Claimed by the Demon Hunter 3 (Guardians of Humanity)

by Harley James

  The archdemon was unbelievably strong. As much as Baal could wield ice, Spencer’s fire element was shamefully ineffective. If Neo hadn’t arrived and thrown Spencer’s xiphos, impaling Baal in the heart with the archangel’s weapon, Spencer wouldn’t have made it out of there alive. Nor would he have been able to save Sydney.

  The black devil would remain on Earth instead of being scuttled back to hell, because he hadn’t been beheaded.

  Worse yet, Baal had escaped with the xiphos. Fuck.

  Thirteen days to the solstice. Thirteen days to decide how he was going to defeat the archdemon.

  The scoundrel would probably kill him with his own sword.

  Spencer blinked at the ceiling, unease crawling through him. If Pepper had left him undisturbed for a day and a half, Baal couldn’t have been prowling around.

  Sydney murmured in her sleep. Heavens, she smelled divine. Someone must have bathed her. If it’d been Atamu or Neo, he’d cut their balls off and feed them to the next band of nephilim that rolled through town.

  Her murmurs became sighs, her arm sliding down his belly.

  Spencer’s body reacted. His fingers traced the smooth skin of her arm, her hip, his desire for her thick in his veins like molasses on a slow, decadent roil.

  Sydney shifted, and her eyes opened. Her hand came up to his cheek, her blue eyes intense, some emotion he hadn’t seen before shimmering in their depths. “You can’t imagine how worried I’ve been,” she whispered.

  He tried to speak but found his voice rough. He tried again. “Seems you’ve carried me through yet again. You’ve been by my side all along, have you not?”

  A small smile. That suited him. He wasn’t interested in words at the moment.

  Not when her beautiful body was pressed so intimately against him.

  Not when her being here was all the reassurance he needed that she wasn’t playing games.

  He turned to his side and rose above her, one hand sliding up her jaw into her hair. He held her gaze, then he lowered his lips to hers. The meeting of their mouths like a boulder dropping into a placid pool. Shock waves ripping across the surface, violence shattering calm, all-consuming and urgent.

  Sydney pulled at his body in so many places he couldn’t register anything but her hunger. He slid between her thighs, his hips rolling against her for several breathless moments as they remembered one another’s taste. He sucked on her earlobe for long moments before he eased down, his tongue tracing the amazingly sensitive line of her throat. It vibrated with her vocalizations, the minute muscular movements resonating in him through their connection.

  Everything was magnified. He sat up and pulled her with him. This meeting of their bodies…communion. Some souls you just recognized. Mutual respect. Admiration.

  Desire.

  Bra, gone. She visibly quaked, her color riding high on her cheekbones and chest. Glorious.

  Hands grasped. Rough. Fingernails raked deep grooves of passion. His whiskers, his lips, tongue, the pads of his fingers...all tools to elevate her pleasure. He crowded her down to the mattress once more, restraining her hands.

  “Exquisite.” Never had he been more aware of the subtle nuances of breath. Hers rose and fell. My drug. She struggled against his grasp, “Need to touch you!” she gasped, and he stole one more desperate, heavy kiss before releasing her.

  He rolled to his back against a mountain of pillows, pulling her on top of him, flush, her legs together so he could strip her practical white cotton underwear from her body. “No polka dots this time,” he mused.

  “Polka dots are for happy times. Right now, I’m just scared.”

  Her heartbeat felt like his own. He held her face, his eyes on hers. Gauging, mining, unearthing. “I will see you through this.”

  “I know,” she said, ushering a new rhythm to their loving as her thighs slipped apart to bracket his hips. Wet, warm, delicious, she slid along his erection, making his primitive brain clamor for more.

  His hands cradled her hips, enjoying the slow, aching circles she made, her luscious breasts swaying, making sweat roll from his temples, his fire element flare and sizzle.

  She placed her hands flat on his pecs, then went up on her knees. More kisses, open mouthed. Messy. Hot. Mind-shredding.

