Unbalanced Read Free

they reached her.
    “Relax, Addie. We won’t . . .”
    “How do you know my name?” She glanced from Locan to Jett and back at Locan. “You’ve called me Addie twice now. How do you know who I am?”
    “We know everything about you.”
    Jett’s soft voice should have scared the crap out of her. Instead, it was oddly seductive. “How?”
    “From Leah,” he said. “You found her in the park. She must have bitten you. She gave you the gift. . . .”
    Addie’s hand flew to her throat. “There’s no mark. And she called it a curse, not a gift.”
    Locan shrugged. “The bite heals immediately, but it’s enough to give you what you need, curse or gift. What we need.”
    “Which is?” This was really freaking her out, but she couldn’t stop asking, couldn’t stop wondering why it all made such perfect sense.
    “Immortality, to a point.” Jett glanced at Locan. “You explain it. I’ll just screw it up.”
    Locan’s soft laughter was aimed at Jett, not her. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” He turned his attention to Addie. “Leah’s bite gave you the dream you dreamed tonight. What you saw is real. It’s happening. The battle is real, the one against demons and other creatures of the night, those trying to subjugate humans and tip the world into darkness.” He sighed. “Jett and I, for what it’s worth, are not much better. We were once among them, fighting with evil when we weren’t fighting each other.”
    Addie glanced from one to the other. “You fought each other? But if you were both on the same side. . . ?”
    Jett chuckled. “Demons don’t play well together.” He cast a sharp glance at Locan. “If you can’t fuck it or eat it, it has little value to a demon.”
    Addie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, even more aware of the fact she was alone in her apartment with two very strange, sexy, scary men. “What made you change?”
    “One like Leah,” Jett said. “Like you. A woman strong enough to pull us out of the darkness a long time ago. She showed us what we could be, what we could accomplish if we could hold it together, but we fight a constant desire to return.” He shrugged, as if the outcome were neither here nor there. “The lure of the dark side is stronger than the light. Our fate—”
    “Our penance,” Locan said, interrupting.
    Jett laughed. “Our fate,” he repeated, emphasizing the word, “is to fight those we once fought beside, but we need the fulcrum, the one who balances our natural instinct to kill one another. . . .”
    “The one,” Locan interrupted, “who forces us to fight on the side of good despite our nature. The one who diffuses the tension that turns us to the dark side. She who vanquished us, the one who turned us to the light, is long gone. Leah came after. She has held us in line for centuries, but something happened tonight and she was killed.”
    He glanced at Jett. “I will miss her, but you’re right. She was ready to go. I noticed the change in her, as did you.”
    Jett nodded. “It was too obvious to ignore. She was more than ready. Leah was never cut out for this task. We were a burden to her. A chore, not a responsibility she wanted.”
    Locan stared at Jett a moment. Frowning, he nodded. “I’d not thought of her that way. You’re right.” He folded his arms across his chest and focused once again on Addie. “Before she died, Leah passed her abilities to you. That’s how we found you. We were searching for Leah. Our search brought us here.”
    “We’re hoping you got her memories as well.” Jett turned away from his spot beside her bed and paced across the room. He stopped in front of the window, pulled the curtain aside and stared into the darkness. “We don’t have any idea what the creature was that killed Leah. We’re hoping you can tell us.”
    Addie’s head spun as if she’d added a few tequila shooters to the margaritas she’d polished off at Paddy’s. None of this made any sense.
    No. That wasn’t