Touch of the Angel (Demons of Infernum, #3)

by Rosalie Lario

  “What, Amara?” he asked when she didn’t respond.

  A spark of challenge lit her eyes and she lifted her chin. “I thought you were delicious.”

  The surprise of that word elicited a laugh from deep in the pit of his stomach. “Delicious?”

  “Irresistible. Everyone else faded into the background when I saw you.”

  He sobered. Devil, she sounded serious. For all he knew she was playing with him, toying with his emotions. As a succubus, that was sort of her specialty. But part of him wanted to believe her. Hell, if he had to be honest, all of him did.

  “I still feel that way,” she whispered, moistening her lips.

  Her words made him hard in an instant. He’d had difficulty controlling himself upon the mere sight of her back at Asmodeus’s house. Now, after this, he knew it would be impossible.

  Don’t forget what she did to you. What she put you through. He was undoubtedly weaker now. No way he’d survive another round with her. This was dangerous.

  Hell, he was about to do something incredibly stupid. But then, that seemed to be his M.O. when she was around.

  Before he could second-guess himself, he hooked a hand around the back of her neck and yanked her forward, crushing his lips against hers. She tensed before winding her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in. A sound that was halfway between an oath and a moan escaped her.

  She tasted as good as he remembered. No, better. Like wine and lust and the promise of sex. Her hips brushed up against him and he grew even harder, if that was possible.

  Heaven. She was like a slice of heaven.

  And right now he was soaring so high he feared he might fall.

  §

  He tasted so amazing. Like pure spring water with a hint of spice. She’d never tasted anything like it before. The man could very well be addictive.

  When Ronin deepened the kiss, Amara’s back bowed on a wave of pleasure. Kissing him was like no other experience. Everything about him was different. Better. This was about so much more than feeding her body’s cravings. He soothed her soul.

  No one had ever touched her on the inside before. Only him. Only Ronin.

  She sucked his tongue into her mouth, imagining it was another part of his body penetrating hers. Memories of their first encounter made her knees quiver with lust. He’d been so hard and hot and big, driving up into her. He’d sated her hunger so completely. What she wouldn’t give to ride him again, or to be on her hands and knees for him. The thought of having him again made her completely soaked.

  Ronin made a soft, hungry sound, as if he could smell her desire. He probably could. His hands slid under her dress to cup her bottom and he lifted her, fitting his hardened heat at the juncture of her thighs. The movement sent tiny slivers of sustenance into her body and she purred, rubbing against him like a cat in heat. Her natural allure unfurled and practically enveloped him, so strong that it thickened the air. He let out a groan and ground against her. Oh, he was so hot, even through the barrier of his jeans. She wanted nothing more than to strip them off. He could be nude and inside of her in less than a minute.

  And then what?

  A tiny bubble of reasoning sobered her lust-induced haze. It would be one thing if he had some sort of immunity to the toxins she secreted during sex, but his brother had said he’d barely survived. What if he died this time?

  No. No! She might be a monster, but she didn’t want him dead. She wouldn’t allow it.

  With considerable effort, she unwrapped her arms from his shoulders and tore herself away. “Stop.”

  Ronin made a sound of protest and reached for her again. When she moved backward, awareness began to replace the heavy lust in his eyes. “Oh, damn.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door, his breath coming out in heavy pants.

  Unable to help herself, she let her eyes travel down his body, to the outline of his thick erection beneath his jeans. Her stomach clenched in hunger and she turned away, wrapping her arms around her as she stumbled toward the wall of windows that took up one side of the room. She had to pass his metal-framed bed, which was large and covered with a bedspread in white and a shade of dark blue that matched the walls.

  Don’t look at the bed. That would only conjure up images she didn’t want to see. Especially since it was more than big enough for the both of them.

  Outside the window, the lights of a neighboring building brightened up the night sky. She focused on that instead. “How did you survive our encounter?”

  His shoes sounded along the wooden floor and he stopped next to her, though he didn’t touch her. “Does it really matter?”

  Maybe not to him. “You know, I never got to have the things most people would consider normal. A relationship. A family—a real one, at least. My touch has been deadly to anyone I ever thought I could care about.”

  A beat of silence. “You can safely be with incubi.”

  “Yes, but the number of succubi greatly outweighs that of incubi. No hopes for a long-term relationship there, not when there are a handful of other succubi lining up for the opportunity to sleep with a man without having to kill him.”

  “I...guess I never thought about it that way.”

  Great. Now he felt sorry for her. Humiliation warmed her cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. The fact is, I almost killed you. Nothing will change that.”

  He was silent for a long moment before saying, “That night...at Opiate. The bouncer found me and called my brother Keegan. As you guessed, we’re hybrids. He’s half dragon-shifter, and dragon’s blood has restorative properties.”

  She turned to him. “His blood healed you?”

  Ronin pursed his lips and shook his head. “Not his blood alone. We have an incubus friend who’s been working on a cure for the toxicity sex demons secrete.”

  “He’s found a cure?” Her breath caught in her throat. A cure would mean the possibility of a real relationship. A family. Maybe even with someone like Ronin.

