The Demon's Song: Paranormal New Adult Romance (6 page)

“Andras, hi,” she said with a smile as she deviated from her current path. He had an umbrella in hand and held it out for her to step under just as the rain started. “Where’s your car?” she asked him.

“Up the street,” he told her. “I stopped for an early dinner before heading back to the city and decided to go for a walk before the rain started. I guess I didn’t make it back in time.”

“I’m kind of glad you didn’t,” Cadence admitted. “I may have been hoping you’d say you were waiting to see me, though.”

“Maybe I was,” he grinned at her. “I just didn’t want you to think I was a stalker.”

He was so friendly, so light and comforting, that there was no way she would ever think that. Unlike her boss, he didn’t intimidate or scare her and she just wanted to be close to him.

“I don’t think you’re a stalker,” she giggled as she shifted closer to him to share the umbrella.

“In that case,” he said. “Maybe I could walk you home. I’d hate for you to get wet.”

The rain went from a drizzle to almost a downpour as they made the ten minute walk to Jane’s house, but Cadence barely noticed. She and Andras talked about everything and nothing at all. He talked about his own newly started legal firm while Cadence told him how Draven had basically dumped her instant promotion in her lap. He listened patiently when she shared her concerns about being promoted over Olivia and how the other secretaries were being cruel to her.

“I hear Draven has some pretty interesting clients,” Andras said as they turned onto Cadence’s street.

“Sometimes,” Cadence admitted. “But it’s confidential, sorry.”

“I completely understand,” Andras assured her. “I would never ask you to break that confidence.”

“Thanks,” she said as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “This is my place,” she told him as she stopped in front of the house she shared with Jane.

“Cadence,” Andras said as he held the umbrella above them both. “Has anyone ever told you how special you are?”

“Um,” she stuttered. Something about the way he asked the question made her uneasy. Maybe it was because of Draven asking her the same thing a week ago. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, but something inside her was warning her that Andras wasn’t all that he appeared to be.

“You are a lovely woman,” Andras said, but now his charm seemed false and Cadence couldn’t help but take a step back out of the safety of the umbrella and into the rain.

“I need to go,” she said as the rain soaked her. “Sorry.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Andras said as she turned. His voice was no longer light and flirty, but was suddenly a deep growl. “I can’t let such a delicious thing like you go, even if Crane claimed you first.”

“What?” Cadence stuttered as she turned, but the man standing at the edge of her driveway wasn’t the same, sexy blond who had been there a moment ago.

It was still Andras, but his golden blond hair had turned white and dry. His porcelain skin was hallow and pale while his beautiful pale green eyes had turned a bright red. It was as if one of the shadows she saw had somehow come to life in him and he moved faster than Cadence could ever imagine.

He was on her before she could even think about turning to run. His fingernails had grown into long claws and he dug them into her arms as he held her.

The rain poured over them both, but Cadence barely noticed she was wet. Her heart was beating hard in chest and she couldn’t breathe as Andras’s red eyes bore into her own.

“You are a rare treat,” he growled at her. “It’s rare to find a woman with such power, and when I devour you, that power will become mine.”

“Stop,” Cadence tried to scream. She tried to pull away, to run and hide, but Andras’s monstrous form dwarfed her own. His hands held her like a vice and easily lifted her off the ground as his jaw unhinged.

It’s almost like a snake
, Cadence realized in a strange moment of clarity while the monster that Andras had become moved to swallow her whole. She could see right down into the inky darkness of his gullet and in a weird way, she seemed to resign herself to her fate, despite a voice inside her begging her to kick, to punch, to bite. Anything to get away.

His gargantuan mouth was lined with needle-like teeth and were only inches from her face. Cadence was so close to his gaping maw that she could smell the rotten, sulphurous stench of his breath and she squirmed in his arms as he lifted her into the air.

Just as she was certain that this nightmarish fantasy was about to come to a dark close, she suddenly found herself falling to the ground. She landed hard on the wet driveway and saw stars as her head smacked off the pavement. Everything spun and she opened her eyes just to see her savior throwing Andras to the grass while lightning flashed overhead.

