Lightbringer: An Enemies to Lovers Urban Fantasy with Demons, Portals, Witches, Renegade Gods, & Other Assorted Beasties (Light & Shadow Book 1)

by JC Andrijeski

  “But why?” She stared at those stunning eyes, watching them turn golden in the city’s glow. “Why now?”

  He pressed his cock against her thigh, and her eyes closed.

  “God,” she managed.

  She turned her head, then opened her eyes, only to find herself staring at his body. She realized he wasn’t just shirtless.

  He was entirely naked.

  He rubbed his cock against her thigh and she let out a low gasp.

  Her eyes ran down the front of him, taking in the hard muscles, the strangely symmetrical planes of his chest and abdomen. The pure beauty of him made him seem even less real, but the longer she looked at him, the more she found herself thinking it really was his body somehow, and not only because he inhabited it.

  It was him. It belonged to him.

  His fingers clenched in her hair.

  She turned, looking up at his face, feeling him pull at her to meet his gaze.

  She did, and for a few seconds, they only stared at one another.

  “I’m going to have to kiss you later,” he told her.

  Gliding up, moving with inhuman grace into a near-seated position, he pulled her legs over his lap, tugging the silk boxers down her thighs. Coiling an arm around her waist and back, he pulled her up, just enough to peel the tank top off her upper body. He was wrapped around her then, kissing her breasts, sucking on her, curling his tongue around her nipples, licking her, stroking every inch of her skin.

  There was something so weirdly animal about it.

  That same something drove her out of her mind.

  She let out a heavier sound, right before her hands clasped in his hair.

  He raised his head, his eyes paler now, almost entirely colorless.

  “Your desire is positively intoxicating,” he murmured, kissing her mouth. “You should go without sex more often, Lightbringer. I feel like I could get drunk on it. I’m already halfway there… enough that I question whether I’ll be able to perform adequately…”

  His voice pulled at her, cajoling.

  Something about it made her whole body hurt.

  “It’s making me want to do unkind things,” he said in her ear. “Like masturbate on you… tease you without letting you fuck. Perhaps bring that fae friend of yours here… fuck her in front of you… let you watch her lick my cock…”

  She gasped, letting out a soft whimper.

  His eyes closed, even as his arms tightened around her.

  “It’s making me possessive, Lightbringer,” he added softly, kissing her throat. “Maybe I will bring that fae here… see if I can make you jealous…”

  “No.”

  She blurted the word, speaking it without thought.

  Pausing where he’d been sucking on her throat, he raised his head. He studied her face, his still calm, but she saw something in those eyes now, that same, more serious thing she’d caught on him a few times already that night.

  When he spoke, she heard it in his voice.

  “I’m going to fuck you now, I think,” he told her, still studying her eyes. “If you’re adverse to that idea for any reason… it would be a good idea to tell me.”

  He paused.

  “Now, Lightbringer.”

  She let out a half-disbelieving sound, even as she felt her body respond, pressing closer to his, her breath coming in denser pants. Her throat hurt, her fingers, her cunt… even as most of her body seemed to turn to liquid, pulling on his.

  She tried to remember if she’d ever reacted like this before––

  “Well?” He kissed her throat, nipping at her lightly with his teeth. Raising his head, he met her gaze, his fingers stroking the inside of her thigh as he lifted one eyebrow. “Have you lost your voice, Lightbringer?”

  “Was that you asking?” She tried to make it a retort, but heard the catch in her voice. “I didn’t hear an actual question in that…”

  Her voice trailed when he maneuvered her out of his lap.

  He trapped her between him and the mattress, shifting their bodies so quickly she barely tracked any of it until he’d rolled on top of her.

  He spread her legs with his.

  Now he hung over her, one arm wrapped around her back, his hand clenched in her hair. With his other hand, he positioned his cock, and she let out another involuntary sound, a moan mixed with a whimper when the head glided against her wet clit.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” he told her. “…Maybe too much.”

  His faint smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  Instead, she saw the king there again, staring at her through the dark.

  She stared back at him, lost.

  Something about him, about the real person she saw there, paralyzed her.

  She was still looking up, studying those pale eyes, fighting to understand––

  ––when he slid into her up to the hilt.

  Both of them went utterly still.

  Then she groaned…

  She couldn’t help it.

  …Right as he let out a low growl

  Her eyes closed, and she was panting, even as she felt his skin abruptly turn hot, his fingers clenching painfully in her hair.

  “Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck… Lightbringer…”

  And suddenly, his calm was gone.

  He arched into her again, violently that time.

  She met him halfway.

  His other hand pinned her wrist, and he ground into her again, harder, supporting himself on his arm to stare down at her face, angling his body deeper.

  Every stroke felt like fire.

  It felt so good, her mind got confused, almost overloaded with sensation.

  She lost herself there, in the heat of his cock, in the motion, her body rippling up to meet his seemingly on its own.

  For a long time, neither of them spoke.

