The Order Boxed Set (104 page)

“No.” He’d hold her down if he had to.

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

She gaped at him, mouth open, but no words came out. He held his breath as he waited for her to say something…anything. Then her gaze shifted to something behind him, her eyes widening. “Crap.”

The air prickled. Carl turned slowly as a portal shivered across the air. For a moment his muscles locked up tight with tension, but he forced them to relax. It must be Ash.

The portal solidified, and four figures stepped through. Unfortunately, while they were demons, none of them was Ash.

Chapter Nine

“Shit.”

Carl swore again and jumped to his feet, standing between the demons and Shera. Christ, he was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, not a weapon within reach. And Shera was handcuffed to the goddamned bed.

He glanced back at her. She was frowning. “Shift,” he muttered between his clenched teeth. “Shift and get the hell out of here.”

Her eyes were huge as she stared at the demons. “No.”

Panic churned inside him. Why couldn’t she do what she was told, just one time? “Goddamn it. Go!”

“Princess, what is your command?”

For a moment the words made no sense. He’d been concentrating on Shera, but now he turned back to the newcomers, and at last he recognized them. Or at least their leader. He’d been with the demons who had attacked them the night he’d met Shera in Spain.

What the fuck was going on?

Princess?

A glimmer of light.

He stepped to the side, slowly, so he could watch both Shera and the demons, though he had an idea that if anyone was in danger here, it wasn’t his little cat.

“Who are you?” Shera asked.

“I am Bevan, your bodyguard,” the demon replied. “These are my people.” He waved a hand at the three demons behind him.

“Er…” She shook her head. “Bodyguard? I have a bodyguard? Since when?”

“Since your father found out about your existence.”

She blinked a couple of times and frowned. “I have a father as well as a bodyguard?”

“We have been watching over you. We had orders to wait until you were ready to return, or your time ran out, but this morning we sensed your distress.” He cast a look toward Carl and amusement flickered in his crimson eyes. “Do you wish us to dispose of the…dog?”

“No.
Really
, no.”

“Then we must depart for the Abyss.”

Her face went blank, her muscles tightened. “Not. Going. Back.”

“I have my orders.”

Carl took a step forward. “You heard the fucking princess—she doesn’t want to go. So fuck off back to where you’ve been hiding.”

His lips quirked. “We have been close.”

“Well, that explains the stink I’ve been smelling recently.”

The amusement vanished. “She comes with us.”

Carl took a step closer and shoved a finger in the demon’s chest. “Not if she doesn’t want to.”

“She will die.”

“I’ll save her.”

“That is my job.”

…

Carl loves me!

Shera’s head was about to explode. The morning had taken on a surreal quality, but she had a feeling that if she could stop her brain going
boom
, she might actually make some sense of this. But her mind kept going back to Carl’s words.

He loves me.

She looked from him to the demon and back again. They were growling right into each other’s faces, only inches apart. She let the argument wash over her as she tried to make sense of what was going on.

He’d called her “princess.” Said he was her bodyguard. A demon bodyguard sent by her father. So that would make her…

She pinched the bridge of her nose.

She was pretty sure she knew what that made her, and right now she couldn’t get a reaction from her brain. It was so out of the blue. Or maybe not. She had a flashback to Carl stopping her taking a drink the first night they had met. Then his extremely convoluted story about why she shouldn’t drink because he had an alcoholic mother. How had she believed that load of bollocks? He’d just not wanted her to drink. Why hadn’t he told her the real reason?

She shook her head, opened her mouth, but no one was paying her any attention at all. Instead they were arguing about which one of them was going to save her. She didn’t need or want saving. She’d already made her decision—she was going to die. And they would all feel sorry that they hadn’t been nicer to her.

At that thought, she had a moment of almost blinding clarity. The truth was, she was being stubborn, and a bitch, and maybe a little bit of a demon thrown in. She’d wanted everyone to suffer and be sorry she was dead.

But she didn’t really want to die.

As she accepted that, a sense of lightness bubbled up inside her until she was almost floating.

And Carl loves me!

She took a deep breath. She could do this. She could go back, meet her mysterious father, and sort something out with Asmodai. And she’d have Carl to help her along the way.

Time to bring a stop to this. “Okay, guys,” she said.

No one took the slightest bit of notice.

She glanced around. There was one thing left to do on her bucket list. She shifted into cat form quickly, pulling her paw free of the handcuff, and then shifted back again. Carl was busy arguing, but the demon flashed her an amused glance.

She rose from the bed, clutching the sheet to her breasts, and sidled toward the minibar. She bent down and opened it, grabbed the first of the little bottles, and straightened. She read the label:
vodka.
Good enough.

She unscrewed the cap and took a sniff.
Ugh
. Then she looked up and found the whole room focused on her. At last.

Carl looked scared. Really scared. She liked that. Served him right for not telling her the truth.

“What’s the matter?” she asked sweetly. “Do you think I’m going to go all demon on you?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you think that? Is there something you haven’t been telling me, Carl?”

Without waiting for an answer, she raised the bottle to her lips and took a sip. Double
ugh
.

“Spit it out, Shera,” Carl said.

Not a chance. She swallowed, felt the burn in her throat but little else. Frowning, she lifted the bottle to her mouth and gulped the rest.

Everyone was watching her. She raised her shoulders in a shrug. Maybe she wasn’t a demon after all. A giggle spilled out of her mouth. She opened the minibar and pulled out the next bottle.
Gin.

