by Missy Lyons
“Stay put for me, mate. The transfer is nearly complete.” Tyler held him still.
“I can’t stand it any longer! The pain is killing me!” Joshua screamed, attempting to wriggle out from under Tyler. Tyler kept his arms tightly locked around him. If he attempted to pull out before the branding was complete, the love knot could do serious damage to his ass and his body. This was crucial to the bonding ceremony.
The gargoyle tattoo had to bond with him and become one with his flesh.
Finally minutes ticked by, and he felt his swollen member dissipate. Without looking, he knew the gargoyle tattoo that he had carried since birth had chosen Joshua as his new home. It rested somewhere on Joshua now. It had probably moved to rest on Joshua’s chest. It was the favorite spot on Tyler’s body as well. “Shhh…My mark is on you. There’s no returning now.”
“You tricked me.”Joshua rolled over, and he was in tears, rubbing the parts that had been bitten and shredded by the gargoyle’s teeth and talons. “What did you do to me?”
“Made you mine,” Tyler whispered.
“Why?” Joshua looked perplexed, wide eyed and innocent. He was stunned Tyler would hurt him in any way, and Tyler felt a certain pain he had to do that.
Tyler was more sure than ever that this was his mate. He felt empathy for a mortal the first time ever. “You always belonged to me. Now that I found you and marked you, I can prove it to the rest of the world.”
“I never agreed to this.” Joshua’s mouth gaped open.
Joshua was stubbornly avoiding his gaze, but Tyler was sure he would become submissive over time, even enjoy their future joining. “You will after you have been thoroughly bedded by me.”
“Sex on the beach won’t change my mind.” Joshua folded his arms defiantly. It was not enough to tell him what to do. Tyler was going to enjoy showing him.
“No, but sex on the floor, sex in my bath chambers, and being chained to my bed will help to change your mind.” A few more passion-charged sex sessions and Joshua would not be able to say no to him. Ever again. Tyler knew he would be more addictive than any drug to his mate. “We have all eternity to figure it out.”
Joshua was stunned into silence for a few minutes’ time.
Then he burst out, his voice unusually high pitched as if he was deeply disturbed Tyler would lay such a claim to him. “You’re not serious are you? I have a life to get back to. I can’t just—”
It was then the most extraordinary thing happened. Joshua got this strange look on his face and pushed Tyler in the chest with the flat of his hands, effectively putting distance between them.
“Hey!” Tyler was not a happy demon. He just mated with his life partner. He should be feeling on top of the world, and while he felt the energy overflow from the sexual joining, he was being rejected.
Rejected by a silly little human. It was doubly hurtful. Tyler could have anyone he wanted as a lover, but yet the one he wanted was rejecting him. Him—an incubus. It was laughable.
“Get away from me.” Joshua kept his angry eyes on Tyler as he dressed.
“Joshua, this isn’t a good place to throw a hissy fit.” Tyler whispered some words which removed the earlier spell. Joshua could see they had curious onlookers.
He didn’t keep up the glamour, didn’t help the beasts around them to look human.
They were in the middle of joining.
Tentacles and all.
Bodies slapping as they fucked.
The sounds of iniquity surrounded them.
“Just get the fuck away from me. I didn’t sign up for this little experiment of yours.” Tyler saw the way this conversation was headed. By the morning’s end Joshua would have himself convinced that Tyler raped him.
“Don’t deny you liked the sex. You wanted it. You asked for it,” Tyler reinforced.
“I did, but I changed my mind. I don’t know what you did to me, but I didn’t sign up for that kind of pain.” Joshua scratched at his new tattoo where the beast had settled in to rest.
“You don’t understand. This pain you speak of will never happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t.” Joshua picked up his shoes and suddenly saw the other creatures around the fire. Scales, tales, and all. His mouth gaped open. “What the fuck are they?”
“Joshua, don’t make a scene.” Tyler hissed from between clenched teeth.
