by Raine Miller
She grinned and traced the line of his strong jaw. “I like your family already.”
“They’ll love you.”
“I hope so.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I can make a mean cupcake.”
He chuckled. “I can see my life is about to change.”
Her delicate brow wrinkled. “Why? You don’t like cupcakes?”
“Oh, I love them, but now my nieces and nephews are going to like you more than me.” He patted his abs. “And I’ll have to up my routine at the gym.”
She smiled seductively and pulled him on top of her. “Oh, I think I can help you with that.”
“I bet you can.” He laughed.
She stared up at him and asked, “Am I ever going to get my teddy back?”
Jack spread her legs and slid inside. “You just might have to marry me to get that back.”
“Good, I’ll wear it on our honeymoon.”
THE END
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Turn the page to read The Demon’s Deception by Lisa Adler or return to the TABLE OF CONTENTS.
The Demon’s Deception by Lisa Adler
Barbas, the Demon of Healing, has a secret. One he’d do anything to keep. Until the day that he meets his sworn enemy and finds himself drawn into her world. Certainly a Demon strong enough to survive being chained for a millennium beneath the Earth’s crust can resist one virginal princess when she demands his help. To reveal the truth would make him a traitor to his people. So why does deceiving the princess make him feel like a traitor to his heart?
Warning: This erotic romance novella contains sex outdoors, virginal sex, sex between sworn enemies, and lots of smokin’ hot Demon and Fae sex!
This futuristic fantasy romance series is set in the near future after a massive earthquake unleashes magickal Demons who have been trapped beneath the Earth’s crust for the last thousand years. When they burst to the surface, their energy fries all electrical systems and throws the Human world into an industrial apocalypse. In this post-apoc, dystopian world Humans are caught between the warring Demons and their mortal enemy, the Fae.
Demons and Fae draw magickal power from Human emotions. Each side gains victories and suffers defeats. But lately the Demons have been increasing in power exponentially, while the Fae are growing weaker.
But the Fae have plans to change their luck.
Turn the page for The Demon’s Deception or return to the TABLE OF CONTENTS to choose another book.
PROLOGUE
In the year 2015, after five years of debilitating earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, blizzards, sandstorms and mother nature’s madness, a massive seismic event shook the entire planet.
Demons, who had been trapped beneath the earth’s crust for thousands of years, finally broke free of their magickal prison and burst back to the surface. The electrical energy of all those Demon bodies disrupted the technological advances of the last few hundred years, and plunged the world back into a pre-industrial age.
Humans, not only dealing with a complete change in their universe, have been caught in the middle, mined for the power of their emotions by both Demon and Fae.
In the ten years since the Demons returned to the surface, the battle between Demons and Fae has raged with each side gaining victories and suffering defeats. But lately the Demons have begun to gain power exponentially. While the Fae are growing weaker.
But the Fae have plans to change their luck.
CHAPTER 1
“He’s dead.” Barbas, the Demon of Healing, leaned wearily against the frigid stone of the dungeon wall. The last prisoner with a known tie to the Fae had succumbed to the effects of their torture, even with Barbas’s constant monitoring. For the Gods’ sake, their goal had not been to kill him. They’d tried repeatedly to get him to reveal his knowledge, his contact within the Fae, and his contact within the Castle. Anything. But in truth, he probably had been bespelled. Damned, fucking Fae.
“This is not good.” Prince Gaap frowned at the body. The prisoner had been their final link to discovering the traitor who lived amongst the Demons in the castle.
Both Barbas and Gaap held still in stunned disbelief.
Barbas wanted to kill the prisoner all over again for dying.
The stupid sod had been the final hope. Barbas knew what he had to do. But he’d been hoping that this last resort wouldn’t be necessary.
Tasked with finding the Demon’s traitor, he had skulked, lingered, and listened to the gossip in the village. Mined whispers for leads. He had had sex with humans from farms, taverns, the mines, all walks of life. He’d questioned those who had been closest to the Fae--minions, humans bespelled by the Fae magick-- and he was no closer to identifying the traitor than he had been a month ago.
Barbas did not like failure.
His stomach roiled as he proposed the only option left. “We need to approach this from another angle,” Barbas declared. Reluctantly. Dammit, he did not want to do this, but he couldn’t fathom any other way.
“How?” Prince Gaap flicked a hand at the guards and they carried the human’s remains away.
Neither spoke as they contemplated what to do next. A muffled giggle penetrated the somber silence. A heated growl and the clank of shackles as they hit the wall echoed in the dark chamber. The grunts and slap of energetic sex between three people bounced around what should have been a dank, dark place. Moans, low and heated, permeated even the thick stone walls. Soft feminine sighs and deep masculine groans filled the silent air. Zepar, Thalia, and Leraye were at it again.
Not one single inhabitant of the Demon Castle had missed the trio frolicking and sexing in some out of the way or very surprising location. And this was not the first occasion that Barbas had caught them in the dungeons, shackled and blindfolded.
He purposefully shut out the sounds of their love play and said baldly, “I want to infiltrate the Fae.”
