by Eva Chase
“Leland’s hostility has nothing to do with his feelings about you, only about me. Believe me, if I’d thought he was relevant, I’d have mentioned him. There isn’t anything else worth mentioning, so why don’t you all go raid my kitchen again and give me a break?”
Thorn’s face tightened, but he inclined his head. “If that is what you require. We will ensure your living space remains secure while you dine.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes, but he’d already turned his back. Snap slipped away too, still with a confused air that I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt over.
Ruse had eased back a step, but he lingered in the hall, his head cocked.
“You deserve much better than that dingus anyway, you know,” he said. “He didn’t have the slightest concern for your well-being or pleasure, only what he felt he was missing out on.”
My hackles came up. “I told you to stay out of my—”
He held up his hands with a softer smile than usual. “I didn’t need any mystic awareness to pick up on your discomfort,” he said. “My regular senses work just fine. And you never said I shouldn’t see what I could make of other people’s emotions. His weren’t subtle at all. I guarantee I could take you to heights he’d never even have bothered to attempt.”
The seductive timbre of his voice sent a giddy shiver through me, stirring up the memory of our short interlude this morning. But he didn’t stick around in any attempt to persuade me, just popped his dimple at me and turned to follow the others.
As the disdain he’d shown for Leland sank in, something clicked in my head. “You tripped him, didn’t you? In the theater?” I said, remembering how Leland had gone sprawling out of nowhere. He’d never been particularly clumsy—and he’d been walking where the shadows of the chairs fell. It wouldn’t have been hard for a shadowkind to extend just enough physicality to knock a mortal off his feet.
Ruse glanced back at me with a cheekier smile. “I figured he had it coming to him.”
He’d acted on my behalf—because the way Leland had treated me and thought about me had actually bothered him? If it’d only been a ploy to win my affection, he’d have brought it up himself. I could easily have never realized.
The incubus was continuing on his way. “Wait,” I said before he could reach the kitchen.
He stopped and turned all the way around, lifting an eyebrow in question. I didn’t normally find myself speechless around the shadowkind or, well, anyone, but just this once, my mouth had gone dry. I scrambled to sort out the mess of emotions and impulses racing through me.
Ruse needed this. Maybe I did too. Why should I care what Leland or any guy before him had thought? If heights were being offered, I wouldn’t mind going flying. I didn’t know much about the incubus, but I was pretty sure at this point that, at the very least, he wasn’t out to hurt me in any way.
And when would I get a chance like this again? Tomorrow they might find the lead they needed and give up the whole protection scheme.
“You think you can do so much better?” I said. “Let’s see you try.”
A pleased glint lit in Ruse’s hazel eyes. He strolled back to me. At my gesture, Pickle leapt onto the bookcase just inside the bedroom and tucked himself away in the felt cave of a cat bed that sat on the top shelf, filled with rags he’d shredded. I raised my chin to meet the incubus’s gaze in challenge.
“I’m so glad you’ve reconsidered,” Ruse said, all smoothness and charm, but I thought I caught a hint of relief in his expression too. The earlier “snack” had only delayed his starvation a smidgeon. Of course, if I was going to give him anything more than that, we had a negotiation ahead of us.
I eased farther into the room so Ruse could come in after me and set my dinner down on the vanity. It could wait a little longer with this other hunger stirring inside me. I fingered the fabric of my blouse over the badge I’d returned to my undershirt. The incubus might not be able to see it, but the presence of those metals would prickle at his senses.
“It’ll be even more enjoyable with the special effects,” he said. “But if you’re uncomfortable with me using any of my influence, I can hold back without your protective patch. My skills would hardly be worth bragging about if I didn’t know how to ply my trade with the same parts any mortal can put to good use.”