  Then, she gave herself. Brought him into her heat. His body shook as he groaned long and low, face pressed to the valley between her breasts in the most perfect moment he had ever experienced.

  More than sex. So much more.

  You are mine.

  His hands were her anchor in a sea of sensation. She felt them ministering to her, everywhere. Guiding her hands to her breasts which prickled with an uncommon sensitivity, exploring the seam of her ass all the way down to where their bodies met, parted, and met again in a slick, erotic slide. Parting the lips at her base, his thumb...oooohhh.

  Sighs and groans and the naughty, wet sounds of their bodies giving, sharing, demanding. Faster.

  Never. Never had she felt this way. She threw her head back, her breasts heavy, swaying, his tongue rolling against her nipple, his hands bruising her hips. She skimmed her palms over her breasts, then slid them up to tangle her fingers in her hair. Rich. Lush. Full. She rode him with abandon, and it was building, and she was thankful and … “Sooo good.”

  “Fuuuck, Sydney,” he ground out, his pupils dark, wide, wild, watching like a predator as the pleasure detonated inside her. Hungry for her ignition.

  Heat shot through her, her mouth opened wide, the sudden rush of oxygen pushing her higher. No ceiling. Blue, purple, red. Stars. Pulsing, weightless at first, then a heaviness dragging her back down into a dark abyss so different, but every bit as sensual. Every bit as addicting.

  Her eyelids moved, slow motion. Sweat dripped down her back and between her breasts, and it was perfect. She sank against him and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his neck as he came with a ferocity that made the darkness expand within her.

  A beautiful murkiness that wasn’t pure.

  Wasn’t supposed to be.

  She cradled him to her bare breasts, raking her fingers through his thick, dark hair as he fought for breath. She breathed deep. Steadied herself.

  Being with this man wasn’t for the faint of heart.

  But when others turned away from struggle, she had always pressed on.

  She pressed on.

  Chapter 31

  They were both quiet during the middle of the night, but neither of them slept. After a shared shower that quickly steamed up the room in more ways than one, Spencer had resettled Sydney at his side in bed, his hand running a warm and steady path up her naked hip. She should be basking in the most satisfied glow of her life.

  Instead, she was devastated.

  She shifted her cheek against his chest, unable to stop herself from looking again to see if his death scar was still really there.

  It was.

  How could it be? How dare it!

  She felt a connection to this man that went far beyond casual, and she knew he felt the same. She’d called to him in her mind when she was fleeing from Baal. And he’d heard her.

  She wasn’t a gambler, but she would’ve bet her shop, all her savings, and all her dreams, that they were soul mates.

  She’d been so wrong.

  It rattled her deeply.

  His hand stilled on her skin. He pulled an extra pillow beneath his head. “Stop worrying so. I don’t care about the scar and neither should you. All that matters is how we feel about each other.”

  “I know.” He was right, but she’d wanted proof that her feelings were justified. That she wasn’t falling for the wrong guy. Again.

  It doesn’t work that way.

  Of course, she shouldn’t expect proof. Life and love didn’t come with guarantees. She was lucky to have met him. No man had ever done so much for her. He’d nearly died to save her life. Twice.

  She’d never be able to say that for Derek or Jarvis. If ever there was a man to take a chance on, it was Spence
r.

  But what if she was being selfish? What if there was another person out there who really was his soul mate? Was she standing in the way of him finding that person? Truly loving someone meant considering their needs and how they intersected with your own.

  Did she love Spencer? She’d only known him a week. There was no way.

  She looked into his concerned eyes, only sure that she wanted to spend as much time with him as she could because she loved being with him.

  If he has a soul mate out there, fate will bring them together whether I’m in the way or not.

  Right?

  She blinked, her skin heating with a touch of shame. Selfish justification. Still, she wasn’t ready to give up whatever this was with him. Wasn’t ready to give him up.

  Her thumb rubbed the muscular ridges of his abdomen. “What’s it like living for centuries?”

  His breath stilled, and she could almost hear his mind scrambling. To build a fabrication, or decide if he wanted to tell her the truth? Finally, he exhaled slowly. “You learn that people are basically the same no matter where they are born or what time period they are born into.”

