Tarnished Knight: Grimm's Circle, Book 4 Read online

  Chapter Two

  This was one bad-ass idea that’s going to kill me, Jack Wallace thought.

  But he didn’t regret it.

  “Oh, come on, you fucking pussy,” he said, panting as one of them tried to sneak around him. He dropped and spun, taking the bastard’s feet out from under him. “Can’t three of you handle me? I’m human, crying out loud.”

  He knew what these things were, and if that fucking Will didn’t show up and help out the way he’d promised, the way he’d always done in the past—

  A flash of red-gold caught his eye.

  It was a girl, reed-slender, long and lean, her hair cropped close to her scalp. She didn’t belong here—that heart-shaped face, those big brown eyes. She didn’t belong here and she’d be lucky if she didn’t end up dead or worse—and oh, man, was there worse than dead.

  The image of worse stained his mind, and the savage pleasure he’d felt as he lost himself in the fight faded.

  Swearing, Jack reached inside his jacket and pulled out the Desert Eagle he’d kept tucked inside his coat. It was modified, silenced, deadly as hell.

  It would take down the demon-possessed, mostly by putting a hole the size of Kansas through their sternums, and that was why he didn’t like using it. It left too noticeable a trail. But if he didn’t…do…something…

  Holy…

  Shit.

  He lowered the Eagle to his side and stared dumbly around him.

  The girl—no—woman.

  As young as she looked, she wasn’t a girl.

  She wasn’t a girl, and she wasn’t human either, he realized.

  If he’d taken more than a split second to look at her earlier, he would have seen it. It all but glowed…all over her. And for the briefest moment, she looked damned familiar. She stood there, with one hand on a cocked hip, her head tilted to the side and a smirk on her lips.

  And three demons at her feet.

  Jack had only taken down one of them. And it wasn’t even dead yet—or at least, the demon inside it wasn’t giving up. Jack could feel it pushing at him. Pushing against him psychically, and as he grimaced and prepared himself for that mental battle, the woman came sauntering up and smirked at him. “Amateur,” she said, her voice vaguely accented.

  Then she crouched down and used a blade to hurry along the demon’s demise.

  Abruptly, the pushing and shoving and crowding Jack had felt against his mental shields stopped.

  He barely noticed though.

  A silver chain had slipped free from her white shirt.

  It held a silver disc…wings.

  Mesmerized, Jack stared at the pendant.

  As she straightened up, she reached inside her pocket and withdrew a snowy white handkerchief and used it to wipe the blood from the knife.

  “A word of advice if you’re going to play with things like this? When you actually try to kill them, make sure you don’t just try. Do it. If that thing had gotten its hooks inside you… Well, by the time you figured it out, it would be too late.”

  She waggled her knife so that the blade caught the light and reflected it. “Then I’d also be sticking this knife inside you.”

  With that, she tucked the knife away, turned on her heel and sauntered away.

  He might have said something—told himself he needed to. But he couldn’t think. At least not just yet. His brain was still trying to process what he had just seen—that silver necklace…a silver disc.

  Upswept wings…

  He’d seen that before.

  On the neck of his mother.

  Before she died.

  What the hell…

  “Just keep walking,” I muttered. I kept telling myself that, over and over, and somehow I managed to keep walking.

  One foot after the other, and fast, because if I stopped or even slowed, I knew I’d look back, and I wasn’t about to let myself get curious over what I’d just seen.

  And what did I just see?

  Who…man, I wonder what his name is…

  “No. Don’t think about that. Or him. And it’s a what, don’t think about him as a who.”

  Just a what, I told myself. An anomaly, just an anomaly. “You saw some demons. They are dead now. End of. Doesn’t matter how they got dead, as long as they are dead.”

  And throughout that entire mental pep talk, I kept walking.

  Fast. Very fast.

  Before I could give in to the urge to look back.

  And I desperately wanted to look back and see him. Curiosity wasn’t something I’d felt much of, not in a good long while. But I wanted to look back, wanted to see him again. Badly.

  He wasn’t a pretty man…no polished, perfect prince. About as far from Luc as he could be. Broad and rough, that craggy face looked like it had been carved from golden granite or something. His eyes had stared into mine with something that closely resembled the shock I’d felt, although man, I hoped I hid it better.

  I probably had. Several hundred years of practice had better prove useful for that much at least.

  His eyes…

  I swallowed. My knees got a little weak thinking about those eyes. They were the color of the mist in the early morning, almost too soft, too gentle for that hard face, but as he’d stared at me, they’d darkened. Darkened to smoke…

  Part of me wondered if maybe that wasn’t something I couldn’t get lost in. And even as I thought that, I wanted to kick myself. It was wrong to think that.

  Luc. I needed to think of Luc. I needed to finish this damn job so I could get back to him.

  He was no longer my husband.

  No, I’d seen to that well enough. It had broken something inside us both when I forced that issue, and I’d hated myself for knowing I’d broken Luc’s heart. We stayed together though, and I told myself that it didn’t matter if we were married or not.

  I told myself it was enough because he needed me. I needed him.

  We were a pair, the two of us, whether we were married or not.

