Hell on Earth (Hell on Earth, Book 1) (Hell on Earth Series)

by Brenda K. Davies

  She slumped against me, her rapid breaths warming my skin as she nestled closer and kissed my neck. Cradling her against me, I kicked off my boots and strode over to the couch with her. My pants slid further down to hang around my hips as I walked. A mewl of protest came from her when I lifted her off me and set her on the couch.

  “I’m far from done with you,” I promised as I pulled my pants off and tossed them aside.

  Her eyes latched hungrily onto my dick when I stepped closer and bent to rest my hands on her hips. I shifted her so that she lay on the couch with her head on the armrest and her hair flowing out around her flushed face. Lowering myself over top of her, I settled myself between her thighs. Her legs spread further open, her hands fell on my shoulders as I buried myself to the hilt within her once more.

  Home.

  The realization blazed across my mind as my hand entangled in her hair. Drawing her head back, I kissed her neck while her legs wrapped around me. Her fingers dug into my back, and I drew back before plunging into her again.

  I had no more room for any coherent thoughts as something within me fractured, and I became completely lost to her.

  Wren

  All I could do was cling to Corson as the firestorm of emotions he stoked within me rose higher and higher. The release he’d given me earlier had briefly quenched my yearning for him, but it was back now.

  I nearly screamed with the joy the sensation of his smooth flesh moving against mine and his muscles flexing beneath my hands evoked in me. The smell of him, the feel of him, and the sight of his body rising over mine were an intoxicating combination that I craved.

  I held him closer, needing to feel more of him. Seeming to sense this, his arm encircled my waist, and he lifted me until his chest was flush against mine. His breath warmed my ear as his tongue traced it. My hips rose and fell faster; my heels dug into his ass as I eagerly responded to the growing urgency I sensed within him.

  “Mine,” he breathed against my ear.

  “Mine!” This time the word came out more of a snarl, and I dimly realized his voice sounded distorted in a way I’d never heard it before.

  I couldn’t focus on that though as tendrils of pleasure spiraled out from my core until they became waves that had my head falling back as I cried out in ecstasy.

  Corson

  Out of control. Completely out of control. It was all I felt as Wren’s body rose and fell beneath mine. Any restraint I’d tried to keep unraveled as I took her with an abandon I’d never experienced before, not even with a demon who I didn’t have to worry about possibly harming. Instead of being frightened or pushing me away, Wren’s hands and cries urged me on.

  An unfamiliar pressure spread up my shaft, building steadily higher. Despite the strangeness of the sensation, there was something pleasurable about it, and I didn’t try to stop it. I couldn’t stop anything now; I was too far gone in her to try.

  “Mine,” I told her, finding it was the only word I could get out. “Mine.”

  When I repeated it, I realized something unfamiliar filled my mouth. What the…?

  My tongue prodded the tip of a canine as it lengthened. Then, I poked at the lengthening canine on the other side of my mouth.

  I don’t have fangs.

  Something tugged at my mind, but as it was tugging, Wren’s sheath clenched around me as she came again. The exquisite sensation of her contracting muscles gripping me was too much for me to take. Trusting forward, I gave myself over to her.

  I dimly realized that not only was my spine tingling from my orgasm but something more incredible was taking over. My dick jumped within her, the pressure that had been building gave way as, for the first time, I experienced the release of my semen into another. The rush of it enhanced my orgasm in ways I hadn’t known possible.

  But all of it was buried beneath my need to…

  My eyes latched onto Wren’s neck as her body bowed beneath me to expose the slender column of her neck. Without thinking, I bent to kiss her shoulder before sinking my newfound fangs into her flesh. Pinning her to the couch, I continued to take her.

  Wren cried out; her nails scored my back as she orgasmed again. I released my bite on her shoulder and sank my fangs into one of her breasts. Dimly, I knew what was happening, knew what I’d done and what it meant, but I couldn’t stop myself; I’d finally found where I belonged.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Wren

  “Wait!” I gasped. “Corson, wait, stop!”

