Love? Pfft. His idea of the emotion would be better defined as manipulation. But…the level of commitment he’d put into her life appealed to her in some bizarre way.
Micah replaced the skull head and kissed her shoulder as his wet, soapy hands circled over her belly. For the first time since beginning the shower, Nix’s scrutiny lowered, studying Micah’s movements. Madison’s face flamed hot.
His hands moved upward in wispy circular motions and soaped up her breasts and shoulders until bubbles tickled her nose. Madison attempted to regulate her breathing, but his caresses weren’t awful like they once were. He rinsed the suds away, and focused on washing her nipples. Her humiliation grew as Nix eyed the way Micah’s thumbs circled over and over around the peaked, achy nubs.
“They’re clean enough.” The rasp in her voice horrified her.
Micah nipped her earlobe. “Phoenix, do you like what you see?”
Nix peered over her shoulder at Micah. Madison had to give him credit. He hadn’t become aroused from watching her husband’s fondling. She had, but he hadn’t. What’d that say about her?
Nix blinked and his attention shifted to her. “You know she’s beautiful.”
Madison shivered.
“She’s perfect.” Micah dragged his tongue along the side of her neck, lapping up the water.
She clenched her teeth together when Micah attempted to press a hand between her legs. “Don’t.”
“I need to remove the blood of his victims.”
“No extra privileges, Micah.” Thankfully Nix scanned the area to the left. “Not before we exchange covenants. I’ll do it.”
“I’ll enjoy watching.” He stepped around to face her, moving to her left so Nix’s line of sight wouldn’t be broken. “Finish, Madison.”
She glared at him and carefully sluiced her hand to her mound.
“How does it feel to touch yourself, kitten?”
Madison focused on his mouth and intentionally rocked her hips into her touch. “Decadent, Micah.” How she kept the blush off her cheeks, she’d never know.
Micah moved so fast, he voided the distance between them and his hand connected with hers. Their gazes crashed.
“Press a finger inside yourself and let me taste.”
Madison refused to perform for him. Her anger flared hot and she let the Lynx inside her loose. Micah grinned as the prisms of magic burst to life when her succubus took over. She shook her head hard, wet strands of hair clinging to her back and pulling at her scalp. “Remove your hand, Micah.”
He grinned, stepped back, holding both hands upward as if in surrender. “I wanted to see how easily you could shift to your Lynx.”
“Uh huh.” She didn’t buy that excuse.
Micah pushed her back against the wall and she cringed when it shifted as if cradling her in welcome. He stamped her arm against the wall, the puckered wound of his sigil stark red against her smooth flesh. She winced when he placed his palm over the burned-on design. His eyes grew fiery orange, blue skin shifted beneath his human flesh and overtook his mortal persona, as his fiber-optic wings burst into existence.
“You’re gorgeous like that. Why hide it?”
He smiled. “Ready, kitten?”
Her back arched off the wall as his seraph shot liquid-fast from his hand into the wound on her wrist. Breath stalled in her lungs, and her heart stopped beating.
Should anything be this intensely pleasurable? Everything inside her awakened—a shift she could only describe as akin to an out-of-body experience.
Her heartbeat a hard tattoo against her chest, she panted, growing lightheaded from lack of oxygen. The power stream-lining into her vibrated every pore and every erogenous zone, affecting her with dual, competing emotions. Icy. Hot. Pleasure. Pain. A raw mixture of them all. The combination was better than a high-speed vibrator against her clitoris.
She stared at her husband, but didn’t really see him for the bliss misting her vision. Humming on a hyper-drive of sensation overload, small snaps broke and burst off her body, an impression she had no understanding for except to compare it to caked mud falling off dry skin.
Pandora screamed a protest against the commingling of her cells, warning Madison she would bring about the world’s end if she continued down this road to Hell. They were words meant to shake her from merging with the Lynx. Pandora had never cared about the world before.
Visible cracks split along the oasis of her mental psyche, black, gaping cracks that terrified Pandora and she shrieked in a language that reminded her of Zen’s.
Madison leaned against the shower tile. A spray of hot water hit her shoulder and slid down her body. She shook from the energy as Micah watched her with an intensity that petrified her on so many levels she couldn’t address them all.
