Prince of Demons 1-3, Box Set

by Victoria Danann

  Those last three words melted away whatever reserve was still protecting her heart. He pulled her closer. “Do you remember when you decided that you were leaving? The last thing I said to you?”

  Lana chanced a glance at Brave’s face, lifting her eyes from where she’d been staring at his chest. “Yes.”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “That you love me?”

  “That’s right. And do you think that’s changed? Never mind. I withdraw the question because there’s just no predicting what may come out of your mouth next. Let me just say that what I feel for you now is so much more potent.

  “Just think about everything we’ve been through. And every new thing I learned about you made me love you more.”

  She looked up into his eyes again. “Really?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Now. Are you going to tell me who Stuart is?”

  She smiled. “He’s the loser who drove me into your arms.”

  “Then I love him,” Brave said.”

  Lana shook her head. “No. No. You don’t.”

  He laughed. “Whatever you say. I have a very needy male organ that’s desperate to be gloved in the sweet tightness of your channel. And I say that with heaving chest.”

  “Will you stop?” She wanted to be serious, but couldn’t help laughing.

  “Less laughing. More heaving.”

  She fell forward toward Brave, laughing, but the mood turned instantly carnal when kissing resumed. The light in Brave’s eyes and the flush in his face was as much a turn on for Lana as the skillful way he touched her, constantly monitoring her reaction, asking, “Do you like that? Do you like this?”

  “Yes. Yes. And I like you.”

  Brave’s chuckle turned into a moan when Lana positioned herself above him and guided his cock into her “channel”. She moved agonizingly slowly because Brave’s size took some getting used to. He was staring at her with hooded eyes and a look of adoration when she mirrored his words back to him. “Do you like that?”

  “Words can’t describe how much,” he rasped.

  By the time Lana had ridden Brave to two orgasms in the tub, followed by hours of oral and tactile exploration on the big bed in the adjoining room, she’d lost her self-consciousness about being Brave’s first human. She was wearing the confidence of a woman sure of her mate’s affection and a glow that suited her to a tee.

  She had just finished brushing her hair out and applying some lip gloss when Brave returned with breakfast.

  “Look what I brought you.” He held out the tray.

  “Please tell me one of those pitchers has coffee in it.” The way he looked down at the tray, like it had betrayed him, made her wish she’d kept her big mouth shut. “I don’t need coffee. What do you have there?”

  “Well, they brought you some pastry things from Loti and some cranberry juice. Next time I’ll be sure they get coffee.”

  Lana smiled brightly. “Perfect!”

  She was making yummy sounds around a mouthful of pastry with fruit filling when the door chimed.

  Brave looked at her with eyes twinkling. “Isn’t that cool?”

  She looked blank. “What?”

  “That sound the door makes when someone’s there. I stole the idea from your dimension.” He chuckled and shook his head on the way to the door. “I really like that.” He opened the door. Lana heard him say something in demonish. He closed the door, but continued to stand in front of it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He looked at her and smiled. “I told them to go away and then come back so I could hear it again.”

  Lana had to laugh. Brave had grown up with demons. He’d traveled between dimensions and seen things that most people couldn’t begin to imagine. And yet he could be delighted with something as simple as a doorbell.

  The chime sounded again. He looked at Lana and said in an exaggerated voice. “Hello! Who’s there?” They heard muffled sounds on the other side of the door. “Should I open it?” he asked Lana.

  “Yes, dufus,” she giggled. “Get the door.” She was still greedily devouring French popovers.

  “I don’t know what dufus is, but your tone tells me I don’t want to know. What’s that?” He put his hand to his ear and pretended to be listening to something only he could hear. “The horribly ugly black things say they think you should be punished. And who am I to argue with that?”

  He began moving toward her. She shrieked and ran to the other side of the bed. Brave pursued which caused her to try to flee across the top of the mattress. That maneuver ended with the two engaged in an entangled fit of laughter.

  The doorbell chimed again.

  Lana was breathing heavily. She looked at Brave. “Someone’s at the door.”

  “Should I open it?”

  They both dissolved into laughter again, but it was brought to an abrupt halt when the door chime began to sound in rapid and insistent succession.

  Brave flung himself off the bed, stomped toward the door, flung it open and said, “What!”

  Perry simply raised an eyebrow. “Time to fulfill your part of the deal.”

  Brave looked the Chief of Security in the eye for a few seconds. “Thank you, Perry. Give me an hour and we’ll join you.”

  “Very good, Your Eminence.”

  Brave closed the door.

  “What did he mean ‘your part of the deal’, Brave? What deal?”

  “Remember that thing about the son of Roanald?”

  Brave sat on the other side of the table from Lana and recounted every detail of the scheme he’d concocted to get the Callii to rescue her and release him.

  “Wow. That’s an incredible story. I guess you feel betrayed, huh?”

  Brave shrugged. “Good a word as any, I guess.”

  “Oh. So you’re going to do that thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “That thing men do to prove they’re tough.” She lowered her voice in imitation. “Hello. Let me introduce myself. I’m Stoic the Bad. My idea of a fun night out is a gallon of antifreeze. I have no real feelings. I’m Mr. Cockwalk.”