  He growled against my breast, the rumbling sensation causing my muscles to quake in response. My traitorous body was more than willing to keep going with him, but my mind refused to shut off again as his bite brought a cold dose of reality with it. Reality, panic, and a surprising heartache that I hadn’t been expecting filled me.

  I need to think, and I can’t do that with him inside me!

  I wasn’t sure my words reached him, and if they had, I didn’t think he would stop as he thrust into me again. But then he released his bite on my breast and lifted his lips to settle them right over the place where he’d bitten my shoulder. His body stilled within mine before he pulled out of me.

  I had the overwhelming urge to cry and take him back inside me, while I resisted the impulse to shove him off me. What he’d done couldn’t mean what I imagined it might; it couldn’t!

  Corson settled onto the couch beside me while I lay panting and staring at a large, brown water spot on the ceiling. Right now, I didn’t know which way was up or down, right or left. I wanted to flee into the night as badly as I wanted to cry.

  Corson locked his arm around my waist when I rolled over. He settled behind me, drawing my back flush against his chest as he held me possessively against him. If I allowed it, he would be inside me again, but I couldn’t allow it. Not after what had happened.

  Mine. The possessive way he’d said the word hammered through my mind. And I’d felt his release inside me. The intensity of his orgasm had triggered another one from me, as had the unexpected pleasure his bite aroused in me. Bites were supposed to be painful, but his had sent me spiraling further out of control.

  His bite! Corson didn’t have fangs, not like some of the other demons I’d seen. I knew there were demons who had permanent fangs, and others who had fangs that extended when necessary, but I’d never witnessed anything like that from Corson. I’d seen him pretty pissed off and excited for a fight before too. No, Corson’s teeth had always been perfectly normal or human in appearance.

  Bits and pieces of our earlier conversation played through my mind again…

  “Demons also only bite another during sex if it is their Chosen,” he’d said. “If for some reason, their bite marks should fade, other demons will always know when another has been claimed and stay away from them.”

  “A bite and sex are what decides a Chosen?”

  “No, there is far more involved in the bond than that. Male demons don’t produce sperm until they find their Chosen and the females don’t produce eggs.”

  I was positive there had been sperm.

  “Some of the demons who went to Earth before the angels entered Hell found their Chosen amid humans.” He’d also said that at some point too.

  My heart raced, and my fingers dug into the fabric of the couch. He couldn’t think I was his Chosen. I cared for him; I did. I wouldn’t have slept with him otherwise. Maybe there hadn’t been a whole lot of feeling with Todd, but there was with Corson. There was too much feeling with him.

  I’d gone into this knowing there could never be a lasting relationship between us. The whole immortal/mortal thing was only one of some fairly large obstacles between us, but I’d thought maybe he cared for me, and not because some screwy demon DNA told him he had to to be with me so he could have demon babies.

  To my horror, I realized that I wanted him to desire me for me, and not because he could suddenly produce sperm with me!

  Not to mention, there was Randy and all the other Wilders to think about. A fling with
Corson would have been one thing, but to be claimed by a demon and expected to reproduce with one was something else entirely. I didn’t know how they would react to this.

  Not much made me feel like crying, but the possibility of losing all of them, and everything I’d ever known, brought a lump to my throat.

  I recalled almost laughing over the thought of Corson having to romance anyone into staying with him. There hadn’t been much romance involved between us, but this situation was far from amusing.

  Behind me, Corson lifted his head. “What’s wrong, Wren?”

  I hated the trace of hurt in his voice, but I couldn’t stop my need to get away from this place and him. I had to have time to process all this.

  You’re getting way ahead of yourself! You've seen bite marks on people after they’ve had sex before. There was also that ridiculous time Jolie allowed some guy to make a ring of hickeys around her neck. Corson may have been mistaken about that whole biting aspect of a Chosen. He had to have bitten someone else over the numerous years of his extremely active sex life.