  “Everyone just wants to be loved and accepted?”

  “I guess that’s the motive. However, I was going to say, people have always been self-centered. If they have an opportunity to get ahead at your expense, they probably will.”

  She came up on one elbow with a frown, shoving down a surge of guilt over her own selfishness. “That’s pretty jaded.” Could she blame him, though, growing up as he had in such a dysfunctional, corrupt environment?

  “It’s served me well the last few hundred years.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  If it meant him opening up about previous lovers, she supposed she didn’t, dammit. He wrapped his arms around her with a sexy chuckle and rolled her on top of him. “Sex only fills a superficial need, though,” she replied. “I was talking about something deeper.”

  “You want deeper?” His voice had dropped, the masculine body below her warmed. Hardened. Her body sang in response. Amazing. But she wanted more answers. And the only way she was going to clear her head of the sexual web he wove was by sliding off his oh-so-satisfying body.

  When she tried, he held her firm. “Don’t go.”

  Oh, his voice. It was filled with such naked need it nearly undid her. “Then answer my questions.” Her voice wasn’t nearly as thready as she felt, thank God.

  “You drive a hard bargain.” His hands curved around her buttocks, grasping under the curves and sliding her thighs slowly apart. They both groaned as her hips curved into him. It would be so easy to let the questions slide. To give in to all these sensations. Save thinking for later. Her breasts scraped the fine hairs of his chest when he pulled up again on her ass.

  “God, stop that.”

  “No,” he breathed.

  “I can’t think.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “No. Tell me about the relic you’re guarding.” Friction everywhere, but, oh there, made her quake and open her legs wider to sink closer against him. “Spencer, please.”

  He kissed her, then pulled back with a devilish smile. “Come again?”

  Oh, the double entendre… Delicious. “The relic,” she whispered, closing her eyes, trying to focus.

  “It is the robe Christ wore shortly before his Crucifixion.”

  Her eyes snapped open. Too late she realized this was probably sacrilegious to be talking about holy objects while splayed naked against his hyper-aroused body.

  Still, she’d finally gotten him to talk. “Really?” Something that had actually been worn by Jesus... “Do the demons want the relics because possession of them would demoralize Christians, or for some other purpose? You said something about a code earlier.”

  Spencer’s fingers crept closer to her center. “Yes. Certain relics are inscribed with a portion of a timeless code written in the Enochian language.”

  “Never heard of it.” But the way it rolled off his tongue in that sexy British accent was like its own foreplay.

  “Enochian was the original language—one might say, biblical or angelic language. It was how the first man spoke to the Alpha and Omega through the angels. When the Archangel Michael cast Lucifer into his cage for rebelling against Heaven, he bound the cage using incantations of the Enochian language. Lucifer’s children—the archdemons like Baal—are on a hunt to amass the relics. If they can find the right key—or keys—they’ll either unlock Satan’s cage or break the codex to the language, thus freeing Satan another way.

  Some Guardians fear that with even a few of the relics, they may be able to decipher the code.”

  Meaning losing even one relic was bad, bad, bad. “Why don’t you destroy all the relics to keep them out of the demon’s hands?”

  “They’re a source for good and evil. A source of angelic power just as much as demonic power. The angels will need as much might as they can muster when Armageddon breaks out. We are charged with safekeeping them until that day.”

  He had an answer for everything. And a kiss to punctuate each response.

  Scary. “Can humans touch the relics?”

  “Jessie touched the Veil of Veronica while she was still human, so yes, apparently so.” He raised an eyebrow. “But don’t go getting any outrageous ideas of your own. The relics are dangerous beyond imagining, Sydney.”

  “I’m not stupid, you know. Can humans see the Enochian inscriptions?”

  “I don’t believe so. None of the Guardians in the Unholy Inc network even knew the relics had them until recently when Jessie became a Malachim angel and told us about them. We thought their powers alone would be used to break Lucifer from his cage.”

  “Alexios didn’t even know?”

