represented to him. Just the memory of the place—and what had nearly happened there—was intoxicating. That much temptation should have been a warning in itself to stay away, but his body remembered the feel of her pressing against him. It made the decision.

Finding the room involved only a few wrong turns. It was exactly as Mac had left it. The candlelight was soft, glittering in the silver light of the tapestries, casting misty shadows on swooping fabric that draped the ceiling and swathed the great canopied bed.

He lingered for a moment in the doorway, and then closed the door behind him and slid the bolt that locked it home. It was true he had all but fled from the room— and Constance—only days before, fearing what his demon might do to her, what her blood thirst and the room’s lust-filled magic might do to him.

This time would be different. He was in control. He had come for her.

But I didn’t come here for her. Not that way. I came here for information on how to find her son.

Think again.

She had tried to seduce him. By some ubermale libido logic, she had offered herself, so now she was his. His dark side applauded. Teach her a lesson for tricking you.

Whoa, there, demon dude. Keep your head on straight. Remember you’re a cop first, even if you don’t have a badge anymore. You have a job to do. No time for anything but dead bodies and paperwork.

But that argument wasn’t working anymore. The cold comfort of human logic was losing ground. He simply wanted.

He should never have come. His demon crumpled that thought like a beer can and tossed it aside.

Like a sentimental memory, Constance’s perfume hung in the air. There she was, stretched out on the dark velvet spread, the wealth of her long, dark hair nearly invisible against the inky background. Mac stood at the foot of the bed, looking down on her through the sheer silk of the draperies. She looked as pale as the dead, her faded dress shabby against the opulence of the gold-tasseled pillows.

Don’t you have to save the kid? Figure out how to be human again? Remember what always happens when you get involved with Babes of Doom?

She was so vulnerable. A wave of possessiveness swamped him, heating his already-pounding blood. Human or demon, Mac was all male. Beneath the pull of her beauty, the two sides of his soul were starting to blur. They both ignited with desire.

Mac set the sword down on a nearby table, then removed his shoulder holster and heavy boots, careful to make no noise. He crept to the side of the bed, and parted the curtain with his hands. The clearer view didn’t disappoint. When she had been bitten, her face still had the soft perfection of extreme youth. He had looked at