Demon Hunting in Dixie

Book 1: Demon Hunting

by Lexi George

Genres: Humor & Satire; Action & Adventure Romance; Fantasy Romance; Paranormal Romance; Shifters

Synopsis

Addy Corwin is a florist with an attitude. A bad attitude, or so her mama says, ’cause she's not looking for a man. Mama's wrong. Addy has looked. There's just not much to choose from in Hannah, her small Alabama hometown. Until Brand Dalvahni shows up, a supernaturally sexy, breathtakingly well-built hunk of a warrior from - well, not from around here, that's for sure. Mama thinks he might be European or maybe even a Yankee. Brand says he's from another dimension. Addy couldn't care less where he's from. He's gorgeous. Serious muscles. Disturbing green eyes. Brand really gets her going. Too bad he's a whack job. Says he's come to rescue her from a demon. Pul-lease. But right after Brand shows up, strange things start to happen. Dogs talk and reanimated corpses stalk the quiet streets of Hannah. Her mortal enemy Meredith, otherwise known as the Death Starr, breaks out in a severe and inexplicable case of butt boils. Addy might not know what's going on, but she definitely wants a certain sexy demon hunter by her side when it all goes down...

Release date: March 22, 2016

Publisher: Jean Webb

Print pages: 384

Sample

Addy glanced up at the rumble of thunder, her pace slowing to a jog. Alabama summers were a pressure cooker of high temperatures and humidity, and thunderstorms came up in a hurry.

“Whatcha think, Dooley, is it gonna rain?”

Dooley whined and tugged at her leash, eager to continue their late-night run in the quiet, gated community they called home.

“Okay, but you’re sleeping in the kitchen if we get wet.” Addy allowed the dog to urge her toward the trees at the end of the park. “Eau de Wet Dawg is not my favorite cologne, especially on my new sheets.”

She set off down the smooth path at a comfortable pace with Dooley panting at her side. Running was her stress reliever. And between owning and operating her own floral business and lending a hand at the family funeral parlor, Addy had a lot of stress.

As they rounded the curve, she eyed the clump of trees ahead with unease. A sense of quiet expectancy had settled over the little park. She and Dooley had made this run a hundred times before, but tonight the cluster of oaks seemed brooding and sinister, the shadows beneath their branches a living, breathing thing. She ran a little faster, anxious to get past the trees and reach the safety of the lights beyond. The steady slap of her running shoes against the pavement and the sound of Dooley’s snuffling seemed loud in the stillness.

She heard a second clap of thunder and skidded to a halt, tightening her grip on the leash. Dooley feared no mailman, but she was a major weenie when it came to thunder. She glanced down, expecting to find the dog trembling with fear. To her surprise, Dooley stood stiff-legged beside her, hackles on end, her unblinking gaze fixed upon the murky thicket. The dog rumbled low in her chest and took off without warning, jerking the leash from Addy’s hand.

“No, Dooley, no!” Addy rubbed her stinging palm against her thigh, watching in growing dismay and dread as the Lab headed straight for the trees and disappeared into the darkness. “Come back here, you stupid mutt!”

“Damn!” She took off at a run after Dooley. “Why couldn’t I have been a cat person?”

She plunged into the woods and faltered. The trees had changed, the dozen or so familiar oaks mushrooming into a forest of birch, elm, maple, beech, and ash. She squinted into the gloom. The trees seemed to be waiting; the forest hushed, but for the steady, faraway sound of Dooley’s barking.

Addy’s heart pounded as she picked her way through the woods. The thick carpet of leaves dulled the sound of her footsteps. Here and there a birch tree shone ghostly white in the darkness. She stumbled over fallen branches and scratched her arms and legs on briars and vines. Muttering under her breath, she pushed her way deeper into the forest. Stubbornness and concern for Dooley were all that kept her moving forward. If she stopped to examine things too closely—like how and why an entire forest of hardwoods had sprung up overnight in the middle of her boring little park—she knew she’d be too scared to go any farther. Better to keep her mind focused on the task ahead. Find Dooley and strangle her. She climbed over a fallen tree trunk and stepped into a clearing. The damn fool dog stood in the middle of the open glade barking like mad at . . . at nothing.

