her soul to take (Harley Laroux)

Page 37

I could hardly breathe. I was a goddamn waterfall at that point. He'd released my wrists and I'd hardly even noticed. Our eyes met, his gaze an inferno. "Spread your legs, doll. I know you want to." I obeyed without a second of hesitation. My nerves were tingling with the anticipation of his touch. I was shaking, I wanted it so bad. My brain had gone completely lust-drunk: no thoughts, just need. His eyes flickered down to my spread legs, then back up to my face. He was shaking his head. "Oh, Rae. Poor pathetic little human. Are you going to beg me?" "Please..." God, I did sound pathetic. I didn't care. He'd wound me up like a little clockwork doll, and I couldn't stop. "Leon, please." He laughed, and pushed away from the chair. It was as if he snatched the air from my lungs at the same time, a cold slap in the face as he put distance between us. "It really is too bad for you that I enjoy seeing you suffer. But frankly, thinking of you having to get through your next class with your panties soaked and your pussy still begging to be filled just gives me the warm fuzzies." He smiled happily, and turned away with a little wave of his fingers. "Au revoir, petit jouet. I'm sure you'll suffer beautifully for me." He left me like that, hot and shaking in my chair. God, I hated him. I hated him. Deal or no deal, I knew he wasn't done with me yet. It was nothing short of torture to get through the rest of the day. I already hadn't been in the headspace to concentrate, but Leon had shattered my brain into pieces and I likely looked like a zombie through my next two classes. I kept expecting him to pop up again and make good on those filthy threats, but when I left campus and he still hadn't made an appearance, I had to accept that he'd meant it. He wanted me to suffer. He was probably watching me from somewhere, laughing and jacking off like the absolute pervy dick that he was. He'd even managed to stop me from getting my video ready to be uploaded, which was probably his plan all along. But his dirty-talk distraction wasn't going to convince me to go along with his little bargain. Pulling up in front of my house in the dark brought a sobering dose of reality. I parked close to the porch, but I still sat there for a minute, the engine turned off, staring into the shadows under the trees. My porch light had popped on from the movement of my car, but the light didn't go far. If a monster was lurking in those trees, waiting, I had no way of knowing. I exited the car and pressed the door closed as softly as I could. My body said run, my brain said no sudden moves. My keys jangled as I pulled them out at the door, my heart pounding so hard it hurt. The night air was cold. In the corner of my eye, the darkness pressed close as the trees slowly creaked. I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I was inside. I locked the deadbolt, staring out through the glass door at the yard as Cheesecake mewled hungrily around my feet. Never in my life had I been scared of the dark, but now the thought of what could hide within it almost made me feel sick. At least tonight, as I slowly scanned the yard, nothing was there. Until my eyes reached the porch, and there, just off the side, beneath the railing, a skeletal canine head with a gaping mouth stared back at me. I flung the curtain closed so fast that Cheesecake sprinted away in alarm. I backed away from the door, hands pressed over my mouth to hold back the scream that desperately wanted to come out. The porch creaked, and there came the slow scratch of claws on the wood. The morbid stench of rot seeped into the house. It was sniffing at the door, its breathing rough. I was backed into the living room, torn between running into the kitchen for a knife or barricading myself in the bathroom. I'd seen one of those things fight. If it wanted to break through the glass, it could do it easily. A sharp cry, like a fox screaming, made me jump and nearly trip backward onto the couch. It was so loud, but somewhat muffled, as if its mouth was pressed right up against the door. Softer, as if it was distant, a longer cry answered. Then another. And another... Until it was a cacophony of howling screams in the night. My limbs were locked up with fear. It was calling the others. It knew I was in here. They all knew. I had to call the cops. I had to get a weapon. I had to — There was a hoarse growl, a bang and rapid shuffling. Then...silence. Utter silence. A minute passed, and then came the slow thump, thump, thump of footsteps across the deck. They creaked on the top step, then came the crunch of dirt. The footsteps were gone. The night was silent. After another minute, I heard the crickets begin to chirp again. Leon had been watching after all. I slept horrible that night. I used up the rest of my cinnamon and rosemary, leaving it to smolder in a bowl just inside the door