The Entity Within

Damon nodded and grinned sardonically. “Yes, Zoe, you did.”

“Says the vampire afraid to talk about his past,” Zoe retorted.

“Uh-oh,” Bella said before beating a hasty retreat.

Damon moved in on Zoe. Okay, he wasn’t just moving in on her, he was stalking her again. She was smart enough to recognize the difference. She was also stubborn enough not to back up. She was tempted to protest his use of the word weak when describing her but she’d already confronted vampires and been possessed by a demon in her first afternoon in Chicago. Now on her second day, she’d seen a demon dissolve, and it wasn’t even noon yet. How much worse could it get? So she just stood there and glared at him, visually daring him to do whatever bad deeds were in his thick head.

Correctly reading her eyes, he said, “You do not want to dare me, little witch.”

That was the second time he’d said that to her within the past hour. “I am not little.” Throwing back her shoulders, she stood tall and proud at every one of her sixty-six inches.

Instead of admiring her stature, his attention became focused on her breasts. She was standing super straight, shoulders back and breasts thrust forward, which highlighted the taut fit of her V-neck top’s knit material.

“Hey!” She waved her hand in front of his face. “Eyes up here.” She pointed to her face with the universal two-finger sign for “I’m Watching You.” She hoped it was also universal in the vampire community, but wasn’t sure because Damon’s gaze remained fixed on her chest.

Maybe he was contemplating yanking her beating heart out or something nefarious like that. Did Gram’s protection spell apply to vampires as well as demons?

“Where did you get those?” he said.

“I grew them myself,” she said. “I mean, they are natural. They’re mine. My breasts.” Every word she said made her feel more embarrassed than the last. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she tacked on at the last minute. Right, like there was any way to regain her dignity at this point. That ship had sailed, as Gram would say.

“I wasn’t talking about your breasts. I was talking about your talisman.”

Normally her necklace remained tucked between her breasts, but there was nothing normal about her life lately. The past twenty-six hours had been a wild ride of vamps, panic, fear, panic, vamps, and demons. Any one of those things would be enough to rattle a girl, even a witch.

Her hand flew to her necklace, which had apparently somehow slipped out from beneath her top by way of the V-neck. So the vampire hadn’t been admiring her breasts after all. He was only interested in her talisman. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had only wanted her for her magic.

Well, it would be the first time a vampire wanted her for her magic.

Not that Damon wanted her. And not that Tristin had really wanted her, either.

She supposed she could blame her bad luck in the romance department on the family curse. No man can make an Adams witch happy. You’d think a witch would be superstitious enough to listen to things like curses. But somehow hope still sprang, and there were some instances when an Adams witch had been happy.

All of this was intensely personal stuff as far as Zoe was concerned, which was why she quickly tucked the talisman on the single gold chain back beneath her top where it belonged. The vampire knew enough that he hadn’t merely described the piece of jewelry as a necklace but instead as a talisman, which it was.

“I asked you a question,” Damon reminded her.

“Which I have no intention of answering,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s none of your business.”

“This makes it my business,” he growled before ripping open his shirt and baring his chest.

Had she been a drooling kind of girl, she would have done so, because Damon was definitely drool-worthy. That underwear commercial that David Beckham had done had nothing on Damon. Not that he was only wearing his underwear. He’d merely ripped open his shirt and displayed his six-pack abs.

She managed to clear her mind enough to form a sentence. “Nice chest, but it’s irrelevant.” Irrelevant and sexy as hell.

“This is relevant.” He pointed to the tattoo over his heart. Tugging her necklace out, he pulled her closer and held her talisman to his chest, practically plastering her against him in the process.

It was hard to think with her nose practically pressed against his nipple. Heat radiated from his body.

“Aren’t you supposed to be cool?” she stuttered.

“What?”

“You’re hot.”

“Don’t bother trying to distract me with compliments,” he said.

“I was merely stating a fact.”

“So you think I’m hot. That’s irrelevant. Focus,” he ordered her.

“I can’t when you’re choking me with my own necklace.”

He loosened his hold on her. “My tattoo matches your talisman.”

“You’ve got more than one tattoo.” He could give David Beckham a run for his money in the tat department, too.

“I’m talking about this one.” He pointed to the elaborate design of a Phoenix rising from the ashes with a shooting star in the top corner. The circle surrounding the image was unique, as it was on her talisman.

“Where did you get that?”

“In New Orleans,” he said.

“Wow. What are the chances that you’d get the same design as my talisman?”

“Slim to none.”

“Actually the Phoenix is a popular symbol. So are stars.”

Damon just kept staring at her, making her nervous, which was why she kept talking. “So were you down there for Mardi Gras? Have you been there since Katrina hit? The city is rebuilding but it takes a lot of time, which is something you’d know about, being a vampire and all. I mean you’d know about time, not rebuilding a city.” When Zoe was nervous, she babbled.

“What do you know about Eve Delacroix?” he demanded.

She blinked in surprise at his non sequitur. “Nothing.”

“This is her family talisman.”

“No, it’s not. It’s my family talisman. From both my mother’s side and my father’s side. It’s unique,” she said.

“You come from her blood.” Damon practically spat the words at her.

“Hey,” she said, “I can’t be responsible for what some tattoo parlor on Bourbon Street gave you during Mardi Gras. Maybe this Eve, whoever she is, saw me wearing my necklace or something. I did go down to Mardi Gras two years ago. Maybe she saw me then.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?” she said.

“Because Eve Delacroix is a witch I killed in 1866.”

Chapter Eleven

Damon could see the shock in Zoe’s witchy bicolored eyes. He could hear her heartbeat speed up with fear. He didn’t need to read her mind to know what she was thinking. He’d killed a witch before. He could do it again, and it could be her.

He didn’t say anything to dissuade her from that line of thought.

Did scaring the witch make him a better Demon Hunter? Maybe not, but it might make Vamptown a safer place … if he could find that freaking spell book and destroy the invading demons. To do the first part, he needed