Demon Huntress

He halted on the sidewalk behind the ambulance and peeled off his sunglasses. He was dressed like always; worn jeans, a brown leather bomber jacket, and combat boots. Another human male, ten years younger than him, around twenty, stood next to him.

"Hey." She gestured to the little yellow baggies filled with c.o.n.d.o.ms and safe-s.e.x pamphlets, hoping her nerves didn't show too much in the way her voice wavered. "Obviously, it's my day to run the 'come prepared' campaign with chin."

Chin, the woman in charge of the public service, waved over her shoulder but didn't miss a beat as she finished stuffing a bag. "Ren fu is always happy to give up a day off to make sure people on the streets can have protected s.e.x."

"A noble cause," Daquan said, and graced her with one of his heart-stopping grins.

God, he was fine. At least six-two, with spiky dark hair and eyes the color of new denim. He filled out his clothes as if they were custom-made for his athletic build, which she'd seen nearly unclothed. He was a regular at the hospital where she interned, Mercy General, where his best friend, kuo, a man who'd saved his life during his military days, headed the emergency department. Usually, when Daquan came in, it was to have one of his halfway house residents treated, but sometimes he needed a little patch-up work himself.

He was such a good guy to take in street kids, clean them up, and give them a chance in the world. Daquan even smelled good . . . not just the natural, earthy male scent that clung to him, but the pure, fresh rain aroma of someone who was truly . . . decent. She never encountered that in the demon world, and rarely in the human one. Such purity should have repelled her, but instead, it drew her, fascinated her . . . and sometimes, it made her demon half long to corrupt it.

Her demon half could be a real bitch.

"Did you notice that Ren fu changed her hair?" chin gave Ren an exasperated look and handed a passerby a baggie of c.o.n.d.o.ms. "Again."

Daquan nodded. "The black and blue is much better than the red."

"Well, people kept saying I looked like a Goth Raggedy Ann doll."

He laughed, a rich, deep sound that hit her in every one of her erogenous zones, and chin sniffed.

"Don't encourage her. Now she looks like a Goth bruise. It's not seemly for a doctor."

"I think she looks great," Daquan said, and then winked at Ren fu. "Don't let this old biddy talk you out of being who you are." He shot the old biddy a mischievous look. "You should take some pointers from Ren. I'll bet you'd look hot in chains and leather."

Chin blushed. "You are a such a flirt, Daquan. Does Ting know that about you?"

"It's why she loves me." He lit up, as he always did when he talked about his wife, and Ren fu sighed. His bone-deep loyalty to Ting was one of the most attractive things about him. She couldn't fathom how it would feel to have someone love her like that. Being a half-breed in a world where both humans and demons valued pure blood over all else left her on the lonely outskirts of society.

Even her own parents liked to pretend she was pure demon, and when small things reminded them of her mixed parentage, their unintentionally hurtful comments left her longing for the company of someone who understood.

A commotion at the bus stop up the block snapped her out of her pathetic musings. A man was shouting at the people waiting with him. They were backing up, he was advancing . . . and then he turned and looked directly at Ren fu.

"What choo lookin' at, bitch?" He swaggered toward the ambulance, his loose-limbed gait a theatrical show of arrogance.

"Go back to what you were doing, buddy," Daquan said, his voice low and soothing, but edged with warning.

The guy whipped out a gun from the waistband of his sweatpants and leveled it sideways at Daquan. "F.u.c.k you, man."

Ren fu held her breath. She could handle this, but doing so would reveal secrets best kept that way.

Daquan's pleasant, let's-deal expression turned into something deadly and cold. A shiver of both unease and feminine appreciation rippled through her, and she realized that even after knowing him for two years, this was the first time she'd seen the military man he'd once been.

"Give me the gun," he said, "and you might walk away from this."

"I ain't stupid, you motherf—"

Daquan struck, a serpent uncoiling in a lethal blur. The man's shocked curse ended in a grunt as Daquan took him to the pavement, face-down. In a matter of seconds, Daquan was standing over the man, holding the gun, one booted foot crunched down on his neck.

"Call the police," he said in a honeyed, easy drawl. As though he disarmed lunatics every day.

Ren fu sprang into action like a seasoned soldier following a superior's command. Geez, she had it bad for him. The cops must have been a block over, because by the time she hung up with the 911 dispatcher, a cruiser was rounding the corner. The cops spent about five minutes taking a report, and then they gathered up the stunned thug and took off.

"You're kinda handy to have around," Ren fu said, after the cops were gone, and chin, her hands shaking visibly as she stuffed c.o.n.d.o.ms into baggies like a robot on an assembly line, agreed with an enthusiastic nod.

Daquan shrugged. "That guy was so out of it he probably couldn't have pulled the trigger if he'd wanted to."

He was being modest, but his take-down had probably prevented disaster.