The Redeeming, Page 3

  “Four girls have gone missing in the last two weeks,” Tain said.

  Samantha’s eyes widened. “That many?” She hadn’t heard of the disappearances, not that she necessarily would. Los Angeles was a big city—she worked for the western division of the paranormal police, which handled what went on in Venice—and many people wouldn’t bother to report missing prostitutes, especially demon ones. “But maybe it’s not such a mystery. They might have decided to move to a different part of the city, they might be lying low because they’re pregnant or sick, or they might have decided to get out of the game. It happens.”

  Tain gave her a stubborn look. “It feels wrong. I can’t explain more than that.”

  Samantha sat back. “Well, if you were anyone else, I’d say you were worried for nothing. Since you’re a big bad Immortal warrior, I won’t. I learned the hard way what happens when I don’t pay attention to an Immortal’s feelings.” She let out a breath and reached for her coffee. “It won’t hurt for me to look into it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Tain’s lips were stiff as he spoke the words. She wondered how long he’d debated with himself before deciding to seek her out and ask for help.

  “Why come to me?” Samantha asked after they’d sipped coffee in silence a few moments. “Why not go to the police yourself? Our paranormal division is big—you wouldn’t have had to talk to me at all.”

  Tain met her gaze with his piercing one. “Because I knew you’d believe me.”

  Damn, his eyes were beautiful. They were like pieces of the sky, so blue they could make her cry. Samantha pictured looking into those eyes up close, while he slanted his head to kiss her . . .

  Her heart beat faster, and she spoke swiftly to cover her confusion. “You could have come to the police department and asked for me, you know. You didn’t have to follow me home.”

  “I didn’t follow you home.”

  That relieved her. She hadn’t had the prickly sensation of someone behind her after she’d left the station, although Tain could probably track like a panther.

  “How did you find me then? Magic?”

  Tain’s face softened into his devastating smile as he lifted the coffee to his lips. “No. I just called Leda, and she gave me your address.”

  A few hours later, Tain leaned his head against the wall of his tiny shower and let the water beat on his body.

  He hadn’t wanted to go to Samantha. He’d never wanted to see her again, with her dark soul-searching eyes and her beautiful face that floated in his dreams.

  After I saved your ass in Seattle, she’d said, and he’d wanted to laugh and laugh.

  She’d never know how well she’d saved him—her voice, her words, and her presence had yanked him out of the darkness, where he’d lived for centuries. She’d wrenched his focus away from the demon who’d held him captive, and that break had allowed Tain’s brothers to band together to save him.

  In the end, everyone seemed to have expected him to sweep Samantha into his arms, but Tain had barely been able to touch her.

  When he’d healed her after the battle, their connection had been powerful. She’d melded to him in a way he hadn’t felt in eons, their essences connecting while his magic knit her bones.

  He’d sensed the tug of joy that surged through her body, and the temptation to take her and run had overwhelmed him. He hadn’t been able to get away from her fast enough.

  A year and more had passed since that day in late May when he’d finally gained his freedom. He’d supposed the memories of the battle and Samantha would pass, but fifteen months later, they were as fresh as ever.

  The water started to cool, his hot water reserve gone, but Tain remained in the shower, letting the needle-sharp spray batter his flesh. Samantha was half demon, and he felt the siren call of that species pull at him. Never again, he’d vowed. He’d survived his captivity by retreating into madness, by grabbing on to the pain and twisting it into something he could take.

  Never again.

  He shut off the faucet and stood with his forehead against the wall, his naked body covered with beads of water. He wanted so much for Samantha to be in here with him, where he could press his mouth to her skin, run his hands up the curves of her body, feel her breasts in the cup of his hands.

  Tain indulged himself in the imagined sensations, but too soon dark memories of madness and pain seeped through and shoved them away. He’d managed, with the help of his brothers, to heal somewhat over the past year. He’d learned to go still when the blackness punched at his gut, as it had fighting the demons tonight, to breathe deeply until it left him.

