Strife: Hidden Book Four

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Of course. She’d kick my ass if I didn’t.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Fine.” Nether had been raging, and it had only gotten worse the more tired I got. Sleep probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if I had Nain by my side. I hugged Heph, and Nain shook his hand, and then the Normals started coming up to us, thanking us and shaking our hands. I promised I’d be back if there was trouble, and then I took Nain’s hand and led him down an alley, and I focused and seconds later, we were back in the loft while our team worked to keep the city under control.

  Nain led me into his room, and he closed and locked the door behind us. I flipped on the TV.

  “I don’t want to watch that shit, baby. We’ve been living it,” he said as he pulled his t-shirt off.

  “I want to know right away if anything changes,” I said, watching the screen. “You can shower first and then I want to look at those bites.”

  He came up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders as I watched the screen. He pressed his lips to the side of my neck and I took one of his hands in mine and kissed his knuckles. He gave me one more squeeze, then turned and went into the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched the news. Most of it at this point was the newspeople bringing in “experts” to talk about what was happening. Jones had been on earlier, and now they were showing the clip of him again, saying the DPD was working on it, and that the Angel was also working to contain the chaos.

  I could have killed him for dragging my name into it. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now.

  A few minutes later, I heard the shower turn off, and Nain moving around in the bathroom. He opened the door, and when he did, I went in to look at his injuries. He was standing at the sink, where he’d just finished brushing his teeth. I looked at him and tried to settle myself down. How could I be this horny when we’d been fighting for the last forty-eight hours straight? He looked mouthwatering. Pajama pants sitting low on his hips, bare chest, still slightly damp from his shower. His shoulders alone were enough to make me need a cold shower.

  I forced my mind out of the gutter and walked up behind him, looking at the injuries he’d gotten in our most recent fight.

  “These bites look bad,” I said, dabbing some antiseptic ointment on a gauze pad. Anyone else would have flinched when I started rubbing it on, but he stayed completely still. I looked up and he was watching me in the mirror, sapphire gaze tracking my every move.

  “Afraid I’m gonna get rabies?” he asked, and I laughed a little. I kept working, knowing he was watching me. The feel of his cool skin under my fingertips, his broad back and shoulders inches from my lips made it nearly impossible to concentrate.

  I worked on him carefully, not wanting to hurt him. I glanced up again and he was still watching me.

  I focused on him. On being gentle. I let my fingers wander over the many pale scars across his shoulders and sides, the results of past battles. That was only three years’ worth, since he’d been back from the Nether.

  I ran my hands down his back and his muscles jumped beneath my touch. The raw need coming from him was making it hard to breathe, hard not to beg him to do what we both wanted. The only thing holding me back at the moment was the knowledge that he’d been fighting for nearly two days straight, and I could feel how tired he was.

  Though I had a feeling he would have been up for a little more action.

  I pressed my cheek to his bare back, stood there pressed against him. It was soothing, and I needed it after the insanity of the last two days. And the two of us were both safe and alive for the time being, and he loved me and I’d made my way back to him.

  I pulled back from him and looked at him again in the mirror. His hands were gripping the sides of the sink so hard I thought he’d crack it. Being touched by me, cared for by me was just as intense for him as it had been for me. He’d been touched by my tenderness as I cared for him. It wasn’t something he was used to. Wasn’t something he expected, and he would have hated for anyone else to take care of him in any way. But tenderness from me was something that made him feel good. I pressed a gentle kiss to the center of his back, and I felt a tremor go through him when I did it.

  The idea that I could affect this powerful, dangerous man as much as I did still amazed me.

  And he was keeping himself under control. Not touching me, not even moving. Giving me time, because I’d asked him to.

  I pressed another kiss to his back. “Go to sleep before you fall over,” I said, and he turned around and pressed a quick, hard kiss to my lips. I closed the door behind him and shook my head.

  As I showered, I ran through everything that had happened the past two days. The insanity of the fighting, the fact that my parents weren’t around to help. The way they just kept coming as soon as we fought one group back. It was insane.

  And yet. I was happier than I’d been in a very long time.

  I’ve never said I was a normal person.

  I finished up and pulled on panties and a sleep tank and dried my hair. When I went back into the bedroom, Nain was sprawled out on his side of the bed, snoring quietly. I smiled to myself and shook my head, then I turned the television and lamp off and climbed into bed next to him. I turned on to my side, watching him. The rise and fall of his chest, the way he looked like he wanted to kick ass, even as he slept. He had one arm thrown up over his head, another resting on his stomach. I curled into his side and let myself drift off to sleep.

  At some point during the night, my usual Nether nightmares woke me up, and I jumped, sat up in a panic. Then I remembered where I was. I was safe. I was alive. Not trapped. I couldn’t suffocate and die again.

  Nain reached over and took my hand. He was used to these nightmares already, just in the short time we’d been sharing a bed again. I settled back into bed, facing him.

  “Sorry,” I said softly.

  “Don’t be,” he answered. Love, worry from him. Anger, that it still haunted me. A whole lot of raw need, picking up right where we’d left off before he’d fallen asleep.

  That, I could do something about.

