Mated By The Demon Collections: Paranormal Romance

by Riley Moreno

  “Hazel!” Jayce’s voice was warm in her ears as his arms were thrown tight around her, drawing her out of the line of fire just as a beam of heat singed past her head, right where she had been standing. Finally, she could move again, able to control her arms and legs. It was like Jayce’s touch had broken whatever spell had been keeping her in place.

  Hazel finally managed to force her eyes open and immediately wished she hadn’t. Terror reigned across her front lawn. Every part of her nightmare come to be reality and happening right in front of her.

  She watched helplessly as the dark, shadow drenched figure shot attack after attack at the only family she had left. Members of her own coven had been drawn to the scene, sensitive to the spike in the energy in the atmosphere. And the worst part hit her like a sledge hammer straight to her chest. They were losing. And they were losing badly.

  She watched in horrified shock as the realization sank in. This was one dark entity against almost thirty of her sisters, including members of the high council. These were some of the most powerful witch’s that she knew even existed, and they were getting pushed back. Inch by inch, foot by foot, they were losing ground.

  A group of three witches who were closest to the vile creature had conjured a wall of pure white flame, and seemed to be keeping some of his blows at bay. But Eidolon had noticed them as well, and Hazel screamed in warning as he lifted an arm, barreling forward past fireballs and lightning strikes that seemed to always just miss him.

  A ball of black fire, blacker than any she had ever seen grew from the dark spirit’s outstretched fist, growing wilder and larger with every passing second until it almost obscured him completely.

  She stared into that black flame because she didn’t have a choice. Her gaze, as well as almost all the other’s, clung to its shifting, oozing mass as if by a powerful magnet. And they couldn’t look away. Again, Hazel felt stuck, frozen by whatever power Eidolon was wielding.

  And the worst was that she could feel it singing into her, changing her, bringing with it a cold sorrow and bitter hopelessness that drained any urge to fights. What would be the point? They were all just going to die there anyways. Why struggle when it would be so much easier to give in, to give up?

  A part of her reveled in the thought while the rest of her looked on in horror, but unable do a single thing to stop herself from moving a single step forward. Towards the monster. Towards the inevitable.

  Why continue to fight when she knew she was so much weaker than he was? The thoughts ricocheted through her mind like bullets, and she took another desperate step towards him. His dark arms opened slowly as if to embrace her.

  Suddenly, before she could take another step, a shape was moving so fast it was just a golden hued blur to her spell be-numbed eyes. The shape continued past her, shoving her out of the way of harm but barely stopping as it barreled strait toward Eidolon and the darkest fire he was emitting.

  Jayce’s touch once again shattered whatever hold the dark spirit had on her and she could only watch in absolute terror as the warrior attacked, Nika just a slivery blur at his side. Luckily for them, Eidolon’s view was obscured by the dark light and they were upon him before he even realized.

  With a hiss that sounded like all the vents of hell releasing their fury, he was finally forced backwards. They kept coming, refusing to let him rest, to give him that single moment he would need to ready a spell and rip both of the them to shreds.

  But the moment was all the other witches needed to reform and reinforce the barrier of bright white light that had weakened to the tiniest flicker. The sent the pure flame, pulsing it after the dark spirit in waves that left oddly symboled burns rising on his rotting grey white skin.

  “You belong to me, deliverer! You are mine. Your blood is mine!” the dark spirit shrieked in rage and bitter frustration. Jayce and Nika were forcing him back even further until he should have been too far away to hear, but still his voice rang terribly through Hazel’s mind.

  “Your little pets are mine too, sweet witch, as they have always been. I will make them my puppets long before I finally kill them, but your death will be quick, sweet one, and it will soon.” He took a final step back as the last words he had spoken echoed painfully, forced further by the dragon warriors, still attacking furiously. Before she could shout that they had gone to far away from her, Jayce and Nika began to shift, forced into the change.

  She watched, somehow still able to see as if it were happening only feet away as Eidolon’s eyes widened thoughtfully on the snarling forms of the dragons snapping in front of him. Hazel could see the knowledge grow to shine dark and wet in his dead eyes. Her heart sank even further. They had just given him another weapon to use against them and now that he knew of their weakness when he already had a fully stocked arsenal and they had woefully few.

  With a terrible grin like a corpse smiling at her, he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared in the first place, leaving only the remnants of black smoke and the taste of ash thick and choking in her mouth.

  Hazel was left absolutely numb, shocked and appalled at the cataclysmic events that had just occurred, and her feet were rooted in place, this time from her own overwhelming fear. But then she saw the shift.

  She cried out in fury as she watched the witches turn toward Jayce and Nika, their arms still outstretched in a defensive position. Frustrated, she ran forward to throw herself in front of them, struck by an inherent sense of déjà vu.

  “Really, hasn’t there been enough violence? Enough blood shed?” She shouted at them, glaring until they finally lowered their arms. She ran to them, uncaring, and unthinking, she ran. Not even seeing through the terrified haze of tears as they shifted, but it was human arms that caught her, that held her close to them as she trembled.