The dualities of her soul came face to face and slammed together, mixing in a frenzy as they integrated. Painless. Quiet peace claimed her.
Unified, they moved for Pandora, who hissed like a snake caught by its tail. They climbed into the box with her and Madison barked words she knew not the meaning for. Pandora whimpered, but went limp beneath the ancient command. Usha, her Lynx, straddled Pandora’s chest, leaned over her face and ingested the antediluvian force as they breathed. For the first time, Madison got a look at the creature. Dark hair, dark eyes, and honey-kissed skin…Pandora looked not a day over fifteen.
As they killed an ancient being, she’d meet her doom. Would the world cry in agony when she failed? Or would her transformation go unnoticed until the world grappled for survival as it quaked in worship on its knees before them?
Her skin tingled as they consumed the last of Pandora’s life force. The box slid free of her body and with a half-awareness she realized Nix captured Pandora’s Box before it hit the floor.
The haze in her vision circled around Nix’s face, honed on his features to crystal perfection. Forehead furrowed in a frown, he chewed on his bottom lip as he watched her demise.
Muscles between her thighs began to spasm. Her fingers twitched and her belly grew taut. Weak and trembling, she shoved Micah’s hand off her wrist. The sigil glowed a vibrant, fiery orange as if lit from the inside with demonic fire.
“No more of those…not until I grant you the privilege.” Her head lolled from side to side in the ghoulish embrace of the shower wall. She rolled to face it, her body victimized by mini-jerks from the imminent climax she’d denied herself.
“Do you see that coming off her, Phoenix?” Awe deepened Micah’s voice.
“Yes.” Nix sounded edgy. “What is it?”
“She defeated Pandora and accepted her inner demon. How does it feel to embrace your potential, kitten?”
Priceless.
Micah stamped his hand against the wall on either side of her head. “Feed you my seraph once more and you’ll begin the revolution for me.”
Madison acknowledged his statement, but struggled to breathe. The newness of Lynx stretched and shifted inside her.
Micah circled her wrists with his fingers and dragged them over her head. He flattened her palms to the wall and held them there with his forearms against hers. Fingers of lost souls exited and interlaced with hers. He wedged a digit beneath the bracelet containing Alessa’s soul.
“Interesting jewelry choice. Whose soul is it?”
“Alessandra.” Her scratchy voice emerged from her parched throat.
“Your bar friend?”
A minor shift of his stance and his cock strained below the curve of her ass, hard and nudging against the entrance to her pussy.
Lynx’s impulses took over and she rounded her bottom against his erection. Feeling like she was in heat and in need of a cock, Madison dropped her head back against Micah’s shoulder and opened her eyes.
Power, stark bright white intermixed with black, a combination of good and evil magic, oozed off of everything, coming from everywhere. Her gaze collided with Micah’s and the same amalgamated magic wove off his frame.
“Your Lynx is no
longer starving, kitten.” He kissed her and she opened beneath him, flicked her tongue against his and would have consumed his energy if she knew how. “How does your demon feel?”
Horny. But she didn’t utter those words. “Like coming home,” she said instead and realized she spoke true.
He nipped her bottom lip as his hand trailed down her arm and across her back. She shivered from his touch, bliss tripping over her body in wave after wave.
His open palm gripped her hip and arched her pelvis backward, positioning her to his liking for penetration that never came. She needed him inside her. The sooner the better. Now!
Micah’s palm slid around to her belly and he did a two-finger drag down between her thighs. Madison moved against his touch, seeking comfort and release, that which she’d denied herself seconds before. “Soon, you’ll keep me hard for days and days until you’ve fed your fill.”
What a horrifying scenario…but at the same time a fantastic idea. She frowned. With the way her body responded, she would delight in his claiming.
“Will Phoenix join us?” Visions of fucking Nix and Micah both here on the skin-stitched floor hijacked her nervous system with shivers of anticipation. And she’d thought his blood glorious. His seraph was so much better.
“If you desire it.” His fingers circled her clitoris. She groaned as the touch elicited a sharp, savory quiver through her body.
