The look on Rafe’s face assured me this wasn’t some demon for hire but someone he knew well and wasn’t happy to see. I stayed out of their way and waited with my weapons. I wanted to bawl. What else hadn’t Rafe told me? Of course I had plenty of secrets myself. Enough already. Concentrate.
“Alesa. What the hell are you doing here?” Rafe’s greeting didn’t exactly say loving husband. He radiated fury from his tight jaw to his fists hitting his thighs.
“It’s our anniversary, Rafael. How could I ignore it?” She smiled, her eyes red again. Really creepy. Rafe stepped closer.
“Easy. You go back where you came from and do your thing. I do mine. That was the agreement.” Rafe glanced at me and shook his head. Shorthand for “I’m sorry”? Not nearly good enough.
“The agreement sucks. I want a child, and you’re going to give me one. You owe me that after what you put me through. Your rejection made me a laughingstock where I come from. I need to gain back my pride. I’m not leaving until you give me what I want.” Her eyes were really heating up the place, and I looked away before my eyeballs got singed.
“No way. I don’t owe you a damned thing.” Rafe stepped to within inches of her. God, but the man had stones. I wanted to escape out the back door and leave them to hammer out their own domestic details. But what if Rafe needed me? I shivered but gripped the soft leather prayer book in one hand and the cross dangling from the rosary in the other.
“Please, darling.” She dragged a silver nail down his cheek, drawing blood. He never moved. “I’m getting older, and my fertile time is almost over. You’ve got to—”
“Bullshit!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, his fingers digging into her skin and ripping the fine silk of her blouse. “I’ve heard this all before, Lesa. I’m not tying my family to yours or damning a child of mine. I promised my grandfather, and that promise I’ll keep. The marriage was annulled in the Mayori court. I’m sorry if you don’t want to accept that, but it’s done. Over. Go back to hell and take a lover there. Or creep into a mortal bed and get a spawn that way. But you’ll never have a child of my blood. Ever.” Rafe’s eyes suddenly glowed red too.
I gasped and clutched the book and rosary to my breast, so shocked I felt my knees buckle. Rafe’s eyes red? That could only mean one thing. The room darkened right before I hit the floor.
When I woke up, I was in my own bed and I was alone. What the hell had happened?
Not much, Glory. Just everything you know about Rafael Valdez is suddenly wrong, wrong, wrong.
I glanced at the clock and realized I’d been out for about an hour. The shop! I sat up, but when the room spun, I fell back again.
“You’re awake. Sorry about that scene earlier and then the blackout. Alesa is hell on wheels when she’s pissed.” Rafe stood in the doorway, a bottle of Nadia’s synthetic in his hand. “Here, drink. Maybe it’ll help get you on your feet again.”
“Are you telling me that demon knocked me out?” I took the cold bottle and held it against my forehead, not ready to drink yet. I felt shaky inside and out. “She didn’t touch me.”
“She didn’t have to. It’s one of her tricks. She gave you a psychic right hook. Sent you straight to the floor. She didn’t like having an audience, since I was rejecting her.” Rafe looked like he wanted to hit the wall next to the bed. “She’s gone for now, but I’m afraid she’ll be back. The woman’s on a mission.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “Damn it, Glory. I’m sorry she dragged you into this.”
“She said she was your wife.” I struggled to sit up again. Rafe was there instantly, arranging a pillow behind me. When I waved him off, he frowned but stepped back. “I can handle this.” I leaned against the headboard and sipped from the bottle. “Is she? Your wife?”
“No.” Rafe pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and answered it. Guess he’d had it on vibrate. “Yes, sir?” There was a long silence while he listened to whoever was on the other end.
I could hear enough to know the guy wasn’t happy. Neither was Rafe. He burst into a different language, one I’d never heard before, and began pacing around the bedroom. Another long silence. Judging by Rafe’s body language, this was serious. You know the phrase “blind with rage”? Well, that was Rafe. I lay very still, not sure I wanted to draw attention to myself.
“No!” That outburst was followed by another long silence, Rafe listening, then suddenly ending the call.
“You okay?” I still didn’t move but decided it was safe to ask the question.
“No. Damn it!” He turned off the phone, shoved it into his pocket and faced me again. “I owe you an explanation.”
“Only if you want to, Rafe.” I held out my hand. “Come, sit and cool down first.” I hated to see him so upset. He was my calm-in-a-crisis buddy. Now I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him till he collected himself.
