Soon, the wonderful steamy smell of chocolate and the earthy odor of beans enveloped the cabin in a cozy hominess, almost making me forget I’d come close to freezing to death. The guys gathered in the kitchen, spooning themselves bowls of beans and pouring mugs of hot chocolate.
I reclaimed my spot on the floor next to the fire, wrapped the blanket around my defrosting body, and sipped on the chocolate. The men settled on the chairs behind me. Josh explained that his pack preferred the wilderness and decided to establish their den here, living off the land. He seemed nice enough, but I detected a restless energy, a discomfort with sitting and holding a mug, talking even. It wasn’t long before he hopped up. “You can stay as long as you need. No one will bother you. I need to check with the pack.” He nodded to Ewan then exited the cabin. A few minutes later, I heard a growl.
“This pack is more wolf than human,” Damon said in a low whisper, knowing full well the sharpness of wolf ears.
Ewan nodded and sipped his cocoa. “We’ll rest, but leave as soon as possible.”
Damon nodded. A gust of wind shook the trees, carrying with it the sound of excited howls.
Chapter Twenty
THE MINUTE WE arrived in front of the demon lair, I inhaled the cool, brisk, but blissfully unfrozen air.
“I’m going to take you home,” Ewan said in a tone that I wasn’t inclined to argue with. Damon’s words still chimed in my head. If Ewan needed to commit small chivalrous acts as some kind of self-validating, he-man control, then I was more than happy to grant them.
He drove me home, parked, and followed me up the steps to my house. I opened the door, walked into the hallway, and turned. Ewan closed the door and stood before me. The air in the hall suddenly shifted, and the acute awareness of being alone with Ewan sent my heart racing.
He moved closer. He still had on the sexy tunic and jeans from the demon realm. Something about the outfit was so damn gothic, so exotic. Everything I found irresistible.
I shuffled back until my spine scraped the wall. He placed his hands on either side of my head, his face inches from mine. My lungs refused to function.
“What are you doing?’ My voice was shallow, struggling through vocal cords strung tight. My nerves coiled, eager to release the passion I strained to repress around him, but I bound the coils tighter, which only increased the tension.
“Indulging my desire. Will you let me? Indulge?”
Oh, shit. Heat pooled at my center, and my head spun. The scent of smoke and pine still clung to him, blended with his demon musk. He glided his hand up my ribcage, sending jolts into and off my skin.
My breath trembled. My throat trembled. Hell, my heart trembled.
My mind interceded on behalf of my muddled hormones and exploding neurons, reminding me why we couldn’t do this. This sexual interlude wouldn’t change anything and would only result in suffering for the both of us, although Ewan definitely had the more wicked suffering to bear.
“We can’t. They’ll punish you,” I said. Anytime he broke the terms of his debt pact, Malthus had to punish him in some way Ewan refused to explain, which only conjured the worst of medieval tortures in my vivid imagination.
He stopped my words with a finger against my trembling lips then skimmed it to the corner of my mouth, down my jaw, to my neck, resting on my breastbone. “I don’t care.” He ran his hand back and forth between my breasts. “You can give me something to forget the pain.”
My eyes blurred. “I don’t want to cause you pain.”
His eyes turned somber, and he took my hand and placed my palm over his heart. “I’m afraid it’s too late, sweetheart.”
I shook my head and stared at the floor. “But tomorrow, it’ll be back to business as usual. Is it worth it?”
My breath hitched when he stroked his thumb over my hardened nipple. I arched my back against the wall, my hip meeting his, encountering the hard length of his erection.
“Yes.” He smiled. Satisfied. Smug.
Damn him and the smug smile.
I missed the smug.
Fuck it.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. He caught my legs and hoisted them around his waist, rubbing his erection against my pants. He sucked on my neck, and that about unraveled me. If he hadn’t been holding me up, I’d have melted to the floor, bones dissolved.
“I miss this,” he groaned against my neck.
I writhed against his hardness, demanding to feel it thrusting inside me.
