Prologue

Matthew Sirk heard a gunshot and then a scream. It wasn't a demon’s high-pitched howl or a gut-wrenching bark. This was human and it was a death wail.

He fell to his knees in the snow and pointed his weapon at the darkness in front of him. Then squeezing his eyes shut, he listened.

Footsteps in the slush behind the bushes ahead of him zigzagged from the shrubbery to a hill of snow-covered rocks before disappearing behind an embankment. He tilted his head; eyes still closed, and retraced the steps in his mind. They had moved over the icy ground in a wide circular pattern. Two steps right, one slide left.

He aimed and fired his weapon.

His eyes opened as the blast from his taser illuminated the path in front of him. For an instant, he could see the beast clearly and could tell he'd hit it square in the chest. Good, he thought as he let his body relax for an instant, and then he remembered there was more than one.

He aimed at the other spot where he'd heard footsteps, but before he could pull back the trigger, a shot blasted through the branches above his head and ricocheted off a nearby rock. Splintered pieces of bark and clumps of snow fell from the trees. Covering his head with his arms, he slammed his body flat against the frozen earth and thought about crawling toward the cave on the other side of the embankment.

Another taser blast brightened the night's sky and he swung up onto his knees. Suddenly the darkness gave way to a soft glow of light coming from somewhere he couldn't tell, but he could make out a human figure ahead of him. She was standing next to a pile of stacked stones, her body wedged between the stones and a tall drift of ice-coated snow. She shook her head, as if reading his mind. Then she raised her hand and made a small gesture, ‘don’t move’.

The next sound came from behind him. Then something large and hard hit him in the back. He fell forward, but not to the ground. Again he was on his knees. A second passed before he heard the next gunshot. He gasped as he felt the bullet tear through his torso. Fighting the urge to pass out, he shifted all of his demon energy toward her. Now was the time for the powers his mother had given him to do something good. From his vantage point, he could see her face clearly. He was looking at her when the next shot blared. A melancholy smile moved across her lips and her eyes opened wide. He could sense her searching for him, seeking his face in the fading light of the taser’s beam.

As he watched her body slump to the earth, he saw her last thoughts etched across her face.  

She had known she was dead before she hit the ground.

 ###

 Chapter I

A sea of white pebbles lay before him, glimmering in the moonlight. He moistened his lips with a flick of his tongue as the salt-flavored wind pounded his face. A wave of panic consumed him and his body shook with fear. His feet were sinking beneath the sand, anchoring him to the beach. He couldn’t escape. There was no way, no road on which he could travel. He was stuck. Hip deep in the mud and the madness of being too afraid to ask when he could leave the beach for home.

***

 “Matt!” He recognized the voice coming from the other side of his apartment door. Luckily, he didn’t need to get out of his lump-fest of a bed to deal with it. The woman yelling his name had a key and would let herself in eventually, just like she always did.

“Matt, come on. I know you're in there. Get your scrawny ass out of bed and let me in.”

He chuckled as he pictured her yanking the knapsack off her back and muttering about his numerous shortcomings as she flung it to the ground.  Her next step would be to shove her long fingers into the bag, frantically searching for her keys. After a few moments of not finding them, she'd dump the bag’s contents onto the floor and drop to her knees, cursing him vehemently as she rummaged through the mess in front of her.

He wished he didn’t enjoy listening to her grumbling as he folded his arms behind his head and stretched out in the bed. It was just that he’d missed the sound of her voice, and soon he’d see her, and he wanted that badly. To see her again. But now it was almost as if just hearing her voice was enough.

Now she was saying something about the nerve of his stubborn ass refusing to open the apartment door. He snickered at the irony of that statement. How many times had he told her to put the keys in the small zippered pouch on the left side of the bag? She’d never have to turn it inside out and dig for those damn keys if she’d just put them in the same place each and every time.

But Sonia Michelle Johnson loved to ignore his advice.

He adjusted his body in the bed sleepily, momentarily forgetting about her ranting. Eventually, she'd find the keys. In fact, her rumblings had already begun to quiet down. He could hear her reloading the knapsack.  First she’d pick up the fifty pounds of ammo every hunter was required to carry. Then she’d likely stuff in some clothes, a pair of jeans and a couple of t-shirts and hopefully, her black lace bra.  He loved black-lace against her chocolate-brown skin and how soft it made her look wearing lace bras and skimpy panties. 

