Every Witch Demon but Mine (Maeren Series Book 1)

by Mercedes Jade

  She reached behind her for the post, clenching it in her hands as he neared.

  No touching!

  “You creamed your panties, so don't pretend it isn't mutual,” he taunted.

  Even his crude reference to the state of her arousal turned her on more. She wanted him, but his knowing it, drove her crazy.

  He was overbearing and too sexy for her to keep resisting if she didn’t get him out of her room soon.

  She let him have her sexpot voice again, turning up the heat.

  “Sugar, you’re not the only male in this castle with a nice set of fangs. In fact at the next tasting ball—”

  He laughed at her. Arrogant jerk.

  “Little liar. You turned down every male before me at the last ball. The only other male tasting you snuck in afterwards. He wasn’t able to meet your needs.”

  “That was a mistake, soon to be rectified,” she said.

  Somehow, she kept the confession about Phillip’s stolen taste locked behind her lips.

  Daemon pressed so close that she had to crane her neck back, feeling the post dig into her scalp.

  “Bossy witch. I promised to wait for you to ask for it.” He tilted his head and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “No touching. No biting. No feeding. No fucking,” he reminded her. “All that’s left to ask for is fucking and you will beg for it, Elizabeth.”

  She growled at him, pure frustration venting.

  She wanted it. Why couldn’t he toss her on the bed and give her the fucking they both needed?

  As if he was reading her mind, he picked her up, bringing her closer to his eye level. He settled his erection against her.

  He was demon big everywhere. Between her wet drawers and his strained pants, there wasn’t anything left to the imagination. Her thighs wrapped around his hips as she held on.

  “I wanted to fuck you from behind, harder than that spanking,” he told her.

  “Better work on your foreplay,” she taunted.

  He ground against her, unyielding as the post behind her.

  “I will have you, all of you. I’m going to sink my fangs into your sweet neck when I fuck you, make you so desperate for it that I’ll slide right in until you’re so full of me that you won’t be able to deny you are mine.”

  “You're still an ass,” she hissed at him, tempted to grind against him and end it.

  He rocked against her and dropped his head to nuzzle her neck.

  “I want you,” he breathed against her ear. “But my wants can’t come first. You needed that spanking to be shocked into realizing the danger you seem so intent on ignoring.”

  “Consider me warned,” she bit out, finally letting go of the post. “Put me down,” she demanded, finally placing her hands on his chest and pushing.

  He swore but backed off, his hands lingering on her thighs as he unwrapped her from his hips.

  With a chaste press of his lips to her forehead, he left.

  What Nightmares Come

  Dream

  Undeclared

  He barely made it to the toilet, vomiting up dinner and retching a few more times after pouring a pail of water to flush the acidic contents.

  Only halfway done with his interrupted task, he grabbed the dagger’s metal grip again and let it turn red hot with his fire before shoving the flat of the blade down onto his chest.

  His unshielded flesh burned, but it wasn’t that pain that had him retching again—the pain he’d fucking earned. It was the stench of his flesh melting and cauterizing under the knife.

  The smell of flesh burning . . .

  He shook his head to clear it.

  He was one ugly monster, covered in scars that would make his harem witches shudder if they caught sight of one.

  His chest had some of the ugliest marks, the thickest band of scar tissue on his left shoulder tightening painfully as he heated the dagger again.

  He reached across to lay the fired dagger against the deep wound on his right. The stench gagged him, but he forced himself to breathe through his mouth and hold on to the count of ten.

  He made it to eight.

  The knife clattered to the ground as he dropped it, pivoting to get back to the toilet . . . but his vision blacked, his body crumpling half onto the countertop.

  So damned weak!

  Pushing up on his forearms he glared at his reflection. He raised his left hand in defiance, letting it spark with lightning.

  The red-hot knife had been nothing like this new agony as he let lightning purify his flesh and seal the wound.

  This time there was no fighting his unconsciousness as his shoulder muscles spasmed in shock.

