“Do you like it?” he inquired, focused on me.
“Oh yes,” dream me replied.
“As much as you enjoy me inside of you?”
“Never.”
My eyes narrowed on him. I didn’t know how he knew, but I became certain he was well aware I lay awake every night after this, yearning to be touched, desperate for release, yet finding none.
I’d awoken from the dream after.
Now, I stood on the training field with all of the humans who avoided me as if I not only had the plague, but also as if I stunk like I had been rolling around in garbage. Admittedly, I didn’t smell great. I was dirty and sweaty, yet I didn’t smell any worse than any of them.
I was a lot angrier than everyone else, testy as I battered at the straw dummy before me with a katana. All of the finesse moves I’d learned were gone out the window as I hacked the straw man into pieces so thin a mouse wouldn’t use them for a nest. Wrapping both hands around the handle, I lunged forward, driving the blade through the straw man’s heart, all the way to the hilt.
Someone chuckled from nearby. Bale stepped forward and pulled the katana free. “Not much in the way of skill, but it got the job done.”
“That’s what I do,” I muttered and wiped away the trickling sweat streaking down my face.
I was doing better than the other humans in the sweltering July sun; many had to take breaks to avoid heatstroke and a few had been admitted to the infirmary with it, but I rarely took a break. The heat was not helping my temper though.
I hated the surveying look in Bale’s striking, lime-colored eyes. I found myself scowling back at the demon who could probably rip my head off as a party trick. She smiled back at me. “Let anger fuel a battle, but don’t let it rule you in one.”
She handed the katana back to me and walked away with a sway of her hips that had the men nearby leaning back to watch her go. I envied her the ability to be so free with her sexuality, and if I didn’t believe my heart would become entangled in the whole mess, I would have jumped Kobal by now, consequences be damned.
However, I couldn’t put a Band-Aid on a broken heart. Not to mention the kick in the nuts my pride would take when he turned to another soon after. That would always make for a great first time experience—me wanting more of him, and him sleeping with another woman the next day.
I sliced the head off the straw man and kicked it across the ground. Humans jumped out of the way and glared at me. I glared back at them. I wasn’t in the mood for their shit today, or anyone else’s, especially not the giant mountain of a douche canoe who stepped forward to stand across from me. He glowered at me as intensely as I glowered at him.
The straw man’s head settled against his feet, appropriate as far as I was concerned. If he told me one more time I wasn’t concentrating enough during our special training time, I was going to make it impossible for him to even dream about having a hard-on.
“All right, everyone, let’s get back to work on some hand-to-hand combat!” Mac shouted from the top of the hill.
I smiled at Kobal as I drove the katana into the straw man’s groin. A few of the closest humans winced and scurried to get away from me. He simply lifted an eyebrow and maintained a bored expression that made my fingers curve with the urge to claw his eyes out of his head. That seemed like a more demonic instinct to me, or perhaps it was entirely human.
Kobal stepped forward to be my sparring partner, again. My skin came alive; I wanted to touch him, but at the same time, I dreaded having to touch him. The confusing impulses only made it all worse.
He feigned a punch at my head; I ducked back and blocked at the same time. Something went through his eyes when he launched another jab at me that I dodged. As he moved closer against me, I could feel the heat of his body as his jabs and swats came at me faster than they normally did, but I still fended him off, barely.
“Dick,” I hissed through my teeth when his speed picked up more.
“From what I’ve seen, you crave mine,” he said so low I knew no one else heard him.
I certainly hadn’t been expecting that from him. Excitement and resentment shot through me in equal measure. We’d never mentioned the dreams to each other; they’d remained this unspoken thing festering between us. We were both acutely aware of them, but neither of us knew how to deal with them.
Now, I felt an unraveling, a push and shove against the imaginary line we’d divided between us. He was looking to cross that line, to see how far he could push me before the line broke, and I was more than ready to push back. I’d had enough of this hideous standstill myself.
The only problem was, I didn’t know how I wanted it to end. My pride continued to war with my body. He was a demon, and I’d never be enough for him, never satisfy him, and I could never allow myself to be one of the many.
My mother had always been one of the many. I’d sworn my entire life I’d never be like her. I’d never let a man use me and toss me aside as she had over and over again through the years. She’d never stood up for herself. It would have been one thing if she’d been the one to decide the course of her relationships, but she’d always been the doormat for the new guy passing through our lives.
I wouldn’t be anyone’s doormat, not even a fifteen-hundred-year-old demon with the body of a Greek god and the personality of a crocodile. My hands moved faster as his jabs and swipes sped up. My breathing and his filled my ears as the world slid away and my vision became centered on him.
My body jerked as once again his moves unfolded in my mind before they came. This time, I didn’t block and dodge, but jabbed and punched myself. He jumped back, his stomach sucking in as he barely managed to avoid a roundhouse kick I swung at him. I leapt off the ground, knowing what was coming next before he released a kick that would have otherwise taken me off my feet.
I landed again and went at him in a one-two combo that had him dodging back before coming at me again. Knowing what was coming was barely enough to keep me ahead of him as exhaustion beat at me, but I refused to throw in the towel as he relentlessly pushed me backward.
