My Demon Warlord

by Carolyn Jewel

  He knelt between her legs, and she combusted. An approximation of a smile spread across his no-longer-human face. Magic sizzled between them and again translucent streams of color distorted the air around him. She craved his touch, and he wasn’t touching her. How would she live without him touching her?

  Her sense of him in her head went white-hot, and he smiled, yes. He snaked around her thoughts, sinuous, glittering color moving through her, and then she was encircled. He put a hand on the center of her chest.

  “You are mine.” His voice wasn’t human, and that resonated in her, too.

  “I am your sworn.” Which wasn’t the admission he was after, but it was the truth and would therefore suffice.

  In the blink of an eye, his emotional state took residence in her head. Her oath to him flexed—not a threat of breaking, but rather a promise of pleasure. He wasn’t compelling her because the whole point was her willingness to answer the need that burned through him.

  One of his hands circled her ankle. His desire for her burned hot. He stroked up her calf to her knee, then her thigh, following the shape of her muscles, and she gave in to the bliss of being touched.

  She lifted her hips, offering, pleading. He didn’t touch her there yet. Start small and build, that’s what he was doing, and still she raced toward orgasm. Too fast. Too fast. He moved upward, and she let her bent knee fall to one side.

  He traced a line from her shoulder across to her breast. A tingle of his magic went along with that. Warmth soaked into her and expanded to a heat that centered between her legs. He looked at her like he was hungry and the only thing that could possibly sate him was her. He tipped his head to one side, and his tongue flickered out. He drew a taloned finger down her midline, slow and steady, and the whole time that sizzle followed in the wake of his touch.

  She pushed up on one hand, and he sank down, knees apart, backs of his thighs resting on his calves. Silence fell. The room was quiet, so quiet. Floating in the back of her consciousness was an awareness of the magic he’d put into the wards throughout the house, including this room. The world burned with her awareness of him and the clench in her lower body, her insanely intense desire. She willed herself to fall so she didn’t have to think.

  He trailed a finger along the underside of her breast, and her nipple tightened in arousal. As his finger slid up the inside curve, his thumb brushed over that tautness, just enough to make her suck in a breath and slip deeper into her arousal. Just that light touch and his hand moved on, tracing loops and swirls over her skin. In her imagination, she saw the pattern he was building.

  Skin tingling with the effect of his touch, she sat up. He put a hand underneath her chin while his other hand slid upward to the top of her shoulder and over, down her back in a swoop. She was now willing to do anything he asked as long as he didn’t stop touching her like this.

  Mine. You are mine, witch. Acknowledge.

  His hands pressed harder. Seconds later, his palms rested on the back of her head. The tension in him coiled.

  Acknowledge. . .

  She couldn’t move or didn’t want to, she wasn’t sure which. She couldn’t tell and didn’t care. He widened the connection between them, and a well of energy opened up before her, wide, deep, and so vast it might as well have been drawn from the earth itself. She’d been around other warlords, not all of them friendly. She was around Nikodemus all the time, but not like this, not connected in this persistent, wide-open way. She understood viscerally, at last, at last, with every atom of her being, what it meant to other kin when one of their own had that kind of power.

  . . . me

  “I do. I have. You know I have.” Tears built up again, and she couldn’t decide whether she hated him for making her heart bleed. She should.

  Acknowledge me.

  Then she realized what he meant, needed, and she too sat on her haunches, head bowed. She pressed three fingers to her forehead. She’d sworn fealty to Kynan. She owed him respect, even when they were like this. She’d made that gesture of respect to him a dozen times, in jest, in earnest, mocking, and thoughtlessly, but this time it was real and purposeful. The motion welled up from the core of her, her heart, and this time she could not stop her tears.

  He stroked underneath her eye and licked dampness from his finger.

  She belonged to him, but without losing herself, and that seemed miraculous to her. “Warlord.”

