My sexual sense awoke and pawed at the mental gates I had thrown up to keep it at bay. I tried to push its insistent presence away as Katie's hands worked along my chest and sent chills racing down my skin. I could concentrate on one or the other but not both. She pressed her bare skin against my chest as one of her wandering hands found something very sensitive.

The beast broke loose. It groped for her essence before I could stop it. Her sensuality entwined itself around mine like white glowing vines as our bodies writhed against each other.

"Oh, yes," she moaned, her green eyes filled with lust.

I rolled us over so she was underneath me. Her hand gripped the button on my jeans and tugged.

Another hand, a bigger hand, gripped my shoulder in an iron vice and ripped me off her. I sailed several feet back and slammed into the wall with a bone-jarring crash, knocking the pictures off the walls and shaking the ceiling fan. I bounced off the wall, off the top of my chest of drawers, and landed on my back. I looked up.

A demonic face stared back at me.

Dad was home.

Chapter 24

Blue fire literally blazed in Dad's eyes and rage contorted his face. I had never seen him with such a horrendous expression. His face hardly looked human, as if there were two versions of his face, one overlaying another.

Katie let out a tiny peep and passed out as an unseen force sliced through our connection. Dad turned his gaze back on me, his eyes emitting a cold dark fury. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" he said through clenched teeth.

"Ouch," was all I could muster as I pulled myself off the floor. I looked at him and felt real fear, the kind where you're in a dream but moving in slow motion. "What's going on?" I squeaked out.

Dad paced the room, looking at Katie, then back at me. The glow in his eyes faded but his face remained livid. "Take her home."

"Won't she remember what happened?"

He sniffed. "She's so drunk I doubt she'll remember anything. Especially not after I cut you off."

"You're the one who did that?" I asked.

He said nothing but turned and left, closing the door behind him.

I threw on my shirt and slid Katie's back on. Otherwise, she still had on most of her clothes, amazingly. I was still trembling from fright and from the abrupt end to my carnal adventure.

I hefted Katie over my shoulder and loaded her into the Jetta. Dad stood near the doorway his face calm but sad.

"What's going on, Dad?"

"I'll tell you when you get back. Now go."

I hopped in the car and drove to Katie's house. It was late and the windows were all dark. I hoped fervently I didn't wake anyone up because her parents would freak. I took the keys from Katie's bag

I slid the key into the lock and slowly twisted it. The deadbolt opened without a sound. The lock on the doorknob responded with a low click. I eased open the door. The hinges squeaked. My heart thudded. I paused and listened with my enhanced hearing. I heard slow breathing. No walking or anything else to indicate someone was up and about. I put Katie over my shoulder and crept up the stairs, my intrusion aided by a nightlight in the upstairs hall and in the only bedroom with an open door. I figured out quickly that the open room was hers. The excessive amount of pink on the walls confirmed it. What was it with girls and pink?

After depositing her under the covers, I made good my escape, engaging the bottom lock as I left.

Dad was pacing in the foyer when I got home. He placed his hands on my shoulders and stared at me, studying me like I was a science experiment gone wrong.

"It's about time you showed up," I said. "I need some answers."

He took a step back. "Yeah. I guess we need to have the talk after all."

"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a little past needing to know about the birds and the bees."

"I'm well aware of that, son. This is a different talk."

Dad seemed vastly altered. Confidence and authority radiated from him as opposed to drunkenness and apathy. Usually, Mom was the one I thought of as wearing the family pants.

I grabbed a glass of water and took a seat at the table. "Man, I'm all ears. Please tell me you know what I am and why I can seduce women with brain waves. And please don't tell me I'm a faerie."

"I almost don't know where to start." He shook his head. "I honestly didn't think you would become like us. Like me. You're kind of a late bloomer."

"Wait a cotton-picking minute. You have the same abilities?" I guess it should have occurred to me after the way he'd tossed me across the room. Glowing eyes should have been a clue as well. On the upside, that probably meant my eyes could glow too which was really cool. I imagined flicking the glow off and on in the dark so I could scare the pants off kids at Halloween.

"Of course I do," he said. "You are, after all, my son."

"And Mom's like us too?"

