Read Online Demon's Kiss by MAGGIE SHAYNE - Free Book Online

walk-in closet, but I keep a bed made up in there for my undead friends.” She opened a door and stood aside to let Seth pass, with Reaper’s arm drawn around his shoulders. Reaper was silent, except for little grunts of pain every time he put weight on his leg. Seth figured it was taking all the guy had just to stay conscious at this point.
    He helped Reaper ease his way onto the twin bed that sat at the back of the large-closet-slash-minuscule-bedroom. Roxy hurried away, then came back a second later with a porcelain basin full of water and a basket full of other items. She sat down on the edge of the bed, put the stuff on the nightstand, then went to work with a pair of scissors, snipping the leg off Reaper’s pants, so she could better get to the wound.
    â€œDuct tape,” she said, eyeing the patch-up job Seth had done. “Hell, I don’t know if I can even improve on this. It’s not bleeding.”
    â€œAnd it’ll heal as soon as the sun comes up, right?” Seth asked.
    Roxy nodded, dipped her washcloth in the basin and began washing the drying blood off Reaper’s thigh. “You should drink, Raphael. You’re as weak as a kitten from the blood loss.”
    Reaper met her eyes, then shifted his gaze to her neck, where it lingered and became suddenly intense. Seth felt hot under the collar and thought maybe he should leave the room.
    Roxy said, “In your dreams, Raphael. I have bags in the fridge. I can heat it first, if you’re craving a little warmth, though.” She glanced at Seth. “Come with me, and I’ll get you some, too. And then you’d best get to the basement. There’s another bedroom down there. You’ll be safe and comfortable.”
    Seth nodded, still not clear on what the relationship was between Reaper and Roxy. They seemed close. Almost intimate. He wanted to ask but sensed he wouldn’t get an answer. And it was none of his business, anyway.
    He followed Roxy into the kitchen. She stopped at the fridge, turned and faced him. “He’s not going to want you to stay with him.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œYou have to stay anyway. He’s going to need you, Seth.”
    Seth frowned, searching her face. She had eyes as deep and dark blue as sapphires glittering up from the depths of the sea. They were fringed by the longest black velvet lashes he’d ever seen on a woman, and all that hair, all that long, curly red hair, seemed too soft to be real.
    â€œAre you listening, Seth? This is important.”
    He focused on her eyes again. “I’m listening. He’s going to need me. But how can you know that?”
    â€œLook around, Seth.”
    He did. The place was cozy and completely cluttered. There were bundles of herbs hanging upside down from every possible location in the kitchen and beyond it, in the little dining room and the sitting room, which were really one very large room with two parts. He saw a crystal ball on a glass pedestal all by itself. Incense was burning, sending spirals of fragrant smoke throughout the place. Chimes and sun-catchers and plants hung near every window. The dining-room table was covered with tarot cards, spread out in a mystical and complicated pattern, their images graphic and somehow disturbing.
    Seth took it all in, and then returned his attention to her.
    â€œI know,” she said. “The same way I knew to be where I was when you had that accident that wasn’t quite an accident. I know him. I’ve known him since he was a little boy at the hematology clinic where we were both patients. I already knew I had the Belladonna antigen. And I knew what it meant, though the doctors didn’t. I was a student of the occult and the paranormal even then, you see. An expert already. Raphael didn’t know anything. He was just a child with hemophilia and a rare blood type. I’ve been watching over him ever since.”
    â€œKind of the opposite of the way