by Gaja J. Kos
“To some degree, she was right. Killing is in our DNA. Being fucking brutal about it even more so. Not to mention calculative. Cold. Even—and especially—when our emotions are running high. A combination of human awareness and animalistic impulses.” I cocked my head to the side, arms still crossed as Demyan sat there, perfectly still, and watched me with such intensity I wasn’t sure he was even breathing. “My kills might not have been innocents. But once I joined the pack, I explored this bloody trait to its full potential. I slaughtered, Demyan. Slaughtered and reveled in it. Some say the end justifies the means, but for me, it was the means that mattered. The means in which I took pleasure, crafted with such twisted desire that only a few of my pack members were able to team up with me when I was doing my job.
“They liked me most of the time. The wild, wicked werewolf with tattoos, fiery hair, and a foul mouth. The girl, then woman, who was always up for a beer and a chat. We got along. Until the claws came out.” I walked up to his desk and set my palms flat against the surface, the aforementioned claws on display to drive my point home. “My pack didn’t kick me out, but I did leave. Right before the War. I knew my brothers could use my assistance in Ljubljana, and, to be completely honest, I was itching to unleash myself on the vermin who wanted to fuck up our world. The circumstances were perfect. So I made my exit—the werewolf with the highest kill rate. The pack member with a list of deaths all of them combined couldn’t best. And yes, it does haunt me sometimes, the shit I did. But I also know that if given the chance, I would do it all over again. Am doing it, actually.”
I straightened and encompassed the office, the floor beyond it, with a sweeping gesture of my hands, human once more. “We’re licensed killers here, Demyan. None of us have the cleanest pasts or the cleanest consciences. Each in our own way, we carry the darkness that binds us. I understand the innocents in that file are a weight on yours. But you knew what you were doing was wrong. Wanted to get out because of it. And that’s all that matters. Because the rest…” I shook my head, then met his gaze. “Don’t you ever dare say you aren’t worthy. I’d lay my life down for you, maybe even more willingly now that I know everything than before when all you were to me were speculations. But the bottom line is, I’m with you, Demyan Morozov, skeletons and all.”
The silence once I finished was absolute. Demyan stared at me, hardly blinking, then, as if something snapped, he shot out from his seat. In a blur of motion, he circled around the desk, spun me around, and slammed his mouth against mine.
I groaned, then opened up for him. Demyan didn’t lose a second before he claimed me.
My butt hit the edge of the desk, and still he kept moving, pushing me onto it as his hands roamed my body, tearing at clothes that were in the way. Whenever there was an opening, I did the same.
Our shirts fell to the ground, torn within inches of unusable.
With a flick of his fingers, Demyan undid my bra, then stepped back to take me in. The hunger in his gaze all but smoldered my insides.
A low growl rattled in his chest. He took one nipple into his mouth, his fingers making swift work of unbuttoning my pants. With a bite, he drew back, then pulled me off the desk and yanked the pants off, taking my panties right along with them. His hands curved down my hips, my thighs, exploring the exposed skin and pushing the fabric farther down. When he reached my ankles and moved to undo my shoes, he glanced up.
Shit.
I wasn’t one to get turned on by having a man kneel before me, but the expression etched in the roughness of his face—
I nearly came apart.
Demyan didn’t hide the adoration or the desire. He simply kept staring at me, observing me with a bluntness that sent my fucking hormones racing. He pulled off one shoe. Then the other.
When his fingers grabbed the bunched-up fabric of my pants, he lifted himself just high enough to press a kiss to my clit, then stripped me entirely.
“Get up on my desk,” he commanded.
I didn’t need to be told twice.
The cool wood teased my skin as I sat on it, but the sensation barely registered as Demyan straightened and tugged on the zipper of his pants. He yanked them down, kicked his shoes off, then stepped out of the pooled fabric, fucking glorious and entirely nude. I shamelessly took in every breathtaking, powerful part of him.
