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  Clutching his side, he limped up the stairs. He rounded the corner out of the house and a gust of cold Chicago winter hit him in the face. He couldn’t help but think about how lovely Mindy looked in the moonlight when he’d followed her earlier.

  There had been a time when he’d charged in to rescue her. And he’d failed her. Horribly. It was no wonder she hated him as much as she did.

  Chapter Two

  Mindy stormed through the door of the martial arts studio where she worked. Then she rounded the corner toward the private residence in the back. Master Foy lived on the Highland Park premises with whatever member of his blood-oathed students whose presence he happened to require. For now that was Jonah. And that was who she needed to see. Immediately.

  When she moved to Chicago, Jonah helped her get a job as a receptionist so she could train at the studio too. Few of the students knew the seemingly innocuous mansion, featuring a small martial arts studio in the front of the building, had a dual purpose. Most simply knew about the teachers for those who wanted to study karate. Only a select few knew Master Foy ran a program for those seeking blood oaths to combat evil…

  Jonah had been picked out when he was a small child to receive the training and he worked at Foy’s side fighting back that which would hurt humanity. Mindy hoped, after her own dealings with a demonic clown left her permanently altered, the master would let her into the program too. However, Foy looked straight at her and shook his head silently before walking away in silence.

  That was fine. The man could take his program and shove it. She felt lucky to get to work for him so she could pay her bills. Beyond that, she didn’t need Foy to teach her how to be strong enough to fight evil. Martial arts made her stronger, leaner, and she’d found a good collection of books in the library for study of what she needed to know.

  Her days of selling software for a tech company in Austin were behind her, destroyed by the events that had bleached the color from her hair. She would devote herself to making sure no one else ever went through what she had.

  She banged on Jonah’s door. He was going to answer some questions before she gave him a piece of her mind. Mindy waited a few seconds and, when she didn’t hear any noise, she banged again.

  A groan sounded in the room and a few seconds later the door creaked open. “What?”

  Jonah stood in front of her, shirtless. She took a step back. In her months in Chicago she’d never seen Jonah not fully clothed. Her imagination hadn’t done him justice.

  Broad shouldered but still lean, his muscles were well defined and his naked chest made her mouth go dry. Oh damn. Why did he have to be so…perfect? Jonah might as well have been carved out of stone. Add his high cheekbones, big brown eyes and sleep-tousled brown hair, and he defined physical perfection.

  Her cheeks heated up. Somehow, she had to remember the external yumminess cloaked a man who disdained her and constantly pointed out her flaws.

  She dropped her eyes, intending to look away from his half-nudity—his lower half remained covered by black pajama pants that had a red stripe up the side—when her eyes caught a large bandage.

  “What happened?” She reached out to touch his skin above the injury. Realizing what she’d done seconds after she did it, she snatched her fingers back. His skin had been surprisingly soft.

  Jonah’s gaze tracked her movements and she sighed. One more thing he could add to the list she felt he kept somewhere of all the things she did wrong. Touching Jonah without permission while he stood nearly nude in his doorway would now join falling on her face and tripping over her bags.

  “I got stabbed.” He cleared his throat. “At the house you were breaking into. Satan worshipers had a young woman tied to a table. Glad we got her out, but I took a stab for the cause.”

  Mindy swallowed, digesting his words. He’d been stabbed? “My god, Jonah. Have you been to a doctor? You shouldn’t ignore that. It could fester or something.”

  “I got stitched up by one last night. Coming up with believable stories so they don’t call the cops is getting harder and harder. But I think I convinced them I’m just a weirdo who cut himself cleaning his own knife.”

  He turned and walked deeper into the room. Foy’s students didn’t live in luxury, despite the size of the house. Jonah’s digs weren’t much more than a dorm room and even Mindy, who didn’t have much, lived in an apartment bigger than this. Did he ever feel stifled?

  “What can I do for you so early in the morning?”