The woman most people saw was a seasoned soldier wearing black fatigues and military-issued boots. She was one of the most feared hunters in the US Army and sometime before picking up all of her belongings from the floor and unlocking the door to his apartment; she’d remove her Luger and Mira taser from her weapons belt and place them in the side compartment of her bag (where she should have stored her keys).

Sonia had a rule – she didn’t bring guns into his apartment holstered. At first he thought it was her way of keeping the war out of their bedroom, but then the idea came to him that she didn’t want to be tempted. No point having a gun or taser too handy if she got pissed and wanted to punish him in a very painful way. But she did have to keep her weapons within arms reach. What demon hunter in 2045 could survive without her guns?

Matt was particularly fond of her hundred year-old Luger. She'd had it restored and equipped with platinum bullets that tore an impressive gap in a Mira demon. Matt lusted after that weapon. It would be his favorite if he weren’t half-demon. Unlike pure humans, he preferred to go for the clean kill when taking the life of a Mira. A Lugar couldn’t kill a Mira right off the bat. It made them bleed an awful lot, but eventually you still had to cut off their heads – so why not get to the kill fast. That was the way he felt about it.

“Damn, you do know how to make a mess out of shit.”

Matt flinched at the sound of Sonia’s voice shouting from the kitchen. The door slammed and her footsteps stomped toward the bedroom. He pulled the sheets over his head and began counting backward from ten.

“You are the most stupid Mirachi on Earth. What made you think this was going to work, huh? Jesus freaking Christ, Matt. You make me so mad I could spit.”

Aw…sweet love, he hadn't even reached five. A twinge in his stomach reminded him how fitting it was that they'd found each other. They were the perfect couple in a world where perfection was no longer possible.

Tucking the sheets snugly beneath his slender hips, Matt stretched his aching limbs into a full body yawn and hugged the iron rails of his bedpost. His toes curled and his feet dangled over the sides of the bed as he ignored the huffy sounds coming from Sonia’s mouth.  She spun from the bedroom doorway moving through the mini-living room and mini-living kitchen that comprised the other half of his two-room apartment.

He raised his head to see if he could see her rustling about, but instead he saw his feet sticking up from beneath the sheets and they distracted him. He stared at them curiously. If he was taller, he could stretch from one end of a full-sized bed to the other. Six-feet, five inches tall, he calculated. That would be all it would take. Pure Mira were that tall. He scooted his five foot ten inch frame toward the center of the extra-long narrow bed.

He could kill the Mira looking them in the eye if he was taller. He'd prefer to face them eye-to-eye out of respect. Make their deaths honorable. For the Mira being killed by one of its own was a disgrace worse than death, especially if that ‘it’ was a half-breed. Matt had seen that look of shame in more eyes than he cared to count.

He snatched the sheets off of his body. His mental foray into Mira killings was not going to help him relax. Better to blame his father's human blood for his lack of Mira height and his outwardly human appearance. Shoulder length wavy blond hair, deep blue eyes, an angled face with razor sharp cheekbones and a regal nose, his mother used to say. A delightfully human baby boy, she'd smile and pull on his face with her long fingers and kiss his cheeks playfully. Yeah, he blamed his father for his human traits and let it go at that.

His eyelids drooped as he slipped back into sleep. Within seconds, he was floating on a warm sea. Then he heard the sound of a woman clearing her throat.

He peeked through his lashes at the brown-skinned girl standing at the foot of his bed. Sonia stood with her arms crossed over her flat stomach; the fullness of her round breasts emphasized by her tight black turtleneck sweater. Her shoulder-length kohl-colored hair was pulled into a ponytail that sat high on her uncovered head. Matt didn't need to see her feet to know she was wearing regulation calf-high battle gear with the bottoms of her black stretch jeans tucked snugly into the bootlegs. This accentuated the roundness of her hips, a curvy delight to his eyes.

“Don't you have anything to say for yourself?” Sonia demanded.

He was surprised she could squeeze so many words through such tightly clenched teeth.

“Yeah, I do,” Matt replied. “Didn't I tell you to put the keys in the small zippered-pocket on the left side of your bag?”

She rolled her eyes and stuck out her oh so human tongue. Matt groaned. His desire for Sonia was evident by his stiffening cock, which he had no intention of concealing. Maybe if he used his charms, he’d avoid the confrontation for a little while longer.

Keeping his head bent down, he looked up at Sonia and smiled into her brown eyes, giving her the full effect of his lusty blues and long dark lashes. He then curled his mouth into his sexiest grin.

