He’d only been adequate.
Chapter 10
That climax could’ve killed her. She’d ridden the wave of rapture so long she hadn’t been sure where she ended and Quution’s wicked, naughty mouth started.
Had he studied sexual gratification as much as he’d researched those scrolls?
She’d been so ready to fuck him. Take the broad tip of him inside and slam him in the rest of the way.
But he was a vir— She almost gagged on the word. Quution’s brawny strength didn’t make one think virginal thoughts. And she should lose her demon card for allowing his V card to stop her from jumping him. Why couldn’t she lay with him during this deception? It wasn’t like he was going to want her when he learned she was nothing but a run-of-the-mill spy. She was using him to save her family and that didn’t have to include sex.
His sigh drew her attention. Her heart twisted. He looked so dejected. Waves of inadequacy rolled off him. He was afraid he’d disappointed her.
If she had a cruel streak, she’d leave him to his massive erection. He could get himself off with a mediocre hand job, or wait for the lust to fade.
But there was her mission. If he thought he couldn’t satisfy her, what good was she? He might be afraid to tell her about what he thought he’d accomplished in the underworld. What great fear had she resolved for him with this fantasy?
“Lie on your back,” she ordered.
He flipped over, his gaze inquiring, and there it was. She could stare at his cock for hours. No scales. No barbs. And he definitely wouldn’t spew poison with his ejaculation. Even ridged with veins, he was smooth, his ball sac heavy.
She crawled between his legs. His lips parted like he couldn’t believe she still wanted anything to do with him.
“You need the full range of experience,” she said. “So many of us lose out on it.” In their realm, most demons’ first times were stolen by bigger, stronger, more evil demons. She couldn’t be just another soulless beast.
Teaching him about the possibilities of passion would be her apology. Then he could lose himself with someone who really cared about him.
Her throat tightened. She cared about him. But not more than the ones who relied on her for their safety.
He raised himself to his elbows. “Are you all right? You don’t have to—”
Enough dark thoughts. She had the rest of the week for her mission and if she did this right, he’d be putty for her to mold. “I want to.” And she really did.
She wrapped her hand around his shaft. He dropped to his back, his head hitting with a muted thunk. Licking the rim of his cock, she took her time. He pressed his heels into the mattress and bucked his hips.
“Sorry.” His voice was taut.
“Don’t be. I can take the ride.” With that, she sucked him into her mouth.
His groan went on for a full ten seconds, growing stronger as she pulled more of him in. Forcing her throat to relax, she took as much of him as possible.
“Xaaaan.” His breath sawed in and out of his chest, and his body shook with restraint. If her mouth weren’t full, she’d tell him to just let go. This was his first time getting head and his first time with a female; she didn’t expect to be on him for an hour.
But she would if she could. He tasted like a well-seasoned fillet, smoked to the perfect flavor. A treat for her normally sweet tooth.
She flicked her tongue up and down his length, tasting, savoring. Her core tingled and warmed and she would love to tutor him during another round of oral. Not that she had to teach him a thing. He’d been a master as soon as he’d started.
He crunched up, his hands clasping her scalp, then falling away like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Xan. I’m going to…I’m going to…”
His cock kicked in her mouth as his orgasm hit.
His mouth dropped open to roar just as heavy pounding rattled his door. Confusion rippled over his face, freezing his shout, but not stopping his release.
She froze, her mouth still over him. No, they couldn’t get interrupted. It might ruin the illusion and she hadn’t had enough time to cement the hallucination. One more day and he would’ve told her everything.
His hot release spilled. She drank him down, but inside she was panicking.
Who was it?
More knocking. “Quution. Open up. We need to talk.”
Fuck her sideways, it was Stryke.
She released Quution’s shaft. He gasped and tried to sit up, but the aftereffects of his orgasm were too strong.
“What the fuck,” he gasped.
Another knock, harder than the first two, made them both spin their heads around.
“Just wait!” Quution’s stunned gaze met hers. He reached for her, but she scurried backward, dropping off the stone slab. Without her concentration, the illusions dissolved, ending the hallucination.
She was in so much trouble.
His expression faltered as he looked around.
Stryke heaved the door open. “Are you okay? I thought I heard…” His violet gaze landed on her. Her first coherent thought was that his eyes were the wrong color of purple; she much preferred the lighter lilac. He stopped mid motion and shoved a hand through his hair. He pivoted like he was going to turn around to give them privacy, but the stone wall was in his way.
Quution blinked and looked around. She hated herself as she watched understanding dawn on him.
“You tricked me,” he said.
Stryke snapped to attention, his gaze turning accusatory. He probably thought she was fucking Quution for information. Self-hate roiled inside her. He wouldn’t be wrong.
“Why, Xan?” Quution slung the question like a whip. “Who are you working for?”
Energy crackled through the room. She had to get out of here, but Stryke blocked the only exit. Two energy demons had her trapped.
She left the only way she knew how. Squeezing her eyes shut, she concentrated.
The next time she opened them, she was in Marcus and had to jerk the wheel to avoid a moving van. Good, he wasn’t at home. Quution knew where Marcus lived, but he didn’t know what the human drove.
