Read Demon's Hunger for Free Online Page B

fire, the light bright as the sun.
    "Upstairs," Dain ordered, cool, calm, and she knew he was talking to her.
    Good. Yes. Good. Her imaginary hot guy was telling her to do exactly what she wanted. Nice when the hallucination was so amiable.
    Only she froze, unable to move, unable to look away, her heart pounding, her lungs working like a bellows. Dain blocked the creature's claws with his forearm, a sharp hiss escaping from between his teeth as the talons raked deep, leaving the cloth of his coat and shirt in shreds, his skin and muscle ravaged and torn.
    "Well, if you want to play nasty…" Dain laughed. The sound made Vivien shiver.
    He feinted right, spun left, brought the staff down hard across the back of the creature's neck. Only the swing of the staff didn't stop. The momentum carried it through the thick column, severing the head from the body, blood pumping in a geyser that sprayed the ceiling, the walls, and finally, the floor.
    The head rolled across the floorboards and bumped against Vivien's toe, leaving a slick smear of blood in its wake. A film of moisture on the creature's eye caught the light.
    Years of training kicked in, and she stared down at the head, studied it. Dark blood, more black than red. Possibly higher mineral content than human blood. The eyelid closed from the bottom rather than the top. Interesting. The—
    She closed her eyes.
    This was not a nice hallucination. Why couldn't she have a nice hallucination?
    Maybe a fairy godmother.
    Or a Chippendale dancer.
    She had the frantic thought that she should be in Mexico right now, lying on the beach with a margarita in her hand. She should have gone on vacation with her best friend, Amy, when she asked.
    "Vivien, we need to go. Can you smell it? They've torched the house. Come on."
    Warm fingers on her wrist.
    She opened her eyes. The head wasn't there anymore, just a smoking, hissing, gray lump.
    Shaking, she took a deep breath, smelled smoke.
    " Now , Vivien." Dain stared down at her, his eyes cool as ice on asphalt, clearly expecting her to obey.
    She glanced down, realized that he was drawing her charm bags from her grasp, tucking them in the roomy pocket of his long coat.
    "I need my picture," she said. "Of my dad."
    He gave a sharp nod, and taking her hand, steady fingers closing tightly around her trembling ones, he led her up the stairs.
    Halfway up, she froze. "The woman!"
    She spun, peered down the stairs to the basement. There was no woman, just a conical pile of ash in the corner where she'd huddled.
    "She's gone. Keepers don't survive the death of their demon. She must have been ancient, indeed, to have disintegrated so quickly."
    As if she had a clue what he meant by that.
    "Head for the back door," Dain said, and pulled her up the stairs. "It's closer."
    She paused at the bookshelf and grabbed the framed photo of her dad then snagged her purse from the couch as they passed. He tugged on her arm, and she thought that for a hallucination, he had a pretty strong grasp.
    It was all a hallucination, only… the black smoke gathering about them felt so real , thick in her nostrils, burning her eyes.
    Sliding open the glass and the screen, he dragged her out into the sunlight, across the deck, his firm grasp keeping her from falling as her feet slid in her fuzzy green slip-ons. They rounded the side of the house, cut across the lawn, and finally stopped on the front drive. The black SUV was there but no sign of the other two guys, Darqun and Ciarran.
    She looked at Dain then, and there was no more light shimmering around him, no wooden staff in his hand. He was just a man, standing on her gravel driveway, dripping blood from his arm like a faucet with a slow leak. His long coat was torn in several places, and the poet's shirt had a slick, red blotch across the front.
    More blood. Blood, blood, blood.
    Feeling strangely disconnected from the situation, Vivien reached out, almost touched him. Jerked her hand back.
    Red had always been her