  “It’s nine.” She looked at her watch to make sure she hadn’t screwed up her timing. “Hardly dawn.”

  “It’s too early for me when I’m out running around all night fighting evil.” He yawned. “Did you sleep at all? Your eyes are all red.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out.” She rubbed her eyes. White hair, red eyes. Maybe she’d become a demon herself.

  “Just worried about you, sweetheart.”

  Those stupid nicknames. She gritted her teeth. “I’m fine. I came because you’re wrong.”

  He leaned back on his bed wincing and touching his side. She knew firsthand how much a wound could hurt when it first attempted to heal. Her face still hurt on occasion and six months passed since the hellhound confused her with a chew toy.

  “I’m wrong on what subject? Or just wrong in general?” The tightness of his voice told her how much he ached.

  She sighed before opening her purse and picking up the aspirin on top of it. Mindy poured two into her hand and brought them to him. “Take these.”

  “I don’t like medicine. I have to basically be dead to take that stuff.”

  “Let me ask you something.” She sat on the edge of his bed. “Do you want to be holed up in here for weeks? Or would you rather take two aspirin, diminish some of your pain and let your body heal so you can get back to whatever it is you do all day?”

  Truthfully, Mindy knew exactly what Jonah did with his time. She couldn’t let him know it—he’d think her a stalker, which might be a legitimate guess at this point. Jonah spent his days either teaching with Foy or working as a waiter at a chi-chi restaurant downtown. He was—according to her fellow receptionist Jana—very popular with the female clientele. All of Foy’s blood-oathed students were trying to earn enough to individually open their own studios to continue his teaching in other towns.

  Mindy’s friend, Dodie, had gotten engaged and would soon be married to one of Foy’s other students, Christian. Dodie’s fiancé recently opened his own place. Christian worked nights as an exotic dancer while he saved up to buy his dojo. Jonah grumbled about it, but he couldn’t dance, so there was no way he earned in tips what Christian had nightly.

  That was okay. Mindy preferred Jonah not be gawked at by thousands of women. She’d want to claw out their eyes, even though she had no right to feel that way.

  Jonah held out his hand. “Give me the aspirin.”

  She placed the medicine in his large hand. He took the pills and swallowed them without water. “Happy?”

  Mindy shrugged. “No.” Yes.

  “You were about to tell me I was wrong about something.”

  “Yes.” She stood up, needing to be away from his bed. It felt too intimate to sit on his mattress while he lounged against his headboard, half-naked, watching her with hooded eyes. Now she knew his gaze had come from pain, not some desire to ravish her, but her stupid imagination wanted to take the image and run with it.

  She needed to focus. Or maybe she really, really needed to get laid. Either way, she had to get control of herself, fast.

  “How or when was I wrong?” He rubbed at his face. Jonah must really be hurting and quite exhausted to show as many symptoms as he did. The man usually walked around like human steel—nothing touched him, nothing bothered him.

  She smiled at him. “You know what? I’m really sorry I woke you. We can talk about it later.”

  Mindy turned and headed for the door.

  “Mindy.” He called out her name and she turned. “Tell
me. What am I wrong about?”

  “It’s nothing.” She fled into the hall. After she closed his door behind her, she leaned against the wall.

  Jonah didn’t have to know his mistake. If he did, he’d try to stop her from doing something she needed to accomplish.

  Her head buzzed with excitement while she walked down the hall toward her desk. When the demon landed in Austin, it had brought all kinds of paranormal activity with it. That was normal for a demon infestation. But there had been no rising demon in Chicago. Jonah had stopped it the night before.

  There was no reason for the activity in the neighborhood except that there was, in fact, a haunting going on. Jonah didn’t know everything about the paranormal. She read and read on the subject.

  Sometimes ghosts could haunt entire neighborhoods and she would bet her life savings that it was a coincidence that the Satan worshipers lived on the block. There was a haunting going on too.