Prince Gaap started to argue and Barbas squelched the need to accede to the Prince. He didn’t want to get anywhere near the Fae. But it was unavoidable.
“How?” Prince Gaap bit out.
“I don’t know yet.” A lie. He could conceal his Demon side. Even if the thought of doing so made him break into a sweat and long for the glow of the moon.
“But you believe you are capable of infiltrating our enemy?” Gaap asked slowly as he assessed Barbas with a speculative look.
Gaap couldn’t possibly know his secret. He’d never told a single soul, Demon or otherwise, the truth. His deception was absolute. But the way Gaap looked at him caused a bead of sweat to roll down the furrow of his spine and rest in the small of his back. “I will need to leave and rid myself of the trappings of the Demons and the Castle. No contact.”
Gaap paced the stone floor, his steps quick and concise. “You know I trust you.”
“Yes.”
“I will allow it,” Gaap consented. “Under one condition.”
“Sire?”
“You must contact me as soon as you find your way in.”
Communication with the Castle. That he could do. They worked out the details of where Barbas would leave the information in a dead drop. Gaap would have the location checked daily. “Consider it done.”
A few hours later, Barbas wandered into the clearing where Gaap had been attacked. Where Leraye had been frozen by a blast of electricity so powerful he had been placed in a state of stasis until Thalia and Zepar were able to free him from the supernatural hold.
Barbas shut down a pang of envy. The trio seemed supremely blissful. They fucked like bunnies around the Castle. And while he was happy for them...he wished he didn’t have to watch or listen to them while they lustily enjoyed each other. He had no wish to settle with any one Human or Demon woman. The last month had been...difficult.
It was a sad state of affairs, but he was damned sick of sex.
&nb
sp; CHAPTER 2
Aine stomped her foot like a two year old and glared at King Egogabal. “Why do you continue to shield me from the pleasures of the physical?”
“You aren’t ready.” He addressed her as her father; his deep voice was heavy with his ability to influence weaker Fae and Humans alike.
A ridiculous statement. She was two hundred years old. In Fae time, that was barely a blip and most Fae women her age had plenty of sexual experience. But not Aine. Every male in the Fae kingdom was too afraid of the king to come near her. She’d been trying for years to get a stupid Fae man to initiate her. But the second they figured out that King Egogabal was her father, they ran away like the scared little Human children who taunted and giggled Faery mounds. As if her father had some sort of radar, when she had a prospect in hand, he always managed to have someone around to prohibit her from ridding herself of her tiresome virginity.
How would she ever be fit to rule if she didn’t have carnal knowledge? She would never be respected or taken seriously until the Fae Realm considered her worthy of their trials and concern for their welfare.
“This has to stop,” Aine said.
“Not yet.”
She wondered if her father had some other purpose in mind for her. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out why he would demand that she wait.
“Father,” she cajoled. “Please give me leave to enjoy a man’s body.”
“I will not.” He denied her request. “You are a Princess. Next to me, you are the highest authority and station in the Fae Realm. Legions will bow down to you one day. You must not be swayed by the temptation of sex.”
As if sex were all she wanted. The Fae were a sensual lot, petting, stroking, lavishing affection on everyone but her. Her, they stayed away from. Sex would at least give her some contact with other beings. “It isn’t just about sex,” Aine said desperately. But she could not voice her longing in front of the subjects. Rulers must be strong and keep their problems to themselves.
She glanced around her crowded chamber and was so unrelentingly alone. No one touched her. No one came near her unless they had a job to do. Her unique Fae ability as a truthsayer and her status as the next to rule guaranteed that no one was her friend. She didn’t know how she could long for something she’d never had, but she felt as if she were dying for a small glimmer of affection. Was that so wrong?
And if Aine wasn’t going to get affection, she wanted some responsibility in the Realm. Right now she was little more than a figurehead with a contingent of Ladies who attended her and a promise of future power that dangled just outside her grasp.
Her father continued, completely misunderstanding her comment, “You will have hundreds of years to make conquests and have Humans and Fae submit to you. But until I say you are ready, until the Realm is ready, you will not defy my wishes.”
His kingdom was not nearly as strong as it had been. When the Demons were banished, the Fae had believed that they would then be able to harness all the power from Human emotions. Except, as it turned out, banishing the Demons beneath the earth’s crust had depleted the strength of the Fae more than when the Demons had been above ground and fighting with the Fae to mine the Human emotions. King Egogabal had been attempting to regain his magick power for centuries.
Since the Demons had broken free of their magickal bonds, the Fae’s strength had actually begun to rebound. And yet, her father still hated the Demons. Still looked for ways to diminish their strength and increase his own.
Which was why she had been trained in the fighting arts.
“Then you must allow me to train.” Her position as a member of the Fir Bolg was the only thing that brought her satisfaction of late. And sparring was the only time any one touched her. She was starved for connection.
The king hesitated and she prepped for a fight. But then he aimed a fierce look at her bodyguards, Finn and Seamus. “Guard her well.”
With that proclamation, he swept from the opulent chamber.
