by Louisa Bacio
“Oh, yes, Julia,” Arimanius groaned. “Yes, baby. You've been so bad. I need to punish you.”
Julia continued to weave her sexual spell. She dipped her fingers into her own crevice, getting herself wet and ready, and then wafted them under Ari's nose. A forked tongue darted out from the demon's mouth and wrapped itself around her fingers, seeking out Julia's juices.
“You know it's me that you want,” Julia coaxed. “It's always been only me. It's been so long. How do you want to fuck me?”
Lily felt frozen in place. She definitely didn't want to see this demon fuck her mother. At the same time, it was like a bad accident: she couldn't look away from the scene. As she watched, she felt something shift inside her, a new knowledge build. In reality, Julia was here with Arimanius by choice. If she truly wanted to escape, she probably could. Instead, she'd turned her back on humanity, and her daughter Lily in order to stay with the demon.
Julia enjoyed the power that she held over the dark lord. The next time her mother met her eyes, Lily nodded once, “yes.” She would flee.
“I'm yours … however you want to take me,” Julia said.
With a very human-like howl, Arimanius threw his head back and grabbed Julia around the waist, physically turning her around and bending her over. Lily caught a glimpse of the bulbous head of his cock stretching Julia wide, and flashed mentally on the night she'd watched Lawrence and Trevor in bed and had envied the love between them. Is this what she wanted? To be trapped down here for eternity, literally in hell? Or, did she want a chance at real love, and a real loving physical relationship?
No choice.
She ran for her life, ignoring the screams of passion and pain at her back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lawrence
With a guttural sound emanating from deep in his chest, Law sat up on the table. His eyelids opened, showing only the whites of his eyes, and then suddenly they cleared and focused. He looked around the darkened room, taking it all in, and then came to rest on Trevor.
“What the fuck did you do?”
He swung his legs over the side of the cot, and stood up, only to fall right back down again. His legs refused to hold his weight.
“Just hold up a minute there,” Teresa said, reaching out to touch him. “Your body needs to reanimate itself, and catch up with the rest of you.”
Lawrence propped himself up against the side of the table, and batted her hand away. “With respect, I'd rather you not touch me,” he said. “There's been too much of that already tonight.”
She laughed, unleashing a bellow that didn't quite match up with his comments. “You've got a feisty one here, Wolfman, better watch out. What's that surprise on your face? You didn't think that I was unaware of your shifter status, did you?”
“You seem to know a lot about us,” Trevor said. “A little too much for comfort.” He started to approach Lawrence in order to help him up.
“Oh no, don't you think about it either,” Law said. “I can feel my strength coming back already, and I don't want any of you either.”
Trevor's face seemed to fall even further. Lawrence was sure that this night had to be one of the worst in Trev's young life. But if he thought he knew what heartache and pain felt like, then he had some hard lessons ahead of him.
“So if either one of you wants to be really helpful, how about you get me something to wear that's not torn and full of blood?” Lawrence instructed. He'd had way more than enough drama for one evening. No way was he walking through the Quarter at this time of night looking the way he did. Either the police would pick him up for indecency or some drunken convention-goer would solicit him for sex. He didn't have the patience for either.
“Wait up for me, Lawrence,” Trevor called out, moving fast, but not as quickly as his own vampire legs could carry him.
He wished to have some sort of amnesia to forget the ugly events of the evening, but no. Just like the last blasted 150 years of being undead, he remembered everything. For a blessed time, all had been quiet and calm. It was as if all the chaos of the world no longer existed. Gone. And then he was back. Awake. And it all came tumbling back. The fears, the pain, and the heartache. Fortunately, too, love. He glanced back at Trevor, making sure that he'd kept up, that he was all right and he continued moving forward toward home.
To distract himself along the way, Lawrence concentrated on the senses of the night. Gas lamps on the building fronts offered a warm glow of light. In the distance, on Bourbon Street, a smorgasbord of music and laughter tinkled through the air. If he wanted to, he could zero in on one sound, one conversation, and then skip over to another. As for the smells, well, he had to watch for those olfactory senses. The assault could be the bitter barf of a drunk or the sweet allure of a dancer's perfume and body musk.