  He reached out with one bloody hand to smear the mirror as he started to fall, unable to stop his descent, to keep focused on the frightened blue eyes of the witch reflected there as she watched him drop out of sight with horror.

  She knew, he thought, as his body met the hard knife and ice-cold floor. He had seen her, and she saw him.

  Letting the hot poker in his shoulder take him into unconsciousness, he smiled.

  Black Magic

  Eizabeth

  “Hello, sleeping beauty.”

  Jill was up first, again. Given Jill’s early shifts at her hospital job in the human realm, Elizabeth wasn’t that surprised her sister was awake.

  Why Jill thought she would also want to be up this early, especially without coffee available in hell, was the real mystery.

  Elizabeth clutched a pillow over her head. She could investigate this mystery in a few hours, if her sister took the hint and left her alone.

  The nightmare Elizabeth had, after going to sleep angry and aroused from her fight with Daemon, kept her up for hours.

  Her nightmare couldn’t be real. A healer covered in so many scars?

  The vampire that had fixed her broken leg had immediately come to mind when she woke. He had tasted her blood, so he could have formed a blood bond.

  If it was anything like Daemon’s blood connection to her, perhaps it let her lightning connect their minds, accidentally, in her sleep, when her barriers were weaker.

  Except, the nightmare vampire had used magic the one that tasted her hadn’t possessed.

  Her healer’s powers had been fire and earth. He’d even declared their magics incompatible after he’d tasted her. It was a close call she would not soon forget.

  It had to have been just a dream, a terrible, frightening dream. Her troubled mind must be combining her fears and mixing up reality in a paranoid fashion.

  “Go away, Glinda. We’re supposed to be nocturnal creatures. Getting up early isn’t natural,” Elizabeth said with a groan, muffled by her pillow.

  She repeated it in her sister’s mind, to be sure the message was received.

  “No way. You are not ditching me again,” Jill said, unrelenting.

  “It’s breakfast with a couple of princes. They’re probably still sleeping off their midnight feed. Or maybe they’re still sleeping with their midnight feed,” Elizabeth countered, not ready to give in yet.

  “I doubt it,” Jill slyly replied.

  Elizabeth whipped the pillow off of her head, not believing what Jill was letting her see.

  Jill fed William and Phillip last night—at the same time.

  “You fed them both last night?” Elizabeth asked with telepathy.

  She’d been shocked awake, sitting up in the bed to eye her sister.

  “It’s complicated,” Jill demurred, a blush already on her cheeks.

  Elizabeth scoffed. She wasn’t letting Jill get off without more details.

  “Well, I guess it’s not straight vanilla given there are two guys, but a sixty-nine doesn’t take a rocket scientist–”

  “They fed on my wrist and neck. Geez, you have such a filthy mouth,” Jill complained.

  “One, we’re not talking, so it’s filthy thoughts. Two, what the hell are you doing? Mom is going to flip out. Seriously, her temper will be measurable on the Richter scale,” Elizabeth pred
icted.

  “That’s why you need to get up. We must talk before meeting them for breakfast,” Jill explained, speaking out loud again.

  Elizabeth lied back down. The pillow went on her head.

  Phillip had totally gotten it wrong on which Norwood sister was going to start a harem.

  “Five more minutes,” Elizabeth begged.

  It seemed her sister was struggling to keep her hands off of the hot princes of hell as much as Elizabeth had been with Daemon.

  “There’s no snooze button in hell,” Jill told her.

  Jill yanked the pillow off of Elizabeth’s head to whack her with it.

  That was it!

  “I’m going to melt you and the ruby slippers, Glinda,” Elizabeth threatened.

  Elizabeth grabbed the pillow back and returned the fluffy hits to Jill as good as she got, jumping off the bed and chasing her sister around the room.

  They were loud, shrieking and laughing like children, jumping on the furniture and knocking things over, when Daemon suddenly walked into her room unannounced.

