Page 7 of My Demon Hunter (Hell Bent #2)

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K N OW YOUR E N EMY

H e’s here and everything’s fine. You don’t have to wait around if you don’t want to.

Iris Donovan wasn’t going anywhere. She’d insisted on staying close by during her sister’s date, and she wasn’t changing her mind. Lily called her paranoid, but she had a damn good reason to be—even if her twin didn’t know it.

Since the day they’d left Ireland, she’d made it her mission to continue her parents’ work and keep herself and her sister safe. The guilt of lying ate her up inside, but she didn’t see a way out. She was in too deep to go back now.

So, she sat her arse down on a swing in the park at the end of Lily’s block, slapped her headphones over her ears, and got busy getting fired up to the best band of all time: Rage Against the Machine. Hood up, head down, she loitered in the park like a regular juvenile delinquent.

She was a chick with blue hair and tattoos who liked angry music.

Call her cliché—she didn’t give a fuck.

All she knew was that Rage made her feel invincible. Listening to them made her feel like she could launch fire from her fingertips and chop the heads off demons. She would be forever grateful to that band for giving her the strength to get through some pretty dark times in her life.

Her phone buzzed in her hand with another text from Lily. Btw, what’s that ward you put above my door supposed to do?

Immediately, Iris’s heart started pounding, and her anxieties went spiraling. Why would Lily be asking that right now? She tensed to leap from the swing and rush to her sister’s rescue but stopped and forced herself to think rationally.

She needed to chill. She was riding a fine line with her overprotectiveness, and if she pushed too hard, at some point her twin would start pushing back. And maybe Lily was just asking out of curiosity. Her sister’s instincts were good. If she was concerned, she would have said something.

It’s a signal ward that warns you if you’re in the presence of supernatural beings , Iris texted back. Why are you asking that right now?

Pleased with her reasonable response, she decided to give Lily five minutes to reply before she freaked out. So she cranked up Rage again and tried to relax.

A moment later, the sharp scent of cigarette smoke snagged her attention. She was always on her guard, so, without changing her position on the swing, she paused the music to listen to her surroundings.

Peeking around the edge of her hood, she saw a guy making his way across the park toward her. Clad in a baggy tank top and high-top Nikes, a backward hat on his head, he looked as much a delinquent as she did. Somewhere in her mind, the part of her that dwelled on deep shit wondered how much of it was an act for him too.

He stopped under the glow of a streetlamp, and she got her first proper look at him in the light. Her eyes widened in appreciation.

Damn, he was built. And he was covered in tattoos. Not just his arms, or even the odd bold one on his neck or hand. Covered. Every available inch of his skin. Even half of his face.

It was fucking hot.

The sound of a tinny phone speaker exploding with angry hip-hop suddenly filled the night, and she smiled to herself. A man of fine taste, evidently. He balanced his cigarette between sexy lips—made sexier by the snake-bite piercings on the lower—and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

She pretended to be busy on her own phone so the stranger wouldn’t think she was eavesdropping if he looked over. For some reason, it was important that she overheard what he said on the phone. Or maybe it was just because the guy was fine as hell and she didn’t get out enough.

She wasn’t going to approach him or anything—she wasn’t looking to date or even hook up. Lord knew she needed a break from men after finally cutting Antoine out of her life. She’d only just gotten her flat back, and poor Grimalkin was still traumatized from their break-up fight.

“Where the fuck are you?” the stranger said into the phone, and Iris fought the urge to fan herself.

What could she say? Foul-mouthed, tattooed jerks were her kryptonite.

“I don’t give a fuck. Get your ass over here. I’m bored shitless.”

God, she was getting turned on just listening to him swear like a trucker.

“I know it’s stupid, but I told Mist I’d hang out nearby while he was on his date in case he started sniffing her or something and I needed to do damage control.” He dragged on the cigarette. “Fuck you, I’m not being nice . I’m just being... helpful. Shut up.”

