by Lexi Ostrow
He growled deep, took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. Their tongues swirled together for dominance and seduction. Their teeth hit together as their kiss became frantic, a need more than a desire. Something had happened that consumed them both. He moved them, pushed forward until her shoulder blades hit the wall. Small pants of passion came from her, and it drove him wild.
He pulled his mouth free from hers and kissed a trail down her neck, loving the corseted tops the hunters wore, because it exposed her to him. He gently trailed his tongue in a circle over the healing mark from the bite. She groaned so passionately his eyes almost rolled back with desire. She would make those noises when he was deep within her, and he knew he would like it.
His mouth kissed the top of her bosom as his hands went to his trouser strings. Her hands covered his as she attempted to help him take them off, and when she brushed his prick, he growled and took her mouth as his once more. He let her fumble with the ties on his pantaloons and felt the heat from her hand brushing his stomach as she pulled his knickers down. She was familiar with a man’s body and wasted no time running the tip of her finger over the head of his prick. She swirled it there, and he grunted as a bit of release coated his tip for her efforts.
“You’re so big, Philippe.”
Her statement was whispered into their kiss and filled with awe. It brought a smile to Philippe’s lips, and he moved to nibble on her ear as his hips began to roll into her clever little hand.
He shuddered as she added a second hand and stroked up and down his entire length. “Mon Dieu! You’re killing me, female.” His hips bucked as she squeezed, and he swore he saw stars of pleasure.
“I like the French now. When you say it because I’m driving you wild.”
He felt as if her husky voice was going to push him over the edge. He needed to be inside her and now. They weren’t playing at lovers; there was no need for delicacy or pretty situations. Just a good hard rut to remind her what passion was, and hopefully clear his head of the desire he felt for her when he should be focusing on the mission.
One of her hands cupped his balls, rolling them together, and he swore. Sparks of pleasure shot through him, and if he didn’t stop her, he was going to come in her hand. It had been years since he’d been with a woman, and he was damned if he would finish anywhere but inside her.
She let out of chorus of “uh’s” and sharp breaths, and he knew it was now or never because her sounds of pleasure were going to do him in.
Philippe nudged his knee betwixt her legs, getting her to spread them, so he could walk closer to her body. Her hand continued to stroke him as he nipped her neck in retaliation. He lifted her, as gently as he could, and her legs wrapped around his waist. He pressed her back into the wall, so close to the window that their actions were almost on display. He used one hand to brace her against him and put one next to her beautiful dark hair. Her long bustle skirt slid up as she parted her legs, and he used the hand that held her to quickly slide her panties down just enough to make room for him.
“Remember that promise I made you the other day?” he whispered against her neck as he placed kisses along it.
She squirmed against him and stopped stroking his prick to guide it to her core. “Y-yes,” she stuttered as he nipped her collarbone.
He looked up and into her eyes, loving the fire that was rekindled in them, if only for that one moment. “It’s time to show you,” his voice was a low, seductive, promise.
Philippe shifted his hips and drove himself into her body to the hilt. He growled out in pleasure, and she gasped. He moved his hips in and out quickly, thrusting fast and hard into her willing body. She moved to match his movements. Together, they were going to take each other over the edge.
He pulled out and slammed back in with each and every thrust, dragging his shaft against her clit as he went, taunting her with extra pressure and pleasure. Every push of his hips pulled a sharp exhale of pleasure and praise from her mouth, and he was drunk with pleasure as her inner walls sheathed him perfectly.
Her hands raked a line down his back, and he arched forward, driving himself in at a new angle as the pleasure overwhelmed him. He felt his balls tightening, and the muscles in his neck grow tense as he tried to push past his own release and bring her to her own. She needed to come first, this was for her, and he would make it about her.
With a grunt, he pushed his hips harder and faster, frantically almost. Odette’s head hit the wall, but neither let go of the other.
“Philippe. Philippe. Oh yes!” His name was high pitched and laced with the sound of a woman reaching her release.
He pressed his lips to hers again and devoured her mouth with his. Her cry of pleasure was swallowed in their kiss as it overcame her. Her body clenched and squeezed his shaft, and his own orgasm shot through him like a bullet at the sensation. He roared into their kiss as a white-hot release ripped through him, sending pleasure over every meter of his skin.
Their hips stopped moving, but his mouth didn’t leave hers. He couldn’t get enough of the way she tasted, the way her mouth fit perfectly against his.
When he finally pulled back and looked at Odette, her eyes were lidded in pleasure, and a smile was spread on her lips. The knowledge that he had put it there made him soar. It had been awhilst, but he knew it had been about more than a frantic coupling. He’d wanted to give her something to live for, and he had wanted to show her that it was him.
“Mmm, I think I like Frenchmen.” She smiled lazily at him and placed a kiss on his neck.
He chuckled and slid out of her body. His prick still pulsed from his pleasure. He kissed her again—quite as passionately, but enough that his member tried to stir again—despite the powerful release. He carefully helped her to slide down the wall, and she flushed when he looked at her.
“Thank you, Philippe.”