“You sure you trust me that close to you? I know you saw my eyes earlier. My demon eyes.” He came close to the bed now but still hadn’t taken my hand.
I swallowed. Yes, there was that. But right now I saw the same soft brown eyes of the guy who’d risked his life for me countless times. They weren’t teasing me, and I sure wasn’t seeing the dimples that came out when he grinned. But I loved everything about Rafael Valdez, and I wasn’t going to throw away our friendship without giving him a chance to explain.
How can he explain demon eyes, Glory?
“Come here, Rafe.” I grabbed his hand, pulling him down to sit on the bed. The movement made me a little woozy, and I sank back against the pillow. “Your ex really did a number on me. I still feel like I’ve been shaken, not stirred.”
“She’s a vindictive bitch. She was the biggest mistake of my life.” Rafe smoothed back my hair. “Thanks for hanging in with me, Glory. I hope you won’t be sorry.”
“Never. How on earth did you ever fall for such a creature? And who was that on the phone?” I held on to his hand. “Never mind explaining about her. I can’t say much. I apparently once carried on with Greg Kaplan. Brain farts. Hormones override common sense. It happens to the best of us. Alesa is beautiful when she’s looking like a human.”
“Yes, she is. And I was young and rebellious. My grandfather, the guy on the phone, had warned me to stay away from demons. So naturally I was hell-bent, pardon the pun, on trying one.” Rafe laughed, but it wasn’t a merry sound. “Kids can be stupid pricks. I sure was. Alesa and I had a hot time and even made it legal during a wild weekend.”
“You did marry her.” I wanted to jerk my hand away but decided that would be childish and stupid. I was jealous. I had no right. I’d been married before. Of course my husband had been dead for more than four hundred years. Then there was my relationship with Jerry. He figured we were as good as married.
“Yes. Big mistake. Once she thought she had me tied to her, she let the worst parts of her evil side hang out. Man, was I stupid.” Rafe took my now empty bottle of synthetic and set it on the nightstand. “So I went crawling home to my grandfather, and he helped me get the marriage annulled.”
“From what Alesa said, she’s never accepted that.” I gripped Rafe’s hand, imagining a young, impressionable shifter in the hands of a demon bitch. “I’ll bet those creatures are never naïve and always know exactly what they’re doing.”
“That’s the argument we used in court. The Mayori court is the governing body of the shape-shifters. Demons don’t obey their edicts. So it suits Alesa to pretend we’re still married. I know we’re not.” He smiled at me. “Vampires don’t acknowledge our court either.”
“I know that. We’re free spirits. But I’ve heard of the Mayori.” Blade and Damian actually admired the shape-shifter power structure. It kept them off the human radar. You didn’t read a lot of scary shifter stories like you did the Dracula thing, now did you? I was finally feeling better and sat up straight. “So what’s your grandfather got to do with them, and how did you end up with demon eyes?”
“Please. Only part of me is demon. The rest is pure shifter. Grandfather is head of the Mayori court now.” Rafe stood and pulled me to my feet. “He’d like to pretend it never happened, but my mother, his only daughter, was the result of his own romp with a demon bitch.”
“Oh, the sins of the fathers . . . or in this case, the grand-fathers.” When my knees started to cave, I slipped my arms around him, absorbing his warmth and strength. “No wonder he was giving you hell on the phone. He wanted this all to go away permanently, didn’t he?”
“Oh, yeah. And he’d flip if Alesa had a child of our blood.” Rafe held on to me. “Of course I won’t let that happen. Being part demon has made me something of an outcast among my kind.” He breathed against my hair.
“Poor Rafe.” I ran my hands up and down his back.
“I handled it. Grandfather would have bought me acceptance, but I’ve always made my own way.” He put his hand under my chin. “But if sympathy gets me something here, I’ll take it.”
“What does he think about you consorting with vampires?” I looked up and caught a glimpse of white teeth and dimples.
“Hates it.” Rafe slipped his hands down to my waist and pulled me closer. “Which makes you even more desirable.”
“Still the rebellious youth, I see.” I didn’t resist, and his eyes darkened. “How old are you anyway?”
“Eight hundred and seventy-two.” He lowered his head and took my lower lip between his teeth, then gently sucked it into the heat of his mouth.
Hmm. No youthful fumbling here but rather a world of experience. He kissed me as if he could dive into my soul and pull me into his. I shoved my hands into his hair and lost myself in the moment, reveling in the taste of him, the heat of his mouth and the magic of his hands moving down to grab my butt.