  Now I could add jealousy to the flight instinct my body had going on as the idea of him with another woman set my teeth on edge. I didn’t want to be a demon’s Chosen, but I didn’t want him biting anyone else either.

  I was losing my mind. Somehow, this man—demon—had managed to turn me into an irrational mess!

  Before he’d sauntered his earring-wearing ass into my life, I’d been nothing but pragmatic and remorseless. I didn’t live with guilt or feel bad about possibly hurting someone. I didn’t recall the past. Those things would only eat me alive if I allowed them to, yet now I was experiencing all of them and all because of him.

  “You bit me,” I said. I couldn’t stop my hand from resting against the marks on my shoulder.

  Two punctures, like he was some vampire or something. His bite had shot a fresh jolt of pleasure through me until all I could do was come apart in his hands, and I had come apart, multiple times. Still, I couldn’t stop the crushing sense of being trapped those marks brought to me, and being trapped equaled death.

  “I did.” His voice remained casual, but the muscles in his chest became rigid against my back.

  “You said…” I swallowed to get some saliva into my parched throat. “You said demons only ever bite their Chosen.”

  “Wren—”

  “You said demons only produce sperm with their Chosen.”

  “Yes, I said those things.”

  “Were they lies?”

  “No. Do you want them to be?” He didn’t breathe as he waited for my answer.

  “I don’t want to be the Chosen of a demon.”

  I felt a slight recoil within him though he didn’t move.

  “Not a demon, my Chosen,” he said in a tone that reminded me of a predator waiting to pounce.

  “I’m not… I won’t be anyone’s!” I cried, and my heart twisted at the possibility of hurting him.

  Maybe I more than cared for Corson if I worried about hurting him, but I couldn’t give myself over to anything more than sex between us. Immortal or not, he could die, and I’d lost far too many in my life to endure the loss of another.

  I loved my friends and Randy. I would grieve their passing if it came in my lifetime, but I had a feeling Corson’s death could tear my heart out and leave me a broken mess afterward. I might not survive it if more developed between us and I lost him. My parent’s deaths almost destroyed me, and I’d vowed never to let something like that happen to me again.

  “I belong to myself and no one else,” I stated.

  “You do belong to yourself.” He leaned forward to nuzzle my hair with his nose. Before I could stop myself, I melted against him. “But you are also mine.”

  “No!” I jerked away from him and leapt to my feet before my body betrayed me again. “No!”

  Storming around the back of the couch, I snatched up the clothes I’d placed there from where they’d fallen on the ground. I hugged them to my chest as I spun to face him. He remained sprawled on the couch, his long body taking up all of it. His posture was casual, but anger simmered in his eyes, and he didn’t bother to hide the erection sticking out from between his legs.

  My gaze went to the bead of liquid forming on the head of his cock. Shaking my head to clear it of my impulse to jump him, I started to dress. They would be a small obstacle for him, especially since I no longer had underwear or a bra, but clothes were still a barrier between us.

  “Did you suspect?” I demanded as I yanked my pants up one leg. “You said sometimes demons know or at least suspect another is their Chosen before sex, did you?”

  He hesitated long enough that I knew his answer before he spoke it. “Yes.”

  I froze with my foot halfway through my other pants leg. The awkward stop threw me off balance, and I almost toppled over. I caught myself before I hit the ground. I scowled at him as if my clumsiness had been his fault, but awkwardness was another thing I’d never experienced until he entered my life.

  Regaining control of myself, I jammed my foot the rest of the way into my pants and pulled them up to button them. They were too big for me, and I had to roll the waistband over twice to get them to stay up.

  “I started to suspect earlier tonight, but when I look back, I realize I should have guessed it sooner. You’ve been in my head for a while. There isn’t anything I won’t do to protect you. When the ouro and macharah touched you, all I could think about was destroying them. I haven’t been with another woman since I first met you—”

  “Liar,” I said as I tugged the sweater on.

