Seduced by a Demon King

by Heaton, Felicity

  They would have to accept her.

  She didn’t want to be queen. She just wanted to be accepted. She just wanted to be one of the family she always felt as if she was looking in on from the outside.

  All she had to do was bag and tag him. Given the way he was looking at her, his dark eyes riveted on her in an unblinking stare, seducing him wasn’t impossible. She just had to make the right moves and her victory was assured.

  Okay, that probably wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded in her head, but she had to give it a shot.

  It didn’t hurt that he wasn’t bad on the eye either.

  If the human had been a solid eight, then this man was a solid eleven.

  He was huge, his black shirt like a second skin, stretched over powerful muscles and across the impressive breadth of his chest. And he was more than handsome. He was divine. A god made flesh.

  No man on Earth, Hell or Heaven was like this one.

  She canted her head, studying his intense dark eyes, tracking the straight line of his regal nose to a firm mouth that lacked laughter lines, and a solid jaw that was only made stronger by the black stubble that covered it.

  Everything about him screamed warrior.

  But she had never seen a warrior who also screamed Adonis like he did. He was so handsome, she might have mistaken him for an incubus. It would have explained her mistress’s failed attempt to seduce him. He wasn’t one of that vile kind though. Her senses would have been screaming at her to run if he had been an incubus and he certainly wouldn’t have been looking at her as if he was interested in her.

  He would have been looking at her like every other incubus she had met in her years—as if he wanted to kill her.

  No, this man was something else. Immortal? For sure. A warrior? Definitely.

  Panty-melting? Abso-fucking-lutely.

  Even propping up the bar, he was commanding, a confident and alluring display of masculine perfection that had more than one woman taking note of him.

  Suki focused on him, a need to know what he was thinking demanding she satisfy it.

  His aura shimmered into being around him.

  Only it wasn’t colourful.

  It rose as black smoke from his shoulders and head.

  Was her damned emotional radar on the fritz or was he immune to her ability?

  Was this the reason Cyrena had failed to seduce him?

  Reading the aura of her target made it easier to charm him, acting as an early warning system that told her when she was doing something wrong and when she was doing something right. She glanced at Solid Eight. His aura was flashing a warning at her, all dark shades of blue-grey and red that told her he was annoyed and was definitely about to ditch her.

  She couldn’t blame him.

  She was a little distracted.

  Her gaze roamed back to Solid Eleven.

  His gaze narrowed and he turned away from her, twisting on his stool so his back was to her. He ran a hand over the longer strands of his black hair, sweeping the tangled finger-length ribbons back before rubbing both sides of his head, as if he had a killer headache.

  The heat that had been building inside her suddenly chilled, leaving her off balance as she ignored Solid Eight and tried to figure out what she had done wrong.

  She frowned.

  All she had done was glance at Solid Eight.

  Was Solid Eleven a jealous type? She could probably use it to her advantage, but she didn’t want to get Solid Eight killed.

  Her frown deepened as she stared at the shadows rising off the warrior’s back, attempting to pierce them to see his emotions. No luck. His aura remained as black as midnight.

  She wasn’t going to let it deter her. Her ability to read his aura might be useless, but she still had decades of training to fall back on. She would read his body language instead.

  It was hardly a chore.

  She raked her gaze down over his back, drinking in his wide shoulders that tapered down into a trim waist, and an ass that had to be grade A rump packed into his tight black leathers.

  She bet his clothes hid a body she could spend hours studying without getting bored.

  Plus, when she bagged and tagged him, her sisters would have to admit she was awesome because she would have done it without the aid of reading his aura.

  Suki rubbed her damp palms on her short skirt and took a step forward.

  “Are you even listening to me, Sucky?” Allura’s sharp tone made her jump.

  She had forgotten her sisters were still with her.

  Suki brushed off the hurt that welled in her heart on hearing her clan’s pet name for her and turned on her sisters with a smile, refusing to let Allura get her down. She was just a late bloomer. She was going to find her talent and then she would show them. It would be as her mother had said.

  She would be the greatest succubus there ever was.

  Although, apparently tonight had been an epic fail so far.

  Her confidence took a nosedive as she looked at Solid Eight. He was all over Vidia, playing with one of her long blonde pigtails and eyeing her cleavage in her tight white shirt, and the handsome nymph was all over both of them. Damn it. She had taken her eye off the ball and now Solid Eight was caught up in the male and her sister when he should have been swept up in her. She blamed Vidia. The damned catholic schoolgirl outfit she was wearing was probably pushing the perverted fantasy buttons of half the men in the club.

  Never mind. She had a better, bigger target in mind now.

  “I’m listening.” Suki tried to resist focusing on the male behind her at the bar.

  He was still there. She didn’t need to panic. She would get rid of her sisters so she didn’t have an audience and then she would leap into action. He wasn’t going to know what hit him.

  Even the most powerful immortal could be seduced under the control of a skilled succubus. The leaders of her clan had fed from the mightiest warriors, from gods. Tonight, she was going to join their ranks. She was going to succeed where her mistress had failed.