“Believe me, I didn’t do anything I didn’t want.” He reached down to grab his knickers and trousers and discreetly wiped his member off on the inner seam of them. “I know you didn’t either.”
A darkness settled over her visage. “I’m not there yet, Philippe. I liked it. You were amazing, but I’m not ready to turn my back on the family I lost.”
He tried to hide his sigh, but he failed. He ran his fingertips down her face, and she leaned into it. “Then we will keep going as we are until you are in charge of your own life once more. From there, we will see what the future holds because nowhere in that sentence did you say you were not interested.” He kissed her again, a closed mouth kiss meant to seal a deal with her. She looked out the window then, and he didn’t press her.
“I did not deny it. Let me see how I feel once we succeed in saving me. I don’t want to ignore what just happened, but I’m not ready to do more than what we just did.”
His heart pumped faster at the confidence she had suddenly developed in their mission. He nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at him. She had a point. He needed to focus. He was already intent on protecting her. If he added in his desire to touch her, it could get them killed. Good hunters had no distractions. He would do whatever it took to keep her safe, and then they could discuss what it truly meant to be alive.
“The carriage is here. I need to clean up.” She picked up her skirt to walk across the room but stopped as she was about to move past him. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, Philippe. Do not get yourself killed on this trip. I will not lose a second man I care for.”
Mouth agape, he watched as she walked into the bathroom, left dumbfounded at the outright admission of feelings from Odette.
Ten
Odette had been out of the carriage for at least five minutes, and she had not stopped staring. The machine in front of the little group was terrifying, gigantic and most certainly not made to work. She didn’t care what the crystals the Angels had given them could do. There was no possible way the beast of rubber was going to sail into the sky like a ship on the waves.
Eliza stood
in front of it beaming from ear to ear. She’d known the inventor before her leave for America, but not overly well. She’d been a studious little woman, and Odette knew she had to be there in order to ensure the contraption worked properly, and to fix it if it broke. Odette had no idea how to protect the small woman accompanying them from harm—Eliza had no hunting skills to speak of.
Philippe must have read her thoughts because he playfully bumped her shoulder and smiled. “She was almost killed last year around the same time as your family. She’s small, but Lucius, Greyston and Felicia, before she took up with child, all trained her well. She’s not as confident in the terrors we face, but she won’t be a problem.”
Odette nodded and blew out a breath. “I suppose we need to walk up to it now, don’t we?”
He chuckled and offered her his arm, which she ignored. Sleeping with him—more like being taken by him—earlier had not changed anything betwixt them. She’d slipped into a space in her own private hell with the revelation of who she really was. Nothing was worth finding the cure if she was part demon, even if it was the kind of demon that was supposedly trustworthy. Philippe had frightened her at first when he’d taken up so close to her face and yelled at her, but the fear also brought a stir of passion that she’d been pushing down on and off since they’d met.
She’d stopped fighting and used the lustful feelings for Philippe as her lifeline to the world. As he’d touched her, kissed her, driven into her, she’d begun to come back to herself. She wanted to grieve properly for her husband, a year had felt right when she’d found his body, but meeting Philippe had changed things a little. Except that she had lied to him, telling him that she didn’t want more.
That was why she ignored his charitable arm and walked as carefully as she could in the skirt and slippers to the flying machine. Eliza was the only other female on the trip, and she wore breeches, something that Odette had a feeling she was going to be slipping into. There was no need to keep up a pretense if they were in the middle of nowhere. There would be none to cause a row over a woman dressed in men’s attire.
Lucius popped his head out from a small oval doorway in the giant thing, and she gasped, not having realized he’d come ahead with his mate.
“Good evening! Welcome to the terrifying death trap my lovely mate has created for us!”
His tone was jovial, but she blanched anyway.
“Wonderful, you imbecile. I wasn’t nervous enough before about trusting this thing, now you’ve gone and terrified Odette to the point where we will be lucky if she comes with us.” Greyston stepped out of the transport as well as he spoke and growled as he hit Lucius on the back of the head.
Greyston, Eliza and Lucius—a trio made in heaven because she knew they were used to working as a unit. She looked next to her and was immediately annoyed. Philippe didn’t look slightly fazed by the invention. However, Kellan and her father had the sense to look as ropey as she felt.
“If you weren’t my mate, I would sincerely shoot you with one of the crystal guns,” Eliza snarked at him.
Philippe quickly pushed a gun in front of the woman’s face. “Go on right ahead. Your mate is a pain in the arse on his good days.”
Everyone laughed, and Lucian wiggled his brows.
“You’re merely upset you lack my charm and good fashion.” He tugged on his cravat and brushed the silk lapels of his overcoat.
He was far too overdressed, but Philippe wasn’t far behind. Greyston and Kellan had the conventional cotton sleeved over shirt and breeches on. Not that she could speak, she’d worn skirts on a dangerous mountain mission.
“That will be enough,” her father’s—no not her father’s—Master Agardawes’ voice cut through the laughter, and it quickly grew somber. “We are not here to have fun. My daughter is in life threatening danger, and thanks to the Pure, we have been granted the knowledge needed to save her.”