She barely looked at him as she spun out of the room, leaving him admiring her backside as she marched back toward the kitchen muttering something about pussy-crazed Mirachi.

He had to admit she looked fucking sensational when she was pissed. He squirmed as he noticed his arousal tenting the sheet. He closed his eyes, deciding he’d better relax before entering into the discussion he didn’t want to have.

He must have fallen asleep because Sonia was suddenly standing at the end of his bed again. He sensed her more than saw her for he'd barely opened his eyes. He had angled his head so that he could gaze at her while pretending to be asleep.

It felt a little wrong watching her watch him, but he couldn't help himself. He enjoyed seeing her features soften and her full lips curling into a pout as her eyes smiled down at him. During those moments, she didn't look like a soldier in an inhumane war or the lonely girlfriend of a half-breed time traveler. She was a woman who loved her man. Although he wondered why she seemed to love him best when she thought he wasn’t watching.

 Matt cringed. This was another one of those thoughts that wormed its way into his head and irritated him to no end. He didn’t like thinking about Sonia as someone already lost to him. He opened his eyes and watched sadly as her expression changed.

An idea, not a great one, but something came to mind and he pulled the sheet below his hips, revealing the dark curls surrounding his cock. Sonia had told him countless times that she loved his body. Maybe an eyeful would put her in a better frame of mind. He looked up at her hopefully.

Sonia's eyebrows arched into a terse frown. “That will not work,” she stated flatly, but he noticed her mouth quiver for a moment, but then she was back in control.

“Have you eaten today?” she asked.

“Still in bed, sweetheart.” He raised his own indignant brow at her oddly timed question.

Then Sonia was suddenly out of sight again. He could hear her rooting around in the kitchen. A drawer screeched open and then slammed shut. Next the icebox was her victim. It sounded as if she'd pulled the door off its hinges.

She stomped back into the bedroom. “Why would you do this again now? Why would you think this is the right thing to do considering you barely made it back from your last mission?” She had walked to the archway to shout at him, her hands clinging fiercely to her hips. She looked like she needed something to hang on to, something to keep her from punching him in the face, he imagined.

Then his mind flashed to the image of another woman and his senses reeled. He could smell Kimi’s cinnamon tea brewing and hear her swallowing her tears the day she’d stood in the same spot where Sonia was standing now.  How in God’s name had Sonia, without a hint or a warning, so vividly reminded him of Kimi?  Sonia with her defiant stance and barely contained anger had ruled as the thick-skinned master of self-control.  Kimi had shed buckets of tears  filled with frustration and disappointment.

With a shudder, Matt recalled his mother’s words. “Sarcasm and stubbornness are the root of your faults my darling boy.”  His mother told him that when he was 15 years old.  “Women will want you for your looks, but will leave you because of your temperament.”

Sonia was still fussing at him as he mused about how his mother was most likely right about him.

“Come here, sweetheart,” he cooed to Sonia. “Don't be mad.” He watched her smooth her ponytail slowly with her hands. "Did you find me something to eat?” Matt asked. "We’ve got to have something more than canned seaweed steaks and codfish.”

She didn't move or answer. There wasn't a hint of a reaction on her face. She stood staring at him as he looked at her. He felt like she was waiting for him to open his mouth and say the most wrong thing possible. That way she could get back to the argument he knew she needed to have. She couldn’t let go without a fight.

The loud ring of the telephone startled them both.

Sonia rushed to the phone that sat on the nightstand next to his bed and pulled the receiver to her ear. “Yeah,” she paused, listening intently to the voice on the other end of the line. Matt hadn't even bothered to reach for the phone. It never rang until she arrived. He already knew who was on the other end anyway. The arrogant self-righteous bastard hadn't talked to him in weeks. He was just checking in on his precious Sonia.

She replaced the phone on the receiver and walked back into the kitchen. Matt pulled the white sheets up to his neck.

“Think I wouldn't find out what you've done?” She shouted from the other room.

He didn't need to answer her yet. Let her get the worst of it out of her system before he jumped into the fire.

“We've been together for what?” She was pacing back and forth, disappearing and reappearing as she traveled from one side of the archway to the other. “Three years. Three fucking years, Matt, and you weren't going to tell me!”

“Because I don't have to darling,” He raised his voice so she knew he meant what he was saying. “You are not the boss of me.”

That shut her up. Good, he thought and instantly wished he could simply tell her the truth instead of saying meaningless smart-ass phrases that just pissed her off more. 

to be continued...