“If that’s supposed to be a compliment . . .”
I smiled. “It is.”
I faced forward again, leaning back into him. I closed my eyes, feeling that horrible ache that came with losing someone beginning to set in.
Strange sounds filtered in from the jungle around us, each bird and insect and mammal filling the night air with strange music. It was getting too cold out here, but I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but tonight, it felt like the end of something. The end of this journey across the human world, the end of this tiny two person cosmos that had developed between me and Asher. The end of living without consequences.
But it also felt like a beginning of sorts.
“What do you want out of life?” I asked.
He was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spoke. “A week ago I would’ve told you justice.”
“And now?”
He stood abruptly, pulling me up along with him. “Redemption,” he said, his gaze pinned beyond me to some far off point on the horizon. And I sensed . . . I sensed Asher was holding back. Even the way he stood was poised like he was readying himself for attack, his shoulders tense.
“What changed your mind?”
In the fading light, Asher’s eyes met mine. And they held everything. His world, mine.
And in that look, he saw me. We have a word in the old language for that. Hauza. Soul-sight. To see everything that makes someone a unique entity.
He leaned forward, his breath brushing over me. “You already know.”
I could feel my connection hurtling me toward him.
My mate. I’d been sucked into this cyclone we created and it was too late to escape. And far too late to want to.
Asher’s hand cradled the back of my neck, and his head dipped toward mine. This time I knew, I knew, what was coming.
When he kissed me, my lips were hesitant as I breathed in his essence. I remembered what happened last time, and I felt the weight of all I had to lose.
Asher paused, his breath fanned against my cheek and chin. Then his mouth was back on mine, moving slowly, coaxing a reaction out of me. Life boiled down to this one moment, this one connection.
Asher’s teeth nipped my lower lip, and without meaning to I moaned into his mouth. Suddenly I didn’t mind the cold so much. It felt like just one more sensation, and now that Asher was so close to me, his front nearly pressed to mine, I didn’t feel a chill, but a burn.
My hands fell to his lower back, the muscles taut beneath my fingertips. All that bottled up longing, and finally I was touching him again like he was mine. My fingernails dug in.
He backed us up until my shoulders banged into the door. With his free hand he reached up and braced himself against it, his other hand still buried in my hair.
He broke away long enough to whisper, “Lana, I—”
I leaned forward and silenced him with my mouth, dragging him back under.
And then he was fumbling for the door, dragging us both inside. Absently he kicked the door shut behind him, the glass panes rattling as it slammed shut.
This man was a force of nature, a human who bent the world to his will, and I was bending with it. His hands moved through my hair, down my back, pulling me closer, closer.
Not close enough.
My breaths were coming quicker as we gasped into each other’s mouths. All this talk of death, all the awful memories we carried with us, this was the kind of magic that banished them.
We might not survive tomorrow. Not when my comrades had broken our most sacred law and amassed so much power.
Not unless . . .
There might be one way. A possibility I hadn’t considered until now.
The bond between mates was sacred. If the Infernari didn’t outright kill us both, then they had to respect the bond. They wouldn’t kill Asher so long as he was bound to me. Not if they wanted me alive. And they would want me alive; I was their last healer, aside from the primus, but he hadn’t used his affinity in a long time.
The Infernari would take me and Asher back to Abyssos, back to the primus, and once there, he and I would talk. I would make him understand.
All I needed to do was convince the Infernari that waited for us at the portal to let us live. That, and complete the bond.
Already I felt Asher’s thumbs rubbing the skin of my belly, causing it to tighten.
I reached for the edge of his shirt, my hands suddenly fumbling. I couldn’t catch my breath as a new type of excitement and nervousness rushed through me.
Completing the bond. My throat was suddenly dry.
Asher helped me out with his shirt, barely breaking away from me to toss it to the side of the room before his lips and arms returned to mine.
This no longer felt like a sweet, slow burning kiss. This was world-devouring, like fire burning through a field.
And now my hands smoothed over his torso, over the ridges of his abdominal muscles, then his pectorals.
I was beginning to shake, and my hair was flaring all sorts of colors.
Almost shyly, I reached between us, undoing the top button of his shorts.
Asher froze beneath my hands, breaking off the kiss. The only sound between us was our heavy breathing.
He caught my hands and leaned his forehead against mine. “Lana . . .” he breathed. Wrapped up into a single word was desire and uncertainty. “You’ve never . . .”
My hand slipped out from beneath his and I began to kiss him again. And this time I was the force of nature, sweeping him along. His mouth moved reluctantly beneath mine. Slowly, he caved into it, and the burn ratcheted back up. I sensed more than saw him step out of his shorts.
He palmed my breast, and I hissed against his mouth as he began to massage it. He pushed the edge of my top aside, pulling it down until my breast was exposed between us. His head dipped, his breath fanning against my skin, and then I knew what it was like when Asher kissed other parts of me.