The muscles. The scars. The old, partially faded tattoos.
The trail of hair leading down his abdomen.
His rock-hard cock.
I licked my lips and spread my legs wider.
But Demyan didn’t make a move on me just yet. Like a predator, he approached slowly, allowing himself the exact same liberties as I had earlier. My body quaked under the intensity of his gaze, but even though I wasn’t sure how much of this I could handle, I edged us a bit further.
Spreading my legs even wider apart, I braced myself on one hand while sliding the other down my abdomen. Demyan growled. A warning—but one I paid no heed.
I let out a moan as I slid one finger across my clit, then again, and again, increasing the pressure just a little more every time. I didn’t give a shit if everyone out on the floor heard me. Smelled the arousal the room practically crackled with.
All I cared about was how Demyan watched me. How his own hand went to his cock.
He stroked his thick length, and I moaned again. The visual of his fingers gliding up and down his veined shaft was fucking torture. I wanted him inside me. Wanted to feel him move, stretch me right to my fucking limits. But at the same time, I couldn’t stop watching.
Couldn’t stop playing with myself.
Before him.
For him.
As I slipped two fingers lower and coated them with the silken heat of my arousal, Demyan broke. He strode up to me, yanked my hand away, and as his eyes locked on mine, thrust inside me.
I screamed.
For several heartbeats, we stood frozen, locked together and feeling one another—every fucking fine nuance of us. His cock filled me entirely, the warmth of his body caressing mine and fingers digging into my hips as he held me steady. I couldn’t keep my muscles from contracting around his shaft.
Or my breaths from sounding so damn labored.
But just being like this, with him buried inside me—shit, I’d never thought it would be possible to come like this, but as Demyan refused to move, he proved me fucking wrong. The twitches of his cock, the piercing stare he never took off my eyes—
I whimpered.
“Do it.” His voice was all rough sin. “Come for me.”
I did.
Fucking shit, I did.
It wasn’t a roll of heat, spreading up my body. It wasn’t the sudden alleviation of pressure that left me boneless.
This was something else entirely.
An overpowering sizzle of electricity that rushed through my every nerve.
Demyan never ceased watching me. Even as I closed my eyes when sensation took over, I felt the heat of his attention on my skin.
And as the wave receded, he moved.
Each of his thrusts was met with a moan spilling from my lips. After that mind-shattering intimacy, Demyan claimed me. Fully. Wholly. With the ferocity of a man who’d let go of all restraints.
The desk groaned beneath us, folders tumbling down and sending papers scattering everywhere. I held onto him as he kept pumping his hips, ramming into me as deeply as he could.
A second orgasm crept up on me.
Demyan fucked me right through it, casting my mind in that beautiful place where pain and pleasure clashed. The point where I thought my body surely couldn’t handle any more—just to push the limit further.
“Fuck, I’m coming.” He bit my earlobe. My neck. Then claimed my lips before drawing back to look me in the eye. “I can hold back if you want me to.”
What the fuck was he even asking?
I let out an intelligible groan, but somehow found it in me to rasp, “I want you to come, Demyan.”
The last tether snap
ped.
He pounded inside me, the proximity of our bodies causing fucking murderous friction on my clit. My own orgasm burst from me as Demyan’s cock twitched, strained—teased me that one last time before we both came, roaring.
Demyan held my shaky legs as air filled my lungs and my body slowly returned back to reality. My mind, however, still swam, and judging by the chuckle Demyan gave me once he saw my face, I was pretty certain he just got a very good look at my dopey, completely blissed smile.
He leaned down and trapped my lips—softly, gently—then pulled his half-hard cock from me. I groaned as a spark of pleasure shot down my nerves, which only coaxed another chuckle from Demyan.
That sound alone was fucking sin.
And one I wouldn’t mind hearing more often.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he retrieved a few tissues to clean up the mess we’d made.