My hands dropped to the hem of the blouse. “You can feed, however exactly that works, but I don’t want you peeking at anything inside my head—or heart—or creating feelings with your powers.” A flicker of that icy panic passed through my chest. “Not even a tiny bit. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” Ruse said, with a grin that practically sparkled. “We can make this all about you, Miss Blaze. My most important need will be fulfilled perfectly by your fulfillment.”
My body quivered in anticipation. The heat already rising through me overcame the chill of my worries. Why should I let events from decades ago dictate what I got to enjoy right now?
I grasped my blouse and tugged it up over my head. When I’d tossed it over the bed post, I reached for my undershirt, but Ruse touched my hand to still it.
“Allow me,” he said, so low the words washed over me like a caress. I hesitated and then let my arms fall to my sides.
He leaned in, catching my mouth with his in the most delicate of kisses, like the brush of a butterfly wing. It shouldn’t have affected me much, and yet it set off a sizzle through my lips and a pang of longing sharper than I could ever remember feeling before. At the same time, he drew the thin cotton of my undershirt up, skimming over my skin and grazing my nipples through my unpadded bra just firmly enough to provoke a jolt of pleasure through my chest.
He drew back for a second to flick the item aside, and despite my best efforts, a whimper of protest at the loss of contact spilled from my throat. Ruse smiled brilliantly as he gazed down at me.
“You’re lovely,” he said.
A giggle tumbled out of me. “I think we’re past the point of you needing to seduce me.”
“I’m simply making an honest observation.”
He tucked his arm around me as he claimed another kiss. My head reeled with it, but I didn’t intend to be the only one naked around here. As I drowned in the dark sweetness of his lips, I found the wherewithal to get to work on the buttons of his shirt. When I reached the collar, he shrugged it the rest of the way off for me without releasing my mouth.
Holy mother of miracles, his chest was as stunning as his face, all lean, sculpted muscle beneath creamy skin I couldn’t resist running my fingers over. It felt as good as it looked, firm and smooth. The flames of desire kindling between us set off another flood of heat through my body.
Ruse kissed me again, this time so hard it left my head spinning. Then he tucked his face close to mine, nipping my earlobe and murmuring, “There is one other power you might appreciate me employing. If you’d like, I can make sure no sound travels out of this room while we’re… occupied.”
Um, yeah, that sounded like a good idea. “Be my guest,” I managed to say over the eager thump of my heart.
He made a small motion with his hand and then brought that hand to the back of my bra. As the cups slipped from my breasts, he lowered his head to kiss my jaw and then my neck with careful attention.
His lips found every perfect point to spark bliss through my nerves. His hands stroked my breasts, his thumbs swiveling over both nipples at once, and a shuddering gasp tumbled out of me that made me abruptly glad he’d offered his soundproofing skill just now.
My hands settled on the incubus’s head of their own accord. As he trailed his mouth down the slope of my chest, my fingers curled into the thick waves of his hair—and brushed against those small horns that protruded on either side. Their curved surface was as hard as bone and faintly textured to the touch, but warm as skin. I grasped them instinctively.
Ruse let out an encouraging growl and swept me off my feet. For a second, I really was soaring—in his arms, from the middle of the room to the
middle of my bed.
The incubus bent over me, his gaze intent. His eyes flashed golden. The bright hue only stayed for a second before he blinked as if purposefully willing them back to their mortal-appropriate hazel.
I teased my fingers along his horns and back into his hair. “You don’t have to hide it. I know what you are. Let out your regular form if you want.”
Ruse smiled wryly at me. “Better not to when you aren’t quite as swept up in sensation as I’d usually ensure. It’s pretty… intense.”
I studied him. “Do you normally need to magically sweep women away before they’ll fall into bed with you?”
He dipped his head, teasing his mouth along the crook of my jaw, my earlobe, my cheek. “No,” he murmured between the tantalizing kisses. “I happen to only pursue women who are whole-heartedly interested in the general experience. Shame and regret spoil the meal. But certain aspects are better accepted by the mortal mind when I can bring all my powers to bear.”
