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senses, spinning a hard kick up toward Fabio’s head. He swiveled back to me, slicing out with his knife. It cut through my tank along my abdomen. Searing pain burned across my stomach. I screamed. Jude stalked toward us, swinging his sword in an arc, fixing a murderous gaze on Fabio, who stared wide-eyed at Jude for two seconds, then disappeared after Spiky.
    I stumbled. Jude caught me in his arms before I hit the pavement. He lifted and carried me toward my car. His aura had vanished, and his eyes flashed storm-black. I marveled at how easily he held me. I’m not a small girl, never have been, but Jude lifted me like I weighed nothing. Funny the things your mind thinks of in traumatic situations.
    Blood seeped through my white tank. A wet trail trickled along the line of my waist to my back. I couldn’t think straight, feeling my mind pull away. The worst injury I’d ever had was a broken arm from falling off the trampoline when I was seven. I had cried all the way to the hospital, still hurting when we left. That night, my mother settled herself beside my bed and painted Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” all the way around my cast. My arm became a piece of artwork for everyone to admire. Pain cradled in love.
    “Where are your keys?” Jude’s gruff voice pulled me back to the present.
    “Dropped them,” I whispered.
    I’m not sure how, but he managed to bend and scoop up my keys without ever letting me go. I glanced over his shoulder, seeing nothing but a blackened spot of soot where Pit-bull boy had fallen.
    Jude put me in the passenger seat, disappeared for about ten seconds, then slid into the driver’s seat, tossing the sword in the back. As if he’d owned the car all his life, he shifted from first to third gear in seconds. We zoomed down St. Charles, heading into the heart of New Orleans.
    “You missed the turn for the Medical Center,” I murmured, watching a pool of crimson seep across my tank, coloring my blue jeans purple. “You’re going the wrong way.”
    “We’re not going to the hospital.” He punched into fifth with violent force. “We’re going to my place.”

Chapter Four
    My reservations about this guy suddenly escalated from wary to holy-hell-I’m-being-kidnapped.
    “Jude—” I focused on breathing in slow, steady breaths. “I’m hurt pretty bad. You need to take me to the hospital.”
    His eyes never left the road as he hung a hard right onto Canal Street.
    “I know how badly you’re injured.” His voice was eerily calm. “I’m going to take care of it myself.”
    “Listen, Dr. Demon-hunter. Your philosophy degree doesn’t qualify you with the skills to stitch me up.”
    “I have many skills, Genevieve.” A searing glance. “Including the ability to tend your wounds.”
    Was I suddenly dizzy from blood loss or his enigmatic statement? Not sure. “Why won’t you just take me to a hospital?”
    “Because the two demons who got away know you’re injured. They’ll be searching for you.”
    “How would they know which hospital I went to? Let’s head to one farther out.”
    “It wouldn’t matter. They’d find you.”
    “How?”
    His eyes slid to mine, scanning my body in a millisecond. “You’re like a beacon now, shining in the dark. They can sense you.”
    Feeling faint, I let my head fall against the headrest, trying desperately to understand all this. Did this mean I would always be looking over my shoulder? That I would live in a constant state of fear?
    Careening down Decatur, he barely missed a group of tourists in front of Jackson Square. I winced at the growing pain in my stomach. My vision blurred. We passed under a street sign, Ursulines, taking a sharp left onto Dauphine. He squeezed into a spot on the first block. I barely realized that we’d stopped before the passenger door opened, and I was in his arms again. Not that being in such a position hadn’t crossed my mind once or twice, but somehow I had envisioned something more romantic and less,