Demon Hunting In a Dive Bar Read Free Page A

out.
    “Ah, yes. The Party Burger is a favorite of mine.”
    “Daddy makes a good hamburger. So what?”
    “Your father has told me much about you.” Conall reached across the table and toyed with the salt shaker. The sleeves of his cotton sweater were pushed back, exposing his strong forearms. His shoulders were broad and heavily corded with muscle. He had beautiful hands, strong and bronzed, the hands of a warrior. And not just any old warrior, Beck reminded herself, a demon killer. “He confided, for instance, that he had a three-day dalliance as a young man with a woman named Helené.”
    Her mother? Daddy had told Conall about her mother ? Beck stared at him in disbelief.
    “She was a dark-haired beauty like you,” Conall said, lifting his gaze to her face. “He did not know it at the time, but she was demon possessed. Some months later, Helene returned, changed almost beyond recognition from the excesses of the demon. She had a child with her, an infant girl with a strawberry blotch on one shoulder, a birthmark common in the Damian family. That baby was you. She shoved you into your father’s arms and left, never to be seen again.”
    “Daddy told you all this?”
    “Yes.”
    “Bullshit. My father never talks about his freak of a daughter. He’s an upstanding citizen now, a member of the Civitan Club, and a good Baptist. What did you do to get him to spill the beans?”
    Conall sat back in his chair. “You think I wrested the information from your parental unit by supernatural force?”
    “Figured that out by yourself, did ya? My, you are the bright one.”
    “You do not like me.”
    “Ding, ding, ding,” Beck said, tapping her forefinger in the air. “Right again, genius.”
    Conall’s black gaze slid from her face to the bottle in her hand. “I see. And what do you mean to do with that flask?”
    “I was thinking of bashing you over the head with it if you don’t leave.”
    His black brows rose. “You wish to hit me? Why?”
    “Mister, the last time you were here, you all but said you think the kith are nothing but vermin to be exterminated, and now you’re back.” She jabbed her finger at him. “Seeing as how I’m kith and you’re a demon hunter, I take your presence as a threat.”
    “Kith? This is the term for your kind?”
    “It’s our term,” Beck said. “For some reason, we like it better than scum-sucking demon spawn.”
    “Are you always so sarcastic?”
    “Only when I’m awake.”
    He regarded her without expression. Nothing unusual about that; the guy had about as much expression as a two-by-four. “You think I came here to kill you.”
    “It crossed my mind.”
    “And yet you confront me with nothing but a bottle in your hand, and I a demon slayer.”
    “I can take care of myself,” Beck said. “I’ve been doing it a long time.”
    Conall sprang at her in a blur of movement. The bottle in Beck’s hand clattered to the floor as she was swept up and pinned against the nearest wall by more than six feet of hard-muscled male.
    “You fascinate me,” Conall said. His dark voice was rough. “I cannot decide whether you are brave or foolish. Perhaps both.”
    Beck went still. The heat from his big body and his crisp, woodsy scent surrounded her. He smelled like a little bit of heaven, she’d give him that.
    “Let go of me.” She felt the weight of his stare but kept her gaze fastened on his wide chest. She couldn’t breathe, not with him so close.
    The alpha male jackass ignored her, of course.
    “You smell of jasmine and spices. Sweet and exotic,” he murmured. His warm breath whispered across her skin. Beck began to tremble. “How . . . interesting. I expected the stench of demon to be upon you.”
    His last words hit her like a slap in the face. Anger washed over her, bright and hot, followed by an overwhelming urge to escape. Shifting into a column of water, she flowed from his grasp. It was easy, this close to the river. Water strengthened her powers. It