Under a Rogue Moon

Chapter 7-2

“She’s alive,” he said. “She needs medical attention, though. She’s lost a lot of blood, and…where’s the damn telephone?”

He stormed off into the kitchen, his tread uncharacteristically heavy. Seconds later, Flanna heard him requesting an ambulance and realized he must’ve found what he was looking for.

She was still rooted to her spot when he came back. With her senses finally ebbing from the overdrive they’d been in ever since hearing the scream, it was easier to see the tension in Jason’s arms, the way he seemed to be purposely skirting her presence, how he couldn’t quite meet her eyes now. There was blood staining the bottom of his tee, as if he’d got it onto his hands and wiped it off on his shirt, but otherwise, he was clean.

“We have to get rid of it,” he was saying as he circled the demon that lay dead on the floor. “Paramedics usually don’t react too well if the body they find isn’t human.”

Her mind raced. “Mrs. Lange has a big storage building out back for stuff for the café,” she said. “We can hide it there for now, and then tomorrow we can bring the delivery van down so that we can get it out of here.”

He’d bent to toss the body over his shoulder before she’d finished speaking, but as she saw the blood drip from the demon onto the floor, Flanna frowned.

“How are we going to explain all this blood?” she asked.

“We’re not. We’re not going to be here when they show up.”

She grabbed his arm, yanking him to a halt. “The police will have questions. Someone has to be here to answer them.”

“And those someones will not be us. Think, Flanna. Your life here is sheltered. By your own father’s admission, these people have no idea about what kind of evil is really out there in the world. How in hell are you going to be able to explain anything that will make sense to them?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but continued on his path to the front door. “You can’t. All you can do is clean up the mess and move on.”

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Flanna stunned into silence. This didn’t sound like the lighthearted demonhunter she’d spent the last week of her life with. This sounded like a man all too accustomed to a complicated world. She was surprisingly hurt to hear such jaded words come from his mouth.

She took his intent literally, though, and set about cleaning up the blood that had drained onto the floor. It didn’t take long. By the time Jason appeared in the doorway again, Flanna was putting the last blood-soaked tea towel into a plastic bag.

“We can get rid of these at home,” she said as she tied it off. “I wiped down everything I could think of. Birley police don’t get that many violent crimes, so maybe they won’t be prepared to do a search that’ll catch something I missed.”

“How’s your arm?”

She’d forgotten about her injury. “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, turning her wrist to check. “And look. It’s stopped bleeding.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Neither spoke as they ducked back out into the cool night. Breaking into the pace of their earlier run, they took off in the direction of Flanna’s home, the crinkling of the heavy plastic bag echoing throughout the empty fields with every step. By the time they reached her front door, her lungs were burning, her muscles screaming in protest. All she wanted was to stand underneath a hot shower and forget that she’d just found a demon a few miles from her home.

Jason didn’t follow her inside. He sat down on the front step and stared up at the velvet sky, his shoulders hunched beneath his worn t-shirt.

Biting her lip, Flanna debated if she should say something. His emotional distance was confusing; he wasn’t the sort to just close off. At least, she didn’t think he was. She’d been wrong about men before. More than once.

In the end, her need for a shower won out over her desire to try to talk to him. She’d probably just say the wrong thing anyway, she thought as she climbed the stairs to get clean clothes. It was better to err on the side of silence.

* * * *

There wasn’t a sound in the entire house when Flanna finally turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub. Scrubbing at her pinked skin with a faded towel, she tried to listen for anything that might indicate Jason was still awake—the TV, voices, anything—but all she could hear was the quiet drip from the shower head behind her. He can’t be asleep already, she thought with a frown. It had just been one demon, and he hadn’t even done any fighting.

Dressing quickly, Flanna stepped into the lounge and looked around. The room was empty, the lights off. There wasn’t even a light on in the kitchen where Jason normally spent his nights, looking through her father’s books. When she glanced toward her father’s bedroom, though, she saw that room was dark as well, the door slightly ajar. He was still awake, too. If he wasn’t in the house, that left only one other place for him to be.