  Her tutors had told her countless times that it was her attitude holding her back. She feared killing and that affected her ability to charm men. Solid Eleven was strong, he could probably handle her. Scratch that. She was meant to be confident. Positive attitude. He could handle her. She was going to seduce him and then everyone would stop calling her Sucky.

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” she said when Allura gave her a worried look. “I’ll find another host.”

  She slid a pointed look at Vidia, who just shrugged and petted Solid Eight, twining her fingers in his hair as she offered Suki an unrepentant smile that was all ‘you snooze, you lose’.

  Suki waited for them to leave, her thoughts returning to the shadowed male behind her and the fact her mistress had failed at seducing him. According to succubus law, shadowed males were dangerous and forbidden because of it. That gave her pause, but only for a moment. Cyrena had targeted him, which meant the succubus couldn’t be angry with Suki if she dared to do the same.

  She glanced over her shoulder at his back. He certainly looked dangerous, but he wasn’t ringing any internal alarm bells. He didn’t register as a threat to her.

  But then her senses and abilities were hardly top notch. Maybe he was as dangerous as clan law painted him and she just wasn’t feeling it.

  Although if he was so dangerous, why would her mistress have tried to seduce him?

  When she was younger, she had read in a book for young succubi that certain males were more difficult to control, and some were even immune to a succubus’s powers. Had that book been referring to shadowed males?

  She wasn’t going to let it deter her. She had set her sights on him and she was going to give it her best shot. It was now or never. If she didn’t prove herself worthy of being a member of her clan soon, she was going to end up on the streets.

  She just hoped her sisters weren’t leading her on, setting her up to fail. It would be just like them to make up some crap abo
ut a guy in an attempt to get her to try her luck with him so they could see her screw things up. Apparently, watching her fail was entertaining. Suki didn’t find it at all funny.

  Suki cleared her throat, plucked her cheeks to redden them, and blew out her breath.

  She could do this.

  He glanced over his shoulder in her direction and an ache rolled through her, had her wanting to rub her thighs together and lick her lips as her hunger ratcheted up another notch. Damn, he was hot.

  His dark eyes narrowed on her, sending a white-hot shiver dancing over her skin, and she adjusted her opinion.

  With his silky black hair, square jaw coated in a fine layer of scruff, that regal profile and a broad firm mouth that had been made for wicked things, coupled with the intensity of his powerful gaze as it held her immobile, he was more than hot.

  He was movie-star gorgeous.

  She managed to drag her eyes away from his and a frown flickered on her brow as she noticed something.

  He had tattoos.

  They looked like tribal designs, inked in black and visible through the shaved sides of his head.

  And if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a hole in the design, a ring in just the right place for something.

  Horns.

  Solid Eleven was a demon?

  She trembled at the thought he might be. Demons were exceptionally strong, and that meant he could probably handle her.

  That ache grew fiercer, roused by the image building in her head as she pictured him with horns and found him devastating.

  Heat flashed through her as she ambled towards him, a little sway to her hips. His eyes dropped to her body and she raked her gaze down his, over a torso packed with muscle. His shirt hugged it like a second skin, and damn she envied it and the black leathers that encased his powerful legs. Heavy black boots screamed biker bad boy, pressing all the right buttons in her.

  Holy Hell, he was panty-wetting delicious.

  Maybe her mistress had wanted him for that reason.

  Her nerves melted away as she stopped beside him. “Can I sit?”

  He stood with a roguish smile that had her heart fluttering in response, knees close to buckling as she found herself facing the impressive breadth of his chest. She slowly tilted her head back, her eyes widening as she had to keep going and going in order to reach his face.

  A low whistle escaped her as she finally locked eyes with him.

  Damn, he was massive.

  He dwarfed her five-seven, had to be pushing seven feet, if not more. She had never seen a demon as tall as he was, and it felt so wrong that the difference in height between them spoke to the deeply feminine side of her, making her want to stake a claim on him.

  Hell, she was a nanosecond away from climbing him like a tree despite their audience.

  Only the feel of him studying her stopped her from doing it. She met his gaze again and confusion broke through the haze of desire, shattering its hold on her as cold eyes held hers, disappointment flickering in them.

  What the heck?

  He had looked interested before, his scent had even changed to reveal his hunger to her, but now he looked as if he was bored.

  Suki struggled to muster her confidence again as it shattered into a million pieces, her mind filling with questions and doubts, leading her in circles as she tried to figure out what she had done wrong. She must have done something. He had been interested. She hadn’t imagined that.

  Had she been too confident in her approach? She had thought him a sure thing, had been convinced she could score with him and claim the victory she badly needed, but now it looked as if she needed a new plan.

  He silently took his seat again and turned his side to her.

  Went one better at driving a knife into her confidence by picking up a book and reading it.

  A book was more interesting than she was?

  That was a new low for her.