“I'm not sorry, Lawrence,” Trevor yelled from a distance. “Be mad all you want, but I'm not sorry. I couldn't let you die.”
So Trevor had come in and saved the day, but what of Lily? Lawrence hadn't been able to protect her. He'd fallen victim to the demon. Victim. Him? Where did that leave Lily? What sort of future did she have now that he had failed?
A foreign energy streamed through his system. Energized, but unfulfilled. He should hunt before returning home. Maybe that would help settle his nerves. Plus, it would throw Trevor off his game. He'd be expecting Lawrence to return to their domestic domain and make up. Well, he wasn't quite ready to return and face the consequences. He didn't often feed in front of Trevor. It made the young were jealous and insecure. Lawrence tongued the inside of his mouth. He could still taste that sweet young assistant of the Voodoo priestess. If he could be sure that his actions wouldn't be held against him, he'd be tempted to circle back and sample more of Miss Mirabella.
Instead, rather than going left toward the bookstore, he made a right toward one of the more deserted parts of the Quarter. Some of the back alleys off Canal St., where the druggies hung at this early part of the hour. If he was lucky, maybe he'd find someone high and score a little buzz off the blood.
“Aw, come on Law, not now,” he heard Trev mutter. “We need to get home.”
Home to what? To sweep up broken glass? To look at Lily's empty room? Maybe to wait on some out-of-town tourists looking for the oddity that stood right before them. Damn it, he felt bitter, morose, pensive. Darkness blanketed his emotions, and he felt his fangs pop out against his gums. He picked up his pace, reveling in the wind pulling at his hair, and leaving Trevor back in the distance.
The borrowed clothes pulled taut across his chest. He might as well have gone home nude, for all the decency the cheap T-shirt and jeans gave him. Talk about high waters; they looked more like culottes. He'd woven his way to his favorite feeding ground, right along the riverbank. Now, sitting on the moist dirt, letting the flowing water baptize his iridescent feet, he questioned his own motives for running away. What did he really fear the most? He'd already lost control, and lost his life. After living for so long, it was strange to imagine the opposite: death. What would he have done in Trevor's shoes? Well, that answer was ultimately easier for him. He would have turned Trevor into a vampire. Still, he wasn't one hundred percent sure what would happen with the mixture of vamp and were blood. Would Trev morph into a hybrid anomaly? And, then, what about Lily? He'd uncovered more about their houseguest than he had shared. If given the chance, would she be willing to turn into either a shifter or a vampire? Her choice may tell what she thought of both of them.
In the distance, Lawrence heard a howling and he immediately thought of Trevor. Was his lover out roaming the city looking for Lawrence, or had he returned home to lick his wounds? Ah, with that thought of wounds, Lawrence thought of the ways that he had been so selfish. From the looks of Trevor, he had obviously gotten quite hurt too. He'd limped pretty badly and had a hard time keeping pace on the sprint from the voodoo workshop.
First, he would feed, and then he'd face the future.
Chapter Twenty-Four
&nb
sp; Trevor
Exhaustion settled into his bones, and his leg ached. Trevor stretched out in bed, feeling the emptiness. He was used to sleeping when Lawrence either worked the shop or roamed the city in the early morning hours. Tonight, though, he didn't know where Lawrence was or when he'd return.
He needed to sleep. The rest would quicken his recovery time. Part of him wanted to set out in search for Lily, but after the events of the evening, and his injuries, he wouldn't be much good. Plus, they needed some plan of action. Obviously, neither he nor Lawrence was able to take on the demon individually. The question was, if they combined forces, would they make a difference? Even though they had only known Lily for a relatively short amount of time, they had to try. Otherwise, her disappearance would haunt him.
