Five

Worn, washed-out jeans on, Quinn pulled a blue Yale sweatshirt over her head and faced the bathroom mirror. She’d never been gunfire gorgeous like Steph, but the cute card always sailed her way. Isaac’s oversized sweatshirt swallowed her all the way to her knees. A no-nonsense bun tamed her damp curls. No mascara, eyeliner, or lip-gloss. Until Zaire hit the pavement, she’d be the anti-sex-kitten in action.

Even though it wouldn’t solve anything, every second spent with him shook her resolve not to take Steph’s man remedy and run with it. There was nothing not to love about his scary-sexy looks. A big fat check on the sense of humor. Sweet and grumbly with the words, and he claimed to go for weird. If she were going to survive the next few hours without crumbling, she had to step up her game.

She stuffed her feet into wool-lined suede slippers and shuffled out of the bathroom. Wolfgang’s purr rumbled all the way from the den. Odd. Her cat only purred when devouring victims or perched on his window ledge, plotting to conquer the outside world. She paused in the den entrance.

True to his word, Zaire sprawled on the couch. One arm tucked behind his head, he stroked Wolfgang’s ears with his free hand. WG curled up on his chest in a happy ball of gray fur. Butterflies somersaulted in her stomach. She wanted to curl up beside him and purr, too. Stroking encouraged, but not required. Yep, she was delusional.

She met his gaze, and warmth spread over her face. He didn’t seem to notice her choice of attire, lack of beauty products, or hair set to natural frizz. He watched her with a focused intensity that made her blood simmer, as though she were creation’s most striking handiwork.

Merde.

Drawn closer, like he was his own force of gravity, she walked in. “What did you do to Wolfgang?” She parked her butt on the hearth edge. A coffee table between them was better than nothing. “He usually tears anyone who’s not me to shreds.”

“A fine animal.” Zaire took Wolfgang’s face between both hands and rubbed vigorously. “He protects what’s important.”

WG closed his eyes, soaking up the attention. He hadn’t even glanced at her.

Faithless pet. After all those midnight feedings, the special-made cat tree, and hours of stroking his worthless hide, he turned to the dark side for a handsome face. Until now, Isaac was the only other person he allowed to pat him on occasion, yet always with the risk of claws. Maybe Isaac’s clothing on Zaire had fooled his feline senses. Then again, the cat had never been so friendly with her brother.

“I have my necklace back on.” Quinn toyed with the cross hanging outside her sweatshirt. “Care to explain what that was all about?”

Zaire nudged Wolfgang aside and sat up. His dark eyes glittered, as if he understood that she expected nothing but the unadulterated truth. “No, I have no desire to explain other than to say you should never remove it. Ever. Not even when showering.”

She wasn’t sure whether to smile or go all Spanish inquisition on him. He took the question literally and avoided answering. It almost seemed like he knew she’d whammied him with her special voice earlier.

“I believe you wished to examine my injury?” A smooth change in subject. He scratched Wolfgang’s head when the cat butted his hand. “It troubles me that my leg remains numb.”

“Right. Drop your sweats. Cover up any bits and pieces that aren’t your hurt leg.” Quinn grabbed the afghan monstrosity she’d crocheted in her failed attempt to craft from the other end of the couch and tossed it at him. She spun and faced the hearth, giving him her back, trying not to picture him stripping only feet away.

“Scandalized by nudity?” A definite smirk entered his voice, joined by the soft rustle of material as he obeyed. “Is that why you quit the nursing program?”

“Totally. I couldn’t handle all the dangly body parts, not to mention the blood, the organs, the bodily fluids.” She grimaced, gazing up at the rafters. Nope, she wouldn’t peek. The heat in her face was from the fire, nothing else. “Bones were the final punch to my delicate sensibilities. That and catheters.”

He made a small noise, possibly a huff, nothing close to the snicker she expected. She got the impression that he didn’t laugh often. A spasm cramped her heart. That seemed so wrong. She’d bet anything that his laugh was as fascinating as the rest of him.

The couch squeaked, indicating movement. “All components are now safely shielded.”

“Super. Some things can’t be unseen, no matter how small.”

“Small?” He sounded bewildered. A low, deep hum followed, maybe a rusty chuckle, but she couldn’t be sure. “Postpone your viewing pleasure if you wish, Quinn.” His voice dropped to a husky murmur. “I’ve mastered the art of patience.”

The warmth in her cheeks spiraled down her body. She faced him full-on and her mouth went dry. Sprawled on the couch like a lazy lion, he made the uneven, multi-colored afghan look perfect for some sort of Playgirl knitting magazine, flashing a window of skin from hip to thigh. Flirting wasn’t helping her cause.

It was time to turn the tables.

