Free Demon Possessed by Stacia Kane Page A

nodding and lumbering away across the roof. Damn. Now she’d hurt his feelings.
     
    “Meg. We have to get back to dinner now. Right away. Before the others start wondering what’s going on.”
     
    “But—”
     
    “No. We have to. One of two things has happened here. Either this witch attacked you of his own accord, in which case there’s no point in freaking the others out, or one of them paid him to attack you, in which case—”
     
    “The only way to make them sweat is to act as if nothing happened,” she finished.
     
    “Right.”
     
    “But what if he didn’t act of his own accord? What if he was hired by someone else who wants to kill me, and it’s not one of them at all?”
     
    “Again. If you don’t go back to dinner, you’ve shown them a vulnerability. A weakness. You may give them ideas, if they don’t have them already. They will take advantage of any weakness they can find, darling. Anything. Please, come back to the table with me now.”
     
    She hesitated. He was right. She knew he was.
     
    But how in the world could she go back down to that table and finish her meal as if nothing had happened? And what about— “What about the body?”
     
    “I told Carter to take care of it.” Seeing her look, he continued, “He’ll stow it away until we decide what to do. He won’t incinerate it yet.”
     
    She didn’t really like the sound of that “yet,” but there wasn’t much she could do. “I still want to call Tera.”
     
    “And you can. As soon as we get through this meal, you can call anyone you wish. But we have to get through it. You have to get through it, Meg, and I know you can. Come on.” He reached out and pulled her into the protective circle of his arm, tight at his side. His lips brushed the top of her head.
     
    She wanted to call Tera, wanted to go back to the room and crawl under the covers and sob. She’d killed a man. And she’d liked it; well, no, she hadn’t liked killing him, but she’d certainly liked what came before.
     
    She’d gotten used to the occasional strange craving. Gotten used to—more than used to—trading energy with Greyson, as a way to keep from having to take energy from the negative emotions of humans. Well, she traded energy with Greyson for a few reasons, but one of them was that it meant she didn’t have to feed off anyone or anything else. She didn’t require a lot of energy anyway.
     
    And she’d gotten used to the fact that taking that energy felt amazing. But taking it the way she had—she’d attacked him, stolen from him. It was a hideous thing she’d done.
     
    She’d had to kill him. She hadn’t had to like it.
     
    She shuddered and circled her arms around his waist. For a long moment she just held on, feeling his body warm and solid beside hers and his grip on her tighten. Later. Later they would talk about it.
     
    The ringing of his cell phone cut into her thoughts, sliced them apart like a pair of rough hands. He took a step away, held the phone to his ear. “Carter. What’s—what? Are you—okay. Right. Shit . Yes, get back in there. We’ll be there in a minute.”
     
    “What’s wrong?” Malleus and Spud had descended on her with brushes and lipstick, but when Spud lowered one beefy arm, she saw Greyson staring at the phone as if he’d forgotten what it was.
     
    He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
     
    “Tell me anyway.”
     
    “There’s no body.”
     
    “What? Ow!” She’d started forward without thinking, and Malleus had practically ripped a chunk of hair out of her head.
     
    “Sorry, m’lady. But you know you oughter not move when we’re—”
     
    “There’s no body,” Greyson said again. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and crossed the remaining feet of roof between them. “Carter checked everywhere.”
     
    “So what does that mean?” Nothing good, she imagined. Although . . . “Did I not kill him?”
     
    “You’re sure he went over the