The Trouble with Black Cats and Demons

"Not again!" Cary Redmond ducked as another fireball clipped over her head. "This is ridiculous. You don't think fireballs are a bit over the top," she shouted up at the ceiling then had to duck again as a dagger whispered past her ear.

Close, she thought, her heart pounding. Way too close.

She didn't deserve this. She was only doing a friend a favor. And what did she get for it? Fireballs, daggers, gusts of preternatural wind, freezing hail and the occasional lightning bolt. Though she had to admit, lightning bolts flashing in the confines of the small apartment were pretty spectacular. If the bolts hadn't been trying to fry her, she might have enjoyed the show.

"Jaxer, I'm going to kill you for this!"

She still couldn't believe she'd fallen for Jaxer's charm. And here she was thinking herself immune to glamour spells. She should have known better. She'd seen Jaxer at work.

But what kind of person asks a friend to sneak into an apartment, at night, alone on Halloween to rescue a black cat?

A faery with a twisted sense of humor.

Or a soft spot for black cats.

And of course, that's how Jaxer really talked her into this, more than his sneaky use of glamour. How could she not protect a poor defenseless cat? People did rotten things to black cats on Halloween.

And you are the Protector. Not like she'd asked for that either. But that was another story.

Right now, she had to find that cat and get out of this cursed apartment before midnight. Before the wizard got home and all hell broke loose.

Again.

She ducked flying objects and ran in short bursts between cover, easing her way to the bedroom door. She'd called out to the cat when she'd first entered the apartment but hadn't gotten any irate kitty responses. After a lurching hunt of the living room and kitchen, the only place left was that bedroom.

Taking a deep breath, Cary lunged from behind the tentative cover of a small table and dove the last few feet to the bedroom door, hoping there were no nasty spells guarding it. She screeched as a shock of lightning struck the ground just behind her, and fell through the partially open door onto a red carpeted floor. She groaned, pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, and shook her head.

All this for a cat.

She rose up on her knees, trying to calm her racing pulse, and froze.

In front of her sat a huge bed, the brass headboard a scrawl of symbols she didn't recognize but that looked like they might mean something if she stared at them long enough. But it was the naked man lying in the middle of the enormous mattress that stopped her heart.

He was a magnificent male specimen: tanned skin, well-defined muscles, thick, black hair, flashing golden eyes. Cary swallowed. Hard. Because all that magnificence was bare, and it took a great deal of will power not to follow the line of dark hair arrowing down his abdomen… lower.

The man straightened and Cary heard the clink of chains, noticing for the first time the collar around his neck. Hmm. That was kinky.

What the hell had Jaxer gotten her into?

"Who're you?" she asked, breathless and embarrassed.

"Who are you?"

His voice carried a deep reverberation that made her spine tingle. Oh boy. This guy was going to have her arrested for breaking into his apartment. "I'm looking for a black cat," she said, knowing the explanation sounded inane.

She blinked and a black leopard lay on the bed where the man had been. Her eyes widened. She blinked again. And the man was back.

"Whoa." Cary swallowed. "You're the black cat I came to rescue?"

"Jaxer sent you?" The man's eyes narrowed, and his features took on a dangerous edge. He hissed a curse under his breath and shook his head. "Stupid."

"Hey!" She stood, the better to face his gorgeous disgust. No one should look that good while insulting you. "You could have done worse, buddy."

She took a step toward the bed, wiping damp palms on her jeans. The chains she'd heard earlier linked the collar on his neck to the headboard. He wasn't bound anywhere else that she dared peek, and the chains appeared flimsy. But the collar covered half his throat and looked like more than a sex toy.

What's that thing around your neck?"

"A binding ring," he said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

She scowled, both at his tone and the news. "But you just shifted."

"It's been designed to contain both my forms. Any other questions before you get me out of here."

"Yeah, what crawled up your butt and put you in such a pissy mood?"

"Being held captive for sacrifice by a wizard and having a child sent to rescue me has dampened my day a bit," he said.

She grinned, and enjoyed watching his eyes narrow suspiciously. "Child, huh? You know, at my age that's a compliment."

"How old could you be? Twenty, twenty-two."

