“It’s a guess,” Bishop said.
There were also at least two hundred other souls here in this club. I couldn’t ignore that fact no matter how hard I tried, especially after how out of control I’d been only a short time ago on the street. I fought hard to keep my focus and not let my hunger take over—my constant, invisible, inner battle.
Bishop glanced around our immediate area. “Where did Kraven go?”
I looked over my shoulder and spotted him almost immediately. The golden-haired demon was impossible to miss, even in a crowd. “By the bar. He’s getting a drink.”
“Typical. He’s always preferred getting drunk to working.”
I looked at him, surprised. “Demons can get drunk?”
He raised an eyebrow. “He used to be human.”
“So did you,” I reminded him, and was rewarded with an immediate tensing of his expression. It was almost amusing, really. He was like Pavlov’s dog. Ring a bell, the dog salivates. Mention his past, Bishop gets grouchy.
“Right,” he finally allowed. “Well, some things don’t change. Alcohol and other drugs still affect us. If we’re not careful.”
“Maybe he wants to drown the memory of...what he had to do to me earlier.”
There was no humor in his eyes anymore. Instead, there was a flash of something much darker. “That kiss?”
My cheeks burned. “Yeah, well. He doesn’t like me.”
“He likes you more than he likes me. He hates my guts.”
“You think he still holds it against you that you killed him and sent him to Hell? Shocker.” I honestly didn’t mean it to sound as smart-ass as it came out. But there it was.
“Let’s keep looking for Stephen,” Bishop said tightly.
I deflated. My confidence came and went, really. Right now, it went. “Sorry, but you’re the one who gave me that enticing piece of information and now you want to pretend you never said anything.”
He studied me for a moment, expressionless, then a grin finally tugged the side of his mouth. “You are bound and determined to learn my deepest, darkest secrets, aren’t you?”
“Determined is a good word. Obsessed might be another one.”
His smile only grew, the expression working like an arrow shooting straight into my heart. “Obsession can be a dangerous thing, Samantha.”
My gaze moved to his lips. “Don’t I know it.”
He wrenched his attention from me to scan the club, and then turned around to face me full-on. “Am I too close? I’d rather not make this difficult for you.”
I swallowed hard, ignoring the constant hunger being near him brought forth. “It’s always difficult when I’m close to you.”
His jaw tensed, and he turned away. “Then I should give you some space.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s better now than it was before.” I grabbed his arm, and electricity sparked between us. He tensed and turned back to face me.
Then he immediately directed me away from the crowd and off into a quieter alcove, past a translucent crystal-beaded curtain. The loud music still blared from the live band and I couldn’t even make out what the lead singer was singing, but it was slightly muted here, giving the illusion of privacy.
“Bishop, last night when I saw your memory...” I began. I had to get this out. It weighed on me like a two-ton elephant sitting on my chest.
“Let’s forget about that.” His attention moved to something over my shoulder, but I think he was simply trying to avoid eye contact.
“But that’s just it—I don’t want to forget it. I know you think I might have seen something that you didn’t want me to see. That somehow it’s going to make me dislike you or fear you. But you’re wrong.”
He gave me a wry look. “Then I guess you didn’t see nearly as much as I thought you did.”
“Why can I do that?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I know I can do the mind-meld thing, but it’s not like I can control it.”
“You’re a nexus.” He moved closer so he could also speak quietly in case we were overheard. The song had ended and the band slowly eased into the next one. The buzz of conversation beyond the curtain swirled around me. “You have a strange power over the ethereal and the infernal. That includes me. Add that to the fact that you took a piece of my soul...well, that gives you certain powerful abilities.”
As much as I’d love to be someone who just readily accepts every mind-blowing thing that has happened to me over the past couple of weeks, I wasn’t that girl. The less I thought about my birth parents and what that meant—and I honestly didn’t know exactly what that meant—the less freaked out I got.
“I don’t feel so powerful,” I said, swallowing hard. “I don’t know why anybody would even be concerned with someone like me. There’s no way I could throw anything off balance.”
“I think you underestimate yourself.”
Bishop was still too close to me, and his warm, spicy scent made it nearly impossible for me to concentrate. “Have you ever known of another nexus?”
“They’re rare, but yes. Once, years ago, I met one.”
“What happened?” I asked, breathless.
He met my gaze. “I killed him.”
I gasped. “Oh, my God.”
His brows drew together and he watched me, as if wary of my reaction to this jarring statement. “You always say that you’re the one who doesn’t hold anything back and I’m the secretive one. But I don’t want this to be a secret. I need you to know this, now that you’re aware of what my job was.”