Unearthed by Lauren Stewart Page A

Putting off killing someone he could get away with killing and leaving his unfinished dinner to follow her somewhere. What was the world coming to?
    “Hope you’re not taking me home to meet your parents,” he said. “’Cause I wouldn’t do that even if I did date.” He laughed at the idea of actually dating anyone. He’d been in enough human minds to know how terrifying that was. Demons had the only right idea about the opposite sex. Women were like convenience stores—go in, get what you need, then get out. Don’t loiter, don’t fall in love with the place, and only go there for things you can’t get somewhere else.
    She stopped behind the dumpster, a security floodlight shining directly on her. “You can ask me three questions, demon.”
    “About what, and isn’t it usually twenty questions?”
    “This isn’t a negotiation.”
    He laughed. “Every time more than one person is involved, it’s a negotiation, puppet.”
    “Five. But only if you stop calling me puppet.”
    “Even after you’re dead? And I’ll do it for fifteen.” What was she talking about and why was he bartering with her? He’d ask as many questions as he wanted about whatever he wanted, or he’d hurt her. That was all. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible for a demon to pass up a deal. Not to mention that the hunter fought a shitload better than she negotiated.
    “Eight.”
    Fuck it. She’d be a lot easier to deal with if he let her think she won. “Ten.”
    “Fine.” She turned towards him. “Ten, and I need to be the one who kills Lamere.”
    “And I still don’t know why I should care about your needs or anything else about you.”
    She slowly lifted her shirt.
    “Love to, puppet, but I can’t.”
    “You wanted to know why. This is why.”
    He came closer, wary of a trap. She couldn’t do any serious damage to him, but no one liked unwelcome pain. Then he saw the marks across her belly, like a kid had taken a white crayon to bronzed skin and scribbled as hard as they could. The tissue was raised, pale, intersecting lines covering her abs, sides, and back all the way to the edge of her shirt, maybe beyond but he couldn’t see.
    Fuck . He met her eyes then, saw naked shame. He’d made fun of her beauty because it hadn’t been her doing. But this…this hadn’t, either. And for this, she was ashamed. “Lamere did that to you?”
    “Yes,” she said quietly. Then she cleared her throat. “Second question.”
    “No, that wasn’t a quest—” She was no genie granting wishes. She was a rebel hunter who offered up her grief to a demon as proof she deserved to kill the being who’d created it . Exposing her weakness to someone who could literally kill her one-handed. If Davyn valued courage, he’d be impressed. Fuck it, he was impressed. A little.
    Even though he wanted to touch her, to see if it was real, he couldn’t. So he traced one of the lines with his eyes, following it from the top of her pants, across her stomach just under her belly button, until it crossed too many others and he lost track of it. “How are you still alive?” It seemed improbable that a human could’ve lived through whatever caused that much scarring.
    “Because of his blood. Third question.”
    “How many times?” Just one feeding wouldn’t be enough to make her heal the way he’d seen her do at the hospital.
    “Many.” She licked her lips and rubbed them together.
    “He bled you and then fed you, but you didn’t turn .”
    “Is that a question?”
    “Tell me why you didn’t turn , puppet.”
    “Because he was always very careful not to drain me. He didn’t feed from me that often. He just made me bleed.” Her expression was blank—no tears or trembling lips or any of the other human mannerisms Davyn would’ve expected. “When I started to lose too much blood, he would stop. Then he forced me to drink from him, so I would heal and he could do it again. Fifth question.”
    “If you took his blood, why do you