by Jus Accardo
“Whoa,” Sam sputtered. Her face turned bright red. “Using me? No one uses—”
I cleared my throat while Sam glared at me from inside the circle. I’d definitely hear about this later. “If that was this Zenak’s plan, wouldn’t it have gone down already?” It was horrible, but the look on Sam’s face was priceless. I couldn’t help pushing it. Besides, it’d be worth whatever punishment I got. “My human toy was attacked a month ago.”
“There are many possibilities,” the male demon said. “Perhaps the link is weaker than anticipated. Possibly the soldier didn’t get enough to finish it. Or, maybe Zenak is biding its time.”
The female nodded. “Either way, Azirak is in danger. With even the weakest links, if the human is compromised in any way—substance abusers make great feeds—the demon can control them. This means any rested or altered state.”
“Great,” Sam mumbled. “So as long as I don’t do shots or fall asleep, I’m no danger to him?”
“Why, though?” I asked, ignoring her. “If it targeted Sam specifically to get to me, there must be a reason.”
The demon hadn’t followed Sam back to Harlow to kill her. I was the target all along. It linked to her to get to me.
“You are Zenak’s sworn enemy. It wants you dead, of course,” the male demon supplied. “And if that should happen, then we all lose.” He took a step toward me, and for the first time, flashed a truly threatening smile. “Your fondness for this human is a liability now that she is tied to your enemy, but out of respect, we will give you a chance to find the demon and get it to break the link. If you fail, we will break it ourselves.”
Sam brightened and a swirl of hope surged around her shoulders. “So we can break the link?”
“Of course,” the female said. She flashed Sam a disturbing grin. “Should the demon who fed from you choose to break the link, you will be free.”
Sam snorted, deflating. “Like that would happen.”
“Your death will also sever the connection,” the female added “It may not harm our enemy, but it will free Azirak from the danger you present.”
“Not my favorite option,” Sam mumbled, folding her arms.
The male shook his head and turned to me. Bowing, he repeated, “If you are unable to break the link, we will be forced to break it for you.”
He was saying that I had to find this demon and get it to break the link; if not, and I understood them right, they were coming to kill Sam? No fucking way.
“If I’m your leader, then I command you to leave her alone,” I seethed, drawing myself up. I’d take them all on if necessary. One by one and piece by piece.
The demon seemed unimpressed. With a resolute shake of its head, it said, “We cannot take chances with your safety, my lord.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam
I was beyond tired. I’d been sitting on the edge of the tub for almost twenty minutes. The steam from the shower had all but dissipated, leaving the room cold and damp, and any minute now, Jax would be banging on the door to see if I was still alive.
We’d made it back to Kelly’s a little after five in the afternoon. Heckle bid us farewell, promising to look into ways to break the link that didn’t require talking the enemy into giving up its best resource, or me taking the stairway to heaven. The look on his face said he wasn’t optimistic.
Jax ran over to check on Rick, then offered to scrounge up something from the kitchen to eat while I took a shower—probably in hopes that it would make me forget all about the “human toy” crap. Maybe that’s why I was stalling. If memory was correct, Jax couldn’t even manage macaroni and cheese without lighting something on fire. Unless things had drastically changed, I was going to starve.
Food or no food, I couldn’t stay in the bathroom all night. We needed to deal with this thing, but I had no idea how. There was a long, twisted history between us. Jax’s years away had built up the wall I kept around my heart, but the longer we spent together, the more it crumbled. I was sure the same thing went for him. One moment of weakness would be all it would take. I could slit his throat while he slept. I didn’t really believe there was anything that could make me hurt him, but it wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.
“Sammy?” Jax’s voice came from the other side of the door, followed by a soft knock. Right on cue. “Please tell me you didn’t fall asleep in there. I don’t want you going all demon assassin on my ass.”
Time to suck it up. I yanked open the door. “Yeah. I’m good. Just taking my time. Trying to process and all.”