  One second he was lying on the couch, the next he stood before me. Gasping, I stumbled back before I could stop myself. I’d never seen anything move with that kind of speed. I hadn’t known it was possible.

  “I am not lying.” He advanced on me as he spoke, and I edged further away. “If I were going to lie to you, I would have denied that I suspected you were my Chosen before I claimed you, but I didn’t deny it.”

  Refusing to yield any more to him, I stopped backing away and lifted my chin as I stood my ground against him. His orange eyes darkened to a near red hue as he stared at me, his body looming over me and his chest brushing against mine. I had no idea why I didn’t fear him, considering what I’d seen him do to that macharah, and he appeared more pissed off now, but I had no worries he would put his hands on me in anger.

  “I will take many things from you, Wren, but I will not take being called a liar. I will never lie to you. I never have, and I’m not going to start now. The only woman who has entered my mind since meeting you is you. And you’ve been on my mind every night as I’ve jerked off to imaginings of you. I’m not a human who can’t get laid; I’m a demon who can go to any tree nymph or most any other female demon at any time to get off. My hand is not something I use. But use it I have, too many times in the past couple of months.

  “I should have known what you are to me sooner; I didn’t. But I cannot change what happened between us, and despite the fact you drive me insane, I wouldn’t change having you as my Chosen. I warned you earlier that I might not let you go. I gave you the chance to tell me no. You didn’t.”

  I gave up trying to hold my ground against him and backed away as his words melted my resistance. He wasn’t lying. He hadn’t been with anyone else, and he had given me the chance to walk away from him; I hadn’t taken it.

  He will hurt me. It wasn’t a matter of if he would hurt me, it was only a matter of when it would happen. Human or not, everyone died in the Wilds.

  Corson’s hands flexed at his sides as he watched me, but he didn’t try to stop me from putting some space between us.

  “Yes, you did warn me,” I murmured.

  I should have listened to him more, but I’d been too caught up in the moment, and him, to think it through. Plus, I hadn’t believed I could be his Chosen. Things would have been different if I’d known; I would have walked away from him. But even as I thought that, I wondered if it
was true. I’d wanted him with an intensity that hadn’t left any room for rational thought. I still wanted to give in to him now, but terror kept me from doing so.

  “We’re good together,” he murmured.

  “The only reason you want me is because you have no choice in the matter,” I said and awkwardly tugged on a sock while continuing to move further away from him. His eyes stalked my every move like a hawk circling its prey. “Some biological demon thing has told you that, for some insane reason, you can only have offspring with me. If you had a choice, you would prefer someone else.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  I ignored the cold when I jammed my foot into my soaked boot. “You’re only saying that because you just shot your load for the first time!”

  Corson lifted a black eyebrow at me; he smiled briefly before suppressing it. What the hell was I saying? I didn’t know anymore. I only knew I had to get away from him. I shoved my foot into my other boot and tied the laces with fumbling fingers.

  “I will admit that what I experienced with you is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before,” he said. “I didn’t know sex could be that good. I’ve heard what they say about a demon with their Chosen, but I thought they exaggerated. I was wrong. There will never be anyone else for me, only you.”

  “Because your DNA is telling you to feel that way.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to detangle it as I edged toward the hallway. I had to keep moving. If I stopped, I would have to acknowledge the sense of loss growing within me.

  “I would still care for you if you weren’t my Chosen,” he said.

  “You can’t possibly know that, and don’t say that!”

  “I can know it, and don’t say what?”

  “That you care for me.”

  “Wren—”

  “The people who care about me die!” I snapped. “The people I care about die. My parents weren’t the only losses I’ve endured over the years. There have been countless others. Maury who had a potbelly and a lopsided grin. He loved Greek mythology and was teaching me about it. He had his head ripped off when a demon crept out of the bushes behind him while he was in the middle of telling me about Hermes.”