by Jade Bones
I whimper something that’s close to an answer, wondering if he really is in my head. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing the bond had done, not when it’s finally going all turbo power just because Daerek’s fingers are inside me.
He grins, teeth impossibly white in the shadows. “I could throw your dress over your face and fuck you into the darkness,” he says conversationally, and this time I groan shamelessly.
“Maybe later,” he murmurs, voice low.
It’s intoxicating, overwhelming, the way his hands move and the light from our bond dances across our faces. All I can feel in the dark is him, all I can see is the pale illumination from his wings, beating gently, and our magic as it flares.
For a second, something curious crosses his face—almost desperate.
Then he tears my underwear down so roughly they rip up the seams, and I forget to think about anything else.
I don’t have a chance to speak, because my panties are suddenly around my knees and his forked tongue is tracing either side of my clit.
My head drops back against the rock beneath me and I push up against his mouth, urging him to go faster. The warm rush of his breath hits me as he laughs, the sound disappearing too quickly to follow as he licks me properly—not light flicks this time, but fast and deep.
Holy shit. Demon tongue all the way.
It builds in waves, rising and rising as I push up into his teasing mouth. But the sensation abruptly disappears, and I look up to find two black eyes staring down into mine. Daerek hovers above me. He looks so fucking relaxed, it’s almost offensive. Then I realize I just can’t see how dark his pupils are—since he doesn’t have any right now—but if I look at his lips…
Bitten red from trying to hold back his ragged breathing. A sheen of wet from where his tongue licks at them.
Not only that—wet from me.
He smiles, slow and crooked, the flush of heat rising on his neck giving away how much he wants me. I’ve never had that. Whenever I’ve slept with guys before, sure, they’ve done their duty but… that was all it was. I caught the grimace of disgust as they came up. They were just doing it to keep me happy, when all they really wanted was to get their dick wet. So I stopped asking.
But Daerek fucking loves it.
He drops another inch closer, the hard ridge of his cock brushing against my thigh for a moment before he replaces it with his hand, trailing up slowly until he’s rubbing his thumb in a slow slide across my pussy.
My mouth falls open as his fingers twist inside, but I can’t even gasp as he covers my lips with his own, cutting me off mid-breath.
His lips move against mine, just like his fingers inside me, stroking, caressing. I take him deeper, tasting him, feeling his tongue flick against my own. A low groan escapes him as I thrust up into the heel of his hand, pulling him down against me and trailing a tentative hand across those wings.
They’re so soft. I never thought scales would be soft, but they are—warm and gentle and almost cushy to touch.
At first, I think he plans to keep going like this, the steady slide of his fingers inside me making me gasp and hold on to him like I’m falling. But then he nips at my collarbone, sharp teeth grazing along my skin, withdraws his hand, and picks me up as though I don’t weigh a thing. The world turns upside down as he pulls away enough to grab me on either side of my waist, lifting me into the air and hurtling downward toward the ground.
I scream, more out of shock than anything else, but he pulls us out of the dive and begins to climb. His wings glide in and out, over and around us, and it’s crazy that I can feel so safe, but it’s like I’m in a separate world, here with him. My hands slide around his neck and I pull myself in closer.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask, breathless with exhilaration.
I expect him to say something like there’s another ledge above us—my incredibly sexy demon eyes could see it and hey look it’s the perfect size for me to fuck you on.
He doesn’t say that.
Instead, he smiles, hooks one hand tighter around my thighs so his other one can come free, and fingers me open as if I were still laying on the rock.
“Holy—”
He cuts the words off with a kiss, biting my bottom lip with teeth that are just a little too sharp. “I don’t think there’s anything holy about this, love,” he murmurs against my mouth.
And then his fingers withdraw to unzip his jeans. He adjusts me so my thighs are wrapped entirely around his waist, my panties somewhere down with the ghosts, and drives into me in one slow thrust.
“Oh fuck,” I whimper, and he lets me this time. He doesn’t kiss me, doesn’t stop the moans dropping from my mouth.
There’s a whisper of breath, a spell muttered, and the air around us turns soft and cool, like water lapping against my skin. His wings grow still, but the air caresses us and holds us in place. I can feel the gentle currents keeping us buoyant, lifting us with magic. We continue to rise slowly, spots of purple light glinting off our faces amongst the shadow.
It makes me think of being in a jacuzzi with him, and I file that thought away for later.
Daerek slides both hands beneath my ass and grinds me steadily against him. My clit slides against his body, caught on delicious friction as he pumps into me in a slow, relentless pace.
He leans into me, voice a thick rasp as he whispers in my ear: “Do you want to come while flying… or falling?”
My heart skips—adrenaline, fear, and heady desire mixing together to make a cocktail I can’t ignore. “Falling,” I answer, silently screaming what the fuck in my head.
It’s too late. He grins against my neck, wide and wicked, and spins us around.
Every nerve lights on fire. Daerek’s fingers knead into my thighs, our freefall punctuated by the slow rhythm of his hips, bringing me higher and higher as the ground draws near.
