She had been beautiful, Niall thought. Round, violet eyes; long, black hair; and tiny but shapely figure. Her breasts had set his body aflame, and she'd known how to use them, no matter her limited experience. Or maybe she hadn't been innocent. Maybe she'd been born that way, able to wrap a man around her fingers and rip his heart from his chest while he thanked her for it.
Had he wanted to be honest with himself, he would admit that he still desired her. The years he spent in daily torment, in the fiery hell of the demon world, had not lessened his craving for her. But this was not the time for honesty. This was the time for revenge.
He had saved the waitress for last, just because he wanted to play with her awhile. Seeing her tremble with fear made up for what he endured, but just a fraction beyond not at all. Niall grinned. "You know what I intend, don't you?"
"Why should I? I don't know you." That is a Faerie for you, Niall thought. Defiant, arrogant. They all thought they are better than any other magical creature. He saw it differently. A demon was superior in every way.
Closing the space between them, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "You know me. Niall, a demon."
Her eyes widened. "No, Niall of Emerald Isle is a Faerie. Unless there's another?"
"Just one." At this, he allowed the fire to show in his eyes, a handy trick he'd learned early on in his new home. The waitress took a step backward, but he reached out to pull her close again. "Demon," he affirmed.
He leaned back against the bar, hooking both elbows on it as he glanced around the empty space. Earlier, he had commanded the bartender to leave and the waitress to remain, alone. The man had affected a wink and a smirk, as if he suspected Niall of wanting to be alone with his girl. But deep inside, the man had to know. He'd seen that clownish cowboy leave quickly with Niall hot on his heels. Had this not been the community that housed the dregs among the humans, the police would have been called. As it was, it was the perfect place to enjoy a little sweet revenge.
His attention returned to the waitress. "Tell me what you think I will do to you," he commanded. It was always more fun to use their imagination against them.
She wouldn't play. "I don't know. Whatever it is, just get on with it. If you're going to try to kill me, I'm warning you. I've been in the human world for two hundred years, but I'm sure I can scrounge up a spell or two to hold my own."
Niall laughed. "Really? You don't look older than one hundred twenty." He straightened. "Try something. Let's see what happens."
Her eyes narrowed, and without much more warning than that, he found a globe of green and purple lightning thrown at his chest. Before she could blink, he was on the other side of the room, watching her swing her head back and forth. When she realized he was behind her, she faced him, readying a spell. He recognized the words falling from her lips. A weak one used by green Faeries fresh out of grade school. Apparently, she had been here too long.
Consumed with his play at teasing the Faerie, Niall barely registered the creak of the front door opening. He knew the laws of the Faeries. No human must be allowed to confirm that there was such a thing as true magic or magical creatures. But Niall was beyond obeying. For show, he slid a chair across the room without laying a hand on it and pushed it under the waitress, so that she fell back into it.
"How did you?" she demanded. "But we can't ... We have to..."
He brought down a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place. "Haven't I been telling you all night? I'm not a Faerie. I'm a demon."
A squeal of delight escaped someone's mouth behind him, and a second later the flash of a camera went off. Forgetting the girl, Niall turned to the intruder. A reporter! A tall, willowy woman, young and inexperienced he'd bet, slightly frizzy hair yanked to the side in a single ponytail, with innocence peering out of sky-blue eyes. Niall groaned.
"What do you want?" He started toward her. She didn't have the sense to be afraid. "You realize I will break your camera?"
She grinned and held out a hand. "Are you really a demon? That's incredible. And you said something about Faeries, too? I have heard of you, going around attacking random people. No one can keep up with you. No one believes you even exist. But I do, and now I have your picture." She paused only a second to breathe. "It would be a shame to ruin it, since you're not making it a secret about who you are."
Niall would have demanded she shut up or would have at least wrapped his fingers around her throat to squeeze her into silence, but a bolt of lightning hit him square in the back. The pain was great, stopping him in his tracks. When it came again, he had a flashback to fire all around him, singeing his flesh, and a voice nearby telling him he didn't have to burn.
He shook away the vision in time to see the front door open again. A man stepped inside. "What the hell is this," Niall grumbled, "a party?"
