Private Demon

If he stepped out of the alley, he would be seen. They would not question him. They would see him covered in gore and filth, and they would try to take him. Or shoot him. He couldn't risk being challenged by humans, not in his present state.

He would have to wait until they had gone.

Thierry settled behind a stack of flattened paper boxes and watched the rats as the light drove them to find sanctuary. That was what he truly needed now: a house or place of business where he could wash, rest, and not be seen by human eyes. But here, in Chicago, the people of the city lived like every day would be their last, never opening their doors, never unlocking their windows.

The city was a fist, squeezed too tightly against him.

Light-headed and cold, Thierry closed his eyes and put a protective arm over his belly. With his other hand he drew his dagger. His hand felt empty without the blade, and he could never rest unless he held it ready. He had owned many daggers during his long life, but this one was special to him. It had been a gift from Tremayne, who had shown him how to use it two hundred years ago, after Thierry and Michael had helped him escape Rome.

If you are taken and there is no hope of escape, thrust it here. Thierry could still feel the brush of Tremayne's distorted hand on the back of his neck. One quick stroke, to cut through. It is the same as losing your head.

Thierry would have done so when the Brethren had come for him in France, but he had been sleeping with his wife, Angelica, and that was the only time he went naked of clothes and weapons.

She had known this. She had told them.

Coming to Chicago and hunting the men who had harmed Luisa Lopez had kept him from drowning in his madness. He could read English and had understood what had happened to the girl as soon as he had opened the file. Luisa had been tortured by the Brethren. Cyprien would not know this; he had not witnessed the sadistic ways the monks worked on humans. Thierry had. So he had set out on the journey, certain that this would serve as his penance for attacking Alexandra, who had only tried to help him, and to pay back the Brethren, who had destroyed his life as well as his body.

A light-colored convertible drew parallel to the alley and parked across the street from it rather than going farther down to the crime scene. His attention sharpened when he saw the human female who stepped out alone in the dark. She was young, thin, and dark, a little cat of a woman. From the way she moved, she was out of her territory, alert for danger. She had her gaze fixed on the police lights, however, and was ignoring everything else around her.

Like him.

I could walk up and take her now. Thierry rose, his hand tightening on the dagger as he scanned the area around her. That she was so close to him when he was in need made him more angry than hungry. He was not the only predator out tonight. Has she no one to look after her? To keep her home, safe from things like me?

The woman didn't spare him or the alley a glance, but walked down to the crime scene and, after showing one of the officers her wallet, disappeared into the building.

Thierry sank back down behind the crushed boxes. He was as good as a walking sieve, and she was too small. Women of any size were the worst of temptations. But if he did not hunt soon, he would be too weak to do more than crawl deeper into the alley filth and hide. Then he would have to wait until someone came close enough to grab.

Not the woman. Not any woman.

His loneliness had become harder to bear than his madness. He could not bring himself to hunt a woman, not after what he had done in his madness to Alexandra, so he had been feeding exclusively on males.

Hunting on the streets of Memphis had been Thierry's greatest mistake.

He had not meant to stop in Memphis; the car he had stolen developed an engine problem, and forced him to leave the interstate, where there were too many state troopers who might stop and offer help. The car's engine had died in the very heart of the city, where there were few places to hide.

The Darkyn hunter who had crossed Thierry's path had picked up his scent, but more important, he had recognized and pursued him. That was when Thierry knew that he was being hunted, and no one else but Cyprien could have issued orders to capture him.

If he was to find his salvation, he would have to outwit his oldest friend and elude his own kind.

Time passed. Minutes, then hours. Thierry reached for the strength he would need to rise again. It had always been there when he'd needed it, but now it eluded him. Without it he felt dry and withering, a husk beginning to crumble. He had not fed enough during his journey to this city; his reserves were exhausted. So, too, was his spirit. Finding the men who had hurt the girl had been the torch in a long, lightless tunnel. His failure to do so would snuff it out, and then there would be nothing but the dark.

He could not survive the madness without some light to guide him. Had he not earned a little?

"Hello?"

He opened his eyes and peered over the top of the boxes. Incredibly, the woman from the convertible was standing just outside the alley, looking in.

"Is someone in there?"

Is she mad, too? Thierry dared not blink or breathe, and then something uncurled inside him, something stronger than his fear for her. His scent, always intense when he was wounded, changed.

