Embraced

by Jus Accardo

“This is a limited time offer. The cuff is only removable within the first seventy-two hours.”

  “Three days?” Sam squawked. “How are we supposed to find this thing in three days?”

  Chase winked then opened the door. Right before he slipped through, he said, “I wouldn’t worry, Samantha. Malphi will probably find you.”

  Every time Chase had mentioned Malphi’s name, Azirak reacted strangely, restless and bristling. I got the feeling it knew of the demon, and judging by its reaction we had our work cut out for us. It had been oddly quiet since Chase left. That bothered me but not as much as watching Sam from across the dance floor. She was talking to the other bartender as she slipped into her jacket. Waves of gray swirled around her head and shoulders, a storm of fear that almost swallowed her small frame. We’d told the boss that a family member had been in an accident. The sooner we went to work fixing this, the better I’d feel.

  I didn’t believe in that love-at-first-sight shit, but I’d known Sam was special the instant we met. Both carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, even at that young age, we were two parts of the same whole. We’d grown up inseparable. More than friends. Sam was my lifeline, tethering me to reality. The only bright light in an existence cloaked in darkness. As a teenager, I finally found the balls to admit what she meant to me, and it’d changed everything.

  My feelings for her drove the demon inside me insane. It pushed my control over the edge and left me teetering on the verge of madness. So to shield her, and everyone else I loved, I’d left her behind. Packed a bag and snuck away in the dead of night without saying good-bye. Then a few months ago, fate shoved us together again. I thought maybe I’d finally get a shot with her. I’d been wrong. The universe seemed to be working against us, but together or not, this world would be cold and dark without someone like Sam in it. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “Ready?” she called over the music as she crossed the floor. “Heckle is probably our best bet at the moment. He might know exactly what this is. Maybe even be able to take it off.” She gave her wrist a slight shake. If possible, the plume of gray around her head grew even larger, and it took all my willpower not to give in to the demon. It was frantic, desperate to feed and fighting for control. Right now Sam was a succulent buffet with a neon sign that read Free Food.

  “Yeah.” We wove through the crowd and slipped out the door, past a large crowd waiting to get in. I’d left the car in the lot behind the building.

  Heckle was the way to go, but right now I had to be as far from Sam as possible. We needed to deal with the cuff, but in order to do that, I needed to feed. Now. The link hadn’t settled, and the extra push I was getting from her was driving me insane. Handing her the car keys, I took a long step back. “I’ll meet you back at the house.”

  She looked down at my hand, then up again without reaching for the keys. “Meet me back at the house? You’re staying here?”

  “No,” I said, taking another step away. I didn’t trust myself—or Azi. In addition to Chase’s impromptu visit and the fear he’d stirred up, I was still charged from being so close to her in the basement. If I allowed myself to be alone with her, I wouldn’t be able to control my actions—or the demon’s. I was a walking grenade and the pin had been pulled. “I’m going back to the house. Just not with you.”

  Her expression chilled the air. She was angry, but more than that, hurt. Because of me. My words. My actions. No matter what my intentions were, I was beginning to realize that it would always be this way. Something I said, something I did—what I was—would always end up hurting her.

  “You’re going to what, walk? Flap your arms and fly home? Am I missing something here?” She thrust her wrist at me. “We kind of have an issue.”

  “I know. And yeah, I’m going to walk,” I snapped, feeling like an asshole. I threw the keys at her and she caught them, mouth falling open. “Is that a problem?”

  Her surprise only lasted a second. The shock turned to anger, and she fired the keys back, twice as hard. The days of me pushing her away by being a dick were gone. She knew the game and refused to play. But her reaction was normally less volatile. “What the hell?”

  The keys fell to the ground with a clatter that echoed through the alley, and all I wanted to do was scream. At her. At Heckle. At life. She didn’t deserve that because this wasn’t her fault. It was mine. And even though I knew that, it was impossible to keep my anger in check. It was happening more and more since I’d embraced the demon, little random flickers of rage that became jets of all-consuming flame. Moments where it all got away from me.

