“Some protectors you are,” I muttered under my breath. They must have heard me anyway, because their expressions immediately turned dark. Menacing. It didn’t seem to be aimed at me though, each of the guys had turned inward, brooding.
“Hey, we got there in the nick of time, didn’t we?” Lachlan was the first to recover.
“I guess you did,” I agreed. I couldn’t exactly blame them, the club had been packed and I had been pretty close to the door already by the time I’d decided to slip outside. “What does this mean?”
“Well, you’re immortal, to start with,” Matteo said. “Unless you’re killed, of course.”
“Of course,” I repeated, as though it was a completely normal thing to have been told just about first thing in the morning.
“You also have good health and eternal youth,” Damon added.
“As well as certain powers and a couple of not so great things like-” Damon cut Rex off with a deep scowl.
“That we’ll explain later,” Rex finally finished, shooting Damon a meaningful look. “Right now though, we’ve got to go.”
“Go where?” I asked, clutching my kitchen counter. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I loved my cozy little house. It was close to work and I had decorated it top to bottom by myself. “This is my home.”
“We can talk about that later. The place we’re going to has been warded for your protection,” Matteo explained. “Luci will be able to get to you here, but not there. Not easily.”
“Who the frick is Luci?” I asked, my brows furrowing. And why did I need protection from her?
Lachlan sighed. “Luci is the succubi queen. She’s a thousand years old and she still hasn’t learned to share.”
“Share?” I squeaked. “Share what? I’m fine with not sharing anything of hers.”
Matteo guffawed. “That’s the problem, she sees this planet as hers, so you haven’t got much of an option but to share what she sees as hers.”
“She wants to be the one and only succubus.” Damon picked up on my confusion and elaborated on what the others were saying. “Whenever she senses a new succubus has come of age, she shows up with her goons and smites her.”
Panic unfurled in my stomach, making me feel nauseous and faint again. At least I knew what smite meant amidst all these things they were telling me that made no sense whatsoever. I definitely didn’t want to be smited.
Smut?
Smeet.
“Urgh,” I groaned, throwing my hands up in frustration. I was a damn librarian and in that moment I couldn’t even figure out if I was going to be smited or smeet.
The guys exchanged a confused look, shrugging at one another as if to say I don’t know either, man.
Damon straightened, glancing out of my kitchen window and then down at his watch. “It’s likely that she already feels your presence in the world, so we really need to be going.”
“Are you kidding?” Terror gripped at me, its icy fingers reaching into my very soul and latching onto my bones. My blood felt like it was literally running cold.
“Unfortunately, no, we’re not kidding,” Damon said.
“How am I, a brand new succubus who knows nothing of this life except that it comes with bigger boobs, supposed to protect myself against a thousand-year-old smiter?” I managed to ask, even though my mouth was suddenly bone dry.
“Eventually, you’ll learn to use your magic and figure out what you’re capable of,” Lachlan said, keeping a close eye on me to gauge my reaction. Matteo draped a comforting arm around my shoulders and I nestled thankfully into him despite myself, breathing in his scent.
“Magic?” I asked, my voice muffled by Matteo’s chest.
“Magic,” he confirmed.
Damon spoke up again. It was scary how quickly I was learning to recognize them, to read them. “Besides, protecting you is what we’re here for, remember? Satan loves all his children, he doesn’t want Luci killing all of his succubi, so he sent us to earth to protect you from her.”
His voice was confident, steady enough that I lifted my head from Matteo’s chest to drink in Damon’s enchanting eyes. “How many succubi have you protected?”
“You’re our first,” Lachlan said, puffing his chest and looking mighty proud of himself.
I screwed up my face as I did the math. “Wait. I’m not the first succubus to come into power since Luci started reigning as queen since you said she shows up and smites people, so where did the last pack of demon protectors go?” I asked.
