Her hand squeezed painfully tight on my arm, and her eyes flashed with mingled anger and alarm. “I can’t do that,” she answered just as quietly.

“Fine.” I jerked my arm out of her grip, and this time when I headed for the door, she let me go.

CHAPTER 15

Because the LOLs had held me up so much this afternoon, I still had one load of laundry to get done when I got home from my wonderful dinner. Not feeling in the mood to do anything else, I schlepped my load down to the laundry room.

I was in luck. All the machines were empty. I shoved my clothes into the washer and dug out some quarters. The small, claustrophobic room echoed with the sound of the water gushing in, covering the sound of footsteps so that I never heard anyone approach. When I picked up my laundry basket and stood, there were suddenly two super-sized men standing in the laundry room doorway.

I live in a big building, so it’s not as if I would know all the tenants by sight, but these guys would have set my mental alarms ringing even if they hadn’t been wearing dark, wraparound sunglasses in a basement. Goon #1 smiled at me in sadistic anticipation, while Goon #2 made a meaty fist and held it up for display.

They were too squat and ugly to be hosting demons—legal ones, at least—but they probably didn’t need supernatural strength to make my life miserable. I’m a pretty good fighter—when you’re family’s Spirit Society, you learn to stick up for yourself at an early age, unless you enjoy getting beaten to a pulp on a regular basis—but I didn’t like my chances against two men who had the look of professionals.

In tandem, they advanced on me. My Taser was in my purse. I was paranoid enough to carry it around with me at all times, but now that I actually needed it I realized I wasn’t paranoid enough. I had to have it out and armed already, not tucked neatly in my purse.

I didn’t have any brilliant ideas, but one thing I knew for sure was the laundry basket wouldn’t help my defense much. I screamed as loud as I could, the sound echoing nicely through the unfortunately deserted basement, and threw the laundry basket at my would-be assailants.

As I’d hoped, they were momentarily startled, which gave me time to put the folding table between me and them while I shoved my hand in my purse. Very much contrary to my hopes, they recovered before I could even find the Taser, much less draw it.

Goon #1 wasn’t about to let a little thing like a folding table get between him and his quarry. He leapt over it, coming straight at me while his partner continued to block the doorway. I didn’t have time to get my hand out of my purse before he was on me, but I managed an off-balance kick that hurt him just enough to annoy him. He charged me again, and I jabbed at his eyes with my fingers while I tried for his groin with my knee. He ducked out of the way of my jab, and turned his hips to take my knee on his thigh. Damn. Apparently he wasn’t expecting me to fight like a girl, and myself-defense moves weren’t surprising him.

He grabbed both my arms to keep me from trying to hit him again. I would have gone for another kick, except Goon #2 had waded in while I was distracted. His punch connected with my cheek, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn he’d just hit me with an anvil.

I didn’t fall down, but only because Goon #1 still had hold of my arms. My head spun, and while I was trying to remember which way was up, a punch to the gut drove all the air out of my lungs. The goon hit me again, this time in the eye, and pain stabbed all the way through my head. But it wasn’t the pain of his fist that caused it. Lugh was trying to surface, coming to my rescue like a knight in shining armor. Considering these guys could probably beat me to death if they wanted to, I supposed I should let him.

But then Goon #2 let go of my arms and allowed me to collapse to the floor in a puddle of misery.

“This is just a friendly warning,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “Stay out of Tom Brewster’s business.”

I realized that meant the beating was over, and I no longer needed Lugh’s services. I’m sure he realized that, too, but he didn’t let up. He was going to exploit my semi-dazed state and steal the reins to my body. I concentrated on holding him off, but a poke in the gut with a toe reminded me I had more than one problem.

“You hear me?” the goon prompted.

Forming words while fighting for air, fighting nausea, fighting dizziness, and fighting Lugh wasn’t exactly easy. However, I figured if I didn’t answer, I was in for more pain, and Lugh was even more likely to win our battle. “Loud. . and. . clear,” I managed to gasp, and the goons, satisfied with a job well done, disappeared as silently as they had come.

Lugh continued his barrage against my mental barriers, the pain spiking through my head so hard it drew a whimper from my throat. If that were the only pain I had to battle, I probably would have prevailed. Knowing I would eventually have to sleep and leave myself open to him, he would have bided his time rather than submitting me to what amounted to torture. But combined with the pain of the beating, it was too much. Hard though I tried to hold on, my mind slid closer and closer to oblivion. Tears of frustration welled in my tightly shut eyes.

And then my entire body eased, the pain disappearing as if it had never existed. I took a moment to sigh in relief before I let the panic set in.

Driving my body, Lugh pushed me up into a sitting position. I felt the touch of my own hand as he made me wipe away the traces of tears. He was blocking the pain so thoroughly that in any other circumstance, I’d probably have been grateful to him. Well, maybe not.

My body was no longer my own, but if a mind could shudder, then that’s what mine did. The last time Lugh had taken control, he’d shut my conscious mind out completely, trapping me in a dark, claustrophobic, terrifying oubliette. I had panicked then like I’ve never panicked before in my life, and had I actually been there in body, I would have done myself considerable physical harm in my frantic attempts to escape. If he did that to me again. .

“I won’t,” he said, using my own mouth to speak to me. I really hate it when he does that. “Those were extenuating circumstances,” he explained as he rose to his feet. “I would not do that to you on a whim.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t control a single muscle in my body, but I imagined any number of colorful suggestions for what he could do with himself, and since he knew all my thoughts, I knew he could “hear” them.

He sighed. “We’ve been through this before,” he said patiently. “I have a responsibility to my people—and to yours—that has to take precedence over your desires. I’m not in any way trying to hurt you.”

He picked up my laundry basket and carried it out into the darkened hallway, where he summoned an elevator. If I couldn’t wrest back control before he made it to my apartment and my phone, he was going to make the damning call to Adam, and there would be nothing I could do to stop him.

Fool that I was, I’d forgotten about the cell phone in my purse. Lugh hadn’t. While he waited for the elevator, he fished the phone out. I struggled against his control, but he had a firm hold. It would take time to wrest control back, time I knew I didn’t have.

It showed something about the mess my life had become that I had Adam on speed-dial.

Something hard and cold solidified in my center—metaphysically speaking, I suppose, since without a body, I didn’t really have a center. This was not a battle I was willing to lose, not a battle I could afford to lose, not if I wanted any say at all in the rest of my life. I focused all my thoughts into getting one clear, cold message across to Lugh. Do this, and from now on, we will be enemies.