  He must have read the hope on her face, because the light in his eyes dimmed. “Sorry, no. He thinks he’s close, but this was a one-time fix. A miracle, really. The cocktail he cooked up allowed my natural healing abilities to kick in, but he’s not sure how it happened or even if it would have the same results a second time.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed past the disappointed lump in her throat. That meant anything physical between the two of them was out of the question. Why had she even allowed herself to hope otherwise? “You must be a fast healer then, if you were able to fight off my toxins.”

  A smirk crept to his face. “That’s thanks to the other half of my DNA. Angel.”

  “Angel?” Now he’d surprised her. “I’ve never met an angel before, at least not that I know of. Never even seen one.”

  “How’s that possible? I know there aren’t that many of us back on Infernum, but you should at least have seen the occasional one flying around.”

  “I’ve never been to our home world. I was born and raised here on Earth.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “You sure have a lot of secrets, don’t you?”

  If only he knew.

  “Why did you agree to work for Asmodeus?”

  “He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” And that was all she cared to say about that.

  When he opened his mouth to ask another question she surely wouldn’t want to answer, Amara tried for distraction. She ran her fingers along his jaw. “What are you going to do with me, demon angel?”

  Ronin’s mouth tightened and his eyes filled with lust. “I can’t let you go.”

  No surprise there. She’d known from the moment they’d told her they weren’t getting Asmodeus tonight that she’d have to break her way out of here. If “here” was where they intended on keeping her. “Are you t
urning me in to the Council?”

  He was silent for so long she began to fear the answer was yes.

  “No,” he finally said. “You might be able to help us capture him.”

  “I’ve told you all I know about him—”

  “I know. But you might still be useful. Only time will tell.”

  Weary and weak from her lack of sustenance, she turned on wobbly legs and strolled to the bed, then took a seat. “Your brothers. Do you think they’ll agree with that?”

  “I’ll talk to them.”

  As if on cue, someone pounded hard against the door, jiggling the lock. “Ronin. What the hell? Open the fucking door before I break it down!”

  “Wait one second,” Ronin called, rolling his eyes.

  “Fuck you!” the voice on the other side answered. Before Ronin could cross the room, the door knob disintegrated and a wild-eyed Keegan came stumbling in.

  Ronin stopped short and heaved a deep sigh. “Son of a bitch.”

  §

  “Are you out of your mind, locking yourself in there with her?” Keegan’s hands clenched into fists.

  Ronin bit back the laugh that threatened to spill at the sight of his brother so worked up. “It’s not as if she was going to attack me.”

  Keegan’s cocked brow said what he thought about that. “I thought you’d be gone one or two minutes, tops. When you didn’t come out for so long, I feared she had attacked you. Besides, it’s not as if she hasn’t done it before.”

  “The incident back at the club was different.”

  Taeg, who sat sprawled out on the sofa, knocked back the contents of his glass. “Yeah, because after killing countless men for Asmodeus, she’s suddenly developed a guilty conscience.”

  “You don’t know her or what she’s been through.” Ronin didn’t know why he felt so compelled to defend her, but he wouldn’t let them believe the worst. “She clearly didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

  “Everyone has a choice.” Dagan kicked his shoes off and placed his feet on top of the coffee table. “I would rather die than be forced to kill woman after woman.”

  Yeah, him too, but... “She’s different from us. She has to kill to survive.”

  Taeg plunked his empty glass down. “No she doesn’t. She could get all the energy she needs from an incubus and nobody would have to die. That’s what a lot of the sex demons on this world do.”

  He couldn’t argue with that logic, and that sucked. Ronin headed toward the bar in one corner of the room and poured himself a whiskey, taking a deep swallow before he spoke again. “So what now?”

  They all turned to Keegan who, as eldest, called the shots. Some of the time, at any rate.

  “We don’t know much more than when we started,” Keegan said. “We’ll need to do some research, see if we can figure out what Asmodeus might be doing with this energy he takes in. Tomorrow night we’ll watch his townhouse. Maybe we can get some ideas about how to get through that shield.”

  “And the succubus?” Dagan asked.

  “We’ll turn her in to the Council.”

  “No.” The hoarse word escaped Ronin’s mouth before he’d even realized it.

  Taeg groaned. “Come on, bro. Think with your big head here. She’s trouble. Especially for you. Have you forgotten that doing the mattress mambo with her will kill you?”

  “It’s not that.” He tried to keep the emotion of out of his voice. “We don’t yet know how important she is to Asmodeus. Maybe we’ll be able to use her to capture him.”

  “Huh.” Taeg rubbed his scruffy chin. “Much as I hate to admit it, you’ve got a point there.”

  “That doesn’t mean she has to stay free.” Dagan crossed his arms behind his head. “We can turn her in to the Council and get her back later if we need to.”

  Ronin glowered at Dagan. Shut up. To Keegan he said, “You know the Council and all its bureaucratic bullshit. Remember what they did, or rather didn’t do, when we were trying to stop Mammon?”

