“Tree nymphs,” Magnus replied with a smirk. “I think you may take a liking to them, young canagh.”
Hawk shot him a lethal look over his shoulder as he adjusted his hold on his knife. “They won’t hurt you,” Bale said. “They’re upper-level demons who have always remained loyal to Kobal, but these trees are their home.”
A head poked out from around a trunk to reveal a pretty woman before she disappeared again. An excited murmur raced through the trees as a fluttering of movement stirred the shadows surrounding them. The shadows danced and swayed before another head poked out and a striking man peered out at us.
They whispered in a harsh language I didn’t understand, but I recognized it as the demon language. “What are they saying?” I asked Kobal.
He glanced behind him and released a series of what sounded like commands to the creatures gathering within the trees before turning back to me. “Nothing bad,” he assured me.
“What did you say to them?”
“I told them they were to speak only in English around you.”
“It is him,” the man said before vanishing again. “The king has returned.”
“I thought nymphs were only women,” I said.
“In your world they are, but true nymphs are both men and women, and they are not goddesses, but demons. The tree nymphs simply seek pleasure of all forms. The wood nymphs were locked behind the seventy-seventh seal years ago. They were also upper-level demons who discovered they enjoyed feasting on demon blood as much as they enjoyed feasting on souls. They became cannibals and most likely spawned your vampire legends.”
The idea of cannibal demons made me shudder as more heads poked out and giggles erupted through the forest. “What other differences are there between a tree nymph and a wood nymph?”
“The wood nymphs are bigger and resided in the woods themselves, the tree nymphs are smaller and live in the trees.”
I tilted my head to look at the tiny demons peering curiously at us and giggling behind their hands.
“Are you sure they’re demons? They sure laugh a lot,” Hawk said.
“That’s what tree nymphs do. They laugh as they feed on another’s sexuality and the wraith’s misery within this place,” Corson replied.
“Now that sounds like a demon,” Hawk murmured.
“You are one of us now,” Magnus reminded him. “All of your powers may not have manifested yet, but if you are standing here, then there is no denying what you are.”
Hawk flipped him the finger as a group of nymphs slipped out from behind the trees. The petite women wore no more than a slip of black, gauzy material around their waists. Their lower half may as well have been as bare as their breasts; the gauze left nothing to the imagination.
They all curtsied and bowed to Kobal when he walked by before rising to giggle with each other once more. The nearly naked women danced up to Corson and ran their fingers over his arms.
“Hello, hi, we missed you,” they eagerly greeted while Corson shrugged their hands away. I lifted an eyebrow at the normally flirtatious demon but didn’t comment on the way he avoided their touch.
The nymphs didn’t notice as they moved past him to Magnus and Hawk. Hawk looked as if he were torn between running from here or grabbing one and taking her into the woods.
“Oh, he’s so handsome,” a pretty redhead purred as she rubbed Hawk’s bicep.
Hawk stepped away from her, but a sheen of sweat now dotted his upper lip and brow.
“Leave him be,” Kobal said in a low tone of voice that had the skellein closest to him taking a step away.
“Your Highness!” a group of the nymphs squealed and flounced toward him.
Red burst before my vision when the first one rubbed her breasts against his arm before running her hand over his chest. My teeth clenched so forcefully I thought they would shatter when he pulled her hand away.
“But, Your Highness!” she pouted prettily. “We’ve missed you! It’s been so long since you’ve graced us with your presence!”
There may be a few dead tree nymphs by the time we left here, I decided.
Kobal stepped away from them. Without a word, he wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me off my feet. I glowered at the beautiful women with their elven features and petite, luscious bodies over his shoulder as he held me against his chest while he walked.
“Easy, Mah Kush-la,” he murmured in my ear when fire crackled at the tips of my fingers. “These nymphs are on our side.”
“Don’t care,” I muttered. “They have to learn to keep their hands to themselves.”
He chuckled and ran a hand through my hair. “That is one thing nymphs are never good at, but they don’t mean any harm.”
“Well, good then, set me down and I’ll go introduce myself to some of the men!” I retorted, hating the jealousy seething through me.
His arms tightened around me. His eyes were slits when they slid toward me. I resolutely held his stare as he continued to walk, not at all pleased with the knowledge he’d found all of this amusing until now. “I think not.”
The sighs of the nymphs drew my attention back to them as they looked longingly after us. That was it, I was going to set these horny little creatures on fire, but then they sighed again and started to speak. “She’s marked,” they whispered to each other. “She’s his Chosen. Oh, how sweet!”
Some of them actually folded their hands before them and fluttered their lashes as they said this. When they were done whispering to each other, they rushed to catch up with us. I found my wrath melting away as a few of them waved at me shyly. I couldn’t stop myself from waving back, and they giggled once more.
“Strangest fucking demons yet,” Hawk muttered.
“I have to agree,” I replied. “You can put me down now. I promise not to barbecue any of them.”
“I prefer this,” Kobal said.