  Brave started laughing. “Mr. Cockwalk?” He stood up and started undoing his big buckle. “I’ll show you cock walk.”

  Lana jumped into a cross-legged position on the bed and started whistling. Until the door chime sounded again. Apparently the hour was up.

  They looked at each other with expressions that had gone instantly serious.

  As he began refastening his buckle, Lana said, “What should I wear to meet-the-parents weekend?”

  After reviewing the plan again, Lana and Brave were ready to meet his family. Abide decided that, since Perry and Dart had already been personally involved, they would be the logical choices to spy on behalf of the Callii. And, perhaps, see to Brave’s safety at the same time.

  Abide put his hand on Brave’s shoulder. “It was never just political, Brave. I think of you as my son.”

  Brave was a long way away from sorting through his feelings and thought it prudent to say nothing until he had. So he simply nodded and pulled away.

  Half an hour later, Brave and Lana stood hand in hand in front of his childhood home. Apparently his parents still lived in the same house. It had clean minimalistic lines, but was covered with a warm mix of pink-hued stone.

  “Do you think it has a doorbell?” asked Brave.

  Lana turned her head to look at him. “Are you nervous?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Does it show?”

  She smiled. “Not at all. You’re Brave. And no one in their right mind would question it.”

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “Here we go?”

  She nodded.

  Indeed there was a doorbell. A pleasant-looking man came to the door. He had the sort of frame that suggested he could have been an athlete once, but had chosen to spend his time in a lab. There was no doubt that the man was Brave’s father. Lana could see that Brave had gotten his facial bone structure from his father, in
cluding the pronounced jaw line.

  “Yes?” Roanald asked, looking between the two of them.

  Brave seemed frozen. It was Lana’s turn to give a reassuring squeeze of the hand. She didn’t understand the word the man had said.

  “Um.” He wasn’t sure if he could recall enough of the language, so he began haltingly. “I know this is a surprise, but there’s no way to ease into it. I’m, uh, Bruce.”

  The expression on the man’s face went from inquisitive to shocked as Lana watched him visually trace the curve of Brave’s cheekbone, the width of his brow, and the color of his eyes.

  Roanald didn’t move, but shouted, “Lours!”

  Bruce and Lana heard a feminine voice respond from within. “What is it, Roan? I was just going out to the…”

  She stopped at the door when she saw Brave, looked him over, and, almost instantly, tears sprang into her eyes. Lours rushed forward, grabbing Brave into a tight embrace at the same time she burst into tears. She said many more things that were unintelligible to Lana in between the rain of kisses she placed on Brave’s face. But still, Lana was able to get the gist. Brave’s father was uncertain, but his mother knew him instantly. No explanation necessary.

  When she finally began to quiet and pulled back, Brave looked up at the man still standing at the door. Roanald came forward and offered Brave a handshake. Brave took his hand and smiled.

  “Well, that explains a lot about your macho thing.” Lana said under her breath.

  “What?” Brave turned to her.

  Lana smiled brightly. “Nothing. Looks like we found the right house.”

  Brave had to interpret everything said, because Lana didn’t understand his parents’ language and they didn’t understand hers.

  As they sat at the dining table, Roanald said, “I don’t understand her language, but I think she’s not calling you by your name.”

  “She’s calling me by my demon name. It means Brave.”

  Roanald turned to his wife with a proud smile and a tone that said he’d never heard anything more wonderful. In his life.

  “Do you hear that, Lours? The demons named our son Brave.”

  She answered his smile and turned to Brave. “Don’t sound so surprised. I knew he was special from the moment he was conceived.”

  “You did not know anything about him the moment he was conceived, much less that he was special.”

  “How do you know what I know, Roan? I’ll tell you this. When Bruce was conceived, you were not a person who would presume to say what other people do or do not know,” she huffed. “I don’t know why I continue to put up with you.”

  The smile had never left Roanald’s face. “Because I’m good in bed.”

  Brave didn’t know enough about normal social interaction between human couples to know if sexual prowess was normally discussed openly or not, but he didn’t remember it coming up when he was a child.

  “You’ve been riding that for half my life, Roan.”

  “And I hope to keep riding it for the next half.” He reached over and chucked her under the chin with a playful glint in his eyes.

  Lana looked at Brave, expecting an interpretation of what had been said, but he just smiled and shook his head.

  Lana smiled good-naturedly. “Tell me or I’ll make a scene that needs no interpretation.”

  Brave laughed. “Have it your way. He’s teasing her, claiming to be good in bed.”

  Lana looked at the table. “Okaaay. You could have skipped that part.”

  “I tried,” Brave said innocently, still laughing.

  After dinner, which was strange but good, Brave and Lana asked for a private meeting with Roanald.

  “How will we convince the Reinlitegen the serum is real?”

  Roanald smirked. “Arrogance. Pure and simple. The Reinlitegen, like most demons, believe they’re superior to any species who doesn’t share the same abilities, or looks. Humans would be one of those. Like most elementals, they don’t have to work at survival or think about mortality. They’re so sure they’re so much better that they underestimate us. They won’t be expecting deception or devious schemes. They certainly won’t expect the level of risk-taking that you’re proposing.”

