A Cursed Embrace

“Here. This situation between us.”

Sadness filled my lungs like water and drowned my hopes. I thought he was saying good-bye. So his next words surprised me. “Have you been seeing that moron, Celia?”

“Huh?”

Aric leaned back in his seat. “The vampire. Have you spent time with . . .” Aric swallowed hard, barely able to spit the name out. “Misha.”

I stared at my eggs as if they would somehow give me a clue how to answer. How could I tell Aric that the first time Misha called, I’d scrambled to my phone, expecting it to be him? And when it wasn’t, how it made me long for Aric’s call more?

Unlike Aric, Misha had called me, every day, sometimes more than once. At first our conversations revolved around our near-death experience on the night of the fire, when we’d taken on a master vampire, his army of ravenous, bloodsucking monsters, and, oh yeah, his psycho gal pal witch. I’d saved Misha’s life. And I’d inadvertently returned his soul. And although my sisters and I first became involved with him to help clear him of a crime, somewhere along the way he’d become a friend—a self-absorbed, often arrogant, flirtatious, O-positive- worshipping friend, but a friend nonetheless. And one I felt protective of just then. Misha wasn’t perfect, except he also wasn’t as awful as the wolves liked to believe.

I looked up from my eggs. “I don’t want to discuss Misha with you.”

The truth of my words hit Aric hard. He raised his chin and tightened his jaw. The waitress bustled over and dropped off the check. I reached to pay my share. Aric lifted it away. “At least allow me this.”

Aric reached for my hand upon catching my crinkled brow. “I’m sorry. I just thought . . .” He sighed. “A few dead males have been discovered scattered around the area,” he whispered, out of the range of human hearing.

My tigress sat up in attention—unsure why Aric had changed gears and itching to protect me from the latest evil threat. “Are they leftover food from the vampires infected with bloodlust?”

Aric’s thumb teased the center of my palm. “That’s what I thought at first. However, they weren’t in the same condition as the others. And they were also all male—human males. Not a female in sight.”

I took a chance and laid my other hand on top of his—a brave move on my part. I was never this forward. My curved fingers stroked between the ridges of his knuckles. “What do the victims being male have to do with anything?”

Aric watched my movements, surprised, I supposed, that I’d returned his affection. “The infected vampires didn’t discriminate—male, female, human, were—it didn’t matter. Something else killed these men.”

Great. Another hungry killer. Just what Tahoe needed. I opened my mouth, just to shut it again, remembering Taran’s dreams. My sister possessed the unique gift to generate and manipulate fire and lightning as a weapon. She could also alter memories to some extent. And while she couldn’t predict the future, she did have the ability to sense different types of magic—were, vampire, and witch. Could she have also sensed something darker? “Aric, could this have anything to do with demons?” Aric’s hard stare told me something I didn’t really want to know. I rubbed his knuckles harder. “This is the part where you accuse me of being ridiculous.”

“How much do you know about demons?” he asked instead.

I shook my head, not realizing at first how hard I’d gripped his hands, until he shifted his grasp and caressed my fingers. “Not much. Just that they’re wicked bad and don’t belong here. Right?”

Aric lifted my hand to his face and brushed them against the stubble of his beard as if he’d done it a million times. “You’re right. They don’t belong. The power of good keeps them in hell. The strongest occasionally surface, except they’re never strong enough to stay for long.”

“How long is too long?” A millisecond seemed too much to hope for, especially judging by Aric’s serious disposition and the way he seemed to beat back a growl.

“Somewhere around five minutes.”

The image of someone with a stopwatch and a demon patiently waiting to be dragged back to hell didn’t follow evil creature protocol. Something had happened with enough witnesses to gauge the passage of time. My voice cracked, though I’d insisted it shouldn’t. “How do you know?”

Aric leaned closer, his tone lowered. “As guardians of the earth, weres have encountered an array of evil throughout the centuries. About ninety years ago, a demon appeared in Ireland, called forth by a dark witch seeking more power. My great-uncle had been hunting her. She’d violated several laws and needed to be put down. He and his wolf pack of five found her too late. She’d already called him and another forth.”

“Did the wolves kill him?”

“No. It’s damn near impossible to destroy a demon, Celia. You can hurt it. You can weaken it. Ultimately, you’re just buying time until it’s ordered back to hell.”

More good news. I cleared my throat. “What happened?”

“The pack found the first demon on top of her.”

I shuddered. “Killing her?”

Aric shook his head, his jaw setting tight. “No.”

My eyes widened, and I shriveled inward. “Oh my God.”

“He vanished when the other revealed itself. They fought the evil for about five long, agonizing minutes. By the time he disappeared, only three wolves remained.”

Across from us a group of teens laughed. The one in a UCLA sweatshirt pushed his buddy in play. Obviously they hadn’t heard Aric’s tale. I only wished I hadn’t, either. “And the witch?”

“She killed herself. The wolves then destroyed the spawn thriving in her dead uterus.”

“Oh.” I said it as if he’d just explained how to change a tire. What I really meant to say was “Oh, shit!”

I glanced at my uneaten food. Something told me my appetite wouldn’t return any time soon. I worked up my courage. “You think demons are being called forth?”

Aric shrugged. “There are rumors. The good news is very few beings of magic are able to summon such a strong evil. And like I mentioned, their time is limited. But something appears to have shifted in the demon realm. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

“Could they have killed those men? I mean, if they’d summoned them with some kind of magical, demon, evildoers artifact?”

Aric smiled at my attempt to lighten our conversation. “No. That shit only happens in movies. Like I said, it takes magical power to call magical power. The one doing the summoning has to possess a certain amount of mojo to get through.”

Aric’s large hands covered mine easily, stimulating the growing heat. It comforted me, and I wanted to just relax and enjoy it, but I needed to voice my fears. “Aric, Taran’s been having dreams. Bad ones. They involve what we think are demons, attacking us.”

“How many?”

“Excuse me?”

Aric watched me carefully. “How many demons appear in her dreams?”

“I don’t know. Lots of them. She describes them like a swarm of locusts.”

The tension in Aric’s powerful shoulders built. “I’d never heard of so many at a time. And no one has ever been able to bring forth two simultaneously. That’s why the one assaulting the witch disappeared when the second arrived.” Aric lowered our hands. “The rumors flying around and the mysticism of Tahoe energizing the air could be affecting her dreams. Try not to worry, okay? I’m here now to help keep you safe.” He said it. And I think he meant it. Yet he couldn’t hide the underlying concern in his voice.

“Okay, but if these demons didn’t kill the men, what did?” Aric didn’t answer, but the way he regarded me made me suspicious. “You don’t think I had anything to do with this, do you?”

“Of course not, it’s just that . . .” Aric’s hold tightened. “Tracking is one of my stronger traits. My wolf picks up the scent of death easily. I was the one who found the bodies while hunting the infected vampires and dismissed them as more of their victims. I should have suspected something else at play.” He let out a long breath. “My Elders feel I’ve been distracted lately. They believe if it wasn’t for my lack of focus, I would’ve recognized that