I can almost make out the ghosts’ faces when everything shatters. I cry out, clutching him closer, riding him through the pulses and searching for his mouth even as I can’t tear my eyes away from the encroaching ground.
He laughs, dark and low, and pulls us out of the fall, kissing me brutally. We land on a ledge much bigger than the one from before, my back pressing into smooth rock. His head buries in my neck and he shudders, grasping my hips to him, thrusting into me so hard the rock beneath me—smooth so long as you’re careful—brutally grazes my thighs.
“Fuck, I shouldn’t want you this much,” he whispers, and I arch against him as he comes, his low moans vibrating against my skin.
For once, I don’t have anything witty to say at all.
He slides free, murmuring a few spells that take care of everything we need to, and we perch on the rock looking down at the world below.
Well, the tiny microcosm of the world below, just begging us to march in and take over. I mean, it’s what we’re here for, right? The demon asked if Daerek brought me to them, which means we’ve crashed this little ghost party uninvited.
I’ve got a few ideas as to why.
As if summoned, an eerie voice drifts up through the air. “Come on down, little gatekeeper. It’s time to do your duty.”
I shudder. “Pretty sure I’m renouncing that duty.”
Our magic is the strongest it’s ever been, our aura pulsing in the air. Threads break away and mix together, just as Violet’s and Alaztair’s had.
We’re unstoppable.
“Are we doing this?” I ask, staring down into the darkness, searching for the demon king who’s killed me at least once and apparently can’t stop trying to relive his glory days. The demon in the torture room said it’s always me. I wonder how many lives I’ve lived, only to be drained by that freaky little prison guard and his undead boss.
Daerek watches me through hooded eyelids, a slow smile creeping onto his face. Lightning flickers within our aura, and I feel so powerful I’m not even afraid.
“Jump,” he says, eyes still jet-black but lit with heat. “I’ll catch you.”
Shivers race through me, my breath catching in my throat at the undisguised want in his gaze.
I jump.
Ten
Stacey
Daerek lets me fall long enough that fear begins to creep in, and then I hear the whoosh of his wings behind me as his hands close around my waist.
He was there all along, teasing me with the exhilaration of the freefall, and that’s when I realize he’ll always catch me. Not because he must, but because he wants to. Because he likes to see me pushed to new heights—riling me, testing me. But he’s always there when I need him.
We land on the ledge with the secret passage and creep inside so we can make our final plans in safety. The tombstone seems to flicker in the torchlight, taunting me with its original inscription carved in the stone once more. I wonder why the demons were searching for this passage… I think I know, and like any decent human when faced with one too many problems, I ignore the horrifying answer.
“Any objections so far?” Daerek asks, leaning into my ear to whisper the question I’m sure he already knows the answer to. Hell, the ghosts probably know the answer, if I was as loud as I think I was.
“Not if that’s what comes naturally to you.” I remind him of my only rule.
His teeth clamp lightly over my ear. I can feel him smile against my skin. “What if the things that come naturally to me aren’t amenable to you?” He sounds like he’s teasing me more than genuinely asking.
Finally, he’s saying what he wants instead of trying to please me with what he’s supposed to say. He’s no longer lying.
The realization makes me soar. “Trust I’ll say no,” I whisper, knowing there’s nothing he could do that I’d say no to.
His lips ghost over mine, but instead of kissing me like I want him to, he pulls back with a wicked grin. “Now about that key,” he murmurs.
“Oh, fuck the key,” I snap, pulling away all the same.
As if on cue, a dozen keys appear on the grave. Which would be suspicious, except I’m now convinced they’re exactly as they appear.
“This is meant to throw us off, isn’t it?” I say, nodding towards the keys. “Are any of them real? Is this prison even real?”
“I think it’s the only thing that is,” Daerek says, swiping his hand through the keys. As one, they disappear. “It’s why they’re after you: the ghosts need energy to maintain their strength so they can guard this gate for eternity, but I don’t think they intended you to be down here when they siphoned you. You thwarted them in the dorm when they tried to drain you long-distance, and that portal brought you here so you could fight back.”
His suggestions are a rerun of my own thoughts.
But I have a feeling I’m not the only one who wants the demon king obliterated. Not if that voice in my head is as real as I think she is.
“If these ghosts are prison guards, who are the prisoners?” I ask, although I already know part of the answer.
Daerek gives me a look. “If she’s a demon… there’s only one kind of demon capable of telepathy.”
I draw in a slow breath. I’d suspected, but it’s another thing entirely to have those suspicions seconded.
Succubi.
“I thought they were a myth,” I say uselessly.
I also thought demons went to demon high school before today. With everything I’m learning, I’m starting to realize precisely how much utter bullshit that is, beginning and ending with Daerek’s impressive… swords.
Daerek just shrugs, like even he isn’t so sure. At least we’re on the same page for once. And it explains all the clues about dreams and illusions.
My succubi lore is pretty sketchy, but I know that much. They feed on dreams, and, as such, have the power to make those dreams come true. Turn physical. They were the strongest of all the demons, their spells holding for eternity instead of however long their energy source allowed them.
Because the power of dreams is infinite.