  Possibly, they had not heard him knock, but given the number of times he had entered her room without permission, she would not give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Whoa. Demon at three o’clock,” Jill announced in her thoughts.

  Elizabeth stopped running and shrieking like a banshee. She patted down her gown, brushing a few feathers off.

  They really provided excellent linen and pillows at the castle.

  “Good morning,” she greeted Daemon as civilly as possible.

  He looked down at her chest a long moment before his gaze rose back up to hers.

  Her nipples pebbled against her nightgown.

  She snatched an intact pillow from the bed and holding it to her chest, while delivering a suspicious look to him.

  “There is a demon in your room. I can’t believe you gave me crap for a little double feed when you’re sleeping with a demon behind Mom’s back,” Jill whispered into her mind.

  “We are not sleeping together. Ever,” Elizabeth clarified.

  Daemon turned behind him to close the door, and perhaps, to give himself a moment for composure. At least, he hadn’t mentioned anything about the chaotic scene he’d interrupted.

  Why would the floor not swallow her up?

  First, he spanked her like a child, and then, she acted like a big kid in front of him.

  “Jill, I presume,” Daemon said to her sister.

  He didn't reach his hand out to shake, but Jill did, from ingrained habit, and he took it.

  “Humans shake hands,” Elizabeth reminded her.

  Jill dropped his hand like a hot poker.

  “I’m Daemon,” he said, continuing the introductions.

  Belatedly, Elizabeth realized she should have been the one introducing them. She noticed he didn’t give his title.

  It was too early in the morning for decorum.

  “She knows who you are, just not why you are in my room,” Elizabeth said, trying to sound firm and unruffled.

  “I came to apologize for last night. I may have taken things a bit too far with my enthusiasm—”

  “Oh. My. God. Wicked,” Jill screeched in her mind.

  Elizabeth cringed. This was what came of texting over talking to people. You started thinking in texts and autocomplete conclusions.

  “—to protect you,” Daemon finished.

  “He is not talking about sex. I already told you we didn't sleep together,” Elizabeth said.

  “Then what is he apologizing for doing?” Jill asked.

  “Spanking me,” Elizabeth answered, without further explanation.

  “Apology accepted. Please leave. I need to get dressed,” Elizabeth said to Daemon, ignoring her sister’s second punctuated-text thought to her kinky revelation.

  Elizabeth pointed to the door with the pillow.

  Daemon leaned back against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “Go ahead. I can wait with Jill.”

  There was a privacy screen and even a small ensuite for her to go into and change, but Elizabeth couldn't believe he was serious.

  He looked at her chest in the nightgown again, as if he could see through the sturdy material.

  This time she reflexively looked down. Her nipples were hardened and stuck out, like he had touched them with his first look.

  She clutched the pillow to her chest once more and delivered a harder glare to him.

  “Get out!” she ordered, marching towards him.

  “It would be rude to leave Jill alone, while you get dressed. Besides, I haven’t gotten to know your sister yet. I hear she has Phillip aflame with her blue fire.”

  She slowed her march. Daemon was checking out her family. This could be dangerous.

  “We actually have an appointment this morning, Prince Daemon. Elizabeth knows we should hurry. Perhaps we could talk another time,” Jill offered.

  Jill sounded soft and sweet as she tried to convince Daemon to leave. Elizabeth could have kissed her for it.

  “Breakfast? Phillip and William? The west garden balcony?” Daemon asked, confirming their meeting details.

  How did he get his information so early in the day? He had to be a morning bird, just like Jill, or he didn’t sleep.

  He also was spying on her. Between his knowing about the twins at the library and this meeting with Phillip and William this morning, she was sure of it.

  What to do about it was less obvious.

  Elizabeth grabbed her heavy suitcase, using some air to help her. She needed to change first. Her current night clothes left her too vulnerable to him.

  He was going to invite himself along for breakfast. She didn’t need to look into his thoughts to realize it.

