Embracing the Ghoul Read online

  Embracing the Ghoul

  Jenny Schwartz

  Doctor Carla Richel is a ghoul, which means pain and suffering energize her. It’s a curse she’s worked hard to defeat, turning it into a positive by specializing in emergency medicine. But it still blights her love life because who can she trust with the secret of her other-nature?

  Rhys Draig is a New York police captain and a fierce dragon shifter, determined to save his people and his city from the disaster of a demon on the loose. To do so, he needs help. But help comes in the form of a sexy, powerful doctor who distracts and entices him more than he ever imagined his dragon nature could be tempted.

  “Embracing the Ghoul” is a sexy novella of suspense and magic, originally published as part of the DARE collection which is no longer available.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

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  Chapter One

  “I should hate you, Carla.”

  Doctor Carla Richel looked up, startled, from the notes she was scribbling. She was using a brief 4 a.m. lull in a hectic Friday night ER to catch up on the paperwork. Other emergency room staff were using the break to drink coffee with their tired eyes shut or they slipped out for an illicit cigarette.

  “Hate me?” she queried cautiously. She had thought nurse Irene Andersen was a friend.

  Irene inhaled the steam of her extra-strong, wake-me-up peppermint tea. “Look at you. Your eyes are clear and wide open, your hair hasn’t escaped that old-fashioned bun you insist on wearing, your skin is unlined—and I know you’re thirty one, same as me. I look a wreck and you look like you’ve just been to a day spa. Don’t you ever get tired?”

  The horror night they’d had would have exhausted any normal person. Carla knew that. She also knew why the nightmare of blood, violence and grief had energized her. It wasn’t a reason she could share with a human, no matter how good a friend.

  “I work-out,” she said instead. It was true, as far as it went. She practiced daily the Brazilian martial art her maternal grandfather taught. She could kill a man with her bare hands, but for her, the importance of the martial art was its mental and physical discipline. Discipline was very important, given her nature.

  “You should market your work-out routine, then. You’d make a fortune.”

  “What and leave behind all this?” A wave of Carla’s hand indicated the green-painted employee lounge with its shabby, mismatched furniture and rattling coffee machine, not to mention the slumped and grumpy staff.

  “What was I thinking?” Irene smiled wryly.

  “That it’s time to return to work,” Paul Li said, walking past.

  Behind his back, Irene stuck her tongue out. The nursing supervisor was not a popular man.

  “I saw that,” he said calmly.

  Carla chuckled. Most people found Paul humorless, but she appreciated his organizational skills and sometimes suspected him of his own form of dry humor. He was a very self-contained man.

  “It’s all right for you.” Irene swallowed the last of her peppermint tea. “You don’t work for the man.”

  “You should give him a chance. Invite him out for a drink. He’s new to New York.” Carla gathered up her paperwork. “And you’re constantly complaining about being single.”

  “No.” Irene became totally serious, her round face falling into sad lines. “Workplace relationships are messy. When they fall apart…” She sighed. “Been there, done that, moved on.”

  “Yeah.” Carla had her own failed relationships. But had she moved on? Not dating at all didn’t feel much like moving on. It felt more like cowardice—or commonsense? Her nature was not exactly cuddly.

  Josh hadn’t been able to cope. He’d resented the energy that Irene envied. Carla had thrived through her intern year and the punishing ER schedule, while Josh had come near to burn-out. He’d hated her strength, their med school romance falling apart under the pressure of work—and she hadn’t even told him her deepest secret: her other-nature.

  Other-natured beings looked human, especially to humans, but they were also supernatural. Elves, vampires, werewolves, dragons, goblins and naiads all lived, worked and loved among the human population. So did ghouls.

  As Carla walked back into the ER, she felt her ghoul nature stretch and unfold like a lion basking in the sun. It absorbed the ER’s miasma of negative emotions and thrummed with energy. Hate, fear and pain all fed her energy levels. She might be ashamed about being energized by other people’s suffering, but at least in her choice of career, she’d turned her nature to good effect. She could work through situations that brought her colleagues to their knees.

