Rogue Rider

Pay? Seeing Reseph’s loved ones die would be a bonus.

Four

Jillian took her time cleaning the kitchen, allowing Reseph a chance to unwind. He’d seemed so sad and confused, and while she might not know him very well, her heart had broken for him.

The TV blared from the living room, and when she finally finished in the kitchen, she found Reseph lounging on her couch, feet up on the coffee table, with Doodle purring in his lap. He’d been eyeing the pictures on the wall, skimming over the nature artwork and focusing on the photos of her skydiving and skiing. She used to be good at those things before the demons came.

Jillian nodded at the cat. “He likes you.”

She stood there, hesitant to take a seat next to Reseph, but the couch was the only place to sit. She’d moved her father’s ratty old recliner down to the cellar a few months ago. Her mom had, for years, complained about the thing, saying it was fit only for the local landfill, and while Jillian agreed, she couldn’t bear to part with it. Not yet.

Reseph ran his hand over the cat’s spotted brown fur in long, even strokes. “What’s his name?”

“Doodle.”

“Doodle?” He winced. “No wonder he’s so friendly. He’s begging me to call him something like Fang, or Chaos, or Styx.” He patted the empty cushion next to him. “Have a seat. I won’t bite.” A cocky smile accompanied a waggle of his brows. “Unless you like that kind of thing.”

Her cheeks burned at the unbidden image of him nipping at her sensitive spots. “Do you like that kind of thing? I mean, do you think you do?”

His voice turned smoky. Rich. Decadent as hell. “I know I do.” He scratched Doodle’s chin. “See, I know some stuff.”

Now she was burning all over as she sank onto the couch, putting as much space between them as she could without looking like she was trying. Still, he knew, shooting her an amused glance before turning his attention to the TV.

“So what’s going on in the world?” He gestured to the CNN news anchor talking about recovery efforts in Sydney. “What happened in Australia?”

Oh God, he didn’t even know about that? How could he be a blank slate? Was that even medically possible?

She tucked one leg under her and got comfortable, because this was going to be a very uncomfortable conversation. “What’s the last thing you remember about the world?”

Doodle nudged Reseph’s hand, clearly not happy that his new best friend had stopped petting him. “I don’t remember anything before the snowbank.”

“Okay, what’s the last thing you know?” she asked. “Like, do you know who the president is?”

“Of what country?”

“The United States.”

He frowned. “I have no idea.”

“Who is the last one you remember?”

“Washington.” He sounded proud of himself for remembering something, and she hated having to crush him.

“You couldn’t remember him,” she said faintly. “He’s been dead for more than two hundred years.”

Throwing his head back, Reseph lowered his lids and concentrated. “I’ve got other names in my head, but I can’t place them. Like Napoléon and Hitler and Azagoth. It’s like I have all these puzzle pieces in my head, but I can’t fit more than two together.” Azagoth? He uttered a mild curse and opened his eyes. “I give up. So what’s up with the news showing destroyed countries? And why have they been blathering about economic meltdowns and recoveries? And apocalypses.”

“Because up until three months ago, the world was under siege by demons.” The last word came out as a broken whisper. It still didn’t seem real, and all at once, too real.

Reseph’s hand stilled on Doodle’s shoulders. “And now it’s not?”

“Thankfully, no. All of a sudden, demons all over the world were burned to ash or disappeared. People are calling it WV-Day, for World Victory Day. Every government is taking credit for the WV-Day, but no one can say why or how it all went down.” Conspiracy theories were off the charts, though. There were as many rumors floating around as there were trees on her property.

“All the demons are gone?”

“That’s the story.” God, she hoped it was true. Sightings were still reported, but authorities claimed that no demon sighting since WV-Day had been substantiated and that most likely people were just seeing things.

He cocked his head at her. “Did you see any demons?”

A chill slithered up her spine at the memory she could never quite get away from no matter how deeply she buried herself in the forest. “Too many.”

She started to get up, but Reseph’s hand snapped out to circle her wrist. “Is that why you live out here in the middle of nowhere? So demons won’t find you?”

Jesus. Had he seen through her so easily? Very deliberately, she peeled his fingers off her arm.

“I have to check on the animals.” She practically ran to the door and shoved her feet into her boots. It was dark outside, but as much as she hated the night, she hated the subject matter more.

