“Oh, God, Ash,” she whispered.
Pressing a kiss to her soft cheek he said, “I love to hear you call my name when you come.”
Sliding his fingers up a little, he exposed her clit as within her his tail sought her g-spot.
Miri felt cool air on her exposed flesh and then warmth burst through her belly. Her body tightened of its own volition as pleasure swelled within her once more.
“Ash,” she moaned, as his index and ring fingers spread to draw back the hood of her clit, his middle finger stroking that sensitive bud ever so lightly.
“I want to watch you come,” he said, brushing his mouth over hers. “Come again for me, Miri.”
At his words heat poured through her, it felt as if her body turned molten.
With his tail sliding across her g-spot, his fingers toying with her clit, Ash lowered his mouth to her nipple. Slowly, his gaze locked on hers, he drew that tender tip into his mouth, brushed his tongue over the sensitive hardness.
Conscious of his eyes on her, watching her as she slowly came apart, Miri was lost in a sensual haze. Every muscle was rigid, locked. Her back bowed to offer Ash more, to offer him everything as pleasure poured through her in delicious waves from the teasing finger that caressed her clit to the tail that stroked inside her. His warm mouth suckled at her breast in steady pulls. Each sent a swelling rush of pleasure through her.
She quivered as every muscle grew tense, taut again. Her breath sobbed in her throat.
Miri had never experienced pleasure so intense, so overwhelming as this. All thought was gone as Ash sent ecstasy racing through her in wave after building wave. Her body trembled and twitched in response to his every touch.
Ash watched in wonder as she surrendered herself to his touch.
He drove her up, steadily, relentlessly, watched as her legs opened for him, as she arched to press her breast against his mouth in entreaty.
“I love to watch this,” he said, softly, against the fullness of her. “I love to watch your pleasure take you.”
Drawing her hardened nipple once more into his mouth, he suckled hard on it. She cried out as her essence poured into him. Once more he feasted on her, drank her glory in, stretched it out as she quivered and trembled helplessly.
Watching, Ash knew she didn’t know she murmured his name as color washed beneath her gold-flecked skin. Her lips parted and her eyelids fluttered as he suckled at her, scraped his teeth over that sensitive nub to make her cry out as he drank in her essence. Watching her, feeling her pussy flood, clench around his tail, was making his cock hard. He pressed it against her smooth firm thigh, but it wanted Miri and he needed it inside her. She was so close to coming again.
He was a new level of hard. His throbbing shaft ached, strained to be inside his mate, to feel her tight hot wetness wrap around him like a glove, to be sheathed in her as her pussy muscles stroked him.
“I have you, Miri,” he said. “I’m here.”
Utterly limp, Miri opened her eyes with an effort, her breath shuddering in her chest as she looked up into Ash’s brilliant eyes, the red sparks swirling within them as he raised himself over her. The broad head of his cock breached her, stretched her as he drove deep inside her in one powerful stroke. Miri watched as every muscle in his body went rigid, the ones in his arms and broad chest flexing as he drove his cock deep inside her.
His brilliant eyes locked on hers. Flecks of fire danced in them, swirled with greater and greater speed and intensity as he thrust harder and deeper, until she nearly wept with the sweetness of it as that long thick shaft filled her, stretched her so completely. She moaned, her body arched, she writhed in pleasure, but her eyes never left his. Not until he was buried deep within her.
His cock brushed the top of her channel and then, with her gaze still locked on his, Miri shifted her hips beneath his deliberately to take him deeper still.
Miri said softly, on a groan as he drew back and then filled her again, “Will you come for me, Ash?”
The question, the need in it, nearly made Ash lose control, he was that hard.
With an effort, he reined himself in.
For a moment he held there, his eyes locked on hers, his throbbing member buried deep inside her, savoring the pleasure of her channel so tight, so hot around his shaft. His cock was sheathed deeply in her tightness, her pussy muscles clenched as her hips pumped impatiently, working him deliciously.
Pleasure surged through him.