  But there were the times he didn’t tell his brothers about, when he couldn’t stop himself folding into a ball, screaming with pain that threatened to squeeze the life out of him. He drifted to the bottom of his shower now, wrapping his arms around himself, not feeling the chill of cold water on his skin. He clenched his teeth to contain the roar of anguish that wanted to escape him. His teeth nicked his lip, and hot blood filled his mouth

  You are mine. Kehksut’s voice whispered in his memory. You belong to me, body and soul. I will use you as I please, and you will love me for it.

  “No!” The word shot out of Tain’s mouth along with droplets of blood that swirled down the vortex of the drain.

  Tain’s cheek burned, his pentagram tattoo like a badge of fire. The mark had saved him from being lost forever, keeping a tiny part of himself beyond Kehksut’s reach.

  Samantha had zeroed in on that piece of him with her voice and her defiance. After she’d made a chink in his defenses, Tain’s brothers had torn him open the rest of the way and dragged him kicking and screaming into the light.

  His brothers, damn the four of them, still loved him and watched over him. They wanted him to be all better, and it hurt Tain that he couldn’t be back to normal for them.

  He closed his eyes and fought the pain. Finally, finally, the darkness began to recede, and he dragged himself to his feet, snapping off the water and looking down at his body.

  After episodes like this he was always surprised to find no blood on himself, that his scarred skin remained unbroken. He reached for a towel with a shaking hand and mopped water from his face.

  He’d spent the last year looking for people to help and heal, righting the wrongs he could to make up for the horrible things he’d done under the demon’s thrall. The missing demon prostitutes had caught his attention because the situation was unusual, bringing Tain something new to focus on.

  Demons were not chaotic people; they were precise and methodic and rarely did anything without calculation. Four girls missing for no apparent reason showed a flaw in the system, and an anomaly could mean trouble to more than just the demons.

  Tain regarded himself in the misted mirror as he plied the towel. Every inch of his body was scored with scars. His face had been spared, partly because of Tain’s power-infused tattoo, partly because Kehksut had wanted Tain’s looks to remain unmarred.

  Tain had Immortal flesh, ever renewed, and because he hadn’t been tortured every few days for a while now, the scars had faded into faint white lines. His seven-foot body rippled with muscle, unbroken. He was still a warrior.

  He held the towel around his neck, remembering Samantha emerging from her bedroom, damp from her shower. He’d seen a lush, long-legged woman with slim arms and rounded breasts, beautiful black eyes staring at him in startled amazement from under slick black hair.

  Tain had hardened then, and he was hardening now, his cock rising quickly from a thatch of dark red hair. His penis bore no scars either—the other part of him the demon had never cut.

  Tain had craved to be with Samantha in Seattle, and he wanted her now. But the thought of sex was so overlaid with the memories of torture he wasn’t certain he’d ever be able to make love to a woman again. If he dared take Samantha to bed, would the pain make him crazy, and would he hurt her? Samantha wasn’t just a woman, she was part demon—no telling what Tain would do to
her, reacting to the natural darkness within her.

  Best to never find out. Tain would thank her for her help and walk away. It was the only way he’d survive contact with her.

  Tain finished drying himself, dressed, and went out into the cool dawn streets of Los Angeles. It took a long time for his erection to fade.

  “Whatcha working on?” Logan turned a plastic chair around and straddled it backwards, gazing at the profusion of files on Samantha’s desk. “That’s not the Mindglow case.”

  “I know.”

  Samantha had been sifting through reports of missing demon girls, then through police records to see if any of those women had been arrested for soliciting. So far, she hadn’t turned up much.

  “How long have we been partners, Sam?” Logan asked her.

  Samantha opened another file. “A year or so.”

  During the terrible happenings last year, the police department had basically shut down and let the vampire and demon gangs take over the streets, fighting each other without interference. Laws keeping vampire and demon activity under control had gone to hell, and people had been hurt and killed.