  I reached out and trailed my fingertips down his chest, down his stomach. Felt his muscles jump beneath my touch, his need only heightening when I touched him. I kept my eyes on his, and he was watching me so intently I couldn’t have looked away if I’d wanted to.

  I lowered my hand, sweeping my palm over the front of his pajama pants, where he was already hard, straining against the fabric. He fisted the sheets in his hands as I touched him. I felt the raw desire flowing from him, the hunger. The desire to hold me down and take what he wanted.

  Instead, he was doing what he’d promised me. Giving me time. Waiting until I said I was ready.

  And I so definitely was.

  How tired are you now? I asked him.

  He grinned. Not too tired for what you’re thinking about.

  Prove it.

  He stood up and pulled his pajama pants off, and the sight of my husband’s body illuminated by nothing but the pale moonlight outside nearly had me crying with need.

  Holy shit. It was better than I remembered. Huge, everywhere. Muscles to spare. A light bit of dark hair across his chest, leading down to his navel, down further. I was kneeling on the bed, and he was standing in front of me. He leaned down, kissed me.

  “We’ve got a whole lot of time to make up for,” he murmured against my lips.

  I nodded, and he lowered himself to the bed, kissed me, our tongues tasting one another’s mouths, my hands running along his huge shoulders as he pushed me back onto the pillows, crawled into bed after me. Soon, he was kissing, licking, biting, touching me everywhere, ravishing me in a way only he could. The tank and panties I was wearing didn’t last long, ripped from my body as if they’d been made of tissue paper. I whimpered and moaned as he reminded me how it felt to be with him, when he was barely in control, when his demon was unleashed. The mixture of pleasure and exquisite pain he caused me, the way I begged him to do more.
And I was no different. My fingernails scratched his back, and I bit his neck, his shoulders. The first time I did it, he let out a wild, animalistic growl.

  “Do that again,” he said in a rough voice, and I did, and that was when he spread my thighs open and entered me in one long, hard thrust. The second he entered me, we both groaned in pleasure. Relief. It felt like coming home again, like being exactly where you know you belong.

  He pressed himself deep inside me, and I cried out, the sensation of being filled by him almost too much to handle. Everything after that was kissing and low, rough curses, biting and sucking, and my body moving helplessly beneath his as he took what he wanted from me. Soon, he was thrusting into me so hard my hips were coming off of the mattress, his hands clasped with mine, pinning me down. He was terrifying when he was like that, totally in control of me, hulking, eyes gleaming, mad with lust, and it turned me on more, feeding my own demon.

  “Who do you belong to?” he growled.

  “You,” I panted. Aching. Aching in places I’d forgotten I could ache, and wanting more. He thrust into me, hard.

  “Say it again.”

  “I’m yours,” I whimpered.

  Another deep, hard thrust. “For how long?”

  “Forever,” I said, looking into his eyes.

  “And who do I belong to?” he asked.

  “You’re mine,” I said, meeting his eyes.

  “Glad we finally understand one another,” he said as he started moving again, harder, faster, his hands now gripping my hips. I whimpered, moaned, cried his name over and over again as I lost control, lost any semblance of sanity, his demon feeding mine as he reminded me how good it was, how frightening and dirty and addictive he could be. When I felt him explode inside me, I went right over the edge with him.

  When he was finally spent, he stayed on top of me, our bodies still joined. We were both breathing hard, sweating. I trembled beneath him, exhausted in every way by the experience. I reveled in the sensation of being crushed by three hundred pounds of cool, muscled demon, of the feel of his hands in my hair, his lips on mine. Of the delicious way my body ached from the things he’d done to me. He kissed his way down my jaw, my throat, and ended up nuzzling my neck. We stayed like that a long time, and I never wanted to be anywhere else, ever again.

  He rested his forehead against mine. “I love you, Molly,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I swear to whatever god you want me to that I am gonna spend the rest of my life showing you how much. Remember that when I inevitably fuck up.”

  I smiled and rubbed his back, feeling the long scratches I’d left with my fingernails. “I will. Remember the same thing with me.” Then I wrapped my arms around him. He stayed on top of me, our bodies joined, and I whispered how much I loved him.

  “I know you wanted to take this slow,” he murmured against my throat.

  “We both know where this is going. I’m tired of being without my husband,” I said softly. “I just want you.”

  He stilled, and I felt happiness, possessiveness flowing from him. “It feels like I’ve waited an eternity to hear you say that.”

  “I love you, Bael,” I said, reaching up and bringing his face back down to mine, kissing him, nibbling his lips and feeling desire roar through him again.

  “I love you too.” And then he released me, rolled off of me, and I missed the sensation of being filled by him. He was rooting around in the nightstand drawer on his side, and I turned over and watched him.

  He found what he was looking for, and he settled back into the bed, facing me. He opened his hand, and in his palm was the wedding band that matched his, the smaller of the set. Mine.

  “We can do the bonding ritual another time. When we can enjoy it and everything isn’t chaos around us. But this is a pretty good start, right?”

  I was on the verge of crying. “Yes,” I whispered, and I felt so much happiness from him it nearly broke me. How in the hell could someone like me make anyone this happy?