Her mind was feeling a little numb—if nothing else, the alcohol might dull the whole experience if she did spontaneously combust. She giggled again then remembered—she didn’t want to die.

She took a gulp of gin—more
ugh
—then a wobbly step toward Carl. “I’ve decided. You can take me back.”

She liked the shock that flashed across his expression and the big grin that split his face.

“I will take you back, Princess.”

She whirled as the demon spoke, almost fell over, found him really close, and steadied herself on his chest. Behind her, Carl growled. And then they were arguing again.

She returned to the minibar, got a bottle of rum—if she persevered she was bound to find a drink she liked.

As the door opened and her lord Asmodai appeared, she let out another giggle. He stepped into the room, Faith close behind him. Shera managed a smile and a waggle of her fingers. Unfortunately, it was the hand holding the rum—her other hand was still clutching the sheet to her otherwise naked form—and it spilt across her fingers. “Whoops.”

Ash halted just inside the room, hands on his hips. “What the hell is going on here?” he roared.

Everyone stopped what they were doing, but no one spoke. It was obviously up to her to fill the silence.

“I’m a princess,” she said. “You may call me your Royal Highness.”

Asmodai shook his head. Then his gaze dropped to the bottle in her hand, and his eyes widened.

“Hey, don’t panic. I’m fine, and I’m coming back. I decided just now, right this minute, that I don’t want to die. I can’t promise I’ll be a good little slave anymore though. I don’t feel like being a good little anything.”

“Well, it’s good that we have an alternative.”

Carl moved closer, and she frowned. “No. I don’t want Carl to be your slave either.”

“Neither do I,” Asmodai replied. “Werewolves make shit poor slaves.”

“What the hell…?” Carl stepped forward all bristly male, ready to protect her.

She sighed dramatically. “My hero.”

He turned to face her. “You’re drunk.” He frowned as he scrutinized her. “But you’re not crazy.”

“Nope.”

“Well,” Asmodai said, “on the assumption that this condition might not last, let’s get this done and get the hell out of here.”

“Get what done?”

Faith stepped forward. “We talked about it,” she said. “It hadn’t occurred to us, but it’s so obvious really.”

“It is?”

“I can take the sigil.”

“You can?”

“I plan to stay with Ash for eternity anyway.”

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Shera muttered and took a delicate sip of rum.

Carl snickered.

Faith reached out rested her hand on Shera’s arm, over the sigil. Asmodai stepped closer, placed his hand over Faith’s, murmured a few words, and just like that it was done.

As though a band had been loosened from around her, she was free. She glanced down. The sigil was gone.

She turned to Carl. “I love—”

But in that moment, a fire awoke in her belly. The flames raced along her nerves, roaring through her mind. She wanted to run, to leap, to tear something into tiny little bloody pieces with her teeth.

“Oh, hell. She’s gone demon crazy.”

Epilogue

“Then you went totally ape-shit demon-crazy, and we all jumped on top of you.”

Shera rubbed at her forehead. She couldn’t remember anything after those last words. She’d woken up here, in a lovely comfortable bed, with Carl propped in a chair beside her.

He continued with the story, “Then I punched that bastard Bevan on his ugly great nose, because I saw him copping a feel—you’d dropped the sheet by that point and were bare-assed naked. And that ass is only for me to see.”

“Okay, enough. I don’t want to know any more.”

“There isn’t much more to know. You passed out. I bundled you back up in your sheet, Ash opened a portal, and here we are. Thank God. Now, I really have to kiss you.”

About time.

He leaned across and took her lips in a gentle kiss. His mouth hardened against hers, his tongue filling her mouth as his body came down on the bed beside her. Fires ignited in her belly, her nipples tightening, and she rubbed herself against him as the kiss went on and on. In the end, they ran out of air, and he dragged his mouth from hers, breathing fast. He cupped her face with one hand.

“You changed your mind,” he whispered.

“I realized I wanted to live. I wanted the chance of a life with you.” She tugged a hand free, stroking his prickly jaw. “I love you. I could cope with anything with you beside me.”

“Me, too. That’s why I told Ash I’d take the sigil. I couldn’t face a world without you.”

Warmth radiated through her. He’d been willing to give up everything for her. “I nearly left it too late.”

“But it wasn’t.” He kissed her again, for a very long time.

Finally he raised his head, and she glanced around her. She didn’t recognize the room, and she knew every corner of Asmodai’s castle. “Where are we?”

“Your father’s house.”

“Oh God, I have a father. I’d forgotten. How could I forget that? Who is he? What’s he like? How—”

He put his finger to her lips. “Hush,” he said. “Probably best I don’t tell you anything about him. I don’t want to give you any preconceived ideas. Meet him and make up your own mind.”

“I’ve got nothing to wear.”

“There are wardrobes full of clothes.”

“Really? For me?”

“All for you.”

“So he wants me?”

“I think it’s safe to say yes.”

She lay back for a moment and sighed. Her bucket list was done, Carl loved her, and she was on her way to meet the father she hadn’t even known existed.

She was sure she was going to love him. Whoever he was.

“But first,” she said, “kiss me again. Kiss me as though I’m the most important thing in the whole world, as though you’ll never get enough.”

And he did.

The End

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Acknowledgments

To the fabulous people at Entangled Publishing, for all their wonderful comments, edits and encouragement. To all the great women at Passionate Critters for reading my stories and letting me know what they really think. And finally, to my husband Rob, who puts up with me, and encourages me, and does a great job of hiding it when he’s totally fed up with me vanishing into my imaginary worlds and filling the house with vampires and werewolves…and cat shifters.