“Xan!” Quution roared. He pulled the blanket over himself, but he needn’t have bothered. He was back in grungy clothing, sprawled on his hard slab, and looking for the female of his literal dreams. His dick was hanging outside his pants, though. Rearranging himself with shaking hands, he tried to find an excuse for this situation, anything but the truth.
Had they really been intimate with each other, or was it all in his imagination? It had felt real. His cock was still wet from her mouth. Or was it his seed? He didn’t know up from down at the moment.
Stryke clenched his fists and looked around. “She’s the spy Melody warned me about.”
Xan. A spy. He’d known that, but when had he fooled himself into thinking she was hanging around because she liked him?
“How would Melody know?” Forming a complete sentence was a struggle. Xan was gone. They’d been—they were just having—she’d just… He couldn’t think in a complete sentence.
“There’s talk the full-bloods don’t trust you, but she doesn’t know who’s spearheading it. I came to ask if anyone’s been lurking.”
Xan didn’t lurk. “They’ve never trusted me.” They just hadn’t been devious about it before. “I can find her. I know where her host lives.” He growled and flung off his sheet. He’d have to possess his host first, then go looking for Marcus.
“You find a host. I’ll follow Xan’s trail.” Stryke shimmered, about to disappear.
“No.”
Stryke’s form solidified and he scowled. “Why the hell not?”
“I need to talk to her.”
Stryke narrowed his eyes, his gaze taking in the rumpled bedding. “Perhaps you aren’t the one who should be interrogating her.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Quution said between clenched teeth. “Detain her. I’m the one she fooled.” He’d been so careful about his ruse, but he�
��d been so easily duped by a warm and willing body.
What kind of power did she have? She pounced on weaknesses, he’d figured out that much about her. He’d just never thought she’d use it on him, not to that level.
Stryke disappeared, and Quution paced his room. He couldn’t leave. If Stryke found Xan and she popped out of Marcus, she’d come right back to where she’d left.
His energy pumped as he secured all of his wards. She might be able to saunter in, but he’d make sure she wouldn’t be able to leave until he had his answers.
Xan maneuvered into a grocery store parking lot. Her hands were shaking, her angst affecting her host. Good thing he had a strong heart.
She parked and killed the engine. A perfectly good day she could’ve spent in an imaginary bed seeking sexual gratification over and over again had taken a turn for the oh shit what should I do now?
Rubbing her hands on her scalp, she tried to think of her next move. Where should she go? How long could she stay in Marcus in one shot? When would Quution leave his room so she could return and find her sister? Because Spaeth wasn’t going to take this news well.
She had to think, to plan, but her mind kept returning to the shattered look in Quution’s eyes when he realized she’d been playing him. Slamming the steering wheel, she let out a bark of frustration. The horn blared and she grimaced.
Brimstone filled the interior and she tensed. Crackling energy brushed over her skin. The sensation didn’t pool in her belly and make her dream of twisted sheets and sunset horns, though.
It wasn’t Quution.
She glared at the demon in the passenger seat. Why’d she have to fuck with an energy demon, and why’d he have to have a brother? One that gave a shit about him on top of it. Energy demons’ powers were the envy of the underworld. They could bend all kinds of rules the rest of them had to follow.
Like following her energy to her host. Instead of panicking that Stryke had found her, her first emotion was disappointment that it wasn’t Quution.
Violet eyes glared back at her. His horns were hidden in his hair, and at some point, he’d figured out how to travel between realms while keeping his clothes on. She didn’t bother getting out of the car to run. It’d draw attention and the police were a giant nuisance for a possessed human. And Stryke would be able to find her anywhere.
“Why are you spying on Quution?” he growled. The voice wasn’t the one she wanted to hear either.
No wonder Quution kept up the disguise. If he ditched the fangs and brushed his hair back, everyone would know he and Stryke were full brothers.
She could take that information to Spaeth, but that wouldn’t be enough. Besides, her shaky sense of honor made her loath to reveal Quution’s past. The bargain they’d made should be ironclad. He’d taught her to read and she wanted—needed—to hold up her end.
“Tell me,” Stryke bit out.
She rolled her eyes toward him. “My business with your brother is none of yours.”
“Not how it works.” He slapped his hand on Marcus’s bulky shoulder and energy buzzed through her.
The contact was enough for her muted powers to travel through her host to Stryke. She couldn’t dig into him as if they were in the underworld, but she got the impression of a female and the type of fear that always accompanied love—the fear of losing it.
“Shouldn’t you make sure your mate’s okay?” she asked sweetly.
Stryke bared his teeth, but a moment of indecision passed through his eyes. Yes, she’d sensed it. His mate was sick—no, not sick. She had a condition, a well-handled one, but he worried about her.
Xan sent out her energy, feeding his fear that his mate had sickened while he was gone.
His gaze flickered with terror, but his mouth tightened.
She upped her game and wove in his mate crying out his name. His whole body vibrated as his eyes narrowed. He snapped up Marcus’s phone in the console and punched in a number.