  But it didn’t matter if I was married—Luc was still there, still a part of my life and thinking about a sexy mortal stranger? We can just place that in a column marked “Things I don’t need to do”.

  Although one thing I did need to do. I needed to figure out just why a mortal had been fighting a couple of orin in an alley.

  How in the hell had he managed to hold his own?

  Well, other than the obvious—being damn strong. And fast. Shit, he was fast. Almost too fast for me to believe he was human, but there was no way he wasn’t human.

  He knew how to fight too. Pretty damn obvious he knew he was facing something not exactly normal. And that gun—shit. Most of the Grimm didn’t like guns—too messy and mortals tend to get in more trouble with those things.

  But I didn’t have to like them to be able to admire the serious firepower that thing would possess. It had been a miniature cannon, and if he had needed to use it, it would have destroyed any of the demonic fool enough to get caught in his range.

  He’d done too good a job holding his own against them, especially up until I’d distracted him. How had he been able to do that? And who was he?

  He was mortal. I could feel it.

  But still, there was also something…more.

  Dawn broke with him sitting on the deck of the small house, staring out over the Chesapeake Bay and nursing a beer.

  Jack held a picture of his mother, not that he needed to see it to remember what her medallion looked liked.

  He knew far too well.

  He couldn’t exactly compare it to the one he’d seen tonight, of course. He’d like to, but he hadn’t seen a piece like that since her death.

  Cancer had killed his mother shortly before his thirteenth birthday and he’d been at her side. Him and a dude by the name of Will.

  He hadn’t ever known his dad.

  When he had been a kid, a part of him had kind of hoped, sometimes even pretended it had been Will. He had already known it wasn’t true.

>   Still, even if he hadn’t been his father, Will had been there. Always.

  The guy had come and gone all too often, but whenever Jack had needed somebody around, he had always been able to count on Will.

  That was better than nobody, he supposed. And other than Will, after his mom had died, nobody was about all he’d had.

  And other than Will and his mother, he’d never seen another living soul with one of those pieces either.

  Not until tonight.

  Will hadn’t ever told him the meaning of the piece, but Jack knew what it was. He’d always known it. Even just touching it was enough to tell him. The lightest touch was like sticking his finger in a light socket—that odd, sizzling jolt.

  She was one of them.

  She wasn’t as old as Will, but that didn’t change what she was.

  There really wasn’t much question about it, although he was still sitting here, feeling stunned, shocked and downright… Hell. Jack didn’t know how he felt. Confused. Curious.

  His hand started to tighten around the picture’s frame. The metal dented under his hand and carefully, he sat it down.

  “Careful, Jack,” he muttered. “Careful.”

  Pissed off.

  Shit. Pissed off didn’t touch it.

  Standing up, he started to pace the porch. He shoved his hands through his hair, linked them behind his neck, staring off into the lightening skies without truly seeing it.

  Yeah. He was pissed off.

  He’d been pissed off at the world in general for the past twenty years of his life. Maybe even before that. Sometimes Jack felt like he’d been born with a grudge.

  He knew he’d been born with a mission.

  Killing things.

  All those things he shouldn’t know about, but did.

  The things his mother had fought and killed before she’d decided to give up that life. She hadn’t told him about any of it, but then again, she hadn’t needed to.

  He’d just…known.

  Jack hadn’t ever not known those things. He hated it, because he knew the weird knowledge he carried had broken his mother’s heart. She had wanted away from whatever life she’d left behind. And she’d gotten away from it, all right.

  But bits and pieces of it followed her…through her son.

  Bits and pieces of memory.

  Battles.

  A knowledge he shouldn’t have.

  He had looked at the things earlier and known they were no longer human.

  Orin. Soul stealers. The closest thing to vampires that existed, but there was nothing about them that could be romanticized. Demonic parasites. Whatever had once been human inside them was long gone, and the mortal body wasn’t anything more than a vehicle.

  Jack couldn’t even explain how he knew, but he did know, and he fought with the ease born of practice, something that made no sense. Even as he hacked away with a bowie knife, part of him felt like he’d done it before a thousand times—but with a longer blade.

  For as long as he could remember, he’d dreamt of killing monsters. Demons.

  And he’d known the different sort of demons too. He could recall them from vivid, vivid dreams. But the dreams never terrified him. Even when he awoke at night and found his mother sitting by his bed, watching him with concerned, sad eyes, he hadn’t worried.

  To Jack, it seemed normal to dream of battling demons. So many demons.

  The time had come when he didn’t just battle them in his dreams, but in reality. He’d killed the first one when he was fifteen, and it had felt so easy…so natural…like a habit. It hadn’t felt like the first time. It wasn’t exactly something he’d planned on, but it was what he was meant to do—what he was built for. What he was destined for.

  The battle.

  Always the battle.

  Each day.

  Each night.

  Nothing mattered but the demons, ending as many of them as he could, before they got to another human, before they hurt another human, before they killed.

  Some of them didn’t always kill the human right away. Some of them just sort of pushed the human aside, but kept them in there. An unwilling passenger along for the ride. A very gruesome ride.

