InsistentHunger (31 page)

Paige frowned, not liking the idea that Brady had risked
someone recognizing him. True, he did look different now. His eyes were a
different color and he had a sharpness to him that didn’t come through in any
picture of the human Brady, but it had still been a stupid risk.

“I never wanted them like I want you,” Brady finished.

Paige closed her eyes, her lust surging forward. “Two bad
guys upstairs, nine outside. Focus on the scene, Brady,” she said. She included
herself in that order.

“The scene. Right.” Brady cleared his throat and Paige
opened her eyes and risked looking at him. He has his back to her and he was
moving back into the main hall. He headed for the staircase leading upstairs
and Paige pulled her weapon and followed.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“That was anticlimactic,” Paige said.

“If you want, I can bring in a new demon and let you kill
him,” Brady offered.

“Smart-ass.” Paige looked out at the late afternoon sun as
it sank lower. Both demons Brady had killed left pretty messy bodies behind.
They lay in a rotted-out bedroom with broken necks. If Captain Foley got called
out to this place, Paige had no idea what he would think.

The one body looked and smelled like it was a few weeks old.
The other looked like a victim from a few years ago. Paige had taken one look
and abandoned ship, heading for a far bedroom. “So, what’s the next step?” She
watched as the low-level vamps stood in the shadows of the trees, their
wandering steps turned back by direct sunlight.

“I don’t want to make a run for it at night. So, wait for
morning?” Brady said in a voice that sounded like he was guessing.

“Would they bother you?” Paige watched a zombie-like vamp
pull leaves off a branch, one at a time.

“Probably not,” Brady admitted. So it was her fault they
were stuck here for the night. Her imagination came up with all sorts of
suggestions for how they could spend the time, and for a second, she considered
giving in to that urge. Brady was definitely standing too close. Paige inched
away from him. “There could be more vampires coming to the house. There were
more than two smart ones when I attacked the house.”

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“I couldn’t find my idiot partner. I thought he was in
trouble.”

“I was.” Brady gave her a smile, but he carefully kept his
hands to himself.

“You said that this only affected you with me,” Paige
blurted out before she could chicken out. She’d face a dozen vamps before
having a meaningful relationship conversation, but she couldn’t stop thinking
about this. “Why?”

Brady took a breath and backed off another step. “I don’t
know,” he admitted. “It’s just true. When I talk to other women, I could feel
something.” He frowned. “I could feel this little itch that made me wonder
about sleeping with them.”

Holding up a hand, Paige stopped him. “I really don’t need
details. Voyeurism is not my kink.”

He rolled his eyes. “It was a small itch, easily ignored.
Even when one woman put a hand on my arm, I could ignore the feeling. I can’t
do that with you.”

“Touch me, you mean?”

Brady moved closer and reached out to capture Paige’s hand
before she could retreat. “Touch you without wanting more. I can control
myself, but I want more. There’s a hunger that threatens to break out of my
control and I have to hold on so tight.” For a second, Paige stood holding his
hand, desire rippling through her. Then she pulled her hand away and backed out
of reach.

“You may have control, but mine is fraying,” she warned.
Brady gave her a huge smile. “Don’t look so smug.”

He made a show out of controlling his smile. “I’ll try to
not look so happy about being liked,” he said. “But don’t worry about any
demons that show up. I’ll take care of them.”

“Unless they’re as strong as bitch woman.”

Brady shook his head. “They won’t be.”

Paige waited for some sort of explanation, but none came.
“How exactly do you know that?” she finally asked.

For a second, Brady frowned as if trying to figure something
out. “Smell,” he finally said. “Her smell is the only strong one. The others
were careful to stay out of her way, to not leave their scent around.”

The more Brady talked, the less he sounded like a demon. If
anything, he sounded like an animal, not that she planned to share that
particular insight. “So, the others are just backup crew?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Four or five, maybe six, with
two being dead.” He gave a head jerk toward the bedroom with the bodies. Paige
definitely preferred television where vampires vanished into dust. If she were
a fan of those shows, she’d feel cheated by reality where demons left stinky
bodies behind and just generally failed to live up to the sparkly hype.