because I was too terrified to unlock it. At least it made the house smell good. In the morning, I chugged down two ibuprofens with my coffee and got to work, editing my footage. Leon had arrived just in time the night before, but I couldn't depend on a demon to keep saving me. I had to get this evidence out to people who could help me, and fast. I got a text from Victoria just after my second cup of coffee, inviting me over for a study session. I had homework due on Monday, but I honestly couldn't find it in me to care. I'd probably end up doing everything Sunday night in a frantic attempt to finish on time. I turned her down, and almost immediately got another text, this time from a number I hadn't saved. I know you turned down V, but maybe you'll study with me instead? ;) I had an idea, but I asked anyway: Who is this? Jeremiah Sorry, lol Might've snagged your number when you gave it to my sister. I rolled my eyes. I knew it. It's not like I'd told him he couldn't have my number, but this felt like he was pushing to see where my boundaries were. Why did he even know I'd turned down Victoria's invitation? Despite my determination not to believe Leon's wild stories about the Hadleighs being members of some cult, a little red flag of suspicion was waving in my mind. They weren't cult members (as if!) but Jeremiah was still giving me some weird vibes. Well, like I told Victoria, I already have plans today His response was a sad face. Aww, plans without me? I want an invite next time! I put down my phone. I didn't have time to deal with another cocky boy, I had monsters to worry about. I started another pot of coffee, then jogged upstairs to change out of my pajamas. I had just slipped into some loungewear when I heard something bang against the side of the against the side of the house. Cold dread washed over me, and Cheesecake scrambled up to hide under my bed. The sounds were coming from the wall near the firewood pile; it sounded as if something was rummaging through the logs. Leon had made it sound as if those things only came out at night. I had no more herbs to burn. I didn't think there was anywhere in the house I could barricade myself that a monster wouldn't be able to break into. Maybe they were weaker during the day. Maybe I shouldn't hide this time. I grabbed my knife, and then my baseball bat from where I had it stashed near the front door. Between stabbing and bashing, I figured I could take down one of those monsters. It had been about five years since I'd last played softball, but my swing was still in good shape. No hiding in fear this time. I wasn't helpless. These monsters needed to learn not to fuck with Raelynn Lawson. I crept out of the house. The day was cool and gray, birds singing in the trees. There were deep scratches in the wood just outside my door, and I remembered the huge claws on the monster in the chapel. I'd have to move fast, bash it to a pulp before it could slash me. I held the bat high as I neared the corner of the house, gripping the handle of the knife in my teeth so I could use both hands to swing. My heart was in my throat. This was madness. I should have stayed inside. Who the hell did I think I was, Van Helsing? I was a paranormal investigator, not a monster hunter! As I stepped around the corner, the monster was coming the opposite direction. I flailed as it loomed in front of me, swinging the bat down with a scream. The bat made contact, but it didn't hit a monster. Instead, it was caught and gripped solidly in one of Leon's massive hands. "Oh...oh my God..." The knife fell to the ground as my mouth hung open in horror. Leon was stone-faced, staring at the baseball bat gripped in his fingers, inches from his head. He'd dropped several long pieces of wood in order to catch it. Mouth twisting sourly, he glanced down at the dropped knife, then back to the bat, then to me. And he began to chuckle, the laughter of a man who'd just caught someone doing something very, very naughty. "You are the maddest woman I've ever met." He jerked the bat out of my grasp and tossed it down among the wood pile beside him, but he'd dropped something from his opposite hand as he did so. I looked down at the thump, and nearly screamed again. "What the hell, Leon?" I backed away from the pile of heads he'd dropped to the ground. Heads — the severed, skeletal heads of three Eld beasts rolled in the dirt. I backed away in disgust as he glared. "Fucking hell, you need all the help you can get. A knife. A fucking baseball bat." He snorted, grumbling to himself as I tentatively bent down and snatched up the knife. He collected the heads from the ground, holding them by the bits of scraggly fur and long hair clumped on them, and the pieces of wood he'd collected as well. He brushed past me, toward the front yard, a slight limp in his right leg. I trotted after him. "What are you doing?" He'd gone to the edge of the trees near