Page 92 of Demon's Desire
“Yes.” He kissed me again, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling my hips against his. “Mia, I love you so much…”
I smiled, kissing him back. “I love you too, Suldeargan…”
“You know,” he purred, “it would be pretty fun for a demon to hunt the demon hunter…”
I shivered at the suggestion, but pulled away, smiling at him. “It would be fun. But right now I need to eat fast food and then pass out for a week.”
He laughed and nodded, kissing the top of my head. “Mm. You do. I’ll just keep building up my anticipation in the meantime…”
I blushed a bit as I took his hand. I started for the living room when he stopped me.
“Oh! One more thing,” he said. I paused and turned to him as he handed me Tiernan’s horn. I looked at him in confusion, then looked down at the L-shaped horn in my hand.
“Why did you keep this?” I looked back up at him curiously.
“Some demon hunters like to keep a souvenir,” he explained. “From their first kill. The fact that you took a horn clean off a demon’s head and you did it before you were technically a hunter is worth celebrating, I think.”
I laughed as I looked at the rough horn. “I thought I was about to fall to my death, I just hung on for dear life and it snapped off.”
“Still.” He winked. “You can throw it away if you want. But I think it’s worth commemorating.”
“Alright.” I smiled at him. “Thank you for thinking of that.”
“Anything for you.” He kissed me softly for a moment, then we headed for the living room. We picked a chicken place for dinner, and while it was being delivered, I took a quick shower to get all the grime from the abandoned building off of me. When I had clean clothes, a full plate of food, trashy TV, my best friend, and the love of my life with me, I started to really believe what I’d said to Soul earlier. I wasn’t completely sure what would happen after this, but I knew that whatever it was, we’d be able to handle it together.
When I moved to Chicago, the Earth tilted on its axis. It had taken me a few weeks to find my footing, but now that I had, I never wanted it to go back.
22
ONE YEAR LATER
I pushed the demon in front of me to the ground, raised my hatchet above my head, and brought it down hard on his head. Dark yellow blood dripped from his wounds as he stopped moving. Once I was sure he was dead, I pulled the hatchet out of his skull and stepped back, wiping the sweat from my brow.
Suldeargan folded in his wings and dropped down beside me. “I could have taken that one. You should leave some for me once in a while.”
“I know you don’t like to break a sweat,” I teased, nudging his arm as I grabbed a cloth from my pocket and wiped off my blade. Last year when I became a demon hunter, I’d taken a lot of self defense and martial arts classes, then tried out several weapons. I found out that hatchets worked the best for me. Honestly, I’d have kept using Jackson’s dagger, but after his death, the police logged it as evidence, and it would have been too suspicious to ask them to release it, so I’d needed to find something of my own. Dual-wielding hatchets turned out to be my thing. If I had a straight shot, I could even throw them.
“I don’t mind breaking a sweat,” Suldeargan rolled his eyes. “You just look so good when you do.”
I laughed as I pushed up on my toes and kissed him. He had been right a year ago. It had taken a couple of months before Tiernan’s family realized he wasn’t coming back, but when they did, they’d sent demons and hunters after us. We’d fought each one. So far, we’d never lost.
We never sought out trouble, but it was more than happy to come to us. Unfortunately, it meant that our apartment wasn’t the safest place, so it worked out that I made a dying confession to Kelly that Mica had always reciprocated her feelings. Less than a week after my near death experience, they went on their first date, and a couple of months later when our home wasn’t safe anymore, Kelly moved in with Mica and Torie. Of course, we still saw each other all the time.
Torie and Mica didn’t really understand how I could live alone, or why I wanted to. For the record, neither did my parents. But I made good money bartending, plus a lot of demons approached me and offered to pay me to kill Suldeargan. I had no qualms about ‘accepting’ the offer, pocketing the money, and killing the benefactor.
A year later, Kelly was still the only person who knew about Suldeargan and the truth about me, but she kept our secret under lock and key. I was glad to learn that she and Suldeargan actually had a fun relationship when they weren’t living on top of each other. And knowing that Soul nearly died just trying to protect me gave her a lot of peace of mind as well.
“I need to relieve some stress.” I smiled and kissed him quickly again. “Let’s go home so you can help me with that.”
“Oh, fuck yes,” he groaned, picking me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist. He kissed me hard, sliding his fingers into my hair. “I am going to wreck you…”
I moaned, kissing him back. “Mmm… I’m looking forward to that. But before you do, we need to get rid of the body.”
“It’s so sexy when you talk about dead bodies,” he teased, letting me drop to my feet.
I laughed as Suldeargan picked up the corpse. “There’s a dumpster out back that should work.”
We made our way out the back door of the empty warehouse. When we realized we were in for a fight, we usually tried to go somewhere that would draw as little attention as possible and not put anyone in danger.