He stepped aside to let me pass. I rounded the corner, aware that he was following right behind, and froze when I got to entrance to the living room. On Kelly’s fifty-two-inch television was the starting menu for my favorite cartoon—Lilo & Stitch. On the coffee table in front of the TV was a huge bowl of popcorn and two cups of steaming liquid—coffee. I could smell it from here. Jax was the only person I’d ever met who didn’t make fun of me for dunking popcorn into coffee. “What’s all this?”
He came around to stand in front of me. “A chance to process.”
“Shouldn’t we be, I dunno, out looking for a way to break the link?”
“Where would we look, Sammy? I talked to Heckle while you were in the shower. He’s still looking. No luck so far, though. His resources are better than mine. Our best bet is to sit tight for now.”
“Well, what about that witch? Sadie Gray? Shouldn’t we get the midnight stone from her? At least then Havat will give us a name. If we have a name, maybe we can—”
“Can what? Find the demon that fed from you? Get it to set you free out of the kindness of its heart? Kill it? Are you feeling particularly suicidal?”
Shit. That was right. Kill the demon and the link—aka me—died, too.
A lump formed in my throat and I sank onto the couch. He was right. There was nothing to do but wait it out and hope to God Heckle turned up something useful.
We’d done this so many times as kids. When Kelly worked late nights at the hospital and I was scared and alone at home, Jax would sneak over and we’d spend the night in front of the television. How many mornings had we missed the school bus? We’d spend the entire day in the woods at the fort behind Rick’s house. In reality, it wasn’t that long ago…so why did it feel like another lifetime?
Jax settled on the couch—close, but not touching—and pressed play. The opening credits rolled and the movie started, but I found it impossible to pay attention. Every few minutes I felt Jax looking at me, but when I glanced over, he’d turn away.
We sat there, silent and staring at the screen, but I knew neither one of us was paying attention. After about twenty minutes, Jax grabbed the remote from the table. Hitting pause, he sighed. “This isn’t helping.”
I sat up. “Sure it is. I feel much better.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
“You are,” he insisted. “I can tell.”
“Really? How exactly can you tell?”
“I can see your sadness.” His voice got lower. “Your confusion, too.” He leaned a little closer and inhaled. Arm outstretched, he waved his hand in a circle around my head. “Demons feed on negative human emotions, remember? We can smell them, but we can also see them.”
“So what color are mine?”
He watched at me. For a moment it almost looked as though he was holding his breath, and when he spoke, it was soft. Just barely above a whisper. “Dark blue, mostly. Sadness. There are traces of gray, too. Fear.”
“Makes sense,” I said, twisting so I was facing him, too. “Since I’m scared and all.”
“We’ll figure this out.”
“Will that be before or after your demon buddies come to kill me?” My eyes stung, and my heart thumped. No. Not now. Not when I’d done such a good job keeping my shit together for the most part. But it was no use. The tears gathering spilled over, blazing trails of warmth down my cheeks. “Or I kill you.”
“You won�
��t kill me,” he said. “Right now, I think you should get some sleep.”
“Sleep?” Was he insane? “Didn’t you hear what that guy—”
“Demon,” Jax corrected.
“Whatever. Didn’t you hear what it said? I’m more susceptible when I’m sleeping.”
“I thought about that,” he said, standing. I watched as he crossed the room and disappeared into Kelly’s bedroom. When he came back, there was a pair of old silver handcuffs dangling from his right hand. “And I have a solution.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh, or blush. “Where the hell did those come from?”
He strode across the room, swinging the cuffs, and winked. “Kelly doesn’t clean anything. They’ve been there for years. I can’t believe you never found them.”
Without another word, he tugged me from the couch. My pulse quickened. A moment ago I’d been exhausted. Now though, every inch of my body hummed like a flash of lightning. The idea of being cuffed and at Jax’s mercy did odd things to my stomach. A nervous flutter and a rush of heat washed over me. Stupid, since that’s not where he was going with any of this. Preventive measures. That was all this was.