Joshua’s breathing picked up, and Tyler, being so in tune with him after their first mating, could hear his heartbeat thunder like a rabbit. It was enough to make a predator look over, curious enough to pounce. The others in the circle smelled fear.
It was a dangerous thing to be afraid here.
But Joshua was beyond listening. He backed away slowly. “Ohmygod—ohmygod! Don’t come any closer.”
Tyler reached out to hold his mate and keep him safe, and Joshua cringed.
That was when Tyler realized he removed the spell that cloaked him as well. Joshua saw him in his true form for the first time. Powerful muscles rippled beneath the surface of his red skin as he attempted to make himself not look so big or scary. He pulled the six-foot wings back close to his body and hid them behind his back. The horns that grew out of his head were not quit so easy to hide.
“What the fuck are you?” Joshua wanted to run away. Tyler was prepared to follow him to the ends of the earth. There was nowhere he wouldn’t follow him.
“Do you want the truth?” Joshua wasn’t ready for the real answer. Tyler’s laugh came out dark and cynical. “I am your destiny.”
Tyler watched as Joshua turned and ran.
Every predator in the circle lunged. Fangs, claws, and talons struck out aimed at the frail human that dared to run away.
Tyler unfurled his wings and leapt on his prey. It would not do to have his mate hunted down by anyone but him. He tumbled on Joshua, and just as he hit the sand, he said the spell to bring himself and Joshua to the relative safety of the human realm. The veil was between them and the other world now. Joshua was relatively safe. For now.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Tyler said furiously.
Joshua struggled out from beneath his body, and while Tyler was loath to let him go, he knew Joshua could not be forced. This mating had to be of Joshua’s free will. If this could work at all between a demon and a human, Joshua needed to see he could trust him. He wanted only to protect Joshua. Humans had weak minds and frail bodies. Tyler had seen enough humans taken against their will that the thought did not appeal to him. If Joshua survived the ordeal, his mind would break and he would go insane, and that was not how Tyler wished to spend eternity.
“Get. The Fuck. Away. From. Me.” Joshua’s stance was defensive, prepared to fight if he had to.
Tyler’s eyes narrowed. His heart hardened against a second rejection. “I saved you.”
“That was before I knew what you were.” Joshua turned and ran the other way, back toward light and civilization.
“I’m your mate.” Tyler was convinced Joshua still didn’t understand. As his mate, he could follow Joshua anywhere in the world. They had a connection now that couldn’t be broken short of death. But he chose to let the man go back to his home and where he felt he was safe from scary monsters like him.
Tyler watched the other half of his heart run away and pretended like hell he didn’t want to follow.
Let the human run.
There was not a place on Earth his mate could hide from him, but first Tyler had to see his family and make sure no one interfered in the hunt.
Chapter 3
What the fuck just happened?
Joshua’s chest hurt. A fist wrapped around it and crushed the air from his lungs. If he didn’t know better, he was having a heart attack or the guy in the bar gave him a hallucinogen, because there was no way in hell he saw what he thought he saw just now.
He laid his head on the steering wheel of his Honda.
Joshua had been to war. He fought in Afghanistan. He looked a man in the eye right before he shot hi
m in the heart and killed him. Yet over his entire short life, he had never seen anything like that.
First, Tyler was a sexy-as-sin, seven-foot-tall cowboy, and then he was…something else entirely. Joshua shook his head as he remembered the muscle-bound thing with twisted goat horns springing from his head. He was almost human, but there was no way that winged creature could be classified as human…and through it all he still felt an incredible sexual attraction to the other man. It was the weirdest thing ever.
Joshua ran faster than he ever had in the past, like the hounds of hell were on his heels, and when he finally got to his car, it was like nothing had happened. People were going on with their normal lives. A couple kissed, leaned up against the cherry-red Jeep Wrangler bumper. A group of teenagers were hanging out by the Dumpsters smoking weed and hoping no one noticed them enough to care.
Ordinary people living ordinary lives.