  But her nature didn’t prevent her empathizing with her patients and their stricken families and friends. Physically, she thrived on her job. Emotionally, she wondered how close she was to burn-out.

  Closer than she liked to think. It had been years since she’d let anyone into her heart. How long had it been since she’d been in a man’s arms and simply surrendered to desire?

  “Carla! Gang fight. The police got caught in it. Guns and knives. Three critical. ETA five minutes. No idea how many more will follow.”

  The ER swung into action. Routine steadied them all, though the frenzied pattern of a police officer’s stab wounds sent a young intern into frozen horror.

  “Get out.” Carla had no time to be gentle. “Irene, tell theatre…” But the man died in the ER. “Time of death, 5:08 am.”

  He was a young man, a wedding ring on his finger.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. Sometimes all their skill, all their determination, couldn’t cheat death or defeat hatred. Someone had killed this man, taking pleasure in his agony. She stripped off her gloves and moved on to the next patient.

  A teenage gang member stared at nothing with wide, frightened eyes.

  The bullet in his shoulder had been a tidy shot. She extracted it easily, dressed the wound, and uttered no comforting words.

  “It was a demon,” the boy whispered.

  She stared at him, but he was looking at the ceiling, seeing his own nightmares. Irene had been called out of the cubicle and they were momentarily alone.

  “What demon?” Carla frowned. Was he on drugs? But he showed no signs. Should she run a tox screen?

  “It ate Elio.” The boy struggled up. “I gotta go.”

  “You can’t.” She put a restraining hand on his sound shoulder. Quite apart from his wound, there were police waiting outside. They wouldn’t let him go anywhere.

  “I can’t stay, here.” Hysteria cracked his voice. “I can’t.”

  Irene raced back in as he started screaming, so did a police officer. The boy struggled desperately.

  Carla feared he’d reopen the wound in his shoulder. “Please, be still.”

  He gasped with sudden pain, his eyes rolled back in their sockets, and he fainted.

  “Blood loss, shock,” and terror, Carla added silently. She checked the wound—the stitches hadn’t torn—and replaced the bandage. Still, she felt guilty as the unconscious boy was wheeled out of the ER with the policeman following the bed. If the boy had seen a demon…

  “Oh, God, no.” She frowned at her blood-stained gloves. Irene and the cop might think the boy’s scream of demons was the product of a drug-clouded mind, but she’d sensed an edge of true terror, a whiff of brimstone. The boy wasn’t lying or deluded, which meant that the hectic, violent Friday night was demon-haunted.

  There was a demon stalking New York City.

  Police captain Rhys Draig stood by the ER reception desk. Although above average in height, the breadth of his powerful chest a
nd shoulders made him appear shorter. He was in civilian clothes: a blue sweatshirt, jeans and hiking boots. The sleeves of his sweatshirt were pushed up, exposing muscled forearms sprinkled with sandy hair. He had a scattering of a red-head’s freckles across his beak of a nose, but they didn’t make him look boyish. Beneath the red gleam of his close-cropped hair, his face was set in a ferocious scowl. Gang members waiting for treatment avoided looking at him. His own officers trod warily.

  Carla strode up and stopped in front of him.

  “I heard,” he growled. “I’ll tell Lou Fforde’s wife. It’s not something to hear on the phone.”

  Lou Fforde? Carla blinked, adjusting her thoughts. “The officer who died?”

  Rhys’s scowl deepened. “One of my people.”

  She nodded, acknowledging his protective attitude as much as his right to it. The responsibility for his people’s actions and safety lay with him, and he obviously wouldn’t have it any other way. Carla recognized his type. He wasn’t just a tough, loyal cop. He was a dragon.

