Seduced by a Demon King

by Heaton, Felicity

  “I call myself Suki.”

  “Call yourself?” A furrow formed between his eyebrows.

  “I’m not going to tell you my real name.” Cold crashed over her as she swallowed hard.

  His expression softened. “Forgive me. It has been a long time since I have met a fae. I forgot the power your true name has over you.”

  She loosed the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and shrugged stiffly, trying to let her momentary panic roll off her. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I’m sorry. It’s like an instinct… I just presume anyone who wants to know my name wants that power over me.”

  Her clan teachers hammered it into every member that giving anyone their true name would have a horrible ending. She had seen it happen once. A young succubus had foolishly offered her true name to a man and that man had enslaved her with it, had been able to call her to him at will and had made her do things.

  In the end, the succubus had killed herself.

  Suki had learned her lesson that day.

  Never give a man your real name.

  “You chose a pretty name for yourself,” Solid Eleven husked, the warm purr of his voice melting the ice that had formed in her veins.

  A positive sign? He liked her name and he was still looking at her as if he wanted to devour her.

  “You do not wish to know my name?” He took a step towards her.

  She did. Oh gods, she did. But knowing his name was probably as dangerous as giving him her true one. She never bothered to ask men their names. They were hosts and nothing more.

  But Solid Eleven was so much more than that.

  He was the first man she had thought about before going to bed at night. The first man to make her fantasise about him. The first man she had given her number to. The first man who had used that number to call her.

  He was the first man she had brought to this place, her own little sanctuary.

  The first man she ached for.

  So she slowly nodded, because denying her desire to know his name was like denying herself breath.

  Impossible to do without dying.

  He opened his mouth and snapped it shut, his expression turning guarded. “How much do you know of the demon realms?”

  Funny question. She shrugged. “Not much. I know there’s like six of them.”

  “Seven,” he said, and seemed pleased that she didn’t even know how many there were. Or maybe he was pleased he had managed to teach her something for a change. He held his hand out to her. “My name is Tegan.”

  Tegan. A strong name. A warrior’s name.

  She slipped her hand into his. Electricity leaped up her arm, turning her blood to liquid fire that had her heating to a thousand degrees in an instant as her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes leaped to his, a need to know if he had felt that too rushing through her. They were stunning, no longer black with a faint corona around his pupils.

  Now the whole of his irises were a reddish shade of purple.

  So alluring that she had to force herself not to jump into his arms and kiss him, part of her remaining aware of what a tremendous mistake that would be. He didn’t like females who threw themselves at him. He didn’t exactly make it easy not to do that.

  “You didn’t bring your book with you this time,” she murmured, lost in his eyes, her mouth working on auto-pilot to fill the heavy silence.

  “I left home in a hurry.” His smile was rakish.

  Absolutely devastating.

  Who was this male who was charming her, sweet in some ways and dangerously alluring in others? An enticing combination that had her wanting to know more about him. She instinctively focused, wanting to see what he was feeling as he stared down into her eyes, his hand firmly clasping hers. Black tendrils rose from his shoulders rather than the colours that would reveal his feelings to her.

  She had viewed his shadowed aura as a challenge before. Now she wanted nothing more than to be able to pierce it, to see that the desire he felt for her ran as deep as what she felt for him.

  Suki gathered her wits and lured him to the edge of the water, where the sand was cool and firm beneath her bare feet. She released his hand and crouched before him, trembling as his gaze landed on her, sending a hot thrill through her and stirring awareness of him, until her skin felt too tight and she itched with a need to stand and press against him, to beg him to ease this need she felt for him.

  She reached for the hems of his black leathers instead, working to roll them up his legs.

  “What are you doing?”

  Suki paused at her work and looked up at him. Big mistake. What a view. He towered over her, chiselled abs and pecs kissed by the sun that played in the sculpted lines of his face and cast golden highlights in his black hair. It was hard to resist skimming her hands up his powerful legs to touch all that perfection, but somehow she managed it, finishing rolling up the hems of his trousers.

  “You need to loosen up.” She rose to her feet. “I find paddling relaxing.”

  She took hold of his hand and walked into the water, and jerked backwards when he didn’t move but his grip on her hand remained firm.

  “How do you know I need to relax?” he bit out, all that warmth she had been enjoying draining from his face, leaving his eyes black again. “A succubus trick?”

  She resented the way he called her abilities a trick, was tempted to give him a big piece of her mind, despite the fallout it might cause.

  But the guarded look in his eyes had different words rising to the tip of her tongue, because she couldn’t blame him for being wary around her. He wasn’t the first man and he wouldn’t be the last one to think she was out to play him just because she was a succubus, and apparently that was what succubi did.

  “It’s written on your face.” She released his hand and let hers fall to her side. “You look worn down. I don’t need any tricks to be able to see that.”

  The bitterness in her voice surprised her, rattled her feelings and had her questioning why she was even here. Tegan was just going to turn out to be like every other man she had ever met. It wasn’t going to end the way her stupid fantasies had.