It was incredible. She was so very tight around him, her slick internal muscles gloved him, stroked him.
Ash groaned, his cock swollen and so hard inside her.
He thrust as Miri matched him, her pussy clenching around him as her hips bucked. It was wonderful. Her brilliant green eyes went dark. He pounded into her and she braced herself to take each thrust he hammered into her.
Lost in those eyes, Ash erupted. Pleasure exploded through him. Those glorious green eyes widened to feel his hot cum jet inside her.
She smiled radiantly as she arched beneath him to take everything he gave her.
His mouth came to hers as she angled hers to his and fused there even as his pleasure coursed into her.
Ash tightened his arms around her, drew her close as his wings folded around them.
Chapter Nine
It was beautiful country, heavily wooded with both pine and deciduous trees rather than the coniferous trees that so dominated the south. The upper part of the steep hills was ablaze with bright autumn leaves, while in the valleys only some of the trees were touched with gold, most were still thickly, lushly green. Tucked away in those deep valleys – hollows to educated folk, hollers to those who lived in them – were creek-side gardens, small businesses and fields of horses, cattle, goats and sheep. Houses ranged from weathered shacks to near mansions, sometimes with less than a mile between them.
They had kept to heavily wooded back roads like these since the truck stop, making it harder for even a helicopter to spot them. If there were other searchers, although there must have been, they didn’t see them among the myriad of narrow byways.
Sunlight beamed down on them warmly as Ash swept the motorcycle through the deep turns of the back roads. It was almost like flying. Miri’s body swayed automatically to the motion of the motorcycle and the shift of Ash’s weight.
There was a peace to this place, a sense of the road less traveled.
Miri smiled. It was just so pretty.
She could also feel Ash’s body relax mile by mile. The tension in his arms and shoulders, his long back, diminished the longer they were certain they weren’t followed.
They turned onto a long dirt road that was like a dozen other long dirt roads they’d passed. Dust billowed behind them until Ash slowed to ride the grassy verge.
Miri looked up and her breath caught in wonder.
Ash glanced back over his shoulder at Miri to find that she was looking up at the sky. Raising his gaze carefully from the track, he looked up as well but he knew what it was she saw there…his brothers in flight, wheeling on the wind as they rode the high thermals.
Although they had and could fly on the other plane where they had lived for so long, it was different there. That place was stark, a barren and unforgiving land with little to recommend it beyond the shelter from persecution it afforded them. For all that time passed differently there, it had been a hot, dry, bitter place.
Not all his brothers had forsaken it but he had, for the green here, for the rich aroma of life, for the growing things. For the crisp scents of autumn, as now, or the fertile scent of spring and summer, the sharp coolness of winter. It was a return to a place long forbidden. Home.
Ash drove them deep into the hollow between the mountains, through the narrow pass that led into the green coolness of the valley that nestled there between the mountains and on into the shadowed interior, to the haven tucked away and hidden between the steep hills as the sun slowly set.
As he watched one of his brothers stooped into
a steep dive to deliver a warning to those in the valley that he’d returned and not alone.
For all they’d been in this place a year or more and even now searched for another refuge to the west this place already felt like home. The land called to him in a way it didn’t call to the people of this time, who treated what they’d been given so poorly.
Sure enough, by the time they pulled up in front of Gabriel’s cabin, now Gabriel’s and Asmodeus’s, a welcoming party awaited them on the wraparound porch Asmodeus had built before the snows had set in the previous winter.
Ash smiled to see Asmodeus waiting on the porch with his arm around his mate, Gabriel, as Ash brought the bike to a halt. Parking it, he gave a hand to Miri to help her off the bike.
Nor were Asmodeus and Gabriel alone. A few of the others also waited, Zaebos, Ba’al and Moloch, Foras, Beelezebub, a dozen more.
The Demonae. His brothers.
Suddenly, surprisingly, as he tightened his arm around Miri and they walked toward the house, Ash realized that for the first time in centuries he felt as if he were truly home again in a way he’d never felt on the other plane. He might live other places, they might have to escape to their refuge in those distant peaked mountains but to him this place was now home, here where these people were.