“Shh!” Addy marched up to the dog and tugged on her collar, her unease increasing by the minute. “Stop it, you big doofus. I’m totally creeped out. I want to go home.”

To her chagrin, her voice shook. Her big brother Shep would have a field day if he could see her now. Addy Corwin scared of the dark. She was no stranger to the woods, had tagged along with Shep many a time when he and his buddies went camping, hunting, and fishing. She’d learned to be tough—one of the boys—so he wouldn’t send her home. No whiney pants girly-girl stuff allowed. But this was different. This was wrong.

Something lurked in the surrounding darkness.

It was out there, watching her.

The dog pulled away and growled low in her throat, her gaze on the shadows in front of them.

Addy knelt beside Dooley and laid her hand on the quivering dog. “What is it, girl?”

Unbidden, an old superstition came to mind. Look between a dog’s ears and you can see the devil. Without thinking, she glanced over the top of Dooley’s head into the woods beyond. To her horror, something moved in the trees, a misshapen, undulating form darker than the blackness around it. The smudge of darkness flowed into the clearing, bringing with it a sickening sense of wrongness. Terror slammed through her, white-hot and paralyzing and all too brief, and then the thing was upon her, touching her with clammy, skeletal fingers. Bonechilling cold seeped into her limbs, robbing her body of strength and sapping her will to fight. In the distance, she heard Dooley barking.

A third rumble shook the glade, and the evil being drew back with an angry hiss. The icy grip on Addy’s heart eased, and she slumped to the ground, struggling to draw breath into her shriveled lungs. Dooley whined and stuck her cold nose against Addy’s cheek. She rubbed the dog’s ears with trembling fingers. That horrible thing was gone, thank God, and Dooley was here. Everything was going to be all right.

Some small creature stirred in the underbrush, and Dooley took off like a shot.

Addy sat up with an effort and pushed the hair out of her eyes. Dooley was nowhere to be seen. So much for doggie loyalty. Heart thumping, she looked around. The little clearing was empty, but the evil thing waited in the trees beyond. She could feel it. Addy swallowed the lump of terror clogging her throat. She had to go into those trees to get her dog. Oh, God, she did not want to go in there. But what choice did she have?

None.

Great. Just freaking great.

A tiny pinpoint of light caught her attention. A rectangular opening appeared in mid-air and widened. Blinding light poured into the dark clearing. She blinked at the brightness. A man stood in the doorway, his tall, broad-shouldered form silhouetted by the patch of white light behind him, his face in shadow.

The portal snapped shut behind him. Without warning, the thing from the gloom struck.

“Hey, buddy, watch out behind you!” Addy cried.

To her astonishment, the man drew a flaming sword and spun to meet the attack. The thing screeched and drew back in alarm, circling the warrior warily. Light from the man’s shimmering sword illuminated his face. Above the shining blade his eyes burned like bits of flame in the darkness. Addy gaped at him, too stunned by the sheer beauty of the man to be afraid. Wow, this guy was something else, a study in perfection, his features cold and unyielding, expressionless as carven stone.

I’m dreaming, Addy thought, staring at him in shock. Yeah, that was it. She was dreaming. This could not be real. No one could be that gorgeous.

A flicker of movement drew her attention from Mr. Perfect. A second wraith-like smudge of darkness slid into the clearing, bringing with it the same rotten, soul-sucking sense of evil as the other. Rising on ragged wings, the new attacker swooped down upon the unsuspecting warrior like an evil bird.

Dream or no dream, the hunky guy with the glow-in-the-dark sword was about to get his butt kicked by Mr. Nasty and his creepy sidekick.

Addy leaped to her feet. “Look out, mister! There’s another one.”