  When Samantha had returned home from Seattle, the city had been busy trying to get back to normal—as normal as Los Angeles ever got—and Lieutenant McKay had begged Samantha, who’d been let go during the crisis, to come back to work. They needed every detective they could get their hands on, she said. Samantha decided that diving back into what she was good at would help her recover, and besides, she needed the paycheck.

  McKay had paired her up with Logan Wright, who’d recently moved to Los Angeles from Minnesota. Logan was a Were—a wolf. He was smart and laid back, exactly the kind of person Samantha needed to spend her ten-hour shifts with. Logan never pried or asked nosy questions; he simply worked on cases or drove the two of them around the city with the quiet enjoyment of someone who liked being on the road.

  Logan came from a pack in Minnesota he never talked about. Werewolves weren’t Samantha’s specialty, but she knew enough about them to know one didn’t move far from the pack without good reason. Werewolves had difficulty emotionally leaving the close-knit confines of their families. Yet here was Logan, whistling tunes and driving Samantha around the freeways of Los Angeles, seemingly without a care.

  Samantha had found herself making friends with Logan, not telling him her secrets but gradually working through the fears that had swirled through her since Seattle. But she’d never been able to mention Tain.

  “A year is a long time in this job,” Logan said. “Something’s happened, Sam, so spill it.”

  Samantha closed the folder and looked up at him. “I got a tip I thought I should look into.”

  “A tip.” Logan’s wolf eyes narrowed. “About what? This red-haired guy, the killing machine? Do you know where to start looking for him?”

  “No.” Tain had left her apartment without disclosing where he was staying, saying Samantha could leave a message with Leda if she needed to reach him. “But I talked to him.”

  Logan’s brows climbed. “Yeah? When was this?”

  “Last night after I got home.”

  Logan sat up straight. “Shit, Samantha. Were you going to bother to tell anyone? Were you going to bother to tell me?”

  Samantha busied herself gathering the folders into a neat stack. “I don’t think he knows anything about Merrick’s gang wars, or cares very much. He’s the kind of man who will gladly let evil demons kill other evil demons.”

  “Shouldn’t you let McKay question him before you decide that?”

  Samantha sighed and slammed the last folders to the pile. “All right, if you’ll stop second-guessing me and buy me a pizza, I’ll give you what he did tell me.”

  Logan conceded and paid for lunch at the pizza place across the street. Over the pepperoni and sausage, Samantha told him about Tain’s surprise visit and his report of the missing prostitutes. She left out the part about finding him sitting at her table when she came out of the shower, not to mention her physical and emotional reactions to him.

  Logan listened, leaning his elbows on the table with his usual nonchalance, but she saw the interest on his face. “We should question Merrick,” he said. “He’s got an eye on all the demon businesses in that area. Owns half of them.”

  “He’s still in the hospital.” As Samantha had predicted, the D.A.’s office had already dismissed Merrick’s case, saying they didn’t have anything that would stick. “McKay and I had time this morning to ask Merrick only one question before his lawyer got there, and he didn’t even answer that.”

  “We don’t have to make it an official inquiry,” Logan said, peeling a pepperoni from his slice and dropping it into his mouth. “Just a friendly chat. What hospital?”

  “You’re saying we.”

  “Doing Mindglow stakeouts for months on end is getting on my nerves,” Logan said. “I need a new hobby. Besides, if the girls worked the streets near Merrick’s, who’s to say it’s not connected?”

  Samantha let out a breath. “To tell you the truth, I’d welcome the help.”

  “That’s settled then.” Logan wiped grease from his hand and held it out for her to shake. “Partners in crime-solving.”

  She grinned as she took his hand. Logan always knew how to defuse a moment. “I thought we already were partners.”

  “Okay, partners in crime-solving for cases we aren’t assigned to. We’ll get suspended together.”

  “You’re all heart, Logan.”

  Logan winked at her. “That’s why the girls love me.”