I was about to argue that I could handle intense just fine without any voodoo, thank you, when he claimed my mouth again. The press of his lips was plenty intense on its own. Why argue when I could simply enjoy this?
He fondled my breasts as his tongue tangled with mine, alternately gentle and forceful at just the right moments. My skin was all but singing by the time he slid down to suck one nipple into his hot mouth, and then my nerves might as well have been performing a symphony. The only sound I managed to produce was a wordless moan.
His deft fingers made short work of the fastening on my jeans. As his lips and tongue drew every particle of bliss from my chest, the sensations flaring hotter and deeper with the graze of his teeth, he tugged my pants off me. One hand came back so he could work over both breasts at the same time to even greater effect, and the other drifted across my panties with a caress so light I couldn’t stop my hips from arching up in a plea for more.
“Patience,” Ruse drawled, the vibration of his voice bringing my nipple to an even stiffer peak. I clung to his hair. As he stretched out his torturously pleasurable attentions to my chest, I emitted all kinds of sounds I’d never have thought any man could drive me to produce. But this wasn’t a man, not really.
Right then, I’d have said give me a shadowkind lover over a mortal one any day.
Just as I reached the verge of begging, the incubus eased even farther down my body, and I realized what he’d meant about this encounter being all about me. He hooked his fingers around my panties to drag them down, and then his breath was tingling deliciously over my core. Every inch of me quivered in anticipation. I barely held myself back from yanking his face to me.
He didn’t extend the blissful torment too long. The tip of his tongue flicked over my clit at just the right angle. My hips jerked, and he held them while he brought his whole mouth down on me.
Lips and tongue and just the right hint of teeth, from that sensitive bud to my slit and back up again. The wave of pleasure that rolled through me shook a deeper moan from my lungs. Just like that, I was a goner. My head arched back, my eyes rolled up. I’d swear I saw shooting stars as I came.
Ruse wasn’t done with me, though. He chuckled against my sex and lapped his tongue over me. I shuddered and whimpered, clutching his horns again, and he penetrated me with a skillful swipe. The ripples of the orgasmic aftershock swelled into a renewed surge, rushing through me higher and faster as he brought his hand to bear too. The pleasure built with each thrust of his fingers and press of his lips until I was bucking to meet him with abandon.
The second wave of release raced through me from toes to head and then crashed with a shower of ecstasy. I cried out with it, just shy of sobbing. I didn’t know whether I deserved this bliss or whether I’d ruined myself for any regular man after this, but in that moment, I wouldn’t have traded the experience for a million dollars.
Ruse lifted himself up over me. The flush in his cheeks and the satisfied gleam in his eyes told me he’d achieved everything he’d been looking for out of the encounter even if he hadn’t gotten off. He leaned in to give me one last kiss on the cheek.
“That was perfect. I won’t keep you from your dinner. Adieu, until tomorrow’s adventures.”
He stroked his fingers down my side in a final caress, pulled his shirt back on, and left with a soft click of the door closing behind him. My gaze lingered there for a moment longer.
Who would have thought? When all this was over, I might actually miss one of these intruders, just a little.
7
Sorsha
Even at midday with the summer sun beaming, we only passed a couple of dog walkers on the narrow path the trio led me down through the city’s largest park. By the time Thorn came to a stop, we were completely alone in a denser stretch of trees. No sound reached us except the chirping of birds.
He motioned to where the path veered down a sharp slope ahead of us and passed beneath a broad concrete bridge. A vine clung to the rough cement surface. The drape of its leaves darkened the passage’s opening even more.
“Welcome to the jungle,” I muttered to myself. Despite the brightness of the day, this spot felt almost gloomy. “Is there a troll we should be paying a toll to?”
Ruse chuckled, but Thorn only frowned at me. “No trolls. Only enemy mortals, at least on certain occasions.”
The guy had no sense of monster humor. I glanced around. “This is where the hunters—or whoever they were—grabbed your guy?”
