by Alisa Woods
He slid his body along hers until he was face-to-face with her again. She had to have a look of amazement on her face, but she was literally struck dumb. What do you say to someone who has fixed the broken thing you thought would never heal?
He smiled and trailed a finger across her cheek. “So beautiful,” he whispered. Then he moved his thumb to the corner of her eye and wiped something away. She hadn’t even realized she was crying, but the fresh, hot tears coursed down her face anyway. “Did you know that dragon tears can cure almost any wound?” he asked softly. “No matter how deep?”
She shook her head, her mouth still not working. The buzz in her body wasn’t even close to abating.
He smiled, and it was glorious. “It’s not so different for humans.”
A flush of something rushed through her. Not lust. Not relief or release. This was something more powerful. Something a lot like gratitude, but even more. Was she falling for this man? Was that all it took—one orgasm, and she was his?
But holy gods what an orgasm.
And more than that… it was a gift. One he knew she needed, so he gave it. Even when she didn’t believe it was possible. He did. Somehow he knew her better than she knew herself.
“Thank you.” It seemed awkward to say, and she cringed the moment it came out of her mouth. But it was the only thing she could manage.
He smirked. “It was terrible for me. Hated every moment.”
A small laugh bubbled up from inside her and huffed its way out.
Then his eyes hooded again. “But I am not finished taking my pleasure with you.” He moved quickly, nudging her legs apart again and entering her in one swift stroke.
She gasped at the fullness and the extreme sensitivity of all her parts. God, he was big.
He exhaled with a shudder that rippled through her as well. She was pleasuring him. Suddenly, urgently, she wanted to bring him to climax, make him come and come and come, as he had for her.
He pulled out and stroked into her, his face falling into an intense mask of lust. “I believe,” he said, his voice becoming more ragged, “that one orgasm is truly an insult to any woman. Unless the time and space required do not otherwise permit.” He was punctuating each word with another thrust inside her with that gloriously large cock. And his words… God, the words alone were going to make her come again.
Again. Holy shit. He was doing it again.
Then he fell silent, grasping hold of her hair and her hip, angling her so that he could possess her body more deeply and strongly, and he kept thrusting and thrusting. It took no time at all before she was shrieking and clutching at him and calling out his name. The second orgasm was even more powerful than the first. Black stars swam in front of her eyes with how hard she was breathing and screaming and bucking.
But when he sunk deep inside her and groaned through his own release, she felt sure that she had actually died and gone to heaven. This wasn’t just a man in bed with her… this was some kind of god. A gorgeous, kind, passionate sex god.
And she could feel herself tumbling down and down and down…
Her track record of recognizing True Love was completely fucked—but this was unlike anything she had ever felt. She should hold back, try not to feel this way, pull back from the soul-deep intimacy of this thing she was doing with this man.
But the way her heart was falling… it was already too late.
Lucian flew hard enough to nudge the sound barrier.
The crackle of compressed air against his wings, the screaming absence of sound, the tumbling turbulence he felt pulling at every scale, every ripple of his body, every not-smooth part that dared to disturb the airstream… all of it washed him clean of her scent, scrubbing him dry and raw with a scourging of high-speed air.
But none of it erased her from his mind.
As if that were even possible.
Dipping his left wing a fraction of an inch, he rolled out of the magic-propelled surge of speed. Two fast loops, then two more—anyone watching would think he was tumbling out of control, but he was merely slowing down in the least painful way possible, absorbing the blows of wind and turbulence across the span of his body rather than head-on. He pulled out of the spins and checked his location—he’d passed into Canada while he was trying to outrun his problems. Given he was supposed to be on his way to Seattle to relieve Leksander from his patrol, he should probably bank west and head back down the coast. Although he was early anyway—he had time to spare.
The danger for him lay not in demons roaming Seattle, but in his bedroom back in the keep. He’d held Arabella captive in his bed, hour after hour, resting only when they’d each been sated and fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Then he would rouse her again, hard and ready to please her some more and bury himself in her sweetness in every way he could imagine.
Leonidas was right. It had been far, far too long. Lucian needed this release as desperately as Arabella. And now that he’d taken his fill, he’d flown away from the keep, heading for his patrol, drunk on the elixir that was her soft scent, mouth-watering skin, and delicate screams.
But he was not falling in love with her.
That he even had to say this to himself was a horrible, terrible sign. He knew this. Just as he knew she was everything he had first tasted in that alleyway and more. Strong. Vibrant. Gloriously responsive in bed. He thought he could take his fill and have it sate him, but every time he left her body, he immediately craved more.
He had intended to simply slake her thirst, her obvious need. And his own. If he still possessed any talent for seduction whatsoever, she would be falling madly in love with him in another day or two, possibly even willing to undergo the sealing. But under no circumstances could he afford to lose his heart to this girl. If that happened, he would send her packing and find someone else to fulfill the treaty. A thousand demons couldn’t force him to do otherwise.
