For whatever reason,
he still wasn't ready to ponder it,
she was important to him. She mattered.
She was not escaping him, not through death or any other means.
Xu Ling gave no indication that she'd heard him and certainly no hint of her intentions.
In the blink of an eye, she shot out her arm and knocked the mug out of his hand.
The movement was weak, but the ceramic hit the floor and shattered, leaving a black, caffeinated river.
Twin spots of color dotted her cheeks. She firmly stated "No."
"That was uncalled for," he chastised, brushing moist strands of hair from her temples, savoring the feel of her silky skin.
"I don't care," she replied.
"Fine. No coffee." He stared down at her, this woman who had shaken his entire world.
He asked if she still wished for him to let her go.
The question left his lips before he could stop it.
He hadn't meant to put the request before her, since he intended to keep her by whatever means necessary, but there was a need inside him, a foolish need, to give her whatever she desired.
She looked away from him, over his shoulder, past the wall, a peculiar intensity claiming her expression.
Several minutes ticked by in silence. Torturous minutes.
He fisted the pillow. He pressed her for a yes or no answer.
"I don't know, okay?" she said softly.
She explained that she loved the silence and was beginning to like him, and was grateful to him for taking care of her.
She paused. But...
But she was still scared. "I told you that I'm immortal," he said. "And I told you that I am possessed. The only other thing you need to know is that I will protect you while you're here." Even from himself.
What a change the last hours had wrought in him. Yesterday, this morning, even he had thought to take her body, question her, then kill her.
Yet he had since done everything in his power to keep her alive.
And he was no longer certain what questions he wanted to ask.
"Will you protect the other woman?" she asked. "The one who helped me?"
Unless someone figured out a way to defy the courtiers, he doubted anyone could protect the healer. Not even Bai Long. But he gave Xu Ling a gentle squeeze and told her not to give her another thought, stating that Yan Lie would take care of her. That was not a lie.
Xu Ling nodded gratefully, and he experienced a twinge of guilt.
A few minutes passed in silence. He watched her, happy to note that her color was returning steadily now and the glaze of pain was fading. She watched him, too, her expression unreadable.
"How are demons able to do good deeds?" she eventually asked. She went on to explain that besides what he had done for her, he had done great things for the town with his donations and philanthropy, and that the people believed angels lived there, and had for hundreds of years.
"How can you know that they've believed such a thing for so long?"
A tremor swept through her and she looked away. She simply stated that she just knew.
No, she had a secret, something she didn't want him to know. He cradled her jaw and forced her eyes back to him. He told her he already suspected she was Bait, Xu Ling, and that she could tell him the truth.
Her brow puckered, those dark, golden slashes drawing together. She mentioned he kept calling her "Bait" as if it were something foul and disgusting, but she had no idea what it meant.
There was genuine confusion in her voice. Innocent or actress? "I'm not going to kill you, but I expect total honesty from you from this moment forward. Understand? You will not lie to me."
Frowning, she stated that she wasn't lying.
Slowly his blood began to heat, the spirit once again making its presence known. He hurried to change the subject. Hearing more lies might cause him to snap, to hurt.
Bait or not, he refused to let it come to that. "Let us talk of something else."
She nodded, appearing eager to comply. "Let's talk about you. Those men stabbed you last night, and you died. I realize you came back to life because you're an immortal demon warrior... thing. What I don't know is why they did it."
"You have your secrets, and I have mine." He planned on keeping her here and keeping her alive, and because of that, he wouldn't discuss his death-curse. She already feared him. If she knew the truth, she would despise him, too. Bad enough he knew what he had done to deserve such punishment.
More than that, if word spread of what happened to him every night, people might forget his reputation as an angel. Someone could snatch his body, cart him away, set him on fire or cut off his head and there was nothing he could do about it. He might desire this woman more than he'd ever desired another, but he didn't trust her. Some of his brain, at least, was still in his head and not in his cock.
"Did you ask them to kill you so you could go back to hell to visit your friends down there or something?"
"I have no friends in hell," he said, insulted.
"So - "
"So nothing." She opened her mouth to speak, but he squeezed her side. "It is my turn to ask the questions. You are not Hungarian. Where, then, are you from?"
She settled into his side with a sigh, curling her body around his, back to stomach. That she was comfortable enough to willingly lie with him like this delighted him. "I'm from the States. North Carolina, to be exact, though I spend most of my time traveling with the World Institute of Parapsychology."
He flattened his hand on her belly and gently rubbed as he searched his mind for any reference to such an Institute. "And they are..."
"Interested in the supernatural. The unexplainable. Creatures of every kind," she answered on a contented exhale. "They study, observe and try to keep peace between the different races."
He paused.
Had she just admitted to working for Hunters? Their hate-filled actions had always been carried out in the name of promoting peace for mankind.
His brow furrowed in confusion.
An odd thing to do, and certainly a first. "What do you do for them?"
She hesitated. "I listen in order to help find the creatures and any other objects of interest." She wriggled uncomfortably against the mattress, no longer quite so content.