I wasn’t going to argue with him as I did too. Resting my head on his shoulder, I watched as the male nymphs slid out from behind the trees. Like the women, they were smaller in stature with handsome features and a thin strip of gauzy material around their waists. I couldn’t stop myself from blushing when I realized what the male nymphs lacked in height and weight, they more than made up for with what was hanging low behind the gauzy material.
They all followed us, with more slipping from the trees, as Corson and Bale led the way down the road winding deeper and deeper into the forest. Through the trees, I spotted what looked like fires burning to illuminate the forest around us, but I didn’t smell smoke, and I didn’t hear the crackle of wood. Kobal’s muscles flexed around me as he kept me secured against him. I found my eyes drifting closed.
CHAPTER 30
Kobal
River’s lips rested against my neck, and her breath warmed my skin. With every step I took, her body rubbed enticingly against mine. I didn’t require the lure of the forest and trees, or the sweet scent of the Prury fruit hanging above us to cause my desire for her to grow. That happened well enough on its own, without the forest amplifying it.
I’d believed I’d be strong enough to resist the lure of the trees and River while here, but her fresh rain scent tantalized me. There had been no avoiding the forest. It was one of the safest places for us to travel through as the nymphs were often thought of as non-entities by many of the other demons. They were rarely bothered by other demons until those demons decided to slake their lust with one or more of the nymphs.
The nymphs could be far more vicious than most demons realized. I’d once witnessed them skinning a demon alive for hitting one of their own before stringing him up by his balls and slicing off his head. They may be small and mostly looking for a good time, but the nymphs possessed the same malicious streak all demons did.
Glancing at Hawk out of the corner of my eye, I noted the increasing sweat trickling down the side of his face, the firm set of his jaw, and the glassiness of his eyes. “Just keep walking,” I said quietly to him, unwilling to wake River from
her sleep.
He looked toward me before his gaze locked on River, and he licked his lips. A snarl erupted from me. I moved her out of his eyesight as my claws extended with the need to slice through his jugular. Never before had I gotten the impression of lust from him for River. I never would have let him around her if I had, but the need in his eyes was unmistakable. The young canagh demon was starting to unravel within the forest. I had known it would affect him, it affected everyone, but I hadn’t realized how starved he was until now.
“Look away from her!” I spat.
Corson fell back to walk between us. He nudged Hawk away from me, pushing him toward the other side of the road. Hawk rubbed at his cheeks and eyes before looking toward me once more.
“I don’t know…” His voice trailed off as his gaze ran over the woods. “What is wrong with me?”
“This forest is the land of decadence. It was the original home of all the canaghs and the nymph creatures. Our carnal urges are amplified here. You are a new demon and have less control over yourself. You also have not fed in a while, not from sex, and you’ve never fed from a wraith,” Corson said. His gaze shifted to me. “Perhaps we should stop and allow him to do so?”
“No,” Hawk said firmly. “No. I will not take the risk of what happened with Sarah happening to someone else. I’m a grown man. I can fucking control myself.”
“No, you’re a newly turned canagh demon who is still growing into what you will become. You will either fight it until you starve, or you will snap and take someone against their will,” Bale said. “I don’t think either of those options are appealing to you, are they?”
Lifting his arm, Hawk wiped away the sweat lining his brow. “No.”
“The nymphs have experience with canaghs. You will not harm them,” Corson said. “I can show you how to feed from a wraith after.”
“We have a mission. I will not slow it down,” Hawk replied.
“But you already are. We have to stop eventually to rest. We will not make it to the seals tonight. The forest is the safest place for us to take a break. It is also the most pleasurable,” Magnus said and waved at a small redhead who blew him a kiss.
“They are right, you must feed, and you need sexual energy to do so,” I said. “You are no good to us if you’re unraveling, distracted, and weak for the rest of this journey.”
A muscle in Hawk’s jaw jumped. More sweat trickled down his brow and over his cheeks as his teeth ground together. “This is not who I am.”
“It is now.”
Corson shot me a look. I could almost hear him saying tact, Kobal in my head, but there was no time for tact here.
“You are putting us all at risk by denying what has now become your biological makeup. You’re putting yourself at risk, because I guarantee, if you look at her like that again, friend or not, I’ll destroy you.”
River stirred against me. I shifted my hold on her to keep her out of Hawk’s line of vision as I felt her lashes flutter against my neck. She started to lift her head; I pushed it back down to keep her nestled safely within my shoulder.
“Kobal—” she started to protest.
“Not now,” I replied briskly.
I thought she would fight me, but she remained unmoving. My gaze slid to Hawk again. I saw the uncertainty in his eyes and the shame he tried to keep hidden over his unraveling restraint. He wasn’t looking at her again, but my lips still skimmed back to bare my fangs at him.
“Take care of this, Corson,” I commanded. I had to get away from Hawk before I killed him. “Make sure he does what must be done and find me when it is over. The rest of you, stay with them.”
Keeping River’s head pinned against my shoulder, I strode away from them and deeper into the shadowy trees. “We can’t leave them,” River protested.
“If we don’t leave them, I’ll kill him,” I told her. “I won’t have someone out of control around you, and I won’t have someone lusting after you.”
“Hawk wouldn’t hurt me.”