  “Hey, it’s okay. It’s going to be alright.” Jayce whispered softly, soothingly in her ear. Hazel looked around balefully at the carnage surrounding her. She could easily make out the forms of two council member lying motionless, lifeless on the once green grass. It was charred and black in places, still smoking slightly in others. The bloody wounds and burns were being patched or healed everywhere she looked.

  “No,” She said solemnly, finally meeting their worried, cloud filled gazes. “No, it’s not going to be alright.”

  Chapter 17

  Furious, Hazel threw the ceramic pot of white chalk powder across the room, taking a deep breath as she tried and failed again and again to reach her powers, to access the magic she knew lay buried deep within her.

  Doubts flew like bats through her mind, blindly in the darkness of her thoughts. After the terrible events earlier that day, she had never felt weaker or more useless than she had in that moment. Standing there, watching as the people she loved and cared about screamed in pain and terror all around her, and despite how hard she had tried, she couldn’t have wielded an ounce of the power that she knew resided inside her. It had been like throwing herself against a brick wall over and over. Useless, and painful.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, it was because of her. It was all because of her fool hardy belief that she deserved to be special. Deserved anything at all. Tears threated to stream down her flushed, blush stained cheeks but she fought them back tooth and nail, desperately fueling the anger that was so much easier to handle that the sorrow.

  She could be furious at Eidolon for the pain he had caused and lived he had stolen, at the Guardian Mother for doubting her, even though she had just cause to as far as Hazel was concerned. But most of all she was mad at herself, violently, furiously angry at her own stupidity.

  If only she had been able to accept the fact that she was weak, would never have tried to access her powers. None of this would ever had happened. It was all her fault. Every death, every fear and bloody wound and nightmare.

  But then you would have never met Nika, or Jayce, a mall voice whispered. And that was the one thought that she couldn’t push away. She couldn’t block it out, and that made it even worse. Be
cause despite it all, despite it all the terror and torment and heart ache, she wouldn’t give them up for the world. In fact, she might have done just that already if they couldn’t find a way to stop Eidolon before it was too late for them all.

  Hazel threw herself furiously in front of the tall stand mirror, glaring hard at her distraught reflection.

  “Come on, just do it. You can, you have done it before.” She reprimanded herself as she strained to reach her powers, to conjure anything at all that might help them, all the while remembering how far she had come the past few weeks with Jayce and Nika’s particular brand of help.

  There was nothing there, she couldn’t even focus enough to reach that deep well inside her let alone wield it. Hazel was actually trembling, she was struggling so hard. But what could she do alone if she had to face him again? When you have to face him again, that tiny voice whispered slyly. But she knew it was the truth. That voice was right.

  The next harvest moon was only days away and that meant that Eidolon would be coming after her again. He would have to because for him to live, it meant she would have to die.

  The other reason for her sorrow suddenly shot to the forefront of her mind even through she had desperately been trying to keep it at bay. She still didn’t know what would happen to her two warriors one the harvest moon rose. Would they perish as well, like Eidolon was supposed to?

  The thought tore her heart to pieces and finally, finally the tears came. Streaming one by one big fat tears of sadness that rolled slow and salty down her reddened cheeks.

  “Hazel? Hazel, what’s wrong?” They were there in an instant, two pairs of strong arms wrapped around her, offering her comfort where non was to be had. Because the truth was, she didn’t think she could stand to be without them. These sweet warriors that had fallen into her life, that had chased away her loneliness and changed her so inextricably.

  Finally, Jayce pulled back, framing her tear stained face with his big hands. He stared, golden eyed into violet.

  “Hazel, what’s wrong? Tell us.”

  “Please, little witch, you’re breaking my heart.” Nika whisper softly into her ear from the other side and se couldn’t answer. She could only hold them close, unable or simply unwilling to five voice to the terrible thoughts charging like bulls through her fraught mind.

  “You can read my mind, can’t you?” She sniffled softly against Nika’s shoulder, “You can read my thoughts. Don’t make me say it out loud.”

  Hazel sniffed softly again, and the two men just continued to hold her tightly, silent for a long moment. Finally, Jayce spoke.

  “I can tell that you are angry, and frightened, and so full of heartbreak that makes me wasn’t to cry myself.”

  Hazel peeked up at him through a curtain of damp lashes to see if he was joking, but his expression was deadly serious, the look in his golden eyes at sorrowful as she felt.

  “But it means a lot more when you tell us,” he said, and she knew he meant if, just as he knew how hard it would be for her to put into words the shear terror she felt at the thought of losing them. But for them, she would try.

  “I was just so wrong. So wrong about everything,” She finally whispered, searching for the right words to describe just how massively she had failed, and they hadn’t even really faced the boss level yet. Not really, anyways. She was pretty sure it didn’t count if the bad guy just left before the fight was over.

  “Boss level?” Nika finally asked after she had been silent too long, his head tipped to the side in confusion as he tried to understand the video game reference. Hazel pushed him lightly, not moving him an inch as she gave a watery chuckle.

  “It means more when I tell you, huh?” and both men gave a soft laugh in return. Nika just shook his head, and they stood there, not once letting go of her.

