Demon by My Side Read online

  Demon by My Side

  By Victoria Davies

  Darcy Snow is a demon hunter and a damn good one at that. She’s never hesitated when faced with monsters preying on humans, but the rules changed when the Lord of the Spirits married a mortal. While spirits used to be able to cross into the human realm only on Halloween, they’re now passing freely through a mysterious portal.

  Jaral is a demon with a mission. As the heir apparent in the demon realm, he’s been waiting for a chance to finally prove himself to his father. When he’s ordered to solve the mystery of how their enemies are infiltrating the human world, he expects to run up against mortals. One thing he didn’t plan on, however, is crossing paths with a beautiful demon hunter.

  Together, they’ll need to seal the portal and ensure that balance is returned to the realm. But loving an enemy is not an option for Darcy. If she can’t trust Jaral, she can’t be with him. To prove his intentions, Jaral will need to make the ultimate sacrifice…

  Don’t miss Seducing the Demon Huntress, available now!

  47,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  My vow to you is to not mention the holiday that starts with a V in this letter for the February releases. If you’re like me, you’re probably on holiday overload after all of the winter festivities, and you wish you could just blank out all of those advertisements for diamonds and chocolates and fancy dinners. Of course, if someone wanted to buy us any of that, that would be okay…

  Instead, let me tell you about the sometimes-romantic and sometimes-not lineup of books we have for you this month! Fans of Alison Packard’s The Winning Season will be glad to know that JT and Angie’s story releases this month. Look for sparks to fly in Catching Heat. Author Christi Barth finishes up her Aisle Bound series with A Matchless Romance. You won’t want to miss this playful story about a sexy gamer who just needs a beautiful Chicago matchmaker to help him see how hot he really is.

  Also in the contemporary romance category is Party Girl by Tamara Morgan, following up her well-reviewed romance The Derby Girl. When a good-time party girl meets a backwoods hermit, the only thing bigger than their differences is their attraction. Fan favorite Inez Kelley joins the contemporary romance offerings this month with smoking-hot lumberman Jonah Alcott, who wants to do more than fight with gorgeous mountain activist Zury Castellano in The Place I Belong.

  Lynda Aicher brings her trademark sizzle to a new erotic romance story in her Wicked Play series. In her first male/male romance, Bonds of Denial, security nerd Rockford Fielding finally finds a man worth coming out of the closet for, but Carter Montgomery has to move past his own insecurities before they can claim a future they both thought was impossible.

  Opium addict and Victorian bounty hunter Cherry St. Croix is back again in Karina Cooper’s Tempered. Dragged to a neglected estate and forced to dry out, Cherry tries on the role of helpless Gothic heroine—and tumbles headlong into danger when she takes to meddling in her family’s alchemical history instead.

  Returning to Carina Press with a new series is Eleri Stone with the first book in her new paranormal romance series. In Reaper’s Touch, Jake and Abby work together to find a cure for the infection that turns men into flesh-eating monsters. We’re also welcoming back Jody Wallace with her newest paranormal romance, Witch Interrupted. Wolf shifters heal from tattoos as if they were never inked, so why is the same sexy wolf back in Katie’s tattoo parlor for more? And last but not least in the paranormal romance category, we’re also pleased to bring back Victoria Davies and her newest novella Demon by My Side. When a tempting demon prince crashes into her life, a demon hunter struggles to figure out who she can trust and one wrong move will cost her not only her heart but the safety of the human world as well.

  Concluding her wonderful epic fantasy series, Shawna Thomas wraps up with Journey of the Wanderer in which to save Anatar once and for all, Ilythra must risk everything she loves.

  But with every ending there’s a new beginning, and we’re happy to welcome male/male romance author A.M. Arthur to the Carina Press team. A reformed troublemaker meets his match in an inexperienced bookworm when what was supposed to be a casual relationship starts to look a lot like love in No Such Thing.

  And we’re happy to introduce debut author Holly West. Holly delivers a fascinating, well-plotted historical mystery, the first in a new series. In Mistress of Fortune, Isabel Wilde, a mistress to King Charles II who secretly makes her living as a fortune-teller, is threatened when one of her customers is murdered after revealing a conspiracy to kill the king and the diary of her illicit activities as a soothsayer goes missing, a page of which turns up in the dead man’s pocket.

  Coming in March: look for the newest installment in Marie Force’s Fatal series!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For my wonderful family, who never even bat an eyelash when I pester them about weaponry, body disposal or magical warfare. Thank you for your constant support and encouragement.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Black blood stained her fingers.

  Darcy watched the drops slide down the silver blade and then spatter the corpse at her feet.

  Humans bled red, demons bled a dark toxic green. But only one creature bled black and their presence in her world should be impossible.

  “You can’t be a spirit,” she whispered to the misshapen creature she’d hunted across town. It had been stalking the girl who huddled in the alleyway behind her.

  She watched, stunned, as more black oozed from the body to stain the dirty snow beneath it. There was no mistaking what she was seeing.

