by J. K. Coi
“A handful of men were chosen by the powers that be to round the demons up and send them back to hell where they’d escaped from.” An elbow propped on each knee, he sat with his thighs spread open and his hands hanging between his legs, looking way too sexy in the casual, thoughtful pose…but she digressed.
“These demons are…ah, pretty sick, and really brutal. There are different breeds, but most of them have green blood, snarly teeth, red eyes. Many of them can masquerade as men and women, and like to do nasty things to humans.”
The look in his eyes was devastating. Cold. “You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?”
“After what you’ve seen and experienced in the last day, do you even doubt it?”
She paused for a moment. “Ah, no. I guess I have to admit it’s within the realm of possibility—my altered reality being what it is just now.”
Shaking her head, she went to him, sat beside him. He looked up at her in surprise, as if he’d expected her to run from him in terror instead. “What does this have to do with you?”
He let out a short, strained laugh. “I won destiny’s lottery. Apparently the night that the sickness came upon me, an Immortal had been killed fighting one of these demons. When that happens, another man must take his place, become Immortal. I was that lucky fool.”
“So someone just came along and asked you if you wanted to be Immortal, and you said, ‘Sure, sounds like a good deal’?”
“No, baby. It doesn’t quite work like that.” He chuckled, this time with some honest humor. She should protest the way he kept calling her “baby”, but right now it seemed a petty thing to complain about. And if she were honest with herself, she’d admit she kind of liked it.
“An Immortal’s destiny is decided for him before his birth. He’s born human, but with a latent gene that will allow the change to take place if another Immortal dies. They call this human a ‘Potential’. If no other Immortal dies before the Potential reaches a certain age, then he will never be called upon and will live out his human life without knowing what could have been.”
“So you have this gene?”
“Apparently so.”
“And you were…called upon?”
He snorted. “If you can call debilitating pain, tormenting psychic visions and near death being ‘called upon’—yeah, pretty much.”
Max was silent for a moment, trying to come to terms with what he was telling her. “How did you find all of this out, and how did you come to be here?”
“Rhys came to find me. He’s kind of our fearless leader. One of the oldest Immortals.”
“Just how old does that make him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s something like nine hundred years old. Give or take.”
Max’s mouth dropped open in shock. Nine hundred years? That was taking retro to a whole new level. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “So does that mean you’re going to live forever?”
He sighed and shook his head. “The odds are against it. Chances are, I’ll get knocked off by a demon one of these days. But until then, I won’t age anymore, I heal super fast, and I won’t get sick.” He paused and Max caught the look of pain in his eyes that he tried to hide. “And apparently, I can’t…have children.”
She ached.
Oh hell, she ached so much. It was crazy but true.
There had been a time—a brief, insane, weakened moment in time—when Max had imagined having children…Baron’s children. They would have been beautiful, golden-haired, rambunctious, smiling children. She’d imagined a bright little girl with his stubborn ways and a sharp little boy with the noble ambition of his youth and maybe Jackson’s sweetness.
For some reason, she felt the loss of those children as if they had already been born of her body. Max hadn’t realized until now just how much she’d still been holding on to the dream of a future with him—crazy though it seemed, since she wouldn’t ever have admitted it even to herself if this day hadn’t come.
“Why can’t you have children?”
He shook his head. “It’s kind of complicated. There are a couple of scientists among us—other Immortals—who have been studying the problem for something like two hundred years, but so far the consensus is that an Immortal’s physiology changes too much in the transition to be compatible with a human woman for the purposes of procreation.”
“But what about Immortal women?” She winced. “I mean…not that you…personally…but couldn’t an Immortal man and an Immortal woman…?”
“Um, no, actually. There aren’t any Immortal women—well, that’s not quite true. Rhys’ wife Amy is an Immortal. But she’s a special exception to the rule, as far as we know, the only woman to ever go through the transition.”
“So, no women?”
“Uh, not Immortal ones, no.”
Though she wanted to hold on to it, some of Max’s anger and hurt melted away. She knew Baron had always wanted children even more than she did. As teens, during some of their short-lived ceasefire moments, the two of them had talked about things like that. Hopes and dreams for their future. His had always involved a decorated military career and a big, healthy family.
She pulled him into her arms, the need to comfort overriding her desire for self-preservation. “Baron, I’m so sorry.” She tucked her head into his shoulder. Her voice was heavy with tears she promised herself she would not shed. Not now.
“Max,” he whispered, raising her face to his with a finger pressed lightly under her chin. “Max, whenever I let myself dream of what might have been—if I hadn’t been such an asshole to you, and if Jackson wasn’t my brother, and if maybe I had handled things differently that night we spent together—” She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he shushed her with his finger over her lips. “Useless words you don’t deserve, I know. But let me finish.”
He removed his hand and she nodded, remaining silent. “If ever I could have had children,” he continued. “I would have wanted them with you. Our children would have been so beautiful and brilliant and strong. You would be a fabulous mo—”
“Oh God, Baron, don’t do this to me now. Please don’t,” her voice broke, but the tears still did not fall.
