My Demon Warlord

by Carolyn Jewel

  A red mist settled on the floor. She looked up and met the molten bronze of Kynan’s eyes, grim and feral. He lifted his left hand high and released the ashes. One side of his mouth twitched upward in an aborted snarl. “You all right, Winters?”

  “Yes.” The knife Sessani had thrown at her was still in her right hand. Her other hand was empty. She dropped the knife on the floor, but no, that wasn’t wise, leaving a weapon where any fool mage or witch could make a try for it. She stooped to retrieve it, but Vahid got there first. He pinned the knife to the floor and blocked her access with a shoulder to her torso. “What the hell?”

  “She poisons the blades.” He drew a finger in the air above the knife, following the outline of the blade. White liquid bubbled along the edges, then vaporized into smoke and steam. “Curare-based, usually.”

  “Thank you.” She meant it, too. If she’d touched that blade, she’d have died a painful death.

  Vahid acknowledged her with a nod. “When I was a boy, it was my job to make the poison. She used to test it on the raised before they were sold.”

  Yet another horrific admission. The poison wouldn’t have killed the demons, but they would have spent hours in agonizing pain.

  Nikodemus left his chair to stare at Sessani’s lifeless body. His bodyguards followed. “To be honest, I don’t think she would have fit in here.” He faced the remaining magekind and grinned broadly. “Point made, am I right?”

  Absolutely. Point made.

  Nothing unexpected came out during the questioning of the remaining mages and witches. Four were from the Russian Federation. All of them shared Sessani’s opinions about coexistence with the demonkind. None of them chose to remain. Appropriate blood-bound oaths were obtained before any of them were released from their dead-drops. Under supervision, they were allowed to pack belongings before they were escorted to their vehicles. They had forty-eight hours to leave the warlord’s territory.

  In the meantime, the investigation and documentation of conditions at the compound continued. Two dangerously ill women had already been airlifted to Bay Area hospitals where Nikodemus, by way of Harsh, maintained contacts. The rest of the women would remain there under medical supervision until they could be safely returned to family, previous lives, or entirely new ones.

  Fortunately, Maddy had a framework in place for dealing with the women and their various situations. Arrangements would be made for those who were pregnant, including support for terminating pregnancies for anyone able to choose that option. Others who elected to continue to term or who were too far along were presented with options for adoption or raising the child. Similar support agreements would be offered to the women who already had children.

  That the children would be cared for and supported was unquestioned. Less clear was what would be done about the demons that had been forced to father children. They also had the right to refuse contact despite a centuries-long expectation that no demon turned away from his progeny. The significant work of determining paternity and negotiating the terms of contact, if the woman agreed, between the biological father and his progeny could take weeks or months.

  Locating missing children was another challenge to be met. Maddy was cautiously optimistic she would uncover documentation of what had happened to the vanished girls and the boys who had manifested or had been released to the general population. But she’d be busy for months.

  Midnight had come and gone before the last of the adrenaline sustaining her was used up. She couldn’t keep her eyes open much longer. She and the other humans sworn to Nikodemus had rooms in the main house to accommodate their need for sleep. There, she showered, changed her clothes, and returned to find Kynan waiting for her. He leaned one shoulder against the wall by the door.

  She said, “I’m glad you killed Sessani.”

  He nodded. “Had to be done.”

  “Come in?” She held out her hand. “Please?”

  He tapped the door hard enough to close it. “One of Sessani’s Russians got himself into trouble.”

  She sighed. That hadn’t taken long. “Already? How serious?”

  “Gray has his sanction.”

  “Idiot mage.” She went to Kynan and interlaced her fingers with his. How strange to take such comfort from their contact. She had no idea how to have a relationship. The best she could do was take things as they came. Tomorrow wasn’t here yet. She only had to deal with right now.

  “They were clear on the consequences.”

  “Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough of us who’d rather fix what’s wrong and have some peace.” His fingers were warm, and she found herself leaning into his warmth. “Those poor women and children. Those poor magehelds. It’s sickening, Kynan. Sickening.”