The man held up his hands in apology. "Sorry, dude. The name's Peter. Peter Sumner." He, too, put out a hand to Niall, which was pointedly ignored.
"And who is this?" Niall indicated the silly woman at his side. "Your girlfriend? Sister?"
Both looked embarrassed, he guessed for different reasons. When he heard words begin again from the Faerie behind him, Niall turned and opened a portal with barely a command. This one was like a wind tunnel, sucking in whatever was near. In this case, it was chairs, tables, and the waitress.
She held onto the bar, screaming for help. The female reporter ran to her, but Niall lifted her with his dark magic and tossed her easily back across the room. She would have landed hard against a wall or crashed through a window, but Pete jumped to block her from being harmed. Her camera didn't fare as well. Satisfied, Niall watched it smash on the floor. And just in case it wasn't completely destroyed, he strolled over and stomped it a few times.
"No, stop it! Please," the woman cried out.
Niall gave it another few stomps before turning back to the portal. The waitress had just lost her hold on the bar and then slid easily in through the portal. He waved a hand, and the opening closed.
"Had I not just seen that with my own two eyes, I wouldn't have believed it," Peter gasped. "I--oh, wow. You killed her."
The door opened again. Niall growled. "For fuck's sake!"
But there in front of him was the woman he saw in his mind every time he closed his eyes. Those same violet eyes, that same pert nose, and those sweet lips he'd drank from regularly. The whore who had caused all of his pain.
"Mina," he whispered.
She smiled as if there was nothing wrong on any world in her little universe. "Hello, Niall."
He opened a new portal. "You're just in time, beautiful. Come and visit my world."
With a tinkling laugh escaping those pink lips, Mina shook her head. "I don't think I will."
Niall was prepared to push her in, to finally be rid of her in hopes that she would never again invade his dreams or his waking thoughts. Whatever hold she had, whatever spell she had concocted to keep him from getting completely free of her would be destroyed as soon as she was safely away on one of his created worlds. Yet, as soon as he lifted his hand to make it happen, to pull her to him one last time before pushing her in, his gaze shifted to the left. Through the window, he noticed a man standing there out on the street, staring back at him.
Something wrapped around his throat, somehow forcing his mouth open. His eyes bugged, and he couldn't see what this unusual power could be. But it was draining him. Energy left his body at a phenomenal rate so that he fell down to his knees. His head was spinning. His vision blurred. He lost sight of the man outside the window. On some level, he knew his portal was closing without his consent, having been weakened. Above him, he was aware that the two humans and Mina had come closer, but he couldn't move or call out. He could only succumb to the invisible hand holding him still while his power ebbed away.
Coming to consciousness seemed like an uphill battle for Niall. Every muscle in his body ached, and his head was pounding. His throat dry, he swallowed convulsively, striving for even a drop of moisture. A soft hand brushed the hair from his forehead. With effort, he reached up to grasp it, but missed as his fine motor skills hadn't returned yet. He ended up poking a finger in his eye.
"Where's your friend?" he demanded.
The eyes that made his stomach do flip-flops widened. "What friend?" she said between gasps.
He squeezed slightly, and then loosened his grip some when he saw pain in her expression. He didn't want to feel anything for her. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Mina." Sliding from the bed, he dragged her with him, pulling her body against his as he examined their surroundings.
They were in a motel room, small, with a double bed, a dresser, one nightstand, and a door leading to what he assumed was the bathroom. Niall shuffled Mina ahead of him to check the shower to be sure her friend was not there. The room was empty except them. When he was satisfied, he whipped her around to face him. A mistake. Her breasts were shoved against his chest, her outfit cut low so that he had a good view of that creamy cleavage he had never shaken from his memory. The proximity weakened him.
"Don't play games." Niall dragged his gaze from her breasts to her face. "I saw the guy standing out on the sidewalk when you came into that bar. Was he the muscle you brought with you? What was that magic he used on me? I've never experienced it before."
Mina continued to look at him like he'd lost his senses, but he was also aware that she was just as turned-on as he was. Or was it all an act? There had been many days when she'd trembled in his hold, had moaned when he caressed her. All of it had been designed to convince him to do something he didn't want to do, like banish the princess, her half-sister.
)