my front driveway, dropped the heads again, and was lining up one of the long pieces of wood he carried with the ground. He was dressed in a black t-shirt and tight jeans, and his hair was disheveled and sported faint streaks of darkened blood. "What happened last night? Did you kill all of them?" The questions tumbled out of me. The relief I'd felt when seeing him — a monster that wanted to fuck me, not a monster that wanted to kill me — had brought all my energy back. "Did you kill all of them?" he mocked, and I folded my arms in irritation at how high-pitched he made my voice. "No, I didn't kill all of them. I led them away, Raelynn, and killed what I could. You expect me to kill every bloody Eld in Abelaum?" He snorted again. "Kill this for me, Leon — kill that for me, Leon — do you have any idea how goddamn tired I am of you humans expecting me to just kill everything for you?" He was in a far worse mood than the last time I'd seen him. Probably something to do with that limp, if I had to guess. I shrunk at his irritation, but gave a little shrug. "You snap bones with your bare hands. You're the strongest person, er, strongest..." He gave me a slow, exasperated look. "You're the strongest being I've ever met, okay? I figured you could kill anything." "Almost," he said softly. With a sudden violent jolt, he jammed the wood into the ground with his bare hands, the narrower end sinking into the damp earth and standing upright. He picked up one of the severed heads and speared it down on top of the wood. I stared at it in horror as black goop oozed down the stake. "Leon, what...what are you doing?" "Warning off the other Eld," he muttered. He collected the other two heads and stalked off again, moving along the trees until he found the next spot he approved of and lined up another stake. I followed tenderly, my feet bare since I hadn't had the sense to put on shoes before I went outside to fight monsters. I lingered beside him, trying not to stare at the heads. "Their skulls are the only part of them that don't rapidly decay," he said, spearing the ground again. "Keeping them around can make the others a little less eager to come into the yard." I winced in disgust as he mounted the next skull on the stake. The once-white eyes in the skeletal sockets had shriveled and blackened like old grapes. Absolutely disgusting. "I can't just keep severed heads around my yard," I said. "Oh, I'm sorry." Leon turned to face me. "Do they not fit your aesthetic? Would death suit your aesthetic better?" He paused, giving me a long look up and down. His eyes lingered on my neck, on the numerous hickeys he'd left there, and he grinned sadistically. "Red and purple suits you well." My cheeks heated as I rubbed my neck. Every day since our tryst in the graveyard, I'd felt giddy pleasure at the sight of those marks. They represented the ecstasy of the pain I'd endured. They were a scarlet letter, branding me as a wicked, lustful girl. "I should turn your ass the same colors for all the trouble you've caused me," Leon grumbled, and I sputtered in protest. "Losing the goddamn grimoire...you should have given it back to me to begin with, in St. Thaddeus. Now I have to run all over the Pacific Northwest to track the thing down." "God, you're an even bigger asshole than usual today." I folded my arms. Like clockwork, my raging horniness at his threats flared up again. If spanking me would make him feel better, damn, he could go for it. As I've said: self-preservation, I have none. As I kept following him, I began to realize just how tired he looked. His hands were filthy, there was a tear in the back of his shirt, dirt smudged along his neck and in his disheveled blood-stained hair, and there was a faint, dirty, red gash peeking over the top of his t-shirt from his shoulder. I gulped, remembering the oozing blood from a couple nights past. "Are you hungry? Do you need a snack or something? Will that calm you down?" He only grunted as he chose the next spot to display my morbid protection charm. "Why did you come back here, Leon?" I said, as he mounted the last head and ran his filthy hand through his hair. "I don't have the grimoire — and I'm not giving you my soul." His eyes flashed as he glared at me. "So why did you bother to come?" "...wasting time," he muttered. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at me as if he wanted to say more, his lips pressed into a thin, hard line. I stepped closer, closing the gap between us. He didn't smell sweaty, like I would expect from a man who'd been running through the forest all night. Instead, he still smelled faintly of wood smoke and lemon, the kind of comforting smells that made me want to get close and close my eyes. I reached for the neckline of his shirt, and he didn't move a muscle. I pulled it down, carefully, revealing the rest of the red, angry mark I could see on his throat. But it was so much worse than merely a mark. A jagged, open wound ran down his chest. The skin was torn open, the wound deep, ripped through his tattoos. It was darkened with dirt, reddened, and puffy. My eyes widened as I stared. "Leon..." "It will heal," he said firmly. "The beasts cut deep. I was trying to be careful..." His voice lowered, almost imperceptible as he said, "Didn't...didn't want to hurt the cat." "And you're limping." I frowned. "You're hurt, Leon." He cleared his throat and took a step back, tugging my hand from his shirt. "It's nothing. I've had worse." But it wasn't nothing. It was a wound he'd sustained while trying to protect me, while trying to protect Cheesecake. He'd let himself get hurt rather than risk injuring the animal I loved. He could have let Cheesecake die, and abandoned me to the same fate. But he hadn't. Why the hell did this demon care if I died? "It's filthy," I said. "It'll get infected..." "Demons heal far better than humans do. It's fine." "Come inside." I motioned toward the house. "Let me clean it." He blinked rapidly. It was subtle, but as he looked between me and the cabin, he actually looked confused. "Inside?" "Yes. Come inside. Get a shower. Let me clean it at least." I motioned to him, trying to urge him to follow me like a lost dog. "Just...come. Please. Let me help you." The soap smelled exactly like her: peppermint and sage, tinged with the natural smell of her from all the times it had been rubbed over her skin. Her scent was everywhere in the house — obviously, she lived here, but being surrounded by it for a prolonged length of time was making my cock strain. It had hardly been two days since I'd fucked her, but it felt like ages. Leaving her needy and desperate on as I'd thought it would be. I'd worked myself up too much teasing her, and had gotten so restless that I'd gone back to the cemetery and found her panties in the grass. They were still in my pocket, my personal trophy. I'd left my marks on her neck, but scrubbing myself down with her soap was going to mark me too. How the hell was I supposed to handle that without craving her? She'd infested my mind. She had me desperate to possess her. That was what we demons wanted, in the end. To possess, to own. We liked to leave our marks: some temporary, some more permanent. The silver hoop with the green jewel in my left ear had been pierced and threaded through by Zane, and I'd put a needle through his tongue in return. A mark was a bond, a claim. Even demons that hadn't been lovers in years kept each other's marks. But bonds were weaknesses, they were vulnerabilities. As I could already painfully feel, they only led to one getting hurt, particularly when it came to humans. The very nature of human delicacy made them appealing: it wasn't easy to keep them. They died, they broke, they faded away. Trying to keep a human alive could drive one mad. I shook my head, growling in the water. Rae refused to listen to my warnings, the petulant brat. She'd thought she'd fight off the Eld with a kitchen knife and baseball bat — it was shocking she hadn't brought her camera along too, to record the evidence of her encounter. She was going to get herself killed, running into trouble like that. I'd left the bathroom door open as I showered. I couldn't see her through the fogged glass of the sliding door, but I could sense her eyes on me. She was seated out there somewhere, in the living room likely, pretending to be disinterested. If she was going to tempt me, then I was going to tempt her too. Tempt her until she broke again. The drive to claim her, protect her, keep her, was so deeply rooted in my mind that there was no shaking it. Here I was slaying monsters for a human. Worrying over a human. Risking life and limb for a human. I still needed to find the grimoire. I didn't know what the hell Everly planned to use it for, or even where she was, but if she decided she wanted to summon me herself, there would be nothing I could do. I'd go back into servitude once more. I turned off the water, and stepped out of the shower just in time to catch Rae quickly turn back around, head down as she sat on the couch. I grinned at the back of her head, and the floor creaked under my feet as I approached. "Should I sit?" She glanced over at me, then quickly looked away again, a blush rising on her cheeks. There was no point in putting back on my clothes if she wanted to tend to my wounds, and seeing her try desperately not to stare made it even better. She got up abruptly from the couch, motioning to it. "Yeah, uh...sit. Sit down." Her attempts to avert her eyes from my cock was cute, and ultimately futile. Funny how she could still blush when she already knew what it felt like inside her. But then the sight of my injuries, oozing blood again from the shower, distracted her. "Jesus, Leon! You need stitches!" "Not necessary." I settled on the couch, stretching my arms over the back of