"What happens when you find these things?"
"I told you. They're studied."
When she did not elaborate, he stared up at the ceiling. His confusion intensified. Studied, as in killed? Was this a secret warning, her way of letting him know she did indeed work for Hunters? Did she work for them and not know it? Or was this Institute harmless and truly aiming for peace between the species? "Do the people you work with have tattoos on their wrists? A symbol of infinity?"
She shook her head. "No, not that I know of."
Truth? A lie? He didn't know her well enough to gauge. Every fanatical Hunter that had attacked the Lords in Demons—and even those in the forest surrounding the fortress yesterday—had been branded with a tattoo. "You said that you listen. What exactly do you listen to?"
Another hesitant pause. "Conversations," she whispered. She then said that she thought she could talk about this and wanted to, but she wasn't ready.
Violence sniped at that, and Jiang Lang struggled to contain the demon. What was she hiding? "It doesn't matter if you are ready to talk about it or not. You will tell me what I want to know. Now."
"No, I won't," she said, stubborn again.
"Xu Ling."
"No!"
He was very close to rolling on top of her, pinning her to the bed and forcing the answers from her.
Only the knowledge that she was still sick, still weak, held him in place. But he would get the answer one way or another. "Beauty, I ask only because I want to know you better. Tell me something about your job. Please."
Slowly she relaxed. She explained that people who worked for the Institute learned to keep quiet about their jobs because not many civilians would believe what they did, and most would just consider them crazy.
"I will not think you crazy. How can I?"
She sighed. "All right. I'll tell you about one of my assignments. Which one, which one," she muttered, then clicked her tongue. "I know! You might appreciate this. A few years ago, I—uh, the Institute discovered an angel. He'd broken his wings in several places.
While we doctored him, he taught us about different dimensions and gateways. That's the best part about my job—with every new discovery we learn that the world is a bigger place than any of us ever realized."
Interesting. "And what does the Institute do with demons?"
She said they study them, like she mentioned, and step in and prevent them from hurting humans if needed.
Part of what she described meshed with the goals of the Hunters he had dealt with all those years ago, not to mention those he'd dealt with yesterday. The rest, well, they didn't. "Your people do not believe in destroying that which they do not understand?"
She laughed. "No."
Hunters did. Or had. At least, he thought so. So many years had passed since he had fought in that war that he sometimes had trouble remembering certain details.
At one time, he knew he had understood why the Hunters wanted him and the others dead: they had done evil things, their abilities giving them the strength and longevity to do so forever if not stopped.
But then the Hunters had killed Baden and his understanding had evaporated, for the demise of Distrust had divided the warriors. Half had craved peace, absolution and refuge, quietly relocating to Budapest.
The others had sought revenge and remained in Demons to continue the fight.
He'd often wondered if the blood feud still raged and if the Lords who had stayed in Demons had survived these many centuries.
Jiang Lang brushed a strand of hair from Xu Ling's temple. "What else can you tell me of this Institute?"
Frowning, she turned her head and stared up at him. She confessed that she couldn't believe she was admitting it, but she thought they planned to study him next.
Now that did not surprise him.
Whatever this Institute was, objective or war-hungry, they would be interested in the demons.
But with Lin Fan's sensors and cameras, they would never make it up the hill - and those that dared try would, in fact, be treated as Hunters, whether they were or not.
"They can try to study us, but they will not find it easy to do so," he told Xu Ling. With her so near to him, her scent in his nose, he was catapulted deeper and deeper into sexual awareness.
With every second that passed, he hardened a little more.
She was soft and sweet.
She was alive, feeling better with every second that passed.
And she was his.
Suddenly he found himself eager to forget the Institute, not learn more about it. "I want you," he admitted. "Very badly."
Her lovely eyes widened. "You do?" she squeaked.
"You are beautiful. All men must want you." He said the words and immediately scowled. If another man tried to touch her, that other man would die.
Painfully, slowly.
Violence purred in agreement.
Xu Ling's cheeks colored again, reminding him of the roses he sometimes spied growing beside the fortress. She shook her head. "I'm too weird," she said.
The flat assurance in her tone caused him to frown. "How so?"
She looked away, saying, "Never mind. Forget I said anything."
"I can't." He traced his thumb along her jaw.
A shiver traveled the length of her body, followed quickly by goose bumps. She squirmed against him. Arousal suddenly scented the air, and his nostrils flared as he drank it in. "You want me, too," he said on a low, gravelly rumble of satisfaction, forgetting his question and her refusal to answer.
"I - I - "
"Cannot deny it," he finished for her. "So now I will ask again. Do you still wish me to take you home?"
She gulped.
She said she thought she did, and that only a few hours ago she thought she was desperate to escape. But she explained that she couldn't even explain it to herself, but she wanted to stay there, and wanted to stay with him, at least for now.
His satisfaction increased, swimming through him, potent, intense. Whether she answered as Bait or simply as woman, at the moment he did not care.
I'll have her yet. We'll have her, Violence corrected, frightening Jiang Lang with the fervor of its tone. We will have her.