  But this was different. This was all me. “I don’t want to be cooped up in a confined space with you right now, okay?” I took a deep breath, then blew out slowly, trying to get myself under control. “If I don’t feed Azi, I’m going to lose my shit.”

  She held my gaze for a minute, eyes full of uncharacteristic fury, then bent to retrieve the keys with a jerk. She wanted to hit me. Scream and rage until the anger faded and there was no energy left to expend. The potency of it slammed through me, nearly stealing the breath from my lungs. Without thinking, I grabbed her hand.

  The alley next to the Viking fell away. Sam was still in front of me, but she was with someone else. A tall guy with a spider tattoo on his forearm. He leaned in to kiss her and I felt my body coil, ready to pounce. But before I could act, the scene shimmered and faded, and it was Sam and I again outside the Viking.

  The moments that resulted from our link were mostly innocuous scenes from the past, but once in a while, the visions were intense, coupled with a full gamut of debilitating emotion. Eventually one of us was going to see something that did some real damage.

  We still didn’t understand it all. Some demons could create a link to their victims, constructing a parasitic relationship that benefited them at a horrible expense to the human. But this was different.

  First, Sam wasn’t a demon. She was…something else, but we had no clue what. Also, unlike with a demonic link, there didn’t appear to be any adverse effects—at first. A few weeks ago, things began to change. We’d become more in tune with each other’s moods. It was subtle at first. So brief that we both thought we were imagining things. The frequency seemed to be increasing, though it was still random.

  In that moment—at the look in her eyes—if she had begged me to get in the car, I would have without hesitation. Thankfully she was stronger than me. Without a word, she slid into Rick’s old clunker, slammed the door, and started the engine. The inside of the cab flooded with red as she peeled from of the lot, so thick I could barely make out her silhouette. I hated that she felt that way, but it was a relief. Anger, in my book, was always better than hurt. It was easier to deal with. To conquer. Anger fueled you. It could poison you if allowed to run rampant, or drive you if it remained focused.

  I just wasn’t sure whose emotions I was fighting anymore—mine or hers.

  I walked the streets of Harlow for hours before catching a whiff of fear, four miles from the club. When I went to investigate, I found a guy trying to steal some lady’s purse as she unpacked suitcases from the trunk of her car.

  While I couldn’t go as far with a human as I could a demon—killing the demonic bastards left me with one hell of a high and virtually no guilt—I could rough them up enough to calm Azi for a time and gain a small amount of peace.

  After giving the scumbag a proper beat down, I went in search of answers. Heckle owned a bar in downtown Harlow, The Inferno. Unfortunately, the man behind the bar wasn’t him. All he would tell me was that Heckle was away and he had no idea when he would return. After a few rounds of Q and A—the kind that involved pain and bloodshed—I started for Rick’s.

  An hour after getting home and trying repeatedly to reach Heckle’s cell, I gave up. Wherever he was, he wasn’t interested in chatting. I knew I should try to catch a few hours of sleep then tackle this thing with a clearer head in the morning. But it was impossible. Each time I closed my ey
es, Azi flooded my mind with images. They ranged from raw, animalistic sex to wicked teasing, all with the same effect. The thing was relentless and I was on fire. It wasn’t long before I found myself standing outside Sam’s door, hands braced against the frame and fingers digging into the molding. It took all my willpower not to bust through and—

  “Since we’re both awake, you might as well just come in,” she said softly. She was inside the room, behind the closed door, but since embracing the demon, I couldn’t turn off the heightened senses it afforded me. Before, I’d had to surrender a certain amount of control to the monster to gain access to its more than human abilities. But since turning myself over to it, I had full access without the surrender. It’d been disorienting at first—hearing the heartbeat of everyone in a room, or the sound of their breath as it moved in and out of their lungs—but I’d gotten it under control for the most part.

  Except when it came to Sam. I was hyperaware of her all the time. The way she moved, and the subtle hitches in her voice as her mood changed. Being so in tune with the one person I couldn’t get close to was a fresh kind of torture every day.

