He broke the kiss, pressed his forehead to hers and breathed deeply, his hot breath caressing her tingling lips as she stared up into his eyes.
“I do not think of you in that way, Suki… although I do think about you constantly. I go mad when I am away from you.” He sounded pained, as if he truly meant that, and the remnants of her anger faded away as she stood there in the square, pressed against every delicious hard inch of him, captured by his large hand against her nape and his honest words. “I came here because I needed to see you. I dreamed of you.”
He croaked the last four words, a husky edge to his voice that left her in little doubt about what sort of dream it had been.
“I dreamed of you too,” she murmured.
He stiffened against her. “You did?”
She nodded. “Hardly surprising. You kiss like a demon and I left wanting more. So did you. It’s only natural we ended up dreaming the rest.”
He relaxed a little but didn’t release her. His fingers remained tensed against her neck, his hold possessive and speaking to that deeply feminine part of her that enjoyed the flashes of his strength. Apparently, it enjoyed him being in charge too.
A dangerous cocktail of pleasure.
One she wanted to get drunk on.
“Walk with me,” she whispered close to his lips, bringing hers up until they were almost in contact.
His gaze lowered to them. “Why?”
She skimmed her fingers up his side and drank in the way his eyes darkened and heated, desire flaring in them that gave her a hit of energy as his hunger soared and made her bold.
“I could make up something about how I had been going above ground to get some air, but it would be a lie.” She lifted her hands between them and traced patterns on his chest, trembling as the need she constantly felt whenever she was around him cranked tighter, driving her to fulfil it. A kiss wasn’t enough this time. She needed more from him. “I want to get out of here because I want you all to myself.”
His gaze heated further, drawing her deeper under his spell as it spoke to her, told her that she wasn’t the only one who needed another taste of the passion that blazed between them.
“You already have me all to yourself,” he purred, an edge to his voice that said he liked that she wanted him that way.
“I don’t.” She drew back, breaking contact with him, and he frowned. “I’m sharing you with at least a dozen women who are gawping at you and have been from the time I spotted you sitting on the walkway.”
His right eyebrow lifted. “They are?”
She shook her head, couldn’t believe he was oblivious to the fact most single women who passed tossed him at least a sultry glance, and some had taken to just openly staring at him.
“You seriously can’t mean you haven’t noticed them staring?” She looked around at the crowd and then back at him, a frown pulling at her eyebrows. “Are you that used to women trying to fuck you with their eyes?”
He rolled his thickly-hewn shoulders. “I spend most of my time in Hell, in the company of demons. I spend little time around females.”
She muttered, “All the more reason for you to notice the women then, surely? You must be horny. I can’t imagine being so starved of the company of the opposite sex.”
All the heat washed from his eyes as he frowned down at her.
She met his scowl with a roll of her eyes. “Stop giving me that judging look. I’m a succubus.”
He growled. “I do not need a reminder of that. If females are staring at me, then just as many males are gazing upon your curves.”
Suki shrugged that off. “I don’t mind. I can snack on the flicker of energy their dirty thoughts give off.”
She braced herself for whatever snarl or grumbled words would leave his lips in response to that.
Instead of the gruff reply she anticipated, his gaze heated again, his expression deliciously intense as he asked in a rumbling voice, “Can you snack upon my thoughts?”
She sidled closer, aching to touch his horns, and murmured, “The way you look at me sometimes… it’s like a five-course meal and it’s delicious.”
He slid his arm around her waist and tugged her to him, the corona of violet in his eyes spreading as his pupils dilated, that flare of hunger captivating her and pulling her deep under his spell as it cast black magic on her. Her hands lifted, drifting up towards his horns, anticipation curling inside her as she neared them.
He turned his cheek to her and glared at something.
She followed the direction of his gaze. Two demons stared at him, their dusky brown horns and wild chestnut hair telling her that they weren’t from the same realm as Tegan.
A gasp escaped her lips when she was suddenly jerked forwards, his grip on her wrist firm as he pulled her into the crowd with one hand and stuffed his book into the back of his leathers with the other.
Apparently, he was taking her up on that walk.
She looked back over her shoulder at the duo of demons who were still watching them with curiosity shining in their dark red eyes.
Watching Tegan.
Why was he avoiding others of his species? Were they from a realm his wasn’t getting along with right now, or was it something else that had him swiftly exiting the square and heading towards a quieter part of town?
The road that swept through the witches’ district was packed as the entire town tried to filter into the square.
Now that they were moving, Tegan’s focus was fixed on everything but her, which sucked because she had been enjoying having it all locked on her and her alone.
It also sucked for a lot of the men in the town.
Whenever he noticed one looking her way, he was quick to growl and bare huge fangs at them, and the further they progressed through the witches’ district, the larger his horns grew, and she swore he was taller than before too.
Regret rushed through her as she looked up at the back of his head, sensing how tense he was through the point where he touched her. She had wanted to whisk him away from all the women, but now she wished she hadn’t made him move. He had been so relaxed back in the square.