  Jayce stared at Hazel, still wrapped tightly between him and Nika. How she could still laugh when he knew how terribly sad she really was he would never understand. It was one more thing that her the amazing person that she was. And the most amazing part was that she didn’t even realize it. Because the truth was, he really could feel every ounce of her sorrow, and it felt like her whole world was ending. He held her even closer, letting the last of her tears souk into the rust colored cotton of his shirt, and at the same time looked over her head at Nika.

  The two warriors shared the same look, the same thoughts even though neither would speak them out loud. He didn’t ease his grasp on her as Hazel started talking again, whispering against his chest all the terrible fears and doubts, how she knew she wasn’t strong enough, how foolish she had been to reach for what wasn’t meant to be hers in the first place.

  When she went silent again, he pulled back just a little, just enough to see the pale curve of her cheek and the top of her auburn colored hair. It was another moment before she continued.

  “I’m just…just so selfish. I never thought myself as selfish but I am. Incredibly so.”

  “Hazel, you are the most giving, most generous, least selfish person I know.”

  “No, you don’t understand, Nika.” She said, turning slightly to face him. “I…I’m not sorry,” she finally whispered, barely speaking the words as if it would make them more real. And Nika just waited patiently for her to continue. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, but I’m not sorry that I met you. I’m not sorry you are in my life and I’m not sorry I…” her voice trailed off but the words echoed loudly through her mind. Love. She loved them, with all their scars, all of their history. All of the trouble and grief they had brought her, she still loved them.

  Jayce’s throat tightened as he stared at her, easily able to read the bright, pulsing golden thread that was woven through out her thoughts, and right along side was an equally bright rope of silver. They were both pulsing in perfect time as if they were a watch set by a master clockmaker, beating in perfect time with her heart.

  Suddenly, his own heart was pounding furiously as a new fire filled him. It was easy to see that Hazel was afraid they would both meet the same fate as Eidolon in two days’ time when the harvest moon finally rose, but that didn’t scare him in the least.

  He and Nika had each faced their own deaths a hundred times, a thousand, but never once had either of them had someone waiting for them to return. A wave of tenderness swept through him and he pulled her close once more, Nika with her.

  No, what had him absolutely terrified was the thought of what Eidolon would do to her if he ever got his hands on her. Because he knew the dark spirit wouldn’t offer her a quick a simple death. He enjoyed torturing, to inflict as much pain as possible.

  And with the loss of her mother and father, grandmother and maybe even her entire coven after all of this, he hated the idea that they might inflict even more loss on her tragic life.

  He looked down, realizing she had been silent for a long while, just content to be held between them but the look in her burning violet eyes were anything but content as they collided with his own.

  “Jayce, I…” Hazel’s voice trailed off, but the suddenly husky sound of her voice ad waves of shivers tripping down his spine as the ever present desire flared to life in the heat of her violet gaze.

  “Shh,” he said, placing a single fingertip to her lips. He barley held back a groan as she flicked out her pink tongue, catching the digit between her parted lips for the briefest of seconds.

  “If we are going to go out there and very likely face our deaths tomorrow, I…” She paused, swallowing, suddenly bashful. But then her chin tipped up in that way that just always made him want to kiss her and continued speaking all in a rush.

  “If we are probably going to all die tomorrow, I want to make sure I make tonight memorable.” The bold words ended on a whisper, and neither man could tear their gaze away from her as she took their hands, one in each of her own, and led them down the narrow stairs, across the hallway, and into her bedroom.

  Chapter 18

  The dark felt like velvet on her skin. As Hazel pulle
d Nika closer to her front Jayce instinctively moved to mirror him at her back. The feeling of being pressed between the two large men was like nothing she could describe, and something she thought she could happily experience for the rest of her life. As short as that may end up being, that cynical inner voice whispered but she pushed it away, refusing to think of anything but these men. Her men.

  Nika groaned into her mouth as his lips moved like a dance over her own, drawing her ever closer to him, but constantly teasing, constantly pulling back or increasing the pressure to keep her off guard. Hazel could feel Jayce’s hands like two large brands at her hips, on her thighs, sweeping up the curve of her ribcage to cup the sweet swell of her aching breasts. They needed to be touched, but even more than that, they needed to be touched by him, by Nika.

  Jayce’s fingers grew impatient with the barrier of her clothes and he began to strip them off of her trembling body, piece by piece until she was naked in between them, the heat from their bodies enough to keep her more than warm. She was on fire for them.

  There was a thrill that shot through her at being completely unclothed while they still had on everything and as she slid to her knees she desperately needed their clothes to be gone. It didn’t take long at all for her to have the button and zipper of Nika’s jeans undone, hastily sliding them down his legs. She barely waited long enough to shove his tight boxer briefs down just enough to gain access to the part she was most desperate to taste.

  With a grin she slid his already hard length into his mouth, moaning around Nika’s impressive erection as she tasted the salty pre cum that had clung in beads to the very tip of him. It wasn’t long before he was moaning in earnest above her and the noises spurred her on, her motions even more intense but he had other ideas. Nika quickly stopped her with a touch to her shoulder, ending her fun as he drew himself out of her mouth, unable to resist one last, long thrust before pulling all the way out with a soft pop.