He chuckled deep inside his throat and swung me over his shoulder. My hands landed on his ass, dissipating my initial dismay at his manhandling. I cinched up the tunic. The view was exceptional.
On the way up the stairs to my room, he massaged my thighs, slowly making his way up my leg. My clit swelled and pulsed in anticipation. I wrapped my hands around his waist, my face smashed against his back, and unzipped his jeans, gliding my hands down to grasp his cock. He groaned and quickened his steps. He dumped me on the bed and stood before me with his jeans still unzipped, his cock stretched out toward me. He shed all his clothes and stood there, towering over me. So powerful. I wanted to feel that power slamming me apart.
“I want to love you all night, to make up for the nights we’ve missed.” He crawled onto the bed over me and touched his lips to mine, hesitating, tasting with his tongue. Tears trickled from my closed eyes at the feel of his lips, sending an electric line that tore at my heart. My body shook with need and anticipation.
He pulled back, taking me with him, and sat on the edge of the bed, tucking me on his lap with my back to his chest, his cock hard against my ass. He tugged my shirt off and unhooked my bra, tossing both to the floor. He cupped and kneaded my breasts while I strained against him.
He groaned. “I’ve missed you. Touching you.” He didn’t ask me why I was crying. Maybe he knew, letting me cry for the both of us.
He licked my neck then growled. “He fed from you here.”
I twisted my torso and splayed my hand across his cheek, my thumb and index finger grazing his mouth. “Please. Let it just be you and me here, now.”
He growled again and bit my finger, lapping it with his tongue while squeezing and tugging on my nipple. I moaned and felt him smile, my index finger still in his mouth. He bent me over one arm to give his mouth access to my swollen mounds. He sucked one breast, and I inhaled sharply at the almost painful lines of sensation tugging at my nipple. More tears fell down my cheeks.
“Bite, bite my nipple, hard,” I said, surprised at my demand, but seeking to transfer the pain of his punishment into me even though it could never compare to what he’d have to endure.
He raised his head and lifted me upright. “Why? I don’t mind the whole pleasure, pain thing, but I suspect something else is behind that request.”
I bit my lower lip, hard. “They’re going to hurt you after tonight.”
“Let them. I’ve endured worse. I want to remember your face creased in pleasure. That image will allow me to withstand whatever they dish out.”
“Who?”
“Shhh.” He pressed a finger to my lips. “No more talk of that.” He wiped the moisture off my cheeks.
He laid me back on the bed and slid my jeans and panties off, slowly, all the while studying my body as if imprinting the image. He bent over me and sucked and bit and lapped at my skin with increasing fervor until I bucked and moaned beneath him. But he held me in place, at his mercy, hunger in every stroke and kiss, and my body responded, starved for more of the agony and pleasure.
He jerked back with a strangled cry, his eyes sparking gold shards, body glinting in tints of gold and silver.
“What’s wrong?” I rose to my knees, barely managing the words as my heart pushed my breath out in feverish bursts.
“I want to savor you, not devour you. I want to make this la
st as long as possible,” he rasped.
“I don’t mind being devoured.”
I scooted to him, pressed my body against his back and glided my hands up and down the hard planes of his chest. I reached for his swollen shaft with my hand and stroked up and down. A low, undefined noise rumbled in his chest. I kissed and nipped his neck, reaching his earlobe, sticking my tongue in his ear. He arched against me, squeezing my ass before sliding his hand between our bodies to stroke my wet clefts until they throbbed and ached.
He turned and pushed me down on the bed and bent to his knees. With hands cupping my butt cheeks, he lifted me, bent down, and feasted on my already throbbing bundle of nerves. He sucked my clit taut, then bit, and I cried out and shook my release, my eyes blinded.
“Other men may have touched you, but like this, you’re mine, only mine,” he said in a low, hard tone.
He pushed me further up the bed and straddled my body, stroking my sex with the hard tip of his cock. Christ. He was so goddam beautiful. I reached a hand out and caressed the hard curve of muscle down his arm.