  And she intended to stop it, without Jonah knowing anything about it. Until afterward because she would admit, even to herself, that she’d have to brag. If for no other reason than to watch him change his opinion about her. When she finished, no one would be able to think of her as cowardly or in need of protection again.

  * * * * *

  Jonah drummed his hands on the table in front of him. Braxton played poker in complete silence. He’d always liked the other man, but he might as well have been playing it on the computer for all the conversation he got.

  “I call it.” Braxton finally decided on his next move.

  With a laugh, Jonah threw down his cards. “I got nothing, man. Bluffing the whole way.”

  Braxton nodded, flipping over his own cards to show his full house. “I won.”

  “Yep.” Jonah nodded. The other man had beaten him again. So far, he’d lost fifty bucks and given that, thanks to his stab wound, he was going to miss work for the next couple of days, he should stop losing his money.

  He leaned back in his chair. Mindy had been right. The aspirin helped, not that he planned to tell her.

  “When you asked Foy that question. The one about making a mistake with you, what did you mean?” Braxton took a swig of his beer.

  “Wow. Look at you. Downright chatty today.”

  Jonah looked out the window. He’d talk about this with Christian—hell, the sad truth was he’d probably dump the whole thing on Mindy because he had no filter where she was concerned—but on Braxton? Did they have that kind of relationship? He’d brought it up in front of his fellow blood-oathed brother. Did that mean he had obligations now to share with him?

  “Look, never mind, I thought you might want to talk, but I really don’t have to…”

  “I’ll tell if you tell.” Jonah sat forward. “Why are you here? Why did Foy call you from San Francisco?”

  “All right.” Braxton stretched his hands over his head. “You first.”

  “I asked Foy if he’d made a mistake with me because I don’t have any special powers to speak of. All of you can do something and I’m really ordinary.” He shrugged as if it were no big deal. Jonah could only expose his soft underbelly so far. “So I thought maybe he’d made an error in choosing me.”

  “Master Foy doesn’t make mistakes like that.” A muscle ticked in Braxton’s jaw and Jonah wondered what that signified. Why would his question have gotten the other man so tense?

  “He makes errors.” Jonah knew he should probably not push this. They never insulted their Master. He’d given them all purpose. Jonah would die for him if need be. But he couldn’t let Braxton’s statement go unchallenged. “He picked the wrong woman and look what happened to him.”

  Braxton nodded, looking away from Jonah. Silence descended on the room. When Braxton went silent there was little to do about it.

  Still, they’d made an agreement. “Why did Foy call you back from San Francisco?”

  Braxton stood up from the table. He looked down at Jonah when he spoke. “Sorry, brother, I really have no idea.”

  * * * * *

  Every step Jonah took tugged at his stitches and he knew he should be sitting down somewhere watching daytime television. Only, he needed to see Mindy. A nagging feeling had started in the back of his neck. What had that morning been about? She’d obviously shown up for a reason.

  At noon, she should be working the desk. He knew her schedule because he made sure to come through the door around lunch time every day to lay eyes on her. In the beginning, he pretended it was out of some sort of sense of duty to keep her safe. He’d been responsible for her getting hurt in Austin and he’d brought her to Chicago so she could train in self-defense with the best teachers he knew.

  Now, however, he didn’t delude himself anymore. He came through that door at noon because he wanted to see her. Badly. And seeing her daily, smelling her perfume and being in her presence brought him a modicum of relief from his dangerously forming obsession for her.

  What would he do when she started dating again? That was bound to happen. Her boyfriend had been murdered in front of her. How long was the waiting time to date again after a man you were going to break up with is killed while you’re strapped to a chair? Maybe he could ask someone.

  Entering the room, he stopped abruptly, jarring his stitches. Mindy wasn’t sitting where she was supposed to be. Debrah, a very nice elderly woman who lived in the neighborhood and usually helped with the books, sat in Mindy’s chair instead.