“Jillian.” The soft but commanding tone froze her as she reached for the doorknob. “It’s weird, isn’t it, how I don’t remember anything, and you remember too much.”

“I think,” she said quietly, “that maybe you got the better deal.”

Reseph sat with the cat for a few minutes after Jillian went outside. He was still trying to process what she’d said about the demons. It wasn’t that he found it difficult to believe—on the contrary, it felt disturbingly familiar. And almost… casual. As if demons were part of everyday life, but that couldn’t be the case, because even with his lost memory, he was certain that most humans hadn’t been familiar with demons before their appearance.

And why the hell was he thinking about humans as if he wasn’t one of them?

Frustrated at the direction of his thoughts, he gently nudged Fang-Doodle off his lap and headed to the barn to see what Jillian was up to. Didn’t matter that he didn’t have shoes or a coat. He just went. The cold hit him like a million tiny icicles, but he ignored the sting as he trudged through the snow, following her tracks toward the barn, which was outlined in faint streaks of light that escaped from between the wood slats and tiny windows.

Felt good to get out of the house and into the open. Jillian’s cabin was cozy but confining, way too home-and-hearth for him. Which made him wonder how he normally lived.

The crack of gunfire shattered his thoughts. Jillian. He sprinted down the path, heart racing as fast as his feet. He skidded around the side of the barn and nearly did a body slam into the fencing surrounding a chicken coop. Jillian stood a few feet away next to a bloody scatter of feathers, a rifle in her hand, staring into the woods.

“What happened?” He came up behind her, his senses on high alert as he focused on the forest around them.

“Marten,” she muttered. “Damned thing got one of my chickens.” Cursing, she swung around to him, her windblown hair whipping at her cheeks. Her breath, visible in the cold air, blew out like steam when she looked down at his bare feet. “Get back in the house! You nearly froze to death, and now you’re out here with no clothes? What are you thinking?”

He snorted. “I have more clothes on than when you found me. Besides—” He broke off as a tingle of awareness skittered over his skin. Something flitted in his peripheral vision, a dark shadow melting between the trees where the marten tracks disappeared.

A nasty growl rumbled as if coming from all around them, the sound of a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain. Without thinking, Reseph tore across the yard, his focus narrowed and honed, his heart pounding, his body hard and primed for battle.

And, he realized as he was running, sex.

Holy shit, he was jacked up, as if he’d just spent half an hour engaged in foreplay and was now on the verge of sinking into a hot, willing female.

Jesus, what kind of sicko was he that gearing up for a possible fight made him horny?

“Reseph!”

Jillian’s voice throbbed through him, adding fuel to the burn in his veins, but he couldn’t go back to her, not now, when violence and desire were both warring just under the surface of his skin.

The metallic scent of blood slammed into him, and that fast, the violent urges beat down the sexual one.

There. Movement. With a snarl, he ripped a fallen branch off a stump and snatched the beady-eyed creature behind it by the scruff. The demon hissed, its sharp teeth snapping, blood spattered on its fur.

“You little—” Reseph stared. “Marten.” Not a demon. The weasel stared back, fear glinting in its dark eyes.

Overreact much?

“Reseph!”

“Shit.” He dropped the critter into the snow and watched it scamper off, wondering why the hell he’d sensed danger.

Feeling like a fool, he jogged back the way he’d come. He’d run a good third of a mile in pursuit of the weasel, and for what? Jillian was going to think he was nuts. And she might be right.

At least the maddening lust had eased. But then, humiliation had a way of deflating the dick, didn’t it?

She was standing at the edge of the woods, her expression veering from worry to anger when he emerged. “What the hell? Why did you take off like that? You scared me half to death.”

His cheeks heated. “Ah, yeah… sorry. I saw something.”

“What was it?”

Probably not a good idea to admit he thought he’d been chasing a demon. “An animal. Turns out it was the marten.”

“You caught up to the marten?” Her gaze dropped to his hands, which were smeared with blood. “You killed it?”

Squatting down, he wiped his palms in the snow. “I let it go. The blood on its fur was probably the chicken’s.”

“You released it? You do realize it’s killing my chickens.”

Reseph understood Jillian’s frustration, but he’d felt sorry for the creature. It had been trapped and afraid, and somewhere inside, Reseph understood that even more. “It’s just trying to survive.”