Demons, such as his brethren, were more than human. Stronger, faster, gifted with powers that normal men and women could only dream of in their wild fantasies. Some whispers said that demons came from the Fallen, those angels who'd had the bad luck to get their lily asses tossed out of heaven. Niol wasn't real sure about the origin of his race, and, normally, he didn't give a shit where he'd come from.
He lived. He breathed. He had enough power to knock down a city block. Those were generally the only facts that mattered to him.
The streets were slick with a light coating of rain. The tires flew across the pavement, sending water splashing.
"You know about a demon's power, don't you, Holly?" He knew the reporter had been digging into the lives of the demons in the city. She'd learned about demons when she'd made the mistake of taking a killer on as a source a few months back. The woman had fed Holly information about the Other world, and, in the end, the lady had almost led to the reporter's death.
A near slaughter should have given Holly pause. She should have kept her cute little nose with its faint sprinkle of freckles out of demon business. But, no, she'd been poking and digging, and, from the look of that bloody scene he'd witnessed earlier that day, she was still getting the wrong folks to be her sources.
And still walking straight into trouble.
Just like she'd walked into his bar.
"I know…some things."
Niol glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Streetlights flickered over her, revealing, then concealing, the elegant lines of her face.
Her voice was hesitant, but not afraid. The woman should have been afraid.
"I know," she continued, voice soft but steady, "that the power varies for demons. Some are weak-"
"Like your friend Carl." Dammit. He'd known Carl. Had seen the young demon on the streets, in Paradise. Barely a level-three, Carl hadn't been a threat to anyone.
So there had been no need to slice and dice the poor bastard. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought a shifter's razor-sharp claws had gotten ahold of the kid.
"And some demons…" Speculation coated the words, "are much stronger." A deliberate pause, then, "Like you."
Niol braked at a red light. Turned his head toward her. "Yes, love, like me."
In the demon world, there was a basic power scale. The generally accepted levels were from one to ten. Any demon with powers of one to three, well, that demon was barely stronger than a human.
Gifted psychically, of course, as were all demons, but no real danger to society.
Fours, fives, sixes, and sevens-they had enough power to be a damn nuisance. They could start fires. Control the winds. Even push lightly into the minds of humans, delving just deep enough to pick up thoughts and dreams.
But it was the higher-end demons that humans, if they only knew, would really fear. Level-
eights, or L8s, level-nines, and-
"Just how strong are you, Niol?"
The light turned green. He spared her a brief smile, one that he knew was cold and a little cruel.
He stomped the gas. "Strong enough."
A level-ten. Higher, really, but he wasn't the type to brag.
Level-tens had gotten a reputation…back in the day. They'd been the ones to first make the mortals use words like "possession." Because level-tens didn't just have the ability to pick up a stray thought or two from humans, no, L10s could control humans. Completely.
"I'm not afraid of you." Calm. Cool. But he heard her fingernails scraping over the leather of his passenger-side door.
A demon had slipped into her mind before. No, not slipped-stormed. Forced his way inside and left her helpless.
The SUV began to shake.
"N-Niol?"
He sucked in a sharp breath. The shaking eased. Niol swung the steering wheel to the right and pulled to a stop in front of Holly's tidy house.
A flick of his wrist and the car's engine died. He didn't face her again, not yet.
He let her lie hang in the air between them.
One moment, two and-
"I can hear your heart, you know," he said softly, as his fingers tapped out a matching rhythm on the steering wheel. The beat became faster.
"Shifters have the enhanced senses," Holly said. "Demons just have the scary eyes."
Scary eyes. He turned toward her. They were parked close to a bright streetlight. She'd easily be able to see his eyes.
The darkness of his stare.
Most demons cloaked their true eye color with glamour, even the lower-level ones. They hid the black irises. The scleras. They tried to fit in and not scare the good humans.
Fuck that. Niol didn't really care if the sight of his true eyes made folks nervous. The way he figured it, if folks didn't like his eyes, they didn't have to look at him.
And, well, hell, he liked scaring people. Was that such a bad thing?
"I can hear your heart," he repeated softly and let his eyes drift over her face, down her neck, to the spot where her pulse beat so frantically against her skin. "My senses aren't as good as those animals'." He'd never had much use for the shifters. "But my senses are one hell of a lot stronger than a human's." And that was how he'd known that someone else was in the alley with her. He'd smelled the stale scent of sweat. Heard the brush of a shoe against the side of a garbage can.
And known that Holly Storm was being hunted.
His back teeth locked. If anyone, anyone, was going to hunt the curvy redhead, it would be him.
He lifted his eyes to meet hers, licked his lips, and realized he wanted another taste.
The sample he'd had at Paradise had not been nearly enough to satisfy him. Not by a long shot.
His fingers rose to trace the line of her cheek. Such soft skin. Silky. Delicate.
He leaned toward her and damn if the woman didn't inch toward him, too.
Not what he'd expected.
But then, the lady had been keeping him guessing from the beginning.
His fingers slid down her cheek. Feathered over her lips. Her mouth parted and her breath rasped over his fingertips.
Their eyes were still locked. "Holly Storm," he whispered, "you want me."
She flinched, but made no move to back away.
His c**k pushed hard against the back of his zipper. Her fragrance, perfume, woman, that lavender scent he was coming to crave, had his nostrils flaring.
"You want me," he continued, voice lowering, "but you're scared as hell of me."
He waited for another lie. Waited to hear it fall from her lips.
Instead, she smiled at him. Flashed a dimple in her right cheek, and had his heart thumping into his chest. "Course I'm scared, Niol." With a snap, her slender fingers unhooked her seatbelt. But she didn't try to leave the car. Instead, she closed the distance between them, until only an inch separated their mouths. "Knowing what you are, I'd be a fool if I wasn't 'scared as hell.'"