Brimstone Seduction by Barbara J. Hancock

green as she’d seen them before.
    His eyes and his shadowed mouth drew her.
    But she quickly rose before she fell further under his daemon spell. Or his masculine spell. Or both.
    She wasn’t here to be seduced. Surrender wasn’t an option.
    â€œI enjoy the music. I appreciate the dance. I don’t want to captivate. I just want to find my sister,” she said.
    She mumbled to excuse herself as she tried to navigate gracefully past his long, lean legs. He stood, but he didn’t try to stop her. She pushed through the heavy curtains behind their seats, but as she did she heard him reply.
    â€œAs do I, Katherine. As do I.”
    He said he wanted to help her find her sister, but she wasn’t certain what he wanted most. He was a bottomless pit of wants and needs she couldn’t quite ascertain.

Chapter 6
    T he sun was only a pink hint at the edges of the city’s dark silhouette against the sky as he ran the Thames path away from Central London. One of the benefits of damnation and a hellhound for a constant companion was that he wasn’t limited to mortal means of transportation. He rarely had to use more than a word or a glance before he materialized where he wished to be with Grim’s help.
    He’d always run in the dark even before it was a common sight, nothing to note, a man with a drive to beat the cheeseburger and beer he’d consumed last Sunday. It was nothing now to pass other runners in the fog and shadows, them with reflective strips on their shoes or blinking LED bands around their elbows.
    He had only Grim, a great, hulking shadow among shadows loping on silent paws that hardly touched the ground.
    He seemed to be using this means of escape more and more often since Katherine had come to l’Opéra Severne.
    Severne’s own feet pounded pavement, then dirt; real enough, a solid, mortal man with a life extended by Brimstone blood rather than the exercise that was his absolution, his penance and his salvation. He ran farther and harder this edge-of-day. Every time his heel hit the ground, he tasted sweet cream and musky woman. She’d been frightened, but exhilarated. Her heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his own chest.
    Sybil had called her strong. Katherine’s strength caused her to be enticingly bold.
    Sweat poured from him. Everything that could burn did—calories, fat, energy—until he was left with nothing but lean, honed muscle and memories.
    Then he ran some more. Toward Hammersmith.
    Grim didn’t whine or complain.
    He was silent.
    He’d been a constant companion for as long as John could remember. Which was far longer than most men could recall.
    The longer run was as much an apology to Grim as a punishment for himself. His conflicts and mixed emotions over Katherine D’Arcy had confused the daemon dog, so in tune with his master that he usually knew instantly whether someone was friend or foe.
    With Katherine, it was...complicated.
    But Grim had held himself in check.
    Good dog.
    Good, good dog.
    Bad master.
    He’d exercised way less control.
    She was all soft, sensual emotion in his arms. Desire, need, fear, sadness and a poignant hope he could almost feel like a veil of gossamer illusion against his skin. If shadows clung to Grim, hope clung to Katherine, an invisible aura that drew him too close. So close his Brimstone threatened to sear it away.
    When he tasted her, the hope tried to envelop him, too, in spite of all he’d done and seen. His whole body felt the thrill of coming alive to it until he wrenched back before he scorched it and her to ashes.
    No wonder Grim was confused.
    He had need to stand the dog down with clear mental orders to guard and protect, but not harm the very obvious threat in their midst. No. That was his job. To harm. To hurt.
    He turned his thoughts from the lovely, enticing bloodhound of a woman to focus on one foot in front of the other. His path inexorable. Burned into being