  The previous time they’d met she’d feared he’d recognize her nature as she recognized his, but not every other-natured person could see others clearly. Besides, the trauma of the ER clouded most people’s thinking. He hadn’t commented on her ghoul nature as she’d stitched his arm two months ago.

  But this time, he wasn’t a patient.

  She felt his anger and his churning emotions at having to tell a young woman she was a widow. “Have his partner tell her.” Other captains handled bad news that way, softening its breaking by using a familiar face.

  “It’s my duty.” His sharp gaze accused her of irresponsibility.

  “You have bigger problems,” she said bluntly. He was a dragon, of all the people in the room, the most likely to believe what she said next. “You have a demon loose in the city.” She folded her arms and met his searching look. “I have proof.”

  “Show me.”

  He hadn’t exhibited shock, Carla noted, but her attention was already flicking to Paul Li, who across the room was signaling another incoming crisis. “Go down to the morgue. See the body of the gang leader called Elio. You’ll see the marks of demon possession.”

  Rhys caught her arm as she turned away. “What are they?”

  For a ghoul, it was the stench of brimstone, the human soul’s terror and its body’s violation. For a non-ghoul, “You’ll see the mark on his back, over his kidneys. The sign of the demon.” The mark was burned into the skin, the demon’s brand of possession. Carla had found it when she’d stolen ten minutes to check the teenager’s story. Her heart had stuttered with the fear of it. A demon loose and growing in power was the stuff of horror stories.

  “Damn it to hell.” Rhys released her and strode off.

  She felt the warm imprint of his hold even as she hurried to answer Paul’s call. Rhys wasn’t a man to be ignored or forgotten.

  Chapter Two

  Rhys was waiting for Carla when she came off shift. Her heart kicked at the sight of him. He’d shaved, changed into uniform, and undoubtedly found time to see the new widow.

  “I saw the mark,” he said bleakly.

  Carla needed breakfast, a hot shower and a martial arts training session to work out the pumping energy of the horrible night in ER. She was high on horror, and on the edge of behaving recklessly. What she didn’t need was a powerful dragon focusing on her.

  “Great,” she muttered.

  “We don’t have a demon expert on the force.” He fell into step beside her. “How did you recognize demon work?”

  “I didn’t. One of the gang members I worked on said a demon ate Elio. The boy was terrified. His terror convinced me to check the morgue. You know what I found there.”

  “A dead demon host.”

  The automatic doors slid open in front of them. Cool early spring wind stung their skin.

  Carla turned her face to it and sniffed car fumes and the waking pulse of the city. She inhaled gratefully, cleansing her lungs of the hospital smells of antiseptic, blood and fear. She headed for the bus stop. She’d chosen her apartment for ease of access to public transport, and saved having to buy a car. She quite liked sitting in the anonymity of the bus and thinking of nothing.

  She’d give a million dollars to be able to empty her mind of the night’s happenings.

  “I’ll drive you home.” For the second time, Rhys caught her arm.

  The touch jolted through her. How long had it been since anyone had touched her, other than a patient, their worried family, or her martial arts sparring partner? How long since she’d touched anyone? Since she’d lost herself in another person? Her fingers curled over emptiness and clenched into fists.

  Rhys’s fingers curved just above her elbow.

  She could break his light hold easily enough by simply stepping away. Instead, she halted. Time to disillusion the police captain: she couldn’t help him. “I’m not an expert on demons.”

  “But you knew where to look for its mark.”

  “No. I looked till I found the mark. What I absolutely knew was that the body stunk of demon possession. It was hideous with terror and hate.” She pulled her arm from his hold and stared at a spindly row of jonquils lining the path. Their cheery promise of spring seemed a world away from her life. They turned to the sunlight, but she…“I sensed the demon because I’m a ghoul.”

  She waited for his recoil. Creatures who thrived on other people’s suffering were disgusting. She’d fought her self-loathing, overcome it by understanding her nature, but most other-natured beings despised ghouls. She understood their rejection.

  “I know you’re a ghoul,” Rhys said. “You stitched my arm a couple of months ago.”

