They stepped apart, and she led him down the street, holding his hand again. They turned down a back alley full of dumpsters and graffiti. “There’s a shortcut through here.”
He was too focused on her ass to respond.
Which was why he was pretty fucking surprised when she pulled a big syringe out of her bra and stabbed him in the neck with it.
She hit the plunger and his blood turned to fire.
5
One Fell Swoop
The demon stumbled, but he didn’t lose consciousness.
How did he not lose consciousness?
Angel blood was a toxic poison to demons, and even a small amount could put them under for hours. But not this demon. Sunshine had injected him with an entire syringe full of her blood, and he was still standing.
Worse, he finally seemed to understand that Sunshine was not a human woman looking to hook up and was in actuality a deadly adversary. Though drugged and clouded, his eyes flared with shock and, strangely, betrayal.
And then fury.
“What the fuck!” he snarled, listing to one side. She went to catch him and flash them away, but somehow he found the strength to fight her.How is this possible?
He twisted out of her grip and shoved her away with enough force that she stumbled back. Her back hit the brick wall, and his did the same to the wall on the opposite side of the alley. He stumbled again but didn’t fall.
An angel could teleport with another individual, sometimes two if they were strong enough, but those individuals had to be willing. Transporting someone who didn’t want to be transported was a nigh impossible feat. That was why she’d planned on having him unconscious for this.
The dose of her blood ought to have knocked him out cold for at least three hours. A demon with a resistance to angel blood was simply not possible.
Yet there he stood.
He blinked heavily, clearly fighting the effects of her blood. If she waited, she began to believe he would succeed. Which meant she needed to get him out of here as quickly as possible.
Gritting her teeth, she rushed him, attempting to take him down. As she reached for him, however, he struck her in the solar plexus. Hard. She’d underestimated his reaction time and left herself open.
Wheezing, she stumbled back. He struck her again in the side of the neck with the edge of his hand, where the sensitive tissue joined her shoulder. They were measured strikes meant to incapacitate more than cause harm—again, she marveled at his level of awareness.
Pain radiated outward, and she staggered. And then he transformed into a crow and tried to fly away.
Tried, being the operative word. The bird’s erratic flight pattern had him hitting the walls repeatedly on either side of the alley. But Sunshine was back on her feet and she’d had enough. She’d also recovered from her shock and was done underestimating her opponent. Just before he cleared the top of the building above, she flashed in front of him and snatched him out of thin air.
He transformed into a man, his big body crashing into her. They fell three stories back down to smack the ground, Sunshine taking the brunt of the impact, his weight crushing her to the concrete. Dizzy, the back of her head screaming with pain, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and tried again to flash.
This time, it worked.
Disoriented from the fall, striking the wall repeatedly, and the energy used to shift twice, he was unable to resist her.
She teleported them straight to her rental apartment, into the Empyrean sigil trap she’d preemptively drawn on the floor. She had assumed injecting him in the alley was her safest option, since the sooner he was unconscious, the less time he would have to get suspicious and figure out what she was.
If she’d known he had a freak resistance to angel blood, however, she would’ve let him walk himself when he still thought he was about to get lucky and then injected him when he stepped in the door to save the hassle.
But never in a hundred years would she have expected that.
He tried a hold to immobilize her, but no one could trap an angel that didn’t want to be trapped—at least not without powerful magic—and she simply flashed out of the sigil to safety. Without her body underneath him, he landed on his stomach, cheek connecting with the hardwood.
He pushed into his hands, attempting to haul his bulk off the floor, but that was when his body finally gave out on him. Collapsing back to the ground with a groan, his eyes fell shut and he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Winded from the fight, Sunshine stood outside the sigil and stared at her captive, chest heaving.