Max put her hand over his mouth and shook her head, returning his look of sorrow with her own. She was completely naked and vulnerable to him now, but told herself that they deserved to have the truth between them—just this once.
Even if it was too late for anything else.
“The ironic thing,” she whispered on a sigh, “is that I probably can’t have children now anyway, not like this. And even if I could…what kind of mother drinks blood and can’t even see her children off to school in the morning without slapping on the SPF 200 first?” She felt a stab of pain in her chest as the images of smiling children who would never be born started to fade from her mind’s eye. “I guess we were just never destined to have that life.”
Baron lifted her face with both palms cupping her cheeks and tenderly kissed her brow, running his thumbs along the high planes of her cheekbones and over her lips. “I would give anything to be able to go back and have that life with you. I want you to know that.”
Max refused to say the same, refused to let those words mean anything to her.
She clenched her teeth tightly together, twisting her head away. “Don’t.”
He looked at her for a moment in silence, then dropped his hands to his sides. She caught a flash of something in his face before it was masked behind stony indifference. Regret? Hurt?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. Baron had no right to hurt. He had made his choices.
So why did she feel the loss of his touch so keenly?
Part of her wanted to lean back into him and let him keep touching her. Ah, but she didn’t. She caught the impulse and forced herself to focus on what really mattered. It was important that they get to the bottom of this conversation once and for all.
“I still don’t understand why you never came back home. If only f
or your brother. Why desert Jackson that way?” she asked. “No visits, no more letters or emails or phone calls. All of this sounds really crazy and you would have had a hard time convincing me two years ago—heck, two days ago—that you had somehow become this Immortal demon hunter guy…but Jackson would have believed anything of you, if you’d only given him the chance. Jackson and I both would have tried to understand and to support you.”
God, was that even true? Would she, could she have understood? Or would her bitterness over their past have made her biased as soon as he opened his mouth?
“You could have come home,” Max said again. Oh, how she hated this perpetual state of confusion. She had been on the verge of drowning in a sea of deception and half-truths since waking up from her living death to find Baron at her side.
“No.”
“That’s it? That’s your big explanation? No?”
“Look, I send him money every month.” They both knew full well it wasn’t nearly enough, wasn’t even close to what Jackson really needed from his big brother. And Max let him know with a loud snort what she thought about that lame-ass comment.
Baron moved from the bed to go back to pacing the floor. “Do you think it was easy for me to walk away?” he asked, turning back to her, letting her see his tortured face, stripped of the walls and barriers, his pain naked and bared for her to see. “You don’t understand what it’s like. What it’s been like my whole life. It was bad enough when I was a kid. Every time I left the house when he had to stay home stuck in that bed. Every time I went on a date, or played a ball game. I felt like such a shit just for being healthy. And now? How was I supposed to go to him and say ‘Hey, man, I know you’re dying from leukemia and all, but look at me—I’m young and healthy and strong, and oh, by the way, I’m immortal now too. Never gonna die’?”
She wanted to weep for him, for them both. The two brothers.
Instead, she crossed the room to Baron and squared her shoulders. “Gee, Baron, embellish much?” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm as she punched him in the ribs. Granted, she understood this situation wasn’t entirely his own fault, but Baron was doing too fine a job playing the victim, and she’d had about enough of it.
“You’re pretty good at making excuses, you know that? To me. To Jackson.” She looked down her nose at him and sneered. “Man, what a disappointment you are.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his voice rising. Well, at least she had him angry, his mind dragged out of the pity party he would have her buy into.
“It means the man that I knew—the man that I respected even though he drove me crazy—wouldn’t have let any of this bullshit keep him from doing what was right.” She poked him in the chest. “And from taking what he wanted.” Another poke, harder. “And from damning to hell anyone who couldn’t deal with it.”
Baron grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t poke him anymore, and they glared at each other hotly, her heavy breaths mingling with his steady, controlled ones in the air that roiled between them.
“Don’t come crying to me now about poor Baron. You have everything, a brother who loves you and wants you to be by his side even after all of the crap you put him through, even after you let us think you were fucking dead. You bastard.” She yanked her hand back and sneered at him. “You…you didn’t give anyone a chance to believe in you, to trust in you. Not me, not him. You just ran. You ran like all men do.”
“All men, Max?” Baron’s voice held a thinly veiled thread of anger that betrayed his rising temper. “Don’t make this be about you and your father.”
She shoved him, anger pulsing through her at a steady drum once again.
“Goddamn you to hell.” This whole day had been one big emotional roller coaster, and now they all fused into one massive lump in her throat that threatened to choke her.
“Right back at ya, babe.” He growled, grabbing her arms, pinning them to her sides in an attempt to keep her from inflicting any more damage to his person. She was twisting and writhing, needing an outlet, something to hit, a release of her pent-up fear, anger and regret.
“Hey,” he said again, shaking her. “You’re right about one thing.”
“Yeah,” she spat, “what’s that? That you’re a coward? A lying, irresponsible, hateful coward?”