I jumped off the desk, grateful my legs hadn’t given way, then snatched one from his hand to wipe the trickle running down my thighs.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” I teased, then added, “I’m more than fine, Demyan.”
I could have sworn that was relief I saw. As if he hadn’t trusted how much I wanted him—the extent I meant when I said I’d stand by him—until now. I tossed the tissue into the trash can in the corner then went over to wrap the gruff werewolf in my arms.
As Demyan relaxed against me, I muttered, “You do know that I’ll want a repeat performance, right?”
He pinched my ass.
“What?”
He pulled back, face full of dry amusement—along with a hint of reprimand. “Just one?”
“Didn’t want to be greedy.” I shrugged, but could hardly keep the smile off my face.
“Greedy?” The grin he flashed me all but knocked me off my feet. “I intend to fuck you well and often, Greta Freundenberger. If you’ll have me.”
I pretended to mull over his proposal.
Demyan pinched my ass again.
“Not fair.” I swatted away his hand—which he took advantage of to grab me by the wrist and pull me to him.
“So what do you say?”
“If I want you to fuck me well and often?” I arched an eyebrow. “Shit, yes. But only if I get to see this side of you, too.”
His lips touched mine, and when he drew back, the walls I hadn’t even been aware he’d still held on to, crumbled, revealing this glorious man down to his very soul. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter Thirteen
The scent of sex would have been a dead giveaway were we not crouching in the trash-filled back alley of a strip joint.
It had taken us two days to pull together a comprehensive list of werewolves who were connected to Demyan’s old pack, and while we’d worked our assess off, that wasn’t the only way we’d filled up our time. I still had the faint imprints of bite marks to prove it.
And Demyan…
He carried the scent of me on his face like it was fucking cologne.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wildly turned on by it.
Of course, the only reason we hadn’t scrubbed our damn skin off to make our scent less noticeable was because we knew which location we’d target this evening. I glanced at Demyan, hunched in the shadows on the other end of the alley. His gaze was on the rickety steel door, but he sensed my attention almost immediately. He offered a curt dip of his chin after he checked the time on his wrist.
If the intel we’d gathered was correct, Matvei Semenov, our werewolf buddy, should walk out any minute now and head over to his night job as a security guard at a construction site downtown.
I glanced at the seedy strip club, the grime and fatigued look of the back no worse than what I’d spied out front. I had nothing against sex or strip clubs, had even visited a few of them myself when the mood was right, but the kind of establishment Die Bezauberung was always rubbed me the wrong way. Shady dealing with even shadier contracts and consent that might not have been given willingly.
Detective Michael Hunt had actually been the one to forward what the police had on this place after I reached out to him yesterday morning. His contact at vice had been more than happy to share intel with ICRA, possibly hoping we’d get this shit case off his hands.
Judging by the supe who just walked out with a visibly intoxicated human on his arm, that might yet happen.
Demyan and I exchanged a glance. The club was a human-supe mix, which made it excellent hunting grounds, too, for those who lacked morals. It wasn’t just females of all species who were exploited for their bodies, dancing up on the many stages and performing a vast number of tasks in the curtained nooks inside. The human patrons, apparently, regardless of their gender, could pay a fucking high price to satisfy their voyeuristic needs.
The half-demon escorted the guy past my hiding place and onto the somewhat better-illuminated street beyond. My claws itched to rip into him, get that human some damn help, but picking battles was a necessity right now. Even if the bitter taste in my mouth would last for a long while to come. They disappeared around the bend.
Just as I made a mental note to send this case over to the regular ICRA division and at least shut this shit down in the future if not immediately, our quarry walked out.
Alone.
A low, soundless growl vibrated in my chest.
Precisely as we wanted him.
I peeled away from my hiding place first, stalking the blond, blue-eyed werewolf at a safe distance down the empty street the half-demon and his human victim had taken before him. Matvei Semenov walked like a man on a mission. If he’d gotten his rocks off in Die Bezauberung, it certainly didn’t show—or smell, since I was downwind and arousal was one of the fragrances that was nearly impossible to conceal.
