Immortals After Dark 06 - Dark Desires After Dusk

now we’ve got to get through the swamp.”
    The dark line of brush loomed. “I don’t see a road!”
    “There’s a service trail,” he said, then added in a casual tone, “It might be a shade grown over.”
    “A shade! Are you certain there’s no other way to get out?”
    He nodded. “The property’s surrounded by bayou and swamp.”
    “What are the odds that we’ll make it through?”
    “I give us one in fifteen.”
    Her eyes went wide. “I wouldn’t take those odds!”
    “You would if there’s zero chance otherwise.”
    “Oh, God,” she muttered, feeling around the seat. “Where’s the seat belt?”
    “Broke a few years back.”
    “And you didn’t get it fixed?” she snapped.
    “Don’t usually ferry around mortals, then!” he thundered back.
    Struggling for calm, she said, “Cadeon, I do not see even a hint of a trail.”
    “Demon senses. I can find it.” But he pressed his straightened arm over her chest as they closed in.
    “Y-you’re not really going in there?”
    “Trust me.”
    This being had saved her life, had even taken bullets for her, and yet there was something so markedly untrustworthy about him….
    He flashed her a rakish grin with barely noticeable fangs. “Though if you’re the praying type, now might be a choice time.”

4
    H olly catapulted forward against his arm as the truck burst into the brush.
    Leaves and branches slapped the windshield as the cab bounced. They smacked something that left feathers and squawked an angry retreat.
    She turned, clutching the seat-back to scan behind them. “They’re just going to follow us, trap us back here!”
    “Their nice, fancy SUVs are lower to the ground than older trucks like mine. With a little luck, they’ll bottom out. At least before we do.”
    Over the sound of their wholesale destruction of native flora and fauna, she asked, “Why are you helping me?”
    “I’m a mercenary—my current gig is to keep you alive.”
    “ A mercenary? Who’s paying you? Who would know to hire a demon to protect me from a demon threat?”
    “There were also the leeches.”
    “How could I forget?” She pinched her forehead. “Who paid you?”
    “We’ll talk about it later.”
    “At least tell me why those demons chose me. I am the most boring person you have ever met!”
    He met her gaze. “Not anymore, halfling.”
    She glanced behind them again and saw headlights. “They’re coming.”
    Biting out words in a language she’d never heard, he sped up even more.
    “Cadeon, is it safe to go this fa—”
    Shots rang out, plugging the back of the truck and her side-view mirror. His big hand palmed the top of her head and shoved her down, making her slump in the seat.
    When shards from the mirror speared at her window, she shrieked.
    All around them, the glass shattered; he gave a roar of pain. Cracks forked out over the windshield before it exploded as well, raining glass chips against them.
    “Mind the shrieks, pet!”
    “How did I do that?” she cried, frenziedly brushing glass off herself.
    “Nature of the beast,” he grated. “Valkyrie shrieks crack glass. Lesson learned, yeah?”
    When she spied blood trickling from his ear, she bit her lip and brushed glass off him as well.
    He seemed shocked by her care. “Now, there’s a sweet halfling. But a little lower and to the right would be sweeter—”
    “Watch out!”
    The trail was gone. Murky black water covered at least a three-meter-long span of it.
    “Hold on!” He yanked her upright, his arm crossing over her again.
    “Why are we going faster toward it?”
    “So we don’t bog down!” he said just before they hit.
    She flew against his arm once more. With the windshield gone, water sprayed over the hood, shooting against their faces.
    The front of the truck dove down. Water poured into the cab. Mud, lily pads, and several crayfish were scooped up as though with a net. The engine roared with effort as they chugged through to the other side.
    Back on semisolid ground, Cadeon shook his hair out like a beast. “I can’t fuckin’ believe we just made that!”

    Holly dragged her soaked hair from her eyes, then swiped the end of the shirtsleeve over her wet face, clearing the spattering of blood from earlier.
    He grinned at her. She gaped at him.
    Headlights on their trail again. Those vampires were dogged. They must think that the demons had already had their way with her. They couldn’t risk that all good or all evil would be in the form of a