He whirled and lifted his sword, impaling the smoky figure upon the blade. The wraith wailed in agony and vanished into the flames. With a furious shriek, the first wraith pushed past Addy and fled into the night. She swayed, staring in shock at the jagged knife of black ice that protruded from her chest. The knife sizzled and dissolved in a puff of oily smoke. Burning cold seeped from the wound and curled around her heart. With a sigh, she slipped into darkness.



Addy awoke on the couch with a groan. Her chest ached and her head throbbed. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her ribs. Stabbing pain? What had happened to the thing in the woods, and how did she get home? And she was home, thank God. The scent of the new pineapplesage candle she’d burned earlier in the evening still hung in the air, and the clock on the mantel ticked its steady rhythm. Dooley whined and licked her hand.

She patted the dog on the head. “Some dream, huh, girl?”

Addy opened her eyes and looked down. A large, charred hole marred the front of her favorite T-shirt and the sports bra she wore underneath. Surely, the freaky little thing in the woods hadn’t been real? Supernatural woo-woo was way out of her league. Who was she kidding? The stuff she’d seen tonight didn’t happen to anybody. It was too Syfy Channel for words.

She nudged the ruined material aside with the tip of one finger. An irregular black mark marred her right breast in the exact spot where Mr. Nasty stabbed her. She was still trying to absorb the ramifications of this discovery when a very deep, very male voice startled her.

“You should rest. I have repaired the damage to your organs from the djegrali blade. You will live, but I fear some of the poison is still in your system.”

Addy shot off the couch like she’d been bitten. The sword-carrying, creature-of-darkness-fighting dude from the park gazed down at her without expression. In the semidarkness he’d been handsome. In the bright light of her living room he was devastating, a god, a wet dream on steroids. Tall and powerfully built, with wide shoulders and a broad chest that tapered down to a lean waist and hips, he was the most handsome man Addy had ever seen. His long, muscular legs were encased in tight-fitting black breeches, and he carried a sword in a sheath across his back. He was also a stranger, a very big stranger, and he stood in her living room.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I am Brand.” He spoke without inflection. “I am a Dalvahni warrior. I hunt the djegrali.”

“Of course you do.” Hoo boy, the guy was obviously a nut case. Real movie star material, with his shoulder-length black hair and disturbing green eyes, but a whack job nonetheless. Addy grabbed the back of the couch for support as a wave of dizziness assailed her. “That would explain the flaming sword and the medieval getup you’re wearing. Nice meeting you, Mr. . . . uh . . . Brand.” She flapped her hand in the general direction of the door. “If you don’t mind, I’m a little freaked out. I’d like you to leave.”

“I cannot leave. The djegrali that attacked you will return.”

Addy clung to the couch for dear life as the room began to spin. “Look, I appreciate the thought, but I’ll be fine. Really.” She closed her eyes briefly and opened them again. “Dooley will protect me.”

He crossed his arms on his chest, his expression impassive. “Dooley? You refer, I presume, to the animal that led me to this dwelling?”

This guy was unbelievable. His superior attitude was starting to tick her off.

“The ‘animal’ is a dog and, yeah, I mean her.”

“This I cannot allow.” He spoke with the same irritating calm. Dooley, the traitor, ambled across the room and sat at the man’s feet, gazing up at him in adoration. “She would not be able to defend you against the djegrali.”

“Cannot allow—” Addy stopped and took a deep breath. She was dealing with a lunatic. He wouldn’t leave, and she couldn’t run. She was too woozy to make it to the door. Best to remain calm and not set the guy off. Besides, the spike in her blood pressure made the dizziness worse. “Okay, I’ll bite. What exactly is this juh-whats-a-doodle thing you keep talking about?”

“The djegrali are demons.” He raised his brows when she gave him a blank stare. “Evil spirits. Creatures of dark—”

“I know what a demon is.” The guy thought he was a demon chaser, for Pete’s sake. “Okay, just for grins, let’s say this demon business is for real. What’s it got to do with me?”