“Micah,” she whimpered the plea. She needed him to quit, but didn’t want him to ever stop.
“You want me to fuck you?”
She shook her head hard, but contradicted her movement by rocking against his measured touch.
Madison clamped her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip to the point of pain. Her pussy throbbed with painful intensity. Not a good thing. Or maybe it was. She couldn’t decide.
Which way do we go? Madison asked her Lynx.
I cannot let my humanity fall to his will. In Usha’s voice, Georgie’s words slid through her mind. Madison snapped her eyes open, surprised her demon still maintained a very human goal. I must be stronger than his might for Phoenix and Amos.
Yes, Madison agreed.
Nix stepped closer and watched as Micah stroked Mads between her thighs. The pleasure canvassing her features reminded him of her expression moments before she climaxed.
“Her eyes!” Phoenix exclaimed. The color of flames marked her pupils, hot pink irises, encircled by a vibrant yellow.
“The yellow is the evidence she claimed Pandora’s magic as her own.” Micah released his angelic fangs and bit her shoulder hard enough to draw blood. A small, surprised sigh fell from Mads as Micah licked the wound. He began to suckle and she whimpered, flicking her hips hard against his hand. Nix’s gaze fell to where Micah petted the apex of her curls. He hadn’t breached her folds yet, just kept her at the point of desperate arousal, teasing.
Uncomfortable with the familiarity of Micah’s touch, Nix centered his attention on the rotation of the wall. A feminine face burst forward, mouth rounded in a scream. Male fingers emerged and dragged the visage into oblivion.
I helped bring about her downfall. This wasn’t what she wanted.
“I want more,” Mads rasped in a thick voice.
Nix faced them. Micah dragged his tongue across the wound on her shoulder. He’d returned to his human form. “You’re a glutton, kitten.”
“Angel nectar is so much better than an orgasm, Micah.”
Micah turned her to face him, but kept her caged against the gyrating shower wall.
“Give me your hand.”
Sultry-eyed, mouth slightly parted in invitation, Mads complied by lifting her arm and placing it against the wall. Micah settled his palm over the sigil and she jerked, arching as his seraph poured into her.
“How much can she take?” Nix grew concerned when she stopped breathing. The pink of her eyes glowed like neon lights set against a dark landscape.
“Not much more.” Micah’s intense perusal held hers, maybe gauging when she’d had her fill.
Mads gasped. Her lips went suddenly blue and Micah cut off the power transfer.
Panting hard, she looked like she’d been pressed to the limit of what she could endure. And Nix figured she had. None of them said anything over the beating of the water hitting them and the wall swishing in twisting movement.
Mads fingered the crystal dangling in the hollow of Micah’s throat. “My soul looks good on you, husband.”
“I know.” Micah shifted his hand off her wrist and tangled his fingers in her hair. “My most valued possession, aside from the woman whose soul resides within it.” He kissed her, open-mouthed and sensual.
Nix watched as Mads clung to Micah and the passionate display disgusted him. He’d participated in orgies with Micah and hadn’t felt this way. He’d enjoyed those.
The King kissed down her throat and Mads’s gaze whacked him, startling Nix with the raw emotion reflected within. Drowsy-eyed with desire, a voyeur wouldn’t pretend to turn aside from the erotic display. He tried to respect her privacy, but his body wouldn’t cooperate and he continued to watch. She offered him a little smile and Nix didn’t have time to process the meaning before Micah released her and stepped away.
“I can’t stay, kitten. Elias…something dramatic has happened in the world.” Micah winced at the obvious telepathy among the other Kings. “I will prepare your ceremony with the Kings while I’m away. But when I return….” He kissed her again, hard with a silent promise. “I’ll make love to you, renew our marriage vows, and our bond will grow stronger. We’ll let Phoenix watch or participate. Your choice.”
“What about Nix’s covenant?” The pink receded and her over-bright blue eyes peered at him.
Micah cocked his head to the side and stared at her a long tense moment. “What do you desire with it?” Suspicion darkened his voice.
“To show my dedication to Hell and to us.” She pinched his jaw and licked his bottom lip. “You said I couldn’t lie to you once we shared your seraph.”