it, and its firm softness immediately awakened an odd pang of nostalgia. I did have a home back in Hell — I hadn't set foot in it in over a century, but it was still there, waiting for me. There were some comforts one could only associate with home, with a place that was familiar and safe. Fuck, what did safety feel like? Rae threw up her hands, walking away as she grumbled, "So your magical super demon powers grant you the ability to fight off gangrene? Or create new skin? Your shoulder is infected!" She returned, arms full with a bag of cotton balls, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a damp washcloth. Her eyes fell on the gash running from my thigh down across my knee, and she winced as she set her supplies down. "God, what the hell would you do without me?" she said it playfully, but there was a note of real concern in her voice. It made me frown, and I shrugged. "Likely go to Zane's place and sleep it off," I said. "A few days of solid sleep can heal almost anything. Although, under Kent's control, I'd just hope for a few days of sleep when I was injured. He never quite grasped that even demons need time to heal." She frowned now as she knelt with the cloth and carefully dabbed at the edges of the wound. She still didn't believe me about Kent — or didn't want to. But I liked how she looked on her knees. "Zane is a demon too, isn't he?" she said. I nodded. "Are there others? In Abelaum?" "Could be. I haven't met them. But everywhere there are humans, there are demons. We're drawn to the brightness: human lives burn so brightly but so briefly. An explosion, a roaring fire in the night. We demons...are more like smoldering coals. Burning on and on. Dulling and flaring. We're always seeking more. We're driven toward that light, to take it, own it." "Why?" I chuckled at her curiosity. "Why do humans breathe air or drink water? It's necessary. It's irresistible." I don't think my answer satisfied her, but she quieted for a bit. "You and Zane," she said slowly. "You're lovers?" I snorted. "Once upon a time. We're companions who share similar pleasurable tastes." She laughed, dabbing a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide along my leg. "Companions, right, okay. Way to not give an inch on any emotions there." She shook her head. "Are all demons like you?" "Bisexual? Yes, but we don't have a need to label our attractions like you humans do." She laughed again. "No, that's — that's not what I meant. I meant, like, are all of you so...closed up. You just replace emotions with anger or sarcasm. Are you all like that?" I glared down at her. "Years of torture and solitude will have you learn that anger is the safest emotion. It's the strongest. It's a fire that will keep you going in the dark." The playful smile on her face fell, and she went on cleaning my leg in silence. The gentle touch of her fingers over my skin nearly made me flinch — not from pain, for pain I could endure, but simply from being touched. Soft hands weren't something I typically encountered. A happy little chirp announced the arrival of Raelynn's cat, sauntering down sleepy-eyed from the stairs. He came straight for me, hopped up on the couch, and curled his chubby orange-and-white body against my side, purring as he kneaded the cushions with his claws. Raelynn paused as she watched me stroke the cat's head, using my claws to give him proper chin scratches. "He rarely comes down to visit people," she said. "He's usually too shy." "Cats and demons tend to get along well," I said. "They're the only animal that can be found both on Earth, and in Hell." "Figures." She laughed, but then her face grew somber. "Thank you for saving him. Really. He means a lot to me." "You would have gone after him yourself if I hadn't. And then we would have had a dead cat and a dead woman. I was trying to minimize damage." Her eyes were moving over my face; searching, wondering. It was as if she could tell I was lying; the last thing I'd ever tried to do in my existence was minimize damage. I was a killer. A destroyer. Saving things wasn't a path I usually chose. She rose up from her knees. "Okay, time to take a look at that shoulder." She leaned over me, pushed up her glasses, and her nose wrinkled as she examined the gash. It wasn't pretty: ragged torn flesh and still bleeding. She was right about it being infected, but putting so much thought and care into one's wounds was a human thing. Forget about it and sleep it off was my usual plan. If an injury posed a greater risk to me, I'd know, likely because I'd be in pieces. She picked up another cotton ball and doused it. "Are you, uh...going to put on pants?" I grinned, settling in a little more comfortably. "No." She rolled her eyes, but a blush rose on her cheeks. The way the blood filled in the spaces between her freckles was adorable. It made me want to hold her face in my hands and feel the heat beneath my