  In a motion too quick for her eye to follow, he was behind her. He put his mouth by her ear and whispered in a low, sinuous voice of gold and silk, “Beautiful skin. So soft. So soft.” He sent a picture into her head. Color on her body that swirled and moved. Magic, his, that would live on her skin. She bowed her head again, and his finger traced a whorl on her shoulder. “Would you like it to hurt?”

  “Soon.”

  He reached around her, his torso snug against her back, and took her arm in one hand. His skin—hide—gleamed with hints of gold and bronze. The sound of his wings resettling whirred like a thousand butterfly wings, soft and bony parts settling into a place to rest. The motion cast shadows on the bed before her. He turned his hand palm up, light flashing off his talons. A teardrop of golden-bronze glittered and shimmered above his palm. His fingers moved and turned, and that drop of color shifted with his motions. He touched the tip of his finger to her forearm. Color settled onto her skin, spreading into a swirling, moving series of lines and whorls until it extended from the inside of her elbow to the top of her wrist.

  “Lovely,” she said. She watched, mesmerized, as it moved, changing color, always with that hint of gold, pulled by an internal tide.

  “Now?” he asked. She was going to weep again, and she hated the vulnerability. “Do you need to hurt now?”

  “Yes.”

  His hands settled on the tops of her shoulders, and he reached into her and grabbed the passion building between them. He infused it with his magic. The tracings he’d made on her body curled, each one a spark of pain that hurtled her toward orgasm. No thinking. No feeling anything but bliss. For several long, exquisite seconds she floated in the response.

  As the edge came off, he put her on her back and shoved them both higher on the bed. The air around them was dry, and there was a persistent scent of sand and heat. Against her sensitized skin, the rasp of his hide bordered on harsh. She fell into a state where she consisted solely of physical response. Another pinprick of pain centered in her. The reason didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was floating in sensation, suspended in searing pleasure.

  He lifted a hand, and another teardrop of color floated above his palm. The interior shimmered with fire. This time when he touched his finger to her, a flash of fiery pain sent her back to that mental space where she floated. His mouth trailed down her body and, oh, yes, settled between her legs.

  Every so often his thoughts flexed around her, and agony lanced through her again, to the point of too much before sending her back to the fever pitch of climax. Hands, fingers, tongue, lips, propelled her to the cliff she’d already fallen from. Kynan’s magic slid dark and feral along that rush to oblivion, and she responded to that, too.

  He leaned over her, lips peeling back to expose the tips of his canines. He kissed her shoulder, then bit hard enough to hurt more than she expected. She pushed her head into the mattress and gave in to the whiteness of the pain. His hands moved up her body, sliding, slipping, pressing, and his body followed, and she adjusted herself at the same time he did, and yes, yes, yes.

  He pushed into her, hard and fast, unyielding. Whenever she looked at him, fear shot through her, delicious fear. Her every nerve was on edge. She lifted her hips into the slam of his hips against hers. Nothing, nothing, nothing was better than this brutal taking of her. She groaned and arched, meeting him, and he was not tender, or gentle, or kind. One of his hands curled around the top of her head and held her still. The other stayed propped on the mattress at the side of her upper torso.

  “Winters.” He pushed hard into
her because they both needed that. His breath caught. Given what he was, it wasn’t because he was physically taxed. She opened her eyes, and his were bronze, gold-flecked cat’s eyes. He reached for her arm, holding tight, and she had the impression that wherever he touched her, he left behind the color of his magic.

  He made a swift motion that swooped along her arm to her shoulder, across to her neck. In its wake fire sizzled underneath her skin. She relaxed into the sensation and floated there. He continued the motion down the center of her body. He said words so ancient she did not know the language, only the emotion behind them.

  Everything shifted, she gave herself completely to his need for her, his desire, his requirement that she become his. She extended her arm, the one he’d marked first. The golden pattern was gone. He laughed, thrusting hard and deep, and bent his head to her forearm. She saw, felt, inside and out, the flash of teeth sharp enough to slide through skin. Harder than he should have, she thought, except it was what they needed. She gasped at that moment of cold, still pain, and then the heated flick of his tongue, and the fire of his body over hers. She ascended into bliss the moment his taste of her blood zinged through him.

