Haunted by Shadows: Magic Wars: Demons of New Chicago Book Two

by Carpenter, Kel

  But I couldn’t stop myself.

  I jumped.

  28

  I shot up, closing the gap between us. My hands reached, threading through his onyx locks. Ronan released a growl as my tongue parted the seam of his mouth.

  Broad hands grasped my waist, the pointed tips of his clawed nails biting into my flesh. I yanked downward, and he pulled me up. I felt the cool chill of the void as it wrapped around us. His magic brushed against my skin, lighting it aflame. I groaned into his mouth, and he pulled me close enough that not even a sheet of paper could fit between our bodies. My legs wrapped around his waist, ankles hooking at the small of his back. There was nothing small about the demon. From his broad shoulders to his massive hands, and six and a half feet in height, he wasn’t simply large. He was just larger than anything or anyone else in this life. His very presence echoed strength and authority.

  The Harvester.

  I still didn’t know what that meant, not truly. But I knew he wasn’t even an ordinary demon. If there were such a thing. Even among the strongest and most powerful beings my world knew, he was other. More.

  He was holding me by the small of the waist and devouring my mouth like it was his source of air. Our tongues clashed and then twined. I breathed him in, and he breathed me out.

  The pounding grew louder.

  My blood pulsed.

  I shifted up and then down, rocking into him.

  Then the swift and bitter bite of cold wind slapped my skin. I gasped, pulling back.

  The dark of night surrounded me, but it wasn’t truly dark. A night sky filled with thousands of stars looked down on us, flaming balls of gas, burning as I did.

  Blackened ruins surrounded us on every side. I slowly turned my chin, surveying what I was fairly certain had formerly been the pits.

  The wide glassy floor beneath us was a dead giveaway.

  I turned to Ronan. He was watching me, waiting for the question I undoubtedly would ask.

  “Why here?” My words came out in a white fog as my warm breath turned to ice.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said. By nothing, he meant no one.

  Because my fire had already killed them all . . .

  The thought crossed my mind, bitterness dampening the lust in me.

  “I see,” I murmured, turning my face away. I didn’t want to look at him, but I didn’t want to look at the devastation either. I settled for staring at the stars. That seemed an appropriate way to mull over one’s actions.

  “You can’t go back. You can only go forward,” he said, teeth grazing my jaw. I took a shuddering breath. “Isn’t that why we’re here; so this never happens again?”

  I sensed there was more beneath his words. Like he was searching for some confirmation that something in me had changed.

  “Tell me,” I murmured, angling my neck to give him better access. His lips paused at the sensitive spot just below my ear. “What happens after the third exchange?”

  “Our bond is unbreakable,” he whispered, then sucked on that patch of flesh, sending a shiver through me. “You’re mine. At least as far as magic is concerned.”

  “Will I change more?” I asked, a sliver of fear creeping into my tone even as his wicked lips kept the worst of it at bay.

  “Probably,” he said. Honesty. I appreciated it. “But you’ll still be you. Just stronger. More in control. Your magic won’t rule you the same. At least that’s my hope.”

  “And you?” I asked. “Will you be stronger?”

  He didn’t answer at first. His lips disappeared from my neck, but then his face loomed in front of mine. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I have enough power of my own, but if I have to sacrifice some of it so that you’ll be safe—then so be it.”

  He meant it. Every bone in my body knew he was speaking the truth. He really, truly, didn’t care. He was going to complete the bond with me come Hell, high water, evil witches, or my own damn prejudice.

  “There is one other reason I chose this area,” he continued. The way he said it made me more alert, despite the very hard shaft pressed against me.

  “Why?”

  “Your magic lingers here. It should give you an advantage, if you need it . . .”

  Understanding washed over me. “You think you won’t be able to control yourself?”

  Something close to guilt crossed his face but was gone so fast it could have been any number of emotions. “I gave you my blood again and again when the acid ate at you, and each time it was harder to not take yours and force the exchange. After two exchanges, an atman’s instincts are so acutely focused that I can think of little else when you’re even near.”