  “I’ve been worrying about you all day.” He drew her closer, an arm around her waist. Their low-level link was as comforting as the physical contact. “All night, too.”

  She rested her head against his chest and allowed herself to relax for the first time since they’d left Bodega. They remained in that gentle embrace for several minutes. So tired. She was so, so tired, and yet there was a thread of anticipation relegating ideas about sleep to the bottom of her list of things to do right now. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About?”

  She slid her hand underneath his shirt. His skin was smooth, taut, muscled, and slightly feverish for a human. If he were human. Which he was not. “Humans and kin who were denied their choice. Everyone pays for that. Everyone.”

  “Fucking abomination here.”

  She pressed her cheek to his torso. “We aren’t like that.”

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Then he said, gently, “If you decide you want that, I am here.”

  She tipped her chin up so she could look at him, and her heart folded over itself. “I know.”

  “Good.” The corners of his mouth turned up. He rested a hand over her belly. Flecks of brilliant yellow swirled through his eyes. He put his other hand on her stomach, too. “If you’re not ready, that’s fine.”

  “What if I am?” The words came from her in a rush, and she was instantly dismayed, except that along that streak of regret and fear was the truth. She’d said what she meant, and she wasn’t going to be a coward and take it back.

  His hands stilled on her. “Are you?”

  “As ready as possible.”

  “Maddy,” he whispered. He took on the same form as before. His skin, the same molten bronze of his eyes, was so fine-grained the color shone as if he were coated with shimmering gold lacquer. “Maddy, my heart and soul.”

  His cheekbones were too sharp, his nose was long and too broad for him to be taken for human. The ridges that formed the top of his eye sockets slanted away and upward. The skin under her hand was hot, and she realized, in a dreamy way, that they’d fallen into a shared mental space. She had no such trouble with the boundaries of their bodies, but as far as she could tell, there was no psychic link between them. Their mental space was just. . .the same.

  “Kynan,” she said, in awe of the beauty and power of this manifestation. His magic was vast, and in that vastness she distinguished every one of the kin that he had taken on in the moments before his actions had left him vulnerable to Magellan. Thousands of his sworn saved from enslavement and Magellan denied the power and longevity he’d been after.

  He blinked, slowly, and the corners of his mouth curved, his lips parted just enough for her to see the gleaming points of his teeth.

  She looked at the bed, and then back at him, and smiled. He smiled back. “Yes?”

  “Yes.” He slashed a finger across the underside of his jaw, and the scent of his blood rocketed through her, pushed out every other thought in her head. He put a hand on the back of her neck, and she felt the hard tips of his fingers urging her close. This was, in a way, far more intimate than sex. She put a fingertip to the nick he’d made and then brought her finger to her mouth.

  She touched her finger to her tongue, and fir
e sizzled through her.

  “More?” Spoken. Uttered into her head. She didn’t know and couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter.

  She breathed in the scent of heat and sand, and the richness of his blood, and there wasn’t any coppery taste. His blood was an elixir, sweet and earthy. His hand drifted to the button of her jeans, and she had no objection. None at all.

  Her jeans were gone. Her shoes. Her underwear. His heated palms touched everywhere. She responded to the fever-warmth of him. The need. She brushed her hair over one shoulder and Kynan bent to her, sliding into her at the same time that he bit the top of her shoulder.

  “More,” Kynan said. “More.”

  She pushed away her fear of the future and gave in to the present. She didn’t know what else to do but that. Her emotions were involved now, and she had no idea how she was going to keep herself safe.

  CHAPTER 31

  He couldn’t get enough of her. Maybe he’d never be able to. Kynan pushed up, moving the two of them so he was mostly sitting, one arm around her waist, his legs wide so he could stay deep. Her sleepy, languid eyes—exactly how he always imagined her when he was thinking about this—surveyed him. She put her palms to his chest and pressed against him, sliding her hands down his torso.

