An excerpt from Deidre Knight's Red Demon - Coming June 1, 2010

Red Demon
© 2010 Deidre Knight

Chapter Seven

Ari awoke feeling like a jackhammer was going to town inside his skull—and still under the spell of that erotic, disturbing dream. The one where he’d been lying in bed, Juliana slowly massaging his entire body, unfastening his pants, untying his freaking Nikes. And that last bit, with the cross-trainers? It had actually been as sexy as hell.

Because that’s how Juliana had always affected him, in any century.

By so much as glancing his way, she’d turned him as stupid as one of the turkeys that roamed their new property, following him around like he’d adopted the damned things.

And if she flirted or, gods help him, allowed her hand to graze any portion of his clothed anatomy? He’d thrown wood like a major league baseball player up at bat.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he groaned, “Juliana, why are you so determined to mess with my head?”

“I’m sorry, Aristos, but I don’t know exactly what you mean.”

She was right here, in his room, gazing down at him on the bed.

“Holy shit, Jules!” he shouted, scooting as far back against the headboard as he could. This wasn’t Emma channeling his onetime love; this wasn’t some spirit whispering in his ear. No, this was Juliana, in her physical body, dressed in that pale blue, lace-collared gown that he’d always particularly loved.

He pointed numbly. “That . . . that dress. You’re wearing our dress.”

She smiled, brushing her fingertips over the bodice. “I remembered.” The words were sensual, flirtatious.

Her hair was swept high off her neck, delicately curling tendrils falling free across both cheeks, and her face was flushed. Alive. Not dead. Here, now, having the gall to blush. Her clear blue eyes were wide as if amazed herself at being alive again.

“I don’t know how you got here . . . ,” he began, but she didn’t seem to hear. Instead, she sank onto the edge of his bed, settling so close that the physical weight of her graceful body pressed against his thigh.

She was no ghost; she was a woman. His woman, or at least she had been, and she’d come back. Somehow, someway the infernal female had found a loophole in eternity, chasing him all the way to the compound—a zone that Leonidas kept warded so that no supernatural creature ever got behind the wire without permission. Which only made her sudden presence that much more impossible to understand.

“So how are you here? What did you do? What devil did you bargain with?” he blustered.

Ignoring his questions, she touched her face with childlike wonder and then stared down at her palms in surprise. “I really am here, aren’t I?” Leaning forward, she lifted those same hands to his own face, slowly stroking his scratchy beard growth, drawing one fingertip down the length of his nose, outlining the faint scar beside his right ear. “You feel exactly the same,” she declared, tears filling her eyes. “I never thought I’d touch you again, not with my own hands.”

Without analyzing, without trying to make sense of the unnatural moment, he drew her into his arms, clinging to her as if to life itself. “Jules,” he murmured against the top of her head, drawing in her scent. He bunched the back of her dress within his hands, desperate to feel and prove that she wasn’t an illusion. “Jules. Sweetheart. My love. How is this possible?”

Wait. How was this possible?

With a rude shove, he pushed her out of his grasp, nearly knocking her off the edge of the bed. “You’re not right. This . . . this reunion . . . isn’t right.” He shook an angry finger at her. “People die, and they’re dead! You are dead.”

After River and Emma had lugged him home with that concussion, they’d stuck him in here, planting a remote in his hand and putting on the DVD of Gladiator. Then they’d told him not to fall asleep, not until Sophie could come heal him. But what had he obviously done? Oh, just the one thing you should never do when you have a concussion. Zonked out. No wonder he was hallucinating now.

He clutched his head. “Skata, I’ve got to be dreaming or I’m truly screwed in the skull. You can’t be here, not like this.”

She reached out a very physical, very warm hand and stroked his arm. “You held me at my house tonight, so you know that I’m real.”

“That was Emma!” he thundered. “And it was her body you hijacked so we could do the tongue dance. You weren’t ever there, not really.”

Juliana cocked her head, studying him. “I don’t understand these words. Hijacking. Tongue dance,” she repeated uncertainly. “Is that the latest trend from New York City?”

“Kissing!” he shouted, climbing down the length of the bed and out of her grasp. “We were kissing!”

Her expression brightened. “Oh, that. The French style of affection. I never thought of it precisely as a dance before.” She seemed amused, watching him scramble away from her. “You shouldn’t move, Aristos. Not with a head injury.”

“And how do you even know about that?” He eyed her warily.

“Because our tongues were . . . dancing . . . when your friend—River . . . is that his name? When he punched you into the wall.” She frowned. “That, unfortunately, ended our ‘dance.’ Until now, when I’ve found a way back to you. One that will last this time. And so shall the . . . tongue dancing.”

All he wanted was to put as much distance between them as he could manage without screaming and fleeing the room like a serious pansy. “Let me teach you another phrase, one I learned from a friend of mine. That dog,” he said ferociously, “ain’t gonna hunt.”

She rose from the bed, following him toward the bedroom door, where he’d flattened himself. With the crook of her finger, she beckoned him. “Ari, come back. I need you. . . .”

Never taking his eyes off of her, he bellowed River’s name, then Emma’s, and when he didn’t get an answer, he tossed in Ajax’s. Dead silence answered him. Great, he was supposed to be laid up in bed, recovering from his own best bud’s sucker punch, and they were off doing gods knew what. Anything other than, it seemed, watching his back.

Maybe it was realizing that his nearest and dearest had left him unprotected right when he needed it. Or maybe it was that small voice inside his mind—the one whispering that Juliana was alive, here, back in his life. Really, it might’ve been the wicked hard-on he’d developed just from staring at the woman, his body reacting as if they’d never spent time apart. As if time didn’t exist at all.

Whatever the cause—the roiling heat in his body, the ache in his groin—all of it coalesced in a heartbeat. He stormed toward Juliana, furious. “What happened to ending it all?” he shouted. “What happened to leaving me?” Then, lowering his voice into a seething, livid tone, he asked, “What happened to you being dead?”

He was furious, off the chain without a moment’s warning. His entire body shook just like the windowpanes currently did from the gale-force winds raging outside. She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off, raising his voice over the riotous buzzing noise inside his head.

“No, I don’t believe Juliana would’ve changed her mind about that,” he said coldly. “She made a final decision, and it didn’t include spending another moment near me. I was so repulsive, she had to leap into the Savannah River during one of the worst recorded hurricanes in history.”

He pointed toward his large bedroom windows, the ones that overlooked the farm’s sweeping pasture. They groaned as if to underscore his fury. “Speaking of which, maybe you could try for a repeat performance. We’re in for another whopper of a storm this week.”

She shivered visibly, casting an anxious glance toward the panes, but he seized both of her thin, strong arms. “You see, we were in love. But my love . . . was a poison for her. I was a poison that drove her to suicide.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she let him throttle her as if she was a rag doll. “Why won’t you fight?” he growled bitterly. “Slap me. Denounce me. Fight back!”

She began to cry, her delicate shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that . . . you don’t understand. I have to explain, have to understand what happened myself. No matter how hard I try, I can’t remember. But there is one fact, Aristos. One unwavering truth—I  loved you. I still do . . . I have always loved you.”