  “Ronan . . .” I paused. “I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself any more than you, lest we forget last time. Just remember, this doesn’t change anything. It’s only sex.”

  His eyes darkened. The silver flashed. Lightning struck in the not so far distance, and the wind whipped around us.

  His hold on me tightened, not just in lust, but in anger too.

  He didn’t like what I’d just said. Not one bit.

  Instead of arguing it, his lips slammed back to mine. He devoured me with a brutality that made them feel bruised.

  But when I pulled away to gasp for breath, he wasted no time.

  Sharp pain lanced through my neck as he punctured the artery. The scent of copper hit me . . . followed by all-consuming desire and rage.

  My heart skipped a beat and then stopped.

  There was no preamble. No moments of indecision.

  The fucker bit me, and then he drank his fill.

  My back hit the cold glass of the pit. But I was burning. Red tinted my vision as I stared up at the sky, back bowed and body weeping.

  He released me faster than expected. I was almost disappointed when he pulled back on his knees. Ronan stared down at me, eyes hard.

  I knew then that this wasn’t going to be like any other time.

  He was angry, and he was going to fuck it out of me.

  I welcomed it.

  His hands released my waist to grab the edges of my sweater. I expected him to push it up my chest and pull it off. Instead, he tore it down the middle, and my nipples hardened.

  He leaned over, taking one tight bud in his mouth. My hips bucked off the ground, the cold long forgotten. He pressed one hand down on my lower abdomen, holding me there.

  “Just sex, right?” he said, whirling his tongue around me.

  I moaned. He slapped his bare hand over my sex. A shock ran through me, and I groaned as my core tightened, disappointed to find nothing to ease the ache.

  “Right?” he repeated, voice hard.

  “Right,” I bit out.

  It was going to piss him off, but I didn’t care. He’d still do this. I knew he would.

  Pain flashed through my breast. I looked down my chest to his teeth buried in the side, red welling around his mouth.

  The flames fanned hotter because he watched me as he did it.

  I pushed against his lower hand, my hips straining for him, but he was as immovable as stone, holding me in place.

  Ronan took a long pull from me, and I growled.

  He slapped my pussy again, drawing a much less frightening sound that made him smirk.

  His lips made a popping sound as they released me. I glared. Not that he seemed to give a solitary fuck. He moved onto my other breast, continuing with this slow torment that had my nails clawing at his back. They dug deep, shredding him.

  He groaned, the sound reverberating through the nipple in his mouth.

  I lifted one of my hands. His blood dotted my nails.

  Thunder clapped over us. Fire ignited as I brought my fingers to my lips.

  A warning shone in his eyes. He reached for the hand with his blood, but I wrapped my lips around one of my fingers before he could get there.

  My body trembled.

  Flames ate away at the rest of my clothes.

  Wind slapped at my skin.
<
br />   The ground itself seemed to shudder in response to me.

  And then came rain. It poured down on us as I sucked his blood from my fingertip.

  It couldn’t have been more than a drop or two, but it did the trick.

  I hooked my legs around his hips and rolled us using a move I’d learned in Jiu Jitsu. His back hit the glass, and I wondered if it would shatter and break.

  It didn’t.

  I pushed one hand onto his chest, holding him down, my claw-tipped fingers pressing into him.

  I think we were both a little surprised when he didn’t budge.

  My knees pressed into his sides. I arched forward, my long hair falling around us in a curtain. The world could have been breaking apart in that very moment, but it wouldn’t have reached us.

  I leaned forward, my lips only a hairsbreadth away.