  I sucked in a breath and pushed open the door. Sam was in bed with the covers pooled around her waist. The small lamp on the nightstand beside the bed illuminated her features, accentuating each curve in sharp, painful detail.

  “I owe you an—”

  “Don’t.” She held up her hand. “I get it, and I hate it. But…I get it.”

  Of course she did. Always so damn understanding. Everything from my mood swings to the blood that always seemed to stain my hands—Sam was able to look past all of it, and a part of me hated her for it. I was a bastard. A monster unworthy of redemption. If I could get her to see that, to believe it, then it would be true.

  But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. When she looked at me, there was nothing but love and optimism, and it was exhausting, trying to live up to her expectations and knowing it was impossible.

  She shifted and the covers fell to the side, revealing a glimpse of her leg. Azi stirred, flashing images of creamy skin and supple curves, ripe beneath my fingers. I swallowed.

  “Inviting me in here was a bad idea.” My pulse jumped and the air heated. Every breath she took echoed inside my head, a siren’s song with the ability to control my every move.

  She shoved the covers away, swinging her long legs over the edge. Blue tank top and barely-there panties. Fuck.

  “We’re more than this, Jax.” She crossed the room to where I stood, moving deliberately slow and swinging her hips. With her index finger, she traced a path from my chin to my ear, along my jawline. The sensation was euphoric. “We’re more than stolen moments and forbidden touches.” She grabbed my hand and placed it over her heart. “You’re my other half.”

  Pulse thundering in my ears, I tried to focus on her words and not the way her lips looked as they moved. Not the memory of what they tasted like, or how they felt—sinfully soft and electric—pressed against mine. Not the slight curve of her breast, so close to where my hand lay. “I want you.”

  “Do you?” Her hand, still atop mine, moved south a few inches until my fingers rested against the underside of her breast. She rose onto her toes and whispered at my ear, her voice low and breathless, “I couldn’t tell…”

  This time the demon didn’t need to taunt me. The thoughts came all on their own, a series of mouthwatering scenarios that all involved Sam naked, in various positions, screaming my name. It was more than I could take. I grabbed her shoulders and reversed our position, spinning her toward the wall and pinning her there with the length of my body. I was straddling the line, and all it would take to push me over was the smallest nudge. One she seemed intent on providing.

  “I could take you.” Hard, I ground myself against her, the friction sending an even mixture of pleasure and pain coursing through me.

  There was a wicked grin on her lips, and a strong sense of satisfaction surged through the link. She wanted to push me. To send me over the edge.

  With a soft, pleading moan, she let her head fall back against the wall. The sound turned everything dark. I lost focus. Lost where I was and what I was doing. A small nagging voice in the back of my head that told me this wasn’t right, that Sam wouldn’t push me like this, but it was eclipsed by blind lust. The desire was so potent I could taste it, sharp and acidic, so unshakable I found myself helpless. A slave to it.

  The demon was right there with me.

  “We could do anything and everything that we wanted, and you would like it.” All that existed in that moment was Sam and the unbearable need. Something gnawed at my subconscious. A thought too dim to recognize. A warning… It wasn’t important. The urge to satisfy the darkest fantasies we both had for this woman overshadowed everything. To take her. Possess her. “You would beg for it.”

  “Careful,” she whispered fervently. “You’re coming undone—”

  I grabbed a handful of her hair and braced my fist against the wall, securing her there. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” I growled. Leaning in, I skimmed the line of her jaw, nipping lightly at the skin as I made my way down, around to her collarbone.

  She arched against me, a soft rumble in her throat. Her hands tangled in my hair.

  Azi sent an image. Me taking Sam. Hard. Fast. Possessive and feral… No. Not me. Azirak. I watched as the picture played out, mesmerized by the ferocity of it. Prurient grunting and a feminine groan that made me hard as rock and ready to explode. I was enthralled. Captivated by the savagery of the scene.