  He chuckled to himself.

  “What?” Brave asked.

  “Oh. Just an odd thought. What if they’re so bored with long lives and not much to occupy them that, on some level, the introduction of a population-thinning element is exciting. Maybe they envy death.”

  “You’re right. That is an odd thought.”

  “So we’re decided?”

  “Yeah. It’s a good plan. It’s also the only one we have.”

  “Well, there’s that.”

  “We have to wait a believable amount of time. They would become suspicious if I claimed to have accomplished the task in a day.”

  Brave locked gazes with his father. “How long are we talking?”

  “I could claim that, compared to the original project, it’s a relatively simple splice. Say, six days. Is that too long?”

  An image of the Renagoth Anh cell jumped into Brave’s mental vision. He took in a big breath and let it out slowly. “No. I’ll make it work.”

  “They’ll deliver you home and I’ll give them the serum.”

  “No. They’ll deliver me to Loti Dimension, where Lana is, and you’ll give them the serum.”

  “It’s like that, is it?” Brave nodded. “We just got you home.”

  “She’s home to me now. Just like you and that boisterous female upstairs.”

  “That boisterous female happens to be your mother.” Roanald’s face softened with a ghost of a smile. “And I’m a hundred percent positive that the part of you that got nicknamed ‘Brave’ came from her.”

  When Brave spelled it out for Lana, she wasn’t pleased.

  “NO!” Lana stormed off past the row of philodendrons toward the house.

  Brave rushed after her. “Lana, calm down.”

  “Brave, for the son of a brilliant scientist, you can be incredibly stupid. Didn’t I already tell you once that the worst thing you can possibly do is to tell an angry woman to ‘Calm down.’?”

  Brave hid a smile. “I think you might have mentioned it, but I was so distracted by your beauty that…”

  Lana rolled her eyes. “You’re not going.”

  “I’m going.”

  “Not.”

  “Lana… It’s less than a week. Then we’ll have the rest of our lives to look for romantic adventures.”

  She sniffed and looked up at him through her lashes. “The rest of our lives?”

  “What did you think?” he laughed. “That I went to all this trouble to get you only to let you go? We’re in it together, better, worse, mediocre. Although I just don’t see mediocre in our future.”

  She sat down on a garden bench and stared at a crocus-like bloom like she thought it held the meaning of life. “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  He took her hand and pulled her up and into his body. She relaxed and let him put his arms around her. “We’ve got now. Let’s make a memory.”

  She looked up to ask what he meant, but words left her when she saw the heat in his eyes and took his meaning. “Where? Here?” She looked around the garden like she was trying to imagine it.

  He laughed and tugged gently on her hand. “My room.”

  She let him lead her through the back of the house, up the stairs and down the hallway to the last door on the right.

  He opened it and stepped in behind her, thinking not much had changed except for the fact that everything was smaller than he remembered. Everything from parents to room sizes.

  There was a single bed with a bright coverlet featuring star maps. It seemed to say that it had stood steadfast like a silent sentry for over two decades waiting for the boy to return. Overhead there was a large mobile of the solar system and one entire wall was full of toys and sports equipment for a little boy.

  “Still the same.”
He tried to be nonchalant, but she could hear the strain.

  He saw that Lana’s eyes were brimming with tears. “Lana. What is it?”

  Her voice broke a little when she tried to speak. “They took you, Brave. The demons. You were just a little boy and they took you.”

  “Hey.”

  He cupped her face in his hand and wiped at the tears with his thumbs. He’d watched the woman through all sorts of trials and hardships and she’d never hinted that she might cry. Not once. But she was crying over a lost childhood, time he would have spent growing in a loving nurturing home, and he loved her more than ever for the empathy she showed him. He knew he’d never get enough of Atalanta Ravin if they had a hundred lifetimes together.

  “It wasn’t all bad, you know.”

  He bent at the knees so he’d be at her eye level and smiled. “But you can make it up to me if you want.” He pulled her into his body for a graphic demonstration of the fact that he had something in mind.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Reinlitegen agreed to Brave’s terms. They would release all demon hostages if Brave turned himself over voluntarily. They would hold Brave until he could be exchanged for their custom designed serum. They would also pledge that the Reinlitegen, no matter how many generations removed, would never return to Renagoth Anh.

  “There are so many,” Brave said quietly to Abide.

  Forty three Callii females were exchanged for Brave. They had to be escorted home because they were still handicapped by the effects of liquefied farsi. It would take several days for that much farsi to wear off.

  Within minutes of being grabbed by the Reinlitegen, Brave found himself back in the dungeon of Renagoth Anh. He cursed while trying to remind himself why he had thought volunteering to be the bait part of a bait and switch sting was a good idea. At least they didn’t chain him. It seemed they would be satisfied with taking advantage of human limitations.

  They also let him keep the two duffels that Lana had packed. He hadn’t paid attention to what she was putting in them because he was sure the Reinlitegen would confiscate them on sight.