“He would if he doesn’t get himself together.”
She shivered in my arms. “Will he be okay?”
“If he does what he must in order to survive now, yes, he will.”
Turning a corner, I released my hold on her head when she tried to raise it again. Her head came off my shoulder and her fingers bit deeper into my skin. “You consider Hawk a friend now,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I inquired as I stopped near a grouping of calamut trees and set her on her feet.
“You said, ‘friend or not, I’ll destroy you.’ Before you always referred to him as my friend or the human, but this time you didn’t say her friend. You like him.”
I frowned at her before lifting my head to study the trees. There were no animals within these woods, and the only wildlife were the demons who rutted in the shadows. Scenting the air, I listened to the leaves rustling in the trees, but I didn’t hear or smell any other demons near us. “He’s one of us now,” I replied.
Her nimble fingers playing at the buttons lining my shirt brought my attention back to her. “I think you liked him when he was still human too. I think you like Erin and Vargas as well. Admit it, Kobal, we mortals are growing on you,” she said with a teasing smile.
Lifting my hand, I ran my knuckles over her delicate cheek as the sweet scent of the prury fruit grew stronger in the air. Her mouth parted, and the rapid beat of her heart sounded in my ears. I’d spent a lot of time in this forest over the years, but I’d never felt the drugging, calling effect of lust within it as badly as I did now.
My cock swelled with blood when her breasts pressed alluringly against my chest. I tried to step away from her but found myself moving closer. She drew her bottom lip into her mouth when my hand slid down the front of her shirt, circling the nipple already hardening beneath her clothes. She was always irresistible, but now she was a lure drawing me deeper and deeper into her as her hands slid one of the buttons on my shirt free and her palms rested against my chest.
Her body jerked closer to me as her midnight blue sparks warmed my flesh. “You feel…” Her fingers traced over my muscles as she slipped the buttons free and she moved steadily lower across my body. “It’s like I can feel every part of you.”
“It’s the forest,” I told her as her hand dipped to the edge of my pants. “It heightens desires, passions, sensations.”
“Sensations,” she murmured. Her gaze latched onto my chest as she pushed back my shirt and swayed closer.
“The forest also feeds on sexual energy.”
“How strange,” she murmured, her ravenous gaze running over me while she slid the shirt further off my shoulders. “Will it hurt us?”
“No, we will only be staying for a bit, not long enough to become caught within its trap.”
“Are we safe here?”
“Safer here than almost any other place in Hell. Violence is not tolerated within the forest without brutal retribution from those who live here.”
A seductive smile curved her mouth as her fingers flattened against my chest. “Then I think we should feed it.”
“River—” My words broke off when she bent to kiss my chest. “Things can become mindless within these woods,” I forced myself to say, and again I tried to step away from her, but found myself moving closer.
“I would love to be mindless.”
Her tongue licked over my nipple. She lightly pulled it between her teeth before releasing it. She rose on her toes to run her tongue over my throat and up to my ear.
“I’m already wet for you,” she whispered.
Those words were my undoing. I dragged her against my chest and bent my head to take possession of her mouth. She raked her nails over my skin; her hips undulated against me as her tongue entwined greedily with mine.
As I lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around my waist and rubbed invitingly against my aching cock. I continued to kiss her while I walked her off the road and deeper into the shadows of the forest. The taste
and smell of her floated around me as it filled the air around us. Out of the countless times I’d been in this forest, never before had I been as enthralled by the spell these woods cast over all those who entered it.
I was out of control, mindless for her. Pulling away, her breath came in pants as she gazed at me, and her fingers played with the hair against my neck. Her eyes smoldered with passion; her lips were enticingly swollen from my kiss. She unwrapped her legs from my waist and slid to the ground.
She smiled at me as she bent to untie her boots. Rising back up, she stepped closer to me, a seductive smile curving her lips as her fingers traced over my shoulders. Leaning forward, she kissed my chest before spinning away from me. Laughter trailed behind her as she plunged into the woods.
CHAPTER 31
Kobal
“Catch me if you can!” she called over her shoulder.
I stood for a moment, too stunned to respond until she grabbed the bottom of her shirt and tugged it over her head. She waved it in the air before tossing it behind her. Then I realized she may stumble into a pack of nymphs who would be more than happy to welcome a half-naked woman into their midst.
Breaking into a run, I followed her through the trees as she continued to leave a trail of clothing behind her. I had no idea how she did it, but she somehow managed to kick off her boots without missing a step. Her pants soon followed. She threw her bra into the air, and I snagged hold of it.
I caught her at the edge of a fire pool. She squealed in delight when I wrapped my arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground to pin her back against my chest. It didn’t matter if the forest fueled us, didn’t matter that I should be concentrating on other things right now, all I could think about was being inside of her.
Her head fell back, and her laughter faded away when her eyes locked on the pool before us. “What is that?” she breathed as she gazed at the three-foot-wide circle in the middle of the forest. Red and yellow light swirled throughout the smooth-as-glass surface.
“A fire pool,” I murmured and dipped my head to nibble on her ear.
The Road (The Road to Hell Series, Book 3) Page 22