He lifted my legs and slung them over his shoulders, clamped his hands around my waist and claimed me with a hard thrust, sheathing his hard, insistent cock deep within me. I grasped the sheets and cried out, rocking in time to the driving rhythm he set. The muscles in his neck tightened with his effort. He tore me apart with every desperate thrust, driven as if he wanted to brand me, inside and out, and my muscles squeezed back, wanting the same thing. Mine. And I was his. Always, even if we can’t be together. He lowered and crushed his mouth to mine, kissing me hard, almost bruising with his intent to possess me body and soul.
In that singular moment of pure pleasure, my heart exploded, releasing my pain. I shouted his name, matching his loud shudder as he climaxed inside me. More tears fell down my cheeks, and he simply held me, his cock still hard inside me, until I asked for a tissue, my voice muffled by his chest. He entwined his legs with mine, clasped my hands, and we lay quietly for a while.
“Ewan, what happens when they punish you?” I asked.
“I don’t want you to know, so please don’t go trying to find out. I don’t want you thinking of that every time you look at me. I don’t want to see pity in your eyes.” He kissed me softly on my forehead, my cheek. “I heal.”
“Do you?”
He didn’t answer. I glided my hands up his arms and down his chest. There were no visible scars.
“This servitude—” My voice caught in my throat. “It’s unjust.”
“You’re right. But it’s necessary.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I was ready to die. That was the punishment I wanted. Why should I live while my brother and countless other comrades had died? Malthus dragged me here, and I didn’t care about any of it.” He sighed deeply. “Until I met you. But I don’t deserve us.”
I pushed at his chest. “I don’t understand how you can say that. You’re existing in some kind of purgatory, and I’m convinced it’s self-imposed. I don’t know exactly what happened, but Damon and Jax don’t fault you. Christ. Damon would die for you.”
“I don’t want anyone dying for me,” he said flatly. His eyes blazed then extinguished. “Enough did.”
He tugged a hand through his disheveled hair and added, his voice hoarse, “You think I don’t want to exorcise my demons, but I can’t, can I? I am the demon. How do you eject your own soul? I can’t ever remove—” he clawed at his chest, pulled on his skin—“can’t take it out.”
His soul raged at me through his eyes. I spread my hands on his chest. “I don’t want you to extract the demon. He’s a part of you. Your sacrifice is a part of you.”
He placed his hand over mine, scalding my skin with the passion emanating off him in waves. “You are a part of me. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t extract you, either.” The words ended in an agonized rasp.
I forced him to roll over and straddled him, rolling my hips, urging his renewed hardness deeper and deeper. He groaned and placed his hands on my waist, lifting me up and down and around, grinding his hips against mine. His eyes flashed and burned, matching the pulsing of my core. He filled me completely, perfectly, and I wanted to cry out at the injustice that kept us apart. Every fiber of my being ached for him, and for a long moment, I wondered if we hadn’t made some horrible mistake by making love. How was I supposed to walk away from him tonight? Stare straight ahead at nothing because I’d be leaving everything behind me with him.
He gripped my head and pulled me into a kiss, a harsh, branding kiss as if he’d sensed my doubt and fear and wanted to stamp out everything except his touch. He reached his tongue inside me, probing and plundering, breathing for me, merging into me, trying to become something familiar. He broke the kiss to smolder a path down my neck, to my breasts. He sucked at the nipples, tugged and nipped, holding me close to him with a hand on my back while pumping into me, increasing his pace.
My muscles clenched and tightened against his hardness and reached that point of oblivion before I screamed out and shattered above him. He rolled us over and with hands on my waist, he thrust into me, almost mercilessly, maybe in an attempt to exorcise his inner being, freeing himself and us. He shouted, and his whole body shuddered. He fell forward, catching himself with his hands to my sides. He stared into my moist eyes, and I detected a fair bit of moisture rimming his own.