“The demon has marked you. He will return. He will be unable to resist.”

“Oh, great, so now I’m irresistible. Just my luck he’s the wrong kind of guy. Don’t worry, I’ve got a thirty-eight, and like any good Southern girl I know how to use it, so you can leave.” She waved her hand toward the door again. “I’ll be fine. If this demon fellow shows up, I’ll blow his raggedy butt to kingdom come.”

The corner of his lips twitched, and for a moment she thought he might smile.

“You cannot kill a djegrali with a mortal weapon.”

“I’ll rush out first thing tomorrow morning and get me one of those flamey sword things, I promise.”

Again with the lip twitch. “That will not be necessary. I will protect you.”

“Oh, no, you won’t!” Addy straightened with an effort. Her chest still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. “I’d never be able to explain you to my mama.”

“This mama you speak of, she is the female vessel who bore you?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t call her a vessel to her face, if I were you.”

“You fear her?”

Addy rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? The woman scares the crap out of me. Thirty-two hours of labor, and don’t you ever forget it,” she mimicked. “You owe me. Big time.”

The eye-rolling thing was a mistake, because the room started to spin again.

“The mama will not be a problem,” he said.

“You’re darn tootin’ the mama won’t be a problem, ’cause you’re not going to be here!”

She stepped away from the couch, and her knees buckled.

One moment he was across the room, his shoulder against the wall, the picture of aloof boredom, and the next she was in his arms. She closed her eyes and swallowed a sigh as she was lifted against his hard chest. The man sure had muscles, she’d give him that.

“You will recline, at once.” His tone was stern.

Okay, muscles and a few control issues.

She opened her eyes as he lowered her to the couch and saw a grimace of pain flash across his features. It was the first expression of any kind she’d seen on his face, unless you counted the lip twitch thing. The man could give a marble statue lessons in being stoic.

She caught his arm as he started to rise. “That thing hurt you!”

He stilled, his gaze on her fingers wrapped around his wrist. “You are mistaken. The djegrali did not injure me. It is your touch that disturbs me.”

Addy stiffened and drew back. “Well, excuse the hell out of me.”

He caught her by the hand. “You misunderstand. You do not repulse me.”

He knelt beside her, put his fingers under her chin, and tilted her face with gentle fingers. Addy stifled a gasp. Who was this guy? The merest touch from him and her breasts tingled and she felt hot and wobbly inside. What was the matter with her?

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Sweet Sister Ruth, he had a voice like whiskey and smoke. She shivered and raised her eyes to his. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, a rapt expression on his face. His thumb drifted lower to brush her bottom lip. “You must be patient with me, Adara Jean Corwin. The Dalvahni do not experience emotion. It would be superfluous. We exist for one purpose and one purpose alone, to hunt the djegrali. For ten thousand years, that has been my objective, until now.”

“Ten thousand years, huh?” With an effort, she squelched the sudden urge to scrape the pad of his thumb with her teeth. No doubt about it, she was in hormonal meltdown. “Sounds boring. You need to get a new hobby, expand your horizons.”

“Earth is but one of the realms where the Dalvahni hunt the djegrali.”

Oh, brother, too bad. He was paying a visit to schizoid-land again. Then the impact of his words percolated through the fog of lust that set her brain and her body on fire.

“Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t tell you my name!”

“The animal you call Dooley informed me of many things, including how to find this dwelling.”

“You don’t say? Funny, she’s never said a thing to me in four years.”

He put his hand on her shoulder when she tried to sit up. “You will not rise,” he said with annoying calm.

“Oh, yeah? That’s what you think, bub.”

She pushed at his arm, an exercise in futility. The man was built like the proverbial brick outhouse.