Like life itself.
I arched into him, my body feeling foreign, every fiber snapping with awareness. My knees went weak, and if one of his hands hadn’t cradled the small of my back, I would’ve fallen.
Fire spread low in my belly, and he kindled it with every movement of his mouth. His teeth grazed my nipple, his tongue skimming over it.
Too much sensation. I almost doubled over with it, settling instead on gripping his hair tightly.
His lips left my breast, and he straightened, pulling my top off as he did so.
My face heated with embarrassment as my upper torso was exposed to him. I shouldn’t have been, the moment his eyes fixated on my chest, all I saw was wanton need.
As he drank me in, I got a good look at him. My blush deepened. Only one bit of clothing remained on him, one that covered the area between his hips and thighs.
He stalked forward, forcing me to back up until my shins hit the bed. We went down together, our bodies a tangle of limbs.
Splaying a hand of his on my chest, he dragged his eyes down, down.
I couldn’t pull air in fast enough, especially when I felt those deft fingers of his peeling back my pants, exposing the rest of me.
This was all so foreign, so foreign and arousing. I’m sure Infernari did things like this, I’m sure sex wasn’t so very different between our kind, but this seemed very human.
My breasts rose and fell, rose and fell, as I pushed myself up to my forearms and peered down my body at Asher. His touch slid down my thighs, over my knees and calves, burning, branding. My pants slipped off, and with them, the last of my clothing.
From the foot of the bed, Asher met my gaze, the dim lights of the room reflecting in his own, and he looked like some strange, dangerous specter.
He bent over, removi
ng the last bit of his own clothing. And when he straightened . . .
I barely had time to swallow back my anxieties before he draped himself over me.
I sucked in a breath at the exquisite feel of all that cool skin meeting mine.
He didn’t stop lowering himself until his chest touched mine and his head hovered near my face. I reached up and cupped his cheeks, my thumbs rubbing over his beautiful, unforgiving features. This close to him, I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes.
I could feel him hard and thick against my thigh. He shifted, and then I felt him settle right at my entrance.
I still had time to save myself, to save my heart and soul from what I was about to do. But the longer we held each other’s gazes, the more right this felt.
He hooked a hand around the back of one of my knees, spreading me. It seemed so inappropriate, to be splayed wide open like this—inappropriate and absolutely natural. And the way he looked at me! Nothing seemed wrong or inappropriate about that.
I didn’t know whether Asher moved or whether I did, but—oh gods oh gods oh gods—he began sinking into me.
I made a small noise.
The size of him!
“Asher,” I gasped. I hadn’t planned on this, on our anatomy being at odds.
He stopped moving altogether. Above me, I could feel him shaking as he held back, his body quickly slickening with sweat. “Give it . . . a moment.”
I nodded, biting my lower lip, trying to hold back the franticness I felt.
His hand slid between us, touching me right between—
“Asher.” This time I said his name with shock as his fingers rubbed against me.
Mother above. I was going up in flames, my body bending, opening, yielding to him.
He took my lower lip into his mouth and bit it softly, only further drawing out my growing ecstasy.
It took more than a moment, but I felt myself accommodate him.
His hips began to stir as he sensed my response. “Better?” he asked.
I nodded again.
He was inside me!
Air hissed between my teeth as he sunk deeper, eliciting a moan from me.
My vision clouded as I felt it—our connection. I’d assumed the mating bond was something instantaneous, something that snapped into place the moment it was consummated, but now that I was experiencing it, I could tell it worked another way entirely.
Or perhaps it was just different with a human.
I could feel it growing, strengthening, reaching out for Asher . . . who didn’t have a connection for it to grasp.
My vision cleared as Asher pulled away only to thrust into me.
I gasped out something incoherent, something that made him let out a husky laugh before he repeated the act. Again, and again, and again.
My nails dug into his back as he pumped in and out, in and out, our bodies rocking together, our sweat mixing, our scents mingling.
He watched me the entire time, those eyes of his unguarded for once. He looked at me like I would save him, like I was saving him.
“So goddamn beautiful,” he murmured as he stared.
But he was wrong. He was the one who was beautiful, his face, his heart, his soul. I could still feel all that anger in him, caged and locked away at the moment, anger that he had let fester for years. I was sure that if we were together long enough, that if tomorrow didn’t kill us, I would see that anger dissolve away. I would help it dissolve away.
Asher’s hips stirred, and I ceased thinking about anything beyond where our two bodies met. I became almost mindless with ecstasy.
His thrusts quickened, the force of each one bringing me closer and closer to the edge. Our hips met again and again, each one, wondrous.
This was really happening. Us.
Asher knew what sex meant. He knew that a bond came with it. He knew that long before tonight, and still he lay with me.