"If you're hurt, I can call for help." She was actually moving into the alley, looking at the ground and then from side to side. Tracking like a hunter, but she was not Kyn.

Thierry looked at the ground in front of the boxes. A wide, winding ribbon of blood spatters darkened the asphalt. That was what had drawn her; he must have trailed blood from the street to here. He couldn't believe he'd been so careless.

Stand up. She is right there. Take her.

"It's all right," she said, her voice a caress. "I work with the police."' She stopped in front of him and stared at the boxes concealing him. "I can help to get you to the hospital."

Her scent was very light; he almost lost it in the Hood of his own. But no, there it was, the smell of her skin like warm, ripe apples. It was such a wholesome and ordinary scent that it disconcerted him. Modern women did not smell of orchard fruit. They doused themselves with costly perfumes. Angelica had hated her body's scent and did everything she could to erase it. This woman smelled of nothing else.

Her blood will taste of it.

"I know you're afraid," she told him as she took a step closer, "but I won't hurt you."

Thierry had held out until that moment, but she hail drawn too near him, and the need became agonizing. It bargained with him: Only a little. Only enough to heal the wounds.

If he did not take her blood, he would not leave this alley. "Come here."

The sound of his voice, harsh from not being used in so long, startled her. For a moment he thought she might bolt, and part of him prayed she would. He watched her breathe in deeply, and her eyelids grew heavy.

Disgust with himself could not slop him from commanding her again. "Come here. To me."

The little cat moved around the boxes slowly, deliberately, drawn and drugged as she was by l'attrait. Thierry's had always had a particular effect on women.

She was more delicate than he'd supposed, thin-skinned, with fragile-looking limbs. Hollows and shadows marred the alabaster oval of her face. He lifted his hand and drew her down to him, entranced by the shape of her mouth, the lush curl of her lashes. Her garments were plain, a simple blouse and trousers, but beneath the ivory silk small breasts rose and fell.

She smelled of apples but she was made of moonlight.

Thierry held her by the waist as he positioned her to straddle his lap, intending to keep her weight from pressing on his wounds. The stiff arc at his crotch filled the notch in hers, and he flinched, unaware until that touch that he had become aroused in other ways.

Thin fingers brushed his hair back from his face. "Golden." she murmured as she stared into his eyes, fascinated. "They're golden."

Thierry's fangs shot out into his mouth, eager for her flesh. He had not touched a woman since he'd nearly killed Alexandra Keller, but he could no more set her away from him than he could cut off his arms.

"So are yours." A dark gold, rimmed with brown so dark it looked black. She might be as small as Alexandra Keller, but at least her eyes did not remind him of her. "Unbutton your blouse, chérie." It was silk, and he did not wish to mar it with blood.

No, that was far from the truth. He wanted to see her.

Slowly she unfastened the pearl buttons nestled in the silk, opening the edges slowly. She did not wear anything to hide her breasts, small and firm, taut and flushed. Hard little apples, each barely enough to fill his palms.

A silent howl went up inside him. Father in heaven, have you not done enough to torment me?

Thierry did not dare put his mouth to her perfect breasts; his hunger would have him tearing at them. His gaze moved up, following the line of her throat to once again fix on her mouth. Like her breasts, the little cat's mouth was small, her lips pale pink. It was not the tight rosebud of a child, however, but the full, graceful curve of an American beauty just beginning to bloom.

He would not savage her, but he would taste her. He would use the dagger on himself if he did not.

"Chérie." He lifted his hand and cradled the back of her head, bringing her face down to his. "Kiss me."

She sighed into his mouth before she kissed it, and her breath warmed his tongue. She smelled of apples, but she tasted of honey and almonds. Thierry watched her eyes close, felt her thighs tighten over his, and then the liquid heat of her mouth melded with his.

She kissed him as she had moved, graceful but cautious, a little cat finding its way in the dark. He had never felt anything like it. His need for her blood pounded inside him, demanding more than soft lips and silky tongue, and he used his hand to tilt her head.

Inside, where it cannot be seen. Where it will be her secret, and mine.

When Thierry sank his fangs into the soft flesh inside her lower lip, she groaned.

Her blood flooded his mouth, hot and strong, the pulse of life that hummed in her veins pouring into his. Thierry drank from her lips, warming with each swallow, intent on taking only what he needed. The wounds in his belly and sides itched as they began to knit and close, the signal that he had had enough of her. Yet she kept kissing him, giving him her tongue as well as her blood.