The Hunt: Complete Edition

by Anne Marsh

  No. Most demons were fiercely possessive, ruthlessly violent, and about as uncivilized as you could ever hope to encounter. Stealing from a demon was tantamount to suicide—and here she was, with a mission to steal from a demon who declared her his mate.

  “My dedication to my job is positively saintly,” she whispered to the small room as she slid slowly off the bed. Her demon was sleeping heavily, another anomaly, she was sure. She doubted Mkhai ever relaxed his guard enough to sleep. On the other hands, this summer heat appeared to wreak havoc with all their systems.

  In this instance, it was an advantage.

  His deep sleep allowed her to unbar the door and slip out into the corridor.

  She had topazes to cut and a mission to fulfill.

  Chapter Four

  The corridor branched rapidly; fortunately, Bennu had a good memory for directions, an invaluable skill in her profession. It did not take her long to find her way back to the overhang where she and Mkhai had paused. From there, numerous, smaller tunnels branched off in all directions. She picked the one her handheld indicated had the highest density of topazes; she wanted to be in and out this time.

  Eventually, Mkhai would wake up.

  She also would prefer to avoid his friends. While their attention had been delightful, she doubted they would be any more open to her blatant theft of their topazes than Mkhai would be. If he wanted a mate, it was likely that they did, too. There just wasn’t enough of her to go around.

  She moved carefully into the thick darkness of the tunnel. The air here was even hotter, waves of heat shimmering off the walls and floor. When she lit her small handlight, thick veins of topazes sparkled vividly, the raw stones embedded deep in the supporting walls. Should she use her laser to cut a few free? Why not?

  She moved further into the tunnel, until she judged that she was well out of eyeshot of the entrance point.

  Now or never.

  She shrugged and aimed the blue beam at the wall.

  The stones slipped free from their stony prison—and, as they fell into her palm, a low hissing sound filled the air.

  Bennu froze. The snakes. Damn it. She’d hoped that that part of the tribesman’s story had been just that—a story. Apparently not. Her love of getting caught did not extend to reptiles.

  She turned slowly around, palming the stones and slipping them into her leather holdall. Dozens of slim, black bodies poured down from the ceiling, forming a boiling sea of writhing, reptilian bodies. Flat black eyes met her panicked gaze.

  Think. What would her brothers do? There was always a way out. She just had to find it.

  Unfortunately, hot sex wouldn’t save the day this time.

  ***

  Mkhai swam up through layers of heavy sleep and realized that Bennu had slipped way. Damn. He’d known that his taming of his passionate little femi was at best temporary—a game they’d played and enjoyed together—but he had hoped she’d shared his intrigue. That she had wanted more of this unfamiliar passion flaring between them and that she would explore it. With him. Instead, the summer mating heat had overwhelmed him, blazing through his veins at the crucial moment. And he had slept.

  He tugged a rough hand over his face. Gods. He was Pharon’s demon, the protector of the mines—and he had slept like a virgin after her first fuck. He could only hope that the other demons had not realized his slip.

  “I will come for you,” he said softly. Had she not known this? He was bred, after all, to hold onto that which was his. Letting go was an act he had never learned.

  The demon world was brutal, pitting each demon against the others. Brute strength and magics won the day and Mkhai was one of the strongest demons. That much worked to his advantage. His brothers would be hesitant to anger him since his revenge would be swift and violent; it was, after all, how Pharon culled his demon ranks lest they threaten to overwhelm his kingdom.

  Still, fighting did not appeal at the moment.

  A delicious lassitude still gripped his limbs and the air was warm and soft.

  He would call a small Finding spell to locate Bennu. Yes, that would work.

  He worked the magic smoothly, building the ball of cobalt-colored light in the palm of his hand. It revealed Bennu, moving steadily through the tunnels until she reached an intersection that he knew all too well: it contained one of several of the mine’s more vicious pit traps. Not all of Pharon’s defenses were demonic. His pit traps were well-stocked with snakes: dark black and gold bodies that coiled in the darkness, waiting for the sensual warmth of human bodies—bodies that had no business whatsoever being in the tunnels. The snakes did not accept excuses; being barely sentient, they simply attacked whatever appeared in their tunnels.