She and Brady had less than a day to get out of the house
before the smell drove them out—or until it drove her out. She didn’t know what
Brady thought about the stench. “It’s hard to tell how many demons came though
because the human servant left his scent around.” Brady frowned as he talked
about the guard he’d killed.

Paige understood.

Killing in the line of duty could rip a person up
emotionally. She feared having to kill more than any other part of her job.
“You did what you had to with the guard. Don’t beat yourself up about it,
because I would’ve shot the man if I’d had my weapon. He was a clear threat and
you had to take action to defend yourself, your partner and your position. So
don’t feel guilty.”

Given her own questionable mental health, Paige recognized
the irony of her trying to provide emotional support, but Brady couldn’t drop
in on a psychologist talk about his feelings.

“I don’t feel bad,” Brady quickly answered. “I just feel bad
that I don’t feel bad because I feel like I should feel bad. And honestly, I
can’t.” Brady’s voice trailed off and Paige looked at him for a long time. He
gave a little shrug in response.

“You need therapy,” Paige said.

“Yeah, probably. It’s been a hard week.” He shrugged again.
“So, do you want to watch north and east? I’ll take south and west.” That would
leave him checking the windows with the two dead bodies. As the training
officer, Paige should take the tougher jobs, but this time, she was breaking
the rules. Actually, breaking rules was starting to be a habit with her.

“Deal. You don’t trust the vamp guard dogs to make a ruckus
if something is coming?” Paige didn’t really trust the outside vamps, but Brady
seemed to have more and more inside information on demons.

“Not a chance,” Brady said with a snort. “They aren’t
exactly bright.”

“To say the least. They make me want to find them a nice
quiet deserted island where they can play with the pretty seashells.” Paige
flashed on the image of a vampire herder trying to get them into the cargo bay
of a ship. It wouldn’t be a job she wanted.

“Until some boat lands and they eat the crew,” Brady said
with a little more pragmatism than she expected. After all, they were related
to Brady…sort of. Anyway, she’d expected him to stick up for the guys. “Don’t
forget they’re dangerous. They can kill with a touch,” Brady warned her as he
looked out the shaded window.

“Unlike you,” Paige guessed. She looked at Brady and waited
for some sort of confirmation.

He took a step backward and tilted his head to the side for
a moment before answering. “No, I can’t.” So he was remembering more. Either
that or bitch lady had told him about life as a demon and Paige assumed Brady
had the brains to take anything she’d said with a grain of salt. “I have to
kill or,” he hand-waved, “you know.”

“Sex,” Paige said. She was about twenty years too old to get
embarrassed about it.

“Sex,” Brady said firmly. “Fine, I need the energy of sex or
I need to kill. I’m trying to be polite here and not offend you.”

“By saying sex? Considering that we’ve now had it twice, I
think you can say it.” Paige knew human nature well enough to know that Brady
probably said far less polite words when he hung out with the guys watching
football. “I’m not some shy virgin.”

Brady made a face. “No, but this is usually about the time
in the relationship when I go offending the girl and end up getting slapped and
dropped.”

“Offending?” Paige decided to ignore the “girl” comment. She
could only break one bad habit at a time.

Brady crossed his arms. “Yes, offending. I get accused of
being insensitive or something and I never do understand why I get dumped. So
I’m trying to not offend you.”

Paige stared at Brady and she was pretty sure her mouth was
hanging open. “I never knew you were an idiot,” she finally said. Brady glared
at her. “Seriously! This is me. Do you really think you’re going to offend me
by saying ‘sex’?”

A flicker of doubt crossed Brady’s face. “No, but then I
never see it coming before some girl blows up at me.”

“Trust me, if I’m offended, I’ll say so,” Paige promised.
“We had sex. We had great sex. I’m actually feeling a little cheated because
twenty years of what I thought was good sex turned out to be mediocre sex, and
if you don’t get that stupid grin off your face, you’re never getting it
again,” Paige threatened when Brady got another of those delighted grins on his
face, like he’d never been told he was good in bed before. “If you want to call
yourself a demon, you need to work on the evil part.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Brady said, barely hiding his
grin.