He tipped away from the glare of the late afternoon sun, heading southwest and sending a magical kick of power to boost his speed. He had spent nearly a day in bed with her, but now it was time to return to his responsibilities. He and his brothers were taking shifts, covering the city around the clock in hopes of finding a demon and tracking it back to its sire. Whichever fae had loosed it upon the human world, Lucian needed hard magical evidence in the form of the demon’s DNA. Whatever the Winter Court was playing at had to be stopped.
Plus a night of demon-hunting would help banish this enthrallment Arabella had cast over him. Not that she was trying. He could see that easily enough—the tentative looks between rounds of screaming sex; whispers of gratitude, as if bedding her endlessly were some kind of favor he bestowed upon her, one that would soon come to an end; and finally, the fluttering of her eyes as she attempted to stave off the feelings that came in the aftermath of their couplings. Heady feelings that made him drunk as well.
Love.
It was entirely by design for her to feel that attachment and entirely unacceptable for him. Only time would tell if hers would be a True Love, and thus capable of fulfilling the treaty. When he returned to his lair, he would have to discuss it with her. He would have to say the words, feign the feelings, let her believe that something had grown between them that could be eternal… or at least another five hundred years, if the spawning were successful.
It would all be a lie. Or worse, the truth—because then he would have to banish Arabella from his lair and never set sight on her again.
His choices were enough to make him want to lock himself in his bedroom with her and never leave. But that was a childish longing, and he was a man nearing the end of his days… either he would make this work with Arabella, or another in her place, or he would turn wyvern without fulfilling the treaty and break ten thousand years of peace.
At least he wouldn’t be human long enough to see it. Or likely even alive.
He should remind Leonidas to kill him should his wyvern form arrive early.
The air dipped cooler as he reached the coast.
Seattle’s towers sparkled in the distance, reminding him of the human world he had been born to protect. It was literally his entire reason for existing, and the idea of failing in his sole purpose on earth… fuck. He swept that thought away by reaching his senses out to the city, enlivening the runes that rippled across his skin and calling forth his inner fae nature. He tasted the occupants, both human and shifter, searching for his brother’s scent in particular, as well as any demon who might chance to show its true nature. All seemed normal—the witches in their covens sparking blue magical fire, leaving a tangy after-sizzle in magic-space; the wolves going about their lives, many still masquerading as humans, but some flexing their magic openly among the human population; and the humans who were most vulnerable of all. They tasted sweet and bitter, some consumed with pettiness and hatred, but the vast majority living and loving as if nothing mattered but the treasured ones in the tight circle of their lives. Lucian’s job was to keep them in this blissfully unaware state, like children whose innocence he had sworn to protect—
A whiff of demon caught his attention. His predatory instincts zeroed in and had him banking to follow the trace. He dipped down to the concrete canyons of the city, weaving after it, reaching forward to track the source. It was vapor, barely showing its sulfurous scent above the cacophony of human-tinged smells, but there was something else… something that burned with electric-white fire…
Angel.
Lucian careened around the corner of an alleyway shrouded in shadows, and a blast of scents flooded him. The demon was on its knees, in the form of a man begging for his life, but Lucian could see the shadow of it writhing under his skin—its dark form leaked from the man’s body, snarling and snapping at the searing bright angeling poised above it. The female was in full battle cry, the brightness of her being lighting up the alley with the power of a sun. She raised her sword above her head, and it crackled with blue energy over the clear, heaven-forged metal. Her righteous scream pierced Lucian’s ears as she plunged the length of her angel blade into the demon’s body. His shriek rivaled hers, at a frequency only heard in magic space, but the man, the human half of him, screamed as well, the agony of separating from his essence, torn in half at the DNA level.
The human/demon hybrid slumped to the ground, vanquished. The blade slipped free of the body, a tarnish of black demon essence left upon it. The slayer raised her arms in triumph, another warrior cry pulsing from her wide-open mouth. Her white wings unfurled to their full height, her body pulsed with power, and her long white-blonde hair flared behind her in an unseen magical wind. The white wisps of fabric that passed for angel clothing clung to her rapturous curves, held by threads of gold and magic, baring most of her decidedly human flesh. Because she was definitely half-human under those angel wings if she was killing demons in a Seattle alley. And this particular hybrid angel/human was a slayer he knew all too well. The fact that she was here meant Leksander had to be nearby. Sure enough, as her righteous warrior-scream faded, his brother dropped on silver wings into the alley, landing softly on the dirty pavement by her side.
Fuck. What was he thinking, bringing her here?
“Erelah.” Lucian threw her angel name down the alleyway in challenge—and also to alert her to his presence, so she didn’t accidentally fling that angel blade his way. Angels were nothing if not erratic… especially in the full blush of a kill. “We might have wanted to question that one, you know.”
Her bright blue eyes blazed at him, still caught in the ecstasy of vanquishing the demon. With her luscious human curves, the pulsing blade in her hand, the passion in her eyes… Lucian could understand why his brother desired her above all things on Earth. The love-sick, lust-filled expression on Leksander’s face was all too obvious, and the arousal scent rolling off him was impossible to miss. For a dragon, at least. But angels didn’t scent the same way, and per usual, Erelah was oblivious to the silver dragon standing at her side, drooling for her.