  His Bennu had just walked into a very ugly trap.

  Chapter Five

  Bennu backed up. The topaz-studded stone face appeared to be the only snake-free area of the tunnel. If she’d been quicker, she might have been able to run up the corridor before the serpents had finished their slithering descent from the ceiling. But somehow she doubted it. Whoever had designed this trap had intended for it to close as soon as she had cut the stones free. The stones—and her possession of them—were the trigger. Simply dropping the stones would hardly solve her problem.

  “OK,” she whispered. She could activate the rescue beacon embedded underneath her skin—but it would be hours, at the earliest, before her brothers made their swashbuckling way halfway across the galaxy and forced their way inside the mines. What their chances were against Pharon’s demons, she did not know, but she suspected that the fight would be more equal than she—or her brothers—would prefer.

  Were there other options?

  She slid the blaster free of her belt. The snakes paused—never a good sign—and massed. They’d blocked her exit from the tunnel—her only choice now was to either stand her ground or allow the snakes to drive her further back into the dark tunnel. She didn’t want to know what else lay waiting for her in the oppressive darkness.

  The first snake uncoiled and flew through the air. She fried it before it crossed the line she had mentally scratched in the sand. One down—she gave up counting how many more were left.

  After all, the number of snakes probably exceeded the number of minutes that she had left to live.

  ***

  As the snakes launch themselves in full-scale attack, Mkhai materialized out of the darkness behind her. Harsh, sibilant words poured from his lips and air pushed out around them, hardening into a sphere. The snakes suddenly stopped their advance, sliding off the orb of air and light he had woven.

  “Nice trick.” She stared at the orb. “Care to teach me that one?”

  He shook his head. “You should not have left, my femi.”

  It was a moot point now. The cat was well out of that bag. He could save his dark, self-righteous wrath for someone else. His eyes did that trick again, glowing with golden color as heat poured off his skin.

  “Do not leave me,” he demanded. “Was our sexplay not enough for you?”

  The snakes writhed over the orb, seeking entrance, but he seemed unconcerned.

  “They cannot penetrate,” he said, but suddenly she no longer gave a damn about the snakes. Mkhai clearly would be more than a match for them. If he wanted to be. The question, of course, was: did he?

  “The sex was great.” Did he need reassurance? Wasn’t he an all-powerful demon guardian in the middle of some sort of summer rutting heat? He should know that he had been insatiable. And that she had enjoyed every blasted moment of his possession. Of course—she rolled her eyes—females appeared to be in rather short supply down in the mines. Perhaps he lacked practice. Perhaps he mistook her reluctance to collapse in ecstatic gratitude at his muttered declaration that he was in search of a mate. Or not.

  “Then why did you slip away—like a thief in the night?”

  She lost her temper. “Because, damn it, I am a thief, Mkhai. That’s what I do.” His eyes flickered and the orb dissolved for a se
cond. She shrieked as snakes rained down around them. With a snap of his fingers and a muttered word, the snakes fell at their feet and disintegrated.

  “You were a thief,” he said coldly, rebuilding the orb. “Are you one still?”

  She calculated the odds of appealing to him with the truth. “It’s a job, Mkhai. It’s not personal. I was sent here to retrieve a certain number of topazes. It’s what I have to do or I’m unemployed. You guard; it’s what you do. What happens if you fail?”

  “I never fail,” he said stiffly. “Pharon’s demons do not fail. It is unacceptable.”

  “Never?”

  “No.”

  So much for finding common ground. She’d hoped they could discuss the salutary lessons taught by said failures and agree that he could only grow from his failure to hold her. It had been a nice thought. She dismissed it regretfully.

  “Demons who fail are tossed back into the vortex from which we were called.” His eyes darkened. “It is most unpleasant and quite fatal. No demon goes willingly.”