And Miri.
Once again he was reminded that he’d never thought to have what they shared. He’d thought himself too damaged, too scarred not only physically but mentally, to ever have a place in anything even as close to normal as his people knew it.
Now he did. It still astonished him.
He looked around.
In this, their own place, they were all in their own natural form, including Asmodeus, his Prince’s wings lightly spread.
Ash shifted even as he went to greet the one who was both Prince and friend as his own wings extended in relief, freed from their confines, his tail unleashed as he conjured his clothes away in favor of the loose vests and drawstring pants they preferred.
Even as Ash walked toward him, Asmodeus was striding down the steps to greet him, a broad grin on his face, his arm already held out to offer the traditional arm clasp shared between brothers. Ash met it with more than his usual formality.
“Asmodeus,” he said.
Bemused, amused, Miri watched as the two gripped arms, the other massive Daemonae clapping Ash hard on the shoulder. Not that Ash couldn’t take it, he didn’t even flinch.
Still, the other Daemonae was incredible, as tall as Ashtoreth and as incredibly beautiful, his features not quite as sharp as Ash’s, his eyes as intense but without the eastern slant Ash had.
But then, all the Daemonae were amazing.
Tall, each was in his own way incredibly handsome, their bodies impressive, the muscles strong through their chests and shoulders – not surprising when one considered the wings.
It was more than a little overwhelming.
The little wood cabin and the silver-haired woman who stepped down from the porch in Asmodeus’s wake seemed strangely out of place, almost startlingly normal, as more Daemonae spiraled down out of the sky to greet Ash.
A true cabin, the house was built of white-chinked, hewn-wood walls. The windows glowed warmly, invitingly, in the fading light of sunset. White lace curtains hung in them. Wood smoke drifted from the chimney.
It looked…homey. Normal.
The porch was deep as well as broad, the wood floor rough-hewn and rustic from what she could see. Adirondack chairs painted white and green waited there. Tubs of spicy fall mums anchored the wood steps that led up to the porch and spilled profusely in shades of scarlet, gold and bronze from pots and containers everywhere.
Far above them on the slopes of the hills where the last light of the sun turned the trees a deep vibrant gold, it also glittered and gleamed on those still flying.
Sensing her uncertainty, Ash drew her close while the others crowded around.
“Dr. Miri Reynolds,” Ash said, “I’d like you to meet Asmodeus, Prince of the Daemonae and my truest friend.”
Miri looked up at the huge Daemonae towering above her.
“A pleasure,” she said and offered her hand.
The Daemonae Prince smiled. As with Ash that smile transformed his face, softened the harshness of it.
Given what she knew of Ash’s experiences, of what her visions had shown her, that hardness had been bought and paid for with blood. The smile, though? That was his true nature and the warmth in it showed. Seeing it, she understood why Ash followed him so faithfully.
He took her hand, dwarfed it within his and lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Ash.
Ash returned the look in a silent communication Miri could almost hear.
“Welcome, Dr. Reynolds,” Asmodeus said.
Like Ash, he had deep red skin but unlike Ash, shades of ebony washed beneath his and his eyes were red flecked with gold. Ash was broader, though, deeper in the chest where Asmodeus was a little leaner. Where Ash was power, Asmodeus was finesse.
And like Ash, like all the others, he was amazingly beautiful and radiated sex like an oven. From the moment she saw him, saw them, her pussy had flooded. They were just too much. Her body would have instantly overheated if it hadn’t been for Ash’s arm around her waist to ground her. Even without that beguiling attraction so intrinsic to them, they were a breathtakingly sexy bunch, not to mention large and gloriously muscled. Every one of them was male, their skin tinted in various shades of red and black all the way from scarlet to deep mahogany with reddish undertones, to deep sable with gold shimmering in its depths and into black. And she didn’t mean African American. One was the color of midnight. Moonlight seemed to drift beneath his skin. He was serenely and exotically beautiful.