My footing remained sure as we moved, not because I knew where I was going, but because I could see the path behind me through his eyes. All I saw was him and his punches before they came at me. All I heard were his breaths and grunts of exertion. His flesh was smooth beneath my hands, the muscles etched as they flexed and bunched.
I stepped to the side to avoid the large maple he’d been intentionally steering me toward in the hope of trapping me. The slap of our flesh against each other filled the air as we continued steadily across the field. I lost ground to him, but he didn’t take me down.
The battle didn’t relent as we headed toward the burnt out homes of the abandoned town beyond the training fields near where we practiced in the morning. We’d traveled almost two miles.
My legs wobbled and sweat stuck my clothes to me and slid down my face. He showed no sign of exhaustion or slowing as he continued to come at me. Down over the hill, we moved across the blackened grass and into the burnt out village of the damned as I’d come to think of it. My back stayed to the few houses that remained standing in the way, but through his eyes I was able to avoid walking into one of them.
He leapt to the side when I kicked out at him, my foot grazing his testicles. His head snapped toward me, his nostrils flared, but something had changed in him when he came at me again. Before he’d been trying to prove a point, to exert his dominance and bend me to his will. Now, I felt something sexual in the hands brushing over my flesh, sensed excitement building in his thrumming body.
I’d assumed nearly kicking him in the nuts would have incensed him; instead, it had brought everything to a whole new level. My own body reacted to it, and I edged closer even as I threw more punches and kicks his way. I thrilled in the feel of his hands against mine and relished the fiery scent of him filling my nostrils as my hands brushed over his sweat-slickened body.
He grunted when I finally managed to land a s
olid punch into his stomach. I dodged the sweeping kick he threw at me next. However, exhaustion made it almost impossible for me to avoid his following jab. I twisted to the side, but it still landed on my shoulder, knocking me back.
I’d anticipated darting to the side in order to avoid the wall of a charred house behind me. I managed to turn awkwardly in an attempt to do so, but before I could get completely out of his way, his hands crashed against the wall beside my head. The wall trembled behind me; dust and soot fell on my shoulders from the holes he’d punched through it.
He pinned me between his body and the crumbling remains of the building. His shoulders blocked out the sun behind him as he towered over me. My breath heaved in and out as I tried to catch it; every inhalation caused my breasts to brush against his solid chest. I half expected him to move away from me, yet he stepped closer.
My fingers curved into the wall behind me as I fought against grabbing him. There was a savage look on his face that had me desperate to feel more of him. His knee bent forward so it brushed against the outside of my right thigh in another move to keep me against the wall, but I found I didn’t care as long as he stayed there with me. The black of his eyes faded away to become molten gold once more. The beauty and wildness within those eyes caused my breath to catch when they blazed down at me.
The change of color was more a sign of his passion than the rigid evidence of his arousal against my thigh. His own chest heaved with his breaths, rubbing enticingly over my taut nipples as they strained against my shirt. A small sound, partially of desire and partially a plea to put me out of my misery either by kissing me again or walking away, slipped past my lips.
Please don’t walk away.
He didn’t do either of those things. His head bowed closer until I could feel his breath tickling over my face. Goose bumps erupted over my flesh when his lips brushed my ear while he spoke.
“Real life will be far better than any dream, River. I promise you, I’ll make you come harder than you ever have before.”
His ragged voice and the confidence of those words caused me to inhale sharply. My teeth bit my bottom lip, drawing his attention to it. A sound of hunger reverberated through him, and my breaths came more rapidly, driving my breasts more firmly against the unrelenting flesh of his chiseled chest.
I didn’t have a chance to respond before his hands fell to his sides. He gave me a look full of promise and turned away from me. He froze when he spotted the large crowd who had followed our battle since the start. His upper lip curved into a sneer at everyone gawking at us.
The demons stood at the front of the large group filling the burnt-out town. Their expressions were a mixture of amusement and intrigue. Our fight must have gathered soldiers from the town too, as the number of people around us was nearly triple that of the volunteers who had been on the hill training with me.
Most of them were slacked-jaw, some looked irritated by what they’d witnessed, and a few were staring at me as if I were the lowest life form in existence. I noticed those stares were mostly from the women, but there were a couple of men staring at me as if I repulsed them too.
Apparently, some people didn’t approve of interspecies relations, even if there weren’t any relations between us. Yet, I had to admit to myself. Weakling, I scolded afterward.
Turning back, Kobal took hold of my elbow and propelled me forward. I tried to pull my arm from his grasp, but he only clamped his hand more firmly around it. “It’s better if they know you’re under my protection.”
“I can protect myself,” I finally managed to protest as my exhausted legs strove to keep up with his lengthy strides.
His eyes had returned to black when they latched onto me. “You’re mine to protect now.”
“I’m not anyone’s. I am not a possession. I’m a person, sort of, and I’m not here for you to order about or for them to judge!”
The arrogant oaf didn’t bother to respond as he continued unrelentingly through the wasteland of the town surrounding us. I tried jerking my arm away from him again, but he held on. I could feel my blood pressure rising as my temples pounded with the beats of my heart.
