Page 25 of Stalked By Pestilence
Kicking the door behind me, I guided her over to the couch again. “Hungry?”
“What did that guy mean when he said I was marked?” she went on, far too clever for her own good.
Why did this woman have to take such quick showers when all the others I’d been around insisted on living in one any chance they got? I would’ve forced the ghostly wanker to meet downstairs if I’d thought we might’ve been heard.
Her glare told me she wouldn’t be put off. My bird wasn’t a ditzy princess. She didn’t miss a bloody thing.
Roughly combing a hand through my hair, I plonked down next to her on the sofa. “The demon from yesterday grabbed you around the throat, yeah?” My eyes dropped to the glaring hand mark marring her beautiful skin.
Her arms crossed and she waited patiently for me to get on with it, those calculating eyes taking in every little twitch. I’d never been so closely observed by a human. Like Ghost, her gaze unnerved me in ways no human’s had. I normally didn’t struggle to twist the truth or hide a lie, but this terrifying woman picked me apart in seconds. So that only left one option.
The truth.
I was careful how much simmering rage over the memory of it reached my expression as I went on, “You’ve been marked for Hell, pet.”
Her eyes widened, and I prepared myself for an outburst, but what happened next wasn’t panic or fear. It was quiet resignation, and it bothered me far more than her fear would’ve.
“Oh.” She sunk into the couch, absently touching her throat.
The urge to comfort her made my hand move before I could think better of it, but she dodged it. Then she was on her feet.
“Viper—”
“I need some space,” she told me before collecting her purse and leaving my flat.
My heightened ears picked up on each step that took her further away from me. And when her door opened and shut, I swore and appeared next to it, casting angry eyes at the stairs. I took a fortifying breath and settled in for a long day of taking my rage out on demons sent to collect my pretty little viper.
Chapter Twelve
Emily
It’d been two days since I left Zelus’s apartment. He’d come by a few times, but I turned him away. I needed to think, to figure out what I wanted to do about all of this. It wasn’t every day a girl had to question her mortality, at least not with all of Hell at her heels.
It was a lot to digest—demons, snake beasts who fucked like demons, and now a mark that sealed my unfortunate fate to a long stay in Hell.
Everything leads back to demons, sad.
I’d come to terms with the fact that either this was a very elaborate delusion I didn’t have any hope of conquering,or I was the main heroine in one of Asha’s smutty paranormal-whatevers. Neither option appealed to me, but a girl did what she had to.
The lawyer in me wanted to do extensive research into what this all meant, but how did one learn about the supernatural when one didn’t know it existed until three days ago?
I barely knew what to have for breakfast or what hobby to take up in light of New Emily ventures, so how was I supposed to decipher a supernatural problem of epic proportions with almost no information? Where was a feisty, career-driven supernatural detective when you needed one?
Zelus had come out of nowhere, and I wasn’t convinced our meeting was a total coincidence—or that his offer to help was done purely out of good will, for that matter. The dude didn’t strike me as a philanthropist. He certainly didn’t fuck like one. But he was the only one I could glean a smidgen of understanding about what I was up against.
Problem was, I was insanely attracted to that crazy motherfucker, and I couldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Which, with my noodle arms, I’d fail to even lift the asshole.
But I couldn’t ignore him forever or the future I now faced. He was my only shot at dealing with whatever made this my problem, so it was time to face the music.
New Emily’s goal in life was to not go to Hell.
With renewed purpose, I yanked open the door to my apartment, bent on finding Zelus, and the asshole practically materialized out of thin air before I could take a step out the door.
A shriek got caught in my throat, and I nearly fell back. His arm was around me before I did. The usual smile wasn’t anywhere to be found. It was the grimmest I’d ever seen him.
He walked me backward, entering my apartment with his arm still tightly wrapped around me and his steely eyes pinned to mine. “Where are you going, love?”
“I—”