She shook her head and eased toward the bed. She wasn't exactly a little pixie of a woman to be confused for so young. She stood 5' 8" and had what her sister politely referred to as big bones. But she never wore make-up, and she kept her wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail, so it was an easy mistake. She'd also stopped aging at a normal rate after becoming a Protector, so she probably did only look about 25 even though she was 34. The slow aging was one of the few thing about becoming a Protector that didn't irritate her.

She reached the bedside and leaned in close to the leopard man, trying to ignore the yummy, stomach-fluttering, male scent of him as she studied the binding ring. It was a thick band of silver and copper intertwined in a complex pattern of twists and turns. Over the silver, tiny runic symbols danced and shimmered so they were nearly impossible to read.

"Oh good," she murmured, her breath brushing over the man's neck, "a hard one."

The prisoner shivered, a low growl rising from his throat. The sound made Cary's heartbeat jump. Speaking of hard ones. She could feel his glare on the side of her face, but she resisted looking at him. She had other things to worry about at the moment. Like how the hell she was going to get this damned ring off without alerting the entire mystical neighborhood.

"You did that on purpose," the man snarled.

"Huh?" She flicked a glance at him. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Don't breathe on me again," he said.

It was her turn to scowl. "What am I supposed to do? Hold my breath until I get your collar off? Just relax, big guy. You'll be out of here in a minute." To herself, she mumbled, "Wouldn't have gotten this much grief from a proper black cat."

"You some kind of witch?" he asked.

"No." After a moment, she sighed and shook her head. "Well, there's no help for it. I'm gonna have to use brute force. It'll take too long to get this off subtly."

"We don't have much time. It's nearly midnight now."

"Gee, really?"

He ignored her sarcasm and asked, "Brute force?"

"Hold on to your valuable body parts," she said and tried not to think about his exposed valuable parts. Then she wrapped her fingers around the collar, easing them gently under so the back of her fingers pressed against his neck. His skin was warm and another shiver danced down her spine.

"Wait!"

She met his gaze.

"What the hell are you doing? If I can't break that with my bare hands, you can't-"

He stopped short when she tugged and the collar came away with a quiet click.

"I'm not without some talent," she murmured.

"Who are you?"

"Come on. We have to get you out of here. I just made a lot of magical noise with that little stunt."

"Wait."

He reached out and grabbed her hand. The feel of his warm palm wrapped around her fingers took her breath away. Tiny sparks of electricity danced over her skin. He dropped his hold, but she saw his eyes widen with the same shock she felt. He inhaled deeply, and against her will she watched the strong muscles of his chest rise and fall. She swallowed hard, looked back into his eyes.

"What's your name?" he murmured.

"Cary."

"Cary. I'm Deacon."

"Nice to meet you." Did that sounded as stupid to him as it did to her, given the circumstances? He smiled, a slow, deadly grin that made her pulse race.

"Nice to meet you, too."

She blinked and shook her head. "Come on, Deacon. We need to move."

As he slid to the end of the mattress, Cary turned her back on him to avoid embarrassing them both-despite the temptation to look over every inch of his muscular body. The sound of material moving over skin behind her proved too much of a distraction, though, so she went to the door to see how the lightning bolts and fireballs were doing.

***

Slipping into his jeans, Deacon watched the woman as she leaned against the doorframe. She wasn't the rescue he'd been expecting. But there was something about her. He couldn't deny the power she must have to break through the binding ring. Yet she looked like a normal, human woman.

Her light brown hair hung in gentle waves down her back over a brown leather jacket. She wore jeans, hiking boots and a purple blouse. From what he could tell through her clothing, she had a lush, curvy figure. The V of her blouse had given him a mouthwatering view of cleavage, making his pulse kick and tempting him to uncover more of those curves.

She looked so young, though. Her pale skin was soft and smooth, flushed from her leap through the magical traps in the living room. Her hands had been soft too. But there was an undeniable strength in her grip. And something about her scent…

He couldn't help wondering, who the hell was she?

For Jaxer to have sent her, she had to be more than human. But she wasn't a witch. And she wasn't a shifter or Deacon would have smelled it. Cary smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. She was definitely alive, so she wasn't a vampire. And she wasn't a faery like Jaxer. In fact, there was nothing magical about her.
Except maybe her eyes. Those big blue depths had caught him in a spell the moment she looked up and saw him.