  Nothing broke the silence but both of their breaths.

  She felt him fighting to control things, to keep her in check, keep himself in check, to slow them down, then to stop them, only to build them up again. She let him do what he wanted, losing herself in the intensity she felt there, and something about her submitting to him seemed to only make everything worse.

  Somewhere in that, he lost it entirely.

  She opened her eyes, and he was fucking her, hard, growling like an animal again.

  His chest rumbled with that strange purr, even as he let out a heavier sound with each stroke, his eyes on her face, his fingers now stroking and clenching in her hair. She realized she could feel his pleasure as well as her own, and for long moment, she got lost in that, in the sheer intensity of sensation he felt at each stroke, in the feel of her own skin, in the violence that rose in him when she matched him.

  He brought her to a slow climax, then hung there, groaning, his forehead pressed to hers.

  She sensed meaning there.

  She couldn’t put that into words, either… not even for herself, but the sheer amount of feeling she sensed in him, that certainty she could feel him holding back, made her want to scream at him, to smash her fists into his chest.

  “Open to me,” he groaned, his words a murmur in her ear. “Open to me, Lightbringer…”

  She felt what he wanted.

  She tried to do as he asked.

  She felt the instant she began to succeed.

  His cock hardened more inside her, growing even larger as he slammed into her.

  That time, he fucked her into her mattress until he came.

  She got no feeling of control on him, no sense of him holding back.

  She watched his face, those light-filled eyes, the sheer intensity that lived there…

  …and for the first time, she wondered what the hell she was doing.

  Fear hit her at the thought.

  Irrational.

  So powerful she nearly screamed.

  Unattached to a single thought.

  Unattached to her body, even… as the fear hit her, she wrapped her legs around him tighter, urging him deeper, h
er nails digging into his back.

  He let out a low groan, almost pleading…

  …and she forgot to be afraid.

  She forgot to care what the fear meant.

  She couldn’t even bring herself to care.

  14

  Alarm

  She sat bolt upright, ripped unceremoniously from sleep… for the second time that night.

  This time, it was close to dawn.

  Staring around the dark room, she was disoriented at first, confused as to where she was.

  Then she looked over sharply at the other side of her bed.

  It was empty.

  Had it been a dream?

  Had she imagined all of it?

  She swung her bare legs over to the side of the bed, and knew immediately it wasn’t a dream. Her cunt throbbed with a pleasant soreness, a pain that somehow turned her on all over again. She sat there, on the edge of the mattress, panting, trying to slow her heart.

  Gods above.

  No wonder Travelers were known to be inter-dimensional sluts.

  If they all fucked like him…

  She looked at her clock.

  Seeing the glowing, blue arms of the retro alarm clock, she remembered everything else.

  Something had awakened her that time.

  Not like before.

  The Traveler must have gone back to the guest room.

  She remembered when she’d first put him there… even then, before he’d come in here on his own, she’d actually offered him half of her bed.

  She’d been buzzed enough on wine by then that it even seemed like a good idea. She might have been hitting on him a little, even then, if she was being totally honest with herself, even though she presented the proposal of the two of them sharing a bed as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

  Truthfully, she hadn’t really wanted to be alone.

  He’d apparently changed his mind.

  Shivering as images started to rise, along with sensations, memories of things they’d done, she closed her eyes, fighting to shake it off.

  She refocused on the clock.

  According to the glowing arms, it was five o’clock in the morning.

  Throwing the blanket and sheets off her, she slid off the bed, fully naked.

  She glanced at her silk shorts and tank top on the floor, the same ones she’d put on after her shower, and after a few seconds’ pause, she pulled them back on. Her hair had still been damp when she first went to bed, and now it felt like a tangled mess.

  She knew it probably looked like two cats were screeching from the top of her head, but right then, it was difficult to care.

  She looked around her bedroom, and the giant window with its sliding glass door that made up one wall. The wraparound deck made it all the way to the area outside her bedroom, and she had a smaller table out there, where she went out to drink coffee some days, or sometimes to do yoga in the early morning light, or to meditate.

  She’d chosen this house in part because she could see Griffith Park from this height, which meant she could also, theoretically at least, see the Old Zoo, even if it was too far away for her to make out any part of it with her physical eyes.

  Thanks to the trees, she couldn’t even see it with high-powered binoculars.

  Like most people in the city, apart from the rolling hills and trees, all she could really see of the park itself was the white dome of Griffith Observatory, which was lit up, even at this early hour. The contours of the dome also shone under the light of the setting moon, contrasting the dark trees below.

  She opened the sliding glass door, and walked out on the deck.

  Shivering, she rubbed her bare arms, looking out over the city and frowning, trying to decide what the hell woke her up.

  It hadn’t been the Traveler this time.

  Something was wrong.

  She had no idea what, but she could feel the wrongness.

  She sensed it hanging over the city.

  She could almost smell it, like a whiff of decay.

  If anything, it was more intense than what she’d felt earlier that day.

