Chapter 174

Justin’s POV

I burst out laughing. “You three play one hell of a prank. A demon? Yeah, right.”

“I wish we were joking,” Randy said. “Selina Crow left us the information and fled. She’s one of a handful of witches and wizards left, and they’re only alive because they hid from the Huntsman. But we looked up the Huntsman’s middle name and found Orias on the list of Solomon’s demons. Orias is thousands of years old. And like most demons, he has a gift of making trouble when he visits Earth.”

“This article is one Selina Crow did,” Randy explained, “outlining all of the demons Solomon summoned thousands of years ago, what they’re capable of, and where they might be now. It seems Orias was on Earth making trouble one hundred and thirty years ago when Jacob Cypress’s mother caught his eye.”

“Whether he took some human form and created a fictional relationship with the woman or just flat-out raped her, the history books don’t tell. But however he did make contact with her, it’s clear that he slept with her and got her pregnant. I would imagine demons aren’t really the fatherly sort, and we already found out that Ms. Cypress wasn’t married when she carried Jacob, which at the time would have carried a horrible stigma.”

He shook his head. “I can’t imagine how she would have been ostracized if anyone around her knew that the father had been a demon. But it’s too bad she didn’t tell anyone because they could have killed the child, and then we wouldn’t be dealing with the Huntsman now.”

My brain felt abused as I tried to wrap my head around this concept of a demon, a real, cast a spell, use a pentagram, summon them by name and force them to submit to your will, demon was hunting down and exterminating magic kind. I had never believed that demons were real. I thought, like angels and such, that they were constructs, creatures envisioned by the minds of those who wished to understand but didn’t have the proper information.

A small voice at the back of my head said that humans still thought the same about many of the creatures that the Huntsman was exterminating. To them, lycans and werewolves, pixies, fae, wizards, and witches, we were all as much fable as demons. So in that respect, why couldn’t there really be a hell with its own denizens? The Huntsman certainly acted like a creature born of pure evil.

I frowned at Randy’s statement. “That’s assuming that she knew Orias was a demon in the first place. You certainly can’t tell by looking at the Huntsman that he’s half demon. She may not have realized that her unborn son needed to die. But that’s neither here nor there. He’s here, and so are we, and at some point, I assume he must have found out his father’s true identity.”

“Why do you say that?” Helen asked, finally snapping out of her shock.

“Because it would stand to reason that a man who either hates half of himself because of what it is or hates his father for abandoning him because it’s clear that his mother married someone who was not his father that he would have a chip on his shoulder. Taking it out on all supernatural creatures would make sense if he discovered that he was a demon and somehow blamed everyone supernatural for whatever he hates in himself or his father.”

“That does make sense,” both Randy and Helen agreed.

“I suppose none of us are getting close enough to the Huntsman to ask him whether it’s himself or his father that he hates,” Helen said.

“As if he would tell us the truth anyway,” Randy replied. “Besides, I don’t think his motivation matters in the face of certain extermination. All we can be sure of is that his power, being the spawn of hell, is enough to seriously jeopardize all of our kinds. We have to find a way to destroy him.”

Randy sighed and rubbed his face. “I’m going to go get Russo, and then we’re going to start doing research on any possible method of destroying demons. At least ones that aren’t complete fantasy on the part of humans. Maybe there’s something the fae knows that will tell us how to deal with this sort of supernatural being since lycans and werewolves largely ignored the other sorts.”

He wandered off looking dazed, leaving Helen and me with the warrior. I turned to the warrior, a young man by the name of Grant.

“Grant, please take this information back to the captain of the guard and make sure all of the warriors in the pack know what exactly we’re dealing with. Don’t let them blow this off as some sort of joke. Whatever you need to do to make them understand that we’re serious, do it. Have the captain of my guard be ready. Whenever we find out what will actually destroy a demon, we’re going to have to work quickly. The last thing we want to do is give this creature a chance to get rid of any more of us before we act.”

Helen still sat, mostly frozen with fear. She’d switched back from the self-assured woman who walked out to greet the witch to the cowering girl who’d been abused by nearly everyone in her life. Fearing those more powerful than her was a natural reaction at this point. But it wasn’t one I wanted to let continue.

I sat beside her, taking her hands in mine. “Helen, we can fight this creature. I know we can. Solomon controlled the demons so well that history still remembers it after thousands of years. If he could, we can, too.”

She nodded slowly, her hands trembling in mine. “How?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out. But remember, we wouldn’t have even gotten this far without all the research you’ve done. Our partnership is going remarkably well with you doing all the research for the warriors. As soon as we figure out the method, we’ll take all your hard work out into the field and take the monster down.”

Her eyes watered. “There’s no way the pixies could have lasted against a half-demon. You’re the last lycan. Russo is the last Fae. And we still have research to do. Are we too late as it is?”

I leaned in, kissing her forehead, then her nose, then her cheek by the ear. I wanted to clamp down on the bite I’d left on her shoulder, the mark I’d left on my mate, but that wasn’t what she needed right now.

“That’s a brilliant idea,” I whispered.

“What is?” She sounded utterly confused.

“While we wait for Russo to get back, why don’t you start looking for a compatible mate for him? Try that witch’s research. She seems to have dug up lots of answers. Then you won’t just sit here and worry. But Randy will have to go all the way across town to get the fae. And if we find him a mate who can birth fae, someday you’ll birth lycan pups, and we’ll be on our way to fixing the damage.”

I ran my hand across her breast, cupping it tenderly. “And thank goodness a large part of the fix will be fun.”

She shuddered and jerked away from me. “I’m sorry, Justin. We got carried away in your office. But I’m still afraid of you. No matter how much I think my body wants you, my mind is frightened of you and sex together.”

I sighed, trying to swallow my guilt. “That’s my fault, and I’m sorry. Speaking of trust. Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course. Will you believe the answer?”

I gazed straight into her eyes. “I promise to trust you. I just need to know since your power comes from getting male essence, and we haven’t slept together in a while . . . have you, you know?”

“Slept with anyone else?” she finished for me. “No.”