Joshua tried to analyze what just happened. It was entirely possibly he had a hallucination. Especially if Tyler had given him drugs in his drink when they first met. Joshua had been warned about side effects of specific drugs, like the date rape drug, and to keep an eye out for suspects because of his training at the Police Academy. He tilted the mirror so he could examine his eyes. They looked normal. The pupil was slightly dilated, but normal looking. He stuck out his tongue and looked. Again it was normal.
His heart was still racing, just beginning to slow.
Yet when he looked around for the proof of what just happened, there was none. There was no sexy black-winged angel of death following him. There was no proof at all of what he saw was real.
Am I going insane?
Joshua couldn’t tell anyone about this. If word got to the police academy, they would have him drug tested, and sent for a psych evaluation. Even if Tyler did give him drugs and it wasn’t directly his fault, it wouldn’t matter. Joshua would still get kicked out and his life as he knew it would be over. He would never have a career in law enforcement.
Joshua just had to go back to his life and forget about tonight. Act like it never happened.
Because it never happened.
He did not just get fucked by the most magnificent beast he had ever seen. His ass muscles were not sore from the thrusts of the beast’s thick cock. Everything he remembered or felt was a figment of his overactive imagination.
Joshua turned the key in the ignition, revving his Honda’s engine.
He reversed out of the parking space and drove off, trying to forget about his very freaky but sexy figment of his imagination that seemed determined to haunt his memories.
* * * *
“Do you want me to kill him for you?” Balthazar asked in the most polite voice he could muster. Nephilim were nothing if not polite. They were twelve-foot tall giants. Legend had it they were direct descendants of God, but who knew the truth?
“No, that won’t be necessary.” Tyler wasn’t interested in rules or laws of the circle being broken. Joshua was his mate, and if anyone tried to kill him, they would die trying.
“You shouldn’t have let him leave the circle until the dawn destroyed his memories.” Balthazar frowned down at him. “Now he’s a danger to all of us.”
“Yeah. Well, there are a lot of things I shouldn’t have let happen.” Like mate him in this public arena. He should have told him what to expect and all the rest of the big ugly truth about what it meant to be mated to an incubus. “But don’t worry. I will take care of this little problem myself.”
“You’d better.” Lilith had interrupted her lovemaking session to insert her very slender, young succubus body into the middle of Tyler’s business. Her lover remained in the sand in a near-catatonic state. “I am not about to give up my primary food source because you’ve gone soft for a human.” She said the word human slowly and as if the word was vile on her tongue.
She had always been competitive to Tyler. She wanted to be more powerful, and they often competed for the same lover, but she was an angry loser and she made it clear she would much rather be in Tyler’s bed. Which Tyler didn’t understand. He made it just as clear he wasn’t interested. Not. One. Bit. Interested. Now he could never imagine going into her bed. Not after having been with his destined mate. Nobody could compare to the way Joshua and he felt together when they made love. He’d never felt this level of desire before now, and he couldn’t imagine taking anyone else as a lover. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Lilith.”
Lilith snorted in disdain.
“I’ve got this under control, and no one—I say no one but me touches the human. Do I make myself clear?”
“Testy, aren’t you?” Lilith rolled her eyes at him. “There’s no need to get all protective over your kill. If I didn’t know better, I would say you found your mate.”
Tyler ground his teeth. He did find his mate, and claimed him, but he couldn’t announce it until the bond had grown stronger. There was too much at stake until the bond was complete between the two of them.
“By the titans! Say it isn’t so? Tyler, what would your father say?”
“Congratulations, Tyler. We must celebrate!” Balthazar exclaimed and patted Tyler on the back.
“Not yet, Balthazar, and I would appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone just yet, but my father would want me to be happy.” Tyler didn’t like the way this was going, but Lilith seemed to believe she had certain rights to make him miserable.
“But…but he’s human! You know it could never last.” Lilith threw her hands up in the air, bringing attention to the way her naked form glistened in the moonlight.