  Throwing up her hands, she drew a series of symbols in the air, casting a web of magic that would allow her to see the portal without her eyes.

  She tried to keep the glow of light low, since she was outside, but luckily, she had few neighbors who could see her out here, even if anyone happened to be awake.

  The spell turned the night inside-out.

  Instead of the physical world, she saw all of the light and energy signatures of every human, animal, and supernatural being within her visual range.

  She saw the living auras of trees, of cats and raccoons running across her neighbors’ roofs, bats winging through the air, birds, the flutter of passing insects and the spiders living on her porch, her succulent plants, the swaying palm trees, people in their beds in the nearby houses, the neighbor’s dogs, a coyote trotting up a trail in the park, looking for an early breakfast…

  She could see the portal.

  She drew a few more symbols, and her view of the portal grew larger.

  She zoomed it up closer.

  Now she could see from right outside the lion’s display cage, into the area filled with graffiti behind the iron bars.

  Once she refocused on the view, she jumped.

  As in jumped––physically––maybe a foot up from her wooden deck.

  Waving a hand and murmuring a few phrases to dissipate the spell, she turned before she’d finished muttering the last phrase.

  She jerked open the sliding glass door, reentering her dark, silent house.

  Running for her closet, she flung open the door.

  She was already pulling down the silk shorts as she found the chain that turned on the light. Yanking on it, she hopped on one foot, pulling the last of the boxers off her legs and then off each of her feet.

  Grabbing a pair of black, thick, stretchy pants, she slid into them and hiked them up, zipping up the front and buckling a belt and holster around her waist.

  Grabbing the bottom of her tank top, she yanked it up over her head.

  A throat cleared by the closet door.

  She turned, staring, forgetting she was topless until she saw the Traveler smile, his eyes sliding down her deliberately, growing heated as he leisurely looked her over.

  After he’d taken in the length of her, his amber eyes rose back to hers.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  “What are you doing up?” she retorted, jerking open a drawer and pulling out a fuchsia-colored bra. Pulling it around her upper body, she hooked the clasp and spun it around, putting an arm through each strap and tugging it up around her shoulders.

  Without waiting, she grabbed a long-sleeved black shirt down from a hangar, pulling it down over her head.

  “I felt you get up,” he said. “I felt… motivated… to see how you were feeling.”

  She glanced over sharply, and caught him staring at her again.

  That time, his eyes shifted back to the window.

  “I see this is business, however,” he added, glancing back at her, one eyebrow lifted. “I confess… not what I’d been hoping when I first felt you awake.”

  She snorted, yanking open another drawer and grabbing a second holster, that one for her shoulders, and made for a different set of guns. Shouldering it on, she looped the double sheaths for her twin swords over her upper body, settling those onto her shoulders as well.

  She would wear a coat over it, but only until they got up there.

  In the event of an emergency, she could still access both hilts, even with the coat.

  She looked at the Traveler.

  “What do you mean, you felt me?” she said, her words warning. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. How could you feel me from the other room?”

  He shrugged, but didn’t answer her directly.

  “It is stronger now,” he commented instead. “Much stronger. Shockingly strong. It’s a bit o
verwhelming, honestly.”

  She stopped long enough to stare at him.

  “What?” she said, frowning. “What does that mean?”

  He glanced over again when she pulled her swords off their velvet pads in the first of several weapons drawers, sheathing them simultaneously behind her head. Closing that drawer, she opened the one below it, pulling out two Sig Saur P320s and immediately holstering them at her ribs on each side.

  She had two Glock 17s for the lower holsters, along with her whip.

  She sat down on the chair in her walk-in closet and began putting on her boots.

  Only then did she think to notice what the Traveler was wearing.

  Like he had been earlier that night, he was fully clothed.

  In fact, he looked so much the same as he had earlier, before their interlude in her bed, she wondered whether he’d slept at all. She wondered if that’s why he’d left her, if he’d simply been wandering her house after they had sex, and happened to be close enough to her bedroom to hear her go outside to look at the park.

  Shaking off the thought with a frown, she finished with her second boot and regained her feet.

  Giving the Traveler a bare look, she walked past him, aiming her feet for her living room, and back towards her garage.

  He followed after her silently.

  When they climbed back into the Buick, neither of them said a word.

  15

  Silver And Shadow

  That time, she didn’t walk through the woods to reach the Old Zoo.

  She didn’t leave her car in Los Feliz.

  This wasn’t that kind of trip.

  She couldn’t afford to care about the slim possibility of anyone following her. She couldn’t afford to waste any time at all.

  After breaking the chain on the metal gate leading to the park access road, which was closed to everyone but the police for at least another hour, she drove straight up the hill to the old lot that used to service the abandoned zoo.

  Taking the Skylark as close as possible to the area with the big cat cages, she skidded to a stop in the loose dirt leading to the narrow walking path, and killed the engine.

  Pocketing her keys, she jerked open the door, and got out.