“I can’t believe you even thought that.” Paige gave a snort
of disgust. “I mean, really, am I some sixteen-year-old girl to blush at the
word sex?”

“Give me a break,” Brady said, raising his hands. “I know
what Brady knew.” A pregnant pause followed and Paige gave him a sharp look.

When he didn’t elaborate, she flat out asked, “So, are you
remembering more?”

His gaze fell to the floor. “Bits from the world before I
came here,” he admitted. “The brain got a little scrambled there for a while.
However, the demon knows nothing about how to avoid insulting women and Brady
only knew slightly more than that. Which means I’m still adding up to a whole
lot of not much.”

Picking the cleanest bit of floor she could find, Paige sat
down and crossed her legs. “What memories are leaking through from the other world?”

That shocked Brady enough that his face lost all expression.
Whatever he remembered, he hadn’t expected her to ask about it, which was
pretty stupid. It was the most reasonable question for someone to ask. Hey, I
just came to this dimension from another world. Really, what was it like? Yep,
the question was perfectly reasonable, assuming that you believed the person
did actually come from another world. After a minute, Brady’s eyes seemed to
lose focus.

“It was different,” he said, his voice clipped.

“Tell me one thing, Brady. One thing.” Paige leaned forward,
her elbows propped on her knees as she studied him. Sometimes his body spoke
another language—it moved in ways that humans didn’t. Right now, she recognized
every gesture. He scratched his neck and his eyes trailed off to the side. His
head was ducked down and his shoulders hunched. Whatever he remembered, it
didn’t give him happy-happy, joy-joy kind of feelings. Then again, if he’d
liked his home, he wouldn’t have left.

“It was crowded,” Brady said softly. His hands slid down to
his arms and clenched them tightly. “Not bodies pressed together, nothing as
firm as a body, but still…” His tongue came out and moistened his lips and he
shifted his feet. “Everything was too bright and too crowded, but some…some
beings…they sang of a place with darkness and quiet. Even though we pressed so
tightly together that it felt as though I could be pressed into nothing, I
wanted to get closer to one of the…” He seemed to choke on a word.

“Storytellers?” Paige filled in gently when Brady’s
discomfort only seemed to grow.

He gave her a smile, but it didn’t erase the sadness from
his eyes. “The storytellers,” he agreed. “They told about this world. They
never said it would be so confusing.”

Paige considered that for a second. “That’s why you came.
You’d heard stories.”

He nodded.

“What was your name?”

He blinked fast and his fingers pressed deep into his arms.
“I didn’t… I existed. I was like some and unlike most others, but I wasn’t me.
I didn’t have a sense of being someone specific…” Brady’s voice trailed off as
he ran out of words.

“Until you became Brady,” Paige guessed.

That got another nod.

“And you recognize the others from your time in that other
place?” She wasn’t as sure about that conclusion as the others, but Brady
nodded.

“It’s different. They’re different, but I think I knew
beings like them.” Brady moved back to the window.

Darkness had fallen and a tapestry of stars hung on the
other side of the dirty glass. “Those kind, they wander as far from others as
they can. Sometimes they’re food. Usually, they’re just there…like…” Brady
struggled again and Paige pushed herself to her feet and moved to him. She
rested a hand against his shoulder, prepared for a completely inappropriate
wave of lust. It never came. Instead she moved until she could rest against
Brady’s back, resting against his strength.

“They’re like cobwebs. You try to move through them, to find
some place that isn’t crowded, that isn’t flooded with light and life, and they
cling to you as you move through them, pulling bits of you off as they flow
through you, their cobweb thoughts hungry for stories. But they aren’t the only
ones there. They’re just the most common. When I tried to spread my wings they
would pull at me, ripping at something that… it isn’t quite skin but it was
still part of me.” Brady stopped as a shiver went through his body.

“It doesn’t matter. You aren’t there,” Paige promised.