He leaned in close, his glittering silver eyes flashing with white-hot fire.
Her breaths grew shorter, quicker, her chest rising and falling fast and heavy against his as he held her tightly to him. Her nipples tingled, growing into hard little buds, sensitive and achy.
Damn him.
“You’re right that the old Baron would have just taken what he wanted and to hell with the rest.”
She knew it was coming.
And, God, she wanted it. She met it head on and welcomed it with everything she was.
When Baron smashed his lips to hers, it was brutal and hard, making her moan. She reveled in the freedom of her response.
This wasn’t about love. It wasn’t about trust. It wasn’t about the future.
This was about the here and now. It was about anger and desperation. It was about an affirmation of life, a confirmation of humanity, and the simplicity of release.
She could deal with that.
All the rest would have to wait.
Chapter Twelve
Max pulled frantically at Baron’s shirt, wanting his bare skin under her fingertips. He groaned, quick to prove just how eager he was to accommodate her.
Reaching up, he pulled it up over his head and tossed it aside without a thought, his mouth leaving hers for a fraction of a second before coming back, hard and insistent, tongue probing against her lips for entrance. She sucked him into her mouth in one great breath, loving his growl of pleasure, impatient for more.
“Max,” he grumbled between hot, wet kisses, “take off your shirt.”
She must not have responded soon enough, because in one smooth, practiced move, he had gripped the neck of the thin cotton T-shirt and torn it in half right down the middle, pulling the shredded sides apart to bare her braless breasts. Her nipples were already pebbled and tight.
With a glance down, she gave him a negligent shake of her head and a little smile. “It’s your shirt. I guess if you want to destroy it, I’ve got no problem with that.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I wasn’t planning on using it for a while anyway.”
He took a half step back, staring down at her. “God, you are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.” He pulled her close again as if he couldn’t bear not to be touching her.
“Baron,” she pleaded, knowing exactly what she wanted. He knew it too. Knew what to do to drive her wild with need. Hell, she was already halfway there, and they were just getting started.
Just getting started. A great shiver of anticipation raced down her spine.
He dragged the remains of the shirt down over her shoulders, but only to her elbows, effectively trapping her arms as he gathered the fabric with one hand at the small of her back, twisting the folds into a knot that he pulled tight.
She wiggled experimentally, and sure enough, in this position he had her virtually immobile. Her arms were stuck behind her, thrusting her breasts forward, on display for him, a position Baron wasted no time taking full advantage of.
His mouth latched on to one rose-colored nipple, tongue teasing the hypersensitive bud while his free hand plucked at the other. The ruthless torment sent delicious lightning shocks of pleasure through her, and she felt her knees weakening, her legs turning to rubber. They weren’t going to hold her any longer.
She needed a bed. What luck—there happened to be one just a few steps away.
Max tested the restraints, pulling her arms against the cotton that bound them. She took a step back, trying to force him to let her go so they could move to the bed.
He released her nipple, his hot breath teasing the tight peak. “Ah-ah. No you don’t.” Baron smiled, but his voice was hard, offering her no mer
cy. The hand still holding her arms behind her back tugged a little more, tightening the cotton around her elbows, and Max groaned.
He leaned in close, the sound of his voice low and gravelly in her ear, making her shiver. “You’re going to stand there nice and still and let me do exactly what I want. You don’t move until I say you can move.”
She moaned softly, her head falling back as she arched her spine, pushing her breasts higher, wordlessly urging him to touch her and taste her again. When he didn’t move to take her aching nipple into his mouth, she squirmed closer. “Please, Baron.”
“Not good enough, Max,” he bit out, his amazing eyes turning a cloudy steel gray with the force of his desire. “Tell me.”
She knew what he wanted, of course. And if she didn’t comply, she thought he could hold out on her for a very long time. “Baron,” she groaned, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You’re very cruel.”
“Tell me.”
She twisted and writhed in his arms. Baron and Max had had one night together before this. One night of mind-blowing, crazy-hot sex. And while the after part had been one of the worst moments of her life, the during part had proved just how good the two of them could have been together. Truly inspirational.
He knew just how far to take her, just how much to push her.
And Max knew exactly how much to give…and what to hold back and make him work for.
“I want you sucking on my breasts,” she demanded, thrusting forward again, the ache between her legs intensifying. Almost unbearable already.
He chuckled. “That’s my girl,” he said. But instead of complying with her command, Baron leaned in and just barely grazed the tip of one tight nipple with his raspy tongue, then came back for another, longer lick, his eyes locked on hers, never wavering.
The torture was exquisite as he slowly built the tension higher, fanning the flame inside her from an already lively spark to an inferno of need, first flicking, then swirling his tongue around her nipples, one then the other. When he finally took her fully into his mouth and gave a good hard suck, she couldn’t hold back the scream that erupted from her lips. She closed her eyes, squeezed her fingers into fists at her back and bit her bottom lip hard enough to get a small jolt from the coppery tang of her own blood.