  He rubbed the right side of his head again, fingers scrubbing at his shorn hair and the tattoos inked beneath. “My apologies. You are right and I have been under more pressure than usual recently.”

  Suki pivoted on her heel and strode into the water without him, needing the space. The cool water lapped at her shins and then her knees, and she stopped when it reached her lower thighs, the depth far more than just paddling.

  Far more than his rolled-up leathers would allow him to reach.

  She stared down at her legs and watched the tiny fish gathering around them, trying to wrangle her feelings into submission. So what if he thought she was just like all the other succubi? He was meant to be a trophy hunt, one that would secure her place in her clan and erase the pet name she hated with all her heart.

  So why did her chest ache when she thought about using him like that?

  Shock rippled through her and her eyes widened when his bare feet appeared next to hers.

  She stared at the section of his black leathers that were beneath the surface. “You’re going to ruin them.”

  She tensed when his palm brushed her cheek and he lowered it, smoothing it along her jaw.

  “I do not care. Ruined leathers are the least of my problems.” His gruff tone did strange things to her insides, lifting the weight from them and making her feel light, as if she was floating, and warm all over.

  “Is it the windfarm stuff that has you stressed out?” She kept her eyes on his feet, his wrecked leathers, watching the fish that nibbled at them, clearly curious about whether they could eat the black material.

  “Among other things,” he murmured and the intense heat of his gaze left her.

  When she looked at him, his eyes were on the horizon, reflecting the golden light of the sun as it gradually edged lower.

  “If you’re so busy, why did you c
all?” A dangerous question for her to ask, because a man as clever as he was could easily see through it to the compliment grab it was.

  His focus remained fixed on the horizon as he rocked her entire world with a handful of words.

  “Because I wanted to see you again.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Suki’s heart fluttered and beat a little faster, and she resisted the smile that wanted to curl her lips as she let his words run around her head. They wreaked havoc on her at the same time as they offered her a slice of comfort because she felt as if they were on even ground with each other.

  She hadn’t been the only one thinking about their time together.

  She wasn’t the only one who had wanted to meet again.

  “You are right.” He slid her a look that warmed her from head to toe. “Paddling is relaxing.”

  “Um, this isn’t exactly paddling.” She lifted her right leg and swept it side to side through the water, disturbing the fish. “Paddling is strolling the shore where the waves meet it, so the water breaks over them. Like ankle deep. About as high as I rolled your leathers so you wouldn’t ruin them.”

  He grinned, almost knocking her on her ass with it. “Well, whatever this is, it is nice.”

  It was nice.

  She let her gaze drift over him, charting every sensual dip and swell of his torso, and frowned as she noticed something. “You have scars.”

  They were silvery, visible in the sunlight, and there were a lot of them.

  She raised her eyes to his face. “I thought demons didn’t scar?”

  Another thing she hadn’t known about his kind.

  His smile widened and his black eyes sparkled, and whatever he was thinking about, it lifted his mood, had all the tension melting from him before her eyes.

  “We do not retain scars if we gain them after we have matured. These scars are from when I was young.” He lowered his gaze to his body, that stunning smile holding, gaining a boyish edge that had her heart beating harder in response. “I was a bit of a brawler.”

  She grinned now. “A ruffian. You don’t strike me as someone who had been a right little sod as a kid.”

  He shrugged. “I was different then. A little out of control. A brat.”

  Bratty Tegan was an adorable image as it formed in her head.

  “Lots of feet stomping and such?” She wanted to build the picture more clearly.

  He shook his head. “Try a different sort of brat. I was not a good child at all. I was mean and elitist.”

  “Oh.” Not so attractive.

  His grim smile said he was well aware of that. “My father enrolled me into the army at the lowest rank possible to beat it out of me. He wanted to teach me humility by making me see how most demons lived.”

  “I’m guessing it worked.” She swept her hand through the clear warm water, enjoying the feel of it cutting between her fingers. He arched an eyebrow at her and she arced her hand up and flicked water at his chest. “You’re not so bratty now.”

  He raised both eyebrows at his wet stomach and sighed as he brushed the droplets away, lifted his hand and looked at the water on it, a thoughtful edge to his expression. “It taught me more than what my father expected. It completely changed me. I fought in brutal wars, forced to battle on the frontline. Every fight I engaged in, I picked up new scars and learned new skills and tactics as I fought for my life… as I fought to become the male I was meant to be.”

  She had thought she had been through a lot, but he sounded as if his life had been far worse. He had survived things that would have been the end of her.

  “I can’t imagine fighting.” She studied a larger fish as it swam past, some sort of wrasse that reminded her of the colourful green and blue ice cream lollies that the witches sold at their fayres. “I normally freeze up when anyone tries to attack me or if I see a fight breaking out and feel it might head my way.”

  His gaze landed on her again, sending another delicious shiver through her. “Where do you live that fights regularly break out?”