Downstairs, he heard the store's door creak open, and he let out a sigh. He didn't realize how much he'd been waiting for Lawrence, until he sensed his presence return. Heavy steps vibrated up the stairs, and then Trevor could feel Law waiting outside the bedroom, right in the hallway, beyond where Trevor could see into the shadows.
“Glad you came home,” Trevor said, turning on the bedside light and willing Law to step forward.
He did. The vamp's cheeks appeared flushed, as if he had just finished eating. “Did you have a light early morning snack?” Trevor asked, his regular joke falling flat.
“No, a fat-ass pimp that still smelled like the blood of one of his employees that he'd beaten,” Lawrence replied.
Something looked different about Law. It was difficult to discern, and Trev tilted his head, evaluating the vampire. He appeared harder, edgier, darker. Coming back from the verge of death could probably do that to a person, especially one who was already mostly dead.
Trev reached out his hand, rubbing the covers and hoping to draw Law into bed. “Come here. I need to feel you.”
The vampire stopped momentarily, and measured Trev with his eyes, as if he was not just evaluating this one moment between them but their entire relationship.
“How could you?” Law asked, his internal fury propelling him to pace back and forth across the room.
His anger was palpable, and Trevor wanted to reach out and touch him, to stop the fight from building up, but Trev had never seen Lawrence so disturbed and part of him feared what would happen if he physically intruded upon Lawrence's space. If he kept this up, though, they were going to need to install new tile, Trev thought looking at the Italian travertine that he'd lovingly picked out, because Lawrence was going to wear a path in the floor.
“I had no choice,” Trevor said. “You were dying, and I couldn't lose you. I need you.”
Lawrence stopped, and a shadow of fury bled over his eyes, obliterating all the color. It looked as if the blackness of the pupil had taken over the rest of the eye.
When he spoke, Lawrence's fangs hung down over his lower lip and his upper lip pulled back in a snarl.
“So this was for you?” Lawrence asked, arms extended out like he was going to catch a gigantic ball. He took another step forward.
Trevor fought an internal battle not to cower away, to retreat. He was guilty of nothing except loving Lawrence. He knew that Lawrence would be angry with him for going to the voodoo shop, but he'd been left with little choice.
“She didn't want anything from me. All she wanted was you,” Trevor tried to explain.
“And you gave me to her, didn't you? What gave you the right to make such a pledge on my behalf?” Lawrence asked. A small stream of spittle flew out of the corner of his mouth. “To promise some underdetermined favor from me in the future?”
He took another step forward and Trevor held his head up, and stood his ground.
“You did,” he said, looking at his resurrected lover in the eye. “When you told me that you loved me, and you'd never leave me.”
With Trevor's words, the anger fueling Law dissipated and he slumped his shoulders, as if suddenly drained of energy. Trevor pushed back the covers, got up, and closed the remaining gap between them to wrap his arms around Lawrence. For once, feeling the slightness of his lover's body and thinking of Law's potential mortality.
“I'm so sorry,” Trevor said. “If there had been any other way, I would have …”
Settling back onto the bed, Trevor pulled Law to him, feeling the comfortable and familiar weight of his lover's body. The vampire kissed him with all of his pent-up rage and passion, with a previously unknown fervor. Trev sucked in air between kisses. Lawrence's hands roamed Trev's body, pushing him back against the bed.
“Listen to me,” Trev said. “You have to believe me. I didn't know what else to do.”
“Shhh. Let's not talk about it anymore.” Lawrence pulled off his borrowed shirt and pants. He stood there naked, and beautiful, shining like a classically flawless piece of marble. His cock jutted out at Trevor, as if it, too, was pointing at him, accusingly. “We'll deal with the consequences when Madame Teresa comes calling. Because don't be fooled, that old lady had something in mind when she exacted that promise, and we'll hear from her eventually.”
A shudder of premonition and dread hit Trevor, and then Law started up his hungry kisses again, bringing them both back into the moment. Trevor pulled back, slicked his hand with saliva, and grabbed hold of Law's member, pumping quickly. The vamp ripped off Trevor's boxer shorts, and lifted his legs up high. Trevor wrapped them around Law's chest, bracing himself for entry. He helped guide Law to the nesting spot, and then willed himself to relax and open to his lover.