All I smelled on him, however, was booze. The cheap kind, in ungodly qualities.
Not that it mattered much, since werewolves burned through alcohol like it was a damn match, but still…
A bit of style never hurt anybody.
Semenov veered into the alley Demyan and I had picked out as his most likely route to the construction site. I kept my distance, then rounded the corner.
Demyan did the same from the other end.
Sensing the trap, the werewolf stiffened—only he had nowhere to go unless he had the desire to go through us. He glanced at Demyan, then back at me.
I almost sighed.
For once, it would be nice if someone surprised me and not picked me out as the weaker link purely because of my gender and smaller frame.
Then again, at least this way I always ended up having some fun.
Semenov rushed at me, his long blond strands flipping in the wind, but I was ready. He clearly didn’t think I’d actually hold my ground, because the counterforce of him slamming into me nearly knocked him on his ass. He caught himself, then lashed out.
I blocked the blow and squeezed in one of my own with enough strength poured into the punch to send him careening right into Demyan’s waiting arms.
“Dobryy vecher, Matvei,” Demyan said. “You’re going to answer a couple of questions for us since I assume you want to live another day.”
Semenov glanced at me. Blunt hatred burned in his ice-cold eyes, but beneath it, the spark that could only be attributed to the hardwired need for survival. I tensed, ready to intercept him if he made a run for it.
But to my surprise, the werewolf turned back towards Demyan. “Pisdets! Pashol nahui!”
I didn’t speak Russian, but I didn’t really need to get the gist of it. The venom in his voice was a profanity all on its own, telling Demyan to fuck off.
The peach then spat in Demyan’s face, but though I saw it for the diversion tactic it was, nothing could prepare me for the next second.
Neither Demyan nor I could match Semenov’s speed as he deftly drew a concealed knife from behind his waist and slit his own throat.
Chapter Fourteen
Corpses followed us wherever we went.
> I stared down at the werewolf, blood leaking from his eyes and nose from whatever poison Lobanov took that managed to override even our natural resistance and fast healing abilities. Demyan had stormed off when our latest lead had dropped dead, but I stayed behind. He might have been reluctant to bring in the rest of the team, drag up the details of his shady past for everyone to see, but if there was even the slightest chance we might glean something from the body, I had to call this in.
We’d already left four corpses untouched in the realm of wasted opportunities.
Blowing out a breath, I pulled out my cell phone and called Tilda—Mads’s sister and one of ICRA’s many MEs on duty. Any one of them would do, really, but there was more to Tilda than the mere fact that she was a werewolf who took head-on a profession most of us would have dreaded thanks to all the smells. It felt…right, somehow, that if I was already going against Demyan’s wishes, then at least the case would still stay in the family, so to speak. Besides, Tilda had worked so many of our cases, she was more than accustomed to seeing the worst spread out on the gurney before her.
“I have a dead werewolf to examine,” I said as her husky voice came over the line.
“Your handiwork?”
No judgment. Just fact.
“Actually, no. This one offed himself when I tried to interrogate him.” I rose and carefully padded to the other side of the body. The stench of bodily fluids wrinkled my nose. “I think he was linked to the attack on the civilians. As well as the weres who ambushed Morozov. You heard about that, right?”
Tilda swore a blue streak under her breath. I wasn’t entirely sure which part of my information had gotten to her. The two attacks. Or how this werewolf’s life had ended. The latter, I suspected.
Dead leads were something we all dreaded. Especially when that dead factor took on a literal quality.
“Send me your address,” Tilda said, “and I’ll dispatch a team your way to get my dead man.”
A low snicker escaped me despite my foul mood. As soon as the call ended, I pinged her the coordinates to my location, then stashed my phone back in my pocket and retreated from the body with its flurry of odors. I lifted my nose to the air when it had cleared somewhat, hoping to catch a trace of Demyan in the currents.