She ran into Colin in the back garden. He was walking back up to the house, his broad shoulders bowed by an unseen weight. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and the furrows around his mouth looked even deeper than normal. For the first time, Flanna realized just how old her father was getting.

“Jason’s in the barn,” Colin said before she could speak.

Her eyes widened. Somewhere along the line, “Mr. Randolph” had been dropped. “Did he tell you what happened?” she asked.

“He did. You took a great risk.”

In the darkness, it was hard to tell if he meant that as a scolding or something else. Flanna decided to let it go for now. “Do you think it’s just a coincidence? We haven’t had demons in Kent for years, and now one shows up when Romm might be after me? That can’t be an accident.”

Colin sighed, and the breath sounded just as leaden as his muscles appeared. “There is no such thing as coincidence, lassie,” he said. “It’s just the word cowards hide behind when they can’t accept the consequences of their actions.”

“Then what does it mean?”

One of his large hands came up and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Go talk to Jason. The man’s worried about you.”

“He’s…huh?”

But Colin had already brushed his way past her, his head bent as he disappeared inside the house.

Flanna shifted her attention to the looming barn. Light scattered in slivers across the ground where the door wasn’t completely closed, and soft thuds echoed from its interior. Slowly, she walked up to it, pushing the door open just enough to slip inside as inconspicuously as possible, then stopping as soon as she crossed the threshold.

He was using her exercise bar to do chin-ups, moving up and down with liquid ease. Flanna’s breath caught in her throat. Before working out, Jason had stripped to the waist, his discarded shirt on the ground beneath him, and now his sweat-slicked chest was exposed for her inspection. She’d originally thought he had a runner’s body, but with his muscles so clearly etched in his arms and abdomen, there was no doubt in her mind that he’d been a swimmer instead. Everything about him was taut, controlled, flexing with unexpected power on every stretch, and his swift movements on the bar had his sweats riding so low on his hips that she could see the start of his pelvis before it vanished beneath the cotton.

She tore her eyes away from his hips when she realized he’d stopped moving. Her gaze slid upward, along his tight stomach, across his flat n*****s, past his strong jaw and sensuous mouth, finding him staring back at her with equal intensity. Releasing his hold on the bar, Jason dropped to the ground, never looking away from her. His eyes were so dark they didn’t even look blue any more.

“My dad said…” she began, but it choked in her throat when he began walking determinedly toward her.

Her feet wanted to run away, but her head was commanding them to stay rooted in their spot, giving Jason a stationary target as he got ever closer. Her heart was another matter entirely, suddenly thundering inside her ribcage, and Flanna could barely breathe by the time he came to a stop in front of her.

“Dad said—” she started again. This time, the words were stopped by his mouth coming down to hers, his hands scooping beneath her wet hair to curl around the back of her neck while he proceeded to kiss her.

She hadn’t expected it. Not really. Wanted, yes, in those seconds that stretched to eternity when she’d been entranced by the sight of his lean body working on the bar. Even before then, on the odd occasion when he would look at her just so during their runs, or when he laughed at one of her stories, sending the heat straight to her cheeks in delight. But now, feeling his mouth on hers, his tongue stroking along her lower lip, teasing her until she could feel her jaw start to quiver from the need for more, Flanna couldn’t think of anything else but the heat that emanated from his body, or the way his thumbs began slowly caressing the delicate curve of her skull.

Her lips parted, and the subtle invitation was all it took for his gentle claim to grow more demanding. His hold tightened, and Jason took a step forward, pressing their bodies so closely together that she could feel the bulge of his arousal jutting against her hip. Flanna slid her arms around his back, clinging to him as the world tilted around them. She’d always preferred larger men, men who towered over her, men who could make her feel small and feminine. But in Jason’s arms, something was different. Maybe it was because he did more than any of that, accepting who she was, admiring it even. Or maybe it was because of the way they seemed to match, hip to hip, mouth to mouth. Whatever it was, Flanna felt beautiful, in ways she’d thought were impossible. That was probably the true magic of Jason’s charm.