  “A fae town near Fort William.” She made a grab for the fish, but it was too fast, put peddle to the metal and was gone before her hand had even neared the spot where it had been. All she got for her effort was water splashed up the front of her shorts and across her bare midriff. “The demons there are always rowdy.”

  She looked across at Tegan.

  “What realm are you from anyway? I don’t see many like you around there.”

  That guarded look filled his eyes and she was surprised when he actually answered her question. “The Second Realm.”

  He watched her closely, although she wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Or was he expecting a reaction to that? She thought about what she knew of the Second Realm as she watched the sun tracking lower, turning the sea a deeper shade of gold and lacing the sky with beautiful warm colours.

  She might have met one or two from his realm over her years, but she didn’t remember them. The last demon she had met had dirty cream horns and blond hair, and she thought he had said he came from the First Realm.

  She glanced up at Tegan.

  Would his horns be black if he let them out, matching the colour of his hair? She wanted to see them, but she knew if she asked, he would deny her the pleasure, just in case a human witnessed them too.

  When she finally tore her gaze away from him, the sun was close to the horizon, and a heavy weight settled in her stomach, dragging her mood down.

  She didn’t want Tegan to go.

  “You kinda made out you were busy,” she whispered, unable to say those words any louder because she didn’t want him to hear them, because she feared he would go if he did. “You’ve been here for hours… with me.”

  He gave her a blank look. “It has been hours?”

  Gods, she felt the same way. It felt like only minutes since he had called and she had teleported to Underworld to see him.

  His gaze drifted back to the sunset, darkness washing across his features as they tightened, relaying just how little he liked whatever he was thinking.

  His voice was hollow as he said, “I should return.”

  But he didn’t want to, and that made her want to take hold of his hands and convince him to stay, even when she knew he wouldn’t enjoy the time they spent together as much because his mind would be on whatever work awaited him at home.

  His deep sigh spoke volumes as he turned away from the sunset, coming to face her, and she looked down as he slipped his hand into her right one and brushed his thumb over the back of it. For a heartbeat, he looked as if he wanted to say something, and then he released her hand and waded back towards the shore.

  Suki watched him go, her heart growing heavier as the distance between them grew, rousing a need to follow him.

  To remain close to him.

  She couldn’t deny that need, found her feet carrying her towards him as he picked up his shirt from the sand and pulled it back on, and shoved his feet into his boots.

  She stopped close to him, wrestling with the words she wanted to say, rebelling against the part of her that kept telling her she had to let him go. She couldn’t, because she wasn’t sure she would see him again. She felt that if they parted now, they would part forever. Her sisters would laugh at her for that. Her tutors would berate her.

  Because she was getting caught up in this demon.

  He straightened to his full, impressive height, and took hold of her hand again. She didn’t resist him as he drew his hand towards him, luring her with it. The heat of him rolled over her, his earthy masculine scent soothing her as it filled her senses.

  “Would you like me to take you home?” He lowered his face towards her, his eyes holding hers, keeping her captive in a way she never wanted to break free from.

  She slowly shook her head. “I might go for a swim and then I’ll head home.”

  His face twisted in agony and his voice dropped to a low husky growl. “Do you mean to swim… naked?”

  Suki nodded
.

  He groaned. “You slay me.”

  She laughed at that. Now who was being all melodramatic? He paused and looked at her, a strange light in his eyes, as if she was brightening his world with her laughter and he liked it. She slapped his chest, shivering as the solid steel of it met her palm.

  “Get going, before you get into trouble.”

  “I feel I already am in trouble,” he rumbled sexily, the slight tilt to his lips almost slaying her. “I want to watch you swimming.”

  “You just want to see me naked,” she countered. “You haven’t earned that privilege yet.”

  His eyes darkened a full shade and the tips of his ears flared, growing pointier. Desire. The demon wanted her. She didn’t need to be able to read his aura to see he was hungry for a taste of her, as hungry as she was for a taste of him.

  It hit her that she had him right where she wanted him.

  So why wasn’t she seizing the chance to bag and tag him?

  Why had she forgotten that she was meant to be doing such a thing?

  She stared up into his fathomless eyes, mesmerised by that corona of shimmering purple light, and something else hit her.

  She was enjoying herself.

  When he had called, she hadn’t thought about her plan. She hadn’t seen it as a chance to seduce him.

  She had been genuinely thrilled that he had wanted to see her again.

  He pulled his arm back behind him, luring her closer, and she didn’t stop him. She stepped into him, planting her palm against his chest, feeling the thunderous beat of his heart against it as he lowered his head towards her.

  His eyes fell to her mouth.

  Suki tilted her head back, every inch of her aching for that kiss his eyes promised her as her heart pounded faster, blood racing in her veins.

  His breath caressed her lips and she swallowed hard, silently urging him on, to take what he wanted from her because she wouldn’t resist him this time. She needed this as fiercely as he did.

  Their lips touched and she tensed as heat rushed through her, turned her blood to molten lava and had her burning for a hard kiss.