  “It’s only sex because it has to be,” I whispered, my lips brushing his. “I could tell you it’s more. I could lie. My body may want it—hell, I can even admit part of me likes the idea because you’re right, Ronan. I trust you despite everything in me saying I shouldn’t. You saved Nat. You saved me. And here you are, saving me again even though you know when this is done, I won’t need you. That’s why I won’t lie. I may want this to be more, but there are things I have to do. To figure out. I’m damaged goods—and you may be the dragon, but I’m no princess.” A dark chuckle slid from my lips. I reached around to thread my free hand in his hair once more and pull tight. “I can’t promise you more, Atman. I just can’t. Not right now. But I can give you this.”

  The word fell from my lips before it registered, and I knew I’d just fucked up.

  The coldness in his expression melted.

  Everything in him changed.

  Because of that single, damning word.

  I’d never even let myself think it, but clearly at some point, I started to believe it.

  He grabbed me roughly by the hip. His hard cock pulsed between us, already prodding at my entrance.

  “Say it again,” he growled.

  My lips parted, but words didn’t come out.

  “I said, say it again.”

  When the word got stuck in my throat, he dragged me down and thrust up.

  A mix between a scream and a moan was all I managed as he filled me in one swift movement. My body tightened. My legs spasmed, threatening to give out.

  “Stop being a coward, and fucking say it,” he snapped, not letting me recover. His hands moved me up and down, dragging me over every thick ridge. I wasn’t going to last long if he kept it up. My hands on his chest clawed at the place where his heart should be. He didn’t seem to even notice, or if he did, he was into it. His hips thrust up, pumping into me.

  I canted forward, my face falling to the crook in his neck where it met his shoulder.

  My teeth itched to bite. I parted my lips.

  “Not a chance in hell,” he uttered.

  Our bodies flipped. Glass pressed against my back again, but I couldn’t even feel the cold. I was too warm. To taut. Feverish, even. I arched up, but he pulled out.

  “You want my blood?” he said, his face appearing in the haze. “My cock? You want to use me? Fine. But you’re going to fucking say it, Piper. I’m not asking for much.”

  I crumbled.

  And that word stuck in my throat came out as a whisper that may as well have been a roar.

  “Atman.”

  His head dipped, and his eyes closed in victory. Ronan pushed back inside me, giving me exactly what I wanted. His shoulder was close enough for me to lean up and bite . . . and I did.

  Blood filled my mouth.

  I detonated.

  My entire body tensed, locking tight before releasing.

  Rain soaked our bodies. His hips slapped into mine and the resulting sound was thunder. Every thrust a bolt of lightning.

  I wish I could say I was being dramatic, but the sky quite literally followed our push and pull. My core contracted with the most intense orgasm of my life, and I blacked out.

  I wasn’t sure how long truly passed. Seconds or minutes. But when I came to, he was turning my body over.

  He grabbed my ass, hauling me up on my knees. My arms were weak as I pushed myself up. Our reflections stared back at me, surrounded in black fire. It melted with the sky. His eyes glowed white hot as he lined me up from behind. Mine glowed red as he thrust in me.

  One hand gripped my hip, holding me in place. The other wrapped around my long blonde locks, holding me up when my arms threatened to give out. The bite of pain hurt, but it made that second orgasm all the better because I got to see his face as I fell apart.

  He was right. Whatever he felt, it was visceral and dark and possessive.

  Lust shot through me. Before my orgasm was even over, he bit my shoulder. He hardened further, filling me more. My lips parted in delicious agony.

  I lifted a shaking hand to my clit, rubbing it in stilted, jarring movements as I tried to find relief.

  And then the strangest thing happened.

  His mind brushed against mine and I felt what he felt. The way my channel clenched and fluttered around him. The warmth of my hip beneath his rough palm. My slick hair, tight in his fist. My magic pulsing through his veins, mixing with his own.

  I felt that need he spoke of.

  And I knew that no matter what I’d told myself, he was never, ever letting me go.

  Because he felt me too.

  He felt my barriers crumble and my walls turn to dust.

  I might have meant what I said. This was just sex.

  But us? We were more.

  Maybe not now. Not yet. But beneath the lust and guilt and complicated history between us, there was something there. Something that felt permanent, like the brands on my skin.

