Her stomach rumbled emptily and cramped at the aromas. Riley threw back the covers and discovered simultaneously that she was naked and that her body was as stiff as a board. She gave a pathetic cry as every muscle she possessed seemed to instantly seize up and grind to a halt.
Nicholas magically appeared at her side and she was in so much pain she barely minded that she was stark naked. He wore dark trousers and a button-up shirt in a dark blue color. The fabric settled around his frame and clung to each curve and dip of his anatomy. The dull sheen told her the shirt was silk.
She looked up into his eyes, then remembered and dropped her gaze to his shoulders and the strong neck rising out of the open collar of the shirt.
He held out a glass of orange juice. “Drink this,” he said. “It has glutamine in it and will help with the stiffness.”
She looked up at him. “I would if I could lift my arm to take the glass.”
He grinned. “Getting yourself moving is the next best way to combat the ache. Come on, move it, Riley.” He made no attempt to lower the glass closer to her.
Gritting her teeth, she raised her arm and took the glass from him. “I hate you,” she said between clenched teeth.
“As long as you do it while you’re moving. Drink.” He dropped a robe on the bed next to her. “Here, use this. Yours is useless. Come and eat as soon as you’ve drunk the juice.” He went back to the kitchen where Damian was working over the stove.
Riley drained the orange juice, then forced herself to stand and put on the silk robe. It was ridiculously oversized on her and wrapped around her nearly twice. The hem trailed on the ground and as she tied the dark green sash she realized with a jolt that this was Nick’s robe. She ran her hand over her hip, feeling strangely intimate and slightly aroused at the idea of wearing his robe and being naked beneath it.
She looked up and saw that Nick was watching her. He wasn’t smiling.
Her heart thudded. Riley picked up the empty orange juice glass and walked with painful slowness to the kitchen area and rinsed the glass.
“You’re just in time,” Damian told her. “Your breakfast is ready.” He tipped the scrambled eggs and vegetables onto a plate next to a toasted bagel, a pot of cream cheese and three strips of soy bacon, picked up the plate and carried it to the table where a single placemat and knife and fork waited. He was wearing jeans so ancient they were almost white with washing, sun and age. There were small rips and tears here and there, giving her glimpses of flesh beneath. But this was no designer pair of jeans with a horrendous price tag. She saw the common label on the back of his hip. He’d acquired the jeans years ago and they had earned their holes the honest way. The sweater above was equally as ancient, in some fragile yarn that looked like it would be soft and warm and barely there. It might once have been some sort of teal color, but now was so washed out and faded that it matched the jeans.
Against Damian’s olive skin tones, it looked very good indeed.
“Where did you learn to cook?” she asked, heading over to the table.
“I used to cook for your mother a lot when she was a child.”
“He likes it,” Nicholas added from his post by the kitchen counter. “I think you’ve made his day, giving him an excuse to muck about in the kitchen with real food.”
“Even though you don’t get to eat it?” Riley asked, looking up at Damian.
“It’s relaxing.”
“So’s swordplay,” Nick said with a snort.
“Not the way I do it,” Damian returned, settling on the chair next to Riley and pushing up the sleeves of the sweater. “You turn it into an art form. A sword was never meant to be art. It’s a weapon. For defense only.”
“How can you call a katana just a weapon? It’s beautiful. Symmetrical, perfectly balanced…”
Their tones implied that this conversation was an old one, so Riley let their voices wash over her as she began to eat. She was ravenous.
The morning program on the television switched to news of the hour and the news anchor gravely reported the grizzly findings of six more murdered Manhattan residents overnight in the latest serial killings, their bodies mutilated in ways that seemed to indicate the presence of a large predator of a type unknown to police at this time…
Riley put down her fork, her appetite gone. She looked from Damian to Nicholas. Both of them were silent. They had heard.
“Six of them. One each,” she said. She stood up, groaning at the effort. “Why didn’t we go after them last night? Stop them last night? Six more people, Jesus, Damian, we laid around…we did nothing!”
“What would you have had us do?” Damian asked.
“Stop them!” She pointed at the television. “We know what’s doing it. They don’t!”
“And how do we do that?” Nicholas asked, in a reasonable tone.
She spun toward him. “You must know the answer. You’ve stopped them before. Twice!”
Nicholas pushed himself away from the counter he was leaning against and prowled toward her. “Both times I was in the company of the best demon hunters the world had ever seen. Look at you, Riley. You can barely crawl out of that bed.”
She bit her lip. “If you hadn’t left me in the care of the foster system for eighteen years, I would have been ready. I would have been trained, just like you trained my mother from childhood.”
“No, you would be dead,” Nick said flatly. He stood over her. “You think Azazel wouldn’t have made it his first point of business to guarantee you were out of the way before raising the Stonebrood clan once more? We would have had no warning he had returned. No chance to assemble our defenses and protect you. This way, he had no idea where to find you.”
“And now six more people are dead because we sat around on our hineys last night,” she said bitterly. “We should have been out doing something. Anything. Surely there was a way to…to slow them down, even!”
Nick crossed his arms. “If you can best me, right now,” he said softly, “you’re ready to take on Lirgon.”