Lawrence needed no further invitation. He pushed the head of his cock into Trev, and Trev exhaled upon penetration. Law hovered there for a moment, muscles on his arms and chest flexed, and suckled on Trev's lower lip. Ever so tenderly, Lawrence kissed the corner of Trev's mouth, and then his jawline, trailing downward with his tongue until he could feel the pulse of Trev's neck beneath his lips.
Trevor squirmed upward, raising his ass just an inch more, pushing Law further into him. Law laughed.
“What do you want, lover?” he asked. “More of me inside you? Do you want me to claim you as mine? Do you want me to mark you as mine?”
“Yes,” Trev chanted. “Yes, yes, yes. Whatever you want.”
“Oh, don't worry. I'm going to fuck you. And I'm going to fuck you hard, and when you think we might be done, I may flip you onto your stomach and fuck you some more. You wanted me back, well I'm back.”
And with that final affirmation, Law sank his teeth into Trev's neck, and plunged his dick in until the base rubbed against Trevor's ass. Trev gritted his teeth and rode out the quick burst of pain, until the pleasure overrode all thought.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lily
“Come out, come out, wherever you are?” a faint voice called out, echoing off the walls around her. “Don't you want to come out and play?”
Lily pushed forward. From the sounds of the demon's voice, he must have finished playing with her mother, and now he was coming after her. After wandering for what had felt like forever, she'd finally found her way to the opening of an aqueduct. It certainly smelled to high heaven, but who knew that the public sewer system literally led to a demon's lair.
Just beyond the opening, she could discern a difference in the light, from underworld dark to just plain early day grayness. She'd only been gone for a night, not even twenty-four hours, but it felt like a week. So much had transpired. And so much she had learned. The demon had kidnapped a naïve girl, and now she'd almost completely lost that innocence.
The soothing, cool waters caressed Lily's broken feet. After scraping several layers of skin off in the bowels of the underworld, the chilly water of the aqueduct felt like a slice of heaven. At that moment, she couldn't imagine a better feeling.
In the distance, the skies were just starting to turn a dark shade of pink as the sun started to rise. The place where she stood, though, remained mostly shadowed in the darkness of the night that lurked, battling another day of banishment. She strained to hear whether
the demon continued to pursue her. If she listened carefully, she thought she heard the pounding of footsteps, but that could simply be her own heart thumping with exertion and fear.
She gathered her strength and willed herself to go on. She'd come this far, certainly she possessed enough energy to make it home.
“Child, before you leave, I have something for you,” a woman said, stepping out from one of the shadows.
Lily reigned in a scream, and held her hand against her throat. Who was this woman who had hidden from her, and moved so quietly?
“Oooh, I'm sorry to have scared you,” the woman continued, moving closer.
Lily glanced behind her, checking her surroundings, and took a step back. Something told her that this woman was anything but sorry for frightening her. “What do you want from me?” Lily asked.
“So pleasant, aren't you, Lily?” the woman said. “Well, I know that you must have just seen sights that you never thought you would see, and those that you hope you'll never lay eyes on again.” The woman's eyes focused beyond Lily, onto the opening of the tunnel behind her. “It takes a special person to escape from a demon, Lily, and you're that special person.”
“How do you know my name?” Lily started to become more than intrigued.
“I know much more than that about you,” the old woman said. “Why, just tonight I saved your strong vampire and probably that young stud were, too. Who knows what he would have done if that vamp's final death had arrived too soon.”
This time, Lily stepped forward. “Lawrence lives?”
“Ah, that got your attention now, didn't it?”
“Who are you?” Lily asked, moving closer to the woman. As she neared, she was taken by the grandmotherly-like figure. The woman stood several inches shorter than her, and that wasn't saying much. She must have been under five feet tall, but she emanated a power full of persuasion.