He nodded, pressing one hand against the other palm. To cover his unusual knuckles while we were out where mortals not in the know could see him, he’d pulled on a pair of fingerless leather gloves, the same fawn-brown as his skin and thin enough not to draw too much attention on their own. Having his hands even slightly confined appeared to irritate him.
“Omen had noticed something unusual in this area. There’s a rift between the realms not far from here, so shadowkind often pass through this area. We were… patrolling, searching for evidence. He told us to always remain in the shadows unless we needed to physically interact with an item. He slipped out for a moment just under the bridge—and they came at him from all sides in an instant.”
“You hadn’t noticed they were there?”
Ruse gestured to the trees on either side of the path. He was sporting a baseball cap to hide his horns, but somehow the sporty headwear didn’t diminish his roguish good looks in the slightest. “We were farther back, spread out away from the path,” he said. “I didn’t even see what was happening until they were already on him. I’d guess they were waiting on top of the bridge, ducked down behind the wall.”
Snap paused, his stance tensing as he eyed the structure. He’d seemed to take joy in just about everything he’d encountered in the mortal realm, but the attack here must have really shaken him.
“I could test the bridge,” he said, his voice more subdued than usual too. “Over and under. Even with the time passed, if I’m thorough I might be able to taste something about them.”
He walked on down the slope without waiting for our agreement. I glanced at Ruse. “Taste something?”
The incubus shot me a grin that set off a flicker of heat in my loins despite the situation. He’d disguised any weakness he’d been suffering from before well, but I’d definitely noticed more spring in his step since our encounter last night.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Come on. We did rush in after we heard the attack—let’s see how much of the scene we can reconstruct.”
“If we’d intervened in that first moment instead of holding back…” Thorn rumbled as the three of us followed Snap.
“We’ve been over this,” Ruse said. “Even you held back because Omen specifically ordered us not to fight any battles we weren’t sure we could win, and you could see that our chances were slim. Those jackasses were clearly prepared to fight—and capture—shadowkind, and there were at least twice as many of them as of us. They’d have taken us all, maybe to a worse fate than those ridiculous cages.�
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Thorn grimaced. “More than twice. There were ten. But in days past, I could have taken that many on my own. Perhaps I could have still. That’s why Omen brought me on.”
“You saw how quickly their methods subdued Omen—and he can put up a good fight when he needs to. I remind you again, you were following his orders.” Ruse flashed another grin, this one at his beefier companion. “So really, if it’s anyone’s fault Omen got captured, it’s his own.”
Thorn made an inarticulate sound of derision, but he stopped arguing. Before he could grouse about anything else, I waved my hand toward the arch of the bridge. “What exactly did you see when you made it over here?”
Thorn tilted his head to the side as he considered the scene. His eyes, so dark I could barely make out the pupils within the irises, went distant as he drew up the memories. The breeze stirred his moonlight-pale hair.
When he wasn’t talking or outright scowling, he really was something to look at. The scars that mottled his tan skin—one slicing across the bridge of his nose, another bisecting one of those hard cheekbones, various nicks dappling his brow and the edges of his jaw—only added to the valiant warrior vibe.
“There were the ten of them,” he said. “All wearing a sort of plating of silver and iron over their entire torsos and like helmets on their heads. When Omen lashed out at them, it burned him. He still managed to take one down—slashed through his throat just under his chin—there.” He pointed to a spot just beside the base of the bridge. No trace remained of the skirmish that I could see, but it’d been weeks, maybe months, and these people were obviously skilled at removing evidence.
“They didn’t have just armor,” Ruse put in. “Weapons too. Nets—not the dinky ones they use on the lesser creatures but like they were meant to haul in a boatload of fish, with silver and iron barbs all over. And these sort of whips that swung streams of light. I hadn’t seen those before. They caught Omen up in the bindings before he had a chance to escape into the shadows.”