“Lucian.” Her voice was still angel mode, filled with resounding power. She lowered her arms, her chest heaving, her pale cheeks flushed—he often thought slayers preferred demon-killing to sex not just because it was righteous, but because it actually was sex for them. At least, the ecstasy looked the same from the outside. How his brother thought he could compete with that kind of heavenly climax, Lucian would never know.
“He attacked her,” Leksander said, already making excuses for her. As if he hadn’t brought her here to win his way into her good graces.
Lucian just shook his head.
Erelah blinked and seemed to just now recognize Leksander’s presence with them in the alley. “Yes!” she enthused. “He attacked. But I took him with my blade.”
“Yes,” Lucian said. “I saw that part.” He grimaced at the man slumped on the ground. If Lucian had just been a little sooner upon the scene, he could have stayed her hand, if only for a moment or two in order to question the demon. Then he realized—he was actually early. Leksander must have never intended Lucian to see him sneaking his slayer into the city.
The man moaned and moved slightly.
“He lives!” Erelah clasped her hands together with delight. Now that the demon had been vanquished, the man was fully human again. And apparently, he was going to live. Maybe. But now that he was human, Erelah and her kind would have nothing but love for him.
She knelt to the man’s side and clasped his cheeks in her hands. Then she kissed him, full on the mouth, but that was no ordinary kiss—she was breathing life back into him. The man convulsed in her hands, and his arousal scent blossomed in the alley. His eyes popped open to see the full glory of the slayer giving him life, and his erection instantly tented out his pants. Erelah continued the life-kiss for an interminable time, obviously enjoying it as much as the man. For beings who stayed mostly chaste, there was a hell of a lot of sex-like-things angelings did. Then again, demons were infrequent on the face of the Earth these days, and the life-kiss was restrained to special circumstances like this, which happened rarely. Erelah was a young angeling as well—less than a hundred years since her angelic father lost his mind for a moment and mated with a human woman. Lucian doubted she had actually killed a demon before. Although she certainly had revived a human with a life-kiss—that was the main occupation of halflings like her in modern times, in the absence of demons to slay.
She was certainly enjoying it. If it was painful for Lucian to watch, Leksander’s face was a picture of torment. It was one thing to see the woman he loved slaying demons… another thing entirely to see her flushed in the arms of another man. Lucian had no doubt this was solely the angel-love Erelah had for every human, no matter the circumstances, not that she actually felt the stirrings of a True Love for this hybrid demon in the alley.
But that didn’t make it any easier to watch.
“Leksander.” Getting his brother to pry his pained stare from her wasn’t easy. “Leksander!” he hissed.
His brother blinked, hesitated, then strode over.
“Is this the only demon you found tonight?” Lucian asked, trying to distract him. Erelah was done with the actual life-kiss, but the man was still recovering—and he seemed loathe to let go of the beauty who had resuscitated him. For her part, she was glowing with the aftereffects of that encounter, even more so than the demon slaying, and was in no hurry to release him, either.
Leksander wrenched his gaze away from her and focused on Lucian. “No. There was one other. Both of which were Odious Class.”
Lucian narrowed his eyes. Demons were chaotic forces of evil, generally speaking, although they obeyed their masters once summoned. But once mated and producing hybrids, all bets were off. They aligned with the forces of evil surrounding them, and those usually lined up with the seven deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and especially Pride. Each sponsored a class of demon specialized in bringing that particular evil out in humans, not that demons couldn’t be multi-talented and bring out more than one. Especially when cross-b
red with humans, who seemed to have a limitless talent for evil.
Odious Class demons specialized in Wrath—hatred, rage, anger. An insufferable need to destroy the lives of others. A consuming desire for vengeance that passed all semblance of righteous justice.
“So Leonidas was right,” Lucian said, watching Erelah and the now demon-free man support each other as they rose up from the ground. “The hatred that’s been fomenting in Seattle—the troubles between the shifters and humans—is feeding the energy of these demons, bringing them out of their slumbering DNA.”
“It’s definitely possible,” Leksander said, the tension in his shoulders stepping down as a glowing Erelah moved away from the man and bid him to leave with a gracious sweep of her delicately beautiful arms. “Odious Class demons are especially susceptible to swelling up out of the dark corners of humanity, assuming they’re latent in their genetic code somewhere. Leftovers from the time they were more numerous. And hatred is the most easily communicable of the seven sins—it could easily spread wide enough to bring them out.”
His brother was certainly right about that. And the look on his face, directed at the man standing next to Erelah, wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming. The man’s erection hadn’t abated, and he wasn’t making any moves to leave. He had better go soon, or Leksander might light a fire under his feet.
“Are we simply seeing remnants of the troubles now?” Lucian asked, again trying to distract his brother. “Because those are behind us. Or at least, so I thought.”
The man finally ambled off after much urging from Erelah, her face shining with happiness at the man’s renewed lease on life. Lucian had never met a True Angel, only hybrids like Erelah—the pure Angels and Devils kept their distance from both the mortal and immortal worlds. But he couldn’t help wondering if they were all as clueless as their children about their powerful, attractive pull. It was as though Erelah couldn’t see the lust in the man’s eyes… or his pants. She was like a child, unaware in many ways.