  Magic whirled through them both, and there were moments when she could not distinguish the physical or psychic boundaries between them, and it was exhilarating. Their arousal pushed higher. There came a point when he pulled out and slid down her body. He paused at the dip of her waist to her hips and set his mouth there before he turned her onto her stomach.

  He immediately covered her, hands stretching her arms above her head, pressing her hands into the mattress. With one thigh, he shoved her legs apart. Brutal, vicious even, and she understood he was thinking about witches and the years he’d nurtured his hatred of her kind.

  Do not move.

  The command snaked through her, an imperative that carried with it a need, and with her access to him so open, she was devastated by this slice of knowledge about what Magellan had done to him. She saw, felt, and relived Magellan’s ordering Kynan’s sexual services. Forcing him to submit because that would surely break a warlord. No wonder sex with the magekind was a problem for him. He drew back, fingers gliding along her arms, leaving a trail of magic in their wake that burned her, over her shoulders, down her back.

  She relaxed into the pain and let it work for her. He gripped her hips and pulled up, and she understood he needed more than her agreement not to move. He needed her body and her willingness to receive. He’d held back so much from her. So much she hadn’t known or understood. Rage and sorrow swirled through him and whipped through her, and with that came the whisper of his dead sworn.

  Vengeance

  Ours

  She suspended herself through the fear that lashed at her until she reached a state in which her will existed but did not exert itself. His hand pushed upward along her spine until his palm cupped the back of her head. Holding her. Imprisoning her with the unyielding roughness of his body where they touched. The rawness of his need to dominate and to protect himself brought back the tears she hated. He would kill her with the sorrow washing through her.

  Time stopped and in its absence, Kynan’s fingers flexed on the back of her head. He touched her magic, surrounded it while she remained motionless. His will took up all the space, and she was swept away. His touch of the core of her magic was more intimate than the thrust of his sex into her, because he did that, too, and her body responded to that force. The bonds he’d made flashed into her consciousness. His magic. His life. Him alive inside her, coiled in her, part of her.

  His magic roared through her, and she accepted his control of her will and the brutal shove of his physical manifestation into her body. A keening shriek lanced the air, shuddering wings. Moments before he came, he shifted back to human form, and that act cracked her heart wide open. He shuddered, pouring himself into her.

  Mine. Mine. Mine.

  She wasn’t ever going to be the same, and the moment she understood why she withdrew from their link. She wasn’t ready for him to know the truth. She could hardly deal with the revelation herself, which was that she was sorry he’d shifted to his nonfertile form.

  She’d never been so terrified in her life.

  CHAPTER 27

  Kynan blocked Vahid’s way to the living room. “Not unless you’re sworn to one of us.” He spoke softly, but his magic cycled up with unexpected strength. An ocean instead of a lake. His sworn had settled into a more constant state, less disruptive. A few more had assimilated since he’d taken on Winters, a side effect of her oath on his power. With him still adjusting to the lack of impediments to his magic, there were times he ended up holding more power than he intended. Vahid was getting a double dose right now. “You don’t have to decide now. Take all the time you need, but while you’re doing that, you can’t be here.”

  “Why?” He peered around Kynan’s shoulder. Nikodemus and the others were shielding, so it wasn’t like Vahid knew where their conversation was going, but when it came right down to it, just seeing who was here was a security risk.

  “No discussion. If you stay, you swear fealty. Otherwise, you agree to a blood-bound nondisclosure agreement and leave. You know how to contact me.” Nikodemus had brought him a new phone. Not Winters, though. “If I’m busy, call the other number. Someone will answer.”

  Vahid stared at his shoulder. “I’ve been at her compound. I know what it looks like and what security she has in place.”

  He put two fingers to Vahid’s temple, physical contact only. “You can give me the information.”