Silence lengthened between them.
“How do you feel about my wife owning your covenant, Phoenix?” Micah’s hand encircled her throat as he spoke, his thumb rubbing her pulse in a silent threat. Mads didn’t flinch, but held the King’s glare.
“I have no opinion on the matter.” Nix figured that poker face of hers disguised some ruse.
“If I grant you ownership of his soul and you betray me, wife”—Micah squeezed—“I’ll take pleasure in dragging scream after scream from you.”
“Mmm…kinky,” she drawled, her southern twang stark. She pressed against his body in a sinuous glide and stroked his cock. “Let me suck your dick. Now.”
Nix flinched as if she struck him. He damn sure didn’t wish to watch her give the angel head.
“Before you leave, so you’ll think about me while you’re away.” Mads nipped Micah’s jaw.
Micah squeezed her throat a little tighter and Mads gagged, but she didn’t stop fondling him. Neither did her gaze lower. Whatever silent communication transpired between them, Mads obviously wouldn’t be cowed.
“I haven’t the time for the pleasure. When I return, I’ll look forward to the blowjob.”
She pouted like a spoiled brat denied her favorite treat. Micah kissed her again and dropped his hand from her neck.
“If your intentions are pure, you’ll be able to remove Phoenix’s covenant from my shoulder yourself. If not….” His one-shoulder shrug finished out the rest of his statement.
She smiled, a slow sultry movement that rocked Nix’s world. Balling his fists, Nix argued against attacking Micah and demanding the King release her. He’d been instrumental in bringing her here. He couldn’t afford second guesses now.
“Don’t trust me, Micah?” She clucked her tongue and her eyes brightened with her demon, calling up her power.
“Not even when you’re demon-eyed and angel-fed.”
Mads ran her palm up Micah’s arm to the wounds he bore on his shoulder, id
entical to Nix’s. Those marks were visible verification of their demonic deal.
Her thumb circled the puckered marks on Micah’s shoulder. “In marriage, what was once yours, now becomes mine. Share and share alike. I seize the covenant from you, the burden mine now to bear.”
The puncture marks scurried down Micah’s arm and tagged Mads’s flesh.
“Trust me now?” She smiled and smacked his cheek. “I’ll make you pay for your distrust.” She sounded so fucking sexy Nix wished she spoke the words to him.
“I’ll look forward to it, kitten.” Micah kissed her again like he couldn’t taste her enough. Nix could understand his addiction. “I won’t be long,” he said against her mouth. He turned and snagged Nix by the arm to join him.
As they exited Micah’s chambers, the King handed Nix a set of clothing. Manufacturing personal objects out of thin air wasn’t something he could do, but it was effortless for the demon. In the hallway, Micah stopped and faced him. “Stay with her. Watch her, Phoenix, but…I’d prefer you didn’t touch her.”
“I will not tolerate a future as an outsider with the two of you.”
“I know.” The King sighed. “Give me a chance to claim her first, anchor her to Hell, and then we’ll renegotiate the arrangements.”
Nix laughed. “Don’t think she won’t be given a choice.”
“The choice is hers. If she wants us both, she’ll have us. If she wants just one of us, we’ll make it work.”
He doubted the King would share those sentiments if Madison chose Nix over him. “Deal with your business and I’ll keep her safe.”
For the first time since they’d begun a relationship, Micah exited his presence without embracing him. Nix returned to Micah’s chambers and found Mads already dressed and reclining on the demon’s bed. With her learning curve of demonic spells in overdrive, she’d already figured out how to manifest personal items.
“Nix!” Upon spying him, she motioned him over. “Look at these cute little cherubs.”
Nix approached the bed and peered at the things curled up in her lap. He shuddered at the sight of the small canines. “They’re Hellhounds, Mads.” Tiny in their infancy, but so deadly at a week old, they excreted venom toxic enough to decay flesh off demons. A simple scratch brought death in slow, torturous increments. “They’re very dangerous and their mothers are rabid.” Had anyone other than Mads been nuzzling one, he’d have high-tailed it from the room.
Hell's Phoenix Page 18