  The vortex was an endless swirling, empty space. It pulled a demon’s essence in so many directions simultaneously that the demon was literally shredded. Although those shreds then reknit into new, darker beings— the demon himself was gone. The agonizing pain of stretching and pulling was unforgettable, even if life before the vortex was. Pharon’s magicians had discovered the secret of knitting demons together out of the vortex and had put their knowledge to work when Pharon had demanded invincible guards for his mines.

  Mkhai possessed no distinct memories of those moments before his body had been assembled from the vortex’s swirling darknesses, but he did remember the sharp pain that cut like a knife. He had no desire to relive it.

  Ever.

  And yet if he failed to discipline his femi, if he did not exact the punishment that Pharon demanded of his thieves, then that was where he would go. And the last memory that he took with him would be of her glorious face shuddering beneath him in orgasm.

  Would it be worth it?

  He slipped his hand into her pouch and pulled out the handful of stones that she had cut from the wall.

  “You had to take them?” he asked grimly.

  “Thief? Remember?” She prompted him.

  “How could I forget?” He examined the raw wound in the wall where she had cut the stones free. “This is no ordinary mine, femi.”

  “Believe me, I had noticed,” she muttered.

  “These walls are living, breathing entities.” He stroked a hand over the stone and she saw the same hot, golden pulse building between his skin and the raw stone. “You cannot simply cut the stones away. You must ask. You do not take.”

  “Right.” She’d never asked for anything before. The Agency took. She explained this misconception to him. “Piracy means never having to ask, Mkhai.”

  He looked unimpressed. “Start asking. Particularly if you want to leave this mine alive.”

  “I’ve seen your discipline, Mkhai.” The smoothly seductive tone of her voice sent a shiver down him. He felt his cock stirring. “I believe I could handle more of it.”

  And she was going to get more, he thought grimly. “When you cut the stones from the wall, you triggered alarms.”

  “The snakes. Yes, yes, I get it. An avalanche of nasty reptilians aiming for all of my soft, warm spots.” He arched an eyebrow. She had warm spots that he would like to explore himself: he thought of licking that pink sex and was pleased to see that she squirmed.

  “Aroused, femi?” he asked.

  “Bastard,” she hissed.

  He shrugged. Maybe he was, but he was the bastard who had decided that she needed to leave the mines alive. She might not appreciate his decisions now, but she would—later, when she had returned to this ship and this Agency of hers.

  “Not just snakes,” he admitted.

  Her head whipped around. “There are more traps?”

  “Of course.” He had mentioned, had he not, that Pharon’s demons never failed? Ever. “Many of the demons will move to blocks the exits from the mines.” She nodded, fiddling with her handheld. He doubted that the device could magically pinpoint for her all of the mine’s many entrances and exits, but perhaps her technology was greater than he believed.

  Without taking her eyes from the device, she swore. “Damn.”

  He nodded grimly. “The remainder of the demons will, of course, be headed here.” His eyes held hers calmly. “This time, there will be no games. This time, my brothers will consider you to have been warned by your previous encounter with our kind.”

  “And?” Her voice sounded abnormally loud in the silence of the tunnel.

  He pulled her up against his hard chest. One large hand stroked the curve of her throat with soft menace.

  “The summer heat drives all our kind strongly. Since their orders will be to kill you and since their blood will be heated unbearably,” he shrugged, “I imagine that they will either fuck you until they kill you, or they will devise sadistic pleasures of their own that will ease their heated blood—and still see you dead by morning light.”

  Fine. She’d been warned. But why?

  “Convince me,” he said, leaning back against the rock wall.

  Apparently she was going to have an opportunity to practice what her brothers preached: a little sexual roguery in the interests of a clean escape and total getaway. “What,” she asked, her voice sinking to a low rasp, “would I have to do to convince you?”