fingers. She shooed the cat aside and, for the sake of easy access, straddled my lap. Her crotch pressed against my cock, and her eyes flickered up to mine as it twitched at her closeness, the cotton ball paused in mid-air. I widened my eyes teasingly. "Is that comfortable?" She bit her lip in silence, bending forward to clean the wound, moving slowly around the tender flesh. I kept the grin on my face, her thighs twitching slightly against mine, the scent of arousal flooding her. Her eyes were focused on her work but her mind was elsewhere. "You said Hell is like Earth," she said, staring at the wound, as if she could force her arousal away if she focused on gore. "Is it really?" "It's bigger," I said. "So big that only the oldest of demons have ever seen the ends of it. There's wide empty plains, forests so deep and filled with monsters that only our strongest dare to go in." I stared at the ceiling as I recalled it. I'd been on Earth for over a hundred years. I wasn't all that old, for a demon. Nearly a quarter of my life had been spent here in captivity. "There are oceans as clear as glass and as black as ink. Trees bigger than Earth's tallest mountains. The cities...they're art. Metal, glass, and stone, carvings of marble and wood." Her eyes had grown wide. She was seated on me fully now, too enamored with my words to try to hover over my lap. It had been a long time since I'd spoken of home. Zane had been polite enough not to bring it up, and he preferred to spend most of his time on Earth anyway since he found humans so entertaining. But I ached for Hell. "What do you do there?" she said. "Do demons...have jobs?" "Most do. It keeps us occupied to do something fulfilling. But we come and go as we please. Resources aren't limited. Money and economies are nonexistent. Precious metals are as common there as dirt. We do whatever pleases us." "Sounds more like Heaven than Hell." "Heaven is overrated. Too many rules." She looked down when she laughed that time. Something about the shy aversion of her eyes and the sound of her laugh was making me...feel...something. But my brain kept confusing whatever overwhelming feeling this was with a desire to squish her, as if I could find an outlet for this annoying emotion by just taking her face in my hands and squeezing. I managed to resist. "What did you do there?" Her question snapped me out of my fantasies of affectionately crushing her. "For fun?" She wasn't cleaning my wounds anymore. She was listening with rapt attention, waiting eagerly for what I would say. "There's plenty to do. There's —" "No, no, what did you like to do?" I hesitated. Talking about Hell was strange; talking about myself was even stranger. "I...I liked to..." Fuck, it had been so long. "I liked to explore. To wander. I wanted to see the edge of Hell, see all the places even others of my kind wouldn't go to." Wandering into the unknown, with hardly any plan and no expectations, was the wildest I'd ever felt. To lay in a dark woodland where no demon had set foot for millennia, or find some ruin of a city the old Gods built, was my freedom. "You miss it," she said softly. "Every day." Our eyes locked. There was something about those wide brown eyes that felt as warm as her hand, as bright as the sun, as deep as the forest. Eyes that were searching my face for answers, for insight, as if she could crawl inside my head and nest there like a little bird. "That damned curiosity of yours," I said softly. "I was like that once. I think I envy you, to still look at the world with such fascination." "You can still," she said, frowning. "Why not?" "If you live in the dark long enough, you'll forget what the light feels like." She looked like she wanted to argue, and she tossed the cotton ball aside, back on the coffee table. When she turned back, she laid her hand against my chest again. "It will heal better now," she said. "Just...keep an eye on it." "I have more important things to keep an eye on. It'll be fine." "You can drop the tough guy act — you have a bloody open wound on your chest that's likely infected," she pursed her lips irritably. "I don't know if demons can die, but it would probably be better if you didn't." "It'll take more than a few beasts to kill me." I cracked my neck, and winced when the movement sent sharp pain from the wound down through my arm. "We can die, sure, but I'd have to be ripped to pieces — unable to heal fast enough to keep up with blood loss and shock. It would heal faster with rest but...I have to find the grimoire." "You can sleep here," she said. "The couch is pretty comfortable." I tweaked an eyebrow at her. "Trying to tempt me to stay? You'll have to offer more than a couch." She glared. Her hair had fallen forward, the soft black strands partially obscuring her face. I tucked it back behind her ear, my fingers brushing over the multiple studs and rings pierced through her cartilage. The sight