Demon Night

“There is that,” he said, but then his humor faded, his gaze sharpened. “Until we see which way Legion is headed, you make sure you sleep with the spell up. Sammael can’t hurt you, but there may be others looking to shake things up here.”
    “I can’t. If I put it up, you can’t come for me if we’re needed to break through the shield.”
    He frowned. “Jake will likely be teleporting soon, so it won’t be any trouble for me to go back and forth to San Francisco. If my being in the house is acceptable to you, I can use my blood to cast it after you’ve fallen into your sleep.”
    “It’s more than acceptable,” she said, and it suddenly struck her why he’d come in so late. By minimizing their time together, he wouldn’t fuzz up as quickly. She hesitated only an instant before adding, “And there’s no reason you can’t continue using the house for training, or as your base if you happen to be working in Seattle—or, I guess, anywhere in the Northwest. It’s convenient for you, and I’ll be sleeping. And then you can drift, too.”
    His eyebrows twitched, but the rest of his face was still. “In with you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Before I figure you out?”
    “Yes. It might take you longer if you’re fuzzy, and you said you need me to drift.”
    “I do.” Ethan sat back in his chair, staring at her. “All right then.”

    Sure enough, Charlie had un-mixed them—but after a couple of hours holding her sleeping form, it became abundantly clear that she was also putting them back together. And the configuration wasn’t all that different; the only things she left out were what created the most powerful need in both of them: the blood and the bed.
    That was, the most powerful need aside from simply being with her—that one, which was the most critical, she’d never denied him or herself. And he’d get the others back as soon as he figured her out.
    Ethan had to force himself to leave mid-morning. She smelled of apples and cocoa butter, and nothing looked as bright or felt so good as when she was close.
    But he hadn’t been able to drift. Her longing poured from her so hard he thought he could almost hear it, and his own need to provide whatever she was missing had been roaring deep within him.
    It tempted him to push again, but that longing had appeared just after the first time he’d pushed her. He didn’t know if he could withstand her need becoming worse.
    And he didn’t know what he feared more: her need becoming worse or him becoming too fuzzy to figure it out.
    The ache in him didn’t ease as the day wore on; he was only thinking of returning to Seattle. Wasn’t thinking much at all, until Lilith tracked him down in the gymnasium, where he was overseeing the lack of progress Jake made attempting to use his Gift.
    “Would you like Sir Pup to chase him, give him a good scare?” Lilith said, coming to stand beside Ethan.
    “Maybe in thirty minutes,” he replied. Or five, he signed when Jake wasn’t looking. Lilith grinned, and Ethan added, “You got that info on Legion setting up a training facility in Seattle?”
    “Yes.”
    He hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. “It might all be lies, but I figure it wouldn’t harm nothing if I were relocated to Seattle semipermanently. Particularly during the evening hours. I’m familiar with the city, and I don’t have to worry much about Sammael—who, at least for now, is still the high-ranked demon at Legion. Add to that, there’s a vampire who’s valuable to us, but who hasn’t much by way of protection.”
    Lilith’s brows arched. “You should have just skipped to the last reason.”
    “I reckoned I ought to lay out as many as possible.”
    “Unfortunately, I’ve got one to add,” she said. “We’ve heard from a vampire community in New York, and another in Paris. We were too specific, trying to find a match to Brandt’s method of killing them. He was angry; the others were just methodical.”
    Ethan studied her face, couldn’t read much in it. “So there were vampires being murdered, just not turned upside down and bled out?”
    “Yes. The community leaders in Rome, Berlin, and D.C. were all killed several months prior to the city-wide slaughter. And those who took their place were soon dead as well.”
    Just like Katya and Vladimir—and Manny. And because they hadn’t known to look for the nephilim, they’d just assumed it was the usual vampire politics. “Seattle was next then.”
    Lilith nodded.