  Spencer shrugged. “Hard to say. He only communicates on a need-to-know basis. I suppose it doesn’t matter if we know how it might work, only that we need to keep the objects safe.”

  “He seems very hard and un-leaderlike.”

  Spencer stroked her cheek, his eyes softening. “I know. I usually come away from my encounters with him feeling the same way. But he has battled more evil and endured more suffering than I could ever conceive.

  “For two thousand, five hundred years, he has coped with endless incarnations of his soulmate. Felt her spirit enter the world, but unable to find her until she needed him. Watched her age, suffer, die. Not knowing when the process would begin again. Only feeling alive when she was in his arms…It would be enough to drive any man insane. But somehow, he carries on.”

  They remained silent for long moments, their hearts beating in rhythm, chest to chest, as though no flesh and bone separated them. Sydney couldn’t imagine living as Alexios did.

  “I’m sorry to have judged him so harshly,” she said, a deep well of remorse suddenly sweeping through her as Father Joseph’s angry face rose up in her memory. She pressed her forehead into Spencer’s shoulder, her body flushing with shame not only because of what happened, but to have forgotten about it until now.

  Spencer brought his hand to tilt her face up. “What is it?”

  His face was blurry through her veil of tears. “I haven’t told you yet, but I killed Father Joseph in the warehouse. I’m so very sorry, Spencer.”

  Compassion poured from his gaze making her cry harder. “My poor darling, it’s the ugly reality of this new world. You can be sure, he would have killed you had you not ended the awful encounter yourself. I am the one who should be sorry for exposing you to all this horror.”

  “But, he was a priest.”

  He wiped at her eyes. “Yes, but fallible, first and foremost. Like all of us. You are not responsible for anyone else’s vulnerabilities. Don’t ever forget that, my wise and practical dove.”

  And just like that, he lightened her burden. Maybe it was letting herself off the hook too easily, but right now there were so many other concerns. She’d let herself gr
ieve in full for the blood on her hands later. If there was a later.

  Please let there be a later.

  She swiped at her eyes, promising herself she’d light a candle and say a litany of prayers for the priest’s soul at the next opportunity. “While you were at Alexios’s club helping Nate and Katherine stave off the demons did anyone have any ideas why the exorcisms aren’t working here?”

  His face brightened. “As a matter of fact, we have a hypothesis. Katherine’s mate Ari reminded me that when Baal killed our fellow Guardian Hector Alvarez, he stole the Rod of Moses. Ari speculates that although Baal only had the Rod for a short time, he may have called on its power to strengthen his demon horde’s ability to latch on to human souls.”

  Yikes. “So what’s the solution?”

  Spencer’s lips turned down. “Have the Rod of Moses on hand for the exorcisms.”

  “Great. So what’s the problem?”

  “Alexios has it and still isn’t responding to our summons.”

  Her face must have reflected her uncharitable thoughts about the Guardian leader. Spencer ran his thumb over her lower lip. “You mustn’t think ill of him. Most of the times when I’ve assumed the worst, he was actually acting on behalf of the good of the whole. And if it wasn’t for the good of all, it was on a mission on behalf of the archangels. Personally, this time I think he’s off-grid hunting for the demon who told me about the power of angel feathers. I think he believes this Nikolai is a rare type of crossroads-demon who can help him find his beloved Sophia.”

  So much to learn about this new world.

  Sydney swirled her fingertips over Spencer’s nipples. “Okay, I’ll cut him some slack. I just hope he opens the lines of communication soon.”

  Her Guardian’s enthralling body had tightened in ways that suddenly snagged her attention. “You have a good soul. Now, have all your questions been answered to your satisfaction?”

  She suppressed a smile at his husky tones. “Definitely not.”

  “That is entirely too bad,” he rasped. “The time for questions is over.”

  He rolled her under the shadow of his broad shoulders, and she held on to him as he slipped inside. Their loving this time was a homecoming. Slow and deliberate. Not the consuming wildfire of earlier, but for her, a meticulous exploration of beauty knit with pleasure.