  “Yes, my sister and I were invited for a private breakfast with Princes Phillip and William,” Elizabeth said, trying to block him anyway.

  “I have some business with Phillip myself this morning,” Daemon announced.

  Big surprise. This was going to be a disaster.

  “Keep him busy, Glinda,” Elizabeth ordered as she made her way to the ensuite to change.

  “Don’t leave me with him, Wicked. He hasn’t had breakfast yet and the way he looks at you makes me think he’s very hungry. How can you not be sleeping with him?”

  “He will behave. He wants to go to the gardens with us for some reason.”

  “Probably because he wants to keep you to himself and he knows Phillip is thinking of adding you to his harem, remember?”

  “There are easier ways to post a no-fishing sign.”

  “He’s looking at your ass.”

  Elizabeth pivoted in front of the ensuite and shot Daemon a suspicious look.

  He didn’t even try to hide that he was checking her out and looked disappointed that she had interrupted his view.

  “Pervert!” Elizabeth said.

  “Uh, you said that out loud, Wicked.”

  Daemon left the door to prowl up to Elizabeth. He grabbed the suitcase from her and floated it with air to the bathroom. He yanked the pillow next and tossed it on the bed.

  She tried to cross her arms in front of her chest, but he pulled her against him.

  He kissed her, right in front of Jill. It was closed-mouthed, hard, and over before she could protest.

  “You are gorgeous,” Daemon said, releasing her.

  “Maybe, I should leave you two alone,” Jill shyly whispered along her thoughts.

  “That is a terrible idea.”

  “You are a flatterer,” Elizabeth accused Daemon.

  She had literally rolled out of bed and gotten into a pillow fight with her sister. Her hair was a mess, she was sweaty and dishevelled, and she desperately needed to brush her teeth before he got that close to her mouth again.

  “If I wasn’t convincing enough, let me try again,” Daemon said, trying to get her back into his embrace with a push of his air from behind her.

  Elizabeth slammed her hands against his chest, using her own air,
and pushed him back.

  “Remember the rules,” she told him.

  “I don’t remember ‘no kissing’ being one of them,” he retorted, but he let her push him back a step. “No biting, no—”

  Before he could recite the more titillating rules in front of her sister, Elizabeth slapped a hand on his mouth.

  “I am aware of the rules. I set them.”

  She released his lips before he did more than nibble on her baby finger.

  What had gotten into him?

  He had been bold with her before, but she thought he would be more restrained in front of an audience.

  “I’m getting dressed,” Elizabeth said, deliberately giving Daemon her back.

  Jill could deal with him for a few minutes.

  “Wicked, this isn't fair.”

  “It’s payback for waking me. Besides, there's no way to get him out of this room before he's ready. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

  As heartless as she sounded, Elizabeth was worried about leaving Jill alone with Daemon.

  All she needed was for Jill to have one of her panic attacks.

  Elizabeth quickly grabbed the first gown in her suitcase out and pulled it over a simple chemise and cotton drawers. There wasn't time to waste on the row of buttons at her back.

  She didn't hear screams or thoughts for help yet, so she gave herself a minute to brush her teeth. Another minute let her splash some water on her face, towel off, and run a brush through her hair.

  She burst back outside the ensuite door looking for carnage.

  Daemon and Jill were seated by the vanity.

  Jill's hand was encased in black flame that quickly caught and travelled to cover the rest of her body.

  Her sister disappeared into the lightless fire, like stepping into shadows. If it had been dark, Jill may have been completely hidden from sight.

  Only the giggle coming from within the shadow flame stopped Elizabeth from running to her sister's rescue.

  She tried to speak to Jill's thoughts, but the flame acted like a high level fire shield, keeping Elizabeth’s more delicate lightning out.

  “Jill's a natural,” Daemon commented. “She really ought to come to the practice room some time and try out a fire sword. She tells me she has trained in martial arts.”