  She whirled and looked at him. “You knew then?”

  “Of course. I’m a dragon police captain, which I’m sure you know. I wouldn’t be much use if I couldn’t recognize who I was dealing with.”

  “But you let me treat you.” She had tasted the frustration surging in him then. A drug bust had gone wrong. Someone had tipped off the gang. He’d been too angry to care about the pain he’d been suffering. But she had cared.

  “You’re a doctor. The fact that you’re also a ghoul doesn’t bother me. I’ve had a ghoul partner. I know where your energy comes from, and sometimes I’m damned glad of it. When other people are collapsing, you keep working.”

  “You don’t care that I’m a ghoul?” Admitting her nature couldn’t be this easy. It was anticlimax. The jonquils fluttered in the breeze.

  “I don’t care if you paint yourself blue and give people warts. What I want is to talk over this demon thing with someone who knows something about it.”

  She searched his face, and his gaze held steady. She adjusted the bag dangling from her shoulder. “All right. I accept your offer of a lift home. I need to eat, and we can talk over breakfast.”

  The unmarked car was parked close and spotlessly clean. Sunlight glinted off the blue paintwork. Rhys opened the passenger door, waited for Carla to enter, then closed it firmly. His own entrance shrank the interior from spacious to intimate.

  She could smell his cologne, lemongrass, and her breath went shallow. Her skin prickled with awareness as he shifted in his seat, buckling his seat belt.

  Beneath the spicy cologne was the muskiness of his healthy male body. His uniform trousers were tight across his thighs.

  Carla glanced away, disconcerted as her breasts tingled. It’s just a response to stress, she told herself. Too much energy swishing through my body and an attractive man who’s not disgusted by ghouls. Lust. Natural, but the timing stinks.

  Rhys shifted gear, and his hand near her thigh sent a rush of heat through her. Her ghoul nature couldn’t absorb his positive dragon energy, but she could feel it like radiant heat. It was like walking out of a winter storm into a fire-lit cabin. The warmth stroked you, seducing you to shed your layers of clothing, to be naked, vulnerable, and yet, protected. Cherished.

  Her breathing strangled at the t
hought of undressing for him. She coughed to cover the soft gasp. It was all very well telling herself the rational reasons for this surge of desire, what she needed was a way to control it.

  “About the demon,” she began hastily.

  “Look, I know you’re not comfortable talking about it,” he interrupted.

  His quick sideways glance as he merged with the busy morning traffic made her aware of her body language. She was so nervous of revealing her surging awareness of him that she’d crossed her legs, angled her body to the passenger window and put her shoulder toward him. Her hands were gripped tightly in her lap.

  Model for defensiveness, she thought ruefully, and uncrossed her legs, sitting straight in the seat. “Captain Draig, I think you’re overestimating my usefulness to you with regard to demon hunting. I know just enough to be scared.”

  “Me, too.”

  Their eyes met before he concentrated on the road again.

  Carla felt the weight of responsibility he carried. His fear wasn’t personal. It was for his officers and for the city, his dragon territory. That protective strength appealed to her greatly.

  Don’t go there, she told her stirring hormones. She strove to think impersonally. Could they use Rhys’s dragon protectiveness? “Do you consider the whole city your territory?”

  He braked for a red light. “To some extent, but my real territory is the precinct. If you’re wondering if I can sense the demon’s presence, the answer’s no. I can tell you where every ogre in the precinct is, but the fact the demon possesses a human host must hide it from me. I don’t get even a sniff.”

  She slumped in the seat. “I guess that would have been too easy.”

  “Yeah.”

  The traffic lights turned green and he accelerated smoothly.

  They were close to her apartment, but her usual relaxation at being near home failed to kick in. But now the problem wasn’t her awareness of Rhys, that had faded, or more correctly, been overlaid with a new tension. Her body, which had softened with arousal, was tensing, readying as if to face an ER tragedy.