Now he looked as if he wanted to rip the throats off every man in the town.
She twisted her arm free of his grip and slipped her hand into his before he could notice she had escaped him.
He stilled and looked down at their joined hands as his nostrils flared, his chest heaving as his pointed ears flared against the shaven sides of his head. His horns had completely transformed, curled past his temples to twist around on themselves and flare forwards into vicious black daggers, resembling the horns of a ram.
Sexy, but dangerous. Appreciating how incredible he looked when gripped by rage would have to wait. Calming him seemed the more appropriate course of action right now.
Before he decided to kill every man in the town.
“This way.” She tugged his hand and he followed her, not putting up a fight as she pulled him down a narrow alley between two of the white rendered buildings.
She didn’t slow as they left the crowd behind, kept leading him deeper into the maze of houses. He slowly began to relax, and his eyes raked over her, sending a hot shiver rolling over her skin wherever his gaze landed. It settled on their joined hands and she smiled when he shifted his grip and linked their fingers, clasping her hand so tightly there wasn’t room for a single molecule of air between their palms.
When she was far from the main road, she stopped and loosed a sigh. “Crisis averted.”
She turned on Tegan.
His features set in a hard frown as he lifted his black eyes from their hands to rest on her face. “Crisis?”
She nodded. “You kept murdering every man who looked at me.”
“I did not. I have not shed any blood.”
“Maybe not in reality, but in your head, you’d torn apart the last twenty or so guys who looked at me, hadn’t you?”
He averted his gaze, his cheeks darkening a shade, and muttered, “My apo
logies. I do not know what has come over me.”
“No worries. I wouldn’t have complained or fainted or anything. Just… it would have ruined our date.” She started walking again but he didn’t move, and she looked back at him over her shoulder.
“Date?” That adorable crinkle formed between his black eyebrows.
“Don’t demons date?” Gods, that was a mouthful. “Like, arrange a time and place to meet a female they like and do stuff with them like shopping, or dinner, or just hanging out?”
“Not that I know of. Many demons just seize their fated one and bend them to their will. It is not a particularly romantic courtship.”
It sounded delightful. And why did he have to keep making everything come back to fated mates, reminding her that somewhere out there, there was a bitch he would go gaga over?
She released his hand and his focus snapped down to the gap that appeared between them. His hand twitched, his handsome face darkened, and his lips flattened as he stared at her hand. He wanted to take it again. Well, he was going to have to work for the right to do that.
“Come on.” She sauntered away from him, deeply aware of his gaze on her as she walked, a little sway to her hips that she couldn’t help.
If he was going to keep talking about fated mates, she was going to punish him for it. A round of look but don’t touch would probably work.
When he still didn’t move, she looked back at him, and satisfaction swept through her when she caught the pained look on his face as he stared at her backside.
She wasn’t going to beckon him again. Doing that would probably make her look desperate and that would give him power over her, and she was enjoying this small power she currently had over him.
Suki sashayed around the corner, breaking his line of sight.
An unholy growl rolled through the air and he was suddenly beside her, glaring down at her. Blaming her for disappearing on him?
She shrugged that off. It was his fault for not keeping up.
“Is this a date, Suki?”
Heat shivered over her, a glimmer of bliss that had her step faltering as it hit her. She cursed him. He used her name whenever she was in a mood with him, had realised the power it had over her whenever she heard it rumbling in his deep voice, even when it wasn’t her true name. Damn him back to Hell for abusing it like that because she was powerless to resist him whenever he uttered her name.
“No. I take it back,” she snapped, clinging to her mood like a petulant child. “This is a chance meeting.”
“When I used your digits the other day and you came to spend time with me. Was that a date?” His deep rumbling voice had another blast of heat washing through her, each low spoken and cautious word hitting her hard.
Her curious geek. Always trying to figure out the why and how of things.
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“How do I make this a date again?”
She tried and failed to hold back her smile. Persistent bastard. No man had ever been so damned persistent with her. All the other ones in her life would have given up by now and moved on to find an easier target.
Tegan enjoyed the fight for her.
Because she wasn’t an easy lay like the other females he had known, the ones who had obviously complimented him too much and thrown themselves at his feet?
“You have to work harder.” She looked across at him, weathering his frown. “You show up in my town but don’t try to find me. You eat dinner without me. You insult me. I mean really, Solid Eleven, at the rate you’re going, you’ll hit single digits in no time.”
He growled. “Any attempt to find you would have resulted in the bloodbath you barely avoided back in that street. Asking males if they knew you…” He didn’t need to say any more than that for her to get the picture. He would have murdered them all. “As far as I know, you do not eat food. I did not mean to insult you and I apologised for that.”
Why was she trying to push him away?
Because he was getting too close, getting under her skin?
Because she was afraid that one day, he would find his mate and that woman would steal him from her?
