Demon Moon

your skin was still hot—that, combined with the difference between the way you two parted at SI this morning and the way we found her, the fact that you should have been across town in your daysleep, and that Savi is very, very wealthy—an excellent target for a demon, particularly if the vampire he’s impersonating is already connected to her—gave us concern.”
    “Of course, now it’s obvious that when she spoke of your skin, she meant a burn…Cerberus’s balls, Colin, what the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you call SI and have Selah or Michael teleport over here?”
    A hoarse bark of laughter escaped him. “I didn’t think. I sensed the wyrmwolf and…ran.” And had been certain that he’d been too late. Even his experience in Chaos hadn’t equaled the terror and dread that had accompanied him the rest of the way here.
    How easy it had been when he’d seen her alive, the sword wavering in her hands, to decide to be anything she needed, do anything she wanted. Followed by the triumph of knowing he could fulfill her needs as no one else could, and the certainty that once she realized it, she’d not seek out anyone else.
    And then to discover the one thing she wanted most was something he couldn’t give her. I need something that will last .
    A phase didn’t. Why would his confirmation of his incapa bility make her cry, if she knew her feelings would be short-lived? He swallowed thickly. “How did you find her?”
    “Like this.” Lilith hopped up on the bed, folded her legs beneath her and sat on her heels. She laid her hands in her lap and gazed at them morosely for a moment. “She’d been wiping up blood from the floor.” She raised a brow at him. “Yours? We wondered why Sir Pup hadn’t taken care of it.”
    “Yes.” It was all he could manage. She’d been on her hands and knees cleaning up after him?
    Never again.
    “And then she did this.” With a flourish, Lilith pretended to swipe tears from her eyes and cheeks, then pasted a huge, sunny smile on her lips in a perfect imitation of Savi’s guarded expression.
    Castleford lowered his head into his hand and began laughing. Colin could not.
    “And then she said, ‘Oh, great, you guys are here! I was just finishing up, then I’ve got to go meet this guy at the café, and I’m taking Sir Pup with me because the wyrmwolves are after my psychic scent. Oh, and I shot one and I’m kissing you for putting your guns all over my house, and Colin cut off the thing’s head and he’s sleeping in my room, but his skin is still a little red and hot. Oh, and could you go to Auntie’s to watch after Nani until I come back here and we all talk to Colin about those transactions, and we’ll send Sir Pup to look after Nani for the rest of the night? Thanks!’”
    Castleford lifted his head, his eyes bright blue with amusement. “Actually, it took about half an hour, during which Sir Pup carried the wyrmwolf’s corpse to the lab and returned with your car—else we would have determined your identity with him. But that neatly sums up all we learned from our inquiry.”
    “And then she left,” Lilith said.
    “What time?” Colin started toward the bedroom door. It was almost six now. The sun had set shortly after five, and wyrmwolves weren’t the sole danger after night had fallen. “She only has Sir Pup?”
    “She left in a taxi at three.” Lilith’s mouth curved into a mocking smile. “You’re going to stalk her?”
    “Yes, but I prefer to call it the protection that you two have been too lax to provide her. Why so bloody early? She doesn’t meet with the sod until eight. I’d have woken by then and offered her a ride.”
    He walked into the living room and stopped as quickly as if he’d slammed into a wall. He turned, looked through the door to her office. Oh, Christ. The desks and tabletops, clear of electronics. The boxes of wiring and components, gone. The racks of DVDs, video games, and graphic novels, pared away to a few volumes. The DemonSlayer posters taken down. And despite the colorful silk paintings, pillows, and furniture that decorated the flat…it was sterile, lifeless, as if she’d taken everything that had ever been of interest to her and thrown it away. Gutted herself.
    If this was what she turned herself into to please her suitor, Colin would murder the fucking sod. This was what she wanted to last? Stripped down into a clichéd representation of a suitable woman?
    “It’s remarkable how much