In an instant, he faded away and all I saw were the burned out homes and landscape surrounding us. The blackened trees still standing amid the rubble stretched into the cloudless sky. A single crow sat on the branches of the only other living thing, a large maple tree near the edge of town. Some green grass peaked through the rubble here and there, but most of it was buried beneath the remaining wreckage of the leveled town.
After thirteen years, the smell of fire and death still permeated the area. Layers of blackened walls from the homes were stacked where they had fallen on the ground. Charred beams rose into the sky, and more than a handful of brick chimneys still stood as testament to the homes and people who had once loved, laughed, and died here.
Died. The breeze blowing over my skin dried the sweat on it and sent a shiver down my spine. Death, so much of it here and somehow I knew there was more coming.
Then I saw the eyes, or not eyes, as there was nothing within the shrunken, weathered eye sockets facing me from underneath the remains of a roof. Even if there was nothing left to stare from, I could feel its gaze on me. Around those empty eye sockets was a glistening rim of white bone. Shrunken and discolored skin stuck to its skull.
A hand slid out, the skin of it was grayed and flaking with decay. Bones poked out from the ends of its fingers. No clothing covered its withered chest and arms as it pulled itself from beneath the roof. My throat went dry as a strange combination of mummy and skeleton emerged from the wreckage.
It looked like it would fall apart at the same time fresh, slimy flesh adhered to its bony remains in some areas. It dragged its right foot behind it on the ground; the bones of its knees were clearly visible but green clumps of skin clung to its broken foot. The clumps fell off the creature as it moved forward. It may not have any lips, but I was certain it was smiling at me as its teeth chattered together.
So focused on that one, I didn’t see the others until more hands slid out from beneath other toppled homes.
“River. River.”
The abrupt tug on my arm caused me to blink. I shook my head to clear it of the images still filling my vision.
“River.”
I looked up at Kobal. He gazed at me with concern; the fine lines around his eyes and mouth were more visible as he stared at me. I had no idea why I hadn’t pulled him into this vision with me, maybe because I was so tired, but he hadn’t witnessed the insanity I had. What I’d seen simply couldn’t be true. Bones didn’t come to life and drag themselves from rubble.
And demons didn’t exist either.
“What did you see?” he demanded.
“Death,” I answered as the gleaming eye sockets of the first one emerged from beneath the house. “Death is here.”
CHAPTER 31
Kobal
River’s feet planted so firmly into the ground I almost lost my grip on her arm when she abruptly stopped walking. Turning toward her, I was prepared for whatever tirade she was about to unleash on me. Instead, I found her eyes glazed over. They had become the pale violet color they turned when she was in the grip of something beyond this world. They’d been the same way when we’d been fighting, but the color had flooded back into them as soon as she’d hit the wall of the house.
I pulled on her arm, hating the terror growing in her eyes and that she became so vulnerable when these visions took her over. I tugged on her arm again, stepping closer in the hopes of pulling her free from whatever held her.
“River.” She finally blinked, and her eyes returned to their normal amethyst hue when she came back to this world and herself. “What did you see?”
“Death. Death is here.”
My head shot up as I surveyed the horizon in search of more madagans or some other new threat. I saw nothing, but she’d seen something, and it was coming.
“Let’s go,” I commanded brusquely.
“It’s too late; they’re already here.”
I instinctively pulled her closer to me, determined to protect her from whatever she had seen. I didn’t care what happened to the humans surrounding us, nothing was going to harm her. My fangs lengthened, and my fingers curled into her arm as the possessive instinct hit me with far more force than it ever had before.
Mine! This time there was no brushing off the thought, no denying the strength with which it rocked me. My gaze fell to her shoulder, the one I’d often sank my fangs into in our shared dreams. I’d never marked a woman in such a way, never had the compulsion before, but I would mark her. I would claim her because she was mine, and now something was after her.
“Where?” I demanded.
Her hand pointed past me as something slithered free from the remains of a downed house. “Shit!” I hissed from between my teeth when the revenir rose to its feet and shuffled toward us.
Grabbing hold of her arms, I lifted her up and thrust her behind me. I steadied her when she wobbled for a second. “You stay behind me!” I commanded her.
“I’m supposed to fight these things, aren’t I?” she protested.
She was, but everything in me screamed against her going anywhere near abominations such as these. I knew what their presence here meant, but that was something I was going to have to deal with later. Right now, all that mattered was keeping River alive.
“Stay behind me!” Her chin tilted up at my harsh command, but I turned away from her before she could protest. “Revenirs!” I bellowed at the others.
Bale and Verin did a double take before leaping forward. The others moved toward the approaching revenir as my eyes scanned the large group of humans who had followed us here. Half of them had been on the training field and didn’t have guns; the other half had followed from the town and had weapons slung over their shoulders. I didn’t know if bullets would do anything against the revenirs. We were about to find out.
“Get your guns ready!” I shouted at the humans still unaware of the danger. “Mac, get them ready! And cover your ears!”
Good Intentions (The Road to Hell Series, Book 1) Page 22