“Nick,” Damian said, sounding mildly vexed.
“With swords?” Riley asked.
“Whatever way you want,” Nick replied.
“Riley, don’t be stupid,” Damian snapped.
But Riley didn’t even wait for Damian to finish his protest. Her question about the swords had been meant as a distraction. She moved almost before she had finished speaking. She knew she had to move faster than she had ever moved before. Her first indignant movements away from the table had placed her in the clear space between the dining table and kitchen counter.
Now she grabbed Nick’s belt for leverage, planted her foot at the top of his thigh and threw her other arm around his neck. She hoisted herself up and right over the top of him, using his neck as the pivot point. She brought her knees into the small of his back, landing hard. She heard the wind drive out of his lungs at the impact and his knees buckled.
His hands were already digging into her forearm as it clung around his neck. She gripped her wrist and hung on, using surprise and her own weight to bring him toppling backward. She was going to hit the floor hard, but she was braced for it. She kept her head lifted up so that her shoulders would take the brunt of the fall. As soon as she had him on the floor, her legs would wrap around his chest and squeeze, cutting off his breathing even more. He would be at her mercy.
Then Nick staggered back…and back…and still farther back.
Alarm flared in her just as her shoulders slammed into the wall. Agony jarred through her left elbow, which had taken most of the impact, and her grip on her wrist loosened. Nick ripped her arm away from his throat. She was lifted via her arm and tossed onto the table. More pain as she landed on the flat surface. His hand pinned her throat and squeezed just enough to ensure she kept still, or lose her ability to breathe. Blue eyes, cold and calculating, stared into hers.
“Never lose your temper,” he said calmly.
“They’re people!” she cried.
“They’re just people,” he agreed, and let her throat go. He stood up and walked away. Toward the apartment door.
Riley sat up, rubbing her throat. She stared at his back, appalled. “If they’re just animated things to you, then why are you doing this?”
“I gave my word.” He pulled his coat from the hat rack by the door.
“I release you from it. I don’t want your kind of protection.” She almost spat the words.
“It’s not your place to decide how I protect you and you cannot release me from my bond.” He didn’t look at her as he opened the door.
“One day you’ll remember what it is to be human, what it is to have a heart, Nicholas. I hope I’m there to see it.”
“An empty wish I’ve heard all too often. You’d be better off wishing for world peace, child.”
Chapter Eight
Nick didn’t even slam the door behind him and that bothered Riley more than she wanted it to. She wanted him even a little bit angry. She wanted to know she had got under his skin in some small way.
Damian got to his feet, moved around the table to her side and pulled the robe closed over her legs. With another sick jolt, she remembered she was wearing Nick’s robe. She groaned and put her head in her hands. “You’re not even going to say ‘I told you so’, are you?” she said.
“As you just said it for me, it would be redundant.” Damian pulled her into his arms and pressed her against him. “You’ve just met the ice core of Nicholas Sherwood, Riley. If it helps, I’ve bloodied my forehead and knuckles against it more than once and I don’t consider myself a fool. He goaded you to make a point, which I think he just made in italics.”
She dropped her hands and looked up at him. “I’m too weak to take on the gargoyles yet.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t the point.” Damian smiled. “I wish you could have seen his face when you jumped him, Riley. You genuinely surprised him, something that hasn’t happened to Nick in a very long time. I believe you’re farther along than even Nick thought.”
“Then what was the point?”
“You have to trust that Nick will know when you’re ready to take them on.”
She sighed. “More trust.”
Damian’s smiled broadened. “It’s infectious,” he admitted.
“So…more people must die because I’m not ready,” she said sadly.
“They would have died anyway, if you were still in Pittsburgh and ignorant of your heritage,” Damian said harshly. “The harder you work now, the more quickly you will be ready to take the gargoyles on. Your noble but useless death today will not serve the people you might save in two or three days’ time if you wait until you are strong enough.”
She drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Tell me what I must do, then.”
“For today, train, eat, sleep and learn.”
She tugged at the robe. “And shower,” she added.
Damian smiled. “I skipped a few miscellaneous items on the agenda.”
Riley wrapped her legs around his hips. “I hope one of those items is you?”
“That can certainly be arranged.” His hands came around her hips and drew her closer to the edge of the table. “Now…where were we?”
Riley pulled at the tie on the robe and it slithered undone. “I certainly wasn’t wearing this.” She gasped as Damian’s lips seared their imprint on the nape of her neck as he helped her remove the garment.
His lips moved lower as his hands held her up like an offering for his own mouth as he feasted on her. She felt the soft scrape of his teeth, the slide of his tongue over her flesh and her legs fell helplessly apart. Her pussy was weeping cream, ready for him.
With fingers that trembled, she stripped Damian of the sweater. It was as soft as it looked. She dropped it to the table beside her. “Neither of you wear clothes that I thought would be natural for you to wear.” She licked his chest, where the flat pectoral muscles lifted his flesh, then bit gently into his flesh. His hands captured her head as he drew in a quick breath.
“What would you have us wear, my lover? Black leather and lace ruffles?”
She smiled up him. “I guess that’s a cliché, huh?”