  She met his push and withdrawal, and it wasn’t his imagination—she was doing him like she loved what she was feeling, which he knew she did. Like she loved what he was doing, which he also knew she did. Maybe even like she wanted to love him. Maybe that wasn’t what he wanted with her, that state of unsettled emotion about him. Maybe there wasn’t ever going to be anything else for them.

  He pressed the side of a finger to the cuts his teeth had made, watching the well of red bloom on her skin. He’d sliced, not punctured, so there would be more blood. He pushed deeper inside her human body, which was exactly how this moment should be, and he licked away the blood.

  Their psychic connection intensified, and because this was about both pleasure and procreation, all his sexual responses were amplified. Bigger. Wider. Better. Her blood tasted sweet. Rich. So good. Even without the rest of what he wanted from her. There was more he could do for her, so much more, but while he tried to think about the here and now and obliterating lines between them, his thoughts raced ahead to her saying Yes, I’m ready, and him staying just as he was.

  “Do it,” she said, and her human voice whispered along his nerves, slid like silk around him, and he held her tighter, sharp claws pressing into her skin. Her eyes went wide, and, oh yes, he remembered too. Even through the fog of his memories from those early days and weeks of freedom, he remembered that she hadn’t minded the pain. At first. And now she’d said do it, do everything all the way to the end, and he knew exactly where the line was for her, and how far over it he could go.

  She leaned forward and tracked the trail of blood from the nick he’d made above the bulge of his pectoral. Her mouth curved, satisfied, anticipating, and he let the fingers of his other hand settle just beside her spine and press her against him.

  Like dancers who understood how to mirror each other, the motion of their hips slowed to a roll. She licked his chest, kissed him. He pressed his fingers to her back, his claws at that infinitesimal boundary between the surface and breaking through her skin. Soft, human skin.

  Her tongue flicked up, and there. There, his blood balanced on her tongue and then disappeared behind her lips, and they were the same, the two of them. The same, the same, the same in two bodies. He pressed, and his claws pierced. She sucked in air, arched away and then up, a controlled flinch, and pain spread through her, them, her reaction feeding him. She leaned in, and he increased the pressure while she took more blood.

  Hurt. She hurt, and he loved the way she clenched around him, and then, same as before, same as when he hadn’t yet crossed the line for her, her magic blossomed out and enveloped him, and he came without ejaculating, and she fell into his reaction and he pushed in just the slightest bit more, until her eyes fluttered and it was almost enough seeing and feeling her fall so deep into passion.

  He withdrew and turned her over, onto her stomach. He didn’t want to leave her in this state much longer. A second or two while he bent over her back and slid his mouth and his magic over and through the shallow slice in her skin, drawing on their pooled, intermingled magic. She released herself to him.

  He went back on his haunches and drew her hips up, sweeping his thumbs along her lower spine and fucked her hard. Humans were fragile, and he had to be careful while he was at this fever pitch. He liked doing it this way, him in this particular form, and Winters’ body his. His. His. She was his. He got a little rough, possibly not enough, but then she was ready for something else, and so was he, to be honest.

  When he came again, he wanted to be looking at her. He wanted her to be looking at him, and that’s how it happened. He turned her over, not gently. She grabbed his head and groaned. Her skin was fragile silk against his hide, her body sleek. Made for him to take. He shoved inside her, a little frantic with need. This was everything he’d wanted. Her. Eyes glazed with passion while he worked them both into bliss.

  Her hands tightened on him, her gaze on her distant pleasure. His heat had created a layer of sweat on her skin that made it easier to slide against her body. He slowed because he wanted to savor her and stretch out for as long as possible his slide into climax. She wrapped her arms around him and held tight while he shoved hard into her. “Good?”

  “More.”

  He sank down and braced an arm on the mattress, curled around the top of her head, holding her in place while his hips moved against her. He wasn’t human, and this was Maddy in his arms, and he had her full consent.

  “Yes. Yes, yes.”

  “I want us twinned.” He tightened his grip on her. “I’ll make that oath now, Maddy. Permanent. If you want that, too, let’s do it now. Right now.”