He shook his head to dispel the dreamy nonsense and walked up behind her to stare at the living room over her head. Black scorch marks marred the hard wood floors, and a layer of frost covered one side table. The air was heavy with electricity and the smell of burning ozone. Yet despite the multiple magical eruptions, the apartment was in remarkably good shape. As he watched, a dagger flew toward the bedroom, dropping harmlessly a foot from the doorway and disappearing as if it hadn't existed. Clever trick. Less clean up. And a testament to Sheldon's power.

Deacon blew out a slow breath. Now was definitely not the time to be fantasizing about his rescuer.
But as he stood close to the heat of her, it took an effort to ignore her faint cinnamon scent.

His nostrils flared. That scent… It reached down inside him, pulling at some deeper instinct. As he breathed Cary in, his leopard growled possessively and whispered, Mine.

Out in the living room, wind-lashed hail whipped toward the bedroom without actually coming through the doorway. And behind that, a lightning bolt sizzled the floor.

"Sheldon didn't make this easy," he said, quirking a brow when she jumped at the sound of his voice.
"Are you dressed?" she asked without turning around.

He couldn't help smiling at the slight panic in her voice. "Yes."

"Okay. Stick close. Stay behind me and don't try to dodge around me. Got it? That's the only way we'll get out of here alive."

He frowned down at the top of her head. She must have some pretty powerful shields to get through that mess. He grunted a noncommittal response, and she swung around to face him. The flash of heat in her blue eyes made his heart thump.

"Listen, buddy, if you don't let me protect you, we're both dead. Okay? Just stay close and let me do what I came here to do."

She mumbled something unflattering under her breath as she turned back to the living room, and he had to fight a completely irrational urge to kiss her.

He'd believed Jaxer would send someone to get him out of this mess-a mess Jaxer got him into to begin with. But as midnight drew near and he'd remained locked to that stupid bed, he'd had to face the possibility of his own death. His reaction to Cary might be a result of that, a need to reaffirm he was still alive.

But as he breathed in the heady scent of her again, he wondered…

***

Cary reached back and grabbed Deacon's hand, trying to ignore the way her stomach clenched and her skin tingled. Must be the cat in him, she thought as she eased through the bedroom door. Plus, he'd lied when he said he was dressed. A pair of jeans with the top button left undone and nothing else covering that amazing body was not dressed. It was sexy as sin and made her burst into overheated lust. But it did not qualify as being dressed!

Her reaction to Deacon baffled her. She never fell into instant lust with men. Especially handsome men. The only really handsome men she knew were Trouble. They'd left her immune to charm and spectacular good looks permanently.

At least, she'd thought they had.

With a scowl, she forced her thoughts to her current situation. She could ponder her reaction to Deacon later. Now, she had to get them through this maze.

She heard his surprised gasp as daggers and fireballs swerved to avoid them. Hail flicked past in cold blasts, but only a few ice balls touched them. Lightning struck close enough to make the hair on her arms stand up, but always zigged away before hitting them.

As long as she was protecting him, as long as he let her protect him, they could navigate the magical traps. That was the only way her so-called magic worked.

They were within a few feet of escape when the front door flew off its hinges, tumbling into the room right at them. Despite knowing the door wouldn't actual hit her while she protected Deacon, Cary still squealed and took a step back. Solid hands closed over her shoulders and strong arms cradled her against a rock hard chest. When she felt Deacon tense to move her out of the way, she planted her feet and watched as the door defied gravity by changing directions to move up and over their heads.
"How…?"

His voice whispered across the top of her h

ad and the heat of him seeped into her back. For a brief moment, Cary felt her eyes drifting shut from the shear pleasure of having Deacon's hands on her.

Then a tall, skinny, pimple-faced teenager stepped through the smoking remains of the door. His dark hair hung in greasy strands across his forehead and sweat trickled down his temples. He wore a black silk shirt and black leather pants that only emphasized how painfully thin he was. He was breathing hard as he faced them, but his watery brown eyes glowed with feral delight.

Sighing, she pulled reluctantly away from Deacon and faced the teenager. "Let me guess," she said. "You're Sheldon the wizard?"

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