  After the Council had learned that their father Mammon planned to take over Earth by raising an army of the undead, they’d sent Keegan and his brothers to stop him by any means necessary. Even if it meant destroying the key to the zombie resurrection spell, a mortal woman who had the power to raise them from their graves. As it happened, Keegan had fallen in love with her instead. In the end they’d managed to take Mammon down and turn him in to the Council, and Brynn had used her power over the zombies to negotiate their move to this dimension.

  “Remember how they ordered you to kill Brynn?”

  That was a low blow, and Keegan’s wince told Ronin it had made its mark. Though Keegan had never considered destroying Brynn once he’d fallen for her, he had dealt with a lot of guilt over his inability to keep his pledge to the Council. It made Ronin feel like an asshat to use that horrible memory against his brother, but nothing he’d said was a lie.

  “We still don’t know the full extent of Amara’s role in all this,” Ronin said. “If she’s an innocent pawn, it would be pretty shitty of us to turn her over without ensuring she gets a fair trial.”

  From the way Keegan’s shoulders hunched over, Ronin knew he’d made his point. “On top of that, Keeg, do you really want to trust that they’ll give her back when we need her?”

  Keegan sighed. “Another good point. So where do we keep her?”

  Dagan let out a chuckle. “Let me guess. In your bed.”

  “Ha, funny. We’ll keep her here. We can take turns guarding her,” he added, lest they think he had other designs on Amara.

  Keegan gave a defeated shake of his head. “If we’re not turning her in right away, I don’t see any other option.”

  “Well, this should be a barrel of laughs.” Taeg stomped over to the bar and grabbed a beer out of the mini-fridge. “Can’t wait ’til this job is over.”

  Chapter Seven

  Daybreak was almost upon them, and Amara had yet to bring him Lucio’s essence. She should have returned by now. Knowing the consequences, would she dare fail him yet again?

  Asmodeus gritted his teeth and stalked from his main chamber to the balcony that lined a good portion of the third floor. At times he didn’t know why he bothered with Amara. She was the strongest-willed of his six succubi, often finding ways to thwart his authority. Beyond annoying, she was. He would have destroyed her long ago, but she was still useful. Given her willful streak, he hadn’t trusted assigning the bounty hunters to her, but she’d been good at collecting backup men. Just in case he couldn’t retrieve the brothers’ essences in time.

  The dark elf Asmodeus had assigned to Amara was a perfect specimen. Powerful. Successful. A good find. Not the brothers Belpheg had ordered him to get, but a close second, one he hoped he wouldn’t need. Amara should have been able to seduce Lucio.

  So where was she?

  His succubi were the best of their kind. Intelligent. Beautiful. Capable of luring in countless prey. None more so than Amara. He loved them all, the way any master should love his prized pets. And if they disobeyed...the punishment was always severe.

  The first few tendrils of light snaked up along the horizon, like coils of lightning shooting off the neighboring rooftops. Almost daybreak, and still no sign of her. He stroked the gold band around his wrist, the one linking him to each of his succubi. Where was she?

  With a muttered curse, he pushed off the iron railing and walked inside. He left his opulent chamber and wound his way through the quiet hall, with its walls painted in terra-cotta that matched the exterior. Then he stepped down the curved staircase to the second level.

  The door to one of the rooms opened and a bare-chested Gofrey stumbled out. He rubbed his bleary eyes. “Master, is there something I can do for you?”

  “I’ll let you know.” Asmodeus swept past him without another word
. He rounded a corner, entering the wing where his succubi slumbered, and passed Amara’s empty room. Solara’s chamber was next to hers, and he threw the door open. Even though it banged against the wall, she didn’t wake. She lay in the bed under sapphire silk sheets with her long, dark hair splayed across the pillows. She’d discarded her dress on the floor next to the bed, and as the dark shadows under her eyes attested, she’d only recently arrived from her evening’s escapades.

  Did the stupid whore even know Amara hadn’t returned?

  He stopped at the side of the bed and tore off the sheet.

  “What the—” She sat up with a start, and he wound a hand around her hair, yanking back on it so her startled eyes could meet his.

  “Where. Is. She?”

  A glimmer of fear sparked in her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Amara. She hasn’t returned from her mission.”

  “She hasn’t?” When she glanced toward the heavy curtains, a hint of concern replaced the fear on her face. “I have no idea where she is.”

  Was the bitch lying?

  Asmodeus jerked on her hair, forcing her to her feet. Her full, bare breasts bounced as she rose. Even though it had been less than an hour since he’d slaked his lust with one of the other succubi, and though he was still shaken from his last meeting with Belpheg, the sight of them awakened his interest. Solara had always been a beautiful woman—almost as beautiful as Amara. Even though she was twice Amara’s age, she only appeared a few years older. She had sex demon biology to thank for that. Outward appearances of aging ceased around the age of thirty.

  Being in Solara’s presence reminded Asmodeus how much he cared for her. In his own way. Too bad that wasn’t enough for her. Why couldn’t she accept what he was prepared to offer her? Loyalty, faithfulness, undying love: none of those things she insisted on really mattered. All that mattered was power. And he had the power in this relationship.

  His lips curved into a sneer. “Perhaps she’s tired of being your self-appointed protector and has simply decided to run away.”