His hand still rested on her shoulder, his thumb lightly tracing the line of her collarbone. A shiver of awareness shot through her. She liked his touch. She liked it too much. This would not do. All her life she’d struggled to control her reckless nature, the wild streak that was Mama’s despair. Think first and feel later. That was her hard-earned mantra, but this guy . . . This guy really got her going. The merest brush of his fingers, and she was ready to throw caution to the winds. She wanted his hands on her, all of her.

A stranger’s hands. What was happening to her?

“Dooley, come here,” he said.

The dog rose and trotted over to the couch.

“Speak, Dooley,” Brand said, his gaze on Addy’s face.

“Dooley love Addy. Love, love, love,” the Lab said in the growly voice of a three-pack-a-day smoker. She flung up a back paw to scratch her ear. “Can Dooley have chicken leg in cold box? Can Dooley?” Her head snapped around. “Oh, look, a bug!”

There was a long moment of silence as Addy gaped at her dog in shock. Slowly, she raised her eyes to Brand’s. “Who are you?”

A slight crease appeared between Brand’s brows. The expression in his eyes grew puzzled. “Until tonight, I thought I knew.”

Lowering his dark head, he kissed her.

Never been kissed . . .

The thought spun through Addy’s mind as Brand’s lips met hers. Lightning streaked along her nerve endings, and her toes curled. Good grief, her toes curled.

This was beyond absurd. A thousand giddy butterflies did the happy dance inside her stomach, and the man had barely touched her. She was a grown woman. She’d been kissed lots of times. Why . . . ?

The tip of Brand’s tongue touched the corner of her mouth, and she forgot everything else. He traced a lazy path across her bottom lip, tasting her, his touch leisurely, lingering, as if he wanted to memorize the shape and texture of her mouth.

Oh, Lord. Addy’s thoughts grew hazy. Maybe she only thought she’d been kissed. Heavens, but the man had a wicked mouth! The glide of his lips across hers was sinful, exquisite. Giving in to the heady temptation, she sighed and kissed him back. Their tongues danced together, warm velvet on warm velvet. She licked his firm bottom lip.

He groaned and cupped the back of her head in his hands, deepening the kiss. Tearing his mouth from hers, he rained a trail of hot kisses down her throat and across her chest. He paused when he reached the spot where she had been stabbed. He murmured something indistinct and pushed aside the edge of her ruined shirt to lick the dark mark on her breast. Addy gasped and arched her back, wanting more, wanting everything.

“If you would disengage your mouth from the female, we could converse,” a bored voice came from behind them.

Addy shrieked and tumbled off the couch, landing in a heap at Brand’s feet. A flaxen-haired man with silver eyes stood in the middle of her living room. Instead of a sword he carried a long bow and a quiver of arrows. Like Brand, he was tall and muscular and drop-dead gorgeous. Also like Brand’s, his handsome features formed an expressionless mask.

Brand lifted Addy to her feet and stepped in front of her. “What brings you here, Ansgar?”

His calm, detached tone hit Addy like a bucket of ice water, cooling her ardor in an instant. He spoke without inflection, no trace of his earlier passion discernible in his deep voice. She’d been on the verge of doing the horizontal mambo with a stranger, and the guy in question was, from all appearances, unaffected. Cool as a cucumber, a regular the-ice-man-cometh not!

How. Humiliating.

Seething with mortification, she stepped around Brand. “Look here, Mr. Ansgar, I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, but I want you to get out of this ho—”

She froze, her eyes widening. Dooley hung suspended a few inches off the floor, caught in mid-pounce. The dog’s ears were perked, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth like a big pink snail.

“Dooley, baby,” Addy cried.

She stumbled over to the dog on wobbly legs and ran her fingers through Dooley’s thick yellow fur. The Lab felt warm but stiff as a board to the touch. Addy found a heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief. She stroked Dooley’s head. No response. The dog wore the same frozen look of surprise as the deer her brother Shep shot and had mounted on his den wall.

Addy glared at the two Adonises who’d invaded her living room. Anger sizzled through her veins. She rose to her feet, her earlier dizziness forgotten. “What the hell did you do to my dog?”