It felt as if her hormones had gone into overdrive with so much pulchritudinous male flesh around her.
“This is my angel, my mate Gabriel,” Asmodeus said, reaching out.
A hand brushed her arm and Miri came face to face with the woman from the porch. There was an air of confidence about her, of strength, that Miri both envied and admired. Gabriel was a woman of surprising…not beauty, for her features were too strong, too confident, for that, but character. This was a woman who recognized obstacles as little more than something to go up, over, under, around or sometimes through, but they would never stop her, come hell or high water.
Her hair was a gleaming river of silver and flowed in shimmering waves past her shoulders, her eyes a brilliant blue.
She was also hugely and radiantly pregnant.
Noticing where Miri’s eyes went, the woman gave a mock scowl in the direction of Asmodeus, who just grinned. Proudly.
“This is his fault,” she said as she rubbed her hands over her swollen belly. “I honestly thought I was past it, my best years already gone. Ash, our primary Healer as well as everything else, tells me it’s a boy…” She winced reflexively and looked down. “Damn, son, you don’t have to kick so hard. If it was up to me you’d be out already. Trust me on that.”
Glancing at Miri again, she smiled.
“Hi, I’m Gabriel Nicholas,” the woman said, holding out her hand, “I’m with Asmodeus. Come on inside, you must be exhausted.”
For a moment, Miri stared at her, amused. Asmodeus had said, his angel? Gabriel?
Gabriel grinned at her expression. “Yeah, I get that a lot from these, too. Archangel Gabriel, Angel and the Daemonae. Yeah, yeah. They all think it’s funny, but they’re a literal lot.”
Linking her arm through Miri’s, Gabriel continued, “As for them, Ash may not have told you but they’re all male, the Daemonae, as will be this not so little guy inside me. Girls, so they tell me, will look human but they’ll have magic.”
She glanced at the Daemonae behind them with a fond smile.
“As for them, if you feel a little overwhelmed,” Gabriel said, “it’s because they all radiate sex like an oven. It’s their nature, a kind of protective coloration.”
“Being different from human men
but dependent on human women for procreation – and real sustenance – they need something to get us past the strangeness of them. So they all give off testosterone like mad. You do get used to it, sort of, after a while. Although get enough of them together in one room at a time and even I feel it.”
She punctuated that last statement by waving a hand at herself like a fan.
“Which is why we have so many meetings out on the porch, even in the dead of winter. Last winter was a long one, though, let me tell you.”
Miri couldn’t help but laugh until she caught a glimpse of herself in a window.
“I must look a wreck,” Miri said.
“You’re fine. Don’t worry about it,” Gabriel said. “Although Ash, if you’re going to ride her around like this, though, get her a helmet and gear, would you?”
“As soon as I can,” Ash promised. “It worried me too. There just wasn’t time.”
He didn’t own a helmet, it wasn’t a problem when one had wings, and it was difficult to fit over horns.
Miri relaxed as Gabriel patted her arm and led her into a kitchen just as homey as the rest of the house.
The other Daemonae crowded around Ash followed, either admiring the bike or exchanging arm-clasps and greetings as they walked. Introductions were made but Miri was quickly bewildered by all the names.
“So, what would you like? We have coffee, tea, various home-brewed ales and beers…,” Gabriel asked.
“Beer. Weak stuff. What they serve in this time is disgusting,” Asmodeus pronounced. “And cold? How can they drink that?”
He shuddered dramatically.
“There’s also homemade mead,” Gabriel said with an amused glance at her mate. “It’s a kind of honey-wine. You have to taste it to believe it but it will put you on your butt in a heartbeat.”
Kissing the top of his mate’s head, Asmodeus said, “Thank you, my angel.”
She eyed him, smiled and shook her head, the love and affection between them obvious.
“That wasn’t a compliment, ‘Deus. None of which I can have, by the way,” Gabriel said, with a sigh, patting her swollen belly. “Or wine, which I’d recommend at the moment.”
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