“Yes and I also know there are certain ways around that.” Tyler was not happy at the turn of events, but he was willing to make certain sacrifices to make things work.
“So let me get this straight. You mated to a human at the circle and you don’t plan to kill him?” Lilith shook her head in contempt.
“You got a problem with that? Better tell me now.” Tyler hissed through his teeth. He would fight to the death to keep his mate alive, and Lilith should know her boundaries. “Because I will kill you if you get in my way.”
“Tyler, we’ve been friends too long to let a stupid human come between us.” She reached up and put a hand on his arm, to feel his true emotions, most likely. She was similar to him in her skills and her abilities.
“It doesn’t matter. This is my mate we’re talking about.” He extricated her fingers and pushed her away. “Now if you excuse me, I have to go figure out where he is going.”
“Go get him, Tyler.” Balthazar grinned.
“I plan to,” Tyler muttered before stalking off.
Tyler could feel the heat of Lilith’s hard glare as he approached the fire. No one else really cared much what was going on. They were still lost in lust around the circle, and he could feel their sexual energy emanate from their bodies. It didn’t help that he was still aroused from his joining with his mate. Normally he’d stay here and feed off the energy until morning or as long as possible, but he had places to go and a human to see. He picked up a handful of sand and squeezed it in his hand, turning it to salt.
“Show me my mate.” He cast the salt into the fire, sending up a spray of rainbow-colored flames.
He watched the fire reveal puzzle pieces to Joshua’s life. Images flashed in the flames. His family. His life history. A place where he lived and worked. A stark white government building was the primary clue he needed. It was where he was being trained for a job. Joshua had admitted he was being trained as a police officer earlier. Finally after several minutes, Tyler had enough details to find his elusive lover.
Chapter 4
Fire and brimstone surrounded him. The house of Draehomon was an underground castle surrounded by a moat of lava, and the sweet screams of the eternally damned welcomed him home. There was a certain amount of comfort he got from coming home. It soothed his black and tarnished soul.
Tyler’s smile faded a little when he thought about the serious nature of this
trip.
Tyler thrust open the door to his family home and entered. His footsteps were heavier than normal, and his tail dragged on the floor. Within seconds he was greeted with the smiling faces of his family. Chase, his loving father, sat in his favorite chair by the fire, and his three brothers were perched on a stone ledge stretching across the vast room.
“Talk of the devil and he is bound to appear.” The youngest brother, Ryodan, flew to him and tackled him. Tyler somersaulted over backward and rested on his back while his brother pummeled him. The other two brothers followed suit, and they were play wrestling in nothing flat. It hurt, but nothing was broken or killed during these little displays of power. It just helped the men to determine their pecking order. The winner might get a place at the head of the table and a proud gleam in his father’s eyes.
Tyler could dish out just as good as he got. He landed a few solid punches and heard satisfying sound of breath whooshing out suddenly.
Tyler quirked his eyebrows questioningly from the bottom of the pile. Given time, he could probably get out, but he didn’t want to hurt his brothers, and while he had been absent they had been getting stronger. So it would take a while to dig his way out. “Is that any way to greet your brother?”
“All right! Everyone off.” Their father, Chase, peeled off his three sons and helped Tyler to his feet. “It’s about time my good son returned.”
“Hey!” Sinna protested as Chase grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him onto his feet. His dark-green eyes reflected glimmers of light like shiny jewelry. Tyler immediately felt warmed by his gaze. “I thought I was your favorite.”
“Tough luck, short pint, I’m Dad’s favorite.” Caligula punched Sinna in the upper arm.
“Hey, that hurt.” Sinna rubbed the spot as if the landed punch still smarted.
“Good.” Caligula bared his white teeth.
Chase heartily hugged Tyler close and patted his back in a giant bear hug. His wings wrapped around Tyler protectively and then he released him and pushed Tyler deeper in the house. “Don’t act like a stranger! Come in and sit down. Have a drink, son!”