Tomorrow, we’d leave each other. I’d go teach my Monday class, and he’d leave to endure some ridiculous punishment. And when we saw each other again, I hoped I’d recognize the demon in his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-one
THE MADDENING excursion to the demon realm had convinced me I had to step up my game. Nothing was getting better. I had this ticking time bomb on my arm. Ivo was a fucktard looking for any excuse to genocide my ass, and a crazy bokor wanted my soul. And I had to talk to Xavier about Colette’s record.
Kara had once asked me if I’d consider the unthinkable.
Reanimate Cael.
At the time, the idea was anathema. Now, it could possibly be my salvation. Reanimating him could prove a quick method of discovering the identity of the Big Bad, but quick did not always translate into smart or effective. Cael might not agree to answer my questions and might elect instead to erupt into a snarling, undead rage.
There was also the small detail of accessing his body. The supe community took care of their own dead, maintaining elaborate mausoleums in out-of-town cemeteries or, in the case of the wolves, letting the forests tend to the burial process. Even vampire corpses required disposal. Unlike the pyrotechnic displays or frame-by-frame bloody decomposition displayed in movies, vampires left corpses behind when killed, and most preferred cremation to burial.
I’d turned Cael’s body over to the witches, which at the time, seemed like an appropriate decision that would give Kara leverage in her bid for leadership. The demons had not agreed. No surprise there. Instead of disposing of the body, the witches had preserved it with spells. I wasn’t sure why, wasn’t sure I wanted to know why. Some things were better off left unknown.
When I called Kara and told her my plan, she bluntly told me, “The situation at the coven is way too unstable now.” Fortunately, I knew my friend well and prepared my argument, especially the part about Cael helping us resolve the Olive situation. I hadn’t quite connected those dots, but I didn’t tell her that. After an added “damn” and “shit,” she acquiesced. They’d stored his body in an underground vault under the coven high-rise, which in itself presented multiple challenges worthy of a Mission Impossible plot.
Kara and I discussed logistics, our butts perched on the window ledge of a coffee shop a block away from the coven. Clouds skimmed the sky, alternately blocking and releasing the sun’s rays, creating a constant flicker of light and dark on the streets and sidewalk.
“It’s just
not possible,” Kara said. “Lifting the spells preserving his body will trigger an alarm. The witches will descend on us in a matter of minutes.” She tapped on her chin with the rim of her coffee cup.
“Unless . . .” Her face brightened. “It just might work. Elizabeth Taylor.”
“The tarot cards?”
I wasn’t sure how the haughty, sentient cards could help us get to Cael’s body, but Kara nodded, obviously excited about the possibility of thwarting the coven. I’d never comprehend why witches formed covens. None of them seemed particularly fond of the institution, but they’d recoil in horror at any suggestion of abdicating. Covens differed from religion or cults, since those indoctrinated into those lovely groups seemed comfortably brainwashed. The loyalty engendered by a coven was an altogether different kind of group psychosis. And Elizabeth Taylor fit the dysfunctional mold completely, which made sense since she was born from its magic.
“While casting spells, Matilda noticed E.T. was blocking and absorbing her spells. The council studied the cards, but no one could understand it. Maybe she needs the magic to sustain herself. What’s fascinating is when she takes magic, she doesn’t leave a footprint.” Kara snickered. “Which also means she runs rampant around the coven, to the complete and wonderful annoyance of most of the witches. Since Matilda’s death, we’ve reached an understanding.”
E.T. took pleasure in irritating Kara and vice versa. Kara had explained she’d been inconsolable since Matilda’s death and had remained stacked for days with the Nine of Swords card displayed. E.T. often dispensed cards as a way to express emotions, not necessarily true to the real card interpretations. Kara had explained that the Nine of Swords, with a woman sitting up in bed, her head in her hands in a scene of despair, did not reflect impending doom. The nine swords hanging overhead did not touch the woman. The card actually meant that the fear leading up to a difficult decision was often worse than the outcome. I hoped for us, anyway.
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