“Poor man. Overconfident and insecure. Must be confusing.” She skirted the coffee table and kneeled close to his exposed leg, keeping her focus on the gash. The proximity was too dangerous for eye contact. “No wonder Steph talked you into her sad scheme, and you wound up lost in the wilds of Montana during a blizzard.”

“Injured, not lost.” His large hands laced across his belly, an almost relaxed pose, except for the tense white of his scarred piano player fingers. “I know where I am.”

Quinn had the strangest impression he wasn’t talking about location. She leaned over his knee where the slash ended. Examining an injury on an unconscious Zaire had been distracting enough, but awake? Intimate. Details jumped to life. The dusting of dark hair on his thigh. The active-male-defined lines of his quadriceps. The strange, silver, half-circle scars scattered everywhere. He smelled of the outdoors, of pine trees and crisp winter air. And she had to touch him.

Conversation. She needed conversation.

“How did this happen, again?” She winced at her throaty, bedroom voice. “Some unhappy and unsatisfied client stalk you here for some revenge?” She gingerly pressed her thumbs to each side of the gash, avoiding the silver scars. The skin was inflamed, but nothing more than normal for a shallow slice.

“An unfortunate knife accident.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with knives? Good thing I removed the danger.” She grinned without looking at him. “Does it hurt when I touch it?”

“No, Quinn.” His whisper was darkly hypnotic, low and intimate. No one had ever said her name like that, all moonlight and seduction.

She lifted her gaze to his, a tactical error. His black eyes burned, searing all the way to her toes. This man knew how to put on a convincing presentation. If she didn’t know this was all a ruse set up by Steph, she’d be an easy victim.

“I bet you don’t get turned down much, do you?” Quinn refused to look away. Any sign of weakness would only encourage him, and two could play this game.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“I bet all you have to do is show up, and women pant after you.” She eased closer to him, dropping her attention to his mouth. His full, delicious, sinful mouth. She wouldn’t crack. A few inches from his face, Quinn licked her lips.

His breath hitched.

Oh, yeah. He was good. She hoped Steph had paid out the nostrils for him. “Zaire?”

He swallowed audibly and dropped his chin. “Yes, Quinn?”

“I came to Montana to be alone. If you weren’t injured, you’d be limping out the door and back to your fraternity or psych classes or Hot Guy for Hire business, wherever you happened to come from.” She trailed a finger along the rough stubble on his jaw. Not following up with a kiss took every ounce of Carmichael willpower. “I’ll help with your leg if I can, but that’s all you’re getting from me.”

“That is more than I deserve.” He reached out, hesitated, then grasped her hand and pressed his velvety mouth to the inside of her wrist in a soft, branding kiss, his intense gaze on her. His eyes glittered like obsidian in starlight.

Exactly like the boy’s from her dream sometimes did.

Everything inside her went still. She could barely breathe, and speaking took sheer determination. “Have we met before?”

He dropped her hand. His jaw clenched, and all softness in his expression fled. He looked like he’d rather stab himself than respond, but he’d promised to answer truthfully and there was no reneging, not with her. “Not…before.”

Her head felt like it was floating away from her body, and her heart couldn’t pump the blood fast enough to keep up. Her initial instincts had been right. Zaire was him, the boy from her dreams, impossibly real, improbably here. But she needed to hear him say it, to confirm that she wasn’t crazy. “Not before what?”

“Ignorance, Quinn,” he said through gritted teeth, as though fighting to hold words back. “Consider the risk carefully before demanding this answer.”

Her hands shook. “I’ve been waiting my entire life for this answer.”

He blinked at her, and for a moment, longing and regret played across his face, but the pain in his eyes burned like flames. “We have never met in person.” His voice was shadow-soft. “Not before the storm.”

She swallowed, holding his gaze. The simple way he phrased it screamed of secrets, but asking directly would threaten the importance she placed on his presence. She needed him to confess it, a confirmation that he’d been in her nightmares with her all those years ago. That he remembered, and that it meant something to him, too. “Never met…in person?”

He sucked in a long breath, released it, and closed his eyes. “No.”

Wolfgang, still on his chest, hissed, his eyes trained on the kitchen entrance. A low, warning growl rumbled from her cat, and he hunched, back arched, tail fluffed to twice its size.

An acrid smell laced the air, and she sniffed. “Do you smell smoke?”

Zaire didn’t answer, his gaze following Wolfgang’s.

Quinn turned toward the doorway. White wisps curled in the den entrance and took human shape. Cold slithered down her neck and coiled in her stomach. That wasn’t real smoke or steam, but demons in the daytime. She must be worse off than she thought. It looked like Zaire would get his psych class project out of her, after all.

In a split-second move, Zaire sat up, dislodging a still growling Wolfgang. He jerked his sweats up, grabbed the crutches, and stood.