A female answered.
“Doing okay, babe?” Stryke asked.
“Yeah. Whose phone is this?”
“A demon’s host. The one who’s hustling Q.”
Xan arched a brow. Presumptuous ass.
Stryke glared at her. “She was messing with me. Tell ya later.” He disconnected and tossed the phone back down. “Well, who are you working for?”
“Why can’t I like Quution for who he is?”
“Because you’re a demon.”
“So are you.”
“I’m different.” He was completely serious. Ass.
“Offense taken.”
“I don’t care.”
She would like Stryke if he weren’t blocking her sister’s ticket out of captivity. Her powers might be metaphysically constrained inside of Marcus, but she had centuries of experience. Unlike Mama, Xan had realized cunning and experience could compensate for a limited range of powers.
Stryke and Quution were brothers and they worked together. Stryke had to care about Quution and vice versa. What were typical fears for a loved one? That answer hit close to home.
Xan lived under the constant stress each day that Xera suffered pain and torture. That she would die and Xan would be helpless to stop it.
“I know you’re worried about Quution,” she said. A muscle jumped in Stryke’s jaw. She was on to something, but it was too broad. “You should be. They’re on to him.”
“Who’s they?”
Good question. She could allude to the danger without confirming who was behind it. “Isn’t it always the others on the Circle?”
Stryke’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced out the windshield. “I already know that. But who?”
So he knew. Quution knew. But then, they thought she was spying on Quution and she was on the Circle. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I think you should be more concerned with just how upset they’ll be when they find out what you and Quution are up to. And your vampire friends.”
An eye twitch. She was narrowing it down.
Stryke faced her, his stony expression setting her progress back to zero. “You act like you care about him, but you’re either investigating him for your own purposes, or because you’re a half-breed working for someone else.”
It was all she could do not to wince. “I care about him.” Unfortunately, that was true.
“Then if you don’t want to see him decapitated, dismembered, or otherwise mutilated, then you need to stay away from him.”
Not an option. And Quution was powerful. No being in the underworld was untouchable, but taking him down would require more than one demon, more than two. The demons would have to unify. What reason would be so great that he’d inspire unheard of levels of hate in their realm?
The way he’d looked out of the cabin in the woods that didn’t exist crossed through her mind. He seemed awfully protective of the human realm. Less so of the underworld. He didn’t associate with others unless he had business with another member of the Circle.
It was like he wanted to live up here. But demons could still get at him.
What if they couldn’t?
What was he up to?
“What he’s planning will get him killed no matter what realm he hides in,” she said. Her ability in a host was muted, but it was logical to assume Stryke feared for his brother’s safety.
“Not if they can’t get to him.” Stryke’s lips pressed together like he’d said too much.
She slid her gaze away, not wanting to let him know that she was thinking hard on what he said. His feelings on the subject swelled to near terror levels, but no one would be able to tell just by looking at him. Cool. But she could.
Body language was as telling as feelings, as long as she knew what to look for. A little curl of his fingers, wanting to make fists. A jaw that could carve marble. Shoulders so tight they’d started to quiver.
Such a telling statement. Not if they can’t get to him. Stryke could come and go at will. The Circle member that used to be human, Melody, coul
d as well. The rest of them needed to recruit humans, form cults of devoted followers who could be enticed into reciting the proper incantation to allow their bodies to be used as hosts. It was a tedious process that was nearly impossible if one didn’t know the right people. She planned to hang on to Marcus until he took his last breath, even if it meant tolerating his obnoxious self-loathing for having acquiesced to his cult-loving ex-girlfriend.
What was Quution up to? Was he plotting a way to close them off from this plane of existence? Demons sure as hell couldn’t get to him then.
Betrayal snaked through her. Quution was devising a way to tether her people to the underworld, robbing them of their small windows of freedom from the travesties that regularly occurred in their own realm.
It’s so blue.
He loved this realm. His fantasy was being here, living in some remote cabin, and cooking for the love of his life.
“Do you want to see that happen to him, Xan?” Stryke asked. “Or do you want to make sure it doesn’t happen? Which one is it?”
She swallowed the bile that crept up her throat.
Stryke was watching her, waiting for answers, like she was just going to spill her woes to a random demon because he thought he’d cornered her in a car. He was arrogant, just like his brother.
The corner of her mouth lifted in a snarl. She concentrated. As she left Marcus’s body to return to Quution’s chamber, she grinned at Stryke’s enraged shout.
Chapter 11
Xan’s bare feet hit the gritty floor of Quution’s chamber. He was there, his massive back toward her, his hands clasped behind his back. Blood droplets trailed down his wrists. Had he scraped himself with his ridiculous claws? Probably.
He spun around. Fury, hurt, and relief passed through his features.
Seeing him now, she didn’t notice the costume, seeing beyond it to the real him instead. His shoulders were just as broad, though he’d adopted the hitch. That’s right, the shoes.
She stalked toward him. He didn’t move but his gaze was wary. When she reached him, she pulled her arm back like a lever and slapped him across the face.
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