  Jonah put on his most charming smile. He’d learned how to fake a mood from the queen of deception, his mother. Most of the time he tried to avoid this part of himself.

  “Hi, Deb.”

  She grinned back. Sixty, with gray roots and brown hair, her face held no wrinkles. None of the women in Foy’s neighborhood ever seemed to age at all. He might suspect witchcraft, but it was just plastic surgery.

  “Jonah. You are looking very fit.” Deb had told him outright the year before that her bed would always be available to him if he cared to join her in it. He didn’t. Still, her eyes roamed his body and he tried not to wince.

  “Thanks so much for saying that.” Being nice might get him information. Telling her to screw off probably wouldn’t. Besides, she might complain to Foy and Foy hated to deal with personal problems. Everyone could act like mature grown-ups or they could get out of the Master’s way.

  “You’re always welcome.”

  Jonah cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Mindy. Isn’t she working now?”

  “She left early.” Debrah shrugged. “I’m not sure why. But she had something to do and she scampered out of here an hour ago. Her loss.” Deb licked her lips. “My gain.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  He turned and fled the room. Okay, if Christian, Braxton or any of the other guys knew he ran from a woman he’d never hear the end of it. Twenty-seven years old and running from the sexual advances of a woman who was, granted, very attractive, but he had Mindy tunnel vision.

  Despite his declaration to Mindy the night before that he would always find her, he suddenly worried that he might not. Maybe he should have stuck a tracker on her.

  His phone rang and he looked down at the number. It was Christian, calling from Austin. Usually they just texted. He answered the call. “Hey.”

  Christian answered. “How are you?”

  “Well.” Jonah rubbed his wound. “Fine.” Had he heard otherwise? Did Christian and Braxton talk or something?

  “Awesome. Well, listen, man, I’m calling to ask you if you’d be my best man.”

  Jonah stopped moving and grinned. He hadn’t seen Christian’s question coming. “For real?”

  “Yeah, for real. Who else would I ask if not you? So will you do it?”

  “Yes, of course.” He rubbed at his eyes. Emotional, messy, sappy situations made him itchy. Jonah never knew what the hell he was supposed to say. “Count on me. I’ll give you a bachelor’s party to end all bachelor parties. I don’t suppose you want strippers though. Probably kind of tired of wat
ching people take off their clothes?”

  Christian groaned loudly. “I’ll trust you to know what to do.”

  “Great. Listen, I need to go find Mindy. I have this bad feeling and I want to make sure I’m only being nutty and something isn’t wrong.”

  “You’re worried something is wrong with Mindy? Should I call Dodie and get her to call Mindy?”

  “No.” He tapped his foot on the ground. “Don’t get her all worked up just yet. Let me see what’s going on first.”

  “You call me if it’s anything at all. Dodie does not like Mindy being so far away right now. It’s only been six months…”

  Jonah interrupted him. “I know exactly how long it’s been. Think about the strippers.” He hung up the phone.

  Christian’s words rang in his head. It had only been six months. Mindy had been brutalized. Her hair had turned white as snow. Then she’d been bitten by a hellhound. Nothing bad could happen to her again. How much more could she take?

  He ran a hand through his hair. Last night, he’d found her ghost hunting and today she’d told him he was wrong. About what?

  “The ghosts.” He spoke out loud and it vibrated through the empty hallway. In the distance, he could hear the five-year-old class ke-ya-ing in the dojo and his words smacked against the innocence of that noise like an assault on his senses.

  She thought he was wrong? About the ghosts? Demons? Her? What?

  He walked toward the exit of the building. Even though it hurt to move he’d find her. He would always find her.

  Chapter Three

  Mindy fiddled with the lock until it gave way. Next door, the house she’d wanted to break into the night before was covered in yellow caution tape and police signs. She wondered what the police thought happened and shook her head. In truth, she really didn’t want to know. The authorities were all too busy to bother with what was happening next door.