He bent his head and she felt his lips against her throat, licking and kissing their way down to her chest. Her head fell back.
“It’s also the best way I know of advertising who we really are,” he murmured against her flesh. “Too many people live too closely around us and know our habits too well…it would raise a flag in their minds to dress the part, too.”
“Pity. Black would look good on you,” she murmured, then sucked in her breath as his mouth closed over her hard, sharply erect nipple. His teeth caught it and tugged as his tongue rasped over the very tip.
Riley lost track of what she had been thinking. She reached blindly for him, her eyes closing as she moaned. Her hands found his shoulders and she tugged and pressed at them, her hands moving restlessly against him as his tongue and lips and teeth built up a swell of pleasure. Her clit throbbed sharply, swollen and forlorn, as he played with her.
He swapped his attention to her other breast and she groaned again as the delicious feelings surged afresh. She scrabbled at his shoulders, unable to reach any more of him.
Damian’s mouth was moving farther down her torso, leaving a damp trail where his tongue had tasted her. Her abdomen muscles quivered and clenched beneath his mouth and as he moved lower, her hips jerked as he slid his tongue over sensitive places on her flesh she had never been aware of before. His hair was tickling her stomach, but she was barely aware of the sensation. All she could focus on was the slow approach of Damian’s mouth toward her mons. Her heart was thundering, her clit was pulsing at the prospect of his lips and tongue toying with it, and her breath had stilled, waiting…
His lips slid over the crease between her leg and hip and she gasped. Then she felt the soft touch of his mouth briefly against her vulva.
“Look at me,” he commanded. His voice was thick, hoarse.
Riley opened her eyes as Damian lifted her knees and laid them over his shoulders. His eyes looked sleepy and coal black, glittering with an emotion she couldn’t quite name, one a step beyond simple lust.
She licked her lips.
“I wanted to see your expression when I do this,” he told her. His mouth closed over her pussy lips and his tongue drove between them to swipe against the sensitive bud of her clitoris in soft-firm thrusts.
Riley cried out as the hot, swift erotic explosion burst through her at his touch. Her head fell back and her eyes closed. Her hands curled into fists and she clenched them against the tabletop. Her climax swirled closer.
Damian’s fingers slid into her pussy. Three thick irregular invaders, stretching her, impaling her.
Riley bucked hard, her breath shuddering through her, as her excitement leapt higher in a fizzing and buzzing shriek along her nerves. She could feel the touch of his hands at the edges of her pussy, along her cleft, caressing her, sliding through her moisture.
Then a slim probe pushed at her anus, rimming the tiny aperture, nudging the muscle. Riley whimpered, as her hips thrust hard, encouraging him. His finger slid inside her.
Her climax whooshed closer and closer. Frightened by the power of it, she clamped down on it, riding it out, hyperventilating so that she could stay in the moment, and the climax faded.
Damian straightened and his cock slammed into her, almost in one smooth movement, shocking the breath out of her.
For the space of five heartbeats they remained still, locked together. Damian’s gaze drilled into hers. Her legs were still pressed against his shoulders, but his damp fingers curled around her thighs, high up by her hips.
Her climax was still threatening to rip through her. Riley’s chest heaved helplessly, her breasts lifting with the effort to draw enough air into her driven body. Her pussy clenched around his cock, the muscles quivering and spasming, drawing on his shaft.
Damian gave a soft moan and withdrew almost
all the way before driving back into her.
“Touch yourself,” he told her, his voice thick with rising lust. “Quickly. Come with me.” He picked up her hand and pushed it between her thighs, pressing her fingers against her clit. Just the slight touch sent sparks flitting through her. She massaged the little mound of flesh, her hips lifting in reaction, as Damian’s cock rocked back and forth in her pussy.
Damian groaned. “Such a beautiful sight,” he murmured. His pace quickened and his fingers tightened on her hips.
Riley could feel her ebbing climax re-gather. It was like a switch was thrown inside her. Her body seemed to light on fire. She caught her breath, her eyes widening as she looked up at Damian. “Oh!” she gasped. Then her breath hitched as the climax grabbed at her chest and her nerves, and squeezed. “Damian!” she tried to warn him, but her voice was almost bodiless.
His cock was slamming into her. She clenched around him as the climax hit her, and heard him groan and thrust in mini-spasms of his own, leaning over her on one hand. But her eyes were closing as the orgasm tried to shut down her thinking and her senses.
She fought it. Fought the loss of control, scared. She whipped her head from side to side, battling for breath, for reason. Instinct made her throw out her hand. Reaching.
A hand gripped hers. Tightened.
Riley relaxed. Her chest loosened. She found she could breath. Slowly, the climax departed from her body and she could function. Think.
Damian’s cock was still buried in her body, but he lowered her legs and withdrew from her as she recovered. He didn’t let go of her hand.
Riley lifted herself up onto the elbow of the hand that Damian wasn’t holding. He was just standing there patiently. She bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she said inadequately.
He shook his head. “Don’t be.” He held up her hand, curled in his. “This gives me hope, Riley.”
A tear scalded a track down her cheek. “You’re too human to be a vampire, you know. I’m the monster.”
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