  Suki slumped into the empty seat, racking her brain to figure out where she had gone wrong. She must have made a mistake somewhere along the line. Or maybe this was just a game he liked to play with women. He led them on, making them believe he desired them so they felt attractive and a little bit happy, and then he stuck his nose in a book and ignored them, wounding them and leaving them feeling as if they weren’t beautiful after all.

  She turned a glare on him, anger rising to the fore because she was damned if he was going to play with her like that.

  The sight of him arrested her, silencing the jibe that had been on the tip of her tongue.

  His dark eyes rapidly devoured each line of text in the book, the black slashes of his eyebrows knitting hard above them as he focused, losing himself in it. The corners of his broad sensual mouth quirked and faint lines bracketed it. He was genuinely enjoying the book. She didn’t need to see his aura to know that.

  She looked around them, at the busy nightclub, and then back at him.

  He was an anomaly.

  In a bar filled with revellers, he was sitting at the counter, a study in quiet and calm, lost in a book of all things.

  How fascinating.

  She peered at the book, trying to catch a glimpse of the cover or something that would tell her what he was reading about. Although it wouldn’t answer the most prominent question pinging around her head.

  Why was he reading it in a bar?

  Was her hot geek shy? Maybe she had come on too strong and flustered him, and that was why he was now hiding in a book. How adorable.

  Her confidence zipped right back up.

  Time for attempt number two.

  “What are you reading?” she hollered over the music, aware his hearing was probably sensitive enough to hear her if she had spoken at a normal volume but not wanting to give him a chance to pretend he hadn’t heard her.

  The way his fathomless black eyes came to land on hers told her she was mistaken.

  This demon was in no way shy.

  The intensity of his look, the way his gaze drilled into her with a commanding air, flustered her and she made an awkward lunge for the book, pushing it up so she could see the cover. That earned her an arched eyebrow from him.

  She was too busy staring dumbfounded at the cover to notice.

  A book on wind turbine construction?

  In her head, it had been a novel, perhaps a thriller. She wasn’t sure how to compute this. The fact he had been reading in a bar had been incomprehensible. The fact he was reading the geekiest book imaginable was just… well. Her mind felt as if it was about to short-circuit.

  “What’s a guy doing reading a book in a nightclub?” The words had left her tongue before she could consider his reaction, and the fact she might be on course to offend him and drive him away.

  She was sure men who read books were somewhat sensitive about that subject around women, presuming they were going to be ridiculed or perhaps the woman would think less of them for being bookish.

  Suki found it rather alluring. Here was a man who wanted to better himself. After the number of men she had encountered who thought themselves perfect, he was a breath of fresh air.

  He muttered, “I could not read at home, and I required space, so here I am.”

  Suki’s brain blew a fuse after the second word and she could only stare at him, blood heating from the low purr of his delicious baritone. She blinked, struggling against the devastating effect of his voice, trying to piece together what he had said so she had a shot at not making him think she was either stupid or rude because she hadn’t taken in what he had said.

  When she had gathered the scattered remnants of her brain and had reconstructed what he had said, two things struck her.

  His accent was odd. She had met demons before, but none with his accent. The ones she had met sounded a lot more like the humans of this world. Which led her to the question, did he spend more time in Hell than on Earth?

  The second thing that hit her was she liked his bass voice. It was gruff, yet regal. His English was good, but a little
antiquated.

  Her panties would have melted more, but they had burned away long ago.

  “Why couldn’t you read at home, and why did you need space?” She leaned closer, hoping it wouldn’t drive him away.

  Rather than fleeing or burying his nose back in his terribly educational book, he eased his massive frame back on the stool and rested the book on the bar top, his large hand draped across the pages to keep them open as he twisted slightly towards her.

  Before he could answer, she added, “Are you in the doghouse with your missus and that’s why you’re here?”

  “I have no female.” The remark was casual, but carried a boat load of juicy new information she stored away.

  He was single.

  He was old, and definitely didn’t get out of Hell much. Modern demons who spent most of their time in the mortal world or the fae towns hidden within it had adapted to call females women.

  She eyed him again, casually so he didn’t get jittery, not lingering too long on any part of him. Excitement thrummed in her veins, and this time it wasn’t because he was hot. It was because she was enjoying this game, unravelling the mystery of her gorgeous geek.

  And she was enjoying the fact he was relaxing around her again.

  “Are you an engineer?” She wasn’t sure Hell had engineers like the mortals did, but why else would he be reading a book about wind turbines?

  “No.”

  A little abrupt. She dialled back her ogling in case it was triggering his mood change, lifting her eyes back to his and giving him an innocent smile.

  “Why are you reading a book on wind turbines of all things then?” She prodded the book.

  He visibly stiffened and drew the book towards the edge of the bar top, towards him, a protective gesture if ever she saw one.

  He glanced down at it and murmured, “It seemed interesting.”

  How amusing. “More interesting than getting drunk and rowdy, and dancing up a storm?”

  A frown flickered on his brow. “I have no interest in those things, which is why I am here.”