“Aye, about that. How do ken we know it wasn’t a lie?”
Kellan’s thick accent shocked her. She was used to him forcing a British accent in front of others so they would not persecute him for his background.
“They aren’t. Don’t question it, and you’re welcome to turn back if you don’t want to come. You volunteered to come when I approached Greyston and Lucius.”
They had agreed not to share her heritage with anyone else. Lucius and Greyston were accepted only because of what they brought to the Alliance. In her useless state, they feared someone would just opt to let her perish rather than help her, since she was not human nor an extraordinary daughter any longer.
“I wasn’t about ta let them have all the craic. Zipping me lips sir.” Kellan took a step back as if to indicate he would hush.
“Before we leave, I want us to understand everything that is going to occur. You have all been given a drawn map of the mountain we will be going inside of. Once inside, we have to pray our communicators will work, as there is no way to know what we will find. We will have to split into teams to find the flower fastest, and I want to make sure everyone has two guns and daggers.”
One by one, they nodded, including Eliza, and Odette couldn’t help but respect the woman. She was out of her element and grinning like a fool.
“Good. Then I want Eliza to explain how this device works. Should something occur with it, we all need to know how to keep her upright if anything happens to Eliza or Lucius, who is apparently going to captain it.”
“It’s the safest choice. There are times when people sleep if he’s malnourished, he slips. He doesn’t mean it. I felt, after the incident in the hallway, it would be best if he were occupied. He’s not knackered enough to try to trance whilst piloting the first invention of a kind.”
Odette shot a glare at Lucius a glare remembering the hallway incident, and he had the nerve to wink winked. Odette wondered just how that demon and Greyston were so human at times.
The same way you are. Perhaps Layel was right, and there is more to demons, at least the lesser ones.
She hadn’t meant to cease listening to Eliza’s description, but when she snapped out of her thoughts, the inventor was gesturing wildly to the small, silver polished, wing-like structures on the bottom under the door.
“These are the most important part. We will be dead if anything happens to these in an attack. Each section appears green when we’ve got her fired up because there are twenty green crystals of varying sizes placed inside. From them, is a tubing line that runs into an engine that mimics the motorbikes and steam engines we use on the ground. The crystals will mix with the steam to create a beam of light much like the guns. The beams will fire backwards to the aft to lift us.”
She looked around. Philippe was examining the crystal casings from where he stood. Lucius and Greyston appeared bored, and she wondered how many times Eliza had rambled this speech. The man who raised her was simply nodding. Kellan, however, bless him, was wandering right up to it and back and forth behind it.
“Erm, question for ye lass. What makes it fly?”
Eliza’s grin grew, and she beckoned them to follow her in.
Nausea rolled through Odette at the idea of entering the big, tan, rubber vessel. Philippe put his hand on her back and forced her forward. The stench of rubber made her cringe as she moved closer, and she almost tripped. Her wonderful skill at tripping had not abandoned her, and she tumbled into Kellan’s back. He laughed, and Philippe pulled her upright.
The inside was sparse. A wheel was at the bow, Odette figured it was set up much like a boat’s control, which explained why Eliza wasn’t speaking on it. There were just enough wooden chairs to seat seven, and she wondered why the extra seat was needed. She followed Eliza’s hand to the back of the ship.
“If you’ll direct your attention to the aft, you’ll notice the fan. The crystals give off a beam the same way they do on the guns. However, they travel through the tubes, mingle with the steam around the fan blades and it pushes through the ship. Combined with the steering, we lift up and away.” The
inventor put her hands on her hips and smiled.
“Have you gotten it up? Did you bring something to repair it should the rubber tear?” Odette spoke up without realizing the words were out of her mouth.
Pain flickered over Eliza’s face, but it was Agardawes that answered. “They have lifted it up in a test once prior, and yes, she has brought a bonding agent used in the mines and a way to weld to the metal. This was not done in haste, Daughter. This machine has been in preparation for almost seven months. She will fly.” He reached out to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and she tugged away.
They had only spoken on the trip details since the revelation, and she was not ready to talk to him about anything else just yet.
“If you’re all convinced of my competence now, I think it’s time we took her up in the air!” Eliza’s giddiness reflected through every word, and even Odette had to smile at the woman’s pride.
“I dinnea ken I want ta be here without being soused,” Kellan muttered under his breath, and they all couldn’t help but laugh.
“I take offense that to that mister.” Eliza playfully hit him, and Lucius tossed a small, silver-plated bottle at him.
“I take even more offense, Irishman. I drive the motorbikes impeccably.”
“Into bloody walls.”
Greyston’s good-hearted comment sent laughter through them all again just as the familiar buzz chime of a communicator cut through the flying machine. They all moved for their wrists, but it was the Incubus who spoke up.
“That would be my wonderful mate, probably calling to curse me to Hell and back for getting her with child so she could not get a glimpse inside Hell.” Greyston shook his head and walked towards the back of the craft.
Lucius smirked at Eliza and kissed her cheek. “I guess that means it’s time I get this ship off the ground, which means you’d better come with me. I don’t want anything sparking or exploding at me when I turn the key.”