Good Intentions (The Road to Hell Series, Book 1) by Brenda K. Davies Page A

bordering the wall.
    Leaning over, I placed the other goblet in front of the seat beside me and leaned back to wait. It took a full thirty seconds after I detected the spicy scent of aftershave for a low voice to call out, requesting permission to enter my tent.
    “Come in,” I said.
    The flap pulled back with a rustle, and Mac’s boots thudded across the dirt floor as he walked over to join me. I gestured to the empty seat before he pulled out the chair and sat down. “Thank you,” he said as he took hold of the goblet. “I needed this.”
    “She didn’t come willingly.”
    “In the end, she did, but this is not where she wants to be,” Mac said before downing half the contents of his goblet.
    “This is not where any of us want to be.” I rose to my feet and moved to the sideboard. Retrieving the bottle of wine, I returned to the table and topped off Mac’s goblet. “How did you find her?”
    Mac’s gray eyes were haunted when they met mine. “On a door-to-door search; her mother turned her in.”
    I lifted an eyebrow as I leaned back in my chair. I had no offspring, and most likely never would, but demons cared for the children they had with their Chosen and had often perished to keep them safe. I’d been led to believe it was the same for humans. It was one of the few human attributes that I actually respected.
    “I thought you humans were so fond of your offspring,” I said.
    “Not all of us,” he muttered and drank down his goblet. He grabbed the bottle and poured himself another glass. I’d never seen him drink so much or so fast before; whatever had happened out there had rattled him completely. “River turned the tables on her though. Her mother will be fed, but she’ll get nothing else from us, and her other two children have been removed from her house.”
    “There were other children and you did not bring them?” I demanded. Bale’s vision had said there was only one progeny still alive, but if River had siblings then either Bale’s vision had been wrong or River was not the one we sought.
    “According to her mother, the other two children show no signs of being different and they have different fathers than River.”
    Then it can still be her.
    Mac lifted his head to look at me; his normally steely gaze was clearly disturbed. I’d never seen that look in the unwavering, unyielding colonel’s eyes. “Her mother said River sees things, but they weren’t close to each other, so she may have been making it up to receive what was being offered to her. Or there may be other things she can do that her mother never knew about.”
    “We’ve had other possibilities who could see things. It’s not common, but humans can possess extrasensory abilities.”
    “I know,” Mac murmured and drank the rest of his wine. He took hold of the bottle again and refilled his glass.
    “What happened out there?”
    “We tore that girl away from her family; I’d like for there to have been a reason why we did.”
    “Doesn’t sound like much of a family.”
    “The mother wasn’t, but she had brothers. The youngest, I can still hear his sobs…” Mac’s voice trailed off, and he focused on the far wall before finally looking at me again. “Her mother said she has the Devil’s eyes.”
    I took a sip of my wine as I contemplated his words. “They’re definitely unusual, but Lucifer’s eyes are a completely different color.” Now they are anyway, but I kept that to myself. River’s eyes were the color of another being’s though.
    “I see,” Mac said and ran a hand through his close-cropped, graying hair.
    “I will find out if she is the one we’ve been searching for,” I assured him. “Are you going out with the group tomorrow for more volunteers?”
    “I was supposed to,” he replied, “but I’ve decided to stay.”
    “This girl really rattled you.”
    “They had to pry her baby brother from her arms while he screamed for her.”
    For some reason, I didn’t like the idea of that