"Ah," he said with a sigh. "Your mother is another matter altogether."

"Okay, well find a starting point and fill me in. Am I a vamprey? A fader?"

He put a finger to his chin and gazed at the wall behind me for a moment, then seemed to come to some conclusion. "You are an incubus."

The word sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. "Okay, that doesn't help at all."

"We're the male version of a succubus."

The string quartet in my head struck a note of horror. I expected to see lightning outside and hear the roar of thunder as a spooky organ played in the background. I jumped up from my chair and nearly toppled the table. "We're demons?" I couldn't think of anything worse. I'd rather be an evil faerie than a demon!

"Calm down, Justin. It's not as bad as you think."

I started hyperventilating. "We're demons, Dad. Demons! Oh my God—can I even say that anymore without worrying about getting struck by hellfire? Or is it heavenfire?"

"Sit down," he said with a firm note in his voice.

I dropped into my chair. Pain gripped my heart with steel talons. Elyssa had been right about me. I was a monster, one-hundred percent evil, doomed to Hell.

"We're not pure demons, not in the sense myth has portrayed us. We are in fact very much like humans—on the outside anyway—though our needs are more like vampires. "

"I was dating a vampire." My heart hurt with the thought of Elyssa.

He quirked an eyebrow. "You dated a vampire? Are you sure?"

"I saw her fangs, Dad. Right after she kicked my butt."

Dad quirked both eyebrows. "Son, vampires don't date our kind. They feed on them." He blew out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "I think you had better start at the beginning. I get the feeling you've gotten yourself in quite a mess."

"No thanks to you. First you drink yourself into a stupor, and then you vanish off the face of the earth. Where have you been?"

He blanched and put a hand to his forehead. "I'm ashamed of myself, Justin. I've let you down and put us both in danger. Tell me when this started and everything that's happened."

I sighed and glared at him. That was no explanation and he wasn't close to earning my forgiveness. But I told him the story anyway, starting with the disastrous drunk episode that turned me into a pariah, then worked my way to the gym and Stacey and my near deflowering at the hands of the woman in the grocery store. By the time I reached the end, Dad had covered his face with both hands from sheer embarrassment and probably amazement I'd survived so far.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he said. "I guess you've done okay for a clueless teenager."

"That doesn't make me feel very good."

"To survive the attentions of a felycan is quite a feat."

"Was the big cat I fought a felycan?"

"No, that sounds like a moggy. Those are strays or alley cats felycans mutate into guardian forms. They use them as drones to guard or to attack and they're tough to kill."

"Well someone or something cut that moggy's head off."

"You must have a guardian angel."

"Angels are real too?"

He chuckled. "I didn't mean it in that sense. Felycans are solitary creatures unless they have mates. You were obviously in her lair, and that was probably one of her moggies. As to who killed it, that's anyone's guess."

"Can felycans infect humans like werewolves do?"

"I'm not really sure what they're capable of. They're very rare, and I've only met one. They do like our type though. If you weren't protected by your mother, she might have leeched your essence dry."

"How is Mom protecting me? She wasn't even there."

"There's so much to explain. Maybe I should just tell you the essentials and teach you the rest over time."

"Just what I need. Supernatural kindergarten."

"Our real last name is not Case. It's Slade."

The memory of my parents arguing popped into my head. Dear old Daddy Slade, Mom had said.

"So that's what you and mom were talking about. Who is Daddy Slade?"

"He would be your grandfather."

"Why haven't I met him?"

Dad shook his head. "If I have my way, you'll never meet my family. Justin, demon spawn have a bad reputation for a reason. In fact, it's why your mother and I took on the last name Case. We've been hiding from both of our families for years."

I hazarded a guess. "The Conroys, too?"

His eyes widened. "How did you know that?"

"The private eyes you hired. Were you looking for Mom?"

"Yes. I have to find her, son." A tear trickled down his cheek. "Life isn't worth living without your loved ones."

I wondered how he, or I for that matter, could love. We were demon spawn. Was the love I felt really an illusion after all? Still, the thought of Mom being in danger from the Slades or the Conroys choked me with fear. "Are the Conroys as bad as the Slades?"