The four strong, seemingly invincible demons in my kitchen blanched at my question and started fidgeting. Lachlan busied himself with packing away the cereal container and rinsing out the bowl, Matteo and Rex shifted awkwardly and even Damon averted his gaze for a second.
A sinking feeling ran through me as I scowled at them. “Tell me,” I insisted. “Or I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Luci killed them all, okay?” Damon snapped.
The icy tentacles of fear crept slowly around my heart again. “And the succubi they were sent to protect?”
The guys were quiet for a beat, then answered all at once.
“Yeah, her too,” Damon said.
“Burned alive,” Matteo muttered.
“Didn’t make it,” Rex said with a snick of his tongue.
Lachlan finished out the grim choir with a simple, “It was unfortunate.”
“Oh goodie,” I murmured, my heart pounding like a jackhammer against my ribs.
“We’re way better at our jobs than those bozos,” Lachlan assured me. “But you’ve got to let us do what we need to do and get you out of here.”
I was less than excited about the possibility of leaving with them, leaving my home, but it wasn’t like I had any better plan. “Promise you’re better than them?”
“Absolutely,” Damon said with a self-confident smirk and blazing eyes.
Holy orgasms, Batman! I thought, drinking in those eyes, the confident set of his jaw. If nothing else, my demon protectors were smoking hot. Not that I should’ve been thinking about that under the circumstances. My body, however, was a traitor in their midst and I couldn’t help the rampant desire coursing through my veins.
I could only hope that they are as deadly as they are sexy, else I was likely to be toast. “Okay, I’ll come with you.”
Lach’s eyes lit up and I could tell that he wanted to make some smart ass comment, though I didn’t know how I could tell. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, Rex interrupted him. “Right then, let’s go.”
“What do I tell my friends?” I asked dumbly. I had no idea how to pull a disappearing act in order to hide from a thousand-year-old paranormal queen.
“Whatever you want. Anything except the truth,” Matteo informed me with a slight smile. “Mainly because most people won’t believe you. It’s just simpler to make something up.”
“It’s got to be good, though. We can’t have them alerting the mortal law enforcement pricks if they suspect something,” Rex chimed in. “They get in the way if things go down.”
I didn’t even want to contemplate what “things” he meant.
“And it’s got to be something that will be believable in the long-term,” Lachlan added.
“How long-term?” My mind spun again. This was all real, I was about to leave my home and my life behind for who knew how long. I wanted to scream. Or faint. Or puke. Or all of the above.
Damon seemed to sense my discomfort, but didn’t make a move towards me. His eyes on mine, hypnotic in their intensity, were enough to calm me from my mild wave of panic. “We’ll talk about that later.”
“So we’ll just talk about everything later,” I mumbled as the guys discussed what I should tell my friends. They either ignored my mumbling or they hadn’t heard it over their spirited argument, but I suspected it was the former.
“Right,” Damon said with an air of finality that drew my attention back to them. “You’ll tell them that your mother is ill and that you have to leave to
wn.”
“They have her number, they might get worried and check in with her directly.” I pointed out the obvious flaw in their plan.
“Nah, leave that to us,” Matteo said, his aloof expression back in place.
“You should go pack,” Lach urged gently. “Just remember we’re traveling on bikes, so leave the kitchen sink behind.”
Matteo chuckled, but Damon and Rex started striding towards my bedroom. “Where are you going?”
They looked at me like I was the crazy one, then Rex answered my question as if he were confused by it. “We’re not letting you out of our sights until we get you where it’s safe.”
“Oh,” I managed to breathe, realizing that I wasn’t going to get a second alone to process what was happening or to collect my thoughts.
They moved like a single unit, completely in tune with each other and strangely, with me. I grabbed a dusty wheelie bag and Rex took it from me, laying it open on the bed. I frowned at him, but then whirled around to start randomly grabbing clothes from my closet.
I had no idea what I was packing, only ensuring that I had my favorite hoodie and my most comfortable jeans. Once I was satisfied that I had enough clothes, I lined my suitcase with books and then readied Maximus’ cage.