On the lawn, not five feet from where she struggled to maintain consciousness, Andras wrestled with a figure cloaked all in black. Her head spun as she tried to watch, but every time she moved to sit up her stomach turned and she found herself falling back. She could barely keep her eyes open as she saw the too familiar dark figure as he slashed at Andras’s face and sent the demon running faster than humanly possible.

It was then that her savior turned to face her. Dressed all in black, with long, ebony hair, stood Draven Crane, his chest rising and falling heavily as he looked upon her.

Cadence tried to say something, anything at all, but she lost her fragile grip on her consciousness just as she noticed that Draven’s eyes were glowing a bright red.

Chapter Five

“You’re not going to work today,” Jane insisted, but Cadence didn’t need that much convincing.

“I just don’t want to get fired,” Cadence said as she rubbed the tender spot at the back of her head.

“You won’t,” Jane assured her. “And neither will I. I already called the bank and told them what happened. They’re cool with me taking the day to make sure you didn’t give yourself an embolism or something.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Cadence told her as she grabbed the rapidly melting ice pack off the coffee table and pressed it to her head. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Jane gaped at her. “Are you crazy? I found you passed out in the driveway, in the rain, bleeding from your head. It’s kind of a big deal!”

That much was true. Jane had pulled into the driveway to find Cadence flat on her back, soaked from the rain, and completely knocked out.

Somehow she was able to bring Cadence back to consciousness before she helped her into the house. She’d tried to convince Cadence that she should go to the hospital, but she insisted she was fine and that she’d only slipped and fell on the wet pavement.

She couldn’t tell her roommate the truth. She couldn’t even tell herself the truth. Her mind, even with the pounding headache, was working hard to convince herself that what had really happened was that Andras had walked her home, he’d left, and she’d fallen once she was alone. The rest of the stuff, where Andras was some sort of horrible demon and that Draven Crane had come to her rescue, that was all some weird dream that her mind had crafted while she was knocked out on the ground. It was the only way anything made sense.

“Okay, I won’t go in,” Cadence said, but she fretted having to talk to any of the secretaries more than she worried about getting in trouble for skipping out on work. There was no one she thought was safe to call besides Suzanne in HR and she forced herself to take a deep breath in before she began to dial on her old cellphone.

“Hello?” Suzanne’s familiar voice answered.

“Hi, Suzanne?” Cadence asked.

“Yes?” the human resources manager replied.

“It’s Cadence,” she said, forcing herself to finish her thought. “I’m really sorry, but I took a nasty fall in the rain last night and hit my head pretty good on the sidewalk. I really don’t think I can make it in.”

“That’s interesting,” Suzanne said. “Mr. Crane just notified me that he wasn’t going to be in today. I just assumed he would have let you know.”

“No, he hadn’t yet,” Cadence said, but she couldn’t hide the grimace on her face. A small sign that what she was convinced was a dream might just be real. “I’m sure he just assumed I’d find out when I got to work.”

“Well, you just rest up,” Suzanne told her. “We’ll hopefully see you both tomorrow.”

“Happy?” Cadence said to Jane once she hung up the phone.

“Very,” Jane nodded. “You need to rest.”

Resting was fine for a while, but the longer Cadence laid on the couch, daytime TV filling the room, the longer she had to think about what had really happened the night before. She didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to think about the possibility of Andras attacking her and she certainly didn’t want to think about the horrible visage he’d taken on.

It was when she remembered seeing Draven’s eyes burning furious red as he leered at her that she realized she couldn’t just spend the day on the couch. She couldn’t let herself think about her weird memories anymore. She needed a distraction and she needed it now.

“I’m feeling a lot better,” she said to Jane as her best friend watched
The Price is Right
.

“Good,” Jane said. “Want something to eat?”

“Actually,” Cadence said. “I’m bored out of my mind and want to go out.”

“Thank god,” Jane said. “I’m dying just sitting around. Want to go to those new outlets just outside of town?”

“I don’t have any money,” Cadence reminded her.