Jax’s hand lingered at my shoulder for a moment, before skimming down my arm and gently guiding it behind my back. There was a metal snap, and the cold feel of the steel cuff against my skin tickled.
Or maybe not.
He stepped behind, between me and the couch, and took the other arm, restraining it as he had the first. “This is selfish,” he whispered, leaning close. The warmth from his breath and the deep, dark sound of his voice in my ear brought goose bumps to the surface.
“H-how so?” I managed.
He came around to the front, expression severe. “You’re restrained. Not a danger to me at all. But—” Jax ran a hand over my cheek, then trailed his fingers down my neck and over my left breast. “I’m still a danger to you.”
Ho-lee crap.
Talk about a total body meltdown. I did my best to keep breathing evenly, but my body had other plans. Pulse spiking, I said, “Do your worst.”
The war between what he truly wanted, and the fact that he’d been insisting they couldn’t be together, raged behind his eyes. I saw the exact moment he broke. The tension in his body melted away. With a gentle push, I toppled back onto the couch. Jax was on me in an instant.
His lips crushed mine, violent and possessive, stealing my breath away. “I want you so fucking bad,” he breathed against my lips.
Tingles exploded from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, making me warm in all the right places. I made a move to grab his shoulders and the sound of metal filled the air.
Jax laughed. A dark sound that nearly made my heart explode. “You’re at my mercy,” he growled. In a single yank, the shirt tore in half, and a chill raced across my exposed skin.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, straining against the cuffs as his mouth came down to nibble on the tender flesh beneath my bra. When he got to the nipple, I twisted and bucked, squirming against the electric feel of his eager mouth.
My reaction only seemed to drive him harder. He chuckled against my skin, teeth tugging at the edge of the bra. “I love the sounds you make. Music. They’re like pure fucking music.”
I wanted this. Badly. Almost badly enough to keep my mouth shut and enjoy the ride. But the conversation we’d had in the field after what happened in the car came rushing back. The pain. I hated the thought of him in agony, and to let him continue would be selfish. “Jax, I think we need to stop.”
“Stop?” He panted, trailing a line of kisses up my neck and lingering at the edge of my jaw. “No way. I’m not stopping this time. I’ve wanted you forever, Sammy. You want it, too.”
“I do,” I said through clenched teeth as he slid the right side of my bra aside, exposing bare skin to the chilly air. “But it’s not worth the fallout. You’ll be in horrible pain. Lose control.”
“I’ve already lost control,” he growled, taking me into his mouth and sucking hard. The pull, with the slightest pressure of his teeth, drew an involuntary moan from my lips. “You do that to me.”
I gasped as he ground himself against me, the sensation nearly making me scream. The friction was mind-blowing, sending wave after wave of heat pulsing throughout my body. But I couldn’t let this go on. If he wasn’t going to put the brakes on this for his own good, then I’d have to be the one who stepped up. With as much force as I could muster, I said, “Jax, stop.”
He went completely still. Pulling away, he slid from the couch and backed away several steps. The look on his face was pure guilt. “God, Sammy. Right now you smell amazing. I’ve wanted you for the longest time, you know that, but the lust you’re putting off is driving the thing inside me insane. I don’t want to stop—but I do. And Azirak…”
“Wants to devour me?” God, how I wanted to be devoured…
Jax grinned. “You’re so inviting all trussed up and ready to go.” He took another step back, then two forward. “God, Sammy…”
The way he was watching me, like a drowning man desperate for rescue, would be my undoing. I squeezed my eyes closed for a second and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, it was even worse.
He was standing over me again, face contorted and shoulders stuff. “It wants—” Jax brought both hands up to his head, tangling them into his hair as he dropped to the ground beside the couch. “Fuck!”
Suddenly the idea of being cuffed and helpless wasn’t as appealing. “Jax?”
“I can’t keep it—” His body convulsed twice, and when his head rose a moment later, both eyes were the color of coal.