  He released my shoulder to let out a roar as he pulsed within me. His release triggered my own, and my consciousness wavered as fire wrapped around us.

  This was when I usually burned out. When the magic ran dry. Body ravaged by its power.

  Not this time.

  Instead of disappearing without a trace and pulling me under, it slowed to a trickle that left me weak, but conscious and sated.

  I sagged to the ground, and Ronan followed with me.

  The fire winked out.

  The rain stopped.

  The wind calmed.

  The ground went still.

  I laid there, stuck in that moment with Ronan, where the starry sky hung over us because for the first time in a decade, I wasn’t a slave to my power any longer.

  I was free.

  29

  My knuckles rapped against the door for the third time, and a sigh of frustration left me when there was still no answer. Ronan had dropped me at her door, naked as the day I was born, after the worst of the tremors in my muscles petered out, and the exhaustion lifted. It was half-past three in the morning, but I had no desire to stay the night with him. That just felt too real.

  After a short argument, he relented, but I had a feeling it had more to do with the presence in the back of my mind where he now permanently resided. It seemed that our final exchange had carved him out a space there, one he occupied like a king upon on a throne. He lurked like a shadow, watching me. I knew he wouldn’t leave, even if I asked. I could push all I wanted, but it was the price of my freedom. The result of our completed bond.

  He’d warned me before that each exchange would have an effect on me. It seemed ours had formed a bridge of sorts from one mind to the other.

  I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked since I refused to cross it, and instead focused on shutting him out as best I could.

  Easier said than done when I felt his amused chuckle as though he were standing behind me, lips pressed to my skin. I ignored the sensation and lifted my hand to knock for a fourth time. At this rate, I’d have to pound the damn door down all because she hadn’t left me any keys.

  Once upon a time, you could use a credit card if the lock was shitty. Thanks to the
bomb I’d strapped to the door, all that would do was land me in a world of pain I wasn’t interested in experiencing.

  But I also had no desire to ask Ronan for help. He’d done enough, and I needed space; both for what was to come and what had already happened.

  Before my knuckles could make contact with the fake wood panel, the door to my left opened. I turned my cheek, glancing over my shoulder.

  Señora Rosara peered through the couple-inch gap in the door.

  She regarded me shrewdly, expectedly unamused at seeing my naked ass before dawn.

  “If you’re here to yell at me about the noise—” I started.

  “You killed the Morrigan.”

  “I hope you weren’t friends,” I said, knocking on the door once more.

  Her thin lips curled upward, the wrinkles around her eyes growing more pronounced. Call me crazy, but it seemed like the old lady had grown fond of me. There was a saying about distance, though, and how it made the heart grow fonder.

  “She killed my sister, Rosalina. Sacrificed her.”

  I nodded along as I silently hoped Nathalie would wake the fuck up.

  “Yeah, she was a real piece of work,” I said, my voice a little more neutral. I didn’t exactly enjoy talking about Morgan Le Fay, or my time with her, considering how it ended.

  “I killed her once. She didn’t stay dead. I hope she does this time, for your sake, Diabla.”

  I froze, sucking in a sharp breath. Ronan’s presence brushed against me instantly, a silent question in it. I quickly pushed him off with a mental shove, thankful he couldn’t truly read my thoughts unless I wanted him to.

  Footsteps sounded on the other side a moment later. She stepped back with a nod of respect and closed her door right as Nat’s opened.

  “Sorry,” she croaked, sounding not all that sorry. A shiver worked its way up my spine, and I shook it off, deciding to ask the Señora about her warning another day. “I stayed up late reading. Wasn’t expecting you for another month or two, if I’m being honest—”

  “Nat, not to be an asshole or anything, but it’s cold as shit and I’m naked.”

  She blinked, her light brown eyes dropping down to my bare chest. My nipples were hard enough I was fairly certain I could cut glass. I lifted both my eyebrows, motioning toward the door when she lifted her chin again to look back at me.