The man called Ansgar flicked a look of cool disinterest in her direction. “I silenced it. Such creatures are annoying and invariably noisy.”

Addy pointed a shaking finger at the front door. “Out. Both of you.”

“The djegrali—” Brand said.

“I don’t give a rat’s behind about your demonic little buddy.” Outrage seethed in Addy’s veins, making her feel stronger. “I want you two bozos out of this house. Now.”

“Bozo?” The blond hunk looked thoughtful. “This appellation is unfamiliar to me. Is this a term used to signify hunters in this realm?”

“It’s a term signifying I’m going to get my gun if you don’t leave, and pronto.”

Ansgar raised a brow. “You refer, I assume, to the metal tube you grasp?”

Addy looked down. She balanced a shotgun in her hands. The wooden stock felt cool against her palm. She broke open the gun. It was loaded with bird shot.

“Yeah, that would be the one.” She closed the shotgun with a snap and pointed it at the two men. “Get out.”

Brand and Ansgar exchanged glances and strode toward the door.

“Hold your horses, Blondy!” The big blond turned, and Addy jerked a thumb in Dooley’s direction. “What about my dog?”

“I would advise against releasing the creature,” he said. “It is bound to create a disturbance.”

“And I would advise you to un-whammy my dog.” Addy swung the barrel of the shotgun toward him. “Or else. It’s been a long night, and I’m starting to get a little cranky.”

He looked at her without blinking for a long moment and waved his hand at Dooley. Dooley landed on the carpet and erupted in a frenzy of barking.

“Obnoxious, is it not?” Ansgar’s expression was pained. “You cannot say I did not warn you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you told me.” Addy waved the shotgun in the general direction of the door. “Beat it, both of you.”

The two men walked out of the house without a word. With a final triumphant woof, Dooley ran to the door and sniffed. Satisfied she had done her duty, the dog trotted up and nudged Addy’s leg with her nose.

Addy dropped the gun. It hit the floor with a dull thud.

“That’s telling ’em, Dooley,” she said, staring at the door with a pang of regret.

Brand left, without saying good-bye. Waggle a shotgun in a guy’s face, threaten him with a little mayhem, and he ran fast enough to make a girl’s head spin. Well, who needed him?

Staggering to the door, Addy flipped the dead bolt and made her way through the living room. What a night. She felt drained and exhausted. She needed a hot shower followed by the bed. She got all the way to the bedroom before it hit her.

She didn’t own a shotgun.



Brand stood in the shadows watching the house. Long minutes passed, the night quiet but for the rustle of the wind in the leaves and the soft chirruping of insects.

“The human interests you?” Ansgar asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes.”

“You have lived a hundred of her lifetimes. She is but a child.”

Brand thought of Addy’s soft lips moving beneath his, the feel of her smooth skin against his palms. He itched to touch her again. Adara Jean Corwin might be many things, but she was no child.

“If it is emptiness you seek, why not avail yourself of a thrall?” Ansgar persisted. “Is that not their purpose?”

Brand’s gaze moved to the back of the house. A shapely form passed briefly in front of the curtained window and disappeared. “Perhaps it is not emptiness I seek.”

“The emptiness serves its purpose, our purpose. We can ill afford distractions . . . no matter how tempting the distraction might be.”

Ah, so Ansgar found the human enticing also.

Something hot and unfamiliar unfurled inside Brand.

He gave the other warrior a cold look. “You have not answered my question, Ansgar. Why are you here?”

Ansgar ran a loving hand along the curve of his bow. “I tracked my quarry to this place and lost it. I sensed the presence of another hunter and sought you out. What brings you to this place?”

“I followed two of the djegrali to this realm. One I slew, the other escaped, wounding the female human in the doing of it.”

Ansgar grunted. “Three djegrali in one locus—odd, is it not? What do you think it means?”

“I do not know.”

“You mean to linger here?”