Aine slumped into the ornate wing chair, and propped her elbow on the intricately carved arm. Sinuous lines of female flesh joined with male flesh and writhed along the flowing hawthorn arm of the chair. Her Ladies in Waiting, except they were more like jailors, tittered around the chamber giggling like maids. Her father had worn his hood and his sexual appeal was still so strong that several Fae had attempted to follow him. One rubbed her breasts against the post of the canopied bed and sighed throatily. “He is so sexy.”
Just what Aine didn’t need to hear.
Another sighed and stared dreamily at the ceiling as she burrowed her fingers under the skirt of her ruby silk dress. “I had him once.”
Their arousal scented the room as surely as her anger overwhelmed her. Everyone was having sex except for her. She vowed that was going to change, and the king be damned.
***
Barbas surveyed the clearing where Prince Gaap had been attacked by the famed Fir Bolg Fae assassins. It was also the clearing where Leraye, the Demon of Battle, had been frozen in stasis by a Fae weapon until Zepar and Thalia had figured out how to break him out of his statue prison.
A giant oak tree dominated the now peaceful glade. Barbas crawled into a crook between the mighty roots and settled in. Birds twittered in the early morning air. Squirrels and chipmunks chattered to each other in high pitched clicks. The stream babbled over limestone chunks scattered across the land as if a giant hand had thrown them like dice.
This was also the clearing where the Demons had the most contact with the Fae. Of course, all of the encounters had been violent and not ended well for either Fae or Demon. But Barbas was out of ideas.
While trying to find the traitor, he’d haunted the tavern where the cloaked and glamoured Fae had bespelled Amara’s former husband, convincing him to infiltrate the Castle by bargaining with Vetis, the Demon of Corruption. But no one had actually seen the Fae’s face. Their memories had been blurred by the Fae’s ability to affect glamour. Most were confident the Fae had been male but no one could confirm even that piece of information.
Every lead he’d followed had been a dead end. And Barbas was weary. Weary of the fight to keep his nature hidden. Weary of the constant deception. His eyelids drooped. He’d had minimal sleep lately. He drew his strength from the pull of the moon and the burn of sunlight so most of the time he needed very little in the way of rest. But the last month had been particularly intense. He had to infiltrate the Fae and find the traitor before someone discovered his secret.
***
Aine alighted into the Fae clearing. She’d insisted on training here. Her father insisted on bodyguards while she trained due to the fact that someone in the local village was asking about the Fae. The whole bodyguard issue was silly since she was one of the Fir Bolg, elite Fae assassins, and could kill anyone who attacked her. And the clearing was now warded againstDemons. She would be perfectly safe here.
This glade had become her touchstone. The place where she could come and imagine a love as great as the one she’d been privy to observe in those haunting and intimate moments during the Fir Bolg attack on the Demon Prince and his Human woman. They had defended each other. Protected each other. The Human had sacrificed her safety for the prince. Aine had recognized the woman’s agony when she realized she’d betrayed her lover. A devotion like those two seemed to share was far outside her reach.
The whole event had been life changing for Aine. She had no one who would stand with her, for her. She was a monarch without a kingdom. A woman without a lover. Without a single person to care for her. And she was lost.
Her bodyguards stood sentinel at opposite ends of the small grassy area.
Aine kept the hood of her plain cloak over her head for the simple reason that she knew if her bodyguards saw her face they would be sure to deny her. But perhaps if she left her cloak on they would forget who she was for a little while.
“Finn,” she said breathlessly to bodyguard number one. “I’d like to practice the single at
tacker drill.”
Dressed as a common peasant, in a rough burlap dress and heavy woolen stockings, no one would mistake her for a princess right now. Her nipples drew up into stiff little peaks as she wondered about the hot caress of a lover’s mouth.
A groan escaped Finn but all he did was turn around so that his back was to her. “I must maintain my post, ma’am. But I will give you privacy.” No one was allowed to address her by rank when they were outside the Fae Realm. If the Demons ever got their hands on the king’s daughter, chaos would ensue.
“Seamus?”
His gaze dropped to the pointed buds of her nipples, visible against the rough burlap. But then he straightened and looked away. “I’m sorry. But I must be vigilant in my duty.”
Damn loyal guards. It was time for drastic measures.
She undid the coarse laces on the peasant dress and opened the thick material until her breasts hung heavy and ripe in the chilly morning air.
“Seamus, I’m having trouble getting this dress off.”
He licked his lips and stared greedily at the full globes of her bared flesh and then cleared his throat. But Seamus made no move towards her.
“Please aid me in undressing,” she demanded imperiously.
“Yes, ma’am.” Before she could do more than inhale, he’d shoved the material of the dress over her hips and it tumbled to the ground with a swoosh. And without a single brush of skin against skin. The bodyguard then turned, faced away from her, and stared into the woods.
She suppressed a groan of frustration when neither succumbed to her charms. She knew that she couldn’t force the issue. Her father was likely to punish them if they did consent to rid her of her virginity.
She heaved a frustrated sigh. Aine strode to the large flat rock beside the tumbling brook and then began a series of warm-up exercises. She stretched her limbs in a sinuous movement and strained toward the rising sun. Heat and energy fell over her like a curtain as she drew in the power of the sun’s rays.