  She hesitated, conflicted, a mass of uncertainty. There was no going back from that, and it would bind them even tighter. Blood-twins were the same magical entity, they just inhabited two bodies. Durian and Gray had made the choice. Harsh had been in involved with Iskander and his former blood twin—so she’d seen it work, as it did for Durian and Gray, and how horribly it could fail, as it had with Iskander.

  “No worries,” he said. “No worries.” He slid into her head and found her pain centers, and she screamed and then stilled as she floated into pleasure.

  Awareness shot through them both, and he froze, assessing whether the interruption was a threat. He braced his hands on the mattress above her shoulders. Vahid stepped inside, and his urgency came to the front. He was hurting, Vahid was, and it was Kynan’s duty to help him. Thing was, he didn’t know whether Maddy was okay with this sort of thing. She’d been fine with Tau, but the situation and the need for his presence were different. He murmured, “I can ask him to wait.”

  Winters touched the side of his face. “He shouldn’t be alone when this is so new to him. To us.”

  Kynan opened himself to Vahid and by extension to Maddy. Vahid sank into their connection and approached the bed. He was demon, not magekind, and that meant most of Kynan’s problems with men in his bed had less potential to set him off. Winters and Vahid were in on that set of reflections because fair warning to all concerned was in order. Vahid stripped and, interestingly enough, stretched out on the bed beside Winters rather than him.

  Vahid was a mass of need, hollow and despairing. He stroked Maddy’s body once, shoulder to thigh, and soaked up the comfort the kin always took from physical contact. She put a hand on Vahid’s back and left it there, and he didn’t recoil. Slowly, he settled into their connection, calming.

  Acknowledge, Vahid.

  Acknowledged.

  Vahid gathered a handful of Maddy’s hair. “It’s as black as mine.”

  Kynan pushed up on one elbow and reached over Maddy to touch Vahid, two fingers along his cheek and over his lips. “She belongs to me.” He waited the space of the hea
rtbeat. “I belong to her.”

  His dark eyes were at last empty of the sullen resentment Kynan was so worried would become a problem. “Understood, warlord.”

  He stroked down Vahid’s chest. The contact helped him, too. Vahid was his living sworn, and the oath of fealty strengthened them both and by extension Winters. “She has earned the same honor and respect you owe me.”

  “Yes.” He looked Maddy up and down, then put a hand on her cheek. “She is beautiful.”

  Winters faced Vahid but kept her back pressed against Kynan’s front, maintaining a distance between them, and allowing Kynan to move closer to Vahid. He touched Vahid’s hip and slid his hand over to his penis, stroking up once and bringing him fully erect. “If you prefer males,” he said, because it occurred to him that Sessani was likely to have enforced heterosexuality, “it makes no difference. Not to me. Not to Maddy.”

  “I have never been with a woman without being under orders to do so.”

  Maddy leaned close and touched his cheek, then followed that with a kiss. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to.”

  Kynan kissed Vahid’s shoulder and turned that kiss into a bite before he kissed Winters’ shoulder, too. Vahid’s blood settled into him, and he tightened their connection as he slowly worked both his sworn to sexual release. At the moment, Vahid needed touch more than anything else, and when Maddy wrapped her arms and legs around him, the other demon shuddered once, then again, touching her, touching Kynan.

  After his release, after Vahid had backed away from the link with him and Maddy, he touched his forehead and bowed to Kynan and then to Maddy. Kynan put Maddy on her back and entered her. He touched or stroked Vahid from time to time while he lost himself once again in her body, and if Vahid occasionally touched him or Maddy, the contact was both careful and welcome.

  Vahid slid off the bed when Kynan looked into Maddy’s eyes and fell into them. Now, now. He whispered her name, another whisper, then several long moments of nothing but their bodies seeking release. Vaguely, he was aware of Vahid stroking Maddy’s shoulder when he came in her, unshifted, as wild and feral as he’d always imagined, longed for.