Quinn couldn’t stop staring, and it had nothing to do with his squeezable behind within easy reach. He glared at the demon as if he saw the same thing she did. But that was impossible. No one else ever saw her demons.

“Purgatory’s Missing Prince,” the mist said.

All the hair on her arms lifted. Its voice sounded wrong, sibilant, a snake capable of human speech.

“I truly detest that name,” Zaire said, low and malicious.

She fumbled to sit on the coffee table, her legs trembling. He heard the demon, too. “You’re not talking to me, are you?”

Zaire shook his head once, curtly, never looking away from the mist.

The haze in the doorway firmed and filled out into an unfamiliar man in a knit hat, green parka, and sensible snow boots. His eyes gleamed with cold interest, the sole emotion in his features. She could’ve sworn his tongue flicked between his lips, there and gone, as he gave Zaire a quick, assessing sweep. “Injured, brother?”

Brother? They looked nothing alike.

“Not injured enough.” Zaire straightened, his expression set on death stare.

A cold needle speed-stitched down her spine. Zaire’s voice was straight from a nightmare. Not injured enough for what?

The guy near the door flicked out his tongue again. His gaze slipped past Zaire and landed on her, and a predatory gleam lit his eyes. In the next breath, he melted back into mist and vanished.

Quinn blinked at the empty space where he’d been. Delusion. This had to be a delusion.

The mist reappeared right in front of her. And shot into her mouth and up her nose.

As she crashed onto her back, cold burning her sinuses, something that sounded suspiciously like a roar erupted. There was nothing physical to fight off. The demon was inside her, clawing for her brain.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head violently, but he was like an insect in her ear, burrowing ever deeper. “Get out.” She panted, squirming against the drill driving through her skull. There was nowhere to go to escape herself. “Getoutgetoutgetout!”

She vaguely registered Zaire crouched over her, cupping her face between his large hands. Brutally, he held her head still while the rest of her writhed. The heat of his hands couldn’t breach the chill of her skin.

The invading presence collected at the base of her neck and knifed up into her head. White-hot agony exploded, and she screamed. Zaire’s face above hers blurred and dimmed as her mind was ripped apart from the inside, layer by layer.

Zaire whispered, his words unintelligible, yet even through the blinding pain, the sense of other rattled her bones. The language he used belonged to another place, another time, another world, and as the pain took her, her deepest regret was that she wouldn’t last long enough to find out more.

The blades in her skull vanished. A white orb hovered in the air for a second and then streaked away.

Quinn sucked in a breath and curled into a ball, shaking. Zaire’s warmth licked at her back, a sharp contrast to the icy beads of sweat prickling over her skin. Her muscles ached, and a dull throb echoed in her head, neck, and heart. Despite a life spent fighting demons in her dreams and delusions in the day, she’d never been a victim of possession.

It might be time to reassess her action plan.

Zaire’s heat faded. Seconds later, a muffled bark of pain erupted in another room, followed by a thud. She managed to roll onto her back when he returned to her side. He brushed curls away from her eyes, his fingers a cool, soothing balm on her fevered skin.

“Your French sucks,” she wheezed. Humor seemed the best avenue after an unexpected possession and exorcism in less than five minutes. “I couldn’t understand a word you said.”

His tiniest of smiles was brief and bitter.

“After everything I just went through, that deserved at least a pity laugh.” She held his gaze, not sure she had the strength to sit up yet. Her skull still ached from the phantom spikes. “He wasn’t really your brother, was he?”

“I have no brothers.” Shadows darkened his eyes to bottomless pits, erasing any lingering doubts she still had about his identity. This man before her was the same boy from her nightmares, the one who’d silently protected her from his hiding spot in the darkness. She needed him to admit it, to make it real, but…what if he didn’t mention it because he didn’t remember? Her heart twisted, a sharp, quick tug. Or because she wasn’t as important to him as he was to her?

“Who was he?” She swallowed hard, suddenly and fiercely aware that he was no longer a boy, no longer in her dream, no longer safe. Whatever he was mixed up with was both dangerous and paranormal. And she sensed the next fork in her life path hinged on him. “What was he?”

He paused, his mouth tight. “He was the reason I’m here. I was sent to find him and return him to my…employer.”

Only a beat passed between the last two words, long enough to get that employer wasn’t the correct description. She didn’t have the brainpower to figure out that mystery right now.

She eased to a seated position, refusing to let the dizziness win as the room tipped. “Was?”

His expression was unreadable as she used his shoulder to hoist herself to her feet. He didn’t move to help her, but he shivered beneath her hand. She didn’t ask him to clarify, and for once, she suspected that they were on the same wavelength.

He didn’t carry all those dark, wicked knives to look badass. He used them to kill.