  Something that shouldn’t ever happen outside of a Halloween night.

  “What is that thing?” the girl demanded, her voice high-pitched with panic. “Who are you?”

  Darcy glanced back at the youth she’d rescued. A teenager, dressed for a club and not the winter chill. Had she been patrolling a different area, this girl would have been one more dead human she’d failed to save. A footnote on the local news, destined to be forgotten after the next celebrity scandal hit. No one would know, of course, that it hadn’t been wild animals that had ripped her to shreds but a creature out of myth and nightmares.

  “Stand up,” Darcy snapped.

  The girl surged to her feet, responding to the command in Darcy’s voice. She wobbled slightly on her too-high heels. Darcy eyed them in disgust. January was no time to be experimenting with heels and ice.

  “Go home. Tell anyone about what you’ve seen and you won’t like the consequences. Clear?”

  The girl nodded, her eyes wide and shell-shocked.

  “Get out of here.”

  Darcy turned back to the body at her feet as the teen stumbled from the alley. “Now, what do I do about you?” she asked the corpse.

  Crouching, she examined her kill. The body was small, perhaps four feet. But despite its size, the black claws curling from each hand were more than capable of shredding flesh in seconds. Pointed teeth too big to fit inside the small mouth poked through chapped gray lips. A hooked nose added to the sinister appearance and lanky black hair hung in clumps around the frightening face. She’d seen be
ings like this before but never at this time of year. It went against all the rules she lived her life by.

  She cleaned her blade on the creature’s tattered shirt before sheathing it. Grabbing her cell, she speed dialed the first person in her contact list.

  “Blake,” a deep voice answered.

  “Problem,” Darcy replied, not bothering to greet him properly. Her stepfather would forgive the poor manners. “I just killed a spirit. Tell me that’s impossible.”

  The silence on the phone rang more loudly than words.

  “Hell,” he said at last.

  “Spirits can’t cross into our world on any night other than Halloween. It’s the first rule hunters learn.”

  “Looks like the rules are changing. This isn’t the only report I’ve had of a hunter coming across a spirit who shouldn’t be able to enter our world.”

  Fear crawled along her spine. Darcy belonged to a very elite group of humans scattered around the globe whose job was to protect humanity from things that went bump in the night. Or rather, from beings who slithered from the Netherworld to invade the world of humans.

  “Only demons can cross over at will,” she tried to argue. Two kingdoms made up the Netherworld, ruled by two immortal kings. The demon realm was bound by much looser magic. As living beings, they could cross between their world and the human one with effort. But the spirits, beings without life, were bound to their nightmarish realm for all but one night a year. On Halloween, all hell broke loose. Hunters locked themselves indoors, protected by magic and silver, in hopes of surviving the night. When both spirits and demons walked the streets, her people had no chance.

  “Are you telling me both Netherworld kingdoms have access to our world?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know much more than you, Darcy. I’m piecing together what I can from the stories I hear. You know better than anyone how hunters like to exaggerate. I hoped it was nothing more than a few inflated tales.”

  “I’m looking down at a spirit I just sliced and diced. No inflation there.”

  “Then we have a serious problem. They are breaking into our world.”

  Something that should never, ever happen. Left unchecked, the spirits and demons would take over. Humanity’s days as the top of the food chain would be numbered.

  “Get home,” Blake said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  The line went dead. Her stepfather shared her phone manners. Snapping the cell shut, Darcy scanned the snowy alley for a place to dispose of the body. The shadowed Dumpster in the corner looked like her best bet. Sighing, she bent to grab the spirit’s legs. Worst part of the job, she thought as she began dragging the bloody body back into the alley’s gloom.

  * * *

  “I have a job for you, my son.”

  Jaral stood strong, his hands clasped behind his back and his face carefully blank. One never knew what to expect when standing in this particular throne room.

  Black marble shone beneath his feet, robbing the room of any warmth it might have had. Dark tapestries depicting bloody battles and screaming mortals lined the walls. Several courtiers and soldiers milled about the edges of the room, hoping for a tasty morsel of gossip, no doubt. He didn’t care about them.

  All he cared about was the man lounging on the throne before him.

  “Anything, Father,” he replied. It wasn’t often the king publicly addressed him as son. If he was in the mood to be parental, Jaral would play along.

  Abaddon, King of the Demons, shifted on his black throne. “Something interesting has occurred.”

  Jaral waited. He knew better than to ask his father questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Information is power, Abaddon had told him once after beating him to a pulp for overstepping his bounds. Never give it away without cause. Jaral had been a child at the time. Never again in the centuries since had he made the same mistake.

  “Spirits are escaping the Netherworld.”

  Interesting. Jaral frowned.

  Abaddon watched him with a cruel smile playing around his lips as he leaned forward. “Not going to ask me how, son?”

  “If you wish me to know, Father, I am pleased to listen.”

  The king settled back into his throne. “Well said. You learn better than your brothers.”