He broke away, though just like at Mrs. Lange’s, his hands never left her head. Flanna opened her eyes to see him staring at her, the brilliant blue swallowed by the black of his pupils, and his tongue darted out to lick at his swollen lips, as if he was trying to capture the lingering taste of her one more time.

“You…” he said, and his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps that made his voice husky and deep, “…have got to be the bravest, most tantalizing, most frustrating woman I have ever met, Flanna McRae. When I saw that thing jump at you…”

His words trailed away as he slammed his mouth back to hers for a short but searing kiss. This time, Flanna was the one to stop it, loosening her hold on him so that she could put her hands flat to his chest and push.

She didn’t push hard, but it forced Jason to back off, his hands falling away from her face. Confusion drew his brows together for a single beat before his lips began to twitch into a smile.

“Stop laughing at me!” she demanded.

“I’m not,” he said. He lifted a hand to brush his thumb across her swollen mouth, tender and slow. “You have to know I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since you bumped into me at Rage. God, the dreams I had before I actually found you again. Hell, you’d probably blush like a schoolgirl if you knew about the dreams I’ve had sleeping on your—”

“Enough!” Suddenly, the image of him lying on her couch, naked and with his fingers curled around his stiff erection, filled her head. Flanna had to squeeze her eyes shut to try to block it out. Unfortunately, that tactic failed miserably. It was even worse when she opened them again and saw him standing there, bare-chested and delectably muscled, watching her with an unabashed grin.

“One of these days,” he said, “you’re going to realize you’re a beautiful, sexy woman, Flanna. I know you’ve got these ideas about duty to your family and everything, and that’s admirable. Really. But there’s more to life than that. There’s more to you than that. I just hope I’m still around when you finally see it for yourself.”

When he turned and started walking back to where he’d left his shirt, Flanna was left standing there alone, mouth agape, eyes wide at his candid declaration. She hadn’t thought—no, she hadn’t dared to let herself think—that he’d ever say such a thing. Did he really see her like that? There was no way she could deny the physical attraction; she’d felt that one all too clearly. But it boggled the mind that he’d given enough thought on the matter to see her situation and then lay it out so simply. There was truth there. Life should be about more than duty. She’d just never thought anybody would be willing to be around when she ever got the chance to explore that for herself.

“Jason…” She took a hesitant step toward him, her hands trembling both from fear and the residual hungers still coursing through her system.

He glanced back at her as he bent to pick up his shirt. “If you’re going to tell me to apologize for kissing you, you should know right now I’m not going to do it. There’s a lot of s**t in my life I’m sorry for, but that will never make that list.”

“No, it’s…” Flanna swallowed. Now or never, she told herself. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion I did. I didn’t expect…I mean, why should I? Nobody’s ever…but, never mind. That’s not important.”

“See, now, that’s where you’re wrong.” With his shirt dangling from his fingers, Jason came purposefully back to her until they stood toe-to-toe. There was nothing angry in his face, nothing hostile in his demeanor. He just regarded her with a small smile and a light dancing in his eyes. “It is important. It pisses me off that you’ve gotten this far in your life without anybody convincing you how amazing you really are. It’s not as much fun flirting with you when I know you don’t realize that’s what I’m doing.” He stopped, pretending to think about what he’d just said. “Well, most of the time, it’s not as much fun. Sometimes getting you all riled up because you take something I said the wrong way is worth it.”

She was like a deer caught in headlights as he brushed a quick kiss across her lips and then walked past her toward the door.

“And I’m not apologizing for that one, either,” Jason said. “Now, come on. I’m starved, and we’ve got some planning to do if we want to figure out what tonight has to do with Romm.” When she twisted to look back at him, he was stopped in the exit, watching her with a mischievous smile. “You can make us pancakes while I shower. Unless you feel like taking another one, in which case, I’ll gladly forego eating—”

“Pancakes, it is,” Flanna said quickly.

His smile broadened. “A woman after my own heart,” he murmured, and then turned to head up to the house.