“So?” Jane said. “If you see something you like, I’ll pay for it and you can pay me back when you get paid. Don’t worry about it. You’ve earned a bit of a treat.”

“I can’t,” Cadence tried to insist, but Jane wouldn’t hear anything of it.

“Go get dressed,” Jane instructed. “I’ve got about five minutes before I go crazy sitting around here anymore, so get moving.”

Though her head still hurt a bit, Cadence did as she was told and moved as quickly as she could up the stairs to her room. She was happy to not have to wear her standard black skirt and blazer and instead, she pulled on a pair of jeans and an oversized maroon sweater.

Once she’d run a comb through her chin length hair, she was ready to go and carefully walked back downstairs. She was still a little dizzy when she moved too quickly, but she wouldn’t tell Jane that. She had already made her worry enough.

“Thank god,” Jane said as she stepped out into the drizzly day. “I was going to smack my own head off the pavement if I had to sit around any longer.”

“Sorry,” Cadence said as she walked towards Jane’s old beater.

“Oh my god,” Jane shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m just glad we can go out and do something rather and sit around all day.”

The drive wasn’t far to the outlet center, but Cadence found herself praying that they would get there soon. She didn’t know if it was the weather or the knock on her head, but it almost felt like the shadows were getting closer and closer. Even as they drove, the shadows seemed to wash over the windshield with the rain and no matter how hard she rubbed her eyes, they wouldn’t go away.

“You okay?” Jane asked as she glanced over and saw Cadence furiously rubbing at her eyes.

“Yeah,” Cadence shrugged it off. “Just tired.”

“There’s a Starbucks over there,” Jane told her. “My treat.”

“You’re the best,” Cadence said as she forced herself to stop fighting with the shapes that wouldn’t go away. She had to try to just ignore them, nothing else was working.

The shopping center was deserted on the rainy Tuesday afternoon, but Cadence was glad of that. She was happy to be out of the house, but she didn’t want to deal with other people. Her head was still tender and her mind was too flustered to try to fight with other shoppers.

“Where to first?” Jane asked.

“Coffee,” Cadence said, cracking her first smile of the day. “Then wherever you want.”

The Starbucks was the only place with a line, but it moved quickly and no one even looked at the two young women as they waited in the queue. The rainy weather seemed to be taking a toll on everyone and there was little chatter from anyone save the baristas as they took everyone’s order.

“Just a black coffee,” Cadence told the woman behind the counter.

“And a grande extra whip mocha frappuccino,” Jane requested as she pulled out her wallet.

With caffeine in their veins, at least one of the pair was ready to shop. Jane dragged Cadence from store to store, ignoring the drizzle that continued to fall as they went.

Every shop was nearly empty and they had the full attention of every staff member, but Cadence was more overwhelmed than anything. She liked to browse on her own and even then, she’d never been much for shopping.

Jane, on the other hand, was in her element. She found pants, dresses, jackets, and more while salespeople showered her with attention and, of course, more things to buy. Cadence knew her best friend made okay money at the bank, but she had to wonder if Jane could really afford everything she was buying.

After the fourth store, Cadence needed a break. The caffeine had helped her head, but she still didn’t feel entirely awake yet and she excused herself for a second Starbucks run.

“Do you want anything?” she asked Jane before she left.

“No thanks,” Jane said as she stepped out of a changing room. She was trying on a red dress that showed off her ample curves and made her look like Joan from
Mad Men
. “You like?”

“I love it,” Cadence said, a pang of jealousy in her voice. “I’ll be right back.”

“You need some cash?” Jane asked as she admired her curvy figure in the mirror.

“I’ve got a few bucks,” Cadence said, though that was about it until payday finally came around. “I won’t be long.”

The Starbucks was only fifty feet away, but in the dreary cold, it felt like a marathon. Cadence held her hands over her eyes to help shield them from the lightly falling rain as she marched towards the coffee shop.

As she walked, Cadence started to notice the nearly empty parking lot. Only a few cars dotted the expansive lot and there was no one walking between the stores. She didn’t expect the place to be busy during the bleak weather, but she realized the place was more than slow. It was deserted. Deserted and eerily quiet.