Dark Enchantment (Elvis Presley Story)

Chapter 1

Sophia Jones peered into the dense fog and drew her coat tighter around herself. Locking the door on her car, she shivered. She should not of parked on the street. She knew better. Anything could be out there, peering back at her. Vampires, demons, were-creatures: any of the paranormal beings that inhabited the dark shadows of the mortal realm. This was exactly the kind of cloaking fog that drew paras out to hunt. She knew that.

It would be her downfall someday, her impetuousness.

The thick mist crept slowly around her body like a moving shroud of unease. She could see nothing at all. A drift of warm preternatural energy tangled over her skin.

Damn. There was something out there.

Instinctively she slid a hand into the pocket of her jacket, reaching for the emergency countermeasures she always kept close. Dead salt for demons, a tiny but powerful UV flashlight for Vampires, which also warded off werewolves and other were-creatures.

Gripping her purse tightly in her other hand, she quickened her pace. And murmured a spell of concealment, which she really should have said before she left the car. She never got to finish it. Because suddenly he was there. A man. Looming over her. She halted, just inches from his towering body.

Never show your fear.

Their eyes met. And for a moment they just stared at each other, her heart was beating so fast she thought it might burst from her chest. He was huge, his broad shoulders made menacing by the black coat he wore. Otherworldly power emanated from him.

For a split second she weighed the possibilities. Vampire? Unlikely. It was after sunrise, and very few Vampires were able to venture out in the light, thank God. Demon? Maybe. Sidhe? The heated energy radiating around him did not feel like a faerie glamour. Glamour was cooler, more tingly. A were? Maybe. Or a human with magic? No, the energy didn't feel human, either.

All at once the man's fingers wrapped around her arm. She hadn't seen him move; at the contact a prickly wash of power surged over her, hotter than before. The fine hairs on her arm raised.

Definitely not human.

"Let me go," She ordered, keeping her voice firm and steady. What happened to her instincts? Three months away from her job as a demon tracker for the cadre and already she was slacking off. Somehow she needed to get the capture crystal in her purse, incase he was a demon. If he was some kind of were-creature, she was already toast. Still, a good bluff never hurt. "Let go now!"

"Sophia?" The man asked. His voice was oddly hushed, like the fog around them. Another clue. Which immediately became lost in a more disturbing fact: he knew her name.

Sophia, I have something for you," he said softly, barely above a whisper. His voice trailed along her skin like a brush of fire-warmed velvet, sensual, erotic. "Something you've wanted for a long time."

A strange blue light flickered in his eyes making his already blue eyes more luminous as he spoke, as though he expected to tempt her with his low-spoken words.

She wasn't impressed. Or fooled. And he'd given himself away.

Demon.

To be more precise, a daemon sapiens. One of the two major genera of demon, this type was nearly indistinguishable from humans. On the outside.

But a demon whisper was dangerous. It's power of suggestion could easily lure a mortal to her doom.

Sophia shielded her mind against it, and visualised a soild circle of protection around herself, both techniques the cadre had taught her well. "What do you want?" She demanded.