“I do.”

“Is that wise?”

Brand shifted his gaze to the other man. “The djegrali marked the female. It will return. When it does, I will be waiting.”

“So, you mean to use the human as bait.” Ansgar nodded in understanding.

Brand turned back to the house. “What else?”

“For a moment, I thought . . .” Ansgar shrugged. “No matter. It is a good plan. I will leave you to it then. To the hunt.”

He raised a hand in farewell and vanished.

Brand studied the house for a long moment. “To the hunt,” he said softly.



Addy made her way to the bathroom. Her chest still ached, but some of the dizziness was gone and she felt stronger. She took out her contacts and got into the shower, letting the warm water ease the tension from her muscles. It had been a hell of a night, and her nerves were worked. There was a rational explanation for what happened tonight—what she thought had happened tonight—wasn’t there?

Uninvited, an image rose in her mind of the thing in the woods, its black scabrous hands reaching for her. The bathroom door banged open, and Addy jumped. She whirled around in the shower, lost her balance, and scrambled to keep a foothold on the slippery tile. She squinted and tried to focus her nearsighted eyes on the new threat. Instead of a soul-sucking fiend, she spied a familiar buttery blob through the glass shower door.

“Dooley Anne!” Addy clutched her chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack!” She opened the shower door a crack. “Nothing to say for yourself, huh? Good, ’cause you sure had plenty to say a little while ago. I gotta tell you, it seriously freaked me out. I guess that Brand fellow hypnotized me. I mean, it’s not like dogs can talk, right?”

Dooley wagged her tail in answer and trotted out of the bathroom and into the adjoining bedroom. She sat down near Addy’s queen-size bed, her ears perked at attention and her gaze on something only she could see.

Addy shut the shower door with a shake of her head. The Lab had an unnerving habit of staring at nothing. “Dooley-vision,” she muttered.

Her Aunt Muddy said dogs could see things that humans could not, like spirits . . . or demons.

She shivered, then reached for the bar of soap. As the sponge glided over her wet body, she closed her eyes and allowed the soothing scent of lavender and chamomile to dispel her dark thoughts.



Brand waved his hand and the dead bolt turned with a satisfying snick. The door to Addy’s house swung open. He frowned. The djegrali could have done the same thing with ease. The woman needed a keeper. He set a number of protective spells around the property’s perimeter to alert him to the demon’s presence and stepped inside the house. He stood in the darkness for a moment, listening. Faint sounds and a sliver of light drew him to the back of the dwelling. Silent as a shadow, he entered the bedroom and looked around. A large bed stood against one wall, the coverlet turned back to reveal green and white linens. Overhead a ceiling fan lazily stirred the air.

From the adjoining room he heard the unmistakable sound of flowing water. The dog trotted into the bedroom, and Brand mentally kicked himself. He had made himself invisible to humans, but he’d forgotten about the animal. Dooley’s eyes lit up when she saw him. She sprang forward, her ears cocked in recognition. He raised an admonishing finger, and she swallowed her yip of welcome and sat down on the carpet. Wagging her tail, she gave him a doggie grin. Satisfied he had the animal under control, Brand glanced through the open door into the connecting room and received a shock. Addy stared back at him from the other room . . . some kind of bathing chamber, he realized dimly, unable to take his eyes off her. She could not see him—her gaze was on the dog—but he could see her, every delectable inch of her. She was naked, utterly, gloriously naked. The water coursed down her satin skin, and her wet hair hung in damp curls against the nape of her neck. She gave Dooley a nervous look and resumed her bath. Brand eyed her hungrily, drinking in the tantalizing view of her backside. A wave of lust hit him that nearly brought him to his knees. Perhaps Ansgar was right, he thought through a haze of desire. He should have availed himself of a thrall. Such strong emotion could not be productive.

Addy turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He caught a brief glimpse of damp, gleaming skin.

“Thanks, hound doggie, for letting in all the cold air,” she