She froze as that last one hit her. Tegan wasn’t hers, which meant another female couldn’t steal him from her. She was a succubus. Succubi didn’t do long term relationships. They didn’t do relationships at all.
So why did she ache to have one with Tegan?
Why did she long for a taste of what it was like to be in a relationship like the ones she had watched on the TV or in the town or the nightclubs she frequented?
A hollow feeling opened inside her, carving out her chest, leaving her shaken as she stared up into Tegan’s eyes because she wanted something she could never have. Her mistress’s words hit her and they slammed into her with the force of a wrecking ball.
Maybe she had been born into the wrong species.
She wanted things she had no right wanting, failed at things that should have come naturally to her, and had faulty abilities.
“Suki.” Tegan’s eyebrows furrowed as he closed the distance between them and lifted his hand. The backs of his fingers gently brushed her cheek, that earnest and worried look on his face ripping at her heart as she tried to hold it together. “What is wrong? Is it something I have done?”
She shook her head, considered sweeping his hand away from her and stopped herself from doing it when she realised just how much his touch comforted her, chasing the storm clouds from her mind and bringing a flicker of light back into her heart to ease the pain that had been building there.
“Rough day,” she whispered, drew down a deep breath and ignored the voice at the back of her head that said she would regret opening up to him. She mentally flipped it off, because she needed to speak with someone, and he was here, looking at her as if he would die if he didn’t discover what was wrong with her and make it better. “My sisters were dicks this morning.”
She wanted to leave it at that.
“Dicks?”
She nodded. “They were on fine form. Total bitches. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Tegan evidently did. “They are mean to you?”
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, didn’t want him to see that she was defective like everyone said she was, even when she had admitted as much to him before.
Because she didn’t want him to look at her as her family did, seeing something worthless.
“It’s nothing. Let it go.” She went to walk away.
He caught her upper arm and spun her back to face him, the darkness etched on his handsome features saying he thought it was something and he wasn’t going to do as she had asked.
His irises flared purple and his horns curled again, and his fangs flashed between his lips as he opened his mouth and snapped it closed again, the fury that had tightened his features melting away as his eyes darted between hers and his brow furrowed.
He released her arm and cupped her cheek, his gaze holding hers, softening in a way that warmed her from head to toe and had her leaning into his touch. Something about that look in his eyes made her feel as if she was worth something.
To him at least.
She wanted to reward him for it, for improving her mood without even knowing he had done it by making her see that her sisters were wrong about her.
She could charm a man, could make him want her.
She just couldn’t use her powers to make that happen.
Which made it a hell of a lot more difficult, but gods, it was more rewarding.
“Wait here.” She tiptoed and pressed a swift kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
She teleported before he could say anything.
CHAPTER 14
Suki appeared outside one of her favourite stores in the witches’ district as a roar cut through the air, silencing the street around her. She shivered. Angry Tegan was the best Tegan. She almost wished she had stuck around to see him roar like that, to witness his strength and raw fury. Maybe she c
ould make him roar for her when she returned.
“Hello?” She walked between the cases of wares outside the white building, beneath the violet canopy, and leaned her head into the open door. “Agatha?”
Abigail popped up from behind the counter in the crowded room and tugged at something caught in her long white hair. Her green eyes widened when whatever it was fought back. The witch muttered something beneath her breath, a puff of dark blue smoke exploded from between her fingers and a screech filled the air.
“Damned beasties getting in the wires again. Chewing the whole bloody shop.” Abigail beamed at her as she swatted the smouldering blue patch in her tangled hair.
“Agatha not here?” Suki crossed the cramped room, sliding around several rotating metal stands filled with phone cases.
“She’s…” A pained look crossed the young witch’s face as she twisted the front of her black dress in her hands. “The raid.”
A chill skated down Suki’s back and she shook her head. “Gods… she wasn’t killed… tell me your sister wasn’t killed.”
It had only been a couple of months since the bastard hunter organisation, Archangel, had raided the town, killing a lot of people and stealing others, abducting them for the gods only knew what reason. The town had been a sombre place in the aftermath.
She hadn’t heard of any witches being killed.
The ice in her veins grew colder. Although the alternative was worse than death.
“I think… I think they took her.” Tears lined Abigail’s eyes. “I-I’m not sure though. It was crazy. I was with her and everything happened so fast. She pushed me away when the hunters descended. Cast a spell on me to hide me. I tried to help her.”
Suki sank forwards, pressing her hands against the counter as she struggled to take that in. The attack had been unwarranted and brutal. Normally, the mortal hunter organisation left them alone because they were peaceful, none of the people who lived in the town a danger to the humans they shared this world with.
Rumours had run through the town in the aftermath, speculation that someone they had been hunting must have come to the town, bringing trouble to them. Suki wasn’t so sure. They had killed many from different species and taken several captives from various ones too. A few shifters had gone missing from different compounds, and there had been a demon taken when he had fought against the hunters, attempting to stop them.
Seduced by a Demon King Page 16