  Her eyes flicked to the enormous bulge in his black loincloth. The small scrap of material wrapped snugly around his hips, leaving little to the imagination. The heavy crest of his cock strained above the fabric; the dark plum-colored tip with its small drop of clear liquid beading the tip fascinated her with his obvious need. For her.

  “Everything. You would have to do everything. Would you have sex with a demon again, my Bennu?”

  He stroked his hand down her arm, massaging the muscles and tugging gently on her fingertips, releasing a small sting of pleasure. Relaxing and arousing her. She wanted him to repeat that same stroke until he buried his fingers in her sex, petting and pinching until she exploded around him.

  “You can ask me.” He stared at her, noting her interest. “And I will give you pleasure. You are my chosen mate. It is my duty. My pleasure.”

  Yes, he would.

  He had.

  “You have three minutes before the other demons arrive. You must make a choice. Three minutes.” His hand shaped her breast, parting the blacksuit until it fell back around her waist. Teasing the nipple, building the heat in her. “I can pleasure you. Or,” he pinched her nipple in a sweet burst of pain, “you can pleasure me. Make the right choice, my Bennu, and maybe I will not abandon you to their less than tender mercies.”

  She placed her hands deliberately on his chest, feeling the hot burning muscles leap beneath her touch. “Are you so merciless to your mates? Show me,” she purred. “Why don’t you show me what they will do to me?”

  ”They will savage these,” he promised. He took her nipple into his hot mouth. She could feel the heat transferring from him. Building.

  She pushed the blacksuit off, feeling the teasing trickle of beads of sweat rolling down her exposed flesh. The heat was incredible “Doesn’t the heat end?”

  He shook his head. “Never.”

  “How can you stand it?” She wanted to scream from the sensations.

  He shook his head. “No more questions. No demands. Captives do not speak. They are quiet.”

  Just three minutes. Hand strokes down her back and between the curve of her cheeks. Kinky, then. The fingers of the other hand rested on her pussy.

  “Open yourself for me,” he ordered.

  She pulled the lips of her sex apart and shuddered at the agonizing rush of sensation as the lips parted. The swollen, damp feel of her own flesh met her. She was slippery with her own juices. His fingers did not hesitate, driving deep inside her flesh, probing, finding a hidden, sweet spot
that made her arch her back and whimper with the pleasure.

  “You could take many men this way,” he promised. “One cock,” he shoved and his own slowly slipped inside her. “Maybe two. They would try.”

  His fingers pushed inexorably inside. Full. So full. Stretched. Aroused and vulnerable. And yet there was a thread of gentleness beneath the dark promise of his words. His fingers moved in counterpoint to his cock until the pleasure threatened to tear her apart.

  “There would be a half dozen at the least,” he continued. “More waiting. One or two to take your mouth. As many again for your pussy. And then,” his other hand stroked down her back, “another for your ass.” Dark pleasure unfolded in her. His finger stroked the smooth, hidden skin between the opening to her pussy and her asshole, tapping lightly so that pleasure strummed through her.

  “Have you been taken here, Bennu,” he demanded. “Have your captors stood you up against the wall, made you hold apart your own cheeks while they reamed your pretty, pink ass?” Gods, she couldn’t think. Could only feel as he filled her and filled her.

  He pulled free from her body with a wet sound. Short, stinging slaps landed on her ass.

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  She couldn’t think, couldn’t respond to his erotic authority, could only remember that one dark, forbidden encounter. Another theft. The male who’d found her bending her over, pulling down her blacksuit until it pooled around her ankles. Parting her cheeks with a darker promise, the blunt fingertip tracing the seam of her ass and then forcing its way into her asshole, twisting until a dark pleasure spiraled through her. Only his finger, moving ruthlessly in and out in the enveloping darkness while she moaned helplessly, trapped by that single digit, connected to him by an unspeakable pleasure that followed the dark pleasure-burn of each invasion.

  Mkhai could do this for her.

  Would do it for her. If she could convince him to remain with her.

  “And why shouldn’t I take my chances with them, Mkhai? Why not?”