Free Blood In The Stars by Jennifer Shea Page B

care of the mess here?” Before she could object, he added, “There’s broken glass. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
    He gave her a gentle push toward the hallway and Daria threw him a speculative glance. He nodded and smiled as best he could, trying not to show the ire boiling inside him. After a second of vacillation, she took his suggestion and left for the bathroom.
    The moment she left hearing range, Jason stalked to the cabinets near the sink. In one swift move, he phased his hand through the wood, the dishes, and beyond the dry wall, to close his fingers around the soft flesh and hard tubing of an esophagus. He wrenched his hand back, pulling the culprit out from its hiding place.
    “Hi,” the puck squeaked. “Ordered pasta? I really like clam—”
    Jason squeezed his hand and the puck’s eyes bugged out in protest. The creature dangled from the throat and its six fingers clawed futilely to dislodge Jason’s iron grip.
    He’d never liked pucks much. From their golf ball-shaped eyes to their forest green skin and gangly limbs, he always had a hard time looking at them. Tricksters and thieves. This little demon wore only a loincloth like all pucks.
    “What did you put in the wine?” Jason demanded, keeping his voice low.
    “I didn’t—”
    He tightened his grip, bored with its denials. The puck quickly sputtered, “All right, all right. I put it in.”
    “What was it? Poison? A sleeping potion? Tell me before I decide to tie you to the exhaust of my car as decoration.”
    The puck’s laughter turned into wheezes and gurgles, the best it could manage under the circumstances. “I can’t poison her. If I did, how would I drink her blood?”
    The urge to kill the puck overwhelmed him. The demon’s life hung by a thread and severing it seemed almost too easy. Jason only had to squeeze.
    An electric current surged through his arm and the puck’s saucer eyes flicked down in fear. When the sizzles reached his wrists, he halted. Jason sucked in a deep breath and told himself to remain calm. Not worth it .
    Yet he tightened his hand and hissed, “You are not to go near her. If you do, I will crush you. Understand?”
    The puck bobbed its head.
    “You know who I am?” The puck nodded again. “Then you know the consequences of crossing my House. Go, before I change my mind.”
    Jason flexed his fingers as a final warning as he added, “Be sure to tell all of your friends and anyone else who has set their sights on Daria. If so much as a bruise happens, I will destroy all of you.”
    He let go and the puck disappeared in a flash of light.
    Grim-faced and heavyhearted, Jason gripped the edge of the counter. A cold sweat beaded his forehead while his shallow breathing desperately tried to fill his lungs. What had he almost done? Never with Alice had he felt the urge to take another life. No matter what came for her. Why now, with Daria? Like that night in the alleyway with the succubus, he had come close to killing the puck. What was it about Daria that made him lose his reasoning and control?
    Jason cleaned up the broken glass, the mechanical motions helping to take his mind off what he had almost done.
    Daria returned to the kitchen and he waved her away from helping. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “You look a little pale.”
    Did he? Perhaps it came from the time bomb ticking in his head, incessantly reminding him that Alastor might be here any day, combined with demon ‘landmines’ hidden all over Chicago and waiting behind every dark corner.
    Even lowlifes such as pucks were after Daria now. He had little time to spare. At this rate, he needed to lock her up, throw away the key, and guard her every second of every day . . . the same as what happened five hundred years ago. Would it hurt more the second time around? Or perhaps he’d become numb to the pain.
    An ache surrounded his heart, letting him know it was still very much alive and beating.
    The agony and torment from five centuries ago