  “No.” He jerked away from Kynan’s fingers.

  “You’re not staying without swearing fealty to someone. Nikodemus or Durian are options.” He made eye contact. “Or me.” He let a couple of seconds pass. “If the problem is me, there’s Addison. She might take you on.”

  He glared at Kynan, offended. Kynan wished he couldn’t anticipate the reason for his disgust. “I’m not swearing to a woman.”

  He pushed Vahid’s shoulder to make sure he had the demon’s attention. “She is of Bejar.”

  “She’s female.”

  “So? She’d still kick your ass.” Kynan pointed to the living room where Gray, Addison, and Maddy were seated with Nikodemus and Carson and several other recent arrivals. “Those women you see in there? Not one of them is anything like the woman who gave birth to you. Any of them could put you down without breaking a sweat. They have the power and the experience. The ones who don’t fight have abilities the kin need. You better believe those other women are more important to us than whoever is assigned to keeping them alive in combat.” He stepped into Vahid’s personal space, irritated. “Those kin in there wouldn’t be free if not for them.”

  He got that mulish expression Kynan was learning to hate, and that came along with a highly disagreeable state of mind.

  “Nobody says you have to like the human-born, or magic users, or women in general, but if they’re sworn to Nikodemus, you show respect. If you have to fake it, that’s fine, but the first time you make that attitude public, that’s the day you’re nothing but a grunt nobody wants to work with. Clear?”

  Vahid sneered.

  “As soon as the nondisclosure is in place, I’ll find someone to drive you to the southern border. We usually fly them out of San Jose if they’re looking to get far. Transportation paid, so no worries. Winters will make sure the details are taken care of. You’ll be given enough money to get where you’re going and to settle in. Name your destination.”

  The other demon’s eyes widened. “You’re serious? You’d send me away because I don’t want to swear to a woman?”

  “If you don’t have a better reason than that, yes. We are all diminished without those women. If you can’t get over that, you’re a liability, and you’ll probably die sooner than later because you can’t deal with the truth.”

  “I want to stay.” He stared at the floor this time. “I will keep those sentiments to myself.”

  “
Nikodemus or one of the others?”

  “You.” Vahid glanced into the living room again, and this time if he was thinking about how much he resented the women for existing, Kynan couldn’t tell. Progress. Any at all was good. “You need me if you’re going against Neda Sessani.”

  “In my opinion, you’re a risk.” He made an impatient gesture. “It’s time, Vahid. Stay or go. Take enough time to be sure, but you can’t do your deciding here. Just let one of us know when you’re ready.”

  “I said I’ll swear to you.”

  He let the satisfaction settle in, but the decision wasn’t quite as simple as Vahid agreeing. “You won’t take her place.”

  Vahid was smart enough to know he meant Winters. He nodded.

  Kynan didn’t want to lose Vahid, but he knew the danger of kin who had been damaged by the past. He slid a hand under Vahid’s jaw, cupping the side of his face. Vahid leaned into the contact. The guy might be an asshole, but he was strong. Besides, Kynan couldn’t bust him too hard for an attitude he’d once had himself. “If you’re willing to fit in, let’s get this done.”

  When the oath was in place, Kynan stepped back. Vahid touched three fingers to his forehead, and Kynan brushed his thumb across Vahid’s lower lip. “Welcome.”

  Vahid kissed the side of Kynan’s thumb.

  “You understand the rules, right? Because you are now bound to all of them.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yes.”

  Kynan nodded in the direction of the living room. “Let’s hear what they’re planning and find out how much you can help.”

  The answer turned out to be a lot. Vahid’s knowledge of Sessani’s operation and the layout of her compound meant they could better plan whom they placed where—a significant advantage over having to adjust once they had seen the compound for themselves. The basic plan was to get the teams just outside the perimeter of Sessani’s defenses, wait for Nikodemus to bring the northern portion of the state under his control, followed by a request for the immediate release of all magehelds.