If I needed to lock the succubi within a gated prison, I’d use their own magic to do it as well.
“She spoke to me in the dungeon…” Daerek says. “Told me illusions take work to maintain. If we want it to be real, we have to let go…”
“Well we’re not holding the illusion,” I point out, patting my pockets down for the key we found earlier. Of course, it’s gone, faded like all the rest. “So we can’t exactly let go.”
I stumble over the words, something about them feeling like a lie, but that’s impossible. There’s no chance in hell I’m keeping myself locked in a prison for the fun of it when I could just let go.
Wait. He called me gatekeeper.
“The gate is an illusion,” I say slowly. “This whole place is using visions and misdirection to hide the physical lock and key. It’s distracting us so we keep looking in the wrong places.”
I know this instinctively, the same way I know my own name or what foods I like. It’s maddening, being so close to an answer and so impossibly far at the same time. Bridging this final gap between what I know and what I’ve forgotten seems futile. It’s just like back at the dorm, when this all started—I’m overwhelmed by a sense of knowing, of having been here before, but I have no memories to back it up.
The tombstone inscription laughs at me, warning me to keep secrets I can’t even remember. May your secrets keep in death.
I blink at the words. Maybe that’s it… these secrets are the reason I can’t remember my past lives. Some promise I made thousands of years ago. “I need to spill the secret,” I mutter.
Daerek follows my gaze and stares at the tombstone. “It must help that I’m here,” he says thoughtfully, walking closer to inspect it. “You’re breaking whatever secret your death kept just by letting me in on any of it.”
He’s right.
And maybe the rest is up to me. I need to make a deliberate choice here, to break the code of secrecy I’ve apparently been living by whether I knew it or not. Wake up.
Without thinking about the consequences, I reach my hand out, channel my power, and shatter the tombstone.
The rush of memories sends me to my knees. I barely feel Daerek’s arms enclose around me, holding me as I shake uncontrollably. It’s an assault, a violation, despite the fact that I realize I chose this.
I am the key.
Thousands of years fade as though they’re nothing. Visions flood my mind, telling me that I built this lock, that I wove the illusions that hide it and bound the ghosts as guards before sacrificing myself to fuel their power.
I made it, which means I can release it. I can let it go.
There’s no time to comprehend what that means about me, that I was some kind of gatekeeper in another life—that I imprisoned the succubi. Right now, I need to get out of here before that demon king decides my essence would look great on his wrought iron bars.
If the gate’s appearance—concealing Dremen Academy behind it—means anything, unlocking it will link wherever this is back to the academy. It will take us home. Unease prickles my spine as I consider that maybe I locked up the succubi for a reason…
…but now I’m locked up with them too, and I refuse to sacrifice myself at that demonic asshole’s hand once again. Who knows how many lives I’ve given him already? Something has changed this time around, guiding me away from the familiar path and leading me through the memories of my past even when they were nothing more than dreams.
I want to trust in the dream.
Daerek’s frown deepens, his hands still rubbing soothing circles over my back. “If everything is an illusion, where is the true gate?”
What was the first illusion I clung to when we fell down here?
I smile at him, months of confusion fading and leaving me with certainty. “Follow the ghosts.”
The tentative sense of relief is shattered when a different voice says, “Perhaps the ghosts followed you.”
Daerek stiffens, pausing for only a heartbeat before his swords are in his hands, and I love that about
him, but it’s useless.
“We can’t beat him,” I realize out loud. “Even with ethereal iron. He’s too strong. We have to run.”
There’s nowhere to run, the ghostly demon king blocking the exit with his very real, very non-ghostly sword.
He wants to drain me over my own grave. The power that would net him would probably cancel out the need for at least two reincarnations of my sacrifice, and since I’m obviously getting a little too stubborn to handle, I don’t blame him for trying.
Sucks to be him though, because I’m not interested.
I reach out to grab hold of Daerek’s arm, digging my fingers in hard enough to hurt. “Get us out of here,” I hiss.
And I let go of all the fear and mistrust that blocked me from believing what Daerek was trying to tell me. Even if he sucked at saying it.
My joy demon does care.
Warmth floods me, my magic breaking free and filling the tunnel with light. There’s a whoosh of wind behind me, two wings flapping either side, and then strong hands clamp around my waist and lift me into the air.
We dodge the demon king’s sword with seconds to spare and flee.
The light from the spectres fades as we race further down the tunnel, our headstart buying us precious seconds. Our breathing echoes around us, ragged and uneasy despite how close we are to the end.
I hope. Please let this be the end.
My foot scuffs across broken rock, and I look down to find the shattered stone that held the glyph. I almost skip over it until I see the shadow it casts.
“Daerek,” I mutter, kneeling down and holding my flame over the rock.
It should be a pile of misshapen lumps elongated along the stone floor, but it isn’t. The shadow looms, perfectly outlined against the brick: an elaborate key.
“If I try to pick up the shadow and nothing happens, you’re not allowed to laugh.” I don’t wait for his acknowledgement, I just reach forward and let my fingers slide through the mirage.
A gentle weight rests in my palm, and when I turn it over and open my hand, the key is inside.