13
I’m back in the room with the bare mattress and decaying wallpaper when I come to. My eyelids are heavy. My limbs leaden and detached.
Blinking into consciousness, the events that led me here, back to this room, are a blur of half-formed memories. They come crashing into full form only when I move. Blinding pain sizzles in the pocket of tender flesh between my neck and shoulder.
A high-pitched keening sound skirts past my lips as I struggle into a seated position, breathlessly checking to make sure I still have an arm attached at the shoulder.
Not only is it still there, but it’s bandaged. Deep red stains form morbid blossoms on the white gauze. Three in a not-quite-perfect row. One for each of the red-skinned creature’s talons.
Tenderly, I press two shaking fingers to the injury, testing its severity. A sharp sting lances through my shoulder at the feather-light touch.
It’s bright in the room. Without any windows and only one dim ceiling light, I know without adjusting myself to look that the door is open. I have no doubt Kincaid is somewhere out there, waiting for me to wake.
Squinting against the brightness, I find I am right. The door is open. Through it I can see a slice of the front foyer, bathed in the warm glow of a summer sunrise.
I struggle to piece together my thoughts. Scattered like papers in the wind, I rush to catch them—pin them into place.
It had been Kincaid, I realize. It had to have been him.
He…saved me.
That couldn’t be right, though. The Diablim who purchased me wasn’t the same creature who tore the winged demon to pieces in the field. That creature had skin so dark it seemed to suck all the light from the universe. It had silvery horns and glowing yellow eyes. It had bulging muscle wrapped thickly around its arms and straining at its broad chest.
And yet…it had been him. In that last moment before I fell, I recognized him in those eyes. The fact that I ended up back here in this house, in this room, is just confirmation of what I already know.
Kincaid is not an incubus.
He is definitely not a salamander, either.
He’s something else.
A thing I’ve never heard described on the seven o’clock news or in any book I’ve ever owned.
What are you? I silently ask the void space outside the door, as if it can answer my thoughts, and shudder, fear at my situation gripping me anew.
Okay, Paige, take stock.
Can I stand?
It takes a minute, and my head aches with the motion, but I do. I find that the bracelets I discarded on the mattress before attempting my first escape are digging into the skin of my thighs, and I try rub out the tender markings from the beads. Brush them from the bed and onto the floor where I don’t have to look at them.
A thudding pain in the back of my head draws my attention, and I find another injury there. The wiry edge of a stitch pokes my finger, and I go still, tracing the short ridge of puckered flesh at the base of my skull, and the four stitches running up into my hairline. No, wait, into where my hairline was. Tiny hairs brush against the pads of my fingers where the hair has been shorn off.
That’s not all. I realize that between the stitches and the bandage on my arm, I should be covered in blood. My skin should be itching with dried patches of it. My hair should be matted and stained crimson. My clothes should be…
My clothes.
The black tank top and jeans I’d been wearing for days on end are gone. I’m in nothing but my plain black bra and ratty old panties. The ones with the small hole in a very unfortunate location.
Well, shit.
I lift the wisp-thin half sheet from the mattress and wrap it around me, pulling the corners up to tie behind my neck. Making something like a toga. My injury screams when I lift my arm, but I ignore the pain as best I can.
No way in hell am I going out there half naked. My physical injuries will heal quickly—they always do. But I doubt I’ll recover at all if I have to face Kincaid in my holey panties.
Never mind that he clearly already saw me in them.
While inspecting my sheet-toga for gaps of exposed skin, I notice a sheen of silver around my ankle. When I stoop to inspect it, I find a few thin silvery scars crisscrossing my ankle where Ford’s tracking device used to rest. Other than that, there’s no evidence that I’ve ever worn it. The shallow cuts have vanished. The bruises have healed.
I shake my head, rationing to myself that perhaps I’ve been passed out longer than I think.
Not wanting to be snuck up on a second time, I wet my mouth and step tentatively to the door. “Kincaid?” I call into the pitch dark. “Are you out there?”
A jingling sound, like a small bell, grows louder as something nears.
“Kincaid?” I call again, unsure I want to see what sort of critter the Diablim keeps as a pet.
I trip backward as a cat saunters into my doorway and plops down onto its rear. Tiny white paws primly placed at its front. Fluffy white tail flicking this way and that as it watches me with pretty green eyes.
“Oh,” I say aloud, unclenching and then lowering myself to a knee with a hand extended. “You aren’t so scary.”
I wonder at the fact that the big bad Kincaid keeps a fluffy white kitty as a pet, and almost change my mind about touching it. It could be a shapeshifter—like Kincaid. But before I can recoil far enough, the little cat has cleared the distance between us and rubs its cheek against my fingers, back arching and tail erect.
“What’s your name?” I ask, brushing my hand over its silky fur as it begins to purr.
Talk about melt your heart.
I’ve never petted a cat before. Never even seen a live one in person.
Ford brought a few into the dead room over the last few years, along with the corpses of squirrels, mice, and even a dog once.
My stomach turns.
I scratch the creature under its chin and its wet little nose brushes my knuckles. The little silver bell on its thin black collar chimes. Despite myself, I find I’m smiling. I move to give it a little scratch on the top of its head and my hand stiffens.
At first, I think it’s injured. Something hard is hidden beneath its long fur. I lean in to get a look, pushing its fur out of the way, and find a small black protrusion.
There’s an identical one on the other side of its skull, too.
I draw my hand back, mouth cotton-dry.
The demon cat with its little black horns cranes its neck up at me, bright green eyes demanding attention. It meows, still purring, and rushes forward to rub itself over my shins.
A fucking demonic cat.
Of course, Kincaid has a demonic cat.
Of course, that’s a thing.
Why wouldn’t it be?
I do my best to step away from the horned kitty, padding to the door with it on my heels as I pray it doesn’t decide to attack,
I can take a cat, right?
Yeah. I totally can. Even one-armed.
I nudge the thing away with my toe and whisper, “Go away.”
“In here, Na’vazēm,” Kincaid’s deep baritone carries through the foyer, and I start, accidentally stepping on the cat’s tail.
It screeches like the damned and high tails it across the foyer and into the sitting room opposite, pausing only for a second once it’s far enough away to hiss violently at me.
Great, now I’ve pissed off the demonic housecat. Just lovely.