  Vision-Sam cried out. Except it wasn’t her voice I heard. It was something deeper, a sound far too harsh to have come from human lips. The vision changed. It was still me, but Sam was gone. Beneath me was something shadowed. A form distinctly female, but not human. Not one I knew, yet one I wanted to devour.

  A flash of dark hair and pale skin. Large, full breasts bounced as I rammed myself violently forward, sinking into warmth. I growled, a feral, inhuman sound that mingled with the moans of excitement coming from the thing beneath me. The sensation that came over me, a savage desire unlike anything else I’d ever experienced, needed to be sated.

  The vision ended, but the feeling it left behind was all consuming. It left me raw, an exposed nerve throbbing for release. Words spilled from my lips, too soft for human ears, syllables and sounds I didn’t understand but physically hurt to hear. I buried my face in Sam’s neck, running my tongue from her cheek to collarbone. One taste wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Needed it.

  I raked my fingers down her body, to her backside, and hefted her off the ground. In response she wrapped both legs tight around my waist. I crossed the room and threw her onto the bed. The frame groaned and something metallic snapped. I didn’t care. The visions started again and even though every inch of my mind was telling me to stop, my body refused to listen.

  “Jax,” Sam panted. A whisper of gray swirled, mingling with the thick orange. “Maybe we—”

  I covered her mouth with mine to silence her. She tasted like lust. Lust and fear… I breathed it in, desperate for more, while in the back of my mind I was horrified. The fear. I craved it almost as much as I craved her touch. A rush of possibilities clamored through my head. Ways I could increase the potency. Things I could do to scare her…

  What the fuck was I doing?

  I jumped up and backed myself into the opposite corner of the room, breath coming in shallow pulls. My stomach tightened.

  Sam sat up and started toward me. “What are you—”

  “Stop,” I roared. She froze, and I squeezed my eyes closed for a second. Everything was spinning. The images hadn’t stopped. In one after another, I watched myself take what I wanted from her, satisfying the demon’s sickest whims. In my mind she screamed and cried and begged me to stop. Then in an instant, she was cooing and pleading for more. Back and forth. Pleasure and pain. “The pictures… They’re dark and vicious. Possessive. I wanted to hurt you, Sammy. To taste your fear.”

 
; “Fear? Jax, I could never be af—”

  I slammed my fists backward into the wall behind me. The plaster crumbled beneath the blow, showering the carpet with dust and debris. “Yes!” The word ripped from my throat, bouncing like a stray bullet off the walls of her small room. I took a step forward, goaded by the look of surprise on her face. My lips spread with a grin. “I could make you afraid. I could do things that would terrify you.”

  Her skin paled. This time, instead of coming closer, she had the sense to back away. Two steps to the right, then around the bottom of the bed until she was on the other side. “This isn’t you talking, Jax. It’s Azi.”

  “Maybe it is,” I admitted, even though I couldn’t be sure anymore. The line between the demon and I grew hazier each day. I’d never admit it, but I worried one day it would disappear all together, leaving us a single creature. “But some small part is me. I liked what I saw, Sammy. I needed it.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said, resolute.

  “Listen to me!” I shouted. This was serious. I wanted Sam. In every way, I wanted her. But she was more to me than the desire she sparked. She was home. My best friend. To have so little control over my impulses meant Azi was stronger than I’d anticipated. Even now there was very little keeping me from closing the distance between her and…

  Deep breath. “I’m having a hard time controlling myself around you. I saw…”

  What had I seen? The fire I’d felt for the thing in the vision still burned in my veins, tangled with my desire for Sam. It left me raw and exposed.

  “I don’t care what you saw,” she said softly. One foot in front of the other, she cautiously made her way around the bed to where I stood and took my hands. They looked huge in hers—calloused, rough things brushing against perfect creamy satin. “You never give yourself enough credit, Jax. You are the strongest man I know.”

  Strong? She was fucking insane. My heart thundered, the erratic rhythm making it impossible to draw anything more than quick, shallow breaths that did little to satisfy my need for air. The walls seemed to be closing in. The room to be growing smaller. Need. There was something I needed. Something that would make this suffocating feeling go away.