“You’re taking the ferret?” Rex asked, disbelief clear in his deep voice.
“Oh, hell no,” Matteo chimed in.
Lach and Damon waited for me to answer. Four pairs of eyes, so startlingly different in color, yet so similar in their intensity, glared at me. Four pairs of muscular arms crossed over their broad chests.
It was their dominant stances, their raised eyebrows that quite clearly conveyed the message that they expected me to leave Maximus behind, that finally made me lose it.
I snapped. “In the last twelve hours, I nearly killed a guy just because he wanted a kiss at the stroke of midnight, I learned that I have a she-devil who wants to burn my ass alive and that I have to leave my friends and family behind for a yet-to-be-determined length of time that we will talk about later. I’m taking my damned ferret with me.”
All four pairs of arms dropped to their sides, then Rex reached for Maximus’ cage. “Fine, let’s just get going.”
The others nodded in agreement and followed Rex and Maximus from my bedroom, armed with my suitcase and nothing else. I hesitated before following them out, giving my bedroom one last wistful scan and wondering if I would ever come home again.
The guys strapped my bag and Maximus to their bikes and gave me no more than a second to bid farewell to my cute little house, then it was time to leave it behind.
Destination: Unknown.
Chapter 4
The motorcycles roared to life, disrupting the usually quiet street. The guys swung their powerful legs over their metal steeds and Damon patted the seat behind him. “You’re with me for this part of the festivities.”
He held out a large hand to me, the muscles in his arms roped and bunching under his tattoos as he helped me onto the bike. He swung around to face me and secured a helmet carefully onto my head. His long fingers brushed against my cheeks as he fastened the clip and ensured that the fit was good. I shivered at his light touches.
Something flashed in his eyes, but it was gone before I could put my finger on it. He turned around again just as the others started revving and took off, taking my hands and wrapping my arms around his waist. “Hold on tight.”
My palms rested on what felt like steel under his shirt and my fingers itched to lift the thin material to trace the lines of the stacked abs that I could feel rippling beneath my hands. Heat radiated from his back to my chest, the muscles in his arms flexing as he eased the bike into the traffic and followed the others at breakneck speed.
On any other day, on any other bike, with any other man, except maybe the other three guys ahead of us, I would have been terrified. Nestled as I was to Damon, I found that I wasn’t terrified. I felt… safe, with them. Even though I’d known them less than a day.
Instead of focusing on my very odd lack of terror, I let myself breathe in Damon’s scent. It was a soapy, spicy, unashamedly masculine scent. It enveloped me despite the speed at which we were traveling and before long, I was lost in his brutal, unadulterated sexuality. It seemed to ooze and drip from him with every move that he made.
Combined with the vibrations of his bike against my suddenly super sensitive core, it took every ounce of self-restraint that I had to keep from doing something completely embarrassing like humping his sculpted ass.
I needed a release like I’d never needed one before, like I didn’t know was possible to need it. I bit into my lower lip to keep from moaning when Damon accelerated once we reached the open road. He tensed, as if he could tell what it did to me. I made a mental note to ask them if this was going to be a new thing with me, this insane need.
My cheeks flamed at the thought of having to ask something so personal to a bunch of hot strangers, but I doubted I was going to find the answer on Google. They’d promised that they would tell me everything later, I was just going to have to suck it up and ask when the time came.
We rode for about an hour and every minute was like pure, exquisite torture. My body was humming with need by the time we slowed outside massive stone walls that were broken only by heavy iron gates that started swinging open at our approach.
Instead of slowing down to wait for the gates to open completely, the guys gunned it through the space that had already opened. I gaped as a mansion came into view at the end of a long driveway, my arousal all but forgotten when it dawned on me that I would be staying there indefinitely.
It was probably the biggest house I had ever seen, built completely out of smooth stone that gave it a slightly medieval air. There were more windows than I would have expected in such a place, but they were dark and I couldn’t see through them.
