Page 62 of Demon Unleashed

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Enya stormed into the men’s room, Tessa a few paces behind her. The moment she came around the bend from where she could see the entire room, Enya almost slipped. Hamish was on the wet floor next to broken bits from a sink, his clothes disheveled and drenched in water, one arm hanging by his side as he rose. Enya cast a glance around the room, but there was no sign of Zoltan. When she looked back toward Hamish, her eyes caught a green streak on the floor. Demon blood.

“Where is he? Did you hurt him? Did you kill him?” She rushed toward Hamish. “What the fuck happened?”

Hamish glared at her, but he didn’t get to answer, because Tessa finally charged into the men’s room and threw her arms around her husband.

“Are you okay?” Tessa asked. “Did you get hurt?”

“I’m okay. Just a broken arm,” he said to Tessa, his voice calm and reassuring. But his tone changed when he said, “Enya, I’d like you to explain to me why Zoltan didn’t kill me even though he had the chance, and instead just broke my arm to stop me from chasing him.”

Enya swallowed. Zoltan had made the decision to spare Hamish’s life? Relief washed through her. Zoltan had good in him. And he’d gotten away, albeit with an injury—one that, judging by the small amount of blood on the floor, was minor.

“Enya!” Hamish snatched her bicep and shook her. “He mentioned you by name. He said to ask you why he spared my life. So you’ve a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She sighed. “I’d say you might wanna sit down for that, but…” She motioned to the wet floor, then shrugged and decided to start with the good news. “I was kidnapped by demons and imprisoned in an Underworld cell. Zoltan helped me escape.”

Hamish and Tessa stared at her.

“He what? Why the fuck would Zoltan help you escape?” Hamish asked.

Enya let out a breath. There was no good way to impart the bad news, or what Hamish would perceive as bad news. “Because he’s my boyfriend. He’s Eric Vaughn, and I think he loves me.” At least, that was what she had to assume, even though he hadn’t said the words. But why else would he have risked so much for her?

Only the continuing running of the faucet nobody had bothered to turn off could be heard in the men’s room for the next few seconds. Nobody breathed. Nobody moved. And Enya could have sworn that Tessa and Hamish’s hearts had stopped at the unexpected news.

“Fuck me!” Hamish said.

“Ditto,” Tessa added.

“There’s a lot more you need to know,” Enya said. “But we should discuss it back home. Together with the others. I don’t wanna have to tell the story twice.”

At first it looked like Hamish would insist on hearing the full story right now, but then he motioned to his arm. “I’d better get this healed fast. I have the feeling I might need my arm again to punch somebody for their stupidity.”

Enya took the jab in stride. Once Hamish knew the whole truth, he would change his tune.

To her relief, Hamish didn’t press her for any explanations during their ride home. As soon as Leila had patched him up in the compound’s state-of-the-art medical suite, and Ryder had given Hamish vampire blood to speed up the healing process, every resident of the compound—except the twins, who were doing their homework—assembled in the command center. The news that Enya had been kidnapped by demons and owed her escape to Zoltan had already spread. As had the fact that she was dating a demon.

When the door to the command center fell shut behind her, she felt as if she’d entered a courtroom where the jury had already decided her fate. She couldn’t even blame them: in the eyes of their people, Enya had committed treason by fraternizing with a demon, by not killing him when she’d had the chance.

All eyes were on her. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Fuck, this was harder than she’d envisioned.

She cleared her throat. “When I started seeing Eric, I assumed he was human. I had no reason to believe otherwise, particularly since I was the one who made a move on him. Even when he helped me defeat the demons that attacked me the other night, he was still playing an ordinary man who knew nothing about demons.”

She tipped her chin toward Pearce. “But when Pearce found Eric Vaughn’s LinkedIn account and I saw the photo, I knew something was up. Still—call me stupid; I know in your minds you already do—I didn’t suspect him to be a demon. I thought he was involved in identity fraud. So I confronted him the same night. That’s when I found out. I should have killed him right there and then.”

“Yeah, why didn’t you?” Logan asked, and pointed to Winter. “Or have you forgotten what he did to Winter?”

Enya shook her head. “No, I haven’t forgotten anything. I know about all his evil deeds. I just couldn’t do it. And now I’m glad I didn’t kill him, because the next day, when I took Winter to Cinead, I found out the truth about Zoltan.”

“What fucking truth?” Logan cursed. “He’s the leader of the demons.”

“He’s bad through and through!” Hamish added. Anger rolled off him. “He shot Tessa up with heroin to kill her, and you’re glad you didn’t kill him? Who the fuck are you? What happened to you?”

“Zoltan didn’t try to kill Tessa. He never sent anybody to Tessa’s place.” Enya nodded to Tessa. “I showed Tessa photos of Zoltan and his cadre of lieutenants. And she identified one of them as the demon who drugged her. It wasn’t Zoltan. He didn’t do this.”

“So he didn’t do it personally. Big deal. Why are you still defending him?” Hamish almost yelled.

“Is he that good in bed?” Manus asked.