Free Eve of Chaos by S.J. Day Page B

lungs.
    Alec...
    The surge ebbed.
She reached out to the nearby light post and sucked in deep breaths. That had
been an act of possession and claiming, like a dog pissing on a hydrant. And
every Infernal within a half-mile radius got the message loud and clear.
    Eve studied Alec
closely, slightly frightened by the look of mayhem in his dark eyes. “What the
hell was that?”
    “We need to get you
out of here.” He gripped her elbow and pulled her down the adjacent street.
    The weight of
dozens of eyes goaded her into faster steps. She had to jog to keep up, but it
wasn’t a struggle. Several feet away from her Chrysler 300, Alec hit the trunk
release on the remote. He put the tengu in the back and tossed the keys to her.
“Wait until I bring the bike around, and we’ll head back together.”
    She nodded.
    He shifted away.
A moment later she heard the Harley rumble to life around the corner.
    Eve closed the
trunk, revealing a man standing directly beside her car. She jumped back with a
squeak.
    “Yeesh.” She
shook her head. “You scared me, Father.”
    “Sorry.” Father
Riesgo’s smiling green eyes softened his rugged features. He looked so out of
place in the priest’s collar that it almost had the look of a costume. Frankly,
he looked more renegade than missionary. His cheek was marred by a knife scar
and his dark hair was overlong and slicked back in a short tail. Just shy of
six feet and built like a tank, Riesgo wasn’t handsome, but he was very
charismatic and singularly compelling.
      “How are you, Ms. Hollis?”
    “I’m good.”
Thumping came from Eve smacked her hand down on it.
    Riesgo frowned.
“What was wthat?”
    “What was what?”
    “That noise.”
    “I didn’t hear anything.”
She glanced around war: ily, noting how the Infernals held back. Maybe due to
Alec’s unspoken threat, maybe due to the presence of a priest. “So. . . how are you?”
    His gaze lifted
from the trunk to meet hers. “Better now that I’ve seen you.”
    For some men,
that would have been a pickup line. With Riesgo, it was her soul that
interested him, not the package it came in.
    “Have you been
reading the Bible I gave you?” he asked.
    “I did. Thank
you. I’ve been meaning to bring it back to you, but work has been crazy
lately.”
    “Do you have any
questions?”
    Alec could melt
wax with his voice, but Riesgo was no slouch in the alluring department. His
voice bore the deep sultriness of a phone sex operator. Not that she’d ever
called a sex line, but she imagined that’s what the men who worked them would
sound like. Eve wondered if he was aware of how many women attended mass at St.
Mary’s just to hear him talk with that suave Spanish accent.
    “No questions,”
she replied, listening to the rumble of the Harley fade as Alec circled the
other side of the block.
    “And you don’t
want to keep it for future reference?”
    More pounding
came from the trunk.
    “No thanks,” she
said, careful not to raise her voice even though it was competing with the
noise from the tengu. “I have a good memory.”
    “What is in your
trunk, Ms. Hollis?” he shouted.
    “Excuse me?” Her
car was beginning to rock and she pushed down harder on the trunk with her
super- strength to keep it still.
    He leaned
closer. “What. Is. That. Noise ?“ “I don’t hear anything.”
    A dark brow
arched. Reaching out, his long fingers caught the keys held in her free hand
and tugged them free of her grip. Not that she offered much resistance. She was
too shocked by the way he took over. How could a man so clearly commanding in
nature become a Catholic priest?
    With his
foreann, he pushed her back from the car. When it began to bounce violently, he
shot her a challenging glance.
    “You’re pushy,
Father.”
    Riesgo hit the trunk
release and it popped open. The tengu froze. The car settled. With one hand on
the lip of the trunk lid and the other holding the keys at his side, he stared
down at what was a gargoyle