“This body burns for you,” he said. It was Jax’s voice—only it wasn’t. A deep breath. Azirak. “I can taste its desire to touch you, and yours to touch it.”
It took every ounce of self-control to stay as still as possible. Here I was. Face-to-face with the thing that lived inside Jax again—only this time I knew who I was talking to. “And you?”
Jax—or Azirak—blinked, tilting his head to the right. Every movement was fluent. Controlled. So inhumanly graceful that it was eerie. “You speak to me?”
“Should I not?”
A grin. So familiar, yet so wrong. “Please do. I like it. The sound of your voice is—oddly pleasant to these ears.” His eyes traveled down the length of my body, then up again. “You are pleasant to look at, as well, Samantha Merrick.”
Creepy. “So, then it’s safe to say you don’t want to kill me?”
“Accidents happen, but no. I have no wish to harm you.”
“Good. That’s good.” I was afraid to say anything else in fear that I’d piss it off somehow.
He laughed. “Though I have no doubt you would be a rare delicacy, to harm you would be detrimental.”
I suppressed a shudder. “Detrimental?”
“My human cares deeply for you. To bathe in your blood would destroy him. We are one, even if he has yet to accept it. I try to make things as easy on him as nature will allow.”
“That seems like a contradiction,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “Making him hurt people is pretty much the opposite of easy.”
“That is a dangerous tone to take. Your brazenness is amusing.” He rolled his shoulders, eyes never leaving me. “I lead him to filth. Volatile life forces wrought with rage and greed. When I don’t feed, it becomes painful for my human—like you are to him. I understand his hesitance to indulge in you, but there are ways. If he is willing.”
Ways? For us to be together without Jax being in pain? “What ways?”
But he didn’t answer. Instead, he stood and crossed to the other side of the room, sliding down the wall. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes. Dismissed. She’d been dismissed by a demon.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jax
When I came to, I was scrunched up on the floor, leaning against the wall across from the couch.
“Jax?” Sam twisted her head to the left an inch. She
was still lying on the couch. “Is that you?”
It took a moment to find my voice. My throat was dry and burned like I’d been yelling for hours. “Are you all right?” The movie ended long ago and had circled back around to the start menu. I wanted to ask her how long I’d been asleep, but there was a knock at the front door. A beam of sunlight shone through the window. Morning. Fuck. It was morning already. I climbed to my feet and crossed the room, feeling guilty that Sam had gotten stuck on the couch, half-naked, bound. “Did Heckle call?”
She rolled to the side and struggled to sit up. “Phone didn’t ring.”
“Did you fall asleep?” I asked, helping her off the couch. There were angry red marks, indentations from the cuffs, on both her wrists, and she seemed to be moving slow. Like she was stiff. Her clothes were askew, and I averted my eyes until she turned, feeling a spark of lust festering beneath the surface.
Sam stood with her back to me. “I dozed off for a little while, but it was uneventful. Unlock these so I can see who’s at the door?”
I slipped the key from my pocket and unlocked the cuffs. They fell to the floor with a clatter. “Really? Didn’t you learn anything the other night?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled on the sweatshirt that was draped over the back of the couch as the door jingled, then opened. “I find it hard to believe the demons are now using keys to get inside.”
A second later Chase stood in the doorway with a tray of coffee and a brown paper bag from Musso’s bagel shop. “Hey. Careful,” Sam said, stepping over to peer into the bag. “An everything bagel with grape jelly. The breakfast of non-champions. A girl could get used to this.”
My brother winked and stepped inside. “Last time I saw you, you were having a rough night. I wanted to check in.” Chase’s gaze fell on me. He looked disappointed. “Apparently you’re fine.”
“Chase,” I replied, eyes narrow.
“Jax,” he responded coolly.
Sam tensed, like she was ready to jump between us if needed.
“Didn’t know you were here.” Chase squared his shoulders and stepped away from the door.