Tempting The Dark. Michele Hauf

his voice chased away her shivers. “You can’t be. You just came out of Daemonia. Maybe I should let you settle in and feel your way around the place for tonight?”

      She nodded. “Please.”

      “I bet a shower will feel great. Come this way.”

      She followed him through the living room stuffed with dark, wood-trimmed furniture and saw many guitars hung on the walls. Amongst them she noticed more demon sigils scrawled on the bare-brick walls. Some glinted at her, but none seemed to notice her presence.

      “I’ve only got one bedroom,” Savin said, “but it’s a king-size bed. Comfy. You can sleep in that tonight and I’ll take the couch.”

      She didn’t want to put him out, but—at sight of the bed, lush with a thick gray coverlet and pillows—pillows! She’d not laid her head on a pillow for so long. Jett decided to quietly accept the generous offer.

      Ahead, he flipped on the light in the bathroom and she blinked and stepped back. It was so bright.

      “Oh.” He noticed her discomfort. “It’s on a dimmer.” He turned a dial and the light softened. “You can shower and there are towels in the cabinet. I probably have a shirt you can wear to sleep in. Does that sound good?”

      She nodded again and realized she clutched the water glass to her chest. So precious, the clean water.

      Savin rubbed his bearded jaw. His deep blue eyes beckoned her to wonder if they were real. Never had she seen such blue irises. Lapis lazuli, she remembered, was one of the stones she’d collected as a child. Though to consider his eyes now, they looked sad. Concerned.

      “Tell me what you need, Jett.”

      She didn’t know what she needed, beyond the temporary safety she felt standing before Savin’s powerful build. In his home. Behind the sigils that would keep out demons. Of utmost concern was keeping any and all of those sorts away from her.

      “This is good. I will shower and sleep. I feel like I can sleep.” She rarely slept. To imagine lying for hours without nightmares? It seemed an impossibility. “You are too kind.”

      “It’s not a problem. I’ll be out on the couch if you need anything. You’re welcome to wander about, help yourself to whatever appeals in the fridge. Just...uh, do what you need to do. Make my place your own. We’ll talk in the morning.”

      Another nod was all she could offer. She didn’t want to talk about that place. Not right away. In order to move forward, she needed to put that experience behind her. To truly be free. But she was curious how Savin had escaped and how he’d come to be a man who reckoned demons out of this realm.

      “Good night,” he offered. When he brushed past her, the heat of his skin shivered over hers.

      Jett lifted her head and sucked in a breath. As she followed his exit from the room, the flutters returned to her heart and her skin flushed warmly. Was this what desire felt like?

       Chapter 4

      Savin did not sleep much that night. He lay there in the cool darkness, bare feet jutting over the end of the couch, thinking about the woman who slept in his bed not thirty feet away in the other room.

      After watching Jett being literally sucked over the wicked lava falls in Daemonia, had he given up on her too quickly? Should he have lain there at the edge longer, waiting for her to emerge? He’d thought he had sprawled there for days. But he’d learned it was impossible to gauge time in such a place. He’d never cried so much as he had after losing his best friend. The remembrance zinged in his muscles with stinging aches and he almost thought to feel his skin burn now as it had then.

      That harrowing experience had been seared into his very bones. It had become a part of him. It was him. It was the reason why he reckoned demons. Such creatures did not belong in this realm. No human should have to experience what he had lived through.

      And now Jett was back. Alive, and seemingly sane. But how damaged must she be after living in that place for twenty years? He couldn’t imagine. The demons he reckoned to Daemonia were often vicious, wild, physically disgusting and, many times, homicidal. For a human to exist in such a place, and with those creatures, for any longer than he had survived there seemed incomprehensible.

      Yet there existed demons of all sorts, natures and aptitudes, and some were even—surprisingly—benevolent. Edamite Thrash being one such example. Savin could only pray Jett had been guided and sheltered by one possessing a modicum of kindness.

      He had so many questions to ask. Why had they gotten sucked into Daemonia? It was something he’d asked himself thousands of times over the years. Never had he gotten an answer. Might Jett have brought back that answer with her? He wanted to know, if she could tell him. But he must be careful with her, allow her time to heal and to adjust to the mortal realm.

      Hell, he was thankful she was alive.

      Hours later, the sun prodded Savin out of a snore. He rubbed a hand over his head and then his shaggy beard. He needed a shave. He tended to avoid the manscaping bullshit and suffice with a shower and comb. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

      Except now a pretty woman lay in the other room. He didn’t want to scare her. Might be time to dig out the razor.

      Rising, he tugged off the long-sleeved shirt he’d slept in and unbuttoned his jeans as he walked toward the back of the flat. There were no doors between the living room and bedroom, so he peeked inside before entering. Jett lay still and was covered by the sheet, so he quickly snuck through the room and into the bathroom, closing that door quietly behind him.

      Turning to meet his reflection in the mirror above the freestanding porcelain sink, he sneered at the gruff man who rarely smiled back. How long had his eyes been so dark and sullen? Was that the appearance of a wild man or a scruffy hermit? He really had developed a lack of concern. Kept the demons back, he figured. They feared his appearance. Heh. Not really. That was what the sigils were for. Protection and repulsion.

      He traced one of the finely tattooed sigils on the underside of his forearm. Composed of circles within circles and some directional arrows along with demonic repulsion sigils. Sayne, the ink witch who’d put the bespelled ink down, had promised him they would be effective against most demons. Of course, he could never be impervious to all because there were so many breeds of demons in existence.

      There had been one occasion when Savin met a demon who had not been repulsed by any of his sigils. That demon had initially been locked in a cage in the bowels of the Acquisitions’ headquarters. Later, Savin had ended up working with Gazariel, The Beautiful One, to help track down a vicious vampiress intent on invoking a spell that could end the world by smothering all mankind with the wings of fallen angels. That was a long story.

      Savin found his way into some serious shit at times. Like it or not.

      Hell, he liked it more than not. Kept life interesting. And, well, it was what he knew how to do.

      Flipping on the shower, he stripped down and grabbed the razor from the medicine cabinet. Time to make himself more presentable for his guest.

      * * *

      Jett sat up on the big, wide bed. She’d slept? Grabbing a pillow, she hugged it to her chest, burying her face in the rugged scent of Savin Thorne. She hadn’t smelled anything so good. Ever. The man entered her pores on a brute whisper of masculinity and crisp fall leaves, and stirred up thoughts that didn’t so much surprise her with their eroticism as rise to embolden her.

      Was she still asleep and in a dream?

      While she was in Daemonia, dreams had been elusive. Actually, nightmares might have been the only reverie possible there. When attempting to recline and rest, she’d learned to shut down her thoughts. To sleep? Surely, she had. According to Savin, it had been twenty years that she had been absent. A person couldn’t survive so long without sleeping.

      “Twenty