Iris stiffened. Mist happened to be the unusual name of Lily’s date, and the very reason she was hanging out in this park alone in the first place. So was he friends with this guy then? She didn’t like the idea of Lily dating a guy whose friends had face tats.

And why would Face Tats think he’d need to do damage control? Her eyes narrowed. This Mist bloke better not mess with her sister or she was going to make him regret it.

She sent another text to Lily, starting to lose the battle against her need to panic. She still hadn’t found out why she was suddenly asking about the wards, after all. Did something happen? Are you okay? Answer me right now or I’m coming over.

Lily’s response came almost immediately. No, don’t come! I asked because the ward is dark red, but I thought it was black before. I’m obviously imagining things. Please don’t panic because everything is fine. Gotta go!

Meanwhile, Face Tats was still talking on the phone. “That shit about Paimon fucked me up. I know this doesn’t help him in the grand scheme of things, but I had to do something, you know?”

The world ground to a sudden halt as several things sunk in at once. The bastard had just name-dropped Paimon. And Lily’s signal ward had turned red.

Paimon = demon. Red = demon.

Motherfucking demons .

There was a demon in her sister’s apartment, and, in all likelihood, another standing right in front of her.

They’d been found. After all these years of hiding and all the precautions she’d taken, the wards, the bindings, the rituals... they’d been found.

She was out of the swing and running toward Lily’s place before her next breath.

Lily marched down the hall, pissed at her sister and more turned on than she’d ever been in her life. Her heart was racing, her body temperature at a thousand degrees, and the hottest man she had ever seen was standing in her kitchen.

So what if he was a little feral. The whole sniffing and biting thing was really doing it for her.

She threw open the door. “Why are you here? I told you I was fine!”

Iris pushed back her hood, and Lily did a double take at the genuine fear in her eyes. “The ward is red? Are you sure?”

“It was more burgundy than red, but yeah. Why does that matter right— Hey!”

Iris grabbed her arm and yanked her outside, slamming the front door behind her.

Before Lily had a chance to react, Iris dabbed the tip of her already bloody finger onto the center of a new ward on the front door.

“What the hell?” The mad witch must have been lurking outside drawing the sigil before she’d knocked. “What on earth are you doing?”

“If the signal ward turned red, it means there’s a demon in your house.”

Lily scoffed even as part of her went cold. “That’s ridiculous. Mist is—”

“A bloody demon , Lil. There was another one with face tats in the park too. I overheard him talking on the phone. He mentioned Paimon, who is a crazy powerful—”

“You’re unbelievable!” Lily threw up her hands. “I can’t believe you would show up here and interrupt my first date in years with your paranoid delusions! It’s like you want me to be miserable and alone forever.”

“I’m not delusional, Lil! He’s a demon. The ward doesn’t lie. If it’s red, there’s a demon in your house. Period. And I just trapped it.” She pointed to the sigil on the door.

“You... what?”

“I trapped it.”

“You trapped it?”

Iris nodded, a malicious glint in her eye. “It’s only a single-level prison ward, since I didn’t have time to run around the block to get the back door, but it should be strong enough. As soon as you came out, I activated it with my blood. The demon is trapped inside.”

Lily stared at her sister with her mouth open.

“Do you know what this means, Lil?” Her eyes flared with perverted excitement. “I’ve caught a real live demon. And I’m going to find a way to kill it.”

No. This was too much. Iris had gone too far. Even if Mist was a demon, which Lily highly doubted, there was no way she was letting her twin kill him in cold blood.

They had good cause to be fearful, however. Humans were under the protection of Heaven unless they chose to dabble in the supernatural, like practitioners. Blood-born witches, on the other hand, were considered supernatural beings and were therefore ineligible for heavenly protection from birth, thanks to whatever was in their blood that gave them their abilities.

It didn’t help that there was an old myth that stated the original blood-borns came from the offspring of a human and a demon—an impossibility, since demons weren’t capable of procreation.

Whatever the case, demons could kill witches without breaking rules, and Heaven would not intervene.

If Mist was a demon, it meant he’d come into her life with some ulterior motive to lie and trick her. And if he discovered what she was, he could kill her simply because it entertained him. The thought froze her blood and broke her heart at the same time.

