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“You little tease.” She laughed. “I knew you never really hated me.”

And with that, she lifted herself from my lap and strode toward the front door, snatching up her pants from the couch along the way. When she turned back to face me, her eyes were blazing gold against the fire of her hair. As I stared at her, my jaw dropped, and I was barely able to process what the fuck just happened.

“Um…” she actually had the audacity to look uncomfortable for a moment, “… thanks for fixing me up.” Then the grin was back. “You taste good, gorgeous. We should do this again sometime without the bullets.”

As the door closed behind her and the shock wore off, the rage began to build again in my gut.

ILSA

It’s usually me. I’m the one to walk out after anything intimate. But having it done to me? That wasn’t sitting well, grating against me like nails on a chalkboard as I stayed exactly as she had left me, too stunned to move for several minutes.

Still tasting her on my tongue.

What the hell did Ray think she was doing? Simply proving a point she held some power over me? That the entire time I wasn’t a threat to her?

In the beginning, I wanted to take her down. Hell, I had every intention of it. I had literally stabbed her. The realization the silver was nothing but a painful inconvenience to her only served to solidify my resolve she shouldn’t be here and needed to be stopped.

So, why had her fear of killing someone innocent shaken me so much?

Ray had exposed herself to me, a part of her that cared for the innocent, as bizarre as that seems for a demon. Too often I had seen the other side of the coin—people who viewed collateral damage as a necessity to war, casualties which, while unfortunate, couldn’t be avoided because there was abigger pictureto consider. They didn’t see it as another human life lost, as a person with parents, perhaps children, and someone who loved them.

Then there was thisdemon, displaying more humanity than I had seen from a lot of people.

It didn’t make any sense.

After Ray left, my body fought me, and I couldn’t get back to sleep, spending a restless night tossing and turning in bed before giving up and curling up on the floor. A habit I had tried to work myself out of since coming back, but sometimes the unforgiving floor felt more like home than a mattress ever could.

On the floor, I had managed to sleep through most of the day. My sleep pattern was all fucked-up anyway from too long of sleeping through the daytime and going out at night demon hunting. Because apparently, that’s a thing I did now.

Hours of broken slumber were interrupted by thoughts of yellow eyes with black slits for pupils, bright red hair, and lips to match. The nightmares haunted my sleep until the images slipped into recent memories of flesh on flesh, lips on skin, fingers on her, and of wanting to be in her. I had tried to shift Ray’s face from my mind, replace it with Kelly’s or Alex’s, or any other number of women I had been with.

But I couldn’t.

She was a force within me now.

And I hated her for it.

Deciding I needed to dunk my head in a bucket of coffee, and not the shit I kept in the apartment, but actual proper coffee, I dressed without showering and began to wander down the street in the fading light of late afternoon to a local café I had decided to call my regular. The barista was a young man who always looked like he had a world of questions to ask about my injury or my story, but he never did, and I respected that. But he’d hold the door open for me as I left, and whether he was doing it because I was a veteran, because of my injury, because I’m a woman, or simply because he was being nice, I wasn’t sure. But whatever the case, the gesture didn’t go unappreciated.

On my way back, I hadn’t even had a chance to sip the brown gold in the cup when someone said, “Tell her to back the fuck off.”

I spun on my heel, shifting my stance immediately into defensive. As I had passed an alleyway, a man had stepped out and into the light. Quickly, I did a double-take of the street—it was empty. He was talking to me, but why?

“What?” I responded, letting the aggression slide in my tone. Keep them on no uncertain terms—I’m not afraid of you, and I can protect myself.

“Tell her…” he approached in three swift steps, grabbing my wrists when I went to step back from him, the hot coffee I had planned on throwing in his face falling to the ground, “… to back. The. Fuck. Off.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I continued to try to pry his grip from my wrists, using all the weak points I could think of, but he wouldn’t budge, and it was starting to get painful.

“That fucking demon bitch is more trouble than she’s worth, and if she doesn’t stop, she’s going to find herself in a worse place than Hell.”

I froze. Was this the person who had shot her? Why was he confrontingme?

“I don’t know what you want, but I’ve got nothing to do with her, so let me go.”

When another, equally as tall man came up behind me, my attempts to move into a more defensive pose was hindered by the first man’s grip on me. I’m capable, but even I’d have collapsed to the ground after the two punches to my kidneys were it not for the strength of the man still holding me up by my wrists. Gritting my teeth against crying out, I kneed the first man in the groin before flinging my head back and catching the other in the nose with the back of my skull.

While the crunch of the cartilage was audible, the second man simply laughed a deep and dangerous sound that sent a chill up my spine.