This was no drunken mistake. He chose me every bit as much as I chose him.
Asher kissed me roughly, passionately, and that was enough.
Pure sensation ripped through me, pulsing again and again.
I cried out, my nails dragging down Asher’s back as I pulled him closer, drawing out my orgasm. I felt him thicken inside me, his swift breaths sounding against my ear. And then he was coming on the heels of my own climax, his body a machine as he drove into me with each wave of his release.
His hips slowed, gentling before I felt him leave me.
My mate.
My mate.
This was everything I imagined joining to be. Intimate, forbidden, wonderful.
My connection to Asher, though incomplete, had formed, and it felt like a small flame that would grow the longer it lasted. And wrapped up in that bond was the very essence of all things pure and good.
I couldn’t stop my smile from blooming, even as my arms, my body, felt empty. It only lasted a moment. Asher gathered me to him, my body pressed against his.
Almost uncertainly, I placed a hand just below his sternum.
My chest, my man, my mate. A heady combo of happiness and satisfaction unfurled within me.
For better or worse, it was now him and me against worlds.
Chapter 20
Asher
After Lana fell asleep in my arms, I untangled myself from her and swung my legs off the bed to stare at the floor, fingers knotted in my hair. It hurt to breathe, to lay, to think.
Even as my insides seemed to go weightless and do somersaults, I felt a crushing weight of gravity pull me back down. Back to reality. A nervous, jittery adrenaline vibrated in my nerves. Overstimulation.
The aftershocks of pleasure mutinied under my skin and turned sour, leaving a washed-out burn wherever we’d touched, wherever my body had lain against hers. Like smoldering bruises.
What are you doing, Asher?
I just had sex with a demon. I wanted her so badly. Like she could save me from my life.
Too far. I’d taken this too far.
With shaking hands, I reached for my wallet on the bedside table and slid out the photo of Nikki. The photo trembled out of my fingers and fluttered to the floor, along with a burning hot tear. I didn’t pick it up. I refused to face that guilt right now.
That, on top of everything. I couldn’t.
I had just given the last of my heart to the girl who would doom my race.
A demon was a demon. For too long, I’d forgotten. Now I was twisting the knife. In myself. In her. Through that one forbidden act, we had both betrayed our kind.
The mixed emotions raged in my soul.
The shame, the heartache, the white-hot lust for her that had not been sated, but fueled. Like that first shot of heroin, Lana was an addiction after a single hit. Already, I craved her again. Craved her in a way that went beyond sex. I craved her thoughts, her affection, her soft smiles. Craved it all down to my bones. One taste, and I was hooked—hooked and already frantic for my next fix.
An old Leonardo da Vinci quote rang in my ears.
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.
That was Lana.
Do you love her, Asher?
Because she loves you.
She hadn’t said it yet, but she did. She had chosen me to mate with; love went hand-in-hand with that. We were bonded for life.
I had chosen her to betray.
Cupping my hand over my mouth, I looked back at her—her naked body contoured under the sheets, her flushed, glistening cheeks, her long hair spilling across the bed, gently stirring like it was its own living thing.
Such a magnificent, lovely creature.
Such a sedu
ctive, wicked creature.
Yes, I might have loved her in that moment when our bodies arched together, when I thrust myself deep inside her and drew her in close, our broken spirits longing to touch each other . . . if just for a blissful instant.
The memory alone brought a dull ache to my abdomen.
But she was a demon.
And I was not allowed to love a demon.
I was not allowed to fuck a demon.
I was supposed to kill demons, burn them, eradicate them.
But tonight, I had done the cruelest thing of all: I had let myself have a whisper of hope.
For happiness, for an end to the violence, for a future . . . for her.
She had almost convinced me, too.
Almost.
But not quite.
In the terrifying silence that followed the lovemaking, the anguish sank its claws in anew.
I had already come too far to back down.
A man got an opportunity like this only once. Only once.
I intended to seize it.
Even if it crushed me, even if it destroyed me.
Because I was Jame Asher, I was a human . . . and I had a job to do.
Lana
I blinked my eyes open as a shaft of morning light shone into the room. Outside I could hear all those odd sounds that came from the jungle surrounding the villa.
Beautiful earthly place. I would miss it when I was gone.
I stretched, my body pleasantly sore in strange places.
Last night came rushing back, and my heart galloped all over again. I lay there for several seconds just remembering. I could practically feel those hands, those lips, that body even now, moving over me, drawing me in.
I was queasy with excitement, with giddiness and nerves. It all happened.
Mated.
A smile spread across my face, so big it hurt my cheeks. I should be somber, considering what lay ahead of me, but nothing could shake this elation I felt.
My hand glided down my skin. I could still smell Asher on me—his sweat, and . . . other fluids.
Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) Page 27