But she still didn’t wish him dead, and she didn’t condone murder of any kind. Of any creature. Call her weak, spineless, whatever. She wasn’t a killer, and she wasn’t letting Iris travel down that path.

“Iris, listen to me,” she began, head spinning. “You can’t just—”

She trailed off as the front door opened.

Mist stood there, looking between them, the lily she’d given him still in his hand.

She and Iris froze. How much had he overheard? Was he really a demon? Would he try to attack them?

But he couldn’t because of the prison ward. He was trapped, which she wasn’t sure was a good thing. If there was any way to piss off a demon, that was it.

He lifted a hand, and she flinched. Except he stopped with his palm flat and almost seemed to be miming an invisible wall—

The barrier. As his palm connected, the energy warped around it. Green light flashed where he made contact—the color of Temporal magic. Though indiscernible to the untrained eye, both Lily and Iris could see the shimmering of the ward’s force field.

Oh god, he really was a demon.

He pushed against the barrier. They both tensed as it flexed outward, but it held.

“You’re trapped.” Iris’s voice was hard, but the slightest tremor betrayed her nerves. “If you want to make it out of this alive, you’d better tell me who the fuck you are and what you want with my sister.”

Mist said nothing, gaze fixed on Iris with a penetrating stare, head cocked slightly. He dropped his hand and stepped forward.

Leaning one shoulder against the barrier, he pushed again. Green light traveled down his arm—the ward was electrocuting him. The pain must have been excruciating, but a muscle ticking in his jaw was the only indication of discomfort he allowed.

“You won’t be able to break it,” Iris said. “So you might as well give u—”

He pushed through.

His shoulder gave way first, and he stumbled a little. Then, steadying himself, he stepped over the threshold and stopped on the welcome mat, staring them down.

Iris made a choking sound. “H-how...?”

Amber eyes that were far too bright fixed on Iris’s stunned face. Lily’s heart pounded so loudly it was hard to hear anything else.

“It would take far stronger wards than that to trap me, witch.”

His eyes flashed, and for a second, yellow bled into the rest of them, filling the white completely. Then he looked at Lily, who stood rooted in place, speechless and terrified.

Except, his expression... There was something so tormented in his eyes, it made tears spring into the corners of hers.

Which was absurd. A demon had kissed her, and this was her reaction? To want to cry because he looked sad? But she couldn’t help it, couldn’t stifle the ache that sprang up in her chest.

They looked at each other, and for a moment, everything was forgotten, and they were right back in her kitchen, tangled up in each other.

Then he turned away, and the spell was broken. He descended the stairs to the street below. He didn’t attack. He didn’t threaten them. He just left.

When he reached the ground, he tugged his shirt over his head, revealing a broad back ribbed with strength. One she had been running her hands over only moments ago. He looked over his shoulder to where she watched from the balcony.

Before her eyes, he shifted.

First his skin darkened, becoming an ashy gray that matched the shadows cast by the streetlights on the pavement. He grew nearly a foot taller, making him absolutely enormous. His eyes turned back to the glimpse she’d seen of glowing yellow. Claws elongated from his fingers. Claws she hadn’t imagined feeling after all.

And finally... wings.

Black wings burst from his back and spread wide. Like a bat’s, fine bones delineated the segments of leather-like membrane stretched between them. The top, reminiscent of the shape of a hand, was tipped with a long, curved talon where the thumb would be.

Lily gasped, and Iris cursed. All the while, Mist stared at her.

At this point, the natural glamor hiding the supernatural would have made him invisible to anyone else nearby. But Lily wasn’t a regular human, and Mist knew that now. He knew she could see him. He was showing her exactly what he was, giving up his charade.

But why?

She didn’t have time to wonder. The next moment, he finally turned away. Crouching deeply, he sprang, pumping those great wings, and launched into the air, that lily still clutched in his claws.

And then he dissolved into a black cloud and disappeared completely.

He dissolved into... mist.