of them made my cock twitch. "Indulge me, doll," I said. "Convince me to stay. Tell me your deepest, darkest desire." My darkest desires were tucked away in the back of my mind, the kind of things I'd only hinted at to my previous partners yet hoped they'd somehow figure out. They weren't the kind of things I had any experience in speaking out loud, and his request made me protectively shove those wickedly secret things even deeper. "I don't know." It was a lame answer, and by his expression, he knew I was lying, immediately. He rolled his eyes, and a bizarre pressure squeezed the back of my neck. "Oh, come now, Raelynn. Don't play coy with me." "Stop doing that." "What?" His crooked smile was anything but innocent. "That little mind game...trick...thing." I shuddered at the sensation of fingers running over my scalp. "I know that's you. It's...weird." Weirdly pleasurable, in a way that made my mind feel void of anything but lust. "Does it scare you?" His eyes widened. He was a sight to behold like this: entirely naked, fresh from the shower, so close that I could trace the lines of his tattoos under my fingertips. "I think you've made it clear you like it when I scare you, doll." I gulped, as the mere sensation of a touch around my throat was replaced with his actual hand; not squeezing, just holding. He gripped close beneath my jaw so I couldn't lower my head, so I couldn't avoid his eyes. "Go on," he whispered. "Tell me your sins, wicked girl. Tell me what you think about when you're alone, and your mind wanders. Tell me what makes touching yourself irresistible." I wasn't ashamed of my desires — or at least I tried not to be, which wasn't the easiest thing in the world when kinky sadomasochistic interests still resided firmly in the realm of taboo. It wasn't as if I thought a demon was going to judge me; I knew he'd embrace whatever I told him. That was the scary part. Trusting him with those intimate pieces of me that I knew he'd be eager to indulge. I took a deep breath and since I couldn't look away, I closed my eyes. "I think about you hurting me, making me suffer, and rubbing it in my face how much I like it." Well, shit, there it was. Masochist Rae had come out of her cage. When I opened my eyes again, he was smiling, his eyes reaching right into my soul and pulling out the rest of my raw words. "I think of you making me bleed, making me scream, making me come so hard I can't think straight. I think of how easily you could kill me, but you don't. You keep me alive to use me like...like..." "Like a doll," he said, and there was such wicked hunger in his voice that I shuddered. His cock twitched against me and I almost moaned, barely choking down the sound. "How cute. Do you want me to treat you that way? Like my little toy?" "Yes," I whispered, my legs beginning to shake in anticipation. I had fantasies of being desired so intensely that nothing could stop that need; consensually hurt and ravaged, allowed to revel in sensations that were beyond dark. But that had never been something I'd trusted another human to know. Yet here I was, trusting a monster with it. A monster who'd already saved my life more than once. Leon gripped my ass with one hand, the back of my neck with the other, and brought our mouths together in a voracious kiss. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drown in him. He smacked my ass as he kissed me and I yelped into his mouth, shuddering at the sting as his sharp teeth bit my lip. I tasted iron, and he broke the kiss to lick the blood from me, forked tongue playing over my skin. I moved my hips back and forth, grinding down against him, the smack of his palm encouraging me. Every impact shot tingles up my spine and over my skull, until I was gasping and he pulled my mouth to his again, stealing away what little breath I had. It was more than pain. It was more than pleasure. It made my body come alive. It made me ravenous. I wanted him to consume me, to take and use all of me, and to consume him in return. His big hand squeezed around my throat, encompassing it easily. His tongue stroked over mine, tasting my mouth as the air left my lungs and only a faint feeling of floating remained. How could I drown in pleasure? How could ecstasy replace the very oxygen inside me? He stood, lifting me with him — one hand around my throat the other looped under my ass to hold me up as my legs wrapped around his hips. The veins in his arms had turned as black as the ink of his tattoos. His irises had enlarged until the gold in his eyes was a slim ring, an eclipse of the sun in his gaze. "Beg me to use you, Rae," he growled, allowing me only enough air to stay conscious, only enough to smile in a daze and nod. He gave me a vicious little shake. "Words, girl. Beg me." "Use me...please..." My words were weak, a pitiful whimper barely squeezed out of my throat. "You're Hell's little whore, aren't you?" he said. "So