  After lunch, they went to the downtown hospital specializing in demon care only to discover that Merrick had been released that morning, right after McKay and Samantha had tried to question him. Demons healed quickly, but Samantha hadn’t thought they healed that quickly. Merrick’s neck had been nearly severed.

  Logan didn’t comment when Samantha suggested they drive all the way to Venice, to Merrick’s club. Merrick lived in the penthouse above it, and he’d likely be home convalescing.

  Venice—named by its developer back in the 1920s for the little canals that crisscrossed the area—was a different place during the day than it was in darkest night, when the vamp and demon clubs did their business. Tourists and locals in T-shirts and shorts streamed down the colorful streets to the beach. Blue sky arched overhead, the September sun warm.

  Merrick’s club was closed, the smoked glass doors shut and locked. Samantha banged on them, Logan standing just a little behind her left shoulder.

  “We’re closed,” the bartender said as he pulled open the door a crack. “But you know that.”

  “I want to talk to Merrick,” Samantha said, flashing her badge and ID.

  “He’s busy. Talk to his lawyer.”

  The bartender started to shut the door, but Logan put his foot in it and gave the demon man a warning look.

  “Not about last night,” Samantha said. “This is unofficial. By the way, you don’t happen to know who those demons were that busted up the place, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Or whose clan they belonged to? I’d like to have a chat with them as well.”

  The bartender’s eyes narrowed. Like all demons, he had a handsomeness that went deeper than physical attraction, one that compelled a person to look into his eyes and crave what he had to give.

  “Merrick really is busy talking to someone else,” the bartender said. “He’s pretty pissed off at you, anyway.”

  “Because I arrested him? I’m surprised he didn’t see it coming.”

  “Yeah, well.” The bartender turned as someone called to him from the darkened interior. “What do you know?” he said, turning back to Samantha. “I’m supposed to let you in.”

  Logan looked uncomfortable as they ducked inside, uneasy in a place created by demons for demons. Werewolves were creatures of intense life magic, and large doses of death magic made Logan’s fur itch.

  He looked as though his fur was itching badly
as they followed the bartender through a private door and into an elevator that took them up four floors above the club. The bartender ushered them into a sunny penthouse, which contained a wall of windows showing the panorama of the beach and dark-blue ocean.

  Merrick, on the sofa, was indeed speaking to someone in his lush living room. Tall and broad-shouldered, his life magic a physical force, Merrick’s guest turned from the windows, sunlight glinting on his red hair. Samantha halted in the doorway, and Logan almost ran into her.

  “That’s him,” Logan said with a growl. “The guy from last night.”

  Samantha made herself enter the apartment, though she moved numbly. Tain stood with perfect nonchalance, but he had the dark glint in his eyes again. Obviously being in a place permeated with death magic made him even jumpier than Logan.

  Tain flicked his gaze over Samantha, his eyes as blue as the ocean behind him. This man possessed powerful magic and incredible strength. He could do anything to her, to Merrick, even to Logan, without any of them being able to stop him. Samantha knew she should be afraid—and she was—but at the same time Tain commanded her attention, her fascination, and wouldn’t let it go.

  Tain moved his stare to Logan. “You’re a werewolf.”

  “No kidding,” Logan answered. “Who are you?”

  “The man who so thoughtfully busted up my club,” Merrick interrupted in his usual smooth tones. “Wonderfully good for business, fried demons.”

  “When your rivals busted up your club, you mean,” Logan said. “We pretty much saved your ass, Merrick.”

  Merrick gave Logan a cold look and gestured for Samantha to sit down. “Tell me what you’re doing here and why my lawyer shouldn’t start a suit for police harassment.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about something completely different,” Samantha said. “Maybe if you help me on this, I’ll forget about the Mindglow.”

  “And what Mindglow would that be?” Merrick asked in perfect innocence.

  Samantha restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “Maybe you could help out of the goodness of your heart.”