“Sentences are meted out based on the crime. But if we find that the petitioner is in the wrong, it’s the accuser who is dealt the punishment.”
“We? So you still do the job?”
“No. Since I’m not Judicium, my JD powers weren’t inherited and had to be bestowed upon me as a fledgling.”
“Did you like being a demon cop?”
“Are you always so nosy?”
She shrugged, making her scrub top rasp against the warm leather. “You got something better to do than talk? Besides drive, I mean.”
There was a brief silence. “I hated being a Justice Dealer. But because I grew up in a Judicium household, it was expected of me. My species’ innate gifts make us naturals in the field of medicine, so as soon as I earned my doctorate, I relinquished my JD powers.”
“Your brother said you weren’t raised together. How many brothers do you have?”
“Total? Dead and alive?”
Well, this was awkward. “Um . . . both?”
“I had forty-four.” Another sharp turn had her sliding in the leather seat. “I’m down to two. I’m the eldest.”
“Firstborn?”
“No. Twenty were born before I was, but only one survived to s’genesis. Roag was killed two years ago. Now, if I take back the artifact, will you shut up?”
“You betcha.”
He pried the stone from her fingers. Bright, noontime sunlight nearly blinded her as effectively as the darkness.
“Obviously, daylight isn’t an issue for you.”
“My species isn’t heliophobic.”
Of course not, because sensitivity to the sun would be a weakness, and from what she could tell, there was nothing weak about Hellboy. Not with those muscles, that jawline, those eyes. Everything about him screamed strength. Intelligence. Sex. Definitely sex. Her body reminded her of that fact with a wave of hot tingles across her skin.
“You got the heater on? It’s like a furnace in here,” she muttered, and he smiled as if he knew exactly what had jacked up her body temperature.
She huffed and glanced out the side window, where people were taking advantage of the mild spring day, dining in outdoor cafés and chatting on corners, clueless about the horrors that took place right under their noses. She didn’t recognize the part of the city they were in, but she did make note of the street names. His vile hospital couldn’t stay hidden. Not from The Aegis.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Like I’m going to tell you.”
“Stubborn human. You can think about it on the way.”
“The way where?”
“One of my nurses didn’t show up for work today. I’m checking on her.”
“Human?”
“Vampire.”
She kept to herself the thought that maybe a Guardian had cremated the bloodsucker.
Sliding a glance at Hellboy, she wondered if killing him would be as easy as driving a stake through a vamp’s chest. Sure, he didn’t look weak, but every demon had a vulnerability. Maybe his tattoos were his. The way they snaked around his hard, muscular arm, all the way to his throat . . . she remembered how they’d writhed when he was inside her, and yeah, they were part of him. Not inked tattoos, but extensions of his tan skin. Special features were often the heart of a weakness, and she intended to find his.
“What do your markings symbolize?” Before she could stop herself, she reached out and skimmed her fingertip over the clean lines of the top one, an oddly crooked set of scales, on his neck.
A sound broke from deep inside him, a rush of air through slightly parted lips. “Unless you want me to pull over and take you where you sit, you’d better remove your hand.”
She drew back so fast her elbow clanked against the passenger window.
Gripping the steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles turned white, he brought the vehicle to a smooth stop at a red light. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if his larynx had gone a round with sandpaper. “It’s called a dermoire. It’s a history of my paternity. The symbol on my throat is my own. The one below it is my father’s. The one below that is his father’s, and so on, all the way to my fingers. When we meet others of our species, one glance will tell us all we need to know about our relationship to each other.”
The knowledge that he could trace his paternal roots back more than a dozen generations while she didn’t even know the name of her father clawed at her. He’d probably grown up all happy in his special little demon family, Mom baking freakin’ cookies and Dad teaching him how to ride a bike. Tayla’s upbringing had been less rosy, sleeping on cots if she was lucky, getting secondhand toys for Christmas . . . if she got a toy at all, spending most of her days hungry and hiding from drunks.
Oh, yeah. Way to feel sorry for herself. Christ, she hadn’t felt sorry for herself in years, and she wasn’t about to let a demon change that. She wouldn’t let anyone change that. Her survival depended on her ability to lock out the past and people. No one was getting in, especially not Doctor Evil over there in the driver’s seat.