  There were others, but the ones Jack hated the most were the ones like he’d been fighting earlier. The kinds that could push inside and feed on the soul until there was nothing left…nothing but a husk.

  Those husks though, they could be pretty dangerous. The demons controlling them could stay in them for quite a while—Jack didn’t know how long. He’d be damned if he turned out that way.

  Absently, he muttered, “If I end up like that, princess, just do me a favor, make it quick.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I will.”

  He drew his Desert Eagle, spun and aimed, all in one smooth, practiced motion.

  Most people would have been scared shitless to have the piece of equipment pointed at their forehead.

  Red? She just looked amused, one strawberry-blonde brow lifted, a slight smirk on that pretty, lush mouth. She focused her gaze on the Desert Eagle and then looked back at him. Her smirk widened into an all-out grin and she tucked her hands into her back pockets. Rocking back on her heels, she said, “You know, I could take that away from you so fast, it would make you cry.”

  “Try it.” Jack braced himself. He might not be as fast as they were. But he had years of trying to be…and all of them, the demons and the Grimm, they all underestimated him.

  But she just shrugged one smooth, soft, white shoulder. “It wouldn’t be that much fun. Like taking candy from a baby.”

  That last part was tossed back over one of those smooth white shoulders as she sauntered over to one of his chaise lounges and flung her lean, sexy body down on it.

  As she stretched out, Jack realized he couldn’t quite take his eyes from those legs of hers. They stretched on forever, it seemed.

  She crossed them at the ankle and smiled at him. Although it wasn’t exactly a smile. It was that very appealing smirk.

  He wanted to kiss the look off her face.

  And if she kept staring at him, he just might start panting.

  Or drooling.

  Or both.

  Scrubbing a hand down his face, he took a few seconds and then put his gun away since he probably wasn’t going to use it. He’d much rather fuck her than shoot her.

  He thought.

  That was right up until he saw that she’d snagged his beer and was lifting it to that pretty, rosebud mouth of hers.

  “Do you mind?” he snapped, storming over to her and grabbing it.

  She lifted a brow and smiled. “You’re not a very good host.”

  “You’re not exactly a guest. You weren’t invited—actually, that makes you a trespasser.”

  “Hmm. Good point.” She came to her feet, all long legs and sleek curves. Shooting him a slow smile, she said, “I’ll get my own.”

  Staring at her back, he decided he’d just stay right where he was instead of arguing with her. Definitely the wiser option just now. It would give him a few seconds to figure out what the hell she might be doing here, how she’d gotten here, and what in the hell he should do about it.

  Chapter Three

  What in the hell am I doing?

  I stared into the fridge for a few seconds longer than it really took to grab a bottle of beer. A beer I really didn’t want, but damn it, I needed something to drink.

  For some reason, just looking at him was enough to make my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, make my throat dry. Just looking at him made my heart race, made my belly clench and my knees weak.

  Logically, I knew what all of this was.

  Logically.

  But it had been…ages…since I’d felt this way.

  Not since before…

  Not since Luc.

  Back when we had still…been whole.

  Shit. Luc.

  Swearing, I grabbed a bottle of Bud and straightened up, twisting it open and lifting it to my lips. I drain
ed half of it, but it didn’t do anything to ease the burning in my veins…or the ache in my heart.

  What in the hell was I doing here?

  Feeling a pair of eyes on me, I turned my head and saw him standing there in the open doorway.

  The sun was rising behind him, coming up over the bay, casting him into shadow, doing all sorts of lovely, lovely things to that body of his. He had one massive shoulder propped against the doorframe. He held the bottle of beer loosely in his hand. A big hand.

  Damn it, I didn’t like big men.

  Never had.

  The sight of a big man was enough to bring back memories I’d rather never think about.

  But this guy…

  Not now, Perci, I told myself.

  Lifting the beer to my lips, I gave him my best, wide-eyed, innocent look. “So…” I took a drink and then smiled at him over the bottle.

  “How in the hell did you find my house?”

  I shrugged. “Wasn’t hard. Just kind of followed my gut.”

  He narrowed those amazing, beautiful eyes. They all but glowed against the warm gold of his skin. Those eyes… Man, I think I could get lost in them. I hadn’t felt like this with a man in far, far too long. Guilt swelled inside me and I knew I should put the bottle down and leave. Knew I should figure out what all Will wanted done here so I could get back to Luc.

  Luc…

  But I couldn’t walk away from this. Couldn’t walk away from this mortal just yet.

  Standing here made me feel more alive than I had in years. Decades. Centuries.

  Abruptly, I found myself remembering what Will had said just before he’d pushed me into this man’s way.

  Life is living, Perci. Even for us. Go live it.

  Will. Oh, shit. It dawned on me then. I’m in major trouble.

  “Just followed your gut. What, were you born with some sort of genetic GPS?” he asked sarcastically. “Try again, princess.”

  I flinched. From the darkness of the past, a whisper of memory rushed up to torment me. My lovely princess, locked away in your tower. But I shoved it away. No. I wouldn’t let this happen now. Not now. Refusing to let him see the pain of memory, I looked back at him and gave him a sharp-edged smile.

  “Do yourself a favor, my friend. Don’t call me that.”