eager for all the wicked things to crawl out of the dark and take you. Wicked things aren't gentle, Raelynn." He brought his mouth close to my ear, his words soft. "All the time you've spent playing in the dark — is this what you were waiting for? For some evil thing to come take you?" He lay me down on the coffee table, the surface cool and hard beneath me as he pinned me against the wood. "I'm going to break you in every conceivable way." He chuckled, then laughed, as if the thought of what he was going to do sparked some feral energy in him that couldn't be contained. "I'll make you scream for more pain. I'll make you weep for your own destruction." I was scared — of course I was scared. I'd always chased fear, so I could experience it on my own terms, in exactly the ways I wanted. In fear, I found desire. In fear lived all the ancient sensations that demanded I know I was alive and struggling and feeling. He yanked off my pants and sweatshirt, smirking when he saw I wasn't wearing a bra and my nipples were perky as the air hit them. He straddled me, so I was sprawled beneath him on the wide table, and took my breasts in his hands, squeezing them, his claws pricking at my skin. "Does it hurt, little doll?" He pinched my nipples beneath his fingers, rolling them just slightly. I began to pant, as every tug and squeeze sent trembles down through my abdomen. "Why did you never pierce these, hmm? You've had needles through your ears, your nose — did these frighten you too much?" Watching my face, he closed his mouth over my erect nipple, flicking his tongue over the tip. My hips bucked up, pressing against him, but his free hand seized my waist and pushed me back down. He administered the same torturous stimulation to my other nipple, until I was groaning helplessly, shaking under him. His tongue swirled circles around my breast before closing over me, sucking until I squealed. If this was sin, I'd gladly purchase my one-way ticket to Hell. He was probing my mind again, using whatever dark power it was that allowed him to make me feel touches that weren't there and impulses beyond my own subconscious. He was pressing me down, as if bands were slowly tightening around my wrists, ankles, and abdomen, strapping me to the table. I couldn't see them, but my mind was certain the bounds were there. Soon I could only squirm. I couldn't lift my arms or close my spread legs. "What are you doing?" My voice was a whisper, heavy with lust, shaking with the nerves bubbling up in me. He raised his head, his mouth parting from its merciless torture of my nipple. "Only what you so desperately want," he said, and his claws traced over my cheek. "You could resist the restraints, if you wanted. It would be easy. How funny..." He hovered over me, sharp teeth close. "You're not even trying to get away." His claws moved down my throat, over the tender pulse of blood in my veins, down my chest, down, down, until he came to the edge of my panties. "You really should just stop wearing these," he said. "I'm only going to keep ruining them." The panties ripped easily in his hands. My heart fluttered in my chest as a single claw circled my clit, a threat and a promise wrapped up into one cruel motion. "Remember, little doll," he growled, his head lowering slowly between my legs. "Say mercy if you want our play to end. But beg for me to stop and plead for your life if you want to continue." Every word was pushing me deeper into the cavernous bond between our imaginations, deeper into the fantasy of fear and captivity he was weaving. The fantasy that I was helpless, his fighting prey. But that fantasy wasn't true, even as I allowed myself to indulge in it. He was watching every breath I took, watching my pupils swell. He could smell every chemical change that went through me, he could hear my heart speed up and slow down. He knew my every reaction on an even more primal level than I did. He'd stop at my word. I knew that. I trusted him in that. But an ending was far from what I wanted. Telling me to beg for my life? It aroused that deep desire for fear, my hunger for danger. "Let me go," I whimpered. "Please...please let me go...don't —" "Shut the fuck up," he gripped my face, his tone vicious. "Open your fucking mouth, now." I was giddy as I obeyed. When he spit on my waiting tongue and followed it up with his thick cock, I groaned to feel it press all the way to the back of my throat. It was so thick, and from the angle of him above me, he couldn't even get all of it in. He gripped my hair, moving my head over him, laughing when I gagged on a deep thrust. "Aw, is that too much, little doll? But dolls take whatever their master wants, don't they?" He held me down a moment longer, letting me gag again before he let me go and I lay my head back, gasping. He gripped my hips and flipped me onto my stomach. Those invisible ties tightened over me again, keeping my legs spread.