  He took my hand, and placed the ring slowly on my finger, back where it belonged. I looked at our hands, then I smiled up into his face. He was watching me, staring at me as if I was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

  I started kissing his jaw, letting the coarse stubble there abrade my lips.

  “I love you, my husband,” I whispered to him. “You are my soul. You are the other half of me. If you ever fucking hide anything like your Astaroth plan again I will kick your demonic ass and you will never, ever get laid again.”

  He laughed, squeezed me tighter against him. “I love you too, wife.” He was smiling, a rare, pure, open smile on his face. “But we both know you won’t keep to that threat of never sleeping with me again. You like it too much.”

  I kissed him, nibbled his lower lip, sucked it between my teeth, and he groaned. “I wasn't kidding, Nain,” I said when I finally released his lip.

  “I know you weren’t. Point taken. As long as you understand the same thing.”

  “Fine.”

  He kissed me again, and I turned over so we could fall asleep the way we liked best, his chest pressed to my back.

  “Better now?” he asked, his breath tickling my ear.

  “Yes,” I whispered, smiling as my eyelids started to droop.

  “Good. Rest now, baby.”

  I didn’t think I’d fall asleep, not with his thigh pressed between mine, not with his hands each cupping a breast, not with my very naked husband pressed up against me. But I did, and I slept more soundly than I had in years.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I woke up, it was the way it was in so many of my dreams, so many of my memories of him. We were in his bed, bare skin to bare skin, his front to my back, my wings stretched forward. His leg was between my thighs, tangling with my legs beneath the cool white sheets. I laid there, reveling in the feel of waking up next to him, marveling over the way my body still ached, hours after he'd finished with me. I smiled, shook my head, remembering the things the man snoring beside me had done to me the night before. The things he'd said to me. The way he’d woken up again a while later and we’d driven each other insane all over again, his eyes glowing red in the darkness as we loved each other. I’d done things for him, let him do things to me I never would have even imagined. And I hadn’t given them a second thought, fulfilling my need to please my husband, just as I knew he needed to please me to feel whole.

  Demons: taking possessiveness to new levels. And I was no less possessive than he was. I understood that about myself now, better than I ever had

  I closed my eyes and just tried to enjoy these moments of peace, knowing that, living the life we lived, they were few and precious. I turned over in his arms, trying not to wake him. I settled in again, looked him over as he slept. Strong, bare chest, shoulders, complete with scratches from my fingernails, bite marks I'd left the night before, because he liked it. The large black tattoos he’d had when we’d first met were gone; when he’d been reborn in the Nether, his body was remade, unmarked, the same way mine had. Dark hair, dark stubble on his cheeks and chin.

  Damn. What was he doing to me? How could I even be thinking of going down this road again?

  I knew him. There was no turning back now. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d let me walk away from him. There never had been. Not really. And I didn't want to. By his side was where I wanted to be, but I was afraid. We were like two fireflies in the night, always aware of one another, always circling each other, somehow coming back, meeting again, no matter what else was happening around us. The ache in my body, the ring on my finger, both signs that we were back, and I was afraid of it ending too soon, the way it had the first time. If I lost him again, there would be no coming back.

  “Stop thinking,” he murmured, running his hand lazily over my hip. His eyes were still closed.

  “Could you hear me?” I asked, running my hand over his shoulder, down his arm.

  “No. But I know you. Fifty bucks says it was something like ‘I can't be
lieve we did that, this is gonna turn out bad I just know it but goddamn that was the best fuck of my life,’” he said in a slightly higher-pitched voice, a very bad imitation of me.

  “Not that you're too cocky or anything like that.”

  He opened his eyes, raised his eyebrow as he looked at me. “I seem to remember you begging for my--”

  “Shut up, Nain,” I said, grinning. I ran my fingernails down his stomach, earning a groan, a rough squeeze of my waist.

  “You trying to start something?”

  “Maybe,” I said, leaning forward and kissing his chest.

  He was watching me, and he ran his fingers through my hair. He was content. As relaxed as I’d ever seen him. And he seemed to be happy doing nothing more than just looking at me, as if the sight of me in his arms was the best thing on Earth.

  Maybe it was. I knew I couldn’t get enough of the sight of him, the smell of him. Running my hands over his broad shoulders, his arms, his back was something I’d never get tired of. I loved the trail of dark hair down his stomach, the muscled “v” of his abdomen. His strong jaw, those sapphire eyes with their long black lashes. I felt like I could spend eternity just staring at him, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  “I think I love you even more now than I did before,” I said softly as he pressed a row of kisses along my shoulder.

  “I didn’t think it was possible, but I know I love you more,” he said, kissing my collarbone. “There’s less bullshit between us now.”

  “We had to fight hard to get here,” I said.

  “We did.” He kissed his way up my throat. “Every second of the fight was worth it. Every moment in hell, every second I had to miss you. Every bit of it was worth it for this moment.”

  I was on the verge of tears, and he just kept kissing me, loving me. “It hurt when you died,” I said.

  “Still worth it,” he murmured against my neck. “I’d die a hundred times if it meant I’d have you with me again. There is nothing in this world that could keep me away from you now.”