The guys shut down the bikes and parked under a carport right outside of dark wooden doors.
“Welcome home, Stevie,” Damon said, extending a hand to help me off of the bike.
I nodded, but I was still too stunned to say much.
“Let’s show you around,” Lachlan offered, loping up the steps that led to the massive double doors. He threw them open like they weighed nothing and motioned me inside.
Flanked by Damon and Lachlan, they took me on the grand tour. And I do mean the grand tour. The house was huge and beyond frigging awesome. It even had a massive grotto like swimming pool and a huge gym and training area.
The room that was going to be mine was cavernous, with a four poster bed that was big enough to comfortably sleep a family of at least six and modern furnishings. It had a breathtaking view of lush greenery and mountains in the distance, with a bay window that was the absolute perfect spot for reading.
Lach watched as I took it in, a crease appearing between his arrogantly slashed eyebrows. “You can change whatever you want, think of it as a blank canvas.”
“It’s not that. It’s beautiful. It’s just...” I trailed off, not quite sure how to voice my feelings.
The place looked more like the places I’d seen on MTV’s Cribs than a house I ever thought that I would personally step foot in, never mind live in. The guys seemed completely at home there though, more relaxed than they had been even in my cozy little house.
I followed Lachlan back to the main room, barely able to concentrate as he pointed out several hallways and cracked jokes about the artwork that adorned the walls.
I started fidgeting with my fingers more and more with each step that we took. I was way out of my league here. The house, the bikes, the guys. This life. It wasn’t me. I had no idea what to do or how to act.
After the tour was done, Matteo and Rex grabbed my bag and looked reluctantly at Max’s cage before picking it up as well. “We’ll be right back, we’re just taking these to your room.”
I plopped down on a soft couch and buried my head in my hands, pressing the heels of my palms onto my eyes as I tried to make s
ense of the events of the morning. When I looked up again, Lachlan and Damon were frozen in the doorway, peering down at me patiently.
“Is life ever going to be normal again?” I desperately needed reassurance that it would.
They exchanged a long look, then came over and took a seat on either side of me. They sat so close to me that their arms grazed mine, but I was too numb with shock and grief for the life that I had been ripped from so unexpectedly to pay much attention to them in that moment.
“If you listen to us,” Damon started with gentleness that I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of, “and we all work together, your life can be extraordinary, Stevie.”
“More than you could ever have imagined,” Lachlan assured me. “It’s just going to take some getting used to.”
I was about to object when my stomach grumbled loudly. Lachlan grinned.
“And perhaps some food. You haven’t even had breakfast yet.”
Damon stood gracefully, then took my hand and tugged me to my feet. “Come on, let’s get some lunch into you.”
They led me to a gourmet kitchen the likes of which even some cooking shows would kill for. Damon turned me from the fridge. “What do you like to eat?”
“Why don’t you make sandwiches while I stress bake?” I suggested. I had to do something normal, no matter how menial it might seem.
“Stress bake?” Lachlan arched a brow at me, but started rummaging through the kitchen for equipment. “Okay, then. Look in the drawer over there for the rest of the stuff you’re going to need.”
He pointed to a deep drawer in the corner, juggling measuring jugs and mixing bowls in his strong arms. Damon pulled out ingredients for roast beef sandwiches while I made my way to the drawer Lachlan pointed to.
I unearthed an apron that said “Kiss the Cook” in bright red letters and slipped it over my head. The corners of Lachlan’s mouth curled up in a devilish smile when he noticed the apron, while Damon’s eyes traveled lazily to my mouth and were darkened when he met mine again.
As if nothing had happened, Damon went back to assembling the monstrous sandwiches he was busy making and Lachlan sank into a seat at the kitchen table and inclined his head at me. “So, stress baking?”
Her Demon Harem: Reverse Harem Duology 1 (The Succubus Chronicles) Page 3