  Jaral thought of his countless siblings. Demons were prolific and his father had always been eager to do his duty and provide heirs and spares. He counted himself lucky to be one of the chosen few his father hadn’t slaughtered for showing weakness as a child.

  “That bitch who killed your brother changed things,” Abaddon said. “She broke something in the rules governing our world, and it interests me.”

  The king’s concern wasn’t out of any latent paternal feelings. His brother, Ward, hadn’t been a shining example of demonhood but his death at a hunter’s hands was still cause for shame. The fact that the hunter who killed him had also bested Abaddon didn’t help matters.

  “Perhaps the Lord of the Spirits knows what is going on,” Jaral offered.

  “My brother would never deign to answer my questions, not after I nearly killed his mortal queen,” Abaddon said.

  Jaral inclined his head in understanding. His uncle, Arawn, had taken the hunter who’d killed Ward as his wife. Jaral had heard the woman was human once, before his father had done his best to kill her. How the spirit lord had managed to wrestle his beloved back from the edge of death he didn’t know nor did he particularly care. A mate was a liability, as his uncle would no doubt learn.

  Still, if spirits were escaping the Netherworld, Arawn would know why. He ruled his subjects with an iron fist. They would not be leaking into the mortal world without his uncle’s knowledge.

  But Jaral wasn’t suicidal enough to repeat the suggestion. The Netherworld had been divided equally between his father and uncle eons ago. While Arawn seemed content to rule his ghostly minions, Abaddon had never been satisfied with only half of their dark world. He wanted it all. Jaral knew there was no love lost between the brothers, not that they could do much about it. While the demons might be able to cross into the human realm at will, neither brother shared the ability. They were both bound by magical laws allowing them only one night a year to enter the mortal world. Except for Halloween, they were forced to live in the Netherworld. Jaral had often wondered why his father was bound to this realm while the rest of their brethren were not. Perhaps it was nature’s way of maintaining balance. Or perhaps Abaddon shared more in common with his spirit brother than he’d let on. The power allowing the brothers to reign no doubt came with strings his father didn’t want anyone to know of. Whatever the reason, Abaddon was deadly enough with one realm to rule. Access to the human world would lead to the annihilation of the mortals.

  If the spells holding their worlds in check were changing, however, those old laws might have splintered as well.

  His father having free rein to enter the human world did not bode well for the mortals.

  “I need you, son, to get my answers for me.”

  His father’s voice pulled him from his musings. “Command and it will be so,” Jaral said evenly.

  “Go to the mortal world and find out if the rumors are true. If that damned hunter did change the magic ruling our world then perhaps we can use it to our advantage.”

  “Find the rift the spirits are using to escape and attack Lord Arawn through the rip before he has a chance to prepare for war.”

  The second the words left his lips Jaral cursed himself. His father did not approve of his soldiers thinking for themselves.

  The demon king’s eyes narrowed and Jaral braced for pain. In the centuries he’d served this court his father hadn’t managed to break him. This offense would be no different.

  But to his surprise the king waved his words away with a hand. “Careful, Jaral.”

  Jaral noted the loss of his title. Looks like his time as “son” was over.

  “Go to the humans and find that rift. If it exists, inform me at once.”


  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Jaral bowed sharply, with military precision, before striding from the room.

  The second the doors closed behind him he sighed in annoyance. There were few places he hated as much as the mortal realm. Too many sounds and smells, and humanity brimming to the edge. Colors plastered everywhere, sun bright enough to sear his eyes and burn his skin, jarring metal vehicles rushing past at every turn. Humans didn’t need to fear demons would destroy them. They were doing a bang-up job all by themselves.

  He strode down the ebony halls to his rooms. Demons skittered away from him as he walked, no doubt sensing his foul mood. None would want to brave his anger in this state.

  He barely noticed the whispers following him as he rounded the corridor. Let them talk. He was, after all, a favorite topic. Jaral, son of a demon king yet not his heir. A man without a place, for all he’d proven his loyalty time and again.

  Jaral slammed into his chambers and went directly to his wardrobe. He dressed with quick efficiency, tossing aside his black soldier uniform in favor of mortal clothing. How he hated the constricting, cheap material. He never held any respect for mortals at the best of times, but pulling on the dark jeans and black T-shirt he always wore when he traveled to the world above put him in an even blacker mood.

  Dressed, and armed with weapons strapped to various parts of his anatomy, he knew he couldn’t stall any longer. His father was not a patient demon.

  He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Time to make the painful climb to the mortal world. Silver lining, perhaps he could find a hunter or two while he worked. He wouldn’t mind cutting a few throats to repay them for the vast number of his brethren they’d executed over the years. A grin twisted his lips. Oh yes, hunter blood on his hands might just make this cursed trip worthwhile.

  Chapter Two

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Darcy